Last Ditch (21 page)

"Can't
say
it has."

He
hooked a
thumb under his chin, ran his index finger up the side of his face and
tilted
his head.

"Have
you
ever pictured your parents making love?" he asked.

"Mercifully
no," I said.

I
started to
laugh, but it hurt my head.

He
smiled.
"Notice how you answered. You said 'mercifully.' You couldn't keep a
straight face. I have precisely the same reaction. That's because the
picture
of our parents in the throes of passion is more than we can imagine.
Our
parents aren't people in the normal sense. At least, not to us. To us,
they're
characters of mythic proportions. Far above the tawdry demands of
biology."

I
figured there
was a lesson in here somewhere and I figured he'd sure as hell get to
it He
didn't disappoint. "Your father was a complicated man who led a
complicated life, Leo."

I
started to
speak, but he raised his voice and kept talking.

"You
have
no context, Leo. The social forces which shaped your father, the times,
the
entire context is lost now. There's nothing you can do for him. The
only people
who are affected by actions such as yesterday's debacle are your
family. I
implore you, Leo. Please don't make this any more painful for us than
it has to
be."

I
had the urge
to sit straighter in the bed but couldn't muster the strength. I
settled for
another sip of water.

"So,"
I said, holding the cup on my chest with both hands. "Let me see if
I've
got this straight. Because I can't conjure up a picture of my father
hunched up
behind my mother doggie-style, I ought to stand around doing nothing
while
everybody in the city talks about how he murdered a newspaper reporter
thirty
years ago and planted him in his own backyard. Is that it? Am I getting
warm
here, Pat?"

"There's
no need to be objectionable. I should Ihink your recent testimony in
the
Brennan case would have salved your need for the public eye. I fail to
see
..."

"Brennan?"
I said. "Why do you keep bringing up Brennan? What's he got to do with
. .
."

It
felt like a
small animal was trying to dig its way out of my head. I closed my
eyes. Just
for a minute.

"I'm
tellin' ya, he's crapped," the familiar voice said.

I
cracked one
eye. The bed had been lowered. I was lying on my side, and it was dark
outside.
I rolled to my back and looked out over my feet George and Harold were
passing
a pint of vodka back and forth between them, smacking their lips as
they took
in the room.

"Hey
. . .
hey," George said. "The king lives."

I
groped around
until I found the electronic control for the bed and then brought
myself about
halfway to sitting up.

"How'd
you
two get in here?" "Fire stairs," said Harold.

George
took a
sip and then wiped his mouth with his sleeve.

"We
come
earlier but that goddamn blue-nose uncle of yours told the nurse you
was
sleeping and shouldn't be disturbed."

"Where's
Ralph and Normal?"

"You
know Normal," Harold said.
"He don't like these places. He kinda got this thing that if he comes
in
one of these places they're just naturally gonna keep him."

"And
Ralph?" I pressed.

George
passed
the bottle to Harold. He spoke without looking my way. "You know how
Ralphie is, Leo. We all shared the dough we got from you with him. He's
been
knee-walkin' hammered ever since."

"A
fool
and his money are soon partying," added Harold, just a bit too quickly.

Something
in
the way they refused to meet my eyes made me nervous, but I didn't have
the
strength to wring it out of them.

George
must
have sensed what I was feeling. He suddenly became animated, waving the
him in
the air. "A little nip?"

"I'll
pass
on the vodka," I said. "But I'd love some fresh water out of that
pitcher." I pointed to the sweating metal container on the table by the
bed. "I'm dying of thirst."

These
were guys
who knew about thirst. They bustled around and came up with a fresh
glass
filled with fresh water and a brand new flex-straw. Couldn't leave a
guy
parched, after all.

"The
whole
crew was worried about you, Leo," Harold said.

"The
pictures on the news looked real bad. Couldn't hardly tell it was you
they was
stuffin' in the meat wagon," said George.

"Tell
everybody I'm okay. They say I'll be out of here on Friday. I'll stop
by the
Zoo and see everybody."

"What
happened?" Harold asked. "How'd you end up in the drink?"

"I
had a
bad Tuesday."

"Ain't
no
other kind," said George grimly.

"You
know
..." Harold mused. "Tuesday's a shitty way to have to spend
one-seventh of your life."

My
head
throbbed. They were working their way through the rest of the week when
I
closed my eyes. Just for a minute.

You
know what
they say: when the chips are down, the buffalo's empty. And the chips
were
definitely down. They sent me home on Friday morning with three bottles
of
pills and a list of "thou shall nots" that would have made a Jesuit
blush. Near as I could tell, for the next week or so, my activities
were
limited to low-impact needlepoint and the contemplation of my navel. At
least,
that's what I promised.

I
lasted for
about forty-five minutes after Rebecca went to work. Then I made the
mistake of
plugging the phone back in. Wedged in among the interview requests and
sales
pitches was a message from Bobby Alston, my mechanic down at Mario's
Foreign
Auto Repair. According to Bobby, they'd dried the Fiat out as best they
could
but needed the keys so they could see if it would start. I mean, what
was I
gonna do? Leave my car down there with strangers?

Dr.
Fitzroy had
called also. It took him a full five minutes to hem and haw his way to
saying
that he thought he had the information I had requested . . .
documentation
suggests . . . only preliminary . . . future research might well reveal
. . .
conclusions might be hasty at this time. The guy could over-qualify a
nocturnal
emission.

