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Authors: Wallace Stroby

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BOOK: The Heartbreak Lounge
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“I don't know.”
“Then why don't you believe us?” Nikki said.
He looked at her.
“Did I say that I didn't?”
“You're acting like it.”
Harry held up a hand.
“Let's everyone relax here,” he said.
Simmons slid a sleeve back, looked at his watch.
“We've told you the situation as we know it to be,” Harry said. “Do whatever you think is best. That's all we can ask.”
Simmons looked at him, waiting for him to finish.
“But there are some key things to keep in mind,” Harry said. “John Harrow is a multiple felon.”
“I understand that.”
“Knowing him, Ms. Ellis is convinced he's going to try to find the boy. I think we have to trust her on that. Because she doesn't want that to happen, the boy's adoptive parents wouldn't want that to happen, and I'm sure
you
don't want that to happen.”
“Of course not.”
“So I think we owe it at least to those parents—and to the boy—to let them know what's going on, so that they can be aware of what the situation is, what the potential dangers are.”
Simmons reached over, took a pencil from Harper's desk, looked at it, tapped it lightly against the edge of the chair, looked finally at Harry.
“Let me think about this,” he said.
“That's fine,” Nikki said. “Only thing is, I get the impression you're the kind of man that thinks a lot and ends up doing nothing.”
Harper turned to her.
“Now, you just wait a minute, honey. Who do you think—”
Simmons reached over to touch her arm, calm her, looked at Nikki.
“I'm sorry for your situation, Ms. Ellis,” he said. “But maybe there are a few things I need to remind you of. When you gave your son up for adoption—which I'm sure was the correct decision—you renounced all rights to him, maternal or otherwise, as I'm sure you fully understood when you signed those—”
She stood up quickly and for an instant Harry thought she was going for him. Simmons reared back slightly.
“I'm sorry we wasted your time,” she said. She pulled her
jacket off the chair, slung it over an arm. “I guess I should have known better.”
She started to leave the cubicle and Harry reached up to touch her, stop her, but she brushed by him and out.
Simmons looked at him.
“She's upset,” Harry said.
“Obviously. But when people behave like that, it's difficult to have much sympathy for them.”
“It's not about her,” he said. “It's about the boy.”
He stood, zipped his jacket up.
“Call the number on the card,” he said. “Ask about me. Ask around about the agency. Then, when you're comfortable with that, all I ask is that you get on the phone to whatever regional office is closest to where the boy is now. Tell them what's going on.”
“Mr. Payne—”
“Rane.”
“I do my job as I see fit. I don't answer to you.”
“I know you don't,” he said. “But if anything happens to that boy, you will.”
When they were back on the road, he said, “Well, I think we can safely say that was a disaster.”
She didn't answer.
“I'm afraid you didn't help your case much.”
“I was trying to stay calm. It didn't work. Those people are idiots.”
“Just bureaucrats. Following rules.”
“Assholes.”
He faced her.
“I think the lesson you need to learn here is …” he said, and saw the tears.
“I'm sorry,” he said.
She took a tissue from her pocket, wiped her eyes quickly, put it away.
He turned the radio on low to an all-news station, the weatherman predicting below-normal temperatures, snow flurries into the night.
They were stopped at a light on Route 33 when she said, “Do you have children?”
“No.”
“Married?”
“Widowed.”
He looked up at the light, expecting the standard response, some variation of “I'm sorry.” Nothing.
He shifted into first, waited for the light.
“Then you don't know what it's like,” she said.
The light changed. He went through, shifted gears.
“Maybe not,” he said. “But there are certain cases—and back there was one of them—where a little diplomacy
wouldn't hurt. Might actually get you closer to what you wanted.”
“What am I supposed to do? Blow him to get him to do his job?”
“I'd like to think that, even though we left on bad terms, it doesn't mean they're not going to do anything. At the very least maybe they can put some sort of red flag on your file in the system, in case someone starts digging around.”
“Do you really think they'd do that? After that conversation, do you really think they'd care?”
“Maybe. There's one thing I don't think anyone asked—did Harrow know what agency you used?”
“I don't know. If so, it didn't come from me. It wouldn't be too difficult to find out, though. There aren't that many around.”
“Chances are slim, though.”
“I guess. He had other things on his mind at the time. He was in the middle of his trial when I went into the hospital.”
“And you've had no contact with him since?”
“Like I said, he wrote me for a while, from Belle Glade. I didn't write back. When I went to California, I didn't leave a forwarding address. I wanted to put everything behind me. So I guess if he wrote me after that, the letters would have been returned.”
“And that's what I don't get.”
“What?”
“Why you were together in the first place.”
“I was twenty when we met. I didn't know any better. At that age sometimes, you're looking for someone to come along, take you out of the situation you're in. Show you a different world.”
“That what he did?”
“That's what he promised.”
“What happened?”
“What always happens? He loved me, maybe. But he loved what he was doing even more. It was him against the world, you know? That was the way he saw things. You were
either with him or against him. ‘Part of the solution,' he used to say, ‘or part of the problem. Pick your side.'”
“And you did.”
“No. I just opted out. His going to prison, it was an opportunity for me to get away, get clear of all that. Some people offered to help me out, get me settled somewhere else.”
“So you went to California?”
She nodded.
“And what did you do there?”
“Lots of things.”
They were in Ocean Grove now, almost night, purple streaks in the west marking the end of day. He found the street, pulled up to the curb, engine running. The Blazer was still gone.
“Thank you,” she said. “For coming with me. I should have said that before.”
He looked at her, not sure how to respond.
“Can you come in for a minute?” she said. “I want to show you something.”
“Are your friends here?”
“No, no one. I won't keep you. It'll just take a minute.”
He shut the engine off. She got out of the car and he followed her up the walk to the house. They went into the warmth of the living room and he closed the door behind him.
“Wait here,” she said. “I'll be right down.”
She went into the hallway and he heard her footsteps on the stairs.
He looked around. The glass vase had been replaced by a ceramic one, filled now with yellow roses instead of carnations. The tiny hole in the couch had been temporarily patched with clear tape.
After a couple minutes, she came back down. She had a leather wallet, a small manila envelope with a clasp. She unsnapped the wallet, looked through it and slipped a Polaroid out of a plastic sleeve. She looked at it for a moment, then handed it to him.
“I wanted you to know,” she said.
It was a photo of a newborn baby, wrapped in a blanket. Pink skin, the tuft of hair on its skull matted and damp.
“They don't like you to do that,” she said. “Take a picture. They think it makes it harder to let go. But I did it anyway. A friend of mine snuck a camera in, took it right there in the hospital room.”
He looked at the picture, unsure what to say, handed it back.
“And does it?” he said.
“Does it what?”
“Make it harder.”
She looked at the photo again, carefully slipped it back into its sleeve.
“Nothing makes it easier. But I did what I had to do. I wanted the photo, though. I didn't want to be left with nothing at all. I didn't want to ever forget … .”
“What's in the envelope?”
She handed it to him. He undid the clasp, opened it. Inside was a color snapshot of a dark-haired man in his late twenties, leaning back against a bar, the flash of the camera reflected in the mirror behind it. He had his arms crossed, the hint of a smile on his face. His hair was long, tied in the back, and even with the poor color reproduction, Harry could tell his eyes were a dark blue.
“You take this?” he said.
“Yes. I don't know why I kept it. Maybe I knew it would come in handy someday.”
He turned the photo over.
New Year's '93
was written on the back in red ink.
He slid it back in the envelope.
“I'll need to keep this,” he said.
“Go ahead. I don't have any use for it anymore.”
He put the envelope in an inside jacket pocket.
“We'll shake some trees,” he said. “See what we can come up with, what we can find out. I'm meeting with Ray tomorrow.”
“And then?”
“And then we'll figure out what comes next.”
He was at the door when she said, “I'm sorry.”
He looked at her.
“About what?”
“Your wife.”
He nodded, watched her.
“Thanks,” he said and went out.
 
