This Much Is True (42 page)

“What?” I’m confused by her question.

“Think about what I just said and that will tell you all you need to know.”

I stand there and helplessly watch her leave. Dancers suddenly rush from all around and surround Sasha Belmont in the middle of the stage. She shouts a few directives as they prepare for tonight’s elaborate performance intent on putting the contingency plans into action since their star ballerina won’t be performing. I watch the chaos come to order as two different groups of dancers begin to form lines and populate the edge of the massive stage. One of the dancers among them steps out and takes center stage. She’s a tall brunette, similar in height and build to Tally. She smiles wide as if she’s just unexpectedly won the Olympic gold.
I suppose she has.

I glance at my watch.
Nika will be back soon. I have to go.

My body moves toward the door while my mind stays with these dancers. Ballet. I should probably learn to understand it or block it out of my mind completely.

Where would you go if you wanted to start over?

Home.

* * *

My cell phone rings as I emerge onto the street just outside of the theater.

“You rang?” Kimberley says with a little laugh when I answer.

“I’ve got a problem. I just found Tally Landon three days ago; and now, I can’t find her.”

“Did the statute of limitations on Tally Landon finally run out for you, especially after the damn scene at your cousin’s wedding?” I wince at Kimberley’s sarcasm. “I can’t recall giving you the go-ahead on that one, but I can’t recall giving you the go-ahead on Nika Vostrikova either. Aren’t you in Moscow? How did the exhibition game go?”

“I pitched almost perfect. Look a lot of bad shit has gone down. I need your help. You’re the only one who can help me, besides your friend Sasha Belmont—”

“Sasha’s in Moscow?”

“Yes. Look, Kimberley, you have to help me. I need to find Tally. She may have gone back to San Fran. I have to find her. There are things I need to say, and I have to know if she’s all right.”

“Holy shit. Is this going where I think it’s going to go?”

“It’s between you and me. No one else. I have to talk to Tally and be honest for once about all of it. Before I tell Nika and end things with her. I mean I’ll do the right thing about the baby, but I can’t marry her. God. It’s a mess. You’re the only one I trust. Well, there’s Charlie but you know what I mean. I guess she might reach out to Marla. Can you check out her friend Marla Stone? She’s with Charlie. That might be the quickest way—”

You’re not making sense, Linc. Why would Tally leave Moscow when she’s on tour there?”

“She’s in trouble and I have to talk to her, tell her how I feel.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“She was assaulted by some guy here in Moscow. She was hurt pretty bad. He used a knife. He stabbed her and seriously injured her foot as well. They’re not sure if she was sexually assaulted for sure, but she’s got a concussion and had to have emergency surgery and have her foot put into a cast.
I signed for all of it, paid for all of it
. They think she’s
my wife
. There’s just a lot of shit going down, Kimberley. Trust me. She shouldn’t be alone. And now, no one will tell me where she’s gone. Sasha’s hinting that she went home back to San Francisco. I have to find her.”

“What? Your wife? You signed for her? She’s been hurt? Oh, my God, Linc. Is she okay? Linc?”

“No! We have to find her. Trust me. She shouldn’t be on her own.”

Now, I’m distracted because the one Russian detective I recognize looks serious and foreign; and he’s busy rolling out a pair of handcuffs. In the next thirty seconds, he starts reading me my rights in Russian.

“Hold on. The police are here.” My mind clicks. “She didn’t give her statement,” I say dully to Kimberley.

The harsh reality of the situation begins to close in on me. Markov’s words come back to me.”She needs to corroborate your story. They need her statement first thing in the morning. She needs to corroborate your story.”

But Tally didn’t do any of that, and the guy is dead. And she doesn’t know that because I didn’t tell her.

“She didn’t give her statement,” I say again.

“Who didn’t give a statement?” Kimberley screams into the phone now.

“Tally! And this isn’t America,” I say, parroting the doctor’s words from last night. “Christ, Kimberley, I’m being arrested. Shit, the guy, who attacked Tally,
died
last night. Tally didn’t give her statement. I was there. I’m the only eyewitness to what happened, besides Tally. She didn’t give her statement.”

The detective gives me this apologetic look as he starts to cuff my right hand.

“Holy shit! Okay, I’m on my way. I’ll call your coach, your lawyer, your agent. I’ll call them! Linc! Linc! Can you hear me? I get it. We’ll find her. We have to!”

