Firetrap (24 page)

49. IF IT'S AN EMERGENCY, MAYBE I SHOULD GO WITH YOU

JAMIE ESTEVEZ
>

When I handed the phone to Trey and busied myself in the kitchen, he lowered his voice and walked over to the window that looked out over a scrap of downtown and the Olympic mountain range on the horizon.

Despite Trey's cautious tones, I could hear everything he said.

“Yeah,” he said. “We're working.” Pause. “The woman you met Saturday night.” Pause. “Yes, in the pink dress.” Pause. “Okay. A little. I don't know why—” Pause. “If you say so. Okay, she
is
pretty. Hell, she's gorgeous, smart, too. But this is strictly business.” If I'd had any inclination to leave the room, it vanished at that moment. “No. Not at all. She's just…I don't know. A little too aggressive. A little too perfect.” Pause. “A couple of hours more. No. I told you. We're working.” Pause. “Tonight? How about tomorrow?”

Without looking up from the counter, I could tell he'd turned from the window and was directing his gaze at me. “I can't dump all this in her lap. There are people waiting.” He turned back to the window, apparently thinking again that I couldn't hear him. “Well, yeah. She's in the other room. I don't know. Cleaning up the kitchen or something.” Pause. “Okay. See you in a few minutes.” If I'd had any doubts about Trey and the mayor's wife, this conversation erased them.

How quickly one's universe can flip-flop from hopeless to full of possibilities to hopeless again. I was gorgeous and smart, but I was too aggressive and too perfect. What does that mean—too perfect? And now he was going to leave me so he could make love to another woman. The worst part was I had to smile and pretend I hadn't heard every word and that I didn't know he was on his way to pour the coals to the mayor's wife.

A moment later Trey approached me in the kitchen and said, “I've got kind of an emergency.”

“Is it your brother? Is he in trouble again? Maybe I should come.”

“It's something else. I'm sorry. We'll have to catch up on this tomorrow.”

“If it's an emergency, maybe it would be helpful if I went with you?”

“It's not like that.”

“That wasn't your sister, Kendra, was it? I thought I recognized the voice.”

“It was an old friend. Well, I have to be going. ”

“You mind if I keep the Mylars so I can look them over?”

“Keep it all,” he said, opening the door. “I'll pick it up in the morning when I come to get you.” On top of everything else, he was so busy chasing his peter, he left my door open.

Alone, I tried to collect my thoughts, yet found myself unable to concentrate. I went to the window where Trey had taken his call and picked up my phone and dialed. Stone Carmichael answered on the third ring.

“I hope I'm not bothering you,” I said. “You're probably with your family.”

“We're at a Mariners game, actually. We decided at the last minute. We'll take them to school late, let them sleep in. What the heck. They're only kids once.”

“You're lucky your wife likes baseball. A lot of women don't.”

“Actually, she had a board meeting for one of her charities, so she's not with us. She's not a huge baseball fan anyway.”

“It sounds as if it worked out perfectly for everyone. The game just start?”

“At seven.”

Though I'd called Mayor Carmichael every evening as promised, I'd been keeping most of the salient information to myself, feeling I would be betraying the project and Trey Brown if I let the bulk of it out. On the other hand, it gave me a queasy feeling to be speaking to the mayor when I knew his wife was spending her nights with the same man I was spending my days with. Tonight I was on the verge of telling the mayor to go home and check on his wife. Maybe it was the eagerness with which Trey had rushed out that spun me out of control. Still, I didn't have any claim on Trey and had no right to feel wounded when he saw another woman. What a peculiar collection of feelings I was going through, I thought as I gave the mayor a quick rundown of what we'd been doing.

When Stone Carmichael spoke, the sounds of the baseball game loudspeakers and the stadium organ played in the background. “So let me get this straight. You're almost finished with the fire-ground interviews, and you're moving in two separate directions now. You want to pursue the department's handling of the building inspections, and Trey wants to—”

“Trey wants to go after the owners,” I blurted, realizing as soon as the words were out of my mouth I'd said too much, especially if the Carmichael or Overby family had any interest in the property, as Trey seemed to think.

“The owners?”

“Uh, yes.”

“I don't understand.”

