Angel Landing (16 page)

“Not me?” Beaumont tilted his head like an old dog.

“It was the day man's responsibility,” I said. “You're the night man. You're innocent.”

“I'm innocent.” Beaumont smiled. “I'm the night man, and I didn't do it.”

“That's what we've been telling you all day,” the officer sighed.

“Minnie will be here soon,” I told Beaumont as I followed the officer farther down the corridor. The metal bars of empty cells shimmered, the odor of stale cigarettes stung. When we were nearly to the end of the row I finally saw Finn; he stood with his back to the wall. Pretending to be quiet, he almost looked calm, but he pounded his fist against his thigh, as if he hoped eventually to break through to the bones and the blood. The officer rapped on the metal bars.

“Someone's here to see you,” he told Finn.

When Finn looked up and saw me, his expression didn't alter; he looked right through me.

“Can you unlock the door?” I asked the officer.

“Sorry, no,” the officer told me. “This one's the real bomber.” But he did walk back down the corridor to smoke a cigarette and give us some privacy.

“It's perfectly normal for me to visit you,” I said to Finn.

“Yeah?” Finn said.

“It is,” I said. “It's perfectly normal.”

“Why?” Finn asked.

“I had to make certain you were all right,” I said.

“Well, here I am. I'm not going anywhere.”

“Carter's probably raising bail right now,” I said.

Finn's lips moved but I couldn't hear him; the iron bars caught every word. “Come closer,” I said.

“I can't,” Finn said. “I can't move.”

He stood against the wall, rigid as wire. If he moved an inch he might not be able to stop, he might climb right over the bars; if he opened his mouth too wide he risked a shriek or a sigh.

“I want to help you,” I said.

“You can't.”

“Please,” I said. I had moved so close to the bars that I could feel the metal and rust in the back of my throat. “Just talk to me.”

The officer who had led me to Finn now tossed his cigarette on the floor and crushed it beneath his heel. “Time's up,” he called to me. “He really shouldn't have any visitors at all.”

Minnie had followed the desk lieutenant into the holding center to retrieve Beaumont.

I turned to that last cell. “Michael,” I said, “just come closer.” But Finn refused to answer me; he leaned his head against the wall and closed his eyes.

When the officer wouldn't wait any longer, I followed him back down the corridor. Beaumont was stepping out from his cell. “Thank you,” the old man said when I reached him.

“It was nothing,” I said. “Just a mistake.”

“You saved me,” Beaumont said, looking from Minnie to me. “You rescued me.”

“From now on you'll have to be more careful,” Minnie said sharply. “We can't go running after you, we can't keep rescuing you.”

Beaumont hung his head. “It was a mistake,” he said.

“That's right,” Minnie said, linking her arm through his. “That's all it was.”

The desk lieutenant opened the door back into the station house and Minnie and Beaumont stepped through. But before I left the rows of detention cells, I looked back. Through the bars I could see that Finn had finally moved. His face was hidden, he was too far away for me to look into his eyes, but before I stepped through the doorway, I saw that he had wound his fingers around the bars, and he held on tight, as if there were enough power in his hands to lift him right up through the roof, straight into the starless night.

TWO

O
N THE MORNING WHEN
I was to meet with Outreach's board of directors, Beaumont presented Minnie and me with a gift; breakfast was ready and waiting on the table. Minnie frowned at the oatmeal, she scowled at the glasses of prune juice and tapped the steaming mugs of peppermint tea suspiciously.

“Who asked Beaumont to do this?” Minnie said. “Who needs him messing around in my kitchen?” My aunt picked up a glass and studied the juice. “And what does he mean by this? Why is he feeding us prunes?”

“I think it was lovely,” I said. I tasted the oatmeal, then pushed the bowl away, and got up to make coffee. “It was a very nice gesture,” I insisted, though the oatmeal was horrid, and my stomach was too jumpy for juice.

Minnie tasted a spoonful of cereal. “Not too bad,” she shrugged.

“A gift of love,” I said as I measured out coffee.

