Little Blue Lies (17 page)

“Hah,” he says. “But it's
our
money. Not bad for the root of all evil, huh?”

He comes around the desk, walks me down the hall with his arm over my shoulders, and waits for the elevator with me.

“Sally,” he crows to the receptionist, “this is my shadow. He will be shadowing me in the future, and someday this will all be his.”

Dear God, where am I? Dear God, where is the elevator?

“Looking forward to working with you, Mr. Shadow,” Sally says as my dad playfully shoves me into the gaping elevator.

•  •  •

Mr. Shadow. My father casts a shadow, and it is me.

What have I done?

Well, nothing, yet.

I run again, from Dad's financial district office building to my hotel at the seaport, sprouting a whole new sheen of sweat before I jump back into the car. I tear off for my town again as I flip through the radio presets.

One thing I have discovered, living so much in my mother's car, is that her jazz station calms me some. It will never be my station of full-time, full-on engagement, but right now it is just the right accompaniment as I head back up the parkway, watching the road and reading Junie's little street map at the same time.

It's twenty past three, well ahead of schedule for picking her up from her last assignment. If I time it right, maybe I can make that final walk around the blocks with her. I like that. I like this.

I quick-scan the map in between glances at the road. Don't see any problems. I know where it is. I start looking at the other houses on the map—that's the one with the boxers, then Archie the antisocial Airedale, and then there's—

A bellowing truck horn pulls my attention to the road, and I pull my vehicle back to my side of it. It is a notorious stretch, this, beautiful with the pond on the right and the stately houses on the left, but it is crazy winding, was made for much more civilized traffic and should be three times as wide as it is now. Respect and attention must be paid here.

But the map. I have figured all the clients out but one. And I consider the neighborhood where it's located.

I drop the map onto the seat, and I barrel toward the home of Bam, the Boston baboon-ass terrier.

I stand on the porch
of the plain, postwar box of a house. Faded yellow vinyl siding and everything. I am shaking, which is fine except if it shows, so I fight it. I ring the doorbell, and the dog tries to bark, but he even
oooks
like a tiny ape.

“You gotta be kidding me,” is the proprietor's greeting. “What are you doing here?”

“I'm here to walk the dog,” I say.

He pushes open the screen door and ushers me past as he holds it for me. “My dog walker is a lot prettier than you, I can tell you that.”

“Okay, I lied,” I say, once I'm in.

“You shouldn't lie. A good kid like you especially, you shouldn't lie.”

Five seconds in and I already feel played.

I need to get in and get out, minimize the damage.

Five minutes later we are seated at his old Formica kitchen table. There is strong coffee in small cups in front of us, and a plate of biscotti. Biscotti are awful unless you have good coffee, in which case they are magic.

The dog is at my feet staring up at me. His face looks like a mangled shoe that he himself might have chewed beyond recognition.

The house is extremely comfortable: simple, homey, from what I can see. Artwork on the walls and shelves fall into three categories—family photos, Eastern Orthodox iconography painted onto wood, and one framed picture of Vladimir Putin sitting shirtless on a horse. I am aware I have been staring.

He's looking right at me, sipping his coffee behind grinning, knowing eyes. He's been allowing me to take in the scene, encouraging it, in fact.

“You like my house?”

“Ah, I do. Yes, very much.”

“You were expecting more, though. Opulence or something.”

“Um, no, sir. No expectations of any kind.”

“You'd be the first, then. Truth is, I raised three kids and two wives under this roof, fixed them up nice and set them all free. Couldn't imagine living anywhere else.”

“It's a fine house.”

“Not as nice as your house, though. But very few are.”

Get in, get out. Don't play. Jesus, he's scary.

Except, of course, he's not. He's not anything. He's not big, but not small, either. I thought he'd be older. He's none of those things you expect to find with these guys—you
know, either brutal and menacing or very grandfatherly and faux sweet. I have seen him a few times, from a bit of a distance and in photographs. But I barely recognize this guy from those. His features are what you would call pleasant, as is his voice, as are his gestures.

Maybe I have seen him more than a few times. Maybe thousands.

And I can almost bet that if I saw him tomorrow, I might walk right past him again without noticing.

I drink my coffee and eat two biscotti. He pours me a second cup without my asking.

“It's not too strong, is it? Sometimes I forget, and when I stand up, I'm bouncing off the walls.”

“No, sir, some of the best coffee I've ever had.”

“Ah, flattery,” he says, waving me off.

We sit, stare, and sip, until it can't really go on anymore.

“So, I have to be rude and ask, to what do I owe the pleasure of your company this lovely summer's day? If I were your age—if I were
you
, especially—the last place I would be spending my time would be in a dark house with a dull old man.”

I place my coffee cup down in its saucer. It makes the telltale clinking sound of the hand of the nervous young man. Also, the coffee was pretty damn strong.

“I won the lottery,” I say. I intended to be ultra-cool with the delivery, but it still came out like one slurred word.
Iwonulodery
.

Not that I am any kind of expert on such things, but I would imagine this is a very difficult man to startle. And, not that I would have anything to measure him by, I am guessing that the wide-eyed, two-hands-up-like-surrender pose I am seeing represents startle in this house.

“You?” he says evenly, coming rapidly back to composure.

“Me.”

“You? Not anybody else? That is quite a thing, what with the winning ticket having been sold out of the very shop your lovely lady works at.”

“I know. What are the odds, right? But that's lottery stuff for ya, long odds and all. So, yeah, me. Nobody else. Oh. Except, obviously, you.”

He lets out a little laugh, reaches across and pats one of my hands in, yes, a grandfatherly way.

“I have to say, I don't know what to make of you at all, mister,” he says.

“I hope I'm not out of line in saying pretty much the same thing about you.”