“I don't really understand it either,” I lied. “Personally, I think he'll change his mind.” Now, on top of all the other sick sensations roiling around inside, I had to deal with my own treachery.

“Maybe I shouldn't tell you this, but somebody saw the two of you at headquarters, and you seemed to be having a disagreement. Actually, what they said was, you were fighting like a couple of roosters.”

“We…have had some vigorous discussions.”

I was so close to telling him Trey was at that moment breaking speed laws to get to his wife that it's a miracle I didn't. At least I hadn't told him about the photos of Renfrow outside the Z Club; at least I hadn't told him Trey was thinking this whole ownership thing might lead to the Carmichael family. I'd said too much, but at least I hadn't told him that. Given all the personal stuff going on between the two of them, perhaps Stone would forget about the ownership angle, or perhaps, and this was the best of all possible worlds, it would lead nowhere.

After we hung up, I tried to work for a few minutes and then gave up and lay down in front of
The Hustler,
watching television for longer than I should have. I'd never seen the film before and found it riveting. I especially liked the part where they broke Paul Newman's thumbs. Now if only somebody would break Trey's thumbs, I thought, feeling a spark of guilt for even letting my mind wander in that direction.

50. A DUMB IDEA EXECUTED BY A NAIVE YOUNG MAN

TREY, NINETEEN YEARS EARLIER
>

Even as I sit here in the waiting room, I'm beginning to think this is a bad idea. I'm on the eighteenth floor of the downtown bank building, everyone in suits, me in a pair of jeans and a sweater, having taken almost no clothing with me the night I left the island. I've been sleeping in coach's basement on the couch and storing my meager belongings in a cardboard box next to the broken-down freezer that coach keeps down there. It's three weeks into the school term, and whenever I need a parent or guardian to sign forms, coach signs. He's got two small kids and a pregnant wife, so my presence is an imposition, I know, but right now I don't have anywhere else to go.

A few people have been kind, and I'm beginning to think from the looks they throw around, they are not doing it because they are drawn to me as an individual but because I'm a black kid who's been dumped on by whites. At this point I'll take what I can get. Last year I was the premier high school running back in the state, and as such, was showered with newspaper attention and back slapping from the alumni, not to mention admiration from girls at school. It must have gone to my head, because I turned into a bit of an ass. I know that now and I'm trying to reform.

Coach knows the whole story and has repeatedly urged me to set up a meeting with my father to “set things straight.”

How I am going to set things straight is beyond me, but here I sit, running possible conversations and turns of phrase through my mind as if rehearsing for a play that has yet to be written. I know at his core my father is a good man, and I have faith in his doing the right thing eventually, my faith emboldened by the encouragement of coach and his wife. I trust that the truth will win out in the end, that my persistence will in itself be a persuasive argument for my innocence.

I grow nervous in the waiting room as visitors come and go, each seemingly more welcome than I. Perhaps I should have gone to my adoptive mother instead, but as sympathetic as she would be to my plight, Helen detests conflict, defers to her husband's judgment in most venues. Besides that, it would kill me to convince her and then wait on the sidelines while she failed to turn around the rest of the family.

I've always been a fast healer, and my physical wounds from the beating have mostly knitted up, though I still have some dental work to be completed. For whatever reasons, whether charitable or accidental, I remain covered on my father's insurance policy.

Almost an hour after my appointment time, a secretary conducts me down a long corridor to the doors of a large suite. I am guiltless, and I've been raised in a world where people are not punished for crimes they did not commit, so I have high hopes.

As we walk, Stone shows up behind us, scurrying along as if he has a train to catch, arms full of papers. He is chipper. I had been hoping not to run into him. It is almost a month after my disbarment from the family, and at first Stone seems to have forgotten it, or forgiven me. “Trey! What are you doing here?”

In his vest and dress trousers, Stone looks every bit the corporate lawyer, just as I look like some high school dolt who's taken the bus downtown after being excused from football practice, which is precisely the case. We stare at each other. Stone is grinning wildly. He dismisses the secretary with that curt nod he uses on subordinates, and I can tell she doesn't like him. Once we are alone, his tone changes. “What the hell are you doing here?” he asks.

“I came to see Father.”

“You came to try to talk your way out of this? Are you crazy, you little shit?”

