Ringer (18 page)

I felt I’d handled Skip well, and ordered another glass of champagne.

“Make it two.”

Purity Grant stepped from the sidewalk into the outdoor café, dressed as she was at the meeting with the merchandisers: pigtails, large sunglasses, white man’s oxford shirt open at the front, bikini top, thigh-high moccasin boots.

I stood.

She sat opposite me, moccasin boots crossed.

Surprised, I mistakenly spoke Spanish. Subtitles, please:

“This is an unexpected surprise, señorita.”

She replied in Spanish. “It was an unexpected surprise to fall outside the courtroom yesterday. It was my good fortune that you were there to keep me from injuring myself. I am grateful to you.”

I sank back into my seat, and the champagne arrived. The waiter did a double take of Purity, but made no awkward comment regarding her celebrity status. In East Brooklyn and almost anywhere else except maybe L.A., the waiters would have liquefied into euphoria and fawning. Proximity to notoriety has that effect on many people. Manhattan waiters are cut from less flimsy cloth.

I switched to English. “Your Spanish is quite good.”

“Six or seven years of high school does that to a person.”

“I am tempted to ask how you came to find me here. However, I fear that would be naive of me.” Dixie no doubt had her follow me from the hotel.

She raised her glass. “What shall we drink to?”

I tilted my glass at hers. “We have a quaint toast where I’m from: To old friends, new friends, and health of the chickens.”

That’s when a photographer stepped from the passing crowd. I only saw a hulking figure approach in my peripheral vision before flashes blinded me. I could hear the camera motor whizzing, and murmurs from people at tables nearby.

“Enough!” Purity shouted. The flashes and whizzing ceased.

I rubbed my eyes. By the time I could see again, the photographer had vanished into the pedestrian flow, and only a few passersby gawked at Purity.

“Sorry about that.” Purity shrugged and waved at the waiter to provide more champagne. “I’m not using you, ITWYT. Unlike what they say in the papers, I am not a monster CU next Tuesday. I asked Skip to find you for me, so I could say thanks for keeping me from smashing my head into the marble floor. This little photo op was Skip’s price for delivering you. NHNF, you’ll just be on the tabloid front page again tomorrow, is all. Spiffy toast. The part about the chickens. What’s your name? Marty?”

“Morty Martinez, of La Paz.” I had only heard Purity speak in court, which was mainly “yes” or “no.” Even though she had sought me out to deliver heartfelt thanks, her tone was flat and perched on the twig of sarcasm, ready to take flight into mockery at the first sign of danger. She seemed tense.

“Mexico or Bolivia?”

“Baja Sur, of course.”

“My stepfather, Robbie, has a villa in Cabo. You should come by sometime.”

“That would be an honor.” My vision was returning to normal, and my facial contortions easing. Could it be that Dixie did not arrange to have Purity visit me? Even though this child was inviting me to stay with them in Cabo? Or could it have been that Purity sitting before me was an absurd coincidence, and that Skip did arrange it? I could not be sure how this came to be. “Of course, if you are ever in La Paz, I would be humbled if you were to visit my hacienda overlooking the bay. If you have not been to La Paz, you will be much pleased. It is less touristy than Cabo.”

“What brings you to New York? You’re not a member of the press, are you? A professional Mexican court spectator or something?”

“I am here on behalf of my local parish. It is a sensitive matter, which I am not at liberty to discuss.” The waiter refilled our glasses.

“On a secret mission from the pope? Spiffy! Ironic that you should find yourself drinking champagne with the devil.”

“I see no irony in our sharing a glass of champagne. Besides, you are not the devil, believe me, I have seen him. Though you no doubt have your demons, just like the rest of us.”

“Thanks for letting me off the hook.”

“I hope that you have recovered from what ailed you and caused the fainting spell.”

“Just one of the demons—they come and go.” Purity took her sunglasses off and leaned in. Ah, what beautiful eyes she had, truly as green and blue as the Sea of Cortez. “What are your demons, Morty?”

“My love of women, of course.”

“Why of course?”

“I would think it would be obvious.”

“Just any woman?”

I laughed and sipped my champagne. “As with choosing food, one is selective when selecting the women that make up life’s meal. To dedicate yourself to ham alone is foolish. Yes?”

