Pastime (7 page)

"It looks like they disappeared on purpose," Paul said.

We were walking Pearl along the river, past the lagoon, west of the Hatch

Shell. Some ducks were cruising the lagoon, and when Pearl spotted them she got lower and longer and sucked in her stomach and froze in a quivering point. Paul and I stopped and let her point for a moment.

"Yeah, but it doesn't have to mean that. They could simply have gotten in his car and driven off in full innocence. We'd have come up with same zero."

Pearl edged a step closer to the ducks. Her complete self was invested in them. I picked up a small rock and tossed it at them. They rose from the water and swept out toward the river. I said, "Bang," and Pearl broke the point and glanced at me for a moment and then forgot about it and proceeded on, her nose close to the ground, tracking the elusive candy wrapper.

"What about the fact that we can't find either of the two people who had anything useful to tell us?" Paul said.

"Not encouraging," I said.

"Do you think anything happened to them?"

"Probably not," I said. "Probably they were told to go away for a while and they did."

"Joe Broz?"

I shrugged.

"The son, whatsisname?"

"Gerry," I said. "No way to know yet."

"So now what do we do?" Paul said. "A tearful plea on the noon news?"

"Let's hold off a little on that," I said. "Let's go out to Lexington and collect your mother's mail."

"Can you do that?"

"You can," I said. "Just tell them your mother wanted you to pick it up for her. If some postal clerk is really zealous you can prove you're her son."

We finished Pearl's walk, in which she pointed a flock of pigeons, and tracked down the wrapper to a Zagnut Bar, and went back to my place and loaded her into the car and headed out to Lexington.

The postal clerk was the same woman with the teased pink hair that I'd talked with before, though she didn't seem to remember me.

"You talk to your mother's friend?" she said when Paul presented himself.

"No," he said.

"Oh. I figured when we couldn't give him the mail he got hold of you."

"No, my mother didn't mention it," Paul said.

"I hate regulations, too," the clerk said. "But they're there. You can't just hand the mail out to anyone who asks."

"Sure," Paul said. "It's a good rule."

"Yeah." She shrugged. "Well, some people get pretty mean about it, but I don't make the rules, you know?"

"I know, you did the right thing."

"But since you're her son, no problem."

Paul nodded encouragingly.

"We should tell him we've got the mail," I said to Paul.

He nodded. I looked at the clerk.

"You wouldn't know who he was, would you?"

"Gee, I have no idea," she said. "Sort of a short guy, lot of hair, combed up in front, like Elvis. Only he's real dark, like a dago or a Frenchman."

I looked at Paul. "Sounds like Uncle Nick," I said.

"Yeah, Nicky's really excitable."

"Well, I don't care if he's your uncle or not. He was mean as hell. He had some ID, he should have shown it to me."

"He's not really my uncle," Paul said. "Just an old friend of my mother's.

We call him Uncle Nick."

"Well, he's a mean one," the clerk said.

There were four or five people forming in line behind us at the single window. One of them said something about "social hour" to his line mate.

The clerk ignored them.

"We don't get paid enough to take abuse, you know what I'm saying."

"I hear you," Paul said with a straight face.

Behind us the line was shuffling and clearing its various throats. Paul glanced at his watch.

"Wow," he said. "It's late. I didn't realize. We better stop wasting this lady's time."

"Hey," the clerk said. "No problem. We're here every day, serving the public. You're not wasting my time."

Someone in the line said something about "my time."

"Well, thanks," Paul said. "I really appreciate it. We better just grab the mail and get rolling." He looked at his watch again and shook his head,

Where does the time go? The clerk nodded understandingly and strolled slowly back of the partition and was gone maybe two minutes and returned with a bundle of mail held together by large rubber bands. She handed it to

Paul. He smiled. I smiled. The clerk smiled. The rest of the line shuffled a little more and shifted its feet. We took the mail and left.

Pearl was sitting in the driver's seat, as she always was when left alone.

She insinuated herself into the backseat the minute she saw us coming, and was in perfect position to lap me behind the ear when I got in the car.

"Brilliant," I said to Paul. "Brilliantly charming, and no hint of eagerness. Masterful."

"I am, after all, a performer," Paul said. "I assume the guy that came asking was that short one we saw in Revere, the one with the huge fat pal, the ones with Vinnie Morris."

