Lullaby Town Part 8

The next morning my back felt stiff and hard, and the place behind my ear ached with a doughy, immediate presence. I took more of the aspirin, soaked in a hot bath to loosen the back, and then did yoga, starting with the simplest stretches and working my way through the spine rock and the cobra and the spine twist. The back hurt quite a bit at first but warmed and felt better as I worked.

By twenty minutes after nine I was back in Chelam. I drove down Main Street past the bank to the town square, turned one block south, then turned again and parked in front of a place that had at one time been a showroom for John Deere tractors. Now, it was empty.

The threat of snow had pa.s.sed without incident, and the day was bright and clear except for a scattering of cottonball c.u.mulus clouds that moved through the sky to the south. It was warmer. I walked back to the grocery store one block north and stood by the pay phone and looked at the bank. Karen s.h.i.+pley's green LeBaron was in the lot. I could go into the bank and confront her, but chances were good that she would continue to deny that she was Karen s.h.i.+pley. Chances were equally good that she would deny knowing the three leg-busters who had come to the Ho Jo. I could go in with the sheriff, but that would bring in the press and Peter Alan Nelsen. The press would like it, but Peter Alan Nelsen probably wouldn't. Also, I didn't like the way it felt for Karen s.h.i.+pley. There was something acutely desperate and unprotected about Karen s.h.i.+pley denying that she was Karen s.h.i.+pley even as she stared at her photograph, and I didn't want the sheriff and the town and the press to know what it was before I knew what it was. Also, going to the sheriff seemed like a wimpy thing to do. There were alternatives. I could lie in wait for Karen s.h.i.+pley and, when she stepped out of the bank, pistol-whip her into admitting her true ident.i.ty. If that didn't work, I could shadow her every move until, in an unguarded moment, she revealed her true self. Or maybe I could just ask around. Hmm. Asking around seemed easiest and a lot less trouble. After all, Karen s.h.i.+pley had lived here for eight years. The people here knew her and knew of her, and if I talked to them, I might learn what they knew and see what they saw. If I knew enough and saw enough, maybe I'd know what in h.e.l.l was going on and what to do about it. Elvis Cole, detective in search of intelligence.

Rittenhauser's Diner was down the block, two doors past the barbershop. I went in and sat at the counter. A pinch-faced short-order cook in a blue ap.r.o.n was standing with his arms crossed near the cash register. He was watching a tiny Magnavox color TV that was sitting on a gallon can of pork and beans next to the register. Oprah Winfrey. Something about fat men being better lovers. He picked a clean coffee mug from a wire rack and filled it and put the mug in front of me without my having to ask. He said, "What'll it be?"

"Three eggs, scrambled. Rye toast. Maybe put some mushrooms and some cheese in the eggs."

"Sharp cheddar?"

"How about Swiss?"

"You got it."

He made the eggs and a little patty of hash browns and two large pieces of rye toast. When it was done, he put it all onto a heavy white plate, then he put the plate in front of me. I said, "Nice looking plate of eggs."

He said, "Unh," and went back to the Oprah.

I ate some of the eggs. "Just moved out from California. Transfer. Met Karen Lloyd at the bank yesterday."

"Unh."

"Nice looking lady."

He said it again.

"You know if she's married or seeing someone?"

"Nope." An obese man in his sixties told Oprah that he could e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.e twenty-six times a day. He attributed it to his bulk. The cook looked interested.

"Nope, you don't know, or nope, she's not seeing someone?"

"Ain't none of my business." The obese man said that when he was thin, he was s.e.xually dysfunctional.

"She been working at the bank long?"

The cook leaned closer to the television. Something about high-fat content leading to increased fluids production.

I said, "Great day for a nuclear holocaust, huh?"

The cook nodded and cut himself a piece of cherry pie, still staring at the Oprah.

Maybe looking for intelligence in Chelam was going to be harder than I thought. I decided to shadow her every move.

Being a stranger in a small town is sort of like being a Martian in Mayberry. You tend to stand out. Aunt Bea sees you hanging around a parking lot, pretty soon Barney Fife is looking at your driver's license. Opie rides by on his bike, pretty soon you got Andy in your shorts. Everybody in town knows you're there, and then you get your thugs in string ties asking why you're still around. You see how this works?

I drove back to the Howard Johnson's, changed rooms, then drove down to the Hertz office in upper Westchester and traded the blue Taurus for a white one. I couldn't do much about Aunt Bea and Opie, but I could make it tougher for Joey and his pal with the tie.

