Not in the Heart (20 page)

C
HAPTER
31

Abigail wouldn't elaborate, saying she'd see me at home. Ellen was concerned and showed as much by staring off and rubbing my arm as we sat in the waiting room, nowhere to go and nothing to do.

My stomach was in knots and I knew I had to get back on the book treadmill—there's no substitute for having my rear in the chair and staying in front of the screen. This is the only way I know how to work. It's the only way I know how to live. And maybe something bigger was drawing me, pulling me like some kind of relational tide to make sense of the inconceivable.

With Ellen's blessing I headed home, grabbing an extra-large, bladder-buster coffee from the local caffeine vendor. I hunkered down in my literary bunker to save the world or at least make sense of it. As a North American male, I have the ability to compartmentalize, to put my head down and throw myself into the task and continue. Take my cottage, my car, my cat, my marriage—take it all and leave me with just one task and I will get the job done, no matter how consequential or meaningless.

But whether it was an adverse reaction to the caffeine or all the thoughts, I couldn't work. So much for the laser focus. I took two or three open runs at the story, but the compartment that had always been so tight sprang a leak and I couldn't think of anything but the dripping.

I clicked open a news website and checked out the latest. In a red banner above the local news I saw a headline that read, “Governor Townsend Meeting with Lawmakers.”

It was a rehash, nothing earth-shattering—just that at this hour, in a closed-door meeting with the governor, they were deciding whether to move ahead with plans to allow the heart donation of condemned inmate Terrelle Conley. It was said to be an uphill battle with some of the conservative delegation. Protests were planned outside. For all his efforts to keep things quiet, this had the ring of subversion. Would Townsend intentionally leak information about the meeting in order to sabotage it?

On-screen a link popped up for an online gaming site.
“Visit us again and your first $100 is on us!”

It's hard to describe the lure that has for someone with my proclivities, especially when it pops up in front of you at a time of great stress, when you need to be doing something else. You tell yourself you'll just spend ten minutes there and two hours later you're looking at your virtual losses and wondering how you wasted so much time. The bigger question, of course, was how you would ever leave the site. Like a fish on a hook—wriggle and squirm all you want, you're not getting that thing out of your mouth.

Maybe it was my willpower, maybe it was divine intervention, but somehow I had the ability to click the X in the right-hand corner and take a walk.

I've always said writer's block is for those people with too much money or time until their next deadline. But here I was, walking down the street assessing the finely manicured lawns of my neighbors, watching sprinklers squirt with the sun still out, drying up the precious droplets before they could get to the roots. I counted three different pool maintenance companies outside homes on the trek.

What I wouldn't give for the sound of children splashing in a backyard pool. I longed for another chance, for the ability to turn the clock back to the days when our biggest concern was whether to go private or public with their schooling. Of course, with Aiden, the concerns were always just short of cataclysmic. Whether to go ahead with a surgery that could give him a chance at being normal or could take his life. All of them turned out to simply be short-term solutions to the longer-term problem.

I suppose I chose to create my own little compartment for that piece of my life and now I was paying the price. My son was dying, my daughter estranged, my wife unfulfilled and unloved. I've heard that the opposite of love is not hate but indifference. Was the distance I felt with my family because of that indifference? Was there any hope for connection?

A black car passed, tinted windows, thin, shiny wheels. I kept walking, then felt something stir inside. I turned and ran back quickly enough to see the car turn onto our street. It slowed and the brake lights flashed as it passed our house. I hadn't thought to get the license number and it was too far away now.

The
chug, chug
of a little Honda with muffler problems came up behind me and I waved at Abigail. She pulled to the curb and I jumped in the passenger seat on top of a McDonald's bag and her purse. “Go around the back way.”

“What for?”

“Suspicious car in front of our house. We'll come at them from the other side.”

She processed it pretty quickly, then sped around the block to the connecting street. “Who do you think it is?”

Good question.

“Maybe your pals from New Orleans?” she said.

Good answer.

“I don't think so. They promised more time. I was thinking it might be your friend Tompkins.”

“He doesn't even know my real name. I told him I have an apartment near Florida State.”

“You sign a W-4?”

“I didn't sign anything; he's paying me in cash. Under the table.”

“Stop here,” I said. From this street I could barely see through shrubbery to our house. The black car wasn't there. “Okay, keep going. And you better watch what Tompkins puts under the table.”

“What, you think I'm some little girl who doesn't understand the ways of the world?”

