the Forgotten Man (2005) (18 page)

"Well, all right, then. Let me tell you where I live."

I copied her address, then hung up. I was still standing by the table. My hands were still shaking, but not so badly.

I studied the map of Southern California. Anson was in the middle of nowhere. What would have been the odds? My mother had vanished for days and sometimes weeks when I was a child. I never knew where she went, but Southern California was so far from where we lived it was unlikely she had gone so far. Still, I didn't know. She had vanished again and again. More than once, my grandfather hired someone to find her.

Ken Wilson Miami , Florida Wilson sat in the dark on his porch, feeling old and disgusted as he listened to the frogs squirming along the banks of the Banana River. Moths the size of a child's hand scraped against the screen that was the only thing saving him from the clouds of mosquitoes and gnats that filled the night with a homicidal whine. Wilson figured all he had to do was punch one finger through the screen and so many goddamned monsters would swarm in they could suck him dry before sunrise. He thought about doing it. He thought it would be pretty damned nice to be done with the whole awful mess of his life.

He took a sip of watered Scotch instead, and spoke to his dead wife.

"You should've never left me. That was damned lousy, leaving me like this, just damned awful of you. Look at me, sitting out here by myself, just look at me."

He had more of the Scotch, but didn't move, alone with himself on the porch of his little bungalow that felt so different now with her gone.

Wilson had buried his wife three weeks ago. Edie Wilson had been his third wife. It took three times for him to get it right, but once he found her they had stayed together for twenty-eight years and he had never once, not once, well, not in any meaningful way, regretted their marriage. They didn't have children because they were too old by the time they hooked up, which was a shame. Wilson's first wife hadn't wanted children, and his second marriage hadn't lasted long enough, thank God. Such things hadn't seemed important back then, him having the concerns of a younger man, but a man's regrets changed as he grew older. Especially when he got into the Scotch.

Wilson drained his glass, spit back a couple of wilted ice cubes, then set the glass on the floor at his feet.

He said, "Come to Papa."

He took the .32-caliber Smith Wesson from the wicker table and held it in his lap. It had been his gun since just after Korea, purchased for five dollars at a pawnshop in Kansas City, Kansas; silver, with a shrouded hammer and white Bakelite grips that had always felt a little too small for his hand, though he hadn't minded.

He put the gun to his temple and pulled the trigger.

Snap.

Sixteen years ago, Wilson sold his investigation business and retired. He and Edie had packed up, moved to south Florida, and bought the little place on the river, her liking it more than him, but there you go. The day they packed, he unloaded the gun, and had never seen a need to reload it; those days being gone, him needing "a little something" on his hip in case events grew rowdy, long gone and done. The gun had been unloaded for sixteen years.

But that was then.

Wilson had a nice new box of bullets. He opened the box just enough, shook out some bullets, then put the box down by his glass. Those .32s were small, but they had gotten the job done. He pushed the cylinder out of the frame, carefully placed a bullet into each tube, then folded the cylinder home until the axle clicked into place. He grinned at the sound.

He said, "Well, that calls for a drink, don't you think?"

He put the gun down on the wicker table, went inside for another one-and-one Scotch, and was heading back outside when the phone rang. He thought about not answering, then figured what the hell, it was late and might be important, though later he would think it was Edie, taking care of him.

He answered as he always had even though Edie had hated how he answered, complaining, "Goddamnit, Kenny, this is our home, not an office, can't you say hello like a real person?"

But, no, Wilson answered like always.

"Ken Wilson."

"Mr. Wilson, this is Elvis Cole. You remember?"

Of course he remembered, though it had been a few years since they last spoke. The boy's voice cut clear and bright through the years, riding the backs of memories like a pack of greyhounds exploding after the rabbit.

"Why, hell, how are you doing, young man? Jesus, how long has it been, eight or nine years, something like that? We got a good connection. You sound like you're across the street."

"I'm in Los Angeles, Mr. Wilson. I know it's late there. I'm sorry."

"I wasn't sleeping. Hell, I was talking to myself and drinking Scotch. You get to be my age, you don't have a helluva lot else to do. How you doin', boy? How can I help you?"

Wilson decided he wasn't going to tell Cole about Edie, not unless the boy came right out and asked after her, and even then Wilson thought he might lie, might ladle out some bullshit like, oh, she's sleeping right now, something like that. If he explained about Edie, Wilson would start crying, and he didn't want to cry any more, not any more, not ever again.

Elvis said, "I want to ask something about my mother."

Well, there they were, right back where they started.

"Okay, sure, go ahead."

"You know where the Salton Sea is out here?"

"Out by San Diego, but inland, just up from Mexico, isn't it?"

"Yes, sir, pretty much dead center between the ocean and Arizona."

"All right. Sure."

"Does the name George Reinnike ring a bell, George Llewelyn Reinnike?"

Wilson mouthed the name to cast a bait for his memory, but it settled in the dark waters of his past without a stir. Many names swam in that dark pool, but most swam too deep to rise.

"Nope, nothing springs to mind. Who's that?"

"George Reinnike was from a small town near the lake called Anson. He came to L. A. a few days ago to find me. Two nights ago, he was shot to death, but before he died, he made a deathbed statement. He told a police officer he was my father."

Ken Wilson didn't answer right away. The boy's tone was as matter-of-fact as a cop reciting case notes, but a familiar hopeful energy pushed the boy's words out. Wilson hadn't heard the boy sound that way in years.