“Now that he doesn't have a job, all Beaumont can give is love,” Minnie said. “Unless he has a new job. Unless someone hires him.”

“Who would hire him?” I laughed.

“Me,” Minnie answered. “That's who. I've got to spruce this place up, and I could use some help.”

“This place looks fine,” I said, settling for goat's milk to pour into my coffee.

“Not fine enough if I want to fill the house with boarders.”

“Oh, really?” I said. “And just who do you expect to get?”

“Old people,” Minnie said.

“Minnie,” I shook my head. “You don't have the facilities for old people here.”

“What am I?” Minnie cried. “Am I old? Do I live here without any facilities? There are plenty of people at Mercy who would love to live here. Good food, natural food, privacy and company both; and their Social Security would cover all the expenses and give me something on the side.”

I sipped my coffee. “It will never work.”

“I'll give you odds,” Minnie said.

We cleared the table. Minnie undoubtedly thought about filling every room in the house with new boarders as she slammed plates into the sink, while I imagined the board of directors waiting for me dressed in black suits, filling Claude Wilder's office with judgment. When we had finished cleaning up, Beaumont appeared in the doorway, dressed in his uniform.

“You didn't like the breakfast I made,” he said, when he saw Minnie pouring her juice down the drain.

“It was wonderful,” I said, though I had scraped my oatmeal into the bucket of biodegradable trash.

“Not too bad,” Minnie commented. “But as far as I'm concerned, none of us should ever need prune juice if our diet is right. I hope you're eating enough fresh fruits and vegetables, Beaumont.”

“You know,” Beaumont told us shyly, “I'm not the bomber.”

“Of course you're not,” Minnie said, nodding. “You never were. But now that you've been fired from the power plant, you'll need another job.”

“My raft,” Beaumont said. “I plan to retire to Florida as soon as my raft is ready to go.” The old man had been tinkering, working for years on a raft I was certain existed only in his imagination.

“Your raft,” Minnie's voice rose impatiently. “You'll still have plenty of time for that. But I'd like to hire you. Free rent if you agree to work for me. Floors, windows, a lot of hard work.”

“Minnie,” I said as I reached for my coat, “don't you think you're rushing things?”

Minnie ignored me. “Bring the floor waxer up from the basement,” she told Beaumont. “If it's not too heavy for you.”

“Too heavy?” the boarder smiled. “For me?”

“Is he your indentured servant now?” I asked.

“This is none of your business,” my aunt told me. “Beaumont is only too happy to have something useful to do.”

Beaumont nodded. “But I'll have to work at night.”

“Night, day, what's the difference?” Minnie said. “As long as we get this house into tiptop shape.”

When I left for work, Minnie was leading Beaumont down the stairs in search of the floor waxer, which had long ago been stored behind the washing machine and the old Hoover freezer. As I walked to Outreach, I worried about Minnie. She had been young when she had called all the Lanskys together to flock to her house in summer like crazy Russian birds. Her heart had been strong then; she could have carried the floor waxer up to the third floor without any help. Now she was old; a woman her age should not be planning a boarding-house renaissance, a woman her age should not depend on a thing as fragile as hope. As the last Lansky left with her, I would have to deal with Minnie's despair if her plans fell through and no boarders checked in. I might even find Minnie's feet dangling over the edge of her bed if, in some hazy depression, she decided to slip a bit of natural poison into a glass of raw apple juice. And then, what of Beaumont? Without Minnie he would wind up back at the V.A. Hospital, returned to the wide porch lined with rocking chairs, with no hope of ever seeing either his raft or the Florida waters he yearned for. My concern for Minnie and her old boarder overwhelmed me, and when I got to Outreach I sat on the couch in the waiting room like a tired client.

“They're all in there,” Emily whispered to me from her desk. “They're waiting.”