One of the other detectives slides his finger across the cell phone screen and cuts off the connection to Kimberley.

I close my eyes for a moment in an attempt to get my balance back, but it never happens.

They shove me into the back of one of their police vehicles because apparently it takes four of them to arrest the American who plays baseball for the Los Angeles Angels.

By the time I get my first and only phone call to the States to Marla and Charlie, forty-eight hours have already passed; and everything I’ve worked for in baseball has already begun to implode.

And that’s just the beginning.

* * * *

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

Tally ~ Other side of the world

T
he bar is dimly lit and feels a little austere and shop-worn. The neon sign denoting the establishment’s name as Promissory Note seems a little behind the times much like its interior. The green velvet looks dated but all the liquor bottles sparkle indicating a recent feather dusting must have taken place. The sun’s rays filter through and reach the mirror behind the bar and reflect a little of the outside world, effectively beckoning the nuance and eclectic upper echelon of San Francisco’s Alamo Square to come on inside.

It’s been a little over a week and a half since the attack, but I still move slowly with the aid of crutches, and attempt to cover up the rising turmoil of what appears to be almost chronic pain at my mid-section at this point. I sidle up to one of the bar stools and slide my ID over to the waiting bartender before he even asks. Pulling my coat a little tighter around my aching frame, I tilt my head to one side, so he won’t have time to note the dark bruising on the right side of my face quite so much. The additional painkillers Sasha handed to me as an afterthought, just before I boarded the plane out of Moscow more than a week ago, have all but run out. It seemed to take forever to get back from Russia. It was a long fourteen-hour flight before I finally landed at San Francisco International airport, ten days ago. It only took a little time to find cheapest flight and book passage all the way back to the States; however, when you’re not feeling well and your entire life in all kinds of ways, including body and soul, has been violated and effectively torn apart; well, it seems to take for-
fucking
-ever.

Sheer will and terror and Sasha’s painkillers in equal, heavy doses—have kept me going. I slept through the last nine days and nights, surviving on sips of water from a cheap hotel glass located at my bedside and a box of Entenmann’s cookies. Because when the shit goes down, Entenmann’s can serve you in all kinds of ways, in my humble opinion. This is my first official day being up and about in San Francisco, instead of flat in bed, wishing all of me would die. Sasha’s extra spending cash helped me get by. I’ve got enough money to lie low for a little while, before I re-surface in San Fran or New York and ultimately figure out what I’m going to do.

But first, I wanted to see Cara. I had to see Cara. My child. I had to achieve some kind of closure, experience some kind of knowable solace with Cara, especially in light of the all but debilitating news that I may not be able to have any more children. And so, there’s the first problem I discovered just thirty minutes ago; Tremblay has moved out. Six months ago. Neighbors had no clue as the whereabouts of the newly-retired ballerina and her little girl. The people Tremblay leased her house to aren’t talking other than to say that she moved, and they got a great deal, and the lease is paid through December.
And who knows after that? No one does, apparently.

The bar,
Promissory Note,
is my last-ditch effort for information about Tremblay’s true whereabouts. Right now, it’s all I’ve got to go on. Tremblay used to talk about the
Promissory Note
. She used to order food-to-go from here all the time, usually after working late at the studio; she’d head here. She used to tell us little stories like that, every once in a while, probably out of pure loneliness. And these little bits and pieces of her private life that I somehow remember her telling us are about all that can help me now. I think, at one point, she may have been involved with the guy who works here. I think that guy is the one who studies my face right now as if he might know me.
The bartender.

I get a little nervous under his scrutiny. My attempt at being nondescript is failing. Then he shrugs and slowly smiles, revealing even white teeth and an easy smile. But he’s a guy and by that fact alone, I’m momentarily reminded of my Russian attacker from ten days before. Still, my newly perfected technique in taking in the air through clenched teeth seems to do the trick in warding off both pain and sudden nerves. It eventually calms me outwardly at least. Only the slightest tremble of my left hand reveals the inner turmoil of that horrible memory of Russia that I fear may become permanently branded in my psyche. If I could just have a few waking minutes of respite from remembering that horrible man’s face, I’d take it.

Mr. Bartender doesn’t seem to notice the hand tremor too much. I suppose I should thank God, but I don’t.

“What will it be?” he asks.

Apparently, my downcast state deserves sympathy. I smile ever so slightly.

