False Allegations (27 page)

“What’s she read?”

“Total trash, man. You know, space aliens spotted in a parking lot in Miami, getting it on with a bull gator. TV Guide. Confession magazines.”

“No romance novels for that one, huh?”

“No romance
period
, brother. Joint
smelled
bad, I tell you.”

“You come away with anything?”

“Got you this,” the little man said, handing me a pair of keys.

“S
he was a nice girl. I never said otherwise. And I still wouldn’t today,” the man in the blue blazer said, sitting behind the little gray metal desks they give salesmen in high–volume car dealerships. The gleam from the showroom washed into his cubicle, merging with the overhead fluorescent lighting to give his fleshy, well–scrubbed face a rosy glow under his short–cropped haircut. “It was just one of those things that didn’t work out,” he said in a brisk salesman’s voice.

“Nothing…happened? Like a sudden event?”

“Nooo…” he said slowly, drawing the word out. “It was just that we were sort of…thrust together. You know. Same church, same social events. Our families knew one another slightly. We didn’t really have that much in common, but…”

“How long did you go together?”

“We dated for about a year. Maybe a little less. Then we got engaged. But we were just going through the motions— there was no spark, if you know what I mean.”

“But you did plan to get married…?”

“Plan? I’m not sure we had any real plan. Maybe that was the problem. We hadn’t really thought things through. After a while, I just…”

“Met somebody else?”

“Not really. I mean, not a special person or anything. I didn’t meet Melissa, my wife, until after me and Jennifer had broken up for a few months.”

“Is Melissa also in the church?”

“Of course,” he said, looking at me as though I asked if it was daylight outside. “I am part of the church, and the church is part of me. I wanted children, and— “

“Did Jennifer want children?” I interrupted.

“I guess so. I mean, we never really discussed it. Like I said, we never really
talked
about very much.”

“Did you like her? As a person, I mean?”

“Jennifer is…rigid, I guess you’d call it. I mean, she’s very nice. In every way, really. But she’s not what you’d call a fun–loving person. Me, I’m more lively. I have to be
doing
something, you know what I mean? I’m very active in the church. And I’m a great sportsman too. Especially football.”

“You follow the Giants?”

“The Jets,” he said solemnly. “They are truly Job’s team. And they will prevail. We must have faith. I have no use for fair–weather fans. The Jets were once mighty, but they have been suffering under a long period of adversity. I believe they are being tested. But we’re going to get a lottery pick this year for sure— the
top
pick, as a matter of fact. And with the free agent draft plus— “

“Yeah,” I said, cutting off the flow. “Would you say Jennifer was a religious person? When you knew her?”

“Religious? I guess so. I mean, she obeyed the tenets. She wasn’t…passionate about our religion, but…”

“What about her character in general?”

“I’m not sure what you mean, her character.”

“Was she an honest person?”

“Jennifer? She was one of the most honest people I ever met. She never lied, not about anything. It was one of the things I really liked about her. You know, the business I’m in, everybody has an image of it. The sleazy used car salesman. Like the crooked lawyer, right? Well, let me tell you something. In our church, lying is a great sin. One of the reasons I’m so successful is that church members would always prefer to deal with one of their own. But not because of what you might think. It’s not clannishness— it’s because Psalmists don’t lie. If you buy a car from Roger Stewart, you’re going to hear the truth about that car, new or used. And the word gets out. They tell their friends. I hope to have my own dealership some day. And when I do, it’ll be because people know my word is as good as gold.

“That’s the way we are. Any Psalmist who doesn’t hold truth to be sacred would be shunned. Everybody knows that. Jennifer? She was a simple person. I don’t mean stupid, just…straightforward. Nothing slick about her. Jennifer was a person who always told the truth.”

“A
h, she was always in a fucking daze,” the waitress told me, shaking her head hard enough to rattle her mop of carrot–color curls. “Couldn’t get an order straight, dropped trays. I don’t know why Mack hired her, I swear.”

“Mack, he’s the boss?”

“Boss? For here, I guess so. He’s just the goddamned cook, that’s all. But he gets to pick the girls, so I guess that makes him something. At least he thinks he is, anyway.”

“How long did she work here?”

“Coupla months, maybe. I’m not sure. You gonna order something to drink with that burger?”

“Yeah. Give me a beer.”

“What’s ‘a beer’? You want draft, bottle, what?”

“Whatever you got?”

“You ain’t particular, huh?”

“Not about beer.”

“Ah, I heard about you private eyes,” she said, twitching her hips a little, smiling to let me know she was just playing.

“How come she left?” I asked her when she came back with the beer.

“Left? She got canned, honey. Dumped out on her skinny ass. The customers here, they ain’t too choosy, you know what I mean? But they don’t go for screw–ups all the time. I mean, maybe they would if
I
was doing it,”— she grinned— “but I know how to talk to customers. Men, especially— that’s about all we get in here. Jenny, she didn’t know squat. Girl probably didn’t make five bucks a night in tips, even on a full shift.”

“You do much better than that yourself?”

“Me? Honey, any night I don’t go home with an extra fifty, I figure I’m losing it, you know what I mean? A joint like this, the guys like you to clown around a bit with them, you know what I mean? Jenny, she walked around like she had a sharp stick up her ass. Customer says something to her, she don’t even come back at him. Me, I know how to handle myself. I know how to keep them in line, and I know how to play them too. That’s part of the business…”

“Ever had any other trouble with her? Before she split?”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know…swiping tips from other tables, dipping in the register…”

“Jenny? She was one of those Christian freaks, you know what I mean? One time, she was about ten minutes late. Anyone else, they woulda just told Mack the bus was late or something. You know what she says? She says she didn’t get up on time, that’s all. Mack told her he’d have to dock her pay. Just kidding around. You know, get a rise outta her. She says, that’s okay— that’s only fair. A real space cadet, like I told you.”

