The Girl with a Clock for a Heart: A Novel (5 page)

Kevin settled down and offered George a Genesee. They drank together, silent through some of the beers and talking through some of them. It got darker outside, but they didn’t turn a light on, and when people knocked at the door, they didn’t answer it.

George hadn’t been surprised by Kevin’s outburst. He knew that in his own way Kevin had loved Audrey, but that he would never have done anything about it. “You were good to her, I think,” Kevin finally said, like a tipsy priest giving absolution. “It wasn’t you.”

“Thank God for that.”

“What are we going to do now?” Kevin said.

“I don’t know. My counselor—Jim—wants me to stay in school for the semester. I don’t know if I can.”

“Just stay here. Fuck classes. We’ll drink beer.”

“I don’t know if they’ll let me do that.”

Kevin shrugged.

“I don’t know what to do,” George said again. In truth, he had formed a plan earlier in the day, when he’d been walking back across campus from his meeting with the dean. The looming towers of brown stone, the brick of the dining hall, the leafless trees, and the huddled students going in and out of the indifferent buildings—all these things were utterly meaningless, almost sickening, with Audrey dead. So he’d decided to pack a small bag and go to Florida. He’d leave early in the morning, walk to the Greyhound bus station, and board the first bus going south. Eventually he’d reach Tampa, and he could visit with Audrey’s family and her friends and maybe find out what had happened. Jim the counselor would have called it closure.

“I’m starving,” Kevin said.

“Go get food and bring me back some, will ya? The dining hall closes in ten minutes.”

Kevin staggered off, and George thought some more about his plan to go to Florida the next day. He wouldn’t tell Kevin because he’d want to come too, and this was something George needed to do alone.

Chapter 6

O
n Sunday, at four in the afternoon, George drove his Saab out of the city for the second time that weekend. Gerald MacLean’s house was in Newton, a moneyed suburb just west of Boston. George took Commonwealth Avenue, passing underneath the Citgo sign and past the high walls of Fenway Park. He remembered there was an afternoon game happening against the Rays. If he hadn’t run into Liana on Friday night and agreed to this fool’s errand, he most likely would have been sitting at his friend Teddy’s bar around now, drinking a cold beer and watching the game. He’d be listening to Teddy explain the finer points of why the Red Sox sucked this year, and maybe later he’d call Irene and see what she was doing for dinner, or else he wouldn’t call and he’d keep drinking beers and maybe eat Teddy’s famous calamari, Rhode Island style, at the bar. But instead, George was driving nearly a half million in cash in a gym bag to a stranger’s house.

After George had agreed to help Liana the previous day, she’d called MacLean from George’s apartment and set up the transfer of money. He’d tried not to overtly listen as Liana told MacLean she was sending a courier, plus the money, to his house, but it was hard not to overhear everything in an apartment that could fit into half a tennis court. She said something about
most
of the money as opposed to
all
of the money, and George heard her use the word “sorry” at least twice. An agreement was made for the following afternoon. The tone of the dialogue did not sound friendly.

Liana had also called her friend the nurse, who had told her that there was only a small chance that George’s kidney was ruptured and that he should keep an eye on the blood in his urine and make sure it was getting better instead of getting worse. George had not felt reassured.

After making her two phone calls, Liana told George that she needed to go get the money and would bring it by his apartment the following morning.

“Where will you sleep tonight?” George had asked, immediately hating himself for raising that question, for sounding like he was coming on to her.

“Not in New Essex. Not with Donnie around. I’ll stay in a hotel. I’ll figure it out.”

“You could stay here. You could stay on the couch.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea. Donnie knows your name now, which means he knows where you live. In fact, he’s probably keeping an eye on this place already.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t leave here at all.”

“No, I’m fine. I’ve got Donnie all figured out. He’s just trying to frighten me into making a mistake, into showing him where the money is. His finder’s fee is probably a big chunk of the cash, and there’s no way he’s going to hurt me till he gets it. When I leave here I can lose him again, go get the money, then lay low till tomorrow. Is there a public place I can meet you tomorrow and hand over the money?”

George had suggested a grocery store on Commonwealth Avenue in Boston, and they’d agreed on a time.

“Is there any way I can reach you if I need to?” George asked.

“There isn’t. We’ll just have to trust each other. I’ll be at the store.”

“I’ll be there too.”

“If I’m not there, then just assume that for whatever reason I thought it was too dangerous. And if you’re not there, I’ll understand as well. It’s a lot to ask.”