“Stoli straight up with a lemon twist.”

“Hard core,” he says with admiration. “Especially for eleven in the morning.” He raises a quizzical eyebrow and studies me further.

“I’m still on Moscow time.”

He seems to appreciate my casual answer and slides my ID back to me and inadvertently touches my outstretched hand on the bar. My fingers twitch, clearly betraying my distressed mental state, but I force myself to keep smiling. I need information from this guy and the only way I’m going to get it is to build his trust and bide my time with my questions.

“And how were the Russians?”

“Most of them were good to me.”

He seems to appreciate my sarcasm. He laughs, pours the clear liquid in a highball glass, and then slides it over.

I think about my mother. Vodka. No smell, very little aftertaste. No wonder she stays with this regimen. My eyes start to sting.
Today, I miss my mother. My Dad. I need to call them. Soon.

I swipe at my tears with the back of my right hand and feign an interest in the local San Francisco morning program playing on the television located at the far end of the bar in an attempt to ward off the ever-present pain that still tears through me. The bartender eventually moves off, and I make a point of biding my time by doing continual eight-counts in my head and attempting to avoid any kind of deep thought beyond the general, all but persistent focus upon breathing.

It’s a long twenty minutes. After performing the subtle circus act of swallowing half a painkiller and drinking down most of the Stoli, my nerves are anesthetized enough to ask him a few direct questions. I’m intent and focused on getting the information that I came for. I signal the bartender’s way for another and mentally compose my carefully crafted questions in my head, while he casually pours me a fresh round and continues to study me rather intently.

“I’m looking for someone. She used to live close by. Allaire Tremblay. Do you know her?” I slide over my iPhone, which displays one of the only pictures I could find of her from a few years ago and watch for his initial reaction. He’s stoic while he glances through the pictures on my phone. Then he casually studies the pile of letters and photos I slide over his way to look at as well, while I watch him quietly shudder and take a deep breath.
He knows her.

The letters and photos stopped four months ago. I counted fourteen of them in all on the flight from Moscow. They’d stopped this summer. Four months after our subsequent visit and Marla’s wedding.

Did I pay any attention?
No.

Did I worry?
No.

Did I realize the power had somehow shifted back to Allaire Tremblay?
No.

Not until this very day.

Photos. Every one of them was of San Francisco. Every photograph was of Cara sitting on the front step of Allaire’s Victorian house at various seasons. There was one photograph of the
Promissory Note,
where little Cara sat at the little café table out front dangling her feet from the high chair.
Summer. The last one.

It had to mean something. It had to.

“Allaire? Sure. Nice lady. She left about six months ago with the baby and moved out of the city. She said she wanted something different, what with the kid.” His glance shifts away, so does his tense. Why?” He gets this guarded look, and then it morphs into disenchantment.

Apparently, he couldn’t live up to Allaire’s expectations either.

“Well, we lost touch after I went to Moscow. She was my dance teacher, actually, from years ago. She always talked about the food here, and I’ve never been here before.” I make a point of looking around and sweeping my arm around in appreciation of the bar.

Mr. Bartender grins wide, while I do my best to control the tremor in my hand.
Nerves. Pain. It all bursts forth.

“No, you haven’t. I would have remembered you.”

He slides the new glass over to me. There’s a generous amount of Stoli in there now. I’m not sure how I’m going to get all that down. I’m already feeling the effects from the first round. I haven’t eaten anything but Entenmann’s cookies in the last ten long days. My stomach growls as if on cue.

“I didn’t realize she had a baby.” I make my voice casual and force a tight little smile.

“Yeah, a little girl.
Cara.
She named her Cara. She’s really cute. A real good baby. Not much of a baby anymore. She’ll be three at the end of January, and she’s walking everywhere and talking up a storm.”

“Cara.” I sigh a little in just saying her name but attempt to stay focused on wringing out whatever information I can get from this guy. “Oakland, huh? So she found a job right away, I take it?”

“I didn’t say Oakland.” He gets this bemused look. “I don’t know. You know how it is.” He shrugs his wide shoulders. “You think you have it all worked out and then life happens, and nothing works out like it’s supposed to.”

He seems in need of my approval, so I nod slowly—because it hurts too much to do more than that—and he is so right about everything he’s just said.

“She wanted a life out of the city with her little girl. Something more…permanent.” He gets this grim face. “That’s as much as I know.”

So she left him, too.

