Follow the Sharks (16 page)

Gloria, when we were married, had been a Catholic. I went to church with her sometimes, having no convictions in conflict. I liked the Latin obscurity of the old-fashioned Mass. I liked the Gregorian music. I liked Gloria’s God, too, and the mystical predictability of the rituals, the bells, the incense, the colorful garb of the priests, the ordered sequences of standing, sitting, and genuflecting. All, strangely, soothed my soul even as my mind rejected the mystery of transubstantiation that lay at the root of it.

Somewhere along the line the priests turned around to face the worshippers, and they translated the ritual into vulgar English. They put long-haired guitar players up on the altar. Gloria proclaimed it all a vast improvement, and couldn’t understand it when I stopped going with her. It was just one more of the issues between us.

But this place housed a stern Protestant God, a grouchy, judgmental, inflexible old curmudgeon who would tolerate no guitar music or other frivolous nonsense. I hoped, if He were home on that particular afternoon, He wouldn’t think too unkindly about the mission that brought me there.

I slid into the last pew on the left, as Annie had instructed. She wasn’t there. I was left alone with that awful God to tote up my considerable accumulation of sins while I waited. Someone had left a tattered paperback book on the seat. I picked it up and glanced at it. It was an anthology of Sherlock Holmes tales. Most appropriate for a lawyer playing at detective, I thought. I resolutely refrained from opening it, and instead held it on my lap where I should have been grasping the Book of Common Prayer.

It was five after three. I wondered how late she’d be, and if, when she arrived, we’d converse in hushed, reverent tones. I thought some more about Gloria, and the sense of sinfulness her eyes had conveyed but her mouth had never articulated when we had first discussed our divorce.

I wondered why Annie had chosen this place to meet.

I waited an hour. She never came, and when I slid out of the pew to leave I had to resist the impulse to genuflect—or at least nod—toward the altar. And it wasn’t until I got back to the office that I realized I had carried the little Conan Doyle volume with me. I shrugged and tucked it into the pocket of my sports jacket to bring home. It might be fun to reread those tales sometime. It wasn’t, I told myself, as if I had actually stolen the book.

I hoped the God who lived in the Old South Church agreed with me.

Sylvie and I broiled steaks on the hibachi on my balcony, and after we finished eating we sat out there, sipping the last of our bottle of Bolla Valpolicella and watching lightning dance across the harbor. We could see the storm roll toward us, and we remained outside to watch. I loved the power and fury of it. Sylvie clutched my hand and winced when the thunder rolled and crackled. When the rain came driving in at us, we carried our glasses inside and sat at the table by the big sliding doors to watch it some more.

Sylvie, who found thunderstorms less entrancing than I, picked up the copy of Sherlock Holmes stories I had left on the table and began thumbing through it.

I put on a tape. E. Power Biggs playing Bach’s F Major Toccata on the big Flentrop organ in the Busch-Reisinger Museum. The big chords were supposed to accompany the storm outside. I thought it would amuse Sylvie. All she did was frown and settle into the Holmes book.

When the phone rang, I thought it would be Annie. We needed to reschedule.

But it was Gloria. “The storm,” she said. “I thought of you, how you loved thunderstorms.”

“I know. You were scared. Are the boys all right?”

“I was
not
scared. That’s just your damn stereotyping. The boys are fine. Except Billy’s a little worried that his tuition payment is late. But that’s not why I called.”

“I bet.”

“It’s not.”

“Have I ever failed to come through?”

“No. I told him.”

“He called me at the office today to remind me. Tell him not to worry.”

“That was me who called.”

“Oh. You called me to remind me of Billy’s tuition at the office, then.”

“No. That’s just what I told Julie.”

“Aha. Perfectly clear.”

“Look, I—are you alone?”

“Of course I’m alone.” I wondered why I lied to her. “What’s the matter, Gloria?”

“Nothing,” she said. “We can’t all, and some of us don’t. That’s all there is to it.”

“Huh?”

“Gaiety. Song-and-dance. Here we go round the mulberry bush.”

“Oh, Jesus. Winnie-the-Pooh.”

“Remember how you used to read to the boys, Brady? When Joey was little, and Billy tried to pretend he was too old for Winnie the Pooh, but he’d sneak up close and sit by your feet when you were sprawled on Joey’s bed? And you had that funny melancholy voice for Eeyore that always made them laugh.”