“Get out of my way.”

“I'm not going to block you,” he says, although he
is
blocking me. “I just want to know what you're planning on saying.”

“That I didn't do it.”

“Jesus, you've got a pair of balls, little bro. You're lucky you're not in a cell. Why don't you leave well enough alone and get out of here before somebody calls the cops?”

“I have an appointment.”

“Then go right in,” he says, stepping away from the door. “I won't stand in the way of a man with an appointment.”

As soon as I open the door I realize I've been had, that my appointment was never okayed or even known by my father, that Stone must have intercepted the message and arranged this. It is a meeting room with a long table and maybe twenty-five high-backed leather chairs encircling it, all filled with dusty old men. I've interrupted some sort of meeting. At the head of the table sits Harlan.

I scan the room wildly, but my father is not here.

“What do you want?” Overby asks, his voice filled with loathing. Directly in front of me is a man I've always called Uncle Al. He's on several boards with my father and has been over to the house too many times to count. Over the years he has taken me sailing and to movies, and done many other things to make me feel special. He is married to a woman in a wheelchair and is childless. Of all the people in the room, I care most what Uncle Al thinks. He glances from me to Overby and back again.

“I…had an appointment to see my father.”

“Your father's not here.”

“Where is he?”

“Your father's probably some pimp down on Yesler Avenue.”

“My father is Shelby Carmichael. I had an appointment.”

“Shelby adopted you, but he's not your father. I told him it was a mistake when he did it, and I told him again after we found out what you did to my daughter.”

People are staring at me so hard I feel like a bug pinned to a display board. “Sir, as long as I'm here, I need to…say…to tell you I didn't do it. That's what I came for. To explain to my father—”

“You son of a bitch. My daughter's seeing a psychiatrist just so she can get to the point where she sleeps through the night.”

“I'm sorry about Echo, but—”

“Get the hell out of here. Get out, or I'll have my people give you another beating.”

My face is burning. I'm sweating. Uncle Al says, “Trey? Is any of this true?”

I turn and look into his sad blue eyes, and as I do I realize that no matter what I tell him now, after I leave, Overby will convince him that I'm a rapist.

Without replying, I push open the door, speed down the corridor, dash out of the building, and hustle down the sidewalks of Seattle, knowing I will never again try to contact my father or anyone else in the family. Standing at the bus stop, I weep silently. Pedestrians make wide arcs around me.

51. SUITCASES, A TAPE, AND SOME LAST WORDS

TREY
>

It was pretty much the estate I would have expected Stone to live in, or any of the Carmichaels for that matter, the kind of grand place I might own myself had I remained on good terms with the clan: a sprawling lawn and garden area in front of a circular drive, low walls of limestone, the garages discreetly out of view around back, visitor parking in a brick area in front of the house, the house itself a three-story Georgian with a wing off to the right that was larger than my entire house. I knew this neighborhood from my days on the University of Washington football team, because the head coach had lived a block away, the president of the university on the other side of the street.

Alongside the house and running down to an inlet of Lake Washington lay a long and perfectly manicured lawn, beyond the lawn a dock and boat, the boat easily worth more than anything I'd ever owned, including my house.

Directly in front of the house sat a white Land Rover, the rear hatch open, the back filled with boxes, luggage, and a painting wrapped in brown butcher paper.

The door to the house swung open before I could knock, India Carmichael wearing jeans, deck shoes, and a pink sweatshirt, her hair pulled into a loose ponytail, staring at me with those widely spaced blue Overby eyes. She seemed slightly breathless, as if she'd been working and just happened to be passing the front door when she spotted me through the window.

“Come in, Trey. Thanks for showing up on such short notice. I know this is inconvenient for you, but I think it's about the only chance I'll have to see you again. Sit down. Would you like something to drink?”

“No, thanks. You taking a trip?”

“You might put it that way.” I didn't sit down and neither did she, the two of us standing between the entranceway and a large sunken living room. Beyond her shoulder at the foot of the stairs were two suitcases, matching pieces to the luggage already stashed in the Land Rover.

“I want you to have this,” she said, handing me a tiny black object. “Do you know what it is?”

“It's from a phone answering machine. I have one just like it. I don't take the tape out very often, but I know what it is. What's on it?”

