The Probable Future (24 page)

“I wish you would die,” Stella told the horse. “Go on,” she urged. She raised her arms to the sky as though magicking away the future she’d seen for Hap, thrown from a horse with no one around to ease his fall. “Die,” she commanded the old swayback.

Sooner stayed where he was, chewing. But there was someone else around; Jimmy Elliot had come up the driveway, and he’d heard every word. He was wearing jeans and a black shirt which allowed him to fade into the shadows as the light shifted. Now he came to stand beside Stella.

“That can be arranged,” he said.

“Please.” Stella laughed. She should have been surprised to see him, but she wasn’t. “What are you going to do? Shoot him? Or maybe you’ll just throw an onion at him. That can be pretty scary.”

“Hah. Very funny.” Jimmy had actually saved that onion, it was in the back of his closet in a zip-lock plastic bag. “What’s wrong with this horse? Why would you want him dead? He looks harmless. Kind of pathetic, actually. Like your good buddy, Hap.”

The truth was, Jimmy didn’t know what he was doing there. He’d seen Stella and Hap driving through town with the doctor one minute and the next thing he knew he was walking down the Stewarts’ driveway, stopping to hang on the fence, looking at some old mule.

“He’s a menace.” Stella thought about what Hap’s father had said, how her mother had driven all the boys crazy, how Stella was nothing like her. She looked over at Jimmy and noticed his puzzled expression. It seemed that Mr. Stewart was wrong. “Just like you.”

“And you can tell that by looking at me?” Jimmy laughed, and when he did, he didn’t even sound like himself anymore. When he coughed to clear his throat, he felt his heart hit against his ribs.

“I told you before. I’m a good judge of character.” Stella leaped away from the fence and took off running. “Race you to the road.”

But Jimmy stayed where he was, watching her, although she was disappearing fast. For some reason he couldn’t take his eyes off Stella, even if that meant letting her win.

“I don’t think so,” Jimmy Elliot called after her. He grinned when she reached the road. Just as he’d hoped: once she had won, she didn’t ignore him. Instead, she turned back to wave. “You’re still talking to me.”

III.

T
HERE WAS NO ONE
to tell Will when to wake up; he had no job to go to, no wife to complain about his lazy and slovenly ways. Therefore, he rose at noon. No one was around to tell him to clear his dishes away, so they piled up in the sink until they reached a monumental height, a free-form of forks and spoons and chili-encrusted bowls and congealed spaghetti, all of it balanced upon Jenny’s favorite teacups, which were cracking beneath the weight of
pots and pans. The other tenants in the building had given up expecting their complaints would force Will to toe the line. Why, he no longer even bothered to carry his overflowing bags of garbage into the stairwell, let alone hoist the bags into the trash chute. Instead, he let it pile up in the hall, and although Mrs. Ehrland had consulted her nephew, an attorney with the housing authority, there was no way to get rid of Will Avery, not even when people began to complain of mice in the hall.

On weekends the tenants had a bit of a reprieve, thank goodness, for Will often spent Friday and Saturday nights at the home of Ellen Paxton, who wore jasmine perfume, the aroma Jenny had previously detected in their apartment. Ellen taught voice at the music school, and although she wasn’t a great beauty, she supplied Will with some decent meals and good after-dinner sex, if he hadn’t had too much to drink, that is, at which point he often fell asleep on her couch, where he served as a pillow for Ellen’s cat, a shedding Burmese Will despised.

With Jenny gone, Ellen had become hopeful that her relationship with Will was going somewhere, and Will didn’t particularly want to dash these hopes until he had a little more ready cash. No need to give up Ellen’s dinners or the loans she occasionally handed over when Will was flat broke. Certainly there was no need for her to know that he was also sleeping with Kelly Butler, a waitress at the Hornets’ Nest, who was only twenty-three, young enough not to be disturbed by the mess in Will’s apartment or the fact that he never took her anywhere.

The truth was, it was Stella he missed most of all; Stella’s trust in him, Stella’s faith. His daughter often left messages on the answering machine, since he always seemed to be out or asleep when she phoned. She missed him; she wanted him to come to Unity for a visit. But the bail agreement insisted he stay in Boston. Boston, his ball and chain. Boston, a cruel and thoughtless city if an individual had no money and no dreams. All those shops and cafés on Newbury
Street, Symphony Hall, with its near-perfect acoustics, the Ritz with its glorious view, what good was any of it to a man who had no money and no prospects? Will was broke, and weakened by disappointment; at night he couldn’t sleep without several drinks to help him drift off, and even then his sleep was restless, a dreamless deep he couldn’t escape. Often he woke with the shudders, as though he’d dived into the coldest waters and could barely drag himself ashore. He sputtered and needed several cups of coffee, and still he was shivering.