The flurries began on his way home, flecks of white swirling in his headlights. He stopped at a liquor store on Route 537, bought a bottle of red wine. By the time he got back to Colts Neck, the snow was sticking, the temperature dropping.
He stacked quartered logs in the fireplace, got a fire going, then went into the kitchen. He took a skillet out, found a plastic-wrapped package of ground beef in the refrigerator, sniffed it to see if it had gone bad. He set the skillet on the stove, turned the heat up. When the surface started to smoke faintly, he dropped the beef in, hissing, pushed it around with a plastic spatula until it was done.
He scraped the beef onto a plate, opened the wine, poured a glass. He ate standing at the counter, watching the snow swirl around the security light over the barn.
When he was done, he filled the glass again, took it into the living room, added more wood to the fire. He sat on the couch, put his boots up on the coffee table. Despite the fire, he could feel the cold settling on him, the ache in his left elbow growing. He got the remote, turned the TV on, channel-surfed randomly for five minutes, watching four seconds of a program here, ten seconds there. Finally he switched the TV off, watched the picture fade to a dot and then blackness. He listened to the wind.
 
The bottle was almost empty when he made the call. Glowing embers in the fireplace, the room cold again.
“Hello?”
“Ellen? It's Harry Rane.”
“Harry?” A pause. “Hang on. Cristina's upstairs. We were just getting ready to go out to dinner.”
He waited, heard footsteps, muffled voices, then the phone being picked up.
“Harry?”
Something pulled inside him at the sound of her voice.
“Yes.”
“What time is it out there? What are you doing?”
“Just sitting. And thinking it's like the song.”
“What song?”
“It's the coldest night of the year … and you're not even here.”
“What are you talking about? Are you drunk?”
“Maybe.”
“You don't know?”
“I've been working on it, but it's not coming very easily.”
Silence. Then: “Harry, I can't talk right now. We're on our way out.”
“Who?”
“What do you mean?”
“On your way out with who?”
“Ellen and I. Who did you think?”
“Never mind.”
“Don't start on this, Harry. Not now.”
“When are you coming back?”
“I don't know. Soon.”
“When is soon?”
“Harry, this isn't the time or place to have this conversation. Let me call you back.”
“When?”
“When I can talk. And you're sober.”
“I need you.”
A pause.
“This isn't fair, Harry.”
“No, it isn't.”
More silence. Regretting now that he'd called, feeling the whole thing falling apart.
“I have to go,” she said. “Ellen's waiting for me.”
“Call me.”
“I will.”
“I love you.”
Static on the line, the hiss of the wires.
“I love you, Harry. But you've got to give me time.”
“You said that to me once before. And I told you that you had all the time you needed, all the time in the world.”
“I remember that.”
“But I'm not sure if I can say that anymore.”
There was no answer except the hiss of the line, the distance.
“I have to go.”
“Then go,” he said and ended the call. The dial tone buzzed in his ear.
He put the phone facedown on the coffee table, looked at it, willing it to ring back. He poured the last of the wine, thought of the Percocet upstairs. After fifteen minutes, he picked up the phone, returned it to its base on the end table. It took him two tries to get it to stay.
He sank back on the couch, looked up at the ceiling. When he closed his eyes, he saw her face.
BOOK: The Heartbreak Lounge
12.03Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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