Snake Eater (12 page)

“It’s Brady,” I said.

“Oh, hi. What’s up?”

“Well, for one thing, neither Brian nor Roscoe ever heard of any of those names. For another, Al Coleman, the guy I sent Daniel’s book to, was murdered in New York City and the manuscript is nowhere to be found. Otherwise, nothing’s up.”

“Murdered? The agent?”

“Yes. Mugged is the verdict. A small statistic. Stabbed to death in a subway station.”

“You think…?”

“Quite a coincidence, I think.”

“Him and Daniel, you mean.”

“Yes.”

“Oh, boy.”

“Anyway,” I said, “I just wanted to let you know. I guess I was hoping maybe you’d thought about those names.”

“I thought about them, but I’m coming up blank,” she said. “So now what do we do?”

“Maybe I’ll try to look up one of these people, see what they’ve got to say.”

“Is that a good idea?”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know. Can’t do any harm, I guess. The book, though,” she said. “I feel bad about that.”

“Me, too.”

“I’ve been thinking about it. Now that Daniel’s gone, maybe we could get it published with his real name on it.”

“I’d like to do that,” I said. “I’d like to read it.”

“It’s missing, though, huh?”

“Al Coleman’s wife is trying to find it. But Daniel must have had another copy.”

“I can look around.” She hesitated.

“He… what did you say? He got mugged?”

“Yes. Knifed in a subway station.”

“Jesus,” said Cammie softly. “What a world.”

W
E LINGERED OVER COFFEE
while Melissa told us tales of the fifth grade. At recess a boy named David had snatched her Red Sox cap off her head and thrown it up into a playground tree. Another boy, “Old Ross,” had shinnied up to retrieve it for her.

“I think David likes me more than Old Ross,” she said, looking from Terri to me for affirmation.

“They both like you,” said Terri.

“Old David likes you more,” I said.

“He’s a wicked tease,” said Melissa.

“That’s how you can tell.”

“Which one do you like?” said Terri.

“Oh, Mom. You know.”

“Last week it was Kevin.”

“Well, it still is. I’m not
fickle
, you know.”

Terri darted a glance at me. A
meaningful
glance, although its precise meaning was lost on me.

Melissa abruptly fell asleep in the backseat on the way home from the restaurant to Terri’s apartment in Acton.

I carried her up and laid her on her bed. Terri touched the back of my neck, smiled, and mouthed the words “thank you,” then bent to undress her. I retreated into the living room. I flicked on Terri’s television, but as usual her reception was poor. I turned it off and found some classical music on her radio.

Terri came out in a few minutes. “Drink?”

“Sure. Thanks.”

She disappeared into the kitchen. I slouched on her lumpy sofa. I heard her rap the ice-cube tray against the counter. She came back with two short glasses filled with ice and bourbon. She slumped beside me and handed one of the glasses to me.

I held it to her. “Cheers, then.”

She touched my glass with hers. “Sure. Cheers.”

We sipped. We sat not quite touching. It was Mendelssohn. The
Italian
Symphony. Lush. Romantic. I hummed the theme. Terri poked at the ice cubes in her drink with her forefinger.

“Out with it, woman,” I said.

She turned to face me. “Out with what?”

“Whatever it is that Melissa’s presence has allowed you to avoid saying to me all evening. That’s been on your mind for a month.”

She shrugged. “Who said anything’s on my mind?”

“Well?”

She nodded. “If I could put it into words I would.”

“Don’t worry about being articulate. Please try.”

She shrugged. “Aw, Brady…”

“The thrill is gone, huh?”

She put her hand on my leg. “No,” she said. “If the thrill was gone it would be easy. The thrill is still there, and it’s been a long thrilling time now, and…” Her hand fell away. She shook her head.

“Scary, huh?”

“Not exactly scary. It’s… uncomfortable for me. It almost hurts. It doesn’t fit into my life. It warps everything. It rubs against edges of myself that I didn’t know I had.”

“Don’t you go using that L word on me,” I said.

She frowned at me. I smiled, to let her know I was attempting levity. There were times when levity was uncalled for. I usually managed to find those times.

“Damn you,” she whispered.

I touched her hair. “Hey,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

She tilted her head away from my hand. “Don’t,” she said.

“Try to tell me about it.”