She put her sunglasses back on and smirked. “So you’re a womanizer.”

“No, that would be unfair to the women.”

“Unfair to women? How DYF?”

“I only select the women that interest me.” I laughed. “Do they not select me in return? I like certain women, they like certain men; if we like each other, the arrangement is completely mutual. A womanizer doesn’t care who he mates with or whether they wish to mate with him.”

“If you’re not a womanizer, what are you?” She finished another glass of champagne.

“What am I?” The waiter arrived with the champagne bottle and poured fresh glasses. “I am Morty Martinez, La Paz gentry, on a religious quest, in New York sharing a bottle of champagne with the charming Purity Grant on a summer day.”

She leaned back in her chair, arms folded. “So you’re not thinking about fucking me right now?”

I think her intent was to put me off balance with this remark.

I smiled wisely. “Like any man who sees you or any delectable woman, I have mated you, the instant I saw you, and for that instant only, like a spark that floats from a fire, an ember that flares briefly and dies. However, I must be brutally honest, Purity. Any thought of mating you in reality is no longer within me.”

“Really?” The smirk returned. “Be more brutally honest: Why?”

“When I caught you, when you fell and I held you in my arms, I knew this was not meant to be. I no longer see you as a woman, more as a child, and one does not violate the young. It is a terrible sin that will curse man the whole of his days. I have charmed women of your age, and they me, but their souls were … hm, how shall I say this?” I put a finger to my lips and looked to the heavens for inspiration.

“I’m looking forward to finding out.”

“Unobstructed?”

“So I have an obstructed soul?” Purity cocked her head. “Where do you get off headshrinking me? How the hell do you know anything about me except in the papers or when you’re whacking off to me in magazines with the embers glowing and all that bullshit?”

People at neighboring tables could not help but steal glances our way.

“It is how I feel.” Smiling, I shrugged. “Did you not ask me to be brutally honest? If there is one thing you must know, it is that I have nothing to hide, and no reason not to tell the truth. You certainly have feelings about who I am. Did you not assume I am a womanizer? Yet when you said so, I was not offended, because I cannot be offended by how someone may feel toward me, because that is their own business. I can only be offended by how someone acts toward me.”

“So what exactly does ‘obstructed’ mean?”

“In this context?”

“Yes, in this context.”

“It is difficult to describe, but let us put it this way: If you were
unobstructed,
you would not have been offended by my honesty.”

Her cheeks became rosy, but I could see the anger and resentment begin to drain back down into the depths of her heart. “Is it possible I’ve met the only honest person on the planet?”

“Purity, I live right at the surface of the ocean and frolic in its waves. The depths are dark and cold and full of sharks.” I laughed. “But enough of this. We are drinking champagne on a charming afternoon in New York. Would you care for something to eat? I have found it unwise to drink much wine on an empty belly. Waiter?”

“Maybe a salad. I forget to eat.”

“Salad? I think not.” I winked at her, then raised my finger to the waiter at my elbow. “
Garçon
? Two
fromage grillé, por favor
.”

Purity wrinkled her freckled nose.
“Grilled cheese?”
Her lips parted, and the whites of her teeth emerged. A melodious, cynical-free sound came from her mouth—laughter. “You’ve
got
to be kidding. I haven’t had a grilled cheese since I was…”

“Since you were a child?”

The laughter made Purity more graceful and relaxed. Perhaps it was the champagne. Perhaps it was resignation. Perhaps it was both. She laughed again, and it was better with practice.

“Yeah.” She smiled. “Since I was a child.”

CHAPTER

TWENTY-SIX

THE CAMERA IS BLINDED BY
sunlight as it pans down through a flock of pigeons and a large Amtrak sign that reads:
BALTIMORE
. From a Manhattan sidewalk café, we have been transported through the miracle of the editing process into bustling Penn Station, where we see Paco and his small red pack marching under the ornate skylights and exiting to the train platform, the crumpled Waffle House place mat in his hand.

In addition to the black leather jacket, he wore a Yankee baseball hat and half-tint sunglasses. Over the thrum of idling diesel trains, loudspeakers nasally trumpeted departures and arrivals, and more specifically:

“All aboard the Crescent to Wilmington, Philadelphia, Trenton, Newark, and New York City, track twelve. All aboard!”