“Thanks for your time,” I said.

“You gonna drink that beer?”

“No.”

“So why’d you order it, then?” flashing me another come–on smile.

“So I could leave you a bigger tip,” I said, tossing an extra twenty onto the greasy formica tabletop.

“S
he always paid the rent on time,” the stolid–looking middle–aged woman in the dull blue housedress told me, the chain on the door to her apartment still latched. “Every Saturday.”

“She paid in cash?”

“You a bill collector?”

“Private investigator,” I told her.

“What’d she do?”

“She didn’t do anything. I’m just checking background. She might be in for an inheritance.”

“Like in a will?”

“That’s right. But we want to make sure she’s the actual party.”

“Huh?”

“Well, it’s a common name, Jennifer Dalton. There could be more than one.”

“Well, she’s real thin. Scrawny, like. Never took care of herself. Real pasty–faced, like she never went out.”

“Did she?”

“What?”

“Go out?”

“I mind my own business,” the woman lied. “All I care about, they don’t have nobody over in their rooms, that’s all.”

“Did she ever get mail?”

“Utilities included in the rent,” the woman said. “And she didn’t have no phone in her room.”

“But…?” I asked, letting her see the fan of ten–dollar bills in my right hand.

“She got two, maybe three letters all the time she was here.”

“Personal letters?”

“How would I know that?”

“Were they window envelopes? Like you get from a company? Did they have stamps on them, or a postage meter? Were the envelopes colored or white? Regular size or— ?”

“Okay, I see what you mean now. They was little envelopes. And they wasn’t typed. You know, handwriting. With stamps.”

“Who were they from?”

“That wasn’t on the— “

I stood there waiting, holding the money.

“There wasn’t no name besides hers,” she said. “All I could see, they come from New York.”

“I
could get in trouble for this,” the black man with the shaved head said. “Real trouble, man.” His arms bulged from the short sleeves of his white cotton orderly’s shirt. A dull white patch of skin ran across his lower cheek. Knife scar.

“They’re just photocopies, right?,” I told him. “No big deal.”

“Fuck if it ain’t, man. They catch me doing it, I’m gone. His–tor–
ee
, Jack. Just like that.”

“Yeah. Well, it’s already done, true? You got them right there in your hand.”

“That’s right,” he said, neck muscles rigid. “And they ain’t going in
your
hand unless I see some green.”

“Five yards, like I said. I’m holding the coin— let me see the goods.”

He spread the paper out across the scarred wood table in the barbecue joint, glancing over his shoulder as he did. I didn’t touch the paper, just scanned it quickly with my eyes: the name and Social Security number matched against what I had. Date of birth too. Okay.

“Let’s do it,” I said, reaching into my pocket.

“Hold up, man,” he said, covering the paper with a large, thick hand. The nails were long, yellowish and horny, starting to hook. “Like I told you…this is hot stuff. Seems like there oughta be something more in it for me.”

“There isn’t,” I said flatly.

“A couple more yards won’t hurt you,” he said sullenly.

“It’s not in the budget.”

“Yeah, well fuck a whole bunch of that ‘budget’ shit. Man, that’s all I hear at the hospital: ‘Budget.’ I got me a budget too.”

“We had a deal,” I reminded him.

“Yeah, well, deals get changed.”

I held his eyes for a few seconds, the brown iris running into the yellowish white. The last time he’d been to prison, he probably got some strange ideas about white men— if I went a dime over what I’d agreed, he’d be thinking “fish,” and that wouldn’t do. “Maybe some other time,” I said, ice–polite, getting up.

“Wait up, man! Don’t be so cold.”

“Those papers are no good to you,” I said quietly, still standing. “They aren’t worth a dime. Fact is, I don’t take them off your hands, you got to burn them. I got five hundred dollars in my pocket. I’m gonna trade or fade, pal. Pick one.”

He held out his hand for the money, muttering something under his breath.

I
got what I paid for. The hospital had wanted to hold her after the emergency admission, but the “AMA” note at the bottom of the chart told the story. She had signed herself out Against Medical Advice. She hadn’t opened up to the social worker who’d interviewed her— not a single mention of the hair–pulling. And not a hint of Brother Jacob anywhere in the slim file of papers.

A psychiatric resident had written up the case after speaking to her, laying it out in the cold language shrinks use to label human beings.

DSM III–R DIAGNOSES (DISCHARGE)

AXIS I:

A) POST–TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER, 309.89

B) R/O DYSTHYMIA

C) R/O MAJOR DEPRESSION, RECURRENT, UNSPECIFIED

AXIS II:

A) HISTRIONIC PERSONALITY FEATURES

B) R/O BORDERLINE PERSONALITY DISORDER

AXIS III:

A) SUICIDE ATTEMPT

B) ASTHMA

AXIS IV:

SEVERE (JOBLESS, BROKE UP WITH FIANCÉ)

AXIS V:

GAF CURRENT = 55; PAST YEAR = 45–65

Back in my office, I used my own copy of the DSM— the
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
— to decode the shorthand. The suicide attempt was the “presenting problem.” The clinical picture was mostly guesses: “R/O” means “rule out”— a possibility they wanted to consider once they got her into treatment.