“I can’t,” she said. “It’s me, not you.”

“The old S word, then.”

“Sex? Hardly.”

“Space,” I said.

She shrugged and nodded. “It’s not much of a life,” she said, laying her head back on the sofa and addressing the ceiling, “but it’s mine, and it works, and it’s the only one I know.”

“And I’ve screwed it up.”

“No, you haven’t. Not yet. And I don’t want you to. It just seems inevitable that sooner or later it’s got to—I don’t know, change, evolve into something else. Something not as good.”

“It doesn’t have to change.”

“Sure,” she said. “You’d be happy just to go on and on this way, seeing each other a couple of times a week, sleeping together on the weekend, otherwise just going our own separate ways. And what happens? Where does it go? Nothing stays the same, Brady.”

“You’re not alluding to the M word, are you?”

“Oh, Christ,” she muttered. She laughed quietly. “Look,” she said, turning to face me. “If we end it right now, it will always be what it is. It’ll always be a thrill. I know you. You’ll never get married again. And don’t worry, because I don’t think I ever will, either. I mean, neither of us has the guts to utter the dreaded L word, never mind the forbidden M word. The way I see it, we’ve got two choices. We can just bumble along until we get sick of each other and start to despise each other, or we can keep it the way it is by not letting it go anywhere else.”

I rolled my eyes. “Makes perfect sense.”

“I’m serious. And you don’t need to be sarcastic.”

I shook my head. “Dames,” I said.

She smiled and crept her hand onto the inside of my thigh. She touched my neck, then leaned toward me. The kiss itself was soft and tentative. But Terri’s hand moved certainly. “Still a thrill, huh?” she mumbled, her mouth on my throat.

Her fingers went to my belt buckle. I moved to help her, but she pushed my hands aside. “Let me,” she said.

We lay together on the sofa long after the
Italian
Symphony ended, Terri’s head on my shoulder, our legs entwined.

“We can remember it this way,” she whispered.

“I’ll miss you.”

“Me, too.”

“Seems kinda dumb,” I said.

“Listen to your head.”

“This is all about Daniel, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know, Brady. All I can tell you is, it’s about me. Please don’t try to make me explain it.”

“You are one complicated broad.”

“We all are,” she said.

I shuffled through the six photos and two index cards and picked one of the cards. The name on it was William Johnson. It sounded like an alias. He lived at a Summer Street address in Springfield. I dialed information and asked for his phone number.

“I have no William Johnson at that address, sir,” said the operator.

“Maybe he has an unlisted number.”

“No, sir. Not at that address.”

She ended up giving me seven William Johnsons who had phones in Springfield. Between no answers, busy signals, and answering machines, it took me the rest of Monday and most of Monday evening to connect with all seven of them. None of them would admit he had ever lived on Summer Street or heard of Daniel McCloud. Two of them said that Summer Street was in a part of town they wouldn’t be caught dead in.

One of those seven William Johnsons, I figured, was lying. But I had no idea which one, and I didn’t know how to pursue it.

The names Daniel had written on the index cards were:

William Johnson

287 Summer St.

Springfield, Mass.

Carmine Repucci

66 Farrow Dr.

Chicopee, Mass.

Chicopee is more or less a suburb of Springfield. The fact that the two index cards carried addresses so close to each other seemed as if it must be significant.

The six photographs, which showed ordinary-looking men of indeterminate middle age, bore this information on the backs:

Boris Kekko

11 Broad St.

Amherst, Mass.

James Whitlaw

422 Hillside Ave.

Pawtucket, R.I.

Mitchell Evans

9 Windsor Dr.

Saratoga Springs, N.Y.

Michael DiSimione

1146 W Central St.

Providence, R.I.

Bertram Wanzer

2 Hubbard St.

Holyoke, Mass.

Jean Beaulieu

245 River Dr.

Manchester, N.H.

On Tuesday morning I delivered a cup of coffee to Julie and told her to hold my calls until further notice.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she said. “Further notice?”

“I’ve got to make some phone calls. I don’t know how long it’ll take. Maybe an hour. Maybe the rest of the morning.

“Trying to scare up a date for the weekend, huh?”

“That’s not really funny.”

She arched her eyebrows. “Are we having girl problems?”