“No, you're plenty smart, but if this guy—watch out!”

She met the black car nearly head-on. The driver laid on the horn and she corrected and kept going. I lowered my head as we passed, then turned to get a look at the plates. I got the first three numbers and wrote them down on the coffee receipt in my pocket.

We drove through the neighborhood and parked across from a playground. Silence hung between us as I watched two kids climb the monkey bars and run giggling toward a slide, chasing each other and squealing just like Abby and Aiden. Finally I got up the nerve to speak.

“Sometimes I wish I could go back and do it all over again. Get it right.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Our family. My life. The choices I made to chase the career and the stories I thought were so important.”

“If you're looking for me to make you feel better, I won't. You were a terrible dad.”

“I'm not asking for that. I just need you to know that when I was on the job, I was always thinking about you.”

She rolled her eyes. “You think that helps a little kid who wanted you to show up at her class? When all the other parents were at school, I used to look at the doorway, hoping you'd walk in.”

I fought the urge to tick off the list of times I did show up. They were pitifully few. “I wish I had another chance. And that's what I think this could be for us. A chance to fully connect, fully invest ourselves in this story and in Aiden's recovery.”

“Dad, you're not fully invested in anything but yourself. You never have been.”

Please don't hold back on your criticism. Tell me what you really think.
“You have a right to feel let down, but—”

“Let down? Try crushed. Try crying yourself to sleep every night until your heart turned to stone.”

“Then why did you come back? Why did you look for me?”

Her chin puckered and I could see the water forming in her eyes. She shook her head and a tear wandered down her cheek. “Maybe I thought there was a chance you still cared.”

“You were right. I
do
. That's why I'm here.”

“Crabbing at me because I'm actually getting information.”

“I'm not trying to squash you. We have to be a team on this and I feel like you're freelancing with this guy—”

“Freelancing? I'm getting information we'll never get any other way.”

“Like what?”

“Like the fact that he's connected with this dance club. That could have been how Diana made extra money. And he wants me to be a courier.”

“Drugs?”

“He didn't say.”

“It wouldn't surprise me. I don't want to see you get hurt.”

“And you think that's what I want? You think I want to hang out with this slimeball?”

I let things settle for a minute, then asked, “You said you knew what happened to Diana. What did you mean?”

“No. I'm not talking about this. You give no support. You don't thank me for busting my hump to get information. You just play the concerned father that you've never played before.”

“I do appreciate—”

“You said we were on the same team. Why don't you trust your teammate to follow her instincts? I think they're pretty good.”

“I agree. I think your instincts are great, but you don't know what guys like this are capable of. They take their time and make sure they have leverage before they reel you in. Not you, of course. I'm just saying it doesn't work this fast.”

“So you're saying I'm naive. I'm your innocent little girl who's still on the playground. Well, I'm not, Dad. I've been around the block a few times. I've made some bad decisions just like you. And I can take care of myself.”

There are some things you can't say to your children, things they have to discover for themselves. There are other things you want to protect them from, mistakes you've made that you don't want them to repeat. And then there are things you want to do that you know you can't because your problems have stolen the right. That's where I was, sitting in the stifling heat of her Honda, the gas gauge nearing empty and the muffler sounding like it had more holes than my credit rating.

“So you think Diana was mixed up in his drug deals? And that Tompkins murdered her?”

She stared at the kids on the playground. “That's one theory. I'm hoping to get him to talk about it tonight.”

“What's happening tonight?”

“You don't want to know. You'd just shoot me down.”

“No, I'm on your team. A hundred percent. Tell me.”

She told me the club where he wanted to meet. “He wants to buy me dinner and talk.”

“Sounds like a good idea,” I lied. “Get him to talk. Sometimes alcohol and an agenda can get people to loosen their tongues.”

She looked at me. “You mean it?”

“Yeah, it's a public place. His turf. He'll feel comfortable. Just be careful . . .”

The look on her face stopped me. “Of what?”

“Watch what you drink. They can slip you something to knock you out.”

“You think I don't know that?”

“Just a reminder.”

Darkness had descended by the time we drove back to the house. We couldn't find the mysterious car on any street near us but Abigail parked a few houses away and I made a sweep of the house. There were no signs of entry and no one inside.

While she ate a sandwich from the dwindling food supply, I checked the latest news. There was no update on the governor and I had a sick feeling about my son's future.