Wilson answered slowly.

"Why are you calling, son?"

"You knew my mother."

"Uh-huh."

Wilson didn't want to commit himself.

"You knew her better than I ever did."

"I wouldn't say that."

"I would, Mr. Wilson. I knew some of her, but you knew the parts I couldn't have known. So I want to know if it's possible. Could my mother have come to Southern California? Is it possible they met?"

Wilson thought how much he admired the boy. All these years later, and the boy was still chasing his father.

"Mr. Wilson?"

"Lemme think."

Wilson had been hired to find the boy on five occasions. Each time, the boy had chased after a carnival featuring a human cannonball because the boy's loony mother - that bitch was crazy as a bedbug on Friday night - filled his head with nonsense about Cole's father being a human cannonball. But on seven other occasions - four even before the boy was born - Elvis's grandfather had hired Wilson to find the boy's mother. Each time, she had run off without telling anyone where she was going or why, just up and disappeared, and they'd wake to find her gone without so much as a note. Most times, she'd return when she was ready, acting as if she had never been away, except for those times when Wilson found her. Then, per her father's instructions, Wilson would make sure she was safe, call the old man to report her whereabouts, then wait for the old man to come fetch her. There never seemed any plan or motive in her journeys; she'd feel the urge to go, so she'd go - like a dog that slips under a fence for a chance to run free. She'd hitchhike in whatever direction the cars were going, back and forth across her own path on misshapen loops that went nowhere, living with beatniks or hippies one night, or with coworkers another if she'd gotten herself a waitress job and promoted a place to stay. Her wanderings had always seemed aimless, but she had gone pretty far a couple of times, not so far as California, but close. Who was to say she hadn't been there and back before Wilson found her, or took a trip Wilson knew nothing about? Wilson had been involved only when the old man hired him.

He said, "I don't remember so good anymore, so you can take this for what it's worth - I don't have a recollection of that name or that little town. Your mother never mentioned them to me, and I never tracked her out that way, but all of that was a long time ago."

"I understand."

"She went pretty far a couple of times, so she could have gotten out there if she set her mind. I'm not saying she did. I don't know if she got out there, but you asked if it's possible, and I guess I have to tell you it is."

"I understand. I need to ask one more thing -"

"Ask as much as you like."

"I always thought she didn't know who he was, my father I mean. I guess I figured he didn't even know I existed -"

Wilson knew where the boy was going, but let him get there in his own way.

"I guess what I'm wondering is, could they have been in touch with each other after I was born? That's the only way Reinnike could have known my name."

Wilson thought about it, and thought it through hard because he was wondering the same. He answered slowly.

"Your grandfather, he used to go through your mother's things all the time. He had to, you know - don't think poorly of him for that - he was always scared she'd up and disappear one day and get herself murdered, so he used to look -"

"You don't have to apologize for him, Mr. Wilson. I know what he went through. I went through it, too."

"He would have told me if he found letters from anyone. Your aunt, too - she always had an eye out - but they never told me about finding anything like that. I think they would have told, especially when you started running off, but -"

Cole interrupted.

"It's possible."

"When two people want to get hold of each other, I guess they can do damn near anything. I don't think it's likely, her being the way she was, but -"

Wilson wanted to say more, but anything else would be a lie. God knows, the boy had enough of those.

"- I don't know."

A silence filled the empty space as the boy mulled that over.

"Okay, Mr. Wilson, I understand. I just needed your opinion. Like always."

Wilson felt warm, hearing the boy say that.

"I wish I could be more help."

"You help. You always have."

"This guy, Reinnike, he have any proof, anything that links him to your mother or you?"

"No."

"Was he a human cannonball?"

Elvis Cole laughed, but it was strained at the edges.

"I don't know. I'll find out."

"Well, I guess you could have one of those tests, the DNA."

"I've been thinking about it. They have to locate the next of kin first. You have to get permission."

"Well, we both know there are ways around that. Old as I am, I could get around that one."

"I'd better get going here, Mr. Wilson. Give Mrs. Wilson my love."

Ken Wilson's heart squeezed tight in his chest. He felt the tears come and looked at the little .32.

He said, "Call more often, goddamnit. I miss talking with you."

"I will."

Wilson fell silent; here he was, on the Banana River, talking to a man he had known from a boy, and this man was as close to a son as Wilson would ever have.

"I've always been proud of you, the way you turned yourself around - you rose above yourself, son. Every man should, but most folks don't even try. You did, and I'm proud of you. Whatever that's worth."

"I'd better go."

"It's time for me to go, too. You take care."

He was putting down the phone when he remembered one last thing.

"Elvis?"

"Sir?"

He'd caught the boy just in time.

"It doesn't matter who your father was. You're still you. You hear what I'm saying? There's no such thing as a dead end - not in this game. You keep looking. You'll find what you need to find."

"Thanks, Mr. Wilson."

"Goodnight."

"Night."

The line clicked, then Wilson put down his phone. The frogs and moths were suddenly loud again, and his screened porch was once more a dark cage. His little shack on the Banana River had seemed brighter while he spoke with the boy, but now the brightness was gone.

"Why in hell did you have to go?"

He had a last sip of the Scotch, then picked up his pistol, pushed open the cylinder, and shook out the bullets. He left all of it on the little wicker table, and went inside to his bed. He fell asleep thinking of Edie, and of the ways he had failed her, and of all the ways he had failed himself, but with a final dim hope that he had done right by the boy.