“Moses? What Bible do you read? Moses doesn’t fake any floods in the Bible I read. Forget my question-I don’t want to know what Bible you read. No. All I’m saying about Sterling Storey is that maybe… maybe the guy thinks on his feet, that’s all.”
“I assume that the Georgia cops are looking for his remains.”
“They are. The river he went into-I’m not going to try to say the name again-is pretty wild, apparently. Lots of things underwater-trees and shit-where a body could get caught up.”
“Sam, why do you care about this case so much? You have plenty more important things to worry about.”
He was silent for ten seconds before he replied, “I’m not sure. I think I’m going to go back home.”
“Wait, Sam. Hold on. Do you know anything about Jara Heller’s husband? Judge Heller?”
“I saw the paper. Nothing more than that.”
“Will you do something for me? Will you check and see how they became suspicious of him? How they knew he was involved?”
“Why?”
“It’s important.”
“Somebody fingered him. You can count on it. Maybe he walked into a sting, but odds are somebody gave him up. You hang around with people who do drugs, especially people who buy and sell drugs, you come to realize that it’s not the most honorable segment of our society.”
“Just check for me, please. If somebody turned him in, I’d love to know that. I promise I won’t ask who did it.”
“You promise?”
“Yes, Sam.”
“That means you already know who turned him in. You just want me to confirm it for you. Am I right?”
I stammered.
He said, “You should be seeing a higher quality of clientele. You hang out with a lot of scum.” Then he hung up.
Across the room Grace-bless her-continued to entertain herself. She was absolutely captivated by the wrong end of a spoon.
I called my office phone and checked for a call from Gibbs. I wondered if she even knew what had happened to her husband the previous night, whether anyone had called her.
The only messages on my voicemail were from other patients. One was a cancellation; another was from a patient requesting an additional session. And one was a confirmation from a paranoid-obsessive guy I was treating named Craig Adamson. Craig always required confirmation that I hadn’t forgotten his next appointment. Always. It was sad.
All in all, the messages on my voicemail were a zero-sum game and included no frantic calls from Gibbs Storey.
I was trying to decipher what that meant when, behind me, Lauren said, “Who was that who called?”
A big smile exploded across Grace’s face, and she said, “Mom Mom.”
I pivoted.
TWENTY-NINE
My eyes stayed glued on the cranky old lady until she was all the way down by the wine store. I didn’t want her to think I was getting off the line for her. When she hopped from the curb to jaywalk over toward Ideal Market, I hung up the phone.
Sherry would tell me I was being petty. Maybe she would be right. I can be petty sometimes. Especially with people who flip me the bird when I’m not doing anything but talking on the phone.
A little bubble of gas erupted down in my gut and began a sudden northern migration that would take it directly into belch territory. I could feel it rise. As the capsule crossed the midtorso territory that I now knew-knew-to be my heart’s domain, my hand rose involuntarily to my chest. I placed my knuckles on my sternum and pressed gently. It took no more than a second for the gas to rise the entire length of my esophagus.
I did burp, kind of loudly actually. After, I left my hand in place below and between the boobs on my chest that looked just like my dad’s, the man-boobs I’d promised myself I’d never have.
Never.
Well, I had them now.
I inhaled deeply and exhaled slowly. No pain rose in my chest. It was okay to move my hand away, to slide my big feet.
I stepped away from the phone and got into the long snaking line that led to the counter at Moe’s. What had Alan said I could order? Whole grain? Nonfat cream cheese? Lox?
Damn.
I had man-boobs, a heart artery that looked like a muck-filled galvanized pipe, a wife who hadn’t smiled in my general direction since the summer monsoons had passed us by, and a kid I adored who was a thousand miles away from my hug.
What had Alan asked me?
“Why do you care about this case so much?”
The woman in front of me was ordering nineteen different things nineteen different ways. She wanted an “everything” bagel without sesame seeds. Jalapeño this with white meat turkey that. “You mean you don’t have veggie cream cheese without those orange things in it?… Oh, those are carrots? Ooh, red onions? You don’t have white? Are they bitter?”
She asked for a spelt bagel. What the hell is spelt?
The girl waiting on her had an oblong ring the size of a carabiner through her right eyebrow. She didn’t care a hoot about the woman she was waiting on, or her act. The clerk’s eyes didn’t frown. Her lips didn’t smile. She was going to get minimum wage for the next hour of her life no matter what the hell the idiots on our side of the counter wanted her to do.
I could relate.
The girl shook her head at the spelt question.
I was glad Moe’s didn’t have spelt. I would have been seriously dismayed if Moe’s had spelt.
“Why do you care about this case so much?”
I realized that my left hand was in my parka pocket, and I was twirling something round between my fingers.
The little brown bottle of nitroglycerin.
“Why do you care about this case so much?”
In my life I’ve known maybe five people who could make me think. Alan Gregory is one of them. I’ve grown to appreciate it-his ability to get me going-but I’ve also grown to recognize that it isn’t an altogether comfortable state of affairs for me. Introspection, I mean. I don’t much like Indy racing, but I love NASCAR. Why? Traffic is traffic, but most of the time NASCAR is all left turns. You just drive fast, control your speed, hit the pit, react to the other guys. You don’t always have to prepare for a hairpin, you’re not always slamming on the brakes.
Having Alan as a friend is like driving the damn Grand Prix. Left turn, right turn. Brake, downshift, gas, brakehard. It isn’t always fun. Sometimes I just want to drive I-80 through Nebraska. The road goes straight, the car goes straight. And me?
I go straight. No doubt about it, life is best for me when I go straight.
Why do I care about the case so much?
Because she loved the asshole so much, that’s why. Because this Gibbs Storey lady lived all these years with a guy she knew had murdered her friend, and she stayed living with him even after she knew the police were coming after him to throw him in jail.
I wanted to know about love like that. I wanted to know about a marriage like that. I wanted to know about a woman like that. Was it him, or was it her? What made her tick? Was it strength or weakness? Was it confidence or desperation? I had a guess, sure, but I wanted to know.
My Sherry? After my heart attack she couldn’t wait to get the hell out of our house. Out of town. Screw Thanksgiving, screw my rehab, screw whatever this whole thing was doing to Simon. Screw our marriage.
Screw me.
I didn’t understand any of it. I was thinking that Gibbs and Sterling Storey could teach me something.
My turn finally came at the counter at Moe’s. The girl with the piercing raised her eyebrow. The metal ring levitated ominously. It was her way of telling me I was next. Speaking was an inconvenience for her.
“Whole wheat toasted, please. Low-fat cream cheese, lox, and whatever vegetables you got. Lots of them.”
Her eyes didn’t frown. Her lips didn’t smile. She made me my breakfast, wrapped it in white paper, and dropped it in a brown-paper bag as though she’d done it a few thousand times before, thrust it over the counter at me, and looked for the next person in line.