My cell phone rang. It was Gina with the wonderful news that she and her team were going to pass on Terrelle's story. She assured me it wasn't a lack of faith in my abilities to deliver a manuscript, just that the climate of the publishing industry was cold to this type of book at the moment. I told her Townsend was perhaps the best contender for the White House. Her answer contained smoke thicker than most steel mills produce. I thanked her for the chance and told her to call me if she changed her mind.

Abigail came out of her bedroom dressed the part of the young, hungry intern, ready to impress the boss. Her hair styled, lots of makeup, tight black jeans. Everything a father hates to see.

“You look great,” I said.

“Thanks.”

“I'm going with you.”

She laughed, but not in a good way. It was a hard-edged, get-out-of-my-way-or-I'll-run-you-over kind of laugh. “No, you're not.”

“Abby, I just—”

“Abigail,” she snapped.

“Sorry. Old habits die hard. I just want to be there in case something happens. It will free you up.”

“Tell me how I'll feel free with you looking over my shoulder.”

“I won't even be close. I'll stay outside.”

“The guy will know something is up if you're seen with me. I have to build his trust.”

You have to dig your grave.

I held up both hands. “All right. Just keep your cell phone handy. Dial me if anything goes wrong.”

She grabbed her purse and keys and headed out the door.

“Okay?” I said, a little pleading and whining.

She slammed the door behind her.

C
HAPTER
32

Local zoning ordinances prohibit the type of establishment Curtis Tompkins visited. That's probably why it was called Outskirts. It was a squarish, cinder-block building placed in the middle of a few other squarish buildings that housed tattoo artists, a used bookstore, a couple of bars, and a leather shop. Sort of a little bohemian village with lots of bicycles and men with dreadlocks and couples pretending not to have much money walking back to a Lexus or BMW around the corner in a lit parking lot.

I drove past the club's lot and saw Abby's car. She was still in it. I had waited a total of six minutes after she left before I followed. It had taken me that long to find and map the address.

I parked near some houses and watched the lot, calling Ellen to ask about Aiden. Her voice sounded as if she had surrendered to the enemy and was being led off as a prisoner of war. I wasn't about to follow. She asked how I felt about Abigail's “meeting.” I was sure Abby had explained excitedly what she was going to do, and of course Ellen had encouraged her to follow her heart. That always infuriated me, when I was actually around long enough to find out how she lived her life. Abby would decide to climb a sheer rock face in Keds and Ellen would encourage her to chase the stars. I wanted to scream into the phone, “Isn't one death in the family enough?” Of course, I didn't do that. I kept my mouth shut until she asked, “Are you working?”

“I'm taking a drive.”

“Tru . . .”

“No, I'm not headed to a casino.”

“Where are you going?”

“Just a drive.”

When she didn't speak, I gave her a heavy sigh. “I want to make sure she's okay. This guy isn't right.”

“Don't mess this up for her.”

“I'm protecting her.”

“Think of
her
, Tru. She knows you don't believe in her.”

“It'll show her I care.”

“That's not the way. You're saying she's not up to the task. She's a big girl. Trust her. Let her fly.”

“Okay. But this has nothing to do with trusting her. I know too much about guys like Tompkins. And there's something she doesn't know.”

“What's that?”

“I think this guy might be in with a friend of mine. Guy from New Orleans I owe.”

“Why do you think that?”

“The car we saw drive past the house this afternoon. Same shady types. And if he finds out she's connected to me, they may use her to get their money. Or revenge.”

She paused. “So this is related to the gambling.”

“It could be. She swears he doesn't know her full name or where she lives, but these guys are resourceful. I don't want him to use her to get to me.”

“Truman, why didn't you tell her that?”

Her words hung there as I watched Abigail step from her car, cell phone to her ear. The phone illuminated her face as she briskly walked toward a side door, a big wooden thing that looked like it had been fashioned from a gangplank of a pirate ship.

“I didn't want to scare her, I guess. I want to support her. I want her to fly. But something has kicked in. Maybe it's my father instinct.”

Ellen didn't say anything. She didn't have to. I knew what was going through her head.

“I don't know where that instinct has been, if that's what you're wondering. But it's here now. I don't think I should push it down.”

“Truman—”

“Trust me,” I said. “You're asking me to trust her. I'm asking you to trust me. She wants to follow her dreams, to follow this story. I need to follow my instincts. Okay?”

Meekly, timidly, humbly, the answer came. “Okay.”

The door opened and the darkness and strobes sucked my daughter in like a spaceship envelops grazing cattle in one of those B horror movies. The door closed and the sound was the only thing that remained, pulsing and reverberating through the stucco.

