The Next (16 page)

Looking at the background, we could tell they were both playing near the pond behind Grandfather’s trailer. It occurred to me right then that Mom and Dad had grown up with each other. All I had known is that they went to the high school prom together. I knew the theme of the prom was the solar system because Mom had been on the planning committee. That Mom was furious with Dad and the other football players because they decided to turn the papier-mâché sun into a real ball of fire with a flask of bourbon and a lighter. But that was all I knew about their childhood. It never occurred to me that Mom and Dad had, in fact, played together as infants, taking summer trips together to Grandfather’s trailer by the rectangularish man-made pond.

Mom and Dad had entered this trailer and slept on this couch and listened to this record player played by this same stern man. Just like Paul and me.

At that instant, Paul and I were too full of wonder at the sight of Mom and Dad as children…too shell-shocked by inexplicably being handed double-barrelled shotguns…too fearful of our arrival at this rigidly reserved older man’s trailer to arrive at the question I would ask myself often through the next year. What happened to turn those children into the resentful, sludgy, angry, alcoholic, older creatures six inches to the right?

That older man who propped those photos on the counter before us had the answer to that question. He held the secrets of a million details in his eyes. His son’s first rash of poison oak. His son’s first loose tooth. His son’s first bicycle. First day at school. First razor blade. First date. First car.

But Grandfather’s eyes had also seen his son’s first unhappiness, beginning a chain of heartbreak that led to the photo of the miserable man barely accommodating a smile for a camera at a formal party. His eyes must have also seen the first time Dad put a glass of whiskey to his mouth. The first time Dad stumbled home piss-ass drunk. The thirtieth time Dad crawled up the porch stairs slobbering inebriated obscenities and kicking the screen door in.

Until that moment, Paul and I had never reflected on life, let alone damaged lives. We played hotrods on an old, moldy, stained carpet without ever imagining that the carpet had once been bright and new. And yet, there in front of us, were six inches that divided two drastically contrasting sets of photos of our Mom and Dad. No doubt Grandfather felt we should be cognizant of the difference. He wanted us to consider the six-inch separation. To register what the sum of those inches would truly total in the end.

Were those six inches composed of millimeters of unhappiness, or was there one single moment that spanned that six-inch journey in one tragic jump? Perhaps Mom and Dad had each been hit one split second without any gradation, like the severing of a spine. Mobile all your life, and then paraplegic a second later. Wham, slice, done. Could such a sudden slicing happen to my brother and me as well?

Paul and I had no idea as we stared at those photos that the answer would come by the end of that summer. We had no idea that the shotguns, the closed curtains, and the photos were all part of Grandfather’s master manipulation and would cause a permanent change for the rest of our lives. We had no idea that the moment we stepped through that trailer’s screen door, we were beelining toward our own six-inch leap.

“What about your grandfather?” Marzoli asked.

I felt the click of the glass on my teeth again as Marzoli forced me to drink a tumbler of water.

“What d’ya mean?” I mumbled.

“You muttered
Grandfather
as you slept.”

“Nothing. It’s nothing.”

I opened my eyes to see if I’d succeeded in curtailing any further questions. Marzoli power-drilled into my brain with that observant, compassionate, concerned look that forced me to turn away, shriveling in my own dishonesty. I’d not succeeded in curtailing any questions, only delaying them.

“As you wish,” he said.

I realized in that instant with those three words, two separate circles had merged: an ever-surfacing past I had believed to be completely buried, and an ever-invasive present personified by this Puerto-Rican Sicilian whose firm ass sank into the cushion of the couch next to my thigh. I realized I would never separate these worlds again. That the bees buzzing in that motherfucker’s hive would never settle down until he explored the three lapses from reality he’d witnessed in me.

I’d have to force him to let me off the hook by substituting a subject of more pressing interest.

“If Ruben
wasn’t
murdered, where is he?”

He crossed his arms, and the corners of his lips went up in amusement.

Yes, Marzoli was completely aware of my tactic to derail his inquiry, but his tidal intellect had already surged towards a line of response.

“Yesterday, remember when I told you to keep an eye out, but I did not tell you what to look for? Do you know why I was that vague?”

“To be a tool,” I said.

“So you would be open to noticing anything without me prejudicing you in any way.”

“I don’t understand.”

“What would anybody be doing with a wire cutter at three in the morning?”

“I don’t know.”

“Nor do I. But you might have missed that detail had I told you what to keep an eye on.”

I had been micromanaged without even knowing it. He felt compelled to withhold information for my own good. Did he think I was five years old?

“We’re going to figure out the meaning of the wire cutter,” he assured, “Trust me.”

He walked over to my front door and pointed down at the floor. For the first time I noticed a large black trash bag, bulging in the middle and tied closed at the neck.

“This,” he presented, “is the Layworth’s trash.”

The fuck?

“I stole it from their basement this morning when the doorman received a dry cleaning delivery and left the back door open. With my shoe in the crack.”

“Why would you want the Layworth’s trash?”

“There might be a clue in it that proves they killed Nathan and Ruben.”

Holy shit!

All that worrying about Marzoli thinking I’m a psychotic conspiracy theorist, and the son of a bitch had been on board before he’d even entered my apartment.

Mother loving shit!

Chapter Fifteen

“May I ask you something?”

Marzoli paused, but he wasn’t really requiring an answer.

Oh boy, here it comes. Am I gay? Am I straight? Am I going to get back together with Johanna?

As we poured over the contents of the Layworth’s trash spread out on the wood floor, he continued without even looking up from the shredded credit card bills he’d been sifting through, “Were Nathan’s nipples erect when you cleaned them?”

