Basket Case (17 page)

Because nothing turned up in the data search I ran at the newsroom, I'm left to rely on my telephone skills and the kindness of strangers. First, I make a list of cities where my mother has lived in the forty-three years since Jack Sr. walked out. In order: Clearwater, Orlando (where I attended high school), Jacksonville (where my mother met my stepfather), Atlanta, Dallas, Tallahassee and, now, Naples. Unless my mother is fudging about the time frame, my old man's death occurred at least two decades ago. That automatically knocks out the last three cities. Twenty years ago, my mother and stepfather were living in Atlanta, so that's where I begin—with a call to the morgue of the Journal-Constitution.

As soon as I identify myself as a brethren journalist, I'm transferred to an efficient-sounding librarian with a honey-buttered Georgia accent. She puts me on hold while she manually searches the paper's old, alphabetized clip files, the stories that predated electronic storage. As I'm waiting, my palms moisten and my heart drums against my sternum and—for one fleeting lucid moment—I consider hanging up. Whether my father croaked at thirty-five or ninety-five shouldn't matter to me; I don't even remember the guy. We had nothing in common except for the name and the blood; any other attachment is illusory, coiled like a blind worm in my imagination.

Yet I don't hang up. When the librarian comes back on the line, she apologetically reports that she cannot find a published obituary for anyone named Jack Tagger, nor any news stories relating to the death of such a person. "It's always possible it was misfiled. I could crosscheck the daily obit pages on microfilm," she offers. "Can you guess at the year?"

"Till the cows come home," I say. "Thanks for trying."

I get the same discouraging results from the Florida Times-Union in Jacksonville, the Orlando Sentinel and the Clearwater Sun. No obits, blotter items, no stories, no Jack Tagger in the clips. I wonder if I've overestimated my mother's integrity. Suppose she invented the bit about seeing my old man's obit in a paper. Suppose she contrived to send me off on some winding, futile quest, just to get me off her back.

If so, I went for the bait like a starved carp. Two hours working the phone and zip to show for it. Serves me right.

I dial her number and Dave, my stepfather, picks up. We engage in innocuous chitchat about the tragic state of his golf game until he gets sidetracked, as he often does, on the subject of Tiger Woods. While acknowledging the young man's phenomenal talent, my stepfather fears that Tiger Woods is inspiring thousands upon thousands of minority youngsters to take up golf, and that some of these youngsters will one day gain entry to my stepfather's beloved country club and commence whupping some white Protestant ass.

"I've got nothing against blacks," Dave is saying, "but, Jack, look around. They've already got basketball, they've got football, they've got track. Can't they leave us something? Just one damn sport we can win at? Don't read me wrong—"

"Never," I say. Arguing would be futile; Dave is old and dim and stubborn.

"—don't read me wrong, Jack, but what can they possibly enjoy about golf? For Christ's sake, you don't even get to run anywhere. It's all walking or riding around in electric carts in the hot sun—can that be fun for them?"

"Is Mom home?" I ask.

"Jack, you know I'm not prejudiced—"

Perish the thought.

"—and, as you're aware, me and your mother give generously to their college fund, that Negro College Fund. We never miss the Lou Rawls telethon."

"Dave?"

"But what concerns me about this Tiger Woods—and God knows he's a gifted athlete—but what troubles me, Jack, is the message that's being sent out to the young people, that golf is all of sudden a game for, you know… the masses."

"Dave, is my mother home?"

"She went to the grocery."

"Can I ask you something?"

"Sure, Jack."

"Not to change the subject."

"That's quite okay."

"She ever talk about my old man?"

"Hmmm."

"Because she told me he died," I say. "She said she read about it in some newspaper a long time ago. You wouldn't happen to remember when that was?"

Silence on the other end; rare silence, in Dave's case.

"Even a ballpark guess would be helpful," I say. "I'm just curious, Dave. You can understand."

"Certainly. Him being your natural father and all. It's just… "

"What?"

He manufactures a cough. I wish I could say I felt lousy for putting him on the spot, but I don't. Dave sold Amway for a living so it's just about impossible to throw him off stride.

"When your mother and me got married," he says, "we made a pact between ourselves. An unwritten contract, if you will."

"Go on."

"We agreed not to talk about our past… what's the word—involvements. Not ever. That includes ex-boyfriends, ex-husbands, ex-girlfriends, ex-wives… ex-anybodys. We felt it was water under the bridge that ought to stay over the darn."

"I see."

"We weren't exactly kids when we met, your mom and me. We'd both been around the block a few times. Chased a few rainbows."

"Of course, Dave."

"No good ever comes from dredging up the past," he adds sagely.

"Then the answer would be no, is that right? She never mentioned my father's death. Never once."

"Not to me, Jack. A pact is a pact," he says. "Shall I tell her you called?"

Carla Candilla gets a regular five o'clock break from the photo counter at the drugstore. We meet at a yogurt shop in the same strip mall. Heads turn at the sight of her Vesuvius-inspired dye job, or perhaps it's my fat purple nose. In a low voice I describe the scene on Cleo Rio's balcony. Carla begs in vain for more details, and is slightly disappointed that the object of the widow's affections wasn't Russell Crowe, Leonardo DiCaprio or one of the Backstreet Boys, none of whom matches my description of the coppery-haired felatee. Carla promises to snoop around the circuit and report all rumors. She says Cleo's favorite local hangout is a club called Jizz; down on South Beach, it's Tetra.

"It's very important," I tell Carla, "for me to get the boy toy's name."

"Give me the weekend," she says confidently. Then, fishing into her handbag: "Wanna see something wild?"

"Don't tell me." Previous lectures on the subject of privacy obviously have made no impression.

"Oh, come on, Jack." Carla mischievously fans out the photographs like a deck of cards. One glance is more than enough.

