All the Dead Yale Men (18 page)

I got down on my hands and knees, in my blue jeans and a sweatshirt that Pia had given me (“It all depends on conditions,” it said), and then flipped over on my back and pushed under the car to avoid that green lagoon, that pool of fate, and
put my fingers here and there, into the tubing and lines, the cast aluminum, the wires and bolts to see where this stuff, as slippery as the side of a trout, was coming from. Of course, the engineers had fixed things so nothing fell in a straight line, but, instead, ran across some pump, or crossbeam, or clutch housing, and then dripped to the black apron in front of the house. Nothing clear. Nothing definite.

The shoes that moved along the side of the Audi belonged to Aurlon Miller. Brand-new Nikes, white, clean, somehow cool in the way they laced. They walked to the front of the car, then back to where I was stretched out, flat on my back, the odor of that fluid strong under the car, like the scent of the mechanical age. His head slowly appeared next to the ground.

“These Audis,” he said. “The maintenance will make you crazy. It's like having a kid, right?”

“It's leaking hydraulic fluid,” I said.

“Sure it is,” said Aurlon. “I noticed it the other day when I was here. Even looked under the hood. And you know what? You're going to have to replace the power steering pump. Take it from me. It's curtains for that papasan. What do you think it's going to cost?”

“I don't know,” I said.

“A shitload,” he said. “Going to be three grand. I'm telling you, Frank, it's not going to be a dime less.”

“Maybe not,” I said.

His face disappeared and the Audi creaked as he leaned on the roof. Writing something down, I guessed. His shoes were pointing directly at me, as though he was getting ready to give me a kick. If I slid out, on my back, it would be less than ideal: that's the last way I wanted to appear, knocked out and trying to get up before the count.

“Here,” said Aurlon. He pushed a piece of paper, torn from
the
Daily Racing Form
, under the car. In block letters he had written, “Bargain Auto Parts, Stanislav Ivakina, Prop.”

“That's where to go if you don't want to get beaten on the price for a pump. That's the place. Believe me.”

He held out the scrap of newsprint. I wanted to tell him the precise spot of his anatomy where he could roll this up and shove it, but then, with a sort of genetic resignation, since my father loved nothing more than a bargain, I took the thing and put it in my pocket.

•
  
•
  
•

“You know,” said Aurlon on the other side of the chessboard, a black pawn in one hand, the white in the other, both held behind his back. “That attack you used when we played before? That was from Aron Nimzowitsch. It took me a while at the library. Why, you have to push those geeks away from the computers, but I looked at a couple of his games. What a devious guy. Why, you could never tell what he was up to. Is that why you like him? The countermoves were B to K3, R to Q1, then you castle, and KN to R4. Pick.”

Pia read a book on the sofa. Miller and I sat opposite each other, his eyes on Pia from time to time, the fullness of her hair, the way she tucked her legs under herself as she read, the way she tucked her hair behind ear, all of it done with a grace that charged the room.

“Pia and I were thinking about her taking some time off before law school,” Miller said. “Go out to Montana, Utah, Wyoming. See a little of the country.” He held out the pieces.

“Is that right?” I said to Pia. “Have you heard anything from the school?”

“Yes,” she said. She kept her eyes down.

“Well, what did they say?”

“I got in,” she said. “Nice fat envelope.”

My calendar showed it was February 12th. She must have known for a while, a week anyway.

“Why didn't you tell me?” I said.

“I don't know,” said Pia.

“Harvard Schmarvard.” “Harvard Schmarvard?” I said.

“Pick,” said Aurlon. “Aron Nimzowitsch. You won't catch me again with that, papasan.”

“Did you tell them you had accepted?” I said to Pia.

“Yeah,” she said. “But . . . I've never been out West.”

Is that what we were playing for? That Pia would forget law school? Or was Aurlon looking for a psychological advantage, and when he had it, we'd play for five hundred dollars? Of course, I underestimated him, but if you don't know all of the vipers on earth, how can you recognize each one? After all, an Australian brown snake, the most poisonous on earth, looks pretty bland.

“We could go on the road, Pia and me, make some pottery,” said Miller to me. “Macramé. Tie-dye. You know? Hit the crafts circuit. Sell some other stuff.”

“So, it's money you want?”

“You've got to have money, Frank,” said Miller.

“Sure,” I said.

We set up the pieces.

“Maybe we should make it more interesting,” I said. “Maybe you don't have to worry about making pottery.”

“You're nothing but a hustler,” said Miller. “Jesus, I've got to watch myself around you.” He looked over his shoulder. “Hey, Pia, you were right. He wants to play for money.”

She shrugged and looked down at her book.

“Sure,” he said. “A hundred.” He put five twenties on the table. “Pick.”

I drew white. Fast opening. Then we started in earnest. He had gotten better, and he played with a sureness that had been lacking before. He didn't touch the pieces anymore while he thought about a move. He rocked back and forth a little, nodding to himself, then moved the piece with a gesture so final it was as though he was stamping a form at the post office. Maybe I could let him win five hundred, a thousand, would that do the trick? Or maybe I could take him aside and just write him a check. No, cash held together with a rubber band. But he would use it two ways: against me while taking advantage of it. Here, he'd say to Pia, your old man is trying to buy me off. What do you think of that? Come on, let's buy a VW bus, you know, see the country. You ever been to Ennis, Montana? Nice town.

He traded pieces whenever he could to get to the endgame. The sounds disappeared: no cars on the street, no ticking of the old house, no dripping faucets, just that silence filled with possibilities.

He knocked his king over.

“Well, well,” he said. “I thought you were just a one-trick pony.”

I took the money that was on my desk.