Now when he walked across the Common he stared straight ahead, not wanting to see the men on the benches, the homeless stretched out on wooden planks as if they were in their own beds. Jenny had told Will these men most often dreamed of slices of apple pie and beds with clean sheets; they dreamed that someone loved them and was waiting at the door, and of all the hundred small things that were slipping away from Will now. Since his piano was being held hostage at his previous address, and his hands were shaking anyway, he spent most of his time watching TV. He’d begun to have a whisky along with his second cup of coffee, just to get him revved up. In fact, he was a little buzzed on the afternoon when a reporter managed to get into the building, with no one to stop him before he managed to locate the Averys’ door. Occupants’ names were listed in the front hall, so Will hadn’t been especially difficult to find. Right beside his name several rude comments had been scrawled by his fellow tenants, in Magic Marker, in ink that wouldn’t wash away:
Go get a fucking job. Ever hear of rats? Throw your damned garbage away!

“I’ve got to ask you to leave,” Will was quick to say when he opened the door to a stranger who quickly introduced himself as a reporter. Will was still wearing the clothes he’d slept in, so he’d thrown on a sports coat in order to look presentable. “I don’t give interviews since my last debacle. I always say too much.”

“I know,” the reporter agreed. “That’s how I found you. Posed in front of your building with the number showing. Major bad idea.”

Will laughed. “I’m full of those.” He felt a certain kinship with this fellow who’d tracked him down.

The reporter looked Will up and down and took measure of his situation “Look, I won’t print anything you don’t want me to. And that’s not all.” The reporter coughed, embarrassed. He gazed around the empty trash-strewn hall with something that resembled pity. “I’ll pay for the interview.”

Frankly, Will’s stomach was growling and he felt somewhat dizzy from the caffeine and whisky he’d already consumed. There was half a cold pizza in the fridge and that was pretty much it. He was on the verge of having to call Jen and ask her for money. Or maybe Matt would come through, yet again. Henry Elliot had told him in no uncertain terms not to speak to another reporter, or to anyone else for that matter, in regard to the case. But Henry had always been a self-righteous ass and Will had never put much stock in anyone’s advice.

“How much?” he asked.

“Two hundred bucks.”

“I don’t know.” Will tried his best to look thoughtful. He did have to support himself, after all. “How about a thousand?”

“Five hundred. It’s the best I can do.” The reporter took out a billfold and counted out five hundred-dollar bills. “Nobody will pay more.”

“Why argue?” Will took the money and folded it into his jacket pocket. He grinned and opened the door wider, allowing his visitor inside, just in time, as Mrs. Ehrland was on her way up the stairs to once again complain about the trash and the late-night TV blaring out the window. By the time Mrs. Ehrland knocked on the door, Will had already brought the reporter into the living room. He ignored the rapping and took off his jacket, which he flung over the desk, littered with unpaid bills. That was what Mrs. Ehrland was probably blubbering about, the unpaid rent.

“What paper did you say you write for?”

“The
Boston Herald
. I’m Ted Scott. And I won’t keep you long. Everyone says that, but I really mean it.”

Will gathered together the magazines and newspapers strewn about on the couch and the easy chair. Frankly, it was something of a relief to finally talk to someone. It felt good to get it all out, rather than bottle everything up the way Henry Elliot, a tightass even back in school, had advised. Besides, everything Will said in this interview concerning Stella was off the record: the fact that she had been the one to suggest he go to the police, that she’d somehow seen the death of the woman in Brighton.

“Could I talk to her?” the reporter asked. “For a minute or so?”

“Good lord, no. She’s at her grandmother’s. A big old house in the woods. Miles out of the city. Safe as a bug in a rug.”

“What else did she see?” the reporter asked. “Did she see the circumstances? Could she make out what the killer looked like?”