"You can get fired for this," I point out, halfheartedly.

Carla and her minimum-wage cohorts at the drugstore keep watch for raunchy amateur snapshots coming out of the automated developing machine. If the photographs are exceptional, duplicates are surreptitiously made and passed around. Today's glossy sequence features a nude, well-fed couple, a tenor saxophone and a Jack Russell terrier in a porkpie hat. My disapproving grimace impels Carla to say: "Look, if they didn't want anyone to see 'em, why'd they bring the film to the store? Whoever they are, I think they're really diggin' it. I think they're counting on us to peek."

Pushing away the stack of pictures, I promise not to tell Carla's mother.

"Oh come off it, Blackjack. This stuff is real life. Doesn't it make you wonder about the human race?"

"Actually, it makes me depressed. These freaks are having lots more fun than I am."

"Even the dog looks happy," Carla remarks, thumbing through the photos. "By the way, who punched you in the snoot? I'm guessing it was a chick."

"Yup. My boss."

She tosses her head and laughs. "You're the best, Jack."

"Tell me who your mom went to England with."

She says, not too brutally, "You know better than to stagger down that road."

"I'm afraid I don't. That's a gruesome fact."

"Fine, then." Carla returns the purloined terrier portfolio to her purse. "You want the truth or a lie? First, tell me what you can stand."

"A doctor, lawyer, college professor—as long as it's an unpublished college professor."

"Meaning anybody except a writer."

"Basically, yeah," I say.

Carla looks at me compassionately; Anne's eyes again.

She says, "Then I'll have to lie, Jack."

"You're kidding. She went to London with a goddamned writer?"

Carla nods.

"Newspaper guy?" I ask, with a shudder.

"Nope."

"Poet? Novelist? Playwright?"

"Novelist," says Carla.

"No shit. Have I heard of him?"

"It's possible."

"Don't tell me his name!"

"Don't worry," Carla says.

"And, for God's sake, don't tell your mother I asked."

"Jack, they're getting married."

Me, I don't flinch. "Can I see those pictures again?"

Carla says, "I've gotta get back to work."

I buy her a mocha-flavored shake and walk her to the drugstore. At the door she pats me on the cheek and says she's sorry about breaking the news. She thought it was something I ought to know, lest I call up Anne and make a fool of myself again.

"How old is this writer guy?" I ask innocently.

"Forty-four."

"Ha!"

"'Ha!' what?" Carla asks. "What's so bad about forty-four?"

"Never you mind," I say, thinking: Robert Louis Stevenson.

14

I call home and check the machine: one message from Emma and three from Janet Thrush. As usual, Janet's line rings busy so I drive straight to Beckerville. She answers the door wearing a knit hood with eye slits and a tight-fitting black jumpsuit. A gas mask hangs loosely at her neck, and she's carrying a toy M-16.

"So now it's SWAT-Cam," I say.

"Yeah, my pervs got bored with Rita Meter. Come on in, Jack." Janet peels off the headcloth. "Happened to your nose?"

"Logging mishap," I say. "What's up?"

"You will not believe it."

Sitting under the light racks, she tells me she was summoned by a man called Charles Chickle, whose name I know. He's a big-shot lawyer in Silver Beach; not a shyster or a barracuda, either, but legitimate weight. It seems Jimmy Stoma left a clause in his will retaining Mr. Chickle to represent Janet's interests in probate court in the event Jimmy died. Most beneficiaries don't need an attorney, but Jimmy obviously anticipated legal hurdles for his sister.

"He left me a hundred grand," Janet Thrush says excitedly. "You believe that?"

"How much for Cleo?"

"The same."

"Ho-ho. That explains the need for Barrister Chickle."

"But she also gets the boat, the cars, the condo," Janet says.

"And his tapes?"

"You mean the album? He never dreamed he wouldn't live to finish it," Janet says.

"Is it mentioned in the will?"

"Jack, I didn't even think to ask."

As for the house in the Bahamas, Janet says her brother left it to a charity called Sea Urchins, which sponsors marine camps for underprivileged kids. According to Charles Chickle, it was to Sea Urchins that James Bradley Stomarti left the bulk of his estate, including $405,000 in stocks and annuities, his share of future music royalties, and a $1 million life insurance policy.

"Cleo must be thrilled," I say.

"I guess Jimmy figured she didn't need the dough after her single charted. He figured she was on her way."

I'm on the verge of telling Janet what her songbird sister-in-law was doing yesterday on the balcony of her dead brother's condo when she blurts: "I don't think Cleo killed him."

"What makes you say that?"

"Because she knew already, Jack. She knew what she was getting if Jimmy was to pass away. He already told her most of the money was going to Sea Urchins—which is a really cool idea—and he also told her she wasn't getting squat from the insurance. The more I think about it, I just can't believe she'd kill him for a hundred thousand dollars. To me it's a fortune, but to Cleo it's a weekend in Cannes."

She's right about that. A woman like Cleo doesn't get lathered up over anything less than seven figures.

"I'm thinkin' he drowned accidental, Jack, like they told us all along. You always said it was possible."

"It is."

"Even though they screwed up the autopsy."

"And you said you wouldn't believe a word that came out of Cleo's mouth," I remind her. "What if I told you she was having an affair."

Janet shrugs. "What if I told you my brother wasn't exactly Husband-of-the-Year."

The computer on the coffee table bleeps for an incoming call; another cyberwanker. Janet sighs and glances morosely at the toy M-16, propped in a corner. I ask if she can think of any other motive for Cleo to have murdered Jimmy, and she says no.

"Would she have done it because she was mad about the will?"

"Then why not just dump his ass?" Janet says. "I'm sure she could've squeezed a lot more than a hundred grand out of a divorce." Another excellent point.