"A Visible Darkness" - читать интересную книгу автора (King Jonathon)

17

Eddie went home when he got confused. And now he was home. He'd come in at night, through the back using his old key, and sat down in the middle of the living room floor and listened.

It wasn't the old man suddenly coming out of the bathroom that confused him. It was bothersome. Bothersome that someone else was with Ms. Thompson and he hadn't known. But the old man's neck was weak and Eddie could feel the rickety bones inside and it really hadn't taken much effort. Afterwards he'd been careful to lay the old fella out and slipped out quiet. He'd even remembered the chain before he put each glass pane back in its place.

No. That part had gone all right. But then he'd waited, just like he always had before, at the post box on Seventh Avenue and Mr. Harold never came by and now he was confused.

Mr. Harold always brought the rest of the money after it was done, an envelope with cash and a date written on one of the bills so Eddie would know when to meet him again at the liquor store. But Eddie waited at the mail drop box at the far end of the parking lot and Mr. Harold never showed. The old Caprice never pulled up and he never dropped the envelope in Eddie's hand instead of in the box. Eddie waited until the security guard finally came out and told him to get the hell off the property, it was federal land and what the hell was he doin' there anyway. And Eddie answered, "I do not know."

That's what had confused him. What had he done to make Mr. Harold not come? What had he done wrong? Ms. Thompson was gone like she was supposed to be. The old man was just extra. Eddie had tried to figure it out by going down to the Brown Man's and buying another bundle. He'd gone over to Riverside Park and done the heroin until dark. But he ended up here, back at his mother's house.

He sat listening for her now, facing the kitchen. He had stuffed the towels from the bathroom under her door. He'd used the gray duct tape ("best damn thing ever made for fixin' ") and sealed all the cracks. He'd done the same on her closet and inside all the windows in her room. He'd done a good job and he didn't want to see it again. So he sat with his back to her door and listened. Momma had never stopped tellin' him what to do. Now the least she could do was help him figure out what to do next.

I drove back north on I-95, heading to Billy's apartment, where he said he'd been working on another case but couldn't keep his head out of the insurance and murders he was convinced were connected. On the main interstate through South Florida you are best off being a lemming. You fit yourself into one of the middle lanes and then stay in time with those in front of you. If they do seventy, that's what you do. If they crawl at thirty-five, you join them. There will always be someone faster, more impatient, more aggressive than you. Let them, I reminded myself.

At Billy's I waved at Murray and he raised one eyebrow in return. Upstairs Billy hit the electronic lock and when I came in he was at the kitchen counter, starting coffee.

"I also h-have beer if it's not too early. Help yourself. I still have s-some work," he said, going back into his study. In his working room Billy had two computer systems, one almost always connected to local, state and federal government sites. The walls of the room were lined with law and reference books. He is a workaholic, a trait I did not envy.

I got a beer. It wasn't too early. I unscrewed the cap and walked out to the balcony through the already opened glass door. Billy's abuse of A.C., I believe, was a spiteful reaction to his years growing up on the broiling summer streets of North Philly. In the summer only Mustafa's Groceries had air conditioning through one rattling wall unit. You could go over to Blizzards Billiards on Fifth Street and take a chance at getting your ass kicked by whatever gang controlled that corner. But Billy had stayed home instead with a fan set up in his second-story staircase window and read.

I drank half the beer with two long, breathless swallows and the cold spread up into my cheekbones and made my eyes tear. Out on the horizon a soft string of bruised clouds was piling up. The late afternoon sun gave them color. The washed out shades of gray, purple and pink looked like a child's watercolor spread with too much moisture. I sat back on the chaise and thought about the first time I'd seen both my and Billy's mothers together.

My mother had been working at the First Methodist Church on Bainbridge and Fourth Street in the historic section. For her own reasons my mother had left her lifelong Catholic church in South Philly, and every Sunday she took an early bus ride to First Methodist. Since my father had never stepped foot in church since his confirmation, it was not a subject he cared about or controlled her with. At the church she would work the kitchen, setting up coffee and rolls and morning juices for the clergy and their assistants. Because it was a volunteer position and a 6:00 A.M. requirement, she was mostly alone. I had already joined the police department and had come with her to help before, but when we arrived this day there was a stout, black woman in the kitchen. She had on an apron and was setting out heavy white coffee mugs.

She greeted my mother by her first name and with a meaningful hug. When I was introduced she offered her hand and said, "Oh my, Ann-Marie-this can't be the boy you been talkin' bout. Why, this is a man!

"Son, you is twice the size of my boy Billy."

I looked at my mother. Her face was prideful and soft and more comfortable with this woman and their morning embrace than I had ever witnessed at home among blood relations. Their friendship would not have been easy in either of their respective neighborhoods, but it had a simple existence in this church basement. It was also a secret friendship that I admired because I knew my father would never have allowed it. That she had moved behind his back gave me a special appreciation for her.

In the weeks and months to follow I would see them several times in that kitchen, laughing together over a sink of dishes or huddled with their hands cupped over one another's at the long empty table.

One winter morning I had come to pick her up, and when I came down the steps the two of them were whispering to each other and didn't notice me. At first I thought they were praying, their hands again clasped together on the table.

But this time I saw a small bottle being passed, short and made of brown glass like an old apothecary bottle. And this time the tears had not been wiped away from my mother's face. When I looked at Mrs. Manchester's wet eyes she bent to my mother and whispered, "It's all right, baby. The Lord will forgive."

My mother refused to tell me why she had been crying. As far as I knew she had never let loose the demons in her life to anyone save a priest or her own version of God. She was quiet for the entire trip home but when I helped her out of the car and to the stoop, she turned to me and said, "You should go to Florida, Maxey. Mrs. Manchester's boy Billy is a lawyer down there. You should meet him. You could leave this behind." Then she spun with the back of her hand turned up to me, her sign of enough said, and stepped up into the house.

"M-Max?"

Billy was standing next to me. A glass of white wine was in one hand and a sweating bottle of beer in the other.

"You are absorbed."

"Thinking about old times," I said. "And mothers."

"Ahh," was his only response.

Billy and I had spent many nights on this porch, hashing out our mothers' scheme. When the pieces were put together, he'd understood his own mother's burden of complicity, and I had a clearer grasp on gratitude.

We both looked out at the ocean. Three miles out it was raining. I could see the dark curtain slurring down with thick bands falling in curls.

"To old times," Billy said, raising his wine. We touched bottle to glass but neither of us drank.

"Our investors are t-taking us on quite a ch-chase," Billy said, interrupting the thought.

Billy had been tracking the investors. He'd run their incorporation records back through the state's Bureau of Professional Regulations. He'd found three companies filed under fictitious-but not necessarily illegal-names. He'd finally found the names of corporate officers, but none of them had raised any red flags.

"Just incorporated b-businessmen. We can follow the t-trail of money that maybe p-puts McCane's middleman in direct contact with them. But it's still a hard case t-to make."

"Invisible," I said, more to myself than Billy.

"In m-many ways, yes."

"And if all our theories are correct. They still might not know what's going on with their money?"

"Oh, they know w-what's going on with their money," Billy said. "This kind always knows w-what's going on with their money."