“You'll know when you hear it. Do whatever you think is best with it. Just don't lose it.”

“I won't.”

“By the way, Echo called me after your visit.”

“I want to thank you for setting that up.”

“Nonsense. I didn't set anything up. I just knew she was hurting and probably needed to talk to you. That night has been preying on her mind for a long time, and she needed to deal with it. I hope she explained adequately and that you can see it from her point of view.”

“I understand she was fifteen and hurt and confused, but it doesn't make what happened to me any easier to stomach.”

“No. I guess it wouldn't. She's…been a different person since that night. I didn't realize it until lately. We were close growing up, but after that night we grew more and more distant. I always attributed it to the normal changes that occur with growing up, but it was all about that night.”

“She wouldn't tell me who did it.”

“She didn't tell me, either. But she told me enough that I was able to figure it out for myself later. This morning I called her and she confirmed my suspicions.”

“She was protecting you, wasn't she?”

“She told me when she was fifteen she thought she was in love with Stone and that she tried in her own blundering fashion to take him away from me. They were outside the cottage spying on us that night, Echo and Stone.”

“I guessed something like that.”

“All these years, and Stone's never said a word to me. After we left, they went into the cottage and she tried to comfort Stone. She may have kissed him. He was angry and drunk.”

“And that's when he raped her, wasn't it?”

“Yes.”

“It was always in the back of my mind, but like you, I couldn't believe it.”

“I suppose he was trying to get even with me, but the fact remains that he raped my sister.”

“Do you know that for a fact?”

“He said they had sex when I confronted him about it. She's always called it rape. I'm inclined to believe her.”

“And now you're moving out?”

“Yes. We had the fight to end all fights. Not knowing the kind of man your husband is after all these years is a little off-putting. In fact, it's damned embarrassing to admit.”

“I hope my showing up didn't—”

“It has little enough to do with you, other than the fact that he's been blaming his crime on you all these years.”

“Why would Echo blame me, though?”

“She was still half in love with Stone, confused and vulnerable, which made it easy for him to manipulate her and put words in her mouth. She felt guilty for trying to break us up and even guiltier for the outcome, felt like the whole thing was her fault, and she wanted to protect Stone.”

“She could have told the truth later.”

“I guess it was just too hard for her to admit she'd lied. She somehow convinced herself that the consequences to you weren't all that bad, considering what she was accusing you of. What she lost sight of was that you were innocent and didn't deserve any consequences at all. She didn't say this, and I'm not really sure if I should either, because it's pure speculation, but…well, our father has always had some racist attitudes. He made it pretty clear to us when we were growing up that he disapproved of your being part of the Carmichael family, and I wonder if hearing that so often didn't make it easier for Echo to justify your banishment. Echo did tell me she's going to call Kendra and your father to make sure they finally hear the truth from her.”

“So what about you and Stone?”

“Like I said, I'm leaving him. Stone and I have been heading downhill for the last five or six years anyway. Plus there's what I heard on that tape I gave you. This way at least the decision is made for me, so I won't have to be continually looking back and wondering if I did the right thing. I'm moving to Maryland. My mother's back there. She was diagnosed with cervical cancer last year, and for a long time I've been feeling we should be closer to her.” In a contemplative mood, she traced a red fingernail around the edges of the badge on my foul-weather coat. “I could have guessed this for you.”

“Could have guessed what?”

“Putting out fires. Rescuing people.”

“Yeah. It suits me.”

“Well, I've got work to do. I want to be out of here when he gets back. I'm going to pick up the boys at school in the morning. Stone will be downtown, so that'll keep the histrionics to a minimum.”

She stepped out onto the porch with me and put a hand on either of my shoulders. India was close to six feet tall, and we fit together with the ease of two people who'd been fitting together for years. She stepped close and kissed me lightly on the lips, her face lingering a few inches from mine, and for a few moments I think we were both back reliving that summer. “I'm sorry about what happened, and I'm sorry I didn't have the brains or the guts to figure out what was going on and step in.”

“It wasn't your fault.”

“I feel like it was.”

“Good-bye, India.”

“Good-bye, Trey.”

As partings between onetime lovers go, ours had been oddly bloodless.