By nine-fifty I was back in Chelam. By nine-fifty-two the new white Taurus was parked in a little alley outside the John Deere showroom and I had picked the lock on a side door and let myself inside. From the showroom I could see the bank and the grocery store and a fair part of Main Street. Aunt Bea and Opie might wonder about the Taurus, but it was better than having them wonder about me.

Between ten-thirty and noon eight people pulled up to the First Chelam, went in, did business, and came out. None of them were fat guys with caviar skin or people who wore string ties, but I held hope.

At five minutes after twelve Karen s.h.i.+pley came out and got into her LeBaron. She was wearing a tweed pants suit and brown flat-heeled shoes under a slim leather topcoat, and she carried a briefcase. She pulled out of the lot and turned south, and I hustled out to the Taurus and went after her. Twenty minutes later we turned into a shopping mall in upper Westchester where Karen went into a little cafe. A man in a gray suit took her hand and kissed her on the left cheek and they sat at a window table. I sat in my Taurus. Midway through the meal she opened the briefcase and took out some papers and gave them to the man. He put on tortoisesh.e.l.l half-gla.s.ses, read the papers, then signed them. She put the papers back in her briefcase and they resumed their lunch. Business.

At ten minutes before two Karen was back in the First Chelam and I was back in the John Deere showroom. Opie and Aunt Bea were nowhere to be seen.

At three o'clock Karen s.h.i.+pley came out again, climbed back into the LeBaron, and drove half a mile out of town to the Woodrow Wilson Smith Elementary School. Toby got into the car and they drove back across Chelam to a single-story medical building with a little sign that read B. L. Franks, D.D.S. & Susan Witlow, D.D.S., a dental corporation B. L. Franks, D.D.S. & Susan Witlow, D.D.S., a dental corporation. They stayed for just under an hour.

After the dentist, we went back through Chelam along a two-lane county road between fields and woods and a scattershot of ponds and small lakes until we turned down a broad new black-topped road past a stone sign that said Clearlake Sh.o.r.es Clearlake Sh.o.r.es. Someone had come in with a bulldozer and carved out a housing development around a couple of lakes that were too round and too sculptured to be natural. Most of the lots were still unimproved, but some of them had houses under construction, and some of them held completed houses warm with life.

Karen s.h.i.+pley pulled into a one-story brick colonial with a wide cement drive and white pilasters and virgin landscaping. Maybe a year old. Maybe less. Four white birch trees and a live oak had been planted in the front yard. The trunks on the birch were only a couple of inches thick, the oak was maybe a little thicker. They weren't much now, but if you gave them a little time they would grow tall and strong and you would be glad you stayed with them. There was a basketball backboard suspended over the drive at the lip of the garage. Toby and Karen went inside through the front door and lights came on. They didn't come out again. Home.

I cruised through the development and parked in some high weeds near the county road and watched the house until the sky was dark. Joey and the guy with the string tie didn't show up. Shadows didn't skulk across the landscape. The new house and its hopeful landscaping didn't look like a place where people hid in fear or sicced leg-breakers on unsuspecting private eyes, but then they never do. When my stomach made more noise than the radio, I drove back to the Howard Johnson's.

Each day was pretty much the same. Toby would head for school on his red Schwinn mountain bike, then Karen would leave for the bank. She would get to the bank before anyone else and unlock the door. Joyce Steuben would get there two or three minutes later, and the teller would roll up by nine, just before the bank opened. Bank customers would come and go, and sometimes during midmorning or in the early afternoon Karen would drive to a house or a building or a piece of unimproved land where she would meet two or three people and they would look and smile and point, and then Karen s.h.i.+pley would go back to her office.

Every day between four and four-thirty Toby would pedal up to the bank and go in and stay until Karen left, sometimes as soon as Toby arrived, sometimes not until five. They would go home, Karen sometimes stopping to do a quick errand on the way, but most times not. Once, they drove fourteen miles to a McDonald's, and once they drove to the next town to see the new Steven Segal film. One day Toby didn't come to the bank. Karen left early and drove to the school where the Woodrow Wilson Smith Barking Bears took on the Round Hill Lions in a basketball game. I went in through the rear of the auditorium and watched from the stage. Toby played right forward and he was pretty good. Karen sat on the lowest bleacher and cheered hard, once screaming at an official and calling him a jerk. The Barking Bears lost 38 to 32. Karen took Toby out to a place called Monteback's for a malt. Portrait of the successful single-parent family in action.