I smiled, shrugged, and said, “We’ll survive.”

She narrowed her eyes. Trying to decide whether to tease me or offer sympathy, I guessed. “You’ll grow up,” she said, which wasn’t exactly teasing but certainly wasn’t the least bit sympathetic.

“Let’s hope not,” I said. I pivoted around and strode to my office. At the door I said, “Until further notice. Remember.”

“Poor baby,” she said. Teasing, I decided.

I spread the six photos and two index cards over my desk, studied the photos for a few minutes, then turned them over. I observed again that the names and addresses on their backs did not appear to have been written in Daniel’s hand, while those on the two index cards did.

I lit a cigarette and reached for the phone.

There was no listing for Carmine Repucci. So much for the two guys on the index cards.

The information operator found no Kekko with a telephone in Amherst.

There were several Whitlaws in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, two named James. One lived at 422 Hillside Avenue.

A woman answered the phone with a cheery “Hello?”

“I’d like to speak to James Whitlaw, please,” I said.

“I’m sorry.” The cheeriness in her voice had disappeared.

“He’s not in?”

“Who is this?”

“My name is Brady Coyne. I’m an attorney, and—”

“Please,” she said.

“Pardon me?”

“Mr. Coyne, what is it?”

“I just need to speak to Mr. Whitlaw. I think he has some information for me.”

She sighed. “You can’t speak to my husband.”

“But—”

“Somebody’s either playing a dirty trick on both of us, or else you’ve been misinformed. James died eight years ago.”

“Oh” was all I could think of to say.

“What did you really want, Mr. Coyne?”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m embarrassed.”

“Can I help you?”

“I don’t know. Does the name Daniel McCloud mean anything to you?”

She hesitated, then said, “No. I don’t think so.”

“A friend of your… of Mr. Whitlaw?”

“Could be. I don’t know. I don’t know anybody named Daniel McCloud.”

“Can I ask you a question?”

She sighed. “I guess so.”

“How did your husband die?”

“He drove his car into a bridge abutment. It exploded. They said he was drunk.”

“Oh, gee…”

“It was a long time ago, Mr. Coyne.”

“Would you mind if I ran a few other names by you?”

“What kind of names?”

“Just to see if you recognize any of them. People your husband might’ve known or mentioned to you.”

“I suppose so.”

I read the other seven names and, as an afterthought, added Al Coleman.

“No,” she said. “Uh. They don’t ring any bells.”

“Well, then, I’m sorry to bother you,” I said. “Thank you for your time.”

“It’s okay.”

There were half a dozen phone listings for Evans in Saratoga Springs. None lived on Windsor Drive or had the first name of Mitchell.

An entire DiSimione clan lived in Providence, but none lived at 1146 West Central. I jotted down the numbers of the five Michaels, thinking I’d try them later if nothing better turned up.

A man’s voice answered Bertram Wanzer’s phone in Holyoke. Bingo, I thought. Finally.

“Is this Bertram Wanzer?” I said.

“This is Robert.”

“Is Bertram there?”

“No,” he said, “the bastard is not here.”

“Could I leave a message for him?”

“Look,” he said, “what do you want, anyway?”

“I’m a lawyer,” I said. “I need his help on a case.”

“Well, good luck.”

“Can you tell me how I can reach Bertram Wanzer, please?”

“No, I can’t.”

“Do you mind—?”

“Look, friend. Old Bert walked out on my mother six years ago, okay? No good-bye, no note, nothing. He just fucking left her, not to be heard from since. It took her three years to realize the sonofabitch wasn’t coming back. So she divorced him. That’s it. He’s dead, as far as we’re concerned. So when you talk to him, tell him we’re doing just fine without him. Better than ever, okay?”

“But you don’t know how I can reach him.”

“I told you—”

“Yes. I’m sorry. Listen, I didn’t know any of this, obviously. Maybe you can help me.”

“I doubt it.”

“You’re Bertram Wanzer’s son?”

“His stepson. I don’t like to admit it.”

“How old were you when he… left?”

“Seventeen.”

“Do you remember his ever mentioning a man named Daniel McCloud.”

“I don’t remember much of anything about him. No. No McCloud.”

“Are you sure? It’s very important.”

“I’m sure.”

“Is your mother there?”

“She’s working.”