By now his casual dropping of non sequiturs was a game I felt privileged to play, but my first reaction was always teeth-gritting impatience.

I recalled Nathan’s face as I cleaned his bleeding nipple. He was high, to be sure, but he was also shivering. At the time, I associated the cause as the temperature dropping due to his window being open. But when I think of it, Nathan’s nipples were not as stiff as they ought to have been had he truly been cold.

“No, they weren’t.”

“If the room wasn’t cold, why was he shivering?”

“Withdrawal?”

“No. You said he was high, so he was actively using.”

“Then what?”

“Fright?”

Could Nathan have been taking drugs to self-medicate his fear away? But what was he frightened of? And how was his open window connected to it?

Had Mr. Perfect threatened his life? Or Mrs. Perfect? And if so, why?

As I overturned yogurt-stained Pottery Barn catalogues on the floor, I caught Marzoli eyeing me. Not just eyeing. He was penetrating my brain through my pupils, keying into my slightest notions, cueing off my slightest confusion, and following the paths of thought like a blind man’s stick navigating a busy crosswalk. He grinned that ridiculously scrumptious smile. This brilliant bastard was enjoying this process. I was grateful to have changed back into baggy sweatpants to partially conceal just how much I was too.

“If Nathan had fucked around with Mr. Layworth, and he’d threatened to expose the affair to Mrs. Layworth, and Mr. Layworth grew violent…”

“Why would Nathan threaten to do that?”

“Because he’d fallen in love with Mr. Layworth? Because Layworth threatened to end it?”

“You really think it was love?”

“Or,” I hesitated, “blackmail?”

Blackmail seemed the logical step for a club DJ slash E-dealer who lived somewhat above his means in this building. Had he been dropped off as a kid in Manhattan with only a handful of cash, he’d have developed some resentment for the type of lord and master Layworth represented. It made sense to me that he would have wanted Layworth for his debit card PIN number rather than for a romantic ride holding hands in a horse-drawn carriage in Central Park.

“Either way,” I continued, “Mr. Layworth felt threatened and retaliated.”

“But Nathan escapes. Is that the night you cleaned his bleeding nipple?”

“If he was shivering because he was scared shitless, it’s possible.”

“But Nathan actually wasn’t safe. Layworth had to make sure Nathan kept his mouth shut, and a strung-out street kid had nothing to gain by staying zipped.”

“So, Layworth slices his throat and dumps him into the river?”

Marzoli scrutinized me and asked, “Can you buy all that?”

I shook my head. “Nobody kills to keep closeted in Manhattan.”

Marzoli grinned, which told me that obviously men did kill to remain in the closet in Manhattan. He picked up a folded, coffee-stained light blue paper.

“He chaired the Tea Party Fundamentalist Coalition,” he said, handing me an invitation to a Salt Lake City conference. “And he received six hundred thousand a year to do so. That man had no choice but to remain in the closet. Also, he was dismissed from partnership at the law firm one year ago for suspected late night fondling of a paralegal. A male paralegal. This was never proven, but he was asked for his voluntary resignation.”

None of that information was on the stained light blue paper.

Jesus Christ.

How long had he been investigating the Layworths? I’d only offered my knowledge of Ruben’s involvement with the Perfects minutes ago. How could he possibly have known this information unless they had been his target long before he met me two days ago? How much more had he elected not to tell me?

My heart hit the floor like a fumbled bowling ball.

Was the only reason for his being here in my apartment because of its vantage point to the Layworth’s apartment? Was I just a tool? All those prolonged looks, the stroking of my neck, the care he took when he found me on the fire escape, and all that wicked teasing about the state of my apartment. Was he buttering me up because my window was across the courtyard from his suspect? If Mrs. Abraham and I had switched apartments, would he be flirting with her now instead of me?

“What changed just now?” he asked, looking directly into my sockets.

“Nothing changed,” I responded, pretending to be transfixed on a set of broken glasses I’d found after turning over a coffee-stained AT&T phone bill.

What a goddam chump I am!

“What changed?” he insisted.

“Can’t you get the same view of the Layworths’ apartment from Ruben’s apartment? Don’t you have the key?”

Marzoli held me in a steady gaze. I couldn’t look at him, but I could feel him measuring and discarding a series of responses to my cunty passive-aggressive rejection. I hated myself for being an ass to him. I hated myself for hating myself for being an ass to him.

I glanced at Marzoli. The prevailing emotion on his face was hurt, with a large infusion of confusion.

For real? How the fuck could a sucker like me injure a tough guy like him?

The pregnant moment would not end.

Suddenly my phone rang.

I reached for it, gratefully.

California number again. I would have ignored it except I couldn’t bear the moment it was interrupting one millisecond longer.

“Hello?”

“Eh…hello….um….This is Frank.”

“Who?”

“Frank Palmer.”

My brother’s neighbor in the trailer park. Over the years, I’d communicated with him almost exclusively via email regarding one subject only—the state of my brother’s health after an overdose. My sluggish brain worked hard to bridge his name to the sound of his voice.

“What’s happening?” I asked with impudent cheerfulness.

“Eh…I…I have your brother’s belongings. His books. Records. Photos. Some clothes. Sergeant Duamarel from the station brought it by. He figured…um…I guess I was the closest anyone was to Paul. So…eh…”

He paused, expecting me to take the initiative to speak and assume the lead in this conversation. But I didn’t. I was watching Marzoli putting his jacket on and shuffling toward the door.

“…uhh,” poor Palmer continued awkwardly, “if you want them…”