“Oh,” he said. “Taking the money, too. Frank, you must be getting more serious. A lot more serious.”

“It's just a game,” I said.

Pia glanced up.

“Maybe,” said Miller. “Come on, Pia. Let's take a drive.”

“I've got work to do,” said Pia.

“You can do it later,” said Miller. “Give yourself a break.”

Pia closed her books.

“Maybe you're right,” she said.

Her car made that slow, sad puttering out to Brattle Street, and the brake lights glowed as she waited to make the turn, and then disappeared into the stream of traffic. At least, on Sunday,
she'd go back to school, since she hadn't graduated yet, although I wondered if he was going back to New Haven with her.

•
  
•
  
•

Usually I went to the Audi dealership, and sometimes my father came along to use his prison camp German with the mechanic, who had been born and trained in Stuttgart. The mechanic enjoyed my father, as most people did, although like everyone else the mechanic misunderstood him and didn't have a clue that when my father spoke to him about the Audi, my father was thinking of those lines of barbed wire, like lines of music, like notes against that yellowish air beyond the prison camp fence. Now, though, I drove to the Audi place on Mass Avenue alone. They wanted $2,891.89 for a hydraulic pump. Not labor. Just the pump. Miller's handwriting had swirls for the cross stroke of a
T
, and loops for the tail of a
g
, but the address was still legible. I was a sitting duck: tired of getting screwed for $2,891.89. As though nothing else was involved.

Braintree is pure strip, miles of muffler shops and donut houses, but not new, not promising cheap convenience, but rundown paltriness. Here and there an abandoned car sat in front of a house with a collapsed porch, missing asphalt shingles, and a dented trash can, without the lid, sideways in the gutter. Men stood in front of a donut shop, each with an extralarge Styrofoam cup, which they drank from as the cars, with doors obviously locked, went by a little above the speed limit.

The sign out front said Bargain Auto Parts, S
TANISLAV
I
VAKINA
, P
ROP
. A fence, not wood but fiberboard covered with plastic, went around about an acre, although cars showed here and there, fifteen feet in the air, windshields with the mark of the modern age: that spider web of cracks that had been made by
someone's head. The gate in the fence was open, but topped with razor wire like the rest of the fence. It looked like an outpost in Afghanistan.

Stanislav Ivakina's office wasn't too much bigger than a booth for a parking lot. He had a crew cut that had grown out, acne scars that he tried to cover up with makeup, was heavy in the arms and chest, and he wore a black sweater under a black leather coat. It wasn't that cold, but he had a space heater in the corner, the filament as bright as the hot wire of a toaster. And in the corner, on a piece of fiberboard held up on sawhorses, sat a samovar. Or what I thought was a samovar: it was like an urn to keep the ashes of an ancestor, a brass thing with handles, but it had a little spigot. Next to it sat a cheap stainless steel microwave with a digital clock and some hieroglyphics, little stars, and clocks, and something that looked like an exclamation mark.

“Come in, come in,” he said.

It was hot inside, and as I took off my coat, a woman pushed in, too, and sat down in front of a Mac that was next to the samovar. She was tall with pale skin, made all the more obvious because of the black hair and blue eyes. She spoke Russian to Stanislav Ivakina, but he just shrugged and made a gesture of dismissal with his left hand, the one that didn't hold a cup.

“Give my guest a cup of tea,” he said to her.

“Aurlon Miller sent me,” I said. “He said you might be able to help with a part.”

“Aurlon, Aurlon . . . ?” said Stanislav to the woman with pale skin, black hair, and eyes the color of a purple iris.

“The guy in Cambridge,” she said. “You know, the one who brings in an air . . . ”

“Oh, him,” said Stanislav. “Yeah. Yeah. I know the guy.”

The woman took my coat, glanced at the label, and put it
over the back of a chair. Her fingers were cool when she handed me a cup of tea.

“My friends have tea when we do business,” said Stanislav Ivakina.

I took the cup. The woman turned her back and sat down at the computer and began scrolling through pages of auto parts, although she left a scent, a musky perfume that suggested the steppes, or maybe just Russia, those churches where incense has been burned for years and which makes the atmosphere seem different than just air. Death and beauty.

“You must be Stanislav,” I said.

“Stas,” he said. “No one around here can say Stanislav. When I go to the dentist I know it's my turn because the nurse starts mumbling. Sit down.”

The woman said something in Russian. Or was it German?

“She says you have a nice coat. So what's a guy with an Armani coat doing in Braintree?”

“I need a pump,” I said.

“For an Audi, right?” he said. “I see that's what you're driving. Took a dump on you, I bet. Goddamned things. And you want to talk about expensive? I bet they wanted three grand for it.”

“That's right,” I said.

“I can do something for you. Aurlon was right to send you,” said Stas. “Don't you like your tea?”

It was pungent, and it had that same musky scent and hint of the exotic that came from the hair or skin of the woman who typed at the Mac. She spoke again, but Stas shook his head.

“Looks like a new one,” he said. “Your Audi. Isn't it covered under warranty?”

“It's just expired,” I said.

“That's the way of the world these days,” said Stas. “They've got it down to a science. Am I right?” he said to the woman.

“You're right,” she said.

“That's Yana,” said Stas.

She just touched the palm of my hand with her fingers. Then she went back to typing, the keys clicking with a languid pace.

“I'll see what I can do about the pump,” he said. “It will take a day. Where can I reach you?”

I held out one of my cards. He took it between the tip of his thumb and forefinger, read it, and then said something in German to the woman at the computer. She turned around and looked at me, from my hair to my shoes. Then she looked at the Audi, then smiled at me, and said something in Russian.