The Caveman's Valentine (31 page)

“He lived that way for forty years,” said Romulus.

A few miles farther along, he said, “Maybe it’s about time for me to get out of New York. Retire, you know what I mean? Come on up here to the country and live the good life. Right?”

Cork went back to bitching about the Yankees.

In the horse-farm country of Dutchess County, Romulus asked him: “You ever do any surveillance, Jack?”

“Sure. Some.”

“Tailing people?”

“Some.”

“You good at it?”

“Not really. You know how boring it is, waiting around for somebody all night? It’s unbelievably boring. You wait five hours, then close your eyes ten seconds and they’re gone. That’s happened to me.”

“But except for the boredom, you’re good at it?”

“Oh, I guess. Why are you asking this?”

“Just thinking that whatever skills you’ve got in this regard, you’re going to be needing them today.”

A
t Gideon Manor they stopped at the Country Market convenience store and Romulus used the phone. He called Moira. He told her he was sorry for all the things he’d said and wondered if he could meet her. She hemmed and hawed.

He wheedled and cajoled.

Finally, with a sigh, she gave in.

He said, “The Country Market, you know that? Twenty minutes?”

Then he hung up and called the main house, and got Vlad. He reminded Vlad of who he was. He told Vlad he was in town and could he see him for just a minute?

Said Vlad, “Why? I got nothing to do with you.”

“Just for a minute.”

“What you want to say to me, hah? You say it now.”

“Not over the phone. What’s the matter, Vlad? You a wimp? You scared of me? Scared of my soul? Scared of the soul of the American black man?”

Vlad muttered, “Where?”

“There’s a bank across from the Country Market, you know that? In about twenty-five minutes?”

T
hen he got back into the car and they drove toward the farm and Romulus told Cork:

“In a little while David Leppenraub’s sister is going to drive away from the farm and you’re going to follow her.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Yes, you are. Because she’s heading for a rendezvous and it’s going to be very intriguing what happens during that rendezvous.”

“Who’s she going to rendezvous with?”

“That’s why you need to follow her. To find that out.”

“You’re not telling me the whole story.”

“That’s true.”

“You gotta be crazy, you think I’m—”

“You do this for me, we can go home right after, I promise, and I’ll never ask you anything again, and I’ll be just as good as gold with the TV reporters.”

“No.”

It took another fat dose of wheedling and cajoling, and still Romulus wasn’t sure Cork would go along with his plan.

Even after they’d driven past the entrance to the Leppenraub farm and gone on for a quarter of a mile, and turned the car around and come back and pulled over, way up the slope from the entrance, still Cork hadn’t said he would do this thing. Still he was murmuring, “Uh-uh, no. This is nuts. This is just going to get me in trouble.”

And when Moira’s car emerged and turned toward the town, and Romulus opened his door and got out, Cork just stared at him.

He said, “Wait a minute. You’re not coming with me?”

Said Romulus, “I’ve got to stay here and see if anybody follows her. Come pick me up in forty-five minutes. Just stay with her, watch what she does, who she meets.”

“This is nuts.”

“Come get me in forty-five minutes. I’ll be right here. Go—before she gets away.”

“What’s the sense of this, Caveman?”

“I’ll never ask anything of you again. And I promise you that this will be an exploit of great discovery.”

“Eat shit. Shut the door.”

Romulus did. Cork drove off.

A few minutes later Vlad’s car showed at the end of the drive, pulled out onto the road, went toward town.

And Romulus walked briskly down the hill. He turned in at the drive. Birdsong, haze, the orchard in blizzard-bloom. If he got nothing more from the trip than this stroll, it was plenty. At the farmhouse Lao-tse came running out to take his head off. He knelt and smiled. She recognized him. She slithered up for her back scratching. Then he climbed up the steps onto the porch, and found the door open. He went into the parlor and sat down before the piano and started playing.

He played Ravel’s
Le Tombeau de Couperin
and blended in a medley of the Carpenters’ greatest hits. He pushed the pedals down to full throttle and the whole house shook.

Then suddenly he quit. Held his fire. The piano throbbed, the throbbing faded. Romulus said without turning:

“Put the gun down, the gun’s no use to you.”

