City Of Lies (3 page)

And amidst this vast throng of noisy humanity – amidst these real people, their lives put on hold for forty-eight hours –
John Harper stood, watching the jetties bear up beneath the strain, and down along the wharf there were twenty-five or thirty boats hitched and waiting to carry them out, a thousand bucks a man, with fiberglass rods and high-tensile lines, and carbon-steel hooks and hats bedecked with flies that were hand-wound and hand-tied and a work of art in themselves, and all of this on a Monday morning while regular folk were filling out requisition dockets for insurance claims, or ferrying kids to band practice or hairdressers or football or drama class.

There were some regulars down there, faces he had seen before, and every once in a while he would nod and smile or grip someone’s hand, and look at their face, and think
You were here last time around, and for the life of me I cannot remember your name
, and get a look back that meant exactly the same thing, but they were all too polite to say so, and it didn’t matter a goddamn anyway because they would more than likely lose one another in this vast mêlée, and wouldn’t see one another again until next time they did this thing.

Harper walked down the wharf until he found the Press vessel, the
Mary McGregor
, her name freshly painted on the stern.

He smiled to himself, and wondered what in hell’s name he was doing there. Hadn’t it been a year ago that he’d told himself he would never do this trip again? The story was always the same; the pictures would be syndicated on the web for anyone who wanted to use them; it would be the same faces, the same tales, the same fisherman’s lies.

Harper reached the stern of the boat and, with his kitbag over his shoulder, hauled himself up and over the railing. He stood there for a moment and then turned and looked out towards the sea. Turquoise and cerulean, the sky clear, giving a view all the way west to Joe Bay, the smell of salt clearing the nostrils, the warmth of the sun overhead.

Back and behind Harper was Key Largo. Down along Overseas Highway and the first mile marker would appear – MM126, one hundred and twenty-six miles north of Key West – and a little way beyond that you would cross the Jewfish Creek bridge. Once upon a time it was called Rock Harbor, but Bogart and Bacall changed all that in 1948. Here was the Caribbean Club, a coquina rock facade and a tin roof, old movie posters on the walls and the redolent haunt of rum and bourbon, as if the very
structure of the place was imbued with it. Often times Harper would drive down there Sundays just to eat at Mrs Mac’s Kitchen, and then head out to the Wild Bird Center, across wooden walkways that meandered through mangrove wetlands crowded with saffron plum trees, pine bromeliads and prickly pear cacti. One time he’d gone out to the reefs: White Banks Dry Rocks and Carysfort, the French Reef and Molasses, and then Conch where the sunken wrecks of the
Capitana
, the
El Infante
and the
San Jose
lay sleeping. He’d never been back, not because he couldn’t dive, not because he didn’t want to see them again, but because he knew that the more he went the more dissatisfied he would become with the life he had chosen. The same way he’d felt when he’d left New York so many years before.

And it was then that the call came. The defining moment perhaps. His cellphone jangling awkwardly, and Harper thinking,
This is some other unwanted aspect of an unwanted life
.

He looked at the number on the face of the phone – the
Herald
, and for a moment he was tempted not to take the call. Protocol and the threat of unemployment censored his thoughts. He pressed the green button.

‘Hi.’

John . . . it’s Carol at the desk. Harry asked me to call you. You out with the boats?

‘Yes . . . just got here, why?’

He asked me to tell you to come back
.

‘Come back . . . what have I got to come back for?’

There’s been a call for you
.

‘A call? What call?’

Your aunt called the paper . . . said there was something urgent, something to do with your family
.

Harper frowned. ‘Carol, believe me, the woman is crazy, absolutely fucking crazy . . . don’t worry about it. Just get someone to tell her I’m out, won’t be back for a while, okay?’

John . . . don’t give me a hard time. Harry told me to get you back here, whatever you said. Just come back, alright?

‘Is he there?’

Harry? Of course he’s here
.

‘Put him on the phone, Carol.’

A moment’s pause.

John?

‘Jesus Harry . . . what the hell is going on over there?’

People after you, John . . . had two calls from your aunt in New York, and then a further three calls from some girl called Nancy Young
.