I rose with a sigh, and walked into Claude's office with my coat still buttoned. Inside, Claude was circled by the three Outreach directors: a physician named Johnson, who had first sponsored Outreach for county funding; Gerkin, our fund raiser, who attended dinners and lectures all through the state; and Sally Wallace, who had donated fifty thousand dollars of her own in the memory of her late son, Gideon, a boy Mrs. Wallace thought might have survived his heroin addiction had Outreach existed before his death.

“Here she is,” Claude said when I entered the room. “Right on time.”

“You've really done a very stupid thing,” Sally Wallace said to me.

“There's been some bizarre behavior here at Outreach,” Johnson said. “Some irresponsible behavior.”

“Naïve,” Mrs. Wallace said. “NaÏve would be a better word.”

“I haven't been irresponsible,” I said. “If you're referring to the bombing at the plant, we have nothing to talk about. I have no information. It's true, Mr. Finn is my client …”

“Was,” Claude Wilder corrected. “He'll see a court-referred psychiatrist from now on.”

“He came to see me because he was having a problem dealing with his anger.”

“I'll bet,” the fund raiser, Gerkin, said.

“And when he came to see me, the bombing had already occurred, it was already water under the bridge,” I said.

“The point is,” Johnson said, “you have got yourself into a very controversial situation.”

“Oh, no,” I said quickly. “I don't think so.”

“You're still a new worker,” Claude Wilder told me. “You're still on probation. If you know what I mean.”

“No. I don't know what you mean,” I said to Claude, but my palms had begun to sweat.

Claude leaned far back in his chair. “I mean you can be fired for the slightest infraction of Outreach's rules.”

“I don't understand,” I insisted. “I didn't break any rules. I knew very little about the bombing until the day Mr. Finn turned himself in to the authorities.” As if for spite, my left eye began to twitch as I lied. “To my knowledge, the bombing was an accident. It seems that Mr. Finn realized he had made an error in his work when it was already too late.”

“It doesn't matter if it was an accident or if he was working with the Russian army. We just want you to be careful,” Johnson said coldly. “Watch your step,” he advised.

“You may be in the public eye,” Sally Wallace told me. “You may even be called to testify at the trial.”

“Do you really think so?” I asked.

“Quite possibly,” Mrs. Wallace said.

“Some members of the board feel that you won't be able to handle the pressure,” Claude said. “But I'm sure you'll do just fine. I'm certain that none of Outreach's state or county funding will be jeopardized by any stupid mistakes.”

“Don't forget,” Gerkin said, “this is a great opportunity for you if you deal with the situation correctly.”

“One hand washes the other,” Johnson nodded.

“We want you to come through the trial without any controversy, and with as little publicity as possible. We don't want Outreach linked with the bomber,” Sally Wallace said.

“I'll try my best,” I said.

“Just remember,” Claude said, as the meeting came to a close, “we all have faith in you.”

All the plans I had made for Finn's trial seemed petty; it barely mattered that the board of directors now warned me against publicity, all those articles I had planned to write would have been touched by emotion anyway. The lies I had told regarding how much I knew about the explosion and the agreement I had made to appear as Finn's witness would now bring me nothing, only a terrible loneliness I had never known before.

For all practical purposes, Finn and I were through with each other; he would be referred to a court psychiatrist, I would move on to other clients. Still, all that day I thought of him, imagined him walking on slippery ice. Finn may have been sending out a distress signal in the holding center of the police station, his fingers on the bars might have been a sign of passion, and trust. I had difficulty listening to the soft complaints of my clients that morning, and when Susan Wolf, the young anorectic, appeared for her afternoon appointment, I found myself drawn to the window, hoping that Finn might somehow appear, that he might stand in the middle of the street and look upward, into my window.

“Why is everything so difficult?” I said.

“I don't know a thing about it,” Susan said.

Outside, on the window ledge, pigeons flapped their wings and cooed. He couldn't be out there, not waiting in a doorway or alone in his Camaro. I went to my chair and sat heavily. “I'm so confused,” I said.

Susan looked alarmed, she sat far back in her chair. “It's not my fault,” she said. “Don't tell me about it.”

But it was too late, and Susan was too small and not strong enough to keep me from crying.