But George, after another restless night and an aimless, jittery morning, had taken a long shower, shaved, and found something to wear that made him look like a midlevel executive on a casual Friday. He knew it wasn’t necessary to dress for his brief role as stolen-money deliverer, but if he was supposed to plead Liana’s case, he thought he ought to look presentable. He arrived at the upscale, overpriced grocery store early and wandered the aisles of organic gluten-free products, waiting for Liana. They’d neglected to figure out a specific meeting spot, so when the time came he went to the front of the store, where a number of small booths fronted the tall glass windows that looked out onto a small parking lot. Just as he took a seat he spotted Liana, dressed in the same skirt but a different shirt, casually weaving her way between the parked Priuses toward the entrance. George met her at the automatic doors.

“Come inside with me,” she said. She carried a small purse, plus a black gym bag.

“Everything okay?” George asked.

“Fine. I think. If anyone followed me here I didn’t notice, and I was looking pretty carefully. Let’s sit for a moment.”

They sat in one of the booths, and Liana put the gym bag on the laminated table separating them. George felt as though their every move was being scrutinized by everyone within shouting distance.

“There’s exactly four hundred and sixty-three thousand dollars in there. Ten thousand of it is on top of the bag wrapped in a newspaper. That’s for you to keep. Gerry knows he’s only getting four hundred and fifty-three, so don’t let him tell you otherwise. You know how to get there?”

“I do. I thought you’d wait to give me money when we met afterward.”

“It’s up to you, but I trust you.”

With one hand on the bag, George hesitated. It was a smaller bag than he’d imagined, but it felt solid, like it was filled with chopped wood instead of paper money. “Why don’t you hold on to it? I’d rather not have it in the car when I go to the man’s house. It’s technically his money.”

“That’s fine,” Liana said, pulling the bag toward her, unzipping it halfway, and pulling out a rolled copy of the
Herald.
George caught a glimpse of stacked green bills and quickly looked around to see if anyone was looking at them. Liana re-zipped the bag and pushed it back toward George.

“Thank you again,” she said. “This is a huge relief that you are doing this. I don’t think I could bear to see him again.”

“And you don’t think he’ll have the cops there ready to question me?” This thought had been preoccupying George since early morning.

“Not a chance. And if there are police there, then just tell them everything. I don’t need you to protect or help me any more than you are already doing. I really don’t think anything can go wrong. Just tell the truth and return the money. And if you feel okay about it, then please tell Gerry that I apologize. He won’t believe you, but I want him to hear it. In retrospect, I overreacted.”

She smiled, and George smiled back. Some of her calmness was rubbing off on George, who’d felt keyed up since morning. “I don’t think you overreacted. You’re definitely worth half a million dollars.”

“You’d think, right?”

Back in the car, George cranked the air conditioner and unbuttoned an extra button on his shirt. He wondered if he’d been foolish about leaving the ten thousand dollars with Liana. It would be so easy for her to take off with it, skip out on their planned rendezvous. But George somehow didn’t think so; in fact, he felt the opposite, that holding the money would give Liana an incentive to meet him later. He remembered how she said giving him the money was important to her, that she didn’t want to be in his debt.

The four-story brick apartment buildings of Boston slowly transformed into the leafy suburbia and single-family elegance of Newton. MacLean lived up the hill from Nonantum, one of the town’s thirteen villages. George took a right on Chestnut Street and wound past the sleepy lawns and faux-Tudor mansions till he found Twitchell. MacLean’s was the first gated property he came to. Pulling up to the speaker box, he could see a Georgian mansion squatting on a sloping lawn. George rolled down his window. Somewhere out of sight he could hear the sound of a lawn mower, and he could smell the sharp acidity of cut grass in the thick air.

A tinny female voice from the speaker asked, “Name, please?”

“George Foss.”

He waited a moment, and the ornate metal gates began to swing in. He took a deep chest-expanding breath, causing the dull ache in his side to erupt into a sharp twinge. The image of Donnie Jenks rose up in his mind like a shark fin cresting the surface of the sea. Would Donnie be at the house? It seemed possible.

He pulled up next to a landscaping van near the front entrance. He could now see the ride-on mower making a tight circle around a towering maple on the east side of the house. The presence of the gardener made him feel better. If either MacLean or Donnie was planning on burying him in the garden, they wouldn’t do it in front of witnesses, would they?

The mansion was brick and trimmed in white, with freshly painted black shutters and a black front door. Before George got a chance to ring the doorbell, the door swung inward soundlessly. A young woman greeted him. She was probably in her midtwenties, wore a tan cotton skirt and a dark blue polo shirt, and had her streaky blond hair tied severely back in a ponytail. George initially wondered if she was MacLean’s daughter, but her manner, even the way she opened the door, was the officious clipped style of the professional personal assistant. “Mr. Foss,” she said.