At six-oh-five on the morning of the fourth day it fell apart.

I was driving down the county road toward Karen s.h.i.+pley's when Karen s.h.i.+pley pa.s.sed me going in the opposite direction, an hour before she usually left.

I turned around in a gravel drive and waited for a pickup with a beagle in the back to pa.s.s, then pulled out and followed her. She went past Chelam, then picked up the state highway and drove most of the way to Westchester. Traffic heading down toward the city was dense and made keeping her in sight easy. She stayed in the right lane and took an exit marked Dutchy Dutchy. Less than a mile off the interstate she pulled into the parking lot of an abandoned Eagle service station and parked. There was no one else around. I stayed behind an old guy in a 1948 Chevy for another half mile, then pulled over, parked off the road, and walked back through a jumble of birch and elm trees until I was behind the Eagle station. She was still in the car.

The cold air and the winter woods smell made me think of when I was a boy, hunting in the autumn for squirrel and white tail deer, and I felt the peace that comes from being alone and in a wild place. I wondered if Karen s.h.i.+pley felt that peace, and if that was why she came.

At twenty-two minutes before seven a black Lincoln Town Car with smoked gla.s.s and a car phone antenna turned off the road and parked behind her. The door opened and a dark man with a thick neck and a wide back got out. He was in his early forties and taller than me, and he wore an expensive black Chesterfield topcoat and gray slacks and black Gucci loafers s.h.i.+ned so cleanly that he probably kept them in his refrigerator. He took a green nylon bag out of the trunk of his Lincoln and walked over to Karen's LeBaron and gave Karen an off-white smile, but I don't think he was trying to be friendly. Karen got out without smiling back. She took the bag and tossed it into the pa.s.senger side of the LeBaron. They talked. Karen's mouth was tight and her eyes were edged on a frown and she stood with her bottom pressed against the LeBaron. The dark man reached out and touched her arm and I could see her stiffen from eighty yards away. He said something else and touched her again and this time she pushed his arm away and as fast as she touched him he slapped her. It was a single hard pop that turned her head. She didn't scramble away from him and she didn't scream for help. She stood there and glared and he raised his hand again, but then he lowered it and went back to the Lincoln and drove away with a lot of spinning tires and spraying gravel and roaring engine. I copied down his license number.

Karen s.h.i.+pley watched him drive away and then she got back into her LeBaron and started the engine and put her face into her hands and cried. She slapped the LeBaron's steering wheel and screamed so loudly that I could hear her even with the windows up and the engine running.

She cried for another five minutes and then she dried her eyes and checked her makeup in the rearview mirror, and when it was perfect she drove away.

I ran back through the woods and pushed the Taurus over a hundred on the roads back to Chelam and picked up Karen s.h.i.+pley again just as she turned into the bank's parking lot. I pulled up beside the grocery and watched. It was six-fifty-two. Still plenty of time before Joyce Steuben or the teller would arrive.

Karen got out of the LeBaron and carried the duffel bag into the bank. Ten minutes later she came out with the duffel now deflated and folded into a tight roll. She walked across the street to a public waste can in front of the hardware store and threw the duffel away.

Someone in a green and white Chevy Blazer drove by, beeped his horn, and waved. Neighborly. Karen s.h.i.+pley did not wave back. She walked with her eyes forward and her face set all the way back into the bank. She looked tired and old. Older than the lemon-pie girl in the 8 10.

I sat in the Taurus in the empty grocery store lot and watched the town come to life. A rural town with small-town ways. The air was cool and smelled of maple and the coming of Halloween. I turned on the radio. A man and a woman were discussing all the fine recipes you could make with pumpkins and the other autumn squash. A little bit of b.u.t.ter. A little cinnamon. A little sugar. After a while I turned off the radio.

Fall used to be my favorite time of the year.

Twelve.

I called the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles from a pay phone at a Sh.e.l.l station just off the interstate and said, "This is foot patrol Officer Willis Sweetwell, badge number five-oh-seven-two-four. I need wants and warrants on New York plate sierra-romeo-golf-six-six-one. And gimme the registration on that, too." They either go for it or they don't.

There was a little pause, then a guy with a deep voice said, "Wait one." Score for the Jack Webb.

The deep voice came back on and told me there were neither wants nor warrants on six-six-one, and that it was registered to the Lucerno Meat Company at 7511 Grand Avenue in lower Manhattan.