"I assume," I said. "Means Vinnie is getting nowhere too."

Paul had the mail in his lap. He handed it to me.

"I don't feel right reading her mail," he said. "What if there's letters there with stuff in them I don't want to see?"

"Love letters?"

"Yeah, explicit stuff. You know? `I'm still thinking about when I bleeped your bleep.' You want to read stuff like that about your mother?"

"Remember," I said, "I never had one."

"Yes, I forget that sometimes."

We were quiet for a while.

"Mothers are never only mothers," I said.

"I know," Paul said. "Christ, do I know. I've had ten years of psychotherapy. I know shit like that better than I want to. I still don't want to read about my mother boinking some jerk."

I nodded.

"I don't know why I should worry about reading it," Paul said. "She's probably been doing it since puberty."

I nodded again. I always thought people had the right to boink who they wanted, even a jerk, if they needed to. But that probably wasn't really

Paul's issue and shutting up never seemed to do much harm.

"I'll read the mail," I said.

Most of it could be dispensed with unread: catalogues, magazines, direct mail advertising. Paul took the batch and walked across the parking lot and dumped it in a trash barrel. The rest were bills, no boinking. The bills produced nothing much, except finally, the very last entry on her American

Express bill, a clothing store in Lenox. I turned to the individual receipts and located it. Tailored Lady, Lenox, Massachusetts, Lingerie. It was datedafter her mail had been put on hold. I handed it to Paul.

"Know anything about this?"

"No," he said. "All I know about Lenox is the Berkshires, Tanglewood. I don't think I've ever been there."

"That your mother's signature?" I said.

"Looks like her writing. I rarely see her signature. When I got money it was usually a check from my father. But it looks like her writing."

"So," I said. "She was probably in Lenox ten days ago.

"Should we go out there?"

"Yes," I said. "We should. But first Hawk and I want to speak with Gerry

Broz."

"About my mother?"

"Yeah."

"Both of you?"

"It's always nice to have backup when you talk with Gerry."

"For god's sake what is she mixed up in when even you need backup to talk to people about her?"

"Doesn't need to be awful," I said. "She probably doesn't even know Gerry."

"Well, it sounds awful and everything we learn about it makes it sound worse."

"We'll find out," I said. "In a while we'll know whatever there is to know."

"I'm getting scared," Paul said. "Scared for her."

"Sure you are," I said. "I would if I were you."

"I don't like being scared."

"Nobody does," I said.

"But everybody is," Paul said. "At one time or another," I said. "You?"

"Sure." "Hawk?" I paused. "I don't know," I said. "You never can be sure with Hawk."

"She likes to watch Catherine Crier," Susan said.

"Me too."

"More than Diane Sawyer?"

"Well, of course not," I said.

Susan had recently acquired one of those turbocharged Japanese sports cars, which she drove like a New York cabbie, flooring it between stoplights and talking trash to other motorists. We made the fifteen-minute drive from

Susan's place to Icarus Restaurant in about seven minutes. And gave the car to the valet kid and went in.

Icarus is very voguish and demure and the sight of Hawk waiting for us at a table was enough to cheer me for the evening. He looked like a moose at a gazelle convention. He stood when he saw Susan and she kissed him. There was a bottle of Krug in an ice bucket beside the table. When we sat, Hawk took it from the ice, wiped it with the towel, and poured champagne into

Susan's glass, then mine.

Susan raised her glass and said, "To us." We clinked and drank. The corners of Susan's eyes were crinkled with amusement.

"I can't tell you," she said, "how out of place you two look in here."

"Not our fault we big," Hawk said.

"Of course not," Susan said. "Have you seen pictures of Pearl?"

"Not yet," Hawk said.

Susan rummaged in her purse. Which was quite tricky, since the purse wasn't much bigger than a postcard. She was wearing a white suit with gold braid and epaulets, and she seemed, as she always did, to occupy the center of the room. Everything else seemed to group around her and be ordered by her, like a jar in Tennessee. When you were with Susan you could remain anonymous. No one would notice you.

Even Hawk was less apparent when he was with Susan.

Tonight he was all in black. Suit, shirt, tie. I was even more daring in a blue blazer, tan slacks, a white oxford button-down shirt, and a maroon tie with tiny white dots in it.