As Paco moves down the platform, I suggest we split the screen, and not just once, but multiple times, because as he was boarding the Baltimore train for New York, his trail of destruction was beginning to be uncovered.

In one screen, we see the pawnshop clerk with the muttonchops, only he has a black eye. He is in his shop talking to a detective.

“It was a wetback. I told that to the cops who showed up that night.”

“Why did you open the partition?”

“The ski poles wouldn’t fit in the safety box. I ain’t prejudiced.”

“He came in at three in the morning to buy ski poles? In June?”

“He did. And when I opened it just a little bit, he pushed the partition open and socked me in the eye.”

“You have a carry permit, don’t you?”

“I didn’t have the gun on me. I was in the enclosure, didn’t need to have my sidearm, there’s a shotgun under the counter, fully loaded. It wasn’t in reach.”

“The list says he stole cash. Ten thousand dollars.”

“That’s right, ten thousand dollars, and be sure that’s on the report, ’cause I need that for the insurance.”

“He didn’t take anything else? No guns?”

“No, sir.”

Split screen of Paco passing a policeman on the train platform.

Next split-screen scene:

A hunter in a birder’s vest and a ball cap is jogging across an overgrown field. A dead rabbit swings from one hand, a shotgun from the other. The sound of a baying hound can be heard.

“Charlie?” the hunter shouts as he draws near the tobacco barns and bunker where Paco fought John. We see on the hunter’s vest a patch for
CANINE SEARCH AND RESCUE.

Out of breath, the hunter stops in front of the pile of construction debris. The dog is sniffing around the edge and baying.

“Charlie, you ratter. Leave them rats alone.”

The hound howls plaintively, scratching at the lumber. The hunter’s eyes narrow, and then widen. “Charlie, what’re you onto?”

Split screen of Paco hopping up the stairs into the Amtrak train.

Next screen:

A mother with a double stroller is parked at a bench outside the Culpville bus station, luggage at her side. As she struggles to calm two crying infants, her four-year-old boy pushes through the glass doors of the station yelling, “Raspberries!”

“Michael, please! The girls are in a state! Don’t yell!”

“Mommy, I want raspberries!”

“Michael, we don’t have any raspberries. Come sit down and I’ll give you a juice box.”

“Mommy, there’s raspberries syrup in there!”

The mother had managed to pacify the infants and turned to her son. “Well, we can’t afford to buy any.”

“Raspberries!” The boy turned and ran back into the station.

“Michael!” The mother chased him, and when she caught up to him inside the bus station he was standing before the rental lockers, pointing. The mother stopped in her tracks, eyes wide.

“Look, Mommy. Raspberries!”

From the hinge of a locker, bright red blood from John’s head seeped in a streak to the floor.

Split screen of Paco. We see him through the train window as he ducks into a window seat in front of us. The train lurches forward and begins to move out of the station.

Next split-screen scene:

We hear the sounds of a hospital, machines beeping, gurneys rattling. An aging doctor in a bow tie is standing in front of a white curtain, facing a police detective with a badge hanging from his top pocket.

“Detective, the hotel manager is still in a lot of pain, and only barely conscious.”

“Longer we wait, the less likely we catch the guy who did it.”

“I understand,” the doctor said, pulling back the curtain to reveal the bald, hairy man, the one from the motel in Richmond who chased the skinny black prostitute with the blond wig. Propped up in a hospital bed, he was encased in a cast, his neck in a high brace, and his head and jaw in the grip of surgical steel lattice. The detective stepped forward, doctor at his elbow. The tormentor’s bloodshot eyes looked sleepily up at them. Through a wired jaw he hissed, “Was a yeller-eyed Mexican that did this to me.”

With that, all our screens come back to one of Paco’s train leaving the station, the platform cop looking at his cell phone in the foreground.

CHAPTER

TWENTY-SEVEN

FROM A CLOSE-UP OF A
smoky crystal ball, the camera pulls back to find Helena, Abbie, and Tony seated around the séance table.

Abbie: “Remember, it’s thirty-five percent me, sixty-five percent you.”

Tony: “Then what’s my cut?”

Helena: “We each give him five.”