I said, "You don't have an individual on that?"

"Nope. Looks like a company car."

I said, "Thanks for the help, buddy. Have a good day." Cops like to say "buddy."

I took the Merritt Parkway down through White Plains, then went across the peninsula to the Henry Hudson Parkway and down along the western rim of Manhattan with the Hudson River off to my right. A green treesy park followed along the river with joggers and old people and kids who should've been in school hanging out and laughing and having a good time. I pa.s.sed Grant's Tomb and the Soldiers and Sailors Monument and then the Hudson parkway became the West Side Highway and the green strip of park was gone and the road ran along the waterfront. Lee J. and Marlon, slugging it out. You hear that the Hudson is ugly and barren, but I didn't see any dead fish or floating bodies, just a couple of nice sailboats and about a million j.a.panese container s.h.i.+ps and a Cessna floatplane tied to a short pier.

At the Holland Tunnel I went east along Ca.n.a.l, crossing lower Manhattan between Little Italy and Chinatown. The buildings were old and made of red brick or yellow brick or stone, some painted and some not, each webbed with a tarnished latticework of fire escapes. People jammed the sidewalks, and yellow cabs roared over the streets without regard to traffic lanes or bicyclists or human life, and no one seemed to see anyone else, as if each person was inalienably alone and liked it that way, or at least was used to it.

Lucerno's Meat Packing Plant was in a two-story redbrick industrial building between a tire wholesaler and a textile outlet, four blocks from the Manhattan Bridge. There was a drive and a large crushed-gravel parking lot on the side where Econoline vans and six-by trucks turned around and backed up to a loading dock. Five cars were parked at the far end of the lot, out of the trucks' way. The second car from the end was the black Lincoln.

I pulled into the lot past the six-bys, whipped a snappy turn like I was trying to get out of the place, put it into reverse, backed up, and crunched the Lincoln nicely. I turned off the Taurus, got out, and made a big deal out of looking at what I had done. The Lincoln's left front headlight was popped and the chrome around it crumpled and the b.u.mper compressed. A couple of black guys in dirty white ap.r.o.ns up on the loading dock were watching me. One of the black guys went into the warehouse and yelled something, and then a little guy in a white jumpsuit and a clipboard came out. I walked over and said, "I was trying to turn around and I backed into that Lincoln. Do you know who owns it?"

The little guy came over to the edge of the dock and stood with his boot tips hanging over and looked at the cars. Lucerno's Fine Meats Lucerno's Fine Meats was embroidered on the back of his coveralls with red thread and was embroidered on the back of his coveralls with red thread and FRANK FRANK was sewn over his left breast pocket. His face was sour and lined, like maybe he'd just checked his lunch pail and discovered that his wife had given him a roach sandwich. He said, "Jesus Christ, where'd you learnta drive? Wait here a minute." He went back into the warehouse. The two black guys finished loading a dolly of white boxes into a six-by. They took the boxes off the dolly two at a time and slid them into the six-by so hard that the boxes slammed into the truck with a heavy thud. Tenderizing the meat. was sewn over his left breast pocket. His face was sour and lined, like maybe he'd just checked his lunch pail and discovered that his wife had given him a roach sandwich. He said, "Jesus Christ, where'd you learnta drive? Wait here a minute." He went back into the warehouse. The two black guys finished loading a dolly of white boxes into a six-by. They took the boxes off the dolly two at a time and slid them into the six-by so hard that the boxes slammed into the truck with a heavy thud. Tenderizing the meat.

In a little while Frank came back and said, "Forget it. You're off the hook."

I looked at him. "What do you mean, forget it?" Best-laid plans.

"Just what I said. You had a bad break, but we're not gonna bust your chops about it. Take off." The old smash-their-car-and-offer-to-pay-for-it routine wasn't getting me very far.

I said, "The headlight's smashed and the b.u.mper's pretty dinged up and the frame around the light is busted. Maybe the owner should come take a look."

"It's a company car. Forget it."

"I don't want to forget it. I'm responsible. I oughta pay something to somebody."

He gave me Desi looking at Lucy, the look saying, Jesus Christ, what did I marry? "I'm giving you a pa.s.s, capisce? capisce? What, are you stupid?" What, are you stupid?"

I said, "You know, that's the trouble with America today. Everybody's looking for a pa.s.s. n.o.body wants to own up. Well, not me. I own up. I take what's coming to me. I pay my way." Maybe I could appeal to his national pride.