"You the world's oldest preppie," Hawk said to me. "You got on wing-tipped cordovans?"

"Like hell," I said and stuck my foot out so he could check the loafers.

"Note the stunning little kiltie, as well as the hint of a tassel."

"Probably got an argyle gun," Hawk said.

"In a chino holster," I said. "With a little belt in the back."

Susan found her folder of pictures of Pearl and put them on the table in front of Hawk. He looked at them silently as Susan provided commentary.

"There she is her first day with us," Susan said. "And there she is with her ball. There she is on the bed with himself."

Hawk looked at me. "A dog?" he said.

I shrugged. "I like dogs," I said.

Hawk nodded. "Sure you do. Known that long as I've known you."

We were silent for a moment, looking at the menu. The waiter appeared. We ordered. The waiter departed.

"How long have you known him?" Susan said to Hawk.

Hawk grinned. "You remember?" he said to me.

"Shouldn't smile like that," I said. "Spoils the monochromatic look."

"Whites of my eyes a problem there, too," Hawk said.

"Do you remember?" Susan said to me.

"Sure. We were fighting a prelim at the Arena."

"We on the card so early, the ushers still dusting off the seats," Hawk said.

"The Arena? That's not the Garden."

"No, the Boston Arena. These days it's a hockey rink. All cleaned up and presentable. Northeastern University owns it now."

"Did you fight each other in this preliminary bout?" Susan said.

"Yeah," I said.

"Well?" Susan said.

"Well what?" I said.

"Hawk?" Susan said.

Hawk looked at her and smiled and raised his eyebrows.

"What?" he said.

"Who won?" Susan said.

"I did," we both said simultaneously.

Susan stared at us for a moment and then smiled. "Of course you did," she said.

"Mostly white fighters in Boston in those days," Hawk said.

"Hawk was the great black hope," I said.

"Night me and Spenser fought, lotta people didn't like a black fighter on the card."

The first course arrived. The waiter put it down and then refreshed our champagne glasses.

"After, ah, one of us won the fight," Hawk said, "I got cleaned up and dressed and I'm coming out of the Arena and I run into a group of young white guys. They drunk. Lot of people go to the fights at the Arena are drunk. And one of them spoke loudly, and unkindly of… I believe the phrase was jigaboos. At which I took some offense."

"How many were there?" Susan said.

"Enough so they brave," Hawk said. "Six, maybe, eight. Anyway, ah expressed my resentment to the guy who had called me a jigaboo, and it caused him to spit out some of his front teeth. And so his friends jump in. Normally me against eight drunks is probably about even. But I'm a little winded from fighting your friend, and winning-"

"Losing," I said.

"And I'm beginning to give a little ground when Spenser comes out and sees the fight and jumps in on my side and their side calls him a nigger lover and Spenser throw him through a window."

"Open?" Susan said.

"No."

Susan winced.

"Who won?" Susan said. I knew she knew the answer, but she was kind enough to feed it to us.

"We did," Hawk and I said simultaneously.

Susan laughed. "I knew you would," she said. "Did you ever fight each other again?"

"No," I said.

The appetizers went away and the entree came, pork tenderloin with sour cherry sauce, and polenta. I was so pleased with it that I never even noticed what Hawk and Susan were eating.

"But you stayed in touch," Susan said.

"In a manner of speaking, Lollypop," Hawk said.

"We'd go shopping together," I said. "Take in some matinees, have a sundae at Bailey's, after."

"I feel that I am being made sport of," Susan said, "by a pair of sexist oinkers."

"You got that right," Hawk said.

"How did you stay in touch, Porkies?"

"Our work tended to bring us in contact," Hawk said. "First when we fighting, we'd be on the same card sometime, changing in the same back room in some gym."

"And later?" Susan said.

"Our professional lives continued to intersect," I said. "Still do."

"We both involved in the matter of, ah, crime," Hawk said.

"From varying perspectives," I said.

"You are each other's best friend," Susan said. "In some genuine sense you love each other. But you never show it, never speak of it. One would never know."

"You know," Hawk said.

"Only because I know you so well."

"We know," Hawk said.

"And nobody else much matters," Susan said.

Hawk smiled and didn't say anything. Susan looked at him then at me.

"Peas in a pod," she said.