Then Nancy Donovan left. Yes, of course. How was she going to compete? She was cool though, she took her time. Looked at everybody, said, “I think I’d better say goodnight,” and walked out. Yes? Then Linda and LaDonna started talking. Both of them on the sofa in shorty robes, sitting on their legs having a private talk that I could hear. Linda saying, Look at you. You realize the advantages you have? LaDonna saying, I know. Linda saying, You’re not only a beauty, you’re congenial, you’re thoughtful, you’re a very nice person. LaDonna saying, I try to be. Linda telling her to quit moping and get off her ass, do something, quit the booze, and so on. That Linda, you could put all your money on her… Then DeLeon came in, back from dropping Ricky at the hospital, said hands taped and a note pinned to his jacket; shoved him out of the car at the security cop on the door. Then the phone rang, finally, almost four o’clock in the morning.
Dixie Davies said, “You know where we found your guy?”… He said, “We pulled in the net, got all the sexual assault stars available, including your guy. We put every one of ’em in a lineup for this group from Harrisburg. Nothing. We brought Jimmy Dunne in, let him take a good look at Teddy. Maybe, maybe not. He can tell you all about playing trumpet with Victor Herbert, but not what happened last week. Teddy says he was home all night. His mom says he was home, the parrot says he was home. The fucking parrot bit one of my guys. I got no reason even to offer him a polygraph.”
Vincent said, “What about the car?”
“You might have something there…”
“It was him,” Vincent said. “Jesus Christ, it was him, wasn’t it?”
“Yellow ’77 Monte Carlo, in his mom’s name.”
“I don’t care whose name. I don’t care what else you say. It was him.”
“We checked Eastern…”
“And they came on the same flight.”
“Looks like it.”
“Get a warrant,” Vincent said, “go through his house.”
“What am I looking for?”
“You’ll know it when you find it. Come on, I don’t have to tell you that.”
“I lay the warrant in front of the judge, is that what I tell him? They don’t do it like that here. I got to show cause the guy’s a suspect and I’m looking for hard evidence. I don’t even think he did the woman, and I got no reason to hold him for anything else.”
Vincent hesitated. “You still have him?”
“He’s sitting in the green room. Very polite young man. Says he wishes he could help us.”
“Keep him another hour. Can you do that?”
“For what?”
“I want to talk to his mom.”
THROUGH THE PEEPHOLE in the front door Verna May Magyk saw a white man with a beard, hippy-looking, and the biggest colored man she had ever seen in her life. It made her shiver and feel goosebumps up the back of her neck. She said, “Oh, my Lord,” and jumped as the chimes rang again. The porch light was on, she could see them good. As they stepped apart, looking at the house, she saw the black car parked in front. A real long one, shiny even in the dark. An undertaker’s car, that’s what it was. Teddy’s mom was relieved, though not much. She said through the door, “You have the wrong house. There’s nobody dead in here.”
Then realized she’d made a mistake as the hippy one with the beard said, “Mrs. Magyk? We’d like to talk to you for a minute. Would you open the door, please? Sounding just like the detectives that had come for Teddy.
She said, “Where’s my son?” and saw them look at one another.
“He’s fine, he’ll be home pretty soon. Could we come in and talk to you, please?”
She told them just a minute and took about that long to get the door unlocked and then unfasten the catch on the storm door. They were as polite as the others. They came in, the big colored man looking around, the man with the beard going over to Buddy’s perch and saying he understood Buddy bit one of the detectives. It made Buddy nervous; he edged away.
Teddy’s mom said he did no such thing. Buddy was a good li’l birdie boy. Arn’cha, huh? Arn’cha? She said, “Pretty bird, pretty bird,” and Buddy said, “Hello, May. Want a drink?” Wasn’t he a li’l cutie? Teddy’s mom let Buddy peck a sunflower seed from her mouth, prompting him with, “Kisser mom, kisser mom,” and holding her kimono closed so the men couldn’t look down it. “There. Did he bite me?”
“That’s a beautiful bird,” the colored man said.
Close to Buddy Teddy’s mom said, “He has to have his li’l beak shaved so he don’t hurt hisself, huh? Huh, Buddy? I’m taking him for his appointment at ten o’clock. Yes, I am.”
“Did Buddy, I mean Teddy get Buddy for you in Puerto Rico?” It was the man with the beard. He said, “I was down there one time myself.”
Teddy’s mom told him no, Buddy had been in the family twelve years; but Teddy had sent her a beautiful handcarved parrot that was supposed to have been delivered but never was.
“That’s interesting,” the man with the beard said. “I wonder what happened to it.”
Teddy’s mom didn’t think it was so interesting; she didn’t believe Teddy had even sent it. He liked to fib. Then he’d get that guilty look. He’d be mean to Buddy and there would be the look. Police questioned him about different things and there was the look again. She believed it was his guilty look that had got him sent to jail those times. All it was, he was self-conscious. She said to the big colored man looking all around the living room, “What is it he was suppose to’ve done this time?”
The big colored man said, “Who’s that, ma’am?”
“My son, Teddy.”
“Oh, they just want to talk to him is all. See what he thinks.” He said, looking around again, “My, but you got parrot things. Must be a valuable collection.”
She was a judge of character and liked the looks of this colored man. He was polite, he wore a suit and tie-which the other one did not-and he appeared to be clean. She said to him, “Do you like parrots?”
“Love ’em.” He was looking at the display of china parrots on the mantel. “I wouldn’t mind you showed me all the different parrot things you got.”
Teddy’s mom said, “Well, let’s see…”
Then the one with the beard asked if he could use the bathroom.
The overhead light was on in Teddy’s room: a young boy’s room with scarred bird’s-eye maple furniture, a single bed, slept in, unmade. A watercolor print of a parrot in a jungle setting, on the wall above the bed. But no posters, no records, hi-fi or radio, books. Vincent changed his mind: not a young boy’s room, a guest room. Teddy was here but had not moved in. Vincent went through the dresser, each drawer, feeling beneath the clothes; stepped into the closet to feel Teddy’s trousers and jackets, sweaters. He found the Colt .38 automatic in the camera case, looked at the gun in the overhead light without touching it and put the case back on the closet shelf. A new leather-bound photograph album was on the desk, its pages empty. In the drawer were envelopes of prints, several from a Fast Foto shop in San Juan. Vincent began to look at pictures of familiar places. He saw the beach at Escambron in a dozen or more shots of Iris and himself. There was his rattan cane hanging from the chair. Iris talking to him as he tried to read. Walking with her. Eating pineapple. Like pictures taken by a friend but not posed. He slipped one of the prints into his jacket and looked through another envelope quickly. Shots of San Juan landmarks, those familiar buildings, narrow streets, monuments, flower beds, trees, old ones, trees high in the clouds…
Vincent stopped.
He turned the desk lamp on, hunched over to look at a print. Then another one. The two almost identical. The same figure in both pictures in the same pose. It was the background that was familiar. Remembered from another time, a different person in the picture. But a background that would never change. Vincent could see it with his eyes open or closed.