‘What?’

Just get your ass back here, John . . . I’m sending someone down to cover the trip, okay? Whatever’s going on with your family seems like a big deal and I can’t have your friends and relatives calling the paper and upsetting people. Come back and sort this shit out, will you?

‘Right, Harry . . . right, sure thing.’

Puzzled as hell, John Harper finished the call.

It cost him fifty bucks to get someone to drive him back to where he’d parked his car. Annoyed, irritated, wanting to be out there on the deck of a boat making his way towards the limestone punctuations. Life had a habit of interrupting pretty much everything these days.

By the time he reached the
Herald
it was gone eleven. Walked in just as Carol rose from behind her desk. She pointed towards Ivens’ office.

Harper frowned, shook his head, couldn’t believe that such a fuss was being made about a call from one crazy relative, a relative he hadn’t spoken to for as long as he could remember.

‘So what the fuck is going on here?’ was the question with which he was greeted. Harry Ivens – big man that he was – came out from behind his wide desk.

‘Going on?’ Harper asked. ‘I haven’t a clue, Harry . . . you said my aunt had called, and Nancy Young.’

‘Who the hell is Nancy Young?’ Ivens asked.

‘Girl I used to date.’

‘So what the hell was she doing calling David?’

Harper frowned. ‘David? David Leonhardt?’

Harry nodded, pointing to one of the cubicles ten yards or so from his office. Harper could see the back of Leonhardt’s head.

‘David!’ Ivens hollered.

Leonhardt turned, rose from his chair, and even as he reached the office door his phone started ringing again. Leonhardt glanced at it and looked at Harper.

‘It’s Nancy,’ he said, and then he paused awkwardly.

Harper’s eyes widened.

Leonhardt shrugged. He handed his phone to Harper.

Harper held it up and peered at the name that flashed on the screen.
NANCY . . . NANCY . . . NANCY
. . .

He was confused. He hit the button, and then passed the phone back to Leonhardt.

‘Nancy?’ Leonhardt paused, silent, looked embarrassed. He nodded his head, looked at John Harper, and then said, ‘You. . . she wants to speak to you . . . says she’s called you but couldn’t get a signal.’

John took the phone, held it to his ear.

John?

‘Nancy . . . what is it?’

Hadn’t spoken to her for the better part of a year. Bitter and acrimonious relationship breakdown. Hurling vases down the stairs, old 45s, a couple of signed and framed pictures he’d had for years. Had to clean up the hallway below, sweeping shards of glass from along the baseboard. Sour taste in his mouth. Harsh words echoing in his head even as he heard her voice.

John . . . I’ve been trying to get hold of you . . . your aunt called me earlier, an hour ago, I don’t remember
. . .

She sounded worried, fretting, anxious, uptight. Sounded like a woman on the edge of an episode.

She didn’t have your cellphone number . . . not that it would’ve done any good . . . your phone’s off
—

‘I’ve changed my number.’

Right . . . anyway, I couldn’t reach you
—

‘You called David’s phone,’ Harper interrupted.

He looked up at David Leonhardt who glanced away like he wasn’t listening, like he didn’t hear the last thing said. Tension in the air. Awkwardness.

Yes
.

John shook his head. ‘You called David’s phone . . . David Leonhardt . . . from the paper?’

Yes, I called David’s phone . . . I called him because I thought he might know where you were. You guys have done a lot of work together
. . .

‘But how do you have his number, Nancy?’

John looked at Leonhardt again, Frowned like he was trying to see if it worked as a useful expression. ‘David?’ he asked, and for a moment it wasn’t clear whether he was speaking directly to his
colleague, or if he was talking on the cell. ‘I don’t understand . . . how does Nancy have your phone number?’

Leonhardt shrugged, mouth turned down at the edges, trying to appear nonchalant.

John?

Back on the phone.

John . . . shut up for a goddamned minute will you? I’ve been calling you because your aunt didn’t know how to get hold of you . . . she needs to speak to you
.

There was silence for a moment, a tight pocket of silence, like Nancy was going to say something else and then she cut it short, pulled in the reins, didn’t know what words to use.