Defeat settles in. I’m not going to find her. Allaire Tremblay has outsmarted me at every turn.
I got played.

He turns back to stack of wet glasses he’s been drying since I walked in a half-hour ago. I turn my attention to the television in an attempt to keep it together and to figure out my next move and absently wipe at the tears that manage to steal their way down my face occasionally.
I’ve lost everything. Everyone.

Anxious for a different answer, I flip through the stack of photos again looking for any clue, any sign. He comes back over and takes the
Promissory Note
photograph from the pile and reads what Allaire’s written across the back aloud:

Doubt thou the stars are fire;

Doubt that the sun doth move;

Doubt truth to be a liar;

But never doubt I love.

~ William Shakespeare

“She said you’d come by one day.” I watch him reach under the bar and pull out an ivory-colored, letter-sized envelope. Allaire’s handwriting is recognizable on the front, even as he holds it away from me, like I need to pass some kind of test first.

“What’s your name?”

“Tally. Or the more formal name is actually Talia Landon. Stage name is Talia Delacourt. One of those.”

“You’re Talia?” he asks, looking a little surprised.

I nod.

“Sam.” He extends his hand and I shake it. “Sam Wilde.”

He slides the envelope over to me. I slowly open it by sliding a fingernail beneath the flap.

My hands begin to shake because I can only guess as to why Tremblay has decided to fuck with me this way. There’s a folded piece of paper inside that matches the fine linen envelope it came in.
Allaire Tremblay
is engraved in gold-embossed script across the top. Now, I’m really afraid. The air in my lungs whooshes away, even before I completely get through reading what she’s written.

Talia,

She’s happy and doing fine. We both are. The thing is I don’t owe you anymore. You’ve made it. Cara’s happy and that’s all that matters to me. So, please consider us paid in full.

Allaire

“What’s a…promissory note?” My voice trembles more in enunciating every word. “What’s…it for, exactly?”

The bartender studies me for a long moment and sighs heavily. “It’s like an IOU. It’s an old-fashioned concept. It’s a note that a debtor keeps until something is paid off. A debt is paid. Why? What did she say?” I hand him the note and begin to shake uncontrollably. “You’re Cara’s mom?” he asks, incredulous.

All I can do is nod.

The tears come fast now. I can’t stop them.

It takes me a while to even begin to get it together. The lunch crowd starts rolling in. I’m still sitting at the bar attempting to compose myself enough so I can leave. Even Sam is in the act. He holds on to another letter-sized envelope with his right hand, and pats mine with the other. Sam is trying to help me get it together so I can actually leave his establishment and basically go back to my hotel and lie on the bed and sleep into forever; because now I really have lost everything.
Everyone.

Weary. Undone.
The noontime news demands my attention all at once because I’m staring at Lincoln Presley’s face up on the television screen.

“Turn it up!” I call to Sam.

The news anchor’s voice gets louder as Sam turns up the volume. “It’s been almost two weeks, since the arrest of all-star baseball pitcher, Lincoln Presley, who has been accused of murder, while he was in Moscow for the Los Angeles Angels exhibition game. According to the Moscow Police, Lincoln Presley is the primary suspect in the mysterious death of Nikolai Balanchine, a vagrant, who was suspected of brutally assaulting Talia Delacourt, a principal ballerina with the New York City Ballet’ s international tour. Delacourt had been staying in Moscow, Russia, as part of her reprisal of her lead starring role as the
Lilac Fairy
in
Sleeping Beauty
the very role that led to the young ballerina’s spectacular rise to fame two years ago. Balanchine later died from his injuries sustained sometime during the attack of Delacourt. The young ballerina star disappeared from a local Moscow hospital and appears to have left Russia without corroborating Presley’s story in which the famous baseball player claims to have only assisted the dancer after the brutal attack and, according to his statement, that he never touched Balanchine. According to the Moscow Police, Delacourt did not provide a statement as to what transpired with Balanchine and Lincoln Presley remains their primary suspect in Balanchine’s death. The FBI has requested that anyone with knowledge of Talia Delacourt’s whereabouts contact the department in relation to the Moscow Police’s ongoing investigation into this crime. Sources in Moscow tell us that Lincoln Presley will face a murder charge in connection with the death of Nikolai Balanchine within the next few days. We’ll have more on this breaking news story and the fate of the accused baseball star at our six o’clock evening news.”