“Bon-hommy,” I quoted. “French word, meaning bon-hommy. I’m not complaining, but There It Is.”

Gloria laughed once, then was silent. I glanced over at Sylvie. She was slouched in the kitchen chair, her feet up on the seat so that her skirt had slid off her legs and was bunched around her waist. She had the Sherlock Holmes book propped on her bare knees. She was studiously ignoring my telephone conversation.

“What’s the matter, Gloria?” I said again.

“I was wondering how Jan and Eddie are doing.”

“E.J. is still missing. It doesn’t look good.”

“Oh, God.”

“And Eddie took off again. Jan is—bearing up, I guess.”

“But what are they doing?”

“The FBI is working on it. I’m—there’s not much else to be done, I guess. Wait, hope.”

“Isn’t there something you can do?”

“Me?”

“Well, somebody.”

“No,” I said. “I don’t think so.” And when I said it I realized it was probably the truth.

Gloria was silent for a moment. Then she said, “Well, I was just thinking of you, and them, and I thought I’d call. The thunder and lightning and all.”

“Nice that you called.”

“We could have a drink sometime.”

“Sure. Sounds good. I’ll call you.”

“Okay. Call me.”

I hung up the phone and went back to the table to sit with Sylvie. She looked up at me, her finger marking her place in the book.

“Are you all right?”

“I’m all right.”

“Look at this.” She pushed the book across the table to me, holding it open to the table of contents. Twelve of Conan Doyle’s short stories were listed. One of the titles, “Silver Blaze,” had been underlined with a red pen. “You said you found this book?” she said.

“In a church. Yes.”

“There are markings in the story, too. Look.”

I opened the book to the page indicated in the contents, then began to thumb through it. Toward the end of it I found what Sylvie had referred to. I read the lines that had been underlined with the same red pen, glanced up at Sylvie, then reread them.

Inspector Gregory says to Holmes: ‘Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?’

‘To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.’

‘The dog did nothing in the night-time.’

‘That was the curious incident,’ remarked Sherlock Holmes.”

“It is funny, no?” said Sylvie.

“It is funny, yes,” I said, realizing for the first time that Annie had not stood me up at the church after all.

The sky beyond the windows was still dark when I awoke with a start. I sat up and flicked on the light beside my bed. Sylvie, lying on her side facing away from me, sighed in her sleep and wiggled her bottom against me. I picked up the Sherlock Holmes book from the bedside table and read again the underlined part.

The significant thing that Holmes had perceived was this: The dog didn’t bark. The thing that should have been present was absent, and that was Annie’s message to me. She had given me a list of names. An incomplete list. One name was missing from it. The name that should have been present, that would have completed the list, was absent from it.

Sylvie stirred, rolled over and kissed my shoulder. “Is something wrong?” she murmured.

“Yes,” I said. “Something is wrong.”

“I can make it better,” she said, nestling her body against me.

“There’s nothing you can do.”

She sat up and frowned at me through sleep-swollen eyes. “What is it?”

“It’s Eddie Donagan,” I said, hugging her against me. “I’m afraid something has happened to him.”

S
AM FARINA WAS PRACTICING
his stroke on the lambchop-shaped putting green beside his house. He glanced up when he heard me coming, mumbled something about stiff wrists, and bent over like a question mark to address the ball. In his baggy plaid Bermuda shorts he looked like an overweight flamingo. I sat on a lawn chair beside the green to watch him.

He had six balls lined up, and he stroked them methodically toward one of the holes about ten feet away. Two of them went in. He grunted. “I think I need to move it back toward my rear foot more,” he said. “Maybe close up my stance a little. I keep jerking them to the left. It’s driving me nuts.”

“Try keeping your elbows closer to your body,” I said. “Your arms should act more like a pendulum.”

“I know about the pendulum, for Christ’s sake. You can do better, huh?”

“Better than two out of six from ten feet. Damn right.”

He smiled. “You probably can. I got the yips these days.” He put down his putter and came over to sit beside me. “And it’s not just my putting.” He held his hands out in front of him and made them tremble.

I nodded. “E.J., huh?”

“Yes. And Jan. And Josie.”

“That’s why I came over. To bring you up to date.”

Sam reached down into the cooler beside his chair and handed me a can of Tuborg. He cracked one for himself and took a sip. “Good. Shoot.”