He waited for the house to return to silence. When it was absolutely still except for a few far birds and Leppenraub’s breathing, Romulus said, “All these guns, they’re no use at all, are they? But it’s all right. I know what you want, David Leppenraub, and I can arrange for you to get it.”

H
alf an hour later he was on his way home. Cork was driving much too fast for these twisty roads. He seemed put out.

“So?” Romulus asked him.

“So, what?”

“So what did you see?”

Cork spoke quietly, but his voice had a razor edge of fury in it. He said:

“You want to know what I saw? I saw the best-looking broad in history standing by her car in the parking lot of a little store. I saw her fold her arms and check her watch and pout. The pout was something, I must admit. Then this guy who looked like a gigolo except he was too short, this guy got out of a car across the street. He saw her but she didn’t see him. We all waited awhile. Then the telephone rang behind the woman and she answered it. When she hung up she looked like she was really pissed. She noticed the gigolo and she crossed the street and she had a few words with him. I wasn’t as bored as I usually am on a stakeout because watching this woman cross the street was a wet dream. But anyway, then she just stormed back into her car and drove off and the gigolo followed, and I followed, and she led us back to the farm.”

“Hmm. What a story. Very intriguing. You’ve got a real eye for details.”

“Oh, I saw a
lot of clues,
Caveman.”

“What do you make of them?”

“What do I make of them? I make a dead fucking Caveman tossed out of a moving car at seventy miles an hour in Nowheresville, New York.
That’s what I fucking make of them.
”

Romulus leaned over and checked the speedometer. “Better watch out around here, the cops are vicious—”

“All that rigmarole just so you could have a private chitchat with Leppenraub? Was that it, Caveman?”

“Well, you wouldn’t have let me talk to him alone. Neither would Moira. Neither would Vlad.”

“I hope you had fun. ’Cause when we get back and he’s got a warrant out on you for harassment, I’m driving you personally to Matteawan.”

“He won’t do that.”

“No? Why not? Christ, you didn’t kill him, did you?”

“We had a civilized talk. I invited him to a meeting.”

“Another fucking rendezvous?” He bore down on the gas pedal.

Romulus was not comfortable at this speed. To get Cork to slow down, he told him the interesting piece of news he had learned from the ME’s report and from Cassandra.

It worked. Cork not only slowed, he hit the brakes hard and pulled wildly off the road into a bumpy church parking lot, and Romulus hit his head on the roof. Cork put the car in park, turned to Romulus and said:

“
What?
What the—? Oh, Jesus. Jesus Christ. Jesus Q. Christ, Caveman,
tell me you’re making this up.
”

I
n Matthew’s hospital room, the dying thing in the next bed was gone. The bed was empty.

Romulus said, “Matthew, are you ready to get out of here?”

Matthew didn’t meet his eyes.

Romulus said, “Where’s your neighbor, Matthew?”

“Huh? Oh that guy. I don’t know. He forgot to breathe, I guess. I think breathing just slipped his mind, so they took him away. Pretty stupid, huh?”

“Same thing’ll happen to you if you don’t get your ass out of here.”

“Yeah, you’re right.”

“So you ready to go?”

“Sure.”

“Let’s go then.”

“Oh I don’t think I can, Rom.”

“They won’t release you?”

“Doctor said he wouldn’t make me go. Not yet.”

“Well, I’m making you. I need you.”

“Rom. I’m OK here. Let me stay here.”

“Matthew, what do you want most in the world?”

“A swimming pool in East Hampton full of morphine.”

“Think about it, Matthew. If you could have anything . . .”

“Don’t, Rom.”

“Anything.”

“You know what I want. I want Scotty.”

“You can’t have Scotty. What else?”

“
Nothing
else! I don’t want nothing else!”

He threw the bedclothes off. He sat up, faced away from Romulus. Naked, emaciated. “Except I’d like to get the fucker that got Scotty.”

“Well, that you can have. OK, Matthew? You can meet the fucker at last, and we’ll put the fucker away. That can be arranged. In fact, it already has been arranged. Tomorrow at noon. Get dressed, right?”