“Not at all, not at all. That's a good thing, is it not? The problem is with perceptions. You know, in any town, whispers start. Whispers become perceptions, become rumors, become accepted fact and legend, when in reality hardly five percent of that kind of thing is ever true. A guy, a local guy who's a successful businessman, because he's maybe a tough
competitor, and because most small-timers can't figure out what makes him consistently good at what he does, they make up these boogey man stories that become the official record in people's minds.”

I am listening. But I am not nodding or grunting or doing anything committal, because I frankly have no idea what to commit to. This, I think, shows.

“What?” he says.

Can't take anything for granted here. I consider what kind of offer “What?” might be.

“Cards on the table?” I say.

“Face up.”

“The official record is that you are ruthless, maybe to the point of brutality. It says you do not care what it takes, you are going to have your success, your way, and you do not care what happens to rivals, nor what anybody thinks.”

He folds his hands in front of his mouth, and looks to be descending into some deeper thought place. “That I find offensive. I have to say, I don't blame you for starting that kind of talk, because I know you are just the messenger, and I appreciate your directness. But I care very, very much what people think. What
good
people think of me, people like you, and your good lady—that matters to me as much as anything. I have worked as hard as any man ever has, to take care of his family, and I have done a very good job of that, if you'll
indulge my boasting a little there. I am no saint, true enough, but my money, I assure you, is
clean
. Like any real man, I do what needs to be done. That's all. I submit that I have done a lot more good for this community than bad.”

“Okay,” I say. “But how does somebody measure a thing like that? What's the gauge?”

“Easy. The people. The people are always the gauge. Ask them.”

“Who? Which people do you ask?”

He smiles a checkmate smile.

“The good ones, of course.”

“Oh, right,” I say. “Like good Ronny Blue.”

And here, up from the depths without any warning, is the ruthless, chilling creature of legend.

“
That
dog,” he says, leaning hard across the table and showing me every one of his sixty pointed teeth. “A dog like that, I feed occasionally, scraps from my fine table, to get him to bite somebody who needs biting. So he's a well-fed dog, but a dog nonetheless. He sniffs around; makes noise, does stupid, ignorant stunts that are supposed to impress me, when he is the exact opposite of what I am all about. I tell you this, kid, you ever hear that sonofabitch even mention my name, you are authorized to call me personally and then stand by to watch me choke the stinking bastard to death with his own thong.”

I almost choke on that last part right now.

“So,” I say when his breathing slows some, “you don't like him.”

He smiles, but it is a bit of an effort. Something transformative has happened, sort of a genie partway out of a bottle and stuck there for the time being.

“You need to get to your point now, Oliver,” he says, somewhat chillingly.

I pull out my wallet, pull out the check.

“The thing is, sir, while I won the lottery, I lost the ticket.”

He says nothing. Stares at me, into me, beyond me by several generations.

“But that's not your problem. That's for me to deal with. Rules must be followed, respect paid.” I write the check with a shaky hand as I talk. My phone starts ringing. Excellent timing, phone. It rings on. I realize that while I am aware of multiple names for the man, I have no idea what the real one is. “Who should I make this out to?”

“Harry,” he says.

I write “Harry,” then look up to him. There will be nothing else forthcoming.

“Harry, it is,” I say. I hand over the check, and while he's looking at it, I say, “Obviously that's just the first installment. There will be plenty more until we're all right.”

He says nothing. Phone rings again. I stand, he stands,
the dog stands. We all walk to the front door, and when I am outside, I realize the last word I heard him say was “Harry.”

•  •  •

I should not be driving.

My heart is bu-booming so hard, it is surely going to trigger the air bag, which will break every bone in my head and make me crash and die.

The conversation, the caffeine—I feel drugged, but that is probably just another nuts reaction to where I've been—the fear, and as it all sets in, the reality of the magnitude of what I have just accomplished makes me dangerously supercharged behind the wheel.

I screech to a stop at the house where June Blue sits scowling on the front steps.

“How can you be so late, driving so fast?” she asks as we zoom away from the curb.

“Really, really sorry. I'll make it up to you, though.”

“Make it up to me by slowing down, right now,” she says, her hands braced up against the glove compartment.

“Sorry. How was your day, then? Good? Looking forward to getting home? Hey, this is like we're married, huh, chatting about the day, you criticizing my driving . . .”

“Seriously, O, calm it down or let me off. I mean it. What have you been taking, anyway?”

“Nothing, I swear. Just really great coffee and a general lust for life, is all.”

I can feel her staring at me, suspicious. I still can't help smiling.

It feels like I have done something heroic. And we are going to celebrate.

•  •  •

We can smell them in the hallway before we even open the door to the room.

“Wow,” Junie says, her nose in the air like a retriever. “Heavenly. You smell that?”

“I do indeed,” I say, and throw open the door for her.

They are at the far end of the room, on the desk right by the window.

“Oh, my,” she says, and walks straight for the roses.

As fine as my mother's garden is, I have never seen anything like this. They are like a floral fireworks explosion. There are deep velvety red roses, pink ones, yellow, white, fuchsia, and some that are swirly combinations of two or three colors in the same bloom. There must be two dozen.

She buries her face in them, even though you could probably pick up the scent down in the underground parking garage.

“What are these doing here?”

“I guess they like having you around.”

“
They
do, do they?” she says. She is trying to get tough with me, and largely succeeding, but the flowers are intoxicating, even for me. Go, flowers.

She plucks a yellow rose out of the bunch, pulls out the desk chair, and turns it around to face me as she sits.

“Truly, O,” she says, breathing the scent deeply, “this is stunning, gorgeous, sweet, and unnecessary. It's not going to change one single thing. You know that. The fantasy—as mind-blowing a fantasy as it's been—will close tomorrow morning. It will slam shut tomorrow morning.”