Will had poured himself another whisky. He loved the way it burned and made him feel something inside. “Off the record,” he reminded his guest. “All she saw was that the poor woman’s throat was slit.” Will was thinking about the five hundred bucks and how he would spend it. He could go to the Hornets’ Nest every night, once he paid up his bar tab, maybe even treat Kelly Butler to dinner. He’d nearly forgotten what it was like to eat a good meal. He’d all but forgotten how hungry he was. “I’m just going to grab myself something to eat.” He started for the kitchen. “Want anything? A beer?”

“A little early for me,” the reporter said. “Thanks anyway, but I’m all set.”

Will retrieved a slice of pizza from the crumpled cardboard box. There were no clean plates around, so he snagged a paper towel, and got himself a beer. Last one in the six-pack, but he’d soon remedy that.

“I’ll just be a minute,” Will called. “I’m looking for hot peppers. Pizza is worthless without hot peppers, in my humble opinion.”

He carried everything out to the living room, bumping the door open with his hip. “You’re sure you don’t want anything?” he asked.

But as it turned out, Will was talking to himself. The chair where the reporter had been sitting was empty. A breeze came through the open window and ruffled the newspapers that Will had tossed on the floor. Ted Scott was nowhere in sight.

“Shit,” Will muttered. He tossed the pizza and the beer onto the coffee table. He stood there for a moment, chilled, then he went over to the desk and picked up his jacket. He slipped a hand into the pocket. The money was gone.

The door of the apartment had been left open and the hallway was empty. Just some garbage bags Will had left in the hall that morning, toppled when someone hurried past. There were his empty beer bottles rolling along the floor. He never bothered to recycle; he couldn’t think that far in advance. His mother had warned him that the ease with which he lived his life would be his undoing in the end. When he’d last visited her, she had grabbed on to his hand and apologized to him.

“For what?” Will had laughed.

“Maybe I should have made things harder for you,” Catherine Avery had said. “Maybe I shouldn’t have applauded everything you did.”

That was the sort of woman she was, always ready to blame herself, even for his ruined life.

“Mother,” he’d said. He had bent down close to her, even though she smelled like death and he had always been put off by such things. Her breathing was labored and he realized all at once he had never asked her a single question about herself. Why, he didn’t even know how she’d voted in the last election, or what films she had liked, or if she read novels late into the night, when she was up worrying about him, unable to sleep. “You did an excellent job,” he told her. “Any screwup is entirely my own responsibility.”

“Oh,” his mother had said, with a last burst of energy. She had
grabbed his hand so tightly that he’d pulled back, frightened. “I loved you so,” she said.

If he hadn’t been such a greedy fool, his radar might have been out about this Ted Scott individual. It took one to know one, isn’t that what people said? Well, not this time. This time he’d been blinded by a few dollars. He phoned the
Boston Herald
and he wasn’t surprised when the editor of the Metro section told him there had never been a Ted Scott on staff. He called the tabloids then, but no one had ever heard of Scott.

Every con man gets conned himself eventually, and Will couldn’t believe he’d let the five hundred dollars out of his sight. He was losing his touch. He gazed at himself in the hall mirror Jenny had found in an antique shop on Charles Street when they first took the apartment. He was losing his looks as well, he saw that plainly. Someone else might not have noticed, but they wouldn’t have inspected him as carefully as he monitored himself. There was a bloating in his face, a darkness around his eyes; his skin was sallow, and this time he couldn’t blame his pallid complexion on the terrible lighting in jail.

“Idiot,” he said to his reflection.

Had he thought it would be easy forever? Had he imagined he’d never have to pay for all the shortcuts he’d taken in his life? He thought of those men on the benches in the Boston Common, and their dreams of what had been stolen from them or what they’d thrown away. Lately his fleeting murky bits of dreams had been of the very same things: clean sheets, true love, a woman who didn’t care what he looked like or how much cash was in his wallet.

For the first time in a very long while, Will looked past his own reflection. There in the mirror, right in his sight line, was the trestle table where Jenny kept the mail, where she had left Stella’s bagged school lunches, where she used to tack notes for Will, reminding him of his domestic responsibilities, errands and tasks he was sure to shirk. It was now he realized that the model of Cake House, which
had been there earlier, good for nothing but collecting dust, was gone. He could tell because the empty space where it had once been seemed polished, where everything around was covered with a film. The old house in the woods, given over like a gift, free of charge. The location of his daughter, a witness before there’d been a crime.