The
secret of
getting around while concussed, I'd discovered, was moving slowly. As
long as I
didn't make any sudden moves, I felt decent and my vision more or less
kept up
with the movement of my head.

I
shuffled over
to the kitchen counter and shook out the manila envelope containing my
personal
belongings. The watch, the keys and the spare change were sandy but
undamaged.
My pocket notebook was soaked through and bleeding ink onto the
counter. My
wallet came out with a wet plop and lay dripping on the counter like a
shelled mollusc.

I
rinsed and
dried the watch, keys and change, put the watch on my wrist and the
keys in my
pocket. The wallet and notebook, on the other hand, needed serious work.

I
peeled the
various folds of the wallet apart, rescued my driver's license and the
credit
cards and then spread the notebook, the wallet and all of its sodden
contents
around the heat registers in the kitchen floor, weighed them down with
a pair
of slippers and turned up the heat. Then I called my aunt Karen in County Records.

"Records."

"Karen.
It's Leo."

"You're
not supposed to be using the phone."

If
information
circled the globe at half the speed it moves through my family there'd
be no
need for satellites.

"Who
says?" I demanded.

"Rebecca
called Betty last night."

Much
as it
pained me, I had to admit it was a canny move on Duvall's part. Let
your
fingers do the walking. One-stop gossip-mongering at its finest.
Calling my
cousin Betty was the civilian equivalent of issuing an all-points
bulletin.
Today Betty, tomorrow the world. When America's Most Wanted came up
empty, they called Betty. She reminded me of that old blues song about
how
"Your Mind Is on Vacation, But Your Mouth Is Working Overtime."

 
"I'm feeling okay," I said.

"You're
supposed to be resting. Do you know how worried we all were about you?"

Karen,
unlike
her brother Patrick, wasn't asshole enough to start a guilt fest with
me so I
said, "Tell everybody I'm fine. A little fuzzy, but fine."

"Well,
kiddo, that picture of you on the front page the other day didn't look
any too
fine." She laughed. "And heck, Leo, you've been a little fuzzy since
the late sixties."

"That's
precisely why I need your help."

"You're
not supposed to be working."

"I'm
not
working. I'm just sitting home being nosy."

I
heard her
sigh. "About what?"

"About
an
import company named Triad Trading."

She
asked me to
spell it. I did.

"What
did
you want to know?"

"Mostly
who owns it, but I'd be interested in anything else you had lying
around."

"I'll
see
what I can do, but I'm not going to be able to get to it for a while.
Call me
later this afternoon."

"You're
such a dear," I cooed.

"Oh,
stuff
it," she said. "And you better not tell Rebecca that I did this for
you. She'll have me on a slab."

"I
pledge
my troth."

"What's
troth, anyway?" she asked.

"No
idea."

Click.

I
called the
university. Fitzroy wasn't available to come to the phone, but he had
office
hours from one till three in Denny Hall.

Click.

I
pulled a
fresh notebook from the top drawer and called a cab.

EVERY
MECHANIC
IN the place stood around the Fiat in a loose semi-circle. "What?" I
demanded. "These guys don't have any cars to work on? For what they
get,
they ought to at least pretend."

"Mario
took his old lady to Mazadan for the week," Bobby Alston said as we
crossed the garage together. "We got a pool going. Actually several of
them."

"On
what?"

"On
whether or not it will start. On whether the salvage guy will give us
anything
for it or whether we'll have to pay him to take it. On whether or not
weird
stuff is going to come out of the tailpipe. That sort of stuff."

"It'll
start," I said, without believing it

Quite
frankly,
the Fiat looked better than usual. It was cleaner and the convertible
top, in
spite of now being ripped in two directions, looked far better for
having been
mended with matching black tape.

"We
done
what we could," Bobby said. "I took the fuel and ignition systems
apart and dried them out. Last two nights we took it over to the body
shop next
door and left it overnight in the oven they use to cure the paint
jobs."
He shrugged. "When they been underwater, you never know," he said.
"They can be a little squirrely."

A
low murmur
rose from the assembled multitude as I strode to the side of the car
and pulled
open the door.

"Where's
the 'it won't start' money?" I demanded.

A
big blond guy
with a flattop stepped forward. The red embroidery on his coveralls
read YURI.

"How
much?" he asked.

"I
got
twenty says it starts right up."

He
wiped his
hands on a coarse red rag.

"What's
right up?"

"Before
the battery goes dead."

"Even
money?"

"Yep."
       
.

"You're
on."

Of
course I was
on. Twenty bucks meant nothing to these foreign-car repair guys. These
guys
made more than U.S.
senators. They drove newer and better cars than their clientele. They
took
longer and better vacations. If I ever have children, I'm not wasting
my money
or their time on college. I'm training them as BMW mechanics.

I
slid into the
seat, being extra-careful not to bump my head on the way down. I
slipped the
key into the ignition, pumped the gas pedal twice and turned the key.
The
engine ground once around, coughed . . . and sprang to life, purring
right
along as if nothing had ever happened.

Above
the
engine noise, I could hear shouts and whis-des. I gunned it a few
times. It ran
great. Outside the car, money was changing hands; men were spreading
out over
the garage. I left the car running and got out. The blond guy was
fishing
behind his coveralls for his wallet. He produced a twenty. "I don't
believe it," he said.

I
gave him a
grin. "You wouldn't mind getting the door for me, would you, Yuri?" I
asked.