Purgatory Chasm: A Mystery Part 25

"Well," he said, half smiling at something far away. "Well, then."

"You're cooler about it than I expected."

He traced a finger along the back of the sofa. "I've had a long time to think about my father's New York years. You run through possibilities, especially when the old man keeps everything a deep dark secret. Was he married? Was he gay? Was he talented? Was he miserable?" Trey shrugged. "I guess it would take a h.e.l.l of a lot to surprise me."

"Do you want to know about her?"

"Of course I do," he said, dry-swallowing, his voice so quiet I barely heard.

"You've met her."

"Nonsense."

I told him. Diana Patience Marx aka Patty Marx. Curious, college, journalism. Figured out on her own that Tander Phigg was her old man. Climbed the journalism ladder, wound up at The Globe. Her mother claimed to have no idea where she was, and I believed her.

"They had a falling-out?" Trey said.

"Guess so," I said. "Myna puked in a trash can and pa.s.sed out before she got that far."

"Pardon me?"

I told him about Myna's Manhattans, her routine, her polite vomiting, her dog.

"That's sad."

"Yes."

We were quiet.

"What next?" Trey finally said.

"Randall's digging up info on Patty Marx. Maybe we'll learn something."

He nodded. I watched him work through possibilities, staring again at something far away. Then he locked onto my eyes. "The big question-"

"-is what the h.e.l.l does all this have to do with seventy-five grand stashed in your father's floor?"

"Well?" he said.

"No G.o.dd.a.m.n idea." I rose, stretched, checked my watch. Charlene never got dinner on the table until seven. I could make it.

"Are you going?" Trey said.

"To Shrewsbury, yeah."

"I thought you came here from there."

"I did," I said. "But I should go back. I want to go back."

The words surprised me.

Twenty minutes later I surprised Charlene. "I'll be d.a.m.ned," she said. "Your father said you dropped them and took off. I thought you were gone for the night."

"I'm here."

"And showered to boot," she said, hugging me and kissing my hair. "How lucky can a gal get?" When she turned away she had a little smile that meant she was happy but didn't want to advertise it.

Charlene grabbed a butcher's knife and attacked something on a cutting board. It looked like she was trying to kill a mouse. She goes through domestic bursts once in a while, and I wondered if Fred had triggered one. The problem is that when the bursts come along, she cooks and bakes-and we all suffer.

With her back to me, still whacking away, she said, "What did you Three Musketeers do this afternoon?"

So she didn't know about the idiotic rat-racing, and was trying to milk me. I silently thanked Sophie.

"Three Stooges is more like it," I said. "We took a ride out to Purgatory Chasm. Fred wanted to see the place again."

She stopped whacking, turned. "Did you want to see Purgatory Chasm again?"

"Of course not," I said, feeling bad about the lie. "Anyway, we weren't there long. Fred's rock-running days are over."

"Huh." She looked at me awhile, smelling a rat. Sophie saved me; she came in with wet hair and clean clothes.

"I was telling your mom about Purgatory Chasm," I said. "How Fred wanted to see it but wasn't up to hiking the trails."

"I told you it would be too much for him," Sophie said, smooth as that. Smart smart smart. She hollered out the sliding-gla.s.s door, and Fred came in. He was smiling, a clear drink in his beat-up hand, until he saw me. Then his eyes went dead.

Soon we were eating kielbasa. Charlene proudly set out the dish I'd watched her whack at. She said it was potato salad. It looked like dice covered with Elmer's glue. I took a double portion and smiled while I ate it.

The talk was stiff and spa.r.s.e. Charlene knew something was up but couldn't break any of us down. Me, Sophie, and Fred mostly kept quiet for fear we'd blab about what had happened. If Charlene found out I'd taken my wet-brain father and a twelve-year-old to screw around on a half-a.s.sed racetrack, she'd kill me-and I wouldn't blame her.

Besides, eating the potato salad took all my concentration.

I always volunteer to do the dishes, and Charlene always says yes. Not tonight: She and Sophie would clean up, she said, and why didn't Fred and I relax on the deck?

So we faced west in Adirondack chairs and looked over the backyard. We were quiet awhile.

"You okay?" I said.

"Sore."

"I'm sorry I threw you."

"You should be sorry you spun me."

"You were trying to spin me."

Long pause. "I guess I was."

We looked at each other and started laughing. We let the laughter roll, forced it to go on longer than it wanted to. Once I caught Sophie peeking at us through the screen door, a dish towel in her hand.

"A racer's a racer, huh?" I said.

"f.u.c.king A. Daytona or a cow pasture, it don't much matter."

We tried to laugh some more, but that was over. Shade deepened as the sun dropped.

I said, "You don't seem like a wet-brain. Except for that one accident, you seem pretty good."

"I can't always remember things. Maybe that's the wet-brain part."

"Or maybe there's stuff you don't want to remember."

"Lots and lots."

"Do you, ah, want to go to an AA meeting with me?"

"I tried that," Fred said. "It didn't take."

"What didn't take? You sit in a room on a folding chair. About the time your a.s.s falls asleep, you get up and go home."

"The G.o.d part, the higher-power bulls.h.i.+t. It never worked for me."

"That's okay."

"It is?"

"You don't need a higher power to sit on a folding chair," I said, checking my Seiko. There was an eight-o'clock at the Episcopalian church up the road. We could make it. "Although near the end you might find yourself praying for a pillow."

A little over an hour later, as I started to take a left from the church parking lot, Fred took hold of my right forearm. "Want to drive around some?"

I said sure, hooked a right instead, and drove.

"What are you thinking?" I said after a while.

Face turned away, he said something I couldn't make out.

"What?" I said.

"Brave," he said. "To stand up and tell your story, your sins."

"Sometimes it feels good to get it off your chest."

"Do you do that? Tell your story to a church bas.e.m.e.nt full of strangers?"

"Sure."

"Do you tell everything?" He s.h.i.+fted to stare at my profile.

"The meetings are only an hour."

"Don't joke about it!" He grabbed my forearm, and his intensity made me turn to look. We drove beneath a streetlight, and I saw his eyes were wet. "Think about the worst thing you ever done," Fred said, and paused a long beat. "Is it part of your story? Do you stand up and tell it?"

I felt his hand on my sleeve, watched the road ahead, made an honest inventory. "I guess not," I finally said. It came out half rasp, half whisper.

Fred's hand relaxed some. "Why not?"

"Some things..."

"Yes," my father said. "Some things."

I drove a long clockwise loop, each of us thinking our thoughts.

As we paralleled a reservoir, getting set to turn south and head back to Shrewsbury, Fred said, "If you ever fell off the wagon, what would you fall into?"

"What do you mean?"

"What would you drink?"

"Knock it off."

"You gonna tell me you never think about it?"

After maybe half a mile I said, "I used to."

He slapped his thigh. "Well okay, then. You tell me yours, I'll tell you mine."

"First few years I was sober," I said, "I had a two-days-to-live plan. You know, if the doc said you had two days to live, what would you drink? Jesus..."

"Keep going."

"It was a long time ago. It was a crutch, a game I played so I wouldn't have to think about the rest of my life coming at me."

"Tell me."

"I had two options," I said, s.h.i.+fting in my seat, surprised it was kind of fun to talk about. "A summer plan and a winter plan."

"Summer plan first."

"Simple," I said. "Rolling Rock longnecks. No cans, no shorty bottles. Got to be the longneck."

"How many?" Fred said. "Six? Twelve? A case?"

I laughed awhile. Looked over, saw Fred wasn't laughing: It was a serious question. "Never got that far," I said. "Once I took that first sip, the daydream kind of faded away."