A car pulled to the curb across the street from the pirate ship door. Every car at this time of night seems dark, but this one seemed particularly dark and, unfortunately, particularly familiar. Out of the passenger side came a hulk of a man with long, blond hair and arms that dripped with anabolics. He crossed the street and opened the door like he was pulling Styrofoam.

“Gotta go,” I said to Ellen.

I grabbed the Yankees cap I had taken from Aiden's room and pulled it tightly to my eyebrows on the walk toward the club. I hid my face from the black car's driver as I attempted to pull open the ship's anchor that was the side door. A barrel-chested man with a tattoo that ran up his neck and wound around his ear stood between me and the pulsing, deafening noise. A toothpick stuck out of his mouth.

“Is there a cover charge?” I yelled.

Toothpick held up ten fingers and I knew I didn't have it but reached for my wallet anyway. “You take—?”

“Cash only.”

“Is there an ATM near here?”

He shrugged and two gentlemen walked in behind me, handing the fellow a twenty. I quickly looked past Toothpick but couldn't see much through the smoky haze besides the young woman in the spotlight. No sign of Abby or the long-haired blond guy.

“I'm looking for someone. She just came in a few minutes ago. Won't take but five minutes and I'll be out of here.”

He actually smiled, then took me by the arm and led me outside. His voice was soft, with a slight lisp. “Get thum cash, friend.”

Back in the car, heart beating quickly, wondering if there was an ATM at the grocery store a few blocks back, wondering if there was some other blond guy sitting behind the steering wheel of the black car watching me, I mulled my choices. Stay? Look for another way inside?

I hurried to the grocery and found an ATM. My first card was rejected. The second went in and I thought I heard the machine laugh. Somehow I got a twenty and drove back, parking a block away on the other side of the club. The dark car idled across the street and I saw the first three numbers of the license, confirming it was the car we'd seen earlier.

I handed Toothpick the bill and he begrudgingly returned a ten. “Have a nithe night,” he thaid.

Inside, I stumbled down a couple of stairs and stayed in the shadows to let my eyes adjust. I shouldn't have worried because nobody was watching who was coming in. They were focused on the stage.

The bar was to the left, and a gaggle of servers in skimpy outfits moved in beelike fashion from the watering hole to the tables. One looked like a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader. Another was in a cat costume and the biggest part of the costume was the whiskers. Seriously. I looked past the stilettos and fishnet stockings to the other side of the room, bathed in the muted glow of the stage. Booths lined the wall but there was no blond guy and no daughter. My mind raced. If Ellen could see this, would she still encourage Abby to follow her dreams?

I texted Abby.
R U OK? R U @ club?

I walked closer to the bar to get a better look at the booths. A waitress in a gladiator outfit intercepted me. She wore what looked like a real sword in a belt around her waist that loosely held all the other pieces. “Can I get you something to drink?” she said.

“I'm looking for a friend. Do you know Curtis Tompkins?”

She smiled and I tried to keep my eyes on her dark wig. “Everybody knows Curt.” She pointed to the other side of the stage and said, “Private room B. Is he expecting you?”

“No, I'll wait until he comes out.”

“Could be a while,” she said. “There's a group back there. What about that drink?”

“Not yet.”

She gave me a wet-lipstick pout, then walked away, back toward the Colosseum.

My cell vibrated.
I'm OK. @ club. Leave me alone.

I hit the Reply button and quickly typed,
I'm here 2. Black car outside. Get out.

I sent the message, then had second thoughts. What if Tompkins saw it? How would she cover herself? I replied again.
Go 2 bathroom. Meet u there.

I wandered in the dark until I found the narrow hallway with restrooms and stood in the space between men's and ladies' like some pervert. After a few minutes I went into the men's room. It was small, just one stall that was occupied. I washed my hands and walked back outside. Abby stood there with a not-happy look.

“What are you doing here? And why are you wearing Aiden's hat?”

I grabbed her elbow. “We need to get out of here.”

“No,” she said in a not-so-subtle voice, jerking away. “I'm getting good information. Why are you doing this?”

“The guys in the car are here. One has long blond hair and arms the size of telephone poles. Is he in there?”

She put up a hand like I was threatening her in some way and moved backward, toward the ladies' room door. “I haven't seen anybody like that. And I'm not going anywhere. I'm seeing this through. Just go home, Dad.”