I told Sam about Annie and the list of names she had given to me. I told him about my visit with Stump Kelly. I told him about finding the paperback volume of Sherlock Holmes stories in the church. “It all points to Eddie,” I concluded.

Sam shook his head. “I don’t know. One of those guys used to come over once in a while. That Halley, the pitcher. He and Eddie were asshole buddies for a while, right after Eddie quit baseball. Seemed like a nice enough fella.” He took a long swig from his beer can, then set it down gently on the table. “I don’t know, Brady,” he repeated. “It all sounds pretty farfetched to me. What makes you think she was the one who left the book in the church, anyway?”

I shrugged. “Look. Even if she didn’t, even if the book has nothing to do with this, it still makes sense that Eddie is the answer. What else could that list of names mean?”

“It probably doesn’t mean anything.”

“Yeah, that’s what Stern says.” I lit a cigarette. “Sam, do you have any idea where Eddie might be?”

His smile was sad, and I noticed for the first time that he had grown puffy blue bags under his eyes since the last time I had seen him. “Eddie’s gone,” he said. “We haven’t seen him. The last time was the night you delivered the ransom money. Since then, not a word. He just can’t face up to grownup responsibilities. You know that. Okay. Good riddance. Fuck Eddie Donagan.”

“Every other time he took off he at least called. This time nothing. I think he’s in trouble, Sam. I think that’s Annie’s message.”

Sam gazed down along the side of his big nose. “Maybe she’s saying that Eddie did it. Maybe Eddie took E.J. That makes about as much sense.”

“I thought of that,” I said, nodding. “Either way, we’ve got to find him.”

Sam reached into the cooler and pulled out two more cans of beer. “Eddie Donagan,” he said slowly, “is a baby. He didn’t have the balls to make it in the major leagues, and he didn’t have the balls to stick around and take care of his wife and son. That doesn’t make him a criminal, though. You know that.”

“I agree. It doesn’t make sense. Which leaves us with the conclusion that he’s in danger.”

“Well, I don’t know how I can help. He’s got no family—except us. Nobody in the world he cares about. Far as I know, nobody who cares about him, either, except maybe E.J. and Jan, I guess. Josie’s bitter as hell at him. Figures he should of stuck around for Jan’s sake instead of running away again.”

“You’re sure Jan hasn’t heard anything?”

“Absolutely.”

“How is she doing?”

Sam lifted his bulky shoulders and let them sag. “How does a mother do whose little boy has been kidnapped and been gone for three weeks after the ransom has been paid off? She went on TV, like you told her, and now she’s gotten involved in some goddam group of broads who don’t shave their armpits, want to get laws passed so the government will help find runaway children. Which is okay, I guess, but it ain’t the point. E.J. didn’t run away. That FBI guy, what’s his name, Stern, has called her a couple of times, and each time Jan ends up crying. And there’s some crackpot who keeps calling, asking for Eddie. Keeps pushing. Where’s Eddie? You heard from Eddie? How can he get ahold of Eddie? He’s got something for Eddie, he says, something important, he can only give it to Eddie. Like that. I told Jan going on TV was a bad idea, Brady.”

I shrugged. “Maybe you’re right.”

“She goes into E.J.’s room every morning, as if she expected him to be there. Which, of course, he isn’t. Once a week, if you can believe it, she changes the sheets on his bed. How’s my little girl doing, you want to know? She’s driving herself nuts is how she’s doing.”

Sam took a long swig of beer and stared off into the distance. “And Josie and me, we aren’t doing a hell of a lot better, to tell you the truth. Brady, you can’t imagine what it’s like. It’s as if there was this cancer eating away at your belly, this constant burning ache down there to keep reminding you that there’s something terribly wrong, some horrible thing is going on. You forget about it sometimes, like when I was putting. But it’s always there. You wake up in the nighttime, and your mind doesn’t register it for a minute, and then you become aware of that pain in your gut and it reminds you that the boy is gone.”

He leaned over the table toward me. “Listen, Brady. I wanna tell you something, God forbid Jan or Josie should hear me say this, but this is what I believe. We’d be better off knowing that little E.J. was dead. I mean, you could deal with that. You could bury him, put flowers on his grave. You could cry and pray for his poor little soul and get on with things. Understand? This way, you feel he’s probably dead. You imagine the worst things. And gnawing at you is the thought—the possibility—that he’s alive. And that keeps the knife down there going, slicing and poking holes in your stomach.”