Sinner's Ball (8 page)

“How so?”

“His daughter was reduced to a cinder, and he's the aggrieved party.”

“Why am I not surprised?”

The hotel room was about as I'd expected—queen-sized bed, two end tables, couple of chairs, a non-widescreen TV bolted to a dresser made out of pressboard, and a print of a bucolic glen over the bed. Days Inn without the charm.

The Kemplers sat on the bed with their backs to each other. An interesting bit of body language. But, given the circumstances, understandable. Grief tends to strip the gears of life.

Adele Klemper was a big-boned woman in a shapeless dark dress. She had dull, bovine eyes, and picked at a scab on her cheek with a fingernail. Jonas wore rumpled beige corduroy slacks and a bulky brown sweater. His face was fleshy and unshaven, and his close-cropped black hair was peppered with gray.

The television was on. An infomercial promoting a set of knives that could, with a mere few swipes, reduce two-inch-thick steel plate to a pile of shavings seemed to have Jonas's attention. It had mine, too. I made a mental note to check it out the next time I needed to saw a bowling ball in half.

Luce made the introductions.

From then on, things pretty much went downhill.

Jonas Klemper turned his attention away from the TV and on to me.

“Had enough bullshit today,” he said. “Don't need more from you.”

“Mr. Klemper, I'm truly sorry for your loss. And I promise I'm not going to take up more than a few minutes of your time.”

“You gonna bring my baby back?”

“I wish I could. But I'll do my level best to find the person who did this to her. Just a few questions and I'll be on my way.”

“Screw your questions. I want answers. And so far all I'm getting is bullshit from you people.”

“Jonas,” Adele said. “He means well, just—”

He whirled around.

“Damn it, Adele. Don't you go telling me what to do. Weren't for you, none of this would have happened.”

Adele's eyes briefly registered a spark of fear. And then went blank. I had the feeling she had been through this before. She lowered her head and turned her attention back to the scab.

The combination of Jonas's posturing and Adele's retreat told me that nothing useful would come of this. It was time to separate them.

I put a friendly hand on Jonas's shoulder and nudged him toward the door.

“Luce, Jonas and I are heading down to the bar. Why don't you stay with Adele until we get back. Won't be long. That OK with you, Jonas?”

Luce gave me a slight nod and sat down next to Adele and took her hand.

Jonas threw his wife an angry look. “Why not? Being cooped up here with her is making me buggy anyway.”

The bar was empty. We settled in at a corner table. I ordered a Diet Coke. Jonas went for a beer.

“Not normally a drinking man,” he said. “But you lose your two girls, it kinda does something to you.”

Two
daughters? I was confused.

“You lost two girls?”

“First, Wanda. And now Angela.”

“How did Wanda die?”

“Didn't die. Least as far as I know. She ran.”

I filed that away for later.

“What do you do for a living, Jonas?”

“Trucker. Farm some a little on the side. Work my ass off for my family.”

“Bet you do. Not easy working two jobs.”

He tipped the glass to his mouth and drained it, using the sleeve of his sweater to blot the foam off his lips.

“Damn straight,” he said. “Thankless. Thankless as a son of a bitch.”

“Adele work too?”

“No sir. I believe in old-fashioned values.”

I flashed him a smile. “You don't see much of that anymore.”

“And it's a shame,” Jonas said. “Woman's place is in the home. Raising the kids. Making sure there's a hot supper waiting when you come home. There can only be one master of the house.”

“Right from the Good Book. Read it every day,” I said. “Keep it right on my bedside table.”

I was fully expecting lightning to strike. But not before Jonas had fully warmed up.

“World would be better for it, if more people followed your example. All the wisdom you ever need.”

“Couldn't agree with you more. So, tell me about Angela.”

He tapped the empty glass. “You think I can get a refill?”

“No problem,” I said, signaling the waiter.

Less than a minute passed before his beer arrived.
When it did, he knocked it right back the same as the first.

“Where were we?” he said.

“Angela.”

“Right. My baby started off just fine. Not like her sister.”

“How so?”

“Wanda was willful. Headstrong. Didn't mind her daddy.”

“But Angela was different.”

“Oh yeah. Sweet little thing. Did what she was supposed to. Never gave me a moment's trouble.”

“What changed her?”

“Wanda,” he said. “Set a bad example. Pretty soon, Angela was acting like her sister.”

“And what was Wanda doing?”

“Boys were sniffing around her like dogs in heat. And she was Johnny-on-the-spot. You know how that goes.”

“I can see where that would be a problem.”

“Was. And Adele just coddled them.”

“And you had to lay down the law.”

“Sure did. Spare the rod, spoil the child.”

“Did Adele need disciplining too?”

Jonas signaled for another beer.

He nodded. “She had to learn to do right.”

I could feel a bubble of heat rising from down deep inside of me.

“Has Adele figured it out yet?”

He smirked. “She's learning.”

“What kind of discipline are we talking about here? Curfews? Time-outs? That kind of stuff?”

“Little beyond that.”

“How did Wanda react?”

“The slut went off to cavort with the Devil. And Angela wasn't far behind.”

The skin on my face went tight as the friendliness flaked right off.

“Use your belt, or just your hands?”

Jonas read my eyes and scooched his chair back a few inches.

“Whoa,” he said. “I just did what any father would do raising up two wild ones. Nothing wrong with that.”

“Did you get that from the Good Book too?”

He jumped to his feet.

“I'm a good father. And don't need to take this from you.”

Memories of Dominic danced in my head. But at least he hadn't used God's word as an excuse.

“You son of a bitch.”

“No reason to talk to me like that. I did right.”

“Angela is dead. And who in hell knows where Wanda is. And you honestly believe you did
right?”

Jonas headed for the door “I'm out of here,” he said. “Can't blame me for what happened.”

