Evan all but leapt to his feet, to look down at his wife. "Alicia ... shut ... up!"
Alicia opened and closed her mouth a few times, rather like a beached fish, and finally managed, "What?"
"I said, shut ... up. You talk too much, do you know that? Way too much. That's why I don't talk—I haven't been able to get a word in edgewise in about forty years. And you only ever hear yourself, only listen to yourself. Yes, we've got problems. Our kids have problems. We have problems with our kids. The whole world's got problems. The good thing is, we can fix ours, if we stop jumping off cliffs every time things don't go our way."
He turned to look at Saint Just. "Sterling told me that, told me some story about lemmings or something like that," he said, smiling weakly. "And you showed me I'm to keep my head up, be a warrior, not a victim. I like being a warrior." He sat down next to his wife once more, looking her straight in the eye. "This is my house. You are my wife. And that's the way it's going to be. You got that, Alicia? The kids? They're grown—let them do what they want. We started together, Ally, and we're going to finish together, the two of us. No more ultimatums, and no more cliffs."
Saint Just was tempted to close his eyes and block his ears before Alicia Kelly found her voice. He may be a hero, but any man of any sense is careful to stand very clear of marital discord.
But then he opened his eyes as Alicia said, "Oh, Evan. Where have you been all these years? I don't want to do it all by myself, I really don't."
"It sure looked like you did," Evan said, losing some of his bravado. "But that's all right. We'll work it out, won't we? We'll talk. We'll go to that counselor you want me to go to, all of us."
"Yes, Evan. We'll work it out. You can say anything you want, and I'll listen. I promise."
"And I'll listen to you, I promise." Evan smiled at his wife and then looked up at Saint Just. "I brought Lisa Butts a pizza from Mack and Manco's one Saturday, because she wasn't allowed to leave the Laundromat," Evan said as Alicia rubbed his back. "And I helped her fold some king-size sheets she washed for one of her customers. You know how big those are? I helped her fold them. I remember now ... Barry came in, and just stood there, looking at her. She sort of stood there, too, shaking a little, and then he turned and walked out. Didn't even say hi, you know? We'd been laughing, because I kept folding to the left when Lisa was folding to the right, and the sheet was getting all tangled and—he'd kill for that?"
"We don't know, Evan," Saint Just told him as Maggie and Tate reentered the room—Maggie looking satisfied, Tate looking like a man who'd moments earlier lost the family estate in a reckless game of faro. "But, for now, we'd like you to stay here with Sterling and Alicia. And you, Tate, if you will."
"Ah, that's too bad, but Tate has to leave," Maggie said brightly. "Don't you, Tate? But he'll be back next weekend, to help you fix that piece of siding that came off the side of the house in the last nor'easter that you've been worried about, okay, Dad? And he'll be back the week after that to do anything else you need done. Mom, you'll make a list?"
"I've had a list for two years," Alicia said, sighing. "And I'll believe this when I see it, Margaret."
"Oh, you'll see it, you'll believe it. Won't she, Tate?"
Twenty minutes later, after waving good-bye to J.P., who was more than ready to climb into her rented Mercedes and head back to the city, Maggie and Saint Just stood outside the Wesley Street condo and looked at each other. Smiled.
"I rent a Taurus, J.P. rents a Mercedes, and my spendthrift brother rents a freaking limo. It's transportation, right? Getting from point A to point B? One of these days I'm going to figure out if I'm an idiot or the rest of the world is nuts," Maggie said as the taillights disappeared in the early dusk. "Or maybe I'll just buy a Mercedes for myself, now that we've got a garage of our own. You know, more than the roof terrace, the enclosed garden, it's that garage. You know how unheard of garages are in Manhattan?"
"Maggie, you're avoiding the inevitable," Saint Just told her. "What happened with Tate?"
"You know what happened, Alex. I loaned him the money he needs. At no interest, unless he screws up. Like, if he doesn't visit Mom and Dad once a week, help them with anything they need help with, like that piece of missing siding, and the leak in the guest bathroom. Tate's really good with his hands, when he wants to be. Anyway he breaks the rules, bam, I start charging interest. And like I told him—there's bank rates, and then there's loan-shark rates." She grinned. "You can just call me Jaws. Now tell me what happened back there. I heard voices for a while, and then I didn't. And Mom's looking at Dad a little funny."
"Maggie, you wouldn't believe me if I told you," Saint Just said as he helped her into the driver's seat of her father's car. "For now, I believe it's time you and I reconnoitered this bowling establishment where Bodkin was last observed alive. We'll be obvious to anyone who remembers you from your childhood, but the time has come to do our own detecting. And then later this evening, as I've already discussed with Evan, he and Sterling will join us there."
"Daddy? Why? If he's in danger—"
"We'll protect him, Maggie. But Evan tells me that the Majesties will be practicing their bowling maneuvers every night this week, in preparation for something called the New Year's Tournament. As Barry Butts is now a Majestic, gathering everyone in one spot seems a workable solution."
"You mean you want to do a classic Saint Just Mysteries' we-gather-all-together denouement, right? But we don't have enough evidence for that, Alex."
"Which is why, my dear, I'm asking you to drive us to the bowling establishment, so that we might hopefully locate more clues."
Maggie put her father's car in gear. "All right, all right. As long as you stop calling it a bowling establishment. It's a bowling alley, or bowling lane. Got it?"
"And those two terms make sense to you?" Saint Just asked, facing front, as they headed up the street as dusk faded into yet another early winter darkness. "I don't think you Americans really listen to yourselves when you speak. A building can be neither an alley or a lane."
"Well, pardon us," Maggie said, clicking on her left turn signal. "Now tell me what happened with Mom and Dad while I was gone. The way they were looking at each other when we left? It sort of gave me the creeps ..."
Chapter Twenty-Seven
"He called her Ally? Really? And she rubbed his back? Omigod, that's almost creepy."
"You have such a fascination with that word—creep. Creepy. I must say that I was myself at point-non-plus for a few moments, but signs of affection between a man and woman do not, to my mind, extend to creepy."
"That's only because they're not your parents," Maggie told him as she used the walker to clomp her way laboriously up the two-level handicap ramp that led to the front door of the bowling ally ... lane ... establishment. "Damn, they couldn't find an easier way to do this? There must be fifty feet of ramp here, and all the sections of cement pavement are at different heights. I can't imagine trying to push a wheelchair over those bumps, going uphill. You know, I have a whole new perspective on what so many people laughingly call 'handicap access.' I say we make the jerks that design these things try to go up and down or in and out on walkers, on crutches, in wheelchairs. Because somebody's doing this all wrong."
"Yes, my dear, point taken, unless you wish for me to procure a soapbox for you to stand on as you continue your tirade," Alex said as he reached over to push the metal plate meant to open the glass doors to the bowling lane.