One of the black guys adjusted his crotch and laughed. He had two gold inlays on the right side of his mouth. Frank took a deep breath, let it out, and said, "Look, I got work to do. You came in here, you busted the car, and you came looking for someone to do right by it. Great. But I'm standing here telling you that it's okay. I work here. We seen what happened and it's okay. I'm telling you that you ain't gotta pay a dime, you ain't gotta say you're sorry, you ain't gotta do d.i.c.k. Okay?"

"But you don't own the car?"

He spread his hands and blinked. "What?"

"And you don't own the company."

"What?" His voice was getting higher.

"If you don't own the car and you don't own the company, then how do I know you've got the right to tell me it's okay?"

He shook his head and looked at the sky. "I can't f.u.c.kin' believe this."

"Tell me who drives the car," I said. "Maybe the guy who drives the car should tell me it's okay."

"Jumpin' Jesus f.u.c.kin' Christ with a hard-on."

"It seems only fair."

One of the black guys said, "Oo-ee."

Frank threw down the clipboard and stalked back into the building. The two black guys flashed a lot of inlay work and gave each other the Spike Lee treatment. After a little while Frank came back with a large, bald man in his fifties with pop eyes and a melon head and a voice so soft that it might have come from a sick child. He told me that he was the manager and he gave me his card. It said Michael Vinicotta. Lucerno Meats. Manager Michael Vinicotta. Lucerno Meats. Manager. He said that if my insurance company wanted to speak with anyone, they could speak with him. He told me that he very much appreciated my concern and my consideration in trying to make sure I had done right by the owner of the car, but that rest.i.tution by me was neither sought nor needed.

I said, "Maybe we should leave the cars where they are and call the police and get an accident report."

He said, "Get the f.u.c.k outta here or there's gonna be more broken than a G.o.dd.a.m.ned headlight."

I went back to the Taurus and drove around the block and parked in a garage on Broome Street. I walked back to a pastry shop across from Lucerno's and bought a double decaf espresso and sat in the window. Maybe I should go back and pretend to be Ed McMahon and tell them that the guy who drove the Lincoln had just won the Publisher's Clearing House Sweepstakes for a million bucks. That sounded better than the old busted-headlamp routine, but now they knew I wasn't Ed McMahon. Probably should've tried that one first.

Most of the way through my third espresso the fat guy with the caviar skin came out of Lucerno's. Joey. He was wearing the white coveralls and insulated work boots and the same blue Navy pea coat that he had worn at the Howard Johnson's. Well, well. He wasn't the guy in the Lincoln, but he was close enough.

I paid for the espressos and followed Joey two blocks east to a place with a big sign that said SPINA'S CLAM BAR SPINA'S CLAM BAR. I watched through the front gla.s.s as he took a stool at the end of the bar and said something to the bartender. The bartender put a gla.s.s of draft beer in front of him, then set up an iced tray and started opening clams. Four other guys sat at the bar, but no one seemed to know anyone else and no one seemed particularly talkative. Another half-dozen people sat in little booths. It was the kind of place you could go in your work clothes.

When the tray was filled with clams, the bartender put it in front of Joey and then walked away to see about the other guys. Joey was slurping a clam off its sh.e.l.l when I walked up behind him and said, "Say, Joey."

Joey turned and looked at me and I thumbed him in the throat.

His face went red and his eyes got big and he grabbed at his throat and started to cough. Most of a clam popped out and fell on the floor.

I said, "You oughtta not eat so fast, you're going to choke."

The bartender came down. "Is he okay?"

I said sure. I said I knew how to do the Heimlich. A couple of the people at the other end of the bar looked over, but when they saw the bits of clam all over the place they turned away. The bartender went back to his other customers.

Joey sort of half fell and half slid off his stool and pushed a slow right hand at me. I pushed it past with an open hand then thumbed him in the right eye. He went white this time and stumbled backward and fell over his stool into the bar and down to the floor.

The bartender and the other four guys at the bar looked at me. I said, "Think I did the Heimlich a little too hard."

The nearest guy said, "You want I should call an ambulance?"

"Maybe in a bit."

Joey was scrambling around on the floor, holding his face with one hand and trying to get up. He screamed, "You poked out my f.u.c.kin' eye! I'm gonna be blind!"

I pulled him up and led him farther back into the bar. The bartender and the other guys were making a big deal out of not seeing it. I said, "Nah. I took it easy. Let me see."