I let him go. Another minute and I'd have taken him apart.

I walked out to the street and waited for Luce.

Overhead, purple-bellied clouds fringed with gray the color of smoke drifted like an armada of ghost ships.

A few minutes later she joined me.

“How did it go with Adele?” I asked.

“I got an earful. Old Jonas is quite the taskmaster. She said it wasn't his fault. The kids needed it. And she needed it too.”

“All-American family,” I said.

“Pollutants is more like it. And she's as bad as he is. She enabled him. Probably encouraged him to whack the kids around so he'd lay off her.”

“They deserve each other.”

“That they do.”

“People like that need to have their pilot light put out.”

“Not your job, Jackson. Remember, you're a consultant.”

“You ought to try it sometime,” I said. “It's actually quite freeing.”

“I notice,” she said.

“I need another favor.”

“I'm about fresh out, Jackson.”

“Run Wanda Klemper through the system.”

“Why not,” she said with a sigh.

In the
Inferno
, Dante said that each of hell's flames was a sinner. If he was right, Jonas and Adele would soon help light the lower reaches of hell.

But the image was small comfort.

They'd driven one daughter into the streets and the
other to a fiery death in a Hell's Kitchen warehouse. No charges would ever be brought. There would be no final reckoning. At least not in this world. And Jonas and Adele would spend the rest of their truly twisted lives playing the grieving parents to anyone who would listen.

A
llie sculpted geometric shapes in the orzo with her fork, DeeDee's attention was hovering somewhere in the ether, and my snappy repartee was greeted with sublime indifference.

The dinner was supposed to be a celebration, but it had all the trappings of a wake.

Allie and I had been together for a year. To mark the occasion, I'd made reservations at Bird, a trendy SoHo bistro where the lights were dim, the portions fit for gnomes, and the waitstaff annoyingly cheerful. I'd neglected the ladies in my life and expected some time in the penalty box. But this was purgatory.

I threw my napkin on the table.

“What's going on?”

Allie set the fork down and looked at me. “I have a new boss,” she said.

“But you run the creative department. Hell, you were their first hire when they started the agency.”

“Business stinks, Steeg. The economy is in a sludge pit and client budgets are cut to the bone.”

“Doesn't sound like a creative problem.”

“It's not. But the imbeciles who run my crazy house think that change has a revivifying power. So they create a new title. Creative executive. Catchy, huh?”

“Who's the lucky man … or woman?”

“Remember the guy who had his caricature nailed to the wall at Café Buffo?”

DeeDee snapped out of her reverie. I noticed the mascara was gone.

“You mean the chinless Brit?” she said.

“Mr. Fly-Front Adult Diaper himself.”

“Assholes!” DeeDee said.

“What are you going to do?” I said.

“Spoke to a headhunter. Told me to suck it up. Too many people chasing too few jobs these days. Especially at my level.”

“If you decide to quit, there's always my disability pension to keep us going until you land somewhere.”

She leaned over and planted a chaste peck on my lips. “A very sweet and comforting thought. But that assumes we eat every third day.”

“And not too much, at that,” I said.

“For now, I'll take the headhunter's advice and wait it out. If I can't write rings around that joker, I don't deserve the job.”

“I'm really sorry, Allie.”

“Don't be,” she said. “Besides, you're right, we should be celebrating tonight. You've given me the happiest and most interesting year of my life.”

I got all warm inside.

“That's the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.”

I looked at DeeDee.

“Your turn to say something really sweet about me,” I said.

She brushed a hair off her forehead and pasted an approximation of a smile on her face.

“What a guy!” she said.

“That's it?”

“Not in the mood.”

“What's wrong?”

“Nothing,” she said.

“Then why the moping?”

She folded her arms on the table and rested her chin on top.

“Justin and I had an argument.”

“Over what?”

“Nothing.”

“If it were nothing, you wouldn't look suicidal.”

“I haven't seen or heard from him in a week.”

“Even at school?” Allie said.

“Nope,” she said. “And I'm worried about him.”

“Did you call him?” I said.

She nodded. “His father keeps answering.”

“And what did he have to say?”

“I didn't talk to him.”

“Why not?”

She threw me a look indicating rather strongly that I had just asked the dumbest question she had ever heard.

“He's his
father!”

D
eeDee wrinkled up her nose.

“Smells like dead fish,” she said, as we took in the tired Bensonhurst neighborhood in the late-morning light.

They were the first words she'd uttered since we boarded the N train an hour before.

Our excursion to the depths of Brooklyn to see Justin had almost died aborning. First it was on. Then it was off. Then came the issue of what to wear, followed closely by the question of how Justin would react when she appeared on his doorstep. All her issues were discussed and, I thought, settled. But the “dead fish” crack told me that DeeDee was wavering again.

Most of the houses were attached two-family numbers. A couple had snowmen in front. And more than a few sported a Saint Mary on the half shell on their postage-stamp lawns.
Thanks to the Department of Sanitation snowplows, cars were buried up to their windows in hard-packed snow. Overhead, gulls floating in the crystal blue sky searched for a meal. Their prospects weren't promising.

Justin's apartment house, a dreary-looking four-story rectangle the color of soot, was the largest building on the block. An entrance alcove opened on a courtyard. In its center was an ornamental urn surrounded by a small fenced garden matted with long-dead flowers.

There was one apartment on either side of the alcove. Neither had a number. But the one on the right had a ramp.

“Justin's apartment is C2,” she said. “On the right.”

“How do you know?”

“The ramp. His father's paralyzed from the waist down.”

“You never told me.”

Her eyes suddenly flashed. “Since when do I have to tell you everything?”

I put her outburst down to hormones and let it pass.

Her hand reached for the doorbell, then dropped to her side.

“What now?” I said.

“You do it.”