The Shadow Box (40 page)

Big Jake hit a few of the high spots and passed over
the lows. Bronwyn seemed enthralled. She told him how
lucky she felt to have been assigned to Michael. He's so
very generous. Gives her every chance to learn by doing. Especially on the AdChem account. Splendid company.
Forever breaking new ground through research.

Jake Fallon's eyes began to glaze over. Michael under
stood why. She seems great, Jake would have said, but
anyone who gets that excited about a drug company needs
to get out more. Michael tried to change the subject but Bronwyn was on a roll. She began rattling off figures,
projections, earnings. She said the stock was still a good
buy, especially longer term, and Uncle Jake would do well
to consider it.

She went to his desk and returned with a copy of the
new annual report, which she opened and handed to him.

“Ah, Bronwyn . . . ” Michael signaled time out. “He
already has some.”

“Do you really?” she asked Jake Fallon.

”A few bucks' worth.” He smiled up at her. “But you
tell it better than Mike did.”

Bronwyn blushed winningly. “Well, read up on it all
the same. You'll see how clever you were to buy it.”

She sat watching him to see that he did. At this, Michael
drew the line. He reached to take the brochure from him.
His uncle raised a hand.

“Wait a second,” he said distantly.

“You're actually going to sit here and read that?”

Big Jake reached for a pen, then stopped himself. He
folded the report in half and put it in his pocket. As he
did so, he looked up at Michael. A curious stare. Those
intelligent eyes. Looking right through him.

“What?” Michael asked.

Jake shook his head. “Nothing,” he said. “Nothing at
all.” He looked at Bronwyn and smiled. “How about
some more of that Chopin?”

There were times, such as that one, when Michael
would wonder how well he really knew his uncle. He
would not have bet a nickel that Big Jake Fallon would
know Chopin when he heard it. But it was mostly the
eyes. In that instant, Jake had changed into someone he
hardly recognized. Perhaps he'd read something that re
minded him of what his younger brother was into. Or that
reminded him of why he didn't like drug companies. He
would not return to the subject.

They walked him to the street where Bronwyn spotted
a taxi and flagged it down. She offered her cheek to Uncíe
Jake, then hugged him. He seemed his old self again. Jake
climbed into the taxi. He blew them a kiss. It was the last
time Michael saw him alive.

“You really loved him,” said Megan quietly.

She stroked the arm that he held across her chest.

“Yes,” he whispered.

“And Bronwyn.”

He hesitated, not sure quite how to answer.

It had nothing to do with telling Megan that he had
loved another woman. Just as Megan had nothing to do
with Bronwyn. It was more that what he felt for Uncle
Jake and what he felt for Bronwyn did not seem to belong
in the same conversation. Jake was one of a kind. So was Bronwyn in her way but who knows how long that would
have lasted. People do break up. Jake, however, will be
with him until the day he dies. And, if there's a heaven, for a long time after that.

“It wasn't the same,” was all he said.

A lot of the people he knew, growing up, going through
school, had expressed a degree of envy over his relation
ship with Uncle Jake. They envied the respect, the trust,
and maybe most of all, the fun. Some had none of that at
home. For others, their own relationships with their fathers
might have been perfectly healthy but there always seemed
to be a constant low-level tension between them as one
tried to steer and the other tried to take some time to
browse.

God knows Uncle Jake did a lot of steering. But the
path he would point you down was very wide. Plenty of
room to browse. You wouldn't see much of him because
he was always back there behind you. Unless you got too
close to the edge or had one foot over. Then you'd sud
denly notice him standing there. Not saying anything.
Maybe not even looking at you. Maybe shooting the
breeze with Moon, both of them strolling along in the
same direction. And you'd say maybe I should pay some
attention to what
I'm
doing here.

“Megan?”
“Yes.”

“Fair is fair. I want to know what your folks were
like.”

She said nothing.

“Do you ever see them? Do you miss them?”

His arm, where it crossed her heart, felt an odd extra
beat. It might have meant yes. He didn't think so.

“Tell me about Bronwyn, Michael.”

”I have.”

He felt her muscles go tense. She was concentrating
hard for some reason. ”I mean
...
on the night she died.
What happened that night?”

He let out a breath. “You read the papers.”

“Please. It would help me to . . .”

“Yeah, but it wouldn't help me. Let's leave it alone, okay?”

“If that's what you want.”

She didn't push it. And yet Michael knew . . . that she
knew . . . that now he couldn't help but think about it.
He was tempted to back away from her. Not touch her.
Make it harder for her to
listen
if that was what she was
trying to do. But he didn't. The ache seemed not as deep
while he could feel the warmth of her body.

On that night, last November, the store was just closing.
But the Korean counterman knew Michael by sight and
had read about his Uncle Jake in the newspapers he sold.
He let them in and told Michael høw sorry he was.

Bronwyn had drifted away, over to the magazine rack,
where she picked up a copy of
Newsweek
and began idly
browsing through it. They had that issue at home but Bron
wyn, he assumed, had heard all the condolences she
could handle.

Michael had moved toward her to say let's buy your
pack and go, when he heard a voice mutter, “Your money.
Give me your money.”

He turned toward the sound. He saw a man with a ski
mask pulled crookedly over his face, an ugly sawed-off
shotgun in his hands. He heard Bronwyn’s magazine fall to the floor. He glanced back. She was crouching, trying
to make herself small, her eyes locked on that
shotgun.
She seemed more wary than frightened.

When Michael turned again—this was all in the space
of a second—the man in the ski mask
w
as looking straight
at him. The shotgun was swinging in an arc toward his
face. He wanted to dive over the counter, away from Bron
wyn. That or lunge
at
Bronwyn, protect her with his body.
He did neither. He stood frozen to the spot as he saw
another blur of motion. Then flashes of light and a deafen
ing echoing roar. All together. All in the same instant.

Blood and black wool sprayed from the ski mask. White
flame spewed from the shotgun but the man who was holding it was already dead. The Korean had fired twice
at point-blank range. The bullets expanded as they entered
at his cheek, fragmented, and exploded upward. The man
in the mask seemed to rise up on his toes, standing rigid.
Then, as straight as a falling tree, he pitched forward on
his face.

The Korean raced around the counter, ready to shoot again if the man who came to rob him moved. There was no need. He groped for the telephone. As he did so, he looked at Michael, then past him. A low wail came from
his throat. Michael was afraid to turn but he did.

The rest would remain a jumble in his mind. Shouts
and running feet, flashing lights and sirens. It seemed real
one moment and a dream the next.

The blast had caught Bronwyn high in the chest. It was
a terrible, bubbling wound. A mangled silver necklace had
been driven into her flesh. And yet she was alive, floating
in and out of shock. One hand reached for his face. Her
eyes found his. They stared hard. He saw not fear or pain
in them but disbelief. And then blame. She seemed to be asking why he had not protected her. Her fingernails raked
his cheek. The hand fell away. He looked once more into her eyes. The light in them had faded. One had changed
color.

He was sure of that now.

It was not his imagination nor was it some trick of the
fluorescent lights. But he had not imagined that she died hating him.

He said all this to Megan. It was the first time he'd told
anyone, not counting Dr. Greenberg. And except Moon.
Moon had made him relive that whole afternoon and eve
ning, what everyone said and did, who was where, practi
cally minute by minute. The doctors were making him do
the same thing himself, he said, to get his brain using all its cylinders again. It was good therapy, he said.

It wasn't for Fallon. But maybe telling Megan was. He must have said that as well because she told him she was
glad that he did.

She squeezed his arm. “But now you wish you hadn't.”

“Will you cut that out?”