“That’s me.”

“Come in. He’s expecting you.”

George stepped inside. MacLean’s house, from the outside, seemed ostentatious, but it was nothing compared to the opulent interior. The foyer was easily twice the size of an Olympic swimming pool, an oblong of intricate molding and white marble. A twisting wooden staircase led to the second-floor balcony. Above the foyer hung a Chihuly sculpture, twisted tubes of multicolored glass, spreading out like an anemone under the sea. George had seen one like it at a casino in Vegas. The white walls were hung with other splashy pieces of art, abstracts in bright neon colors.

“Chihuly,” George said to the assistant and raised his eyes toward the sculpture. She looked up but didn’t seem impressed by his knowledge of the art world.

“Mr. MacLean will be right down. Wait in here.” She led him to a white doorway a couple of hundred yards of marble away. “Can I get you anything while you wait?”

“No thanks,” he said, and she peeled off silently on espadrilles.

George entered the room. It looked like a library, but it had no books. It was windowless and wood-paneled, with leather furniture and several upright globes, some of which looked genuinely antique. The room was in such a completely different style from the foyer that George actually turned back to make sure he hadn’t dreamt the previous space. It was unsettling, like walking through a Miami drug lord’s entryway to find yourself in Lord Wimsey’s secret den. Framed maps lined the wall, including one that was old and yellowed enough to have one of those sea monsters rearing out of the ocean. George was studying it when two men entered the room.

The first man was older and appeared to be MacLean. He was a fit-looking man in his sixties with thick white hair that had recently been given a buzz cut. He wore black pants and a tucked-in shirt in a red-check pattern. He was a little on the short side, and it was clear that he’d spent his life making up for it by working out. Even at his advanced age, his shoulders looked strong and his stomach was flat. There was nothing distinctive about the way he looked or the way he was dressed except for his belt buckle, which was impossible not to notice—a large glass oval, it held what looked to be a real black scorpion, mounted on yellow felt and framed in silver.

The other man was taller, about George’s height but about twice his girth. He was one of those men who, from the waist up, was only marginally overweight, but whose hips spread outward to almost twice George’s size. He wore a tent-size pair of khaki pants with a Pawtucket Sox shirt tucked into the elastic waist. His head mirrored his body—thick around the chin and cheeks, then narrowing toward the top. He had black hair parted on the side and wore a perfectly trimmed mustache.

“Money in the bag?” the older man said, jerking his head in the direction of George.

George nodded, held out the bag. The large man came forward, moving in an awkward waddling fashion, and took it from him, then handed it to the older man. “Pat him down, DJ,” MacLean said.

The man called DJ turned to George and mimicked stretching out his arms. “Do you mind?” he asked.

George told him he didn’t, then held out his arms. DJ quickly patted him along his sides, from his ankles to under his arms. Instead of bending at the waist to reach George’s ankles, he went slowly down on one knee, then slowly back up. One of his knees popped audibly, startling George. He wondered if the man was looking for a weapon or a wire. Probably both.

While George was patted down, MacLean placed the gym bag on a side table, unzipped it, and quickly riffled through the stacks of bills. He re-zipped the bag. George thought he heard him sigh.

“He’s clean,” DJ said to MacLean.

“All right. Thanks. You can leave us alone for a moment.”

“Do you want me to take the money?”

“That’s okay. I’ll deal with it.”

DJ left the room and pulled the door closed behind him.

MacLean took a couple of steps toward George, but it was clear that he wasn’t going to come all the way forward to shake his hand.

“You’re Jane’s friend,” he said.

“I am.”

“That’s a precarious position to be in,” he said, and one corner of his thin lips went up in a joyless smile. George felt like a tongue-tied child faced with an adult. MacLean sighed again. “Well, have a seat.”

George sat on one of the leather chairs. It creaked slightly as he settled in and gave off an acrid smell of floral cleaning product. MacLean sat on the end of a couch, perched very close to its edge, as though he had no intention of staying any longer than he needed to. He placed his hands, palms down, on his knees. His face was pinkish-red under his thatch of white hair, his eyes were slits, and his mouth was virtually lipless. Outside, George could hear the lawn mower shut off, then start again in a high, whining drone.

“I’m sorry, but what is your name again?” MacLean asked.

“It’s George Foss. I was briefly in college with Jane, many years ago.”

“Okay, George Foss. I’ll just assume that’s probably not your real name, but I won’t nitpick. I’ll also assume she’s been fucking the living daylights out of you or else you wouldn’t be here.”

“You can think what you want, but she’s an old college friend.”