A new song began onstage and men hooted and hollered. More pulsing and pounding and clapping.

“You can't be serious,” I said. “Get out now, while you can.”

“If you don't like it in here, leave.”

“Ith there a problem, mith?” a high-pitched voice said behind me.

I closed my eyes as Abby said, “This man is bothering me.”

“Come with me, thir.”

He put a vise grip on my elbow and pulled me around the stage toward the door. I looked back, trying to see Abby, but he pushed me forward into the darkness, as if he had night-vision goggles.

“You don't understand,” I said, but he wasn't listening. When I was outside, he let go of my arm. I thought about telling him Abby was my daughter, but I decided just to ask for my ten dollars back. He smiled and closed the door.

I walked the perimeter of the club looking for another way in but the place was a bunker. There was a locked front entrance, which probably broke several fire codes, and another back entrance that looked like it exited from the private rooms. It, too, was locked. I walked back to the car and drove to another street and parked.

Waiting is not my strength. I'm a man of action, running into a story when I don't even know the questions, so sitting there imagining what might be happening inside private room B was more than my mind could take. You learn as a journalist to anticipate the story, figure out all the possible angles to cover.

I closed my eyes and pictured Abby, smiling, laughing, Tompkins at her side with powder in a ring he dumped into her drink. Then her eyes rolling back in her head as she passed out. Someone hustling her limp body out the back entrance into another dark car. Or maybe Abby was fully conscious and screaming for help right then as Tompkins and his friends overpowered her.

Or maybe they were just talking.

About thirty minutes after he went in, the blond guy exited the club. His face was punctuated with a long, crooked nose. He walked with military precision and entered the car; then it pulled into the shadows, waiting. Just like me.

An overwhelming fear washed over me. I had challenged Ellen to fight for Aiden, and I was ready to do that. But as a realist and a reporter, I knew even if the Conley situation came through, it was a long shot that Aiden would respond well to the organ. Though we all hoped for the best, it was clear from what the doctors said that his body had endured too much. That fear had turned into resignation, especially after Ellen's discourse. She was the biggest fighter on Aiden's side, and if she was willing to release him, I had to find a way to do the same.

But the mushroom cloud in my stomach now turned to Abby. Sitting there, wondering what was going on inside, made things worse.

I have heard stories of fathers using superhuman strength when an adrenaline-laced situation presented itself, like lifting a car off a pinned loved one, and that's what I felt as I opened the car door. Like a kid coming back from a superhero movie who walks into the parking lot and figures he can put his arms out and fly, I got out and walked down the moonlit street with all the bravado of Captain America.

I noticed a group of about five guys headed toward the club, rowdy and raucous, a roving bachelor party, bobbing and weaving like they had already been to a couple of bars. I hurried across the street and shoved the Yankees cap into my back pocket, catching up with them. There was clearly one leader, a guy about six-five with close-cropped hair who walked slightly ahead of them. I've been around enough military guys to know how others simply follow. As he neared the club, he reached for his wallet.

“Mind if I join you guys?” I said.

The guy turned and I handed him my last ten.

“It's a divorce party,” he said. He nodded toward a friend who seemed a bit more inebriated than the rest. “Tim here is losing pretty much everything in the settlement. Thought we'd cheer him up.”

“I might need friends like you in another month or two,” I said.

Tim slapped me on the back and said something unintelligible, a mixture of laughter and tears and Michelob Light. We hit the door and the leader told the guy there were six of us and we all pushed through, my head down. While they made their way to a table near the stage, hooting and commenting on the current dancer, I let the music carry me back to the restroom. No text this time.

On the wall of the men's room I found what I was looking for. I wrapped my hand in the Yankees cap and gave the fire alarm a punch. Nothing happened, so I punched it again and felt something give inside. I pulled down the lever and immediately the alarm sounded. As I exited the room, the lights came on full force and people headed for the door, crowding and pushing. The girl on the stage skittered about in high heels, picking up pieces of her schoolgirl outfit. I piled in with the rest and kept my head down, looking behind for Abby.

The strobe lights had given the room that “happening” feel, but in full light it looked like a dive with mismatched chairs and pockmarked tables. I guess light will do that to a room. But the light not only gave away the room's condition, it gave me away, so I tried to rejoin the group I had entered with. The divorced man, Tim, guided now by the military guy, spun a string of profanities and saliva at the wall and no one in particular. Cursing his luck, his former wife, people who were messing up his life, and several political figures, he spread the invective over the alarm until he reached the front door.