“Rip-off?” I said. “You used to call that ‘homage.’” ize="3"›“Whatever. De Palma used that one hundred percent slow motion sequence once before, in The Fury, a much better film in my opinion, what with its theme of patricide and its dark humor. Godard called that the most honest use of slow motion he had ever seen on film.” Dane rubbed his forehead and swallowed more beer, then said, “It’s all bullshit anyway.”
With that remark we sat in silence for several minutes. The calico emerged from under my seat, and with a low crawl slowly crept up on a group of sparrows that had lit in the middle of the yard. I watched as they scattered and flew away.
“I heard Jimmy Broda got it while I was on vacation,” I said, a careful indifference in my voice.
“Yeah,” he said, closing his eyes as he killed his beer.
“It surprised me, the fact that he was a gonif.”
“Well, he was.”
“You have to fire him yourself?”
“Yeah.”
“You got a soft heart, Joe.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
I finished my beer and crushed the can. “I talked to our lady in personnel. She has his reason for termination down as ‘job abandonment.’ You told her that, so theft wouldn’t be on the kid’s record. Am I right?”
His face tightened. “Sure. He was clean, up until the time he tried to boost that box. No reason to have that on his permanent record.”
A strong, stocky little boy ran from the side of the house and slowed to a walk as he neared us. He had his old man’s pug nose and his mother’s round eyes. Dane turned him around and locked him gently between his knees. He rubbed the kid’s shoulders with his big hands.
“There’s one thing I can’t figure out about that whole deal,” I said. “The kid’s grandfather phoned me after the boy was fired. So I went to their apartment, and the grandfather shows me this VCR that the kid had bought for him.”
“So?”
“So why would a kid lift an eighty dollar piece, then turn around and pay for a VCR worth two bills? Why not steal the more expensive item, if you’re going to steal?”
Dane brought his child up into his arms and hugged him rather roughly. His eyes were closed and I wondered if he’d heard me. Then he opened his eyes and spoke.
“You’re talking about a nineteen-year-old kid, Nick, and you expect him to do something rational.” He put down his child. “You think too damn much.”
“And you brood too much,” I said, rising from my chair. “Why don’t you go on inside. I’ve got to get going.”
“Don’t tell me not to brood. The hole is just getting deeper and deeper around here.”
I looked at his beautiful kid, then at him, and said, “You’re right. A single guy like me just can’t understand your ‘problems.’ ” I shook his hand. “So long, Joe. Thanks for the beer.”
I walked across the yard and looked through the screen door. Sarah was stirring the pot of pasta, the child in the fatigues sitting at her feet. I went around the side of their house and to my car without saying good-bye.
When I entered my apartment, the top light was blinking on my answering machine. I pushed t he bar. The tape rewound, then the unit made several noises that sounded like locks being turned.
The message began: “Mr. DeGarcey, this is Maureen Shultz. I reached John Heidel. He’s not sure exactly where Eddie and his friends went, only he knows they went south… He did give me some more information on the girl. Her parents are from Elizabeth City, in North Carolina… anyway, that’s where she grew up. That’s all I got out of John, I hope it helps… If you talk to Eddie, tell him his father and me… tell him we said hello.”
THIRTEEN
The day after Maureen Shultz left a message on my machine was the last Saturday I worked for Nutty Nathan’s.
I woke that morning after a troubled night of sleep, a night in which I rose several times to wander around my apartment, sitting in different chairs and on my couch for long stretches at a time.
Sometime around dawn I lay awake in bed and watched my room begin to lighten, and the jagged, irregular lines of rainwater slide down my bedroom window. My cat stayed on top of the radiator, staring at the wall and listening to the rain.
At eight I got up, made coffee, and sat on the couch to read the Post. Two more people had been killed, execution style, in Northeast. The mayor denied allegations that he was a drug user, charged his accusers with racism, and said that all of this negative publicity was interfering with his “agenda” for running the city. There was a lengthy feature in Style on the outspoken and rather cartoonish wife of a freshman Southern senator (didn’t they all come to town vowing to turn “buttoned-down” Washington on its ear?), and the main head in Sports dealt with the upcoming Skins-Giants clash, complete with the media-generated quarterback controversy.
When I was finished devouring the last section, I showered, shaved, and dressed. I put on light wool, faintly patterned teal slacks, a cream cotton oxford, a blue and beige Italian silk tie, and my twenty dollar sports jacket. I changed the litter box and filled the food and water dishes. My cat blinked at me from the radiator as I walked out the door.
The deep gray sky heightened the slowly emerging October oranges of Rock Creek Park as I drove west on Military Road. I was listening to Billy Bragg’s “Talking with the Taxman about Poetry” on the box, and I turned the volume up enough to overtake the sound of my fraying wipers as vgg’s they dragged themselves across the windshield.
When I entered the store and knocked the rain off my shoulders, the crew was in and standing around the front counter. They were drinking coffee from 7-Eleven go-cups and picking from a box of doughnuts iced in peculiarly unnatural colors.
McGinnes leaned against the counter with his arms crossed. Malone lounged beside him, coffee in one hand, Newport in the other. Lloyd was holding a doughnut up near his face, examining it as he chewed in slow, exaggerated chomps. Louie was spreading out newspaper ads on the counter.
“Black?” Lee asked, handing me a cup.
“You wish,” I said, and took the coffee.
“All right, everybody,” Louie ordered, “listen up,” and we moved around him in a semicircle. McGinnes nudged me and pointed at the folds of fat at the back of Louie’s head, which seemed to be fused onto his thick shoulders.
“Did you lose your neck, boss?” McGinnes asked.
“Shut up and look here, McGinnes.” Louie pointed to the ads he had torn from the paper and spread on the counter. “Electric Town is running with the top-rated Sharp CD player for one nineteen. You boys know that that model has been discontinued-we don’t have it and we can’t get it. But they have a very sharp price on that Sharp.” Louie looked back at us for recognition of his pun.
“We get it,” Malone said. “You sharp, Louie.”
Louie cleared his throat and turned back to the ads. McGinnes closed his eyes, dropped his chin to his chest, and began softly snoring.
“Anyway,” Louie continued, ignoring McGinnes, “I called them up first thing this morning, and they don’t have but one or two in stock. So now you know what to tell the consumers.”
“Okay, Louie,” McGinnes and Malone said robotically and in unison.
“Now,” Louie said, “this one’s tough,” and he pointed to a Stereo Godfather’s (“Our Competition Sleeps with the Fishes!”) ad. “They’re runnin’ a VT290 for three ninety-nine. That’s damn near cost. We can’t meet the deal at that price. We’ve got to figure some way to get off of it.”
“No problem,” McGinnes said. “Isn’t that the same model that caught fire in the customer’s house last year?”