‘What?’ Harper asked. ‘What is it?’

I don’t know, John . . . it doesn’t make sense
.

‘Whaddya mean, it doesn’t make sense?
What
doesn’t make sense, Nancy?’ His tone one of irritation. He could hear it, clear as a bell at daybreak, and he knew this was some overspill from way back when; something tied up tight inside, tied up with whipcord, something vindictive and vengeful towards the girl who seemed to have effortlessly broken his heart.

Don’t get nasty, John . . . I’m just calling you because your aunt couldn’t get hold of you so she called me. I’m here at work, John, still at work, and she called me here and I’ve been trying to find you. I did meet her, John, remember? She must have remembered where I worked
.

‘So what’s so important, Nancy? What’s so important that she needs to call my ex-girlfriend?’ Emphasized
ex
, like he wanted to say something to get back at her.

Like I said, it doesn’t make any sense to me
—

Nancy paused, and then,
She said it was about your family John. She said she needed to speak to you about your family
.

‘She what?’

John, will you stop asking me questions I can’t answer. You have any idea how stupid you sound?

A heartbeat of hesitation, then, ‘I’ll call her, okay?’

Okay . . . that’s all I wanted. Now let me speak to David
.

Harper opened his mouth to say something else. He felt awkward, disjointed; his thoughts present, half-formed, but seemingly disconnected from speech.

He held out the phone. Leonhardt took it, turned and walked back to his desk, speaking as he went.

‘So what the fuck is going on?’ Harry Ivens asked.

Harper looked blank. ‘My aunt—’

‘You need to call her, right?’

‘Yes . . . call her . . . yes . . .’

Harry took a step forward. ‘So go call her, John. Go call the woman and find out what’s going on.’

‘Yes,’ Harper said. ‘I’ll call her.’

Harper backed up and started towards his office at the far end of the corridor. He glanced left at Leonhardt. Leonhardt had his back to him but sensed that he was being watched. He shifted his chair a few inches forward in an effort to disappear. Harper would have said something, would have asked him how the hell Nancy Young had his cellphone number. He didn’t. Kept on walking. Stepped into his office and sat down at the desk. Picked up the phone. Dialled a number he remembered by heart.

She answered the call within three rings. ‘John,’ she said, and Harper knew from her tone that something serious had happened.

An hour later. Sky had bruised, color of blood washed out but still visible. Atmosphere was punch-drunk kind of hot, moody and solid, humidity up around the barely tolerable. Traffic gridlocked on the North-South Expressway. Windows down, people shouting and cussing and losing their language amidst expletives – F-words and sometimes worse. Pounding rap: Eminem thundering from the back of a jacked 4×4. Emotions tilting towards the regrettable edge of anger where things are said in the heat of the moment, things that are best forgotten and if – somehow – memory serves to float them back, they are viewed with shame and a sense of awkwardness that makes folks wonder if they really knew themselves.

They didn’t; truth was what truth was; people didn’t know a great deal about much of anything and – guaranteed – they knew least of all about themselves.

It had rained for fifteen or twenty minutes; hot-top damp, steam rising now, and though this should have served to lighten the atmosphere it did not. All closed up inside a fist of sky, oppressive and swollen with pressure and tension.

Now there was a cool breeze from the Atlantic, tradewinds from the Gulf of Mexico, and John Harper stood near his inched-open bathroom window, closing his eyes and imagining the rumble of traffic along the Expressway was something else altogether. Frustration perhaps, or some other awkward emotion he could not identify. Hadn’t taken a holiday for as long as he could recall.
Life is like this sometimes
, he thought, and then tried not to travel the line that ran an indefinite course between what he’d hoped would be, and what he found he had. But the line was there somewhere back of his forehead, and even as he crossed it he wondered if he would feel this way in a year’s time, or two, or five. Come June of the following year he would be
thirty-seven, more than likely single, more than likely standing in the same bathroom listening to the same sounds, pretending those sounds were something else altogether.
Life need not always be this way
, he added.
Life need not always be sharp corners and rough edges. Life could be cool and spacious, uncomplicated, profound but possessing humor. Life could be a great many things besides what we have here
. . .