A
collect call from Romulus Ledbetter. Charges accepted.

“Rom.”

“How are you, Augie? I hear you’ve been sick.”

“Well. Just taking a few tests.”

The old wariness, arrogance, in his brother Augustus’s voice. But also a new thickness.

Romulus said, “I’m sorry.”

“Early for that. You talked to Sheila lately?”

“No I haven’t.”

Said Augustus, “Well I did. She sent me some cookies last week. Beautiful woman. She and I had a long talk. She says you’re up to your usual stunts. She said you pulled some carnival act that almost got Lulu killed. She’s in a holy fury, Romulus. I don’t know why you can’t keep her feelings in mind a little.”

“Augie, we haven’t lived together for seventeen years. I haven’t spoken to her for six. What are you talking about, keep her feelings—”

“She says it’s high time for you to get a little treatment.”

“I got the
treatment
from her already. From all of you, last me a lifetime, your treatment.”

“Oh, goddamn it, did you call me collect so you could get my damn blood pressure up?”

“What about
my
blood pressure? Right? Every time I talk to my brothers, boom-
boom,
going off in my head, what about . . . No.”

He stopped and took a breath. He said, “No I didn’t call you to . . . No. I just wanted to say I’m thinking about you.”

“Well. Thanks Rom.”

“Take it easy, Augie.”

“I’m trying.”

“Love to everybody.”

“Love to you.”

H
e went to the New York Central Library and sat down with Chekhov’s
The Cherry Orchard.
The play that Moira had told him they’d done a reading of, up at the farm last summer.

He wondered if he’d be able to guess which part Leppenraub had chosen for himself.

Oh but it was easy. He came to the landowner Lopahin’s first speech, and right off he caught something of the Leppenraub tone:

I remember when I was a boy of fifteen, my poor father . . . punched me in the face and made my nose bleed. Lubov Andreyevna . . . she was still young and so slim . . . led me to the washbasin in the nursery. “Don’t cry, little peasant,” she said, “it’ll heal in time for your wedding.” . . . It’s true I’m rich. I’ve got a lot of money. . . . But when you look at it closely, I’m a peasant through and through. . . .

Romulus enjoyed the entire play. Especially Lopahin’s speeches.

Lopahin’s speeches, they were exactly what he’d been looking for.

I don’t get to the theater much, Romulus thought. I should try to go more often.

W
hen he got back to the shelter, one of the priests was playing Brahms on the piano downstairs, and even up in his room Romulus could hear it.

He said fuck it, and left, and went and spent the night in the cave.

He listened to the howls of the city all night. Great descant of sirens. Lightning storm of Y-rays, but they weren’t touching him, and the Z-rays were transparent to him. On the TV, on C-SPAN, Stuyvesant’s Undersecretary of The Perfectly Real and Good warned of conspiracy, treason, and a gnawing away at the roots, but his voice sounded shrill, it echoed in an empty studio.

“Tomorrow,” Romulus said to the figure on the screen. “Noon tomorrow, tune in. You won’t like it, though.”

The Undersecretary paused for a moment, and lowered his eyes, then continued.

T
he next day, a little before noon, Matthew Donofrio sat on the last bench of the subway platform at Times Square. The red line, the old IRT, numbers 1, 2, 3, and 9. Matthew’s head was shaved and he wore a cap with the visor pulled low and he sprawled on the bench facing the downtown express track. He was all the way down near the end of the platform. Nobody around—the midday commotion didn’t get this far. Down here it was just him and a drunk passed out and slumping against a post.

Matthew waited.

He was scared to death.

He shifted position. He waited. He glanced at the clock by the bright Salem ad: three minutes till noon.

At last he heard steps, and he slid his eyes to his left, and though he’d only seen David Leppenraub’s picture once, he knew him right away.

Leppenraub was carrying a black attaché case. He was coming on in a slow, infirm shuffle.

Matthew lowered his head, glared down at the cement.

Leppenraub took a seat on the bench back of Matthew. Facing the other way, facing the local track. Matthew felt him there, felt his sickly aura, heard him breathing right behind him and just a little to the side. But he didn’t turn around to look at him directly.