“How are you, son?”
“Fine, fine. Do you want to sit down?”
Holding on to each other the men jostled over to a long mahogany bench.
“I’ve been thinking a lot about you lately,” the impossibly old man confided.
“Oh? What about me?” John asked pleasantly.
“I felt bad that I didn’t keep in touch after Herman died. Maybe I could have helped out. You know money alone doesn’t do everything.”
“I’m fine. Went to college. Got a job. I hear that you’re a real rabble-rouser around here. Your blog is wonderful.”
John glanced at the woman by the window. She didn’t seem to be bothered by their talking. Maybe she couldn’t hear them.
“You read it?” France asked.
“Yes, that and the autobiography you posted on your website. I like that you broke it up by yearly chapters and monthly subsections.”
“Your father used to say that time and its passage was all we had to take our own measure.”
That started the men on a long laudatory talk about Herman Jones and the old days at the Arbuckle. Some of France’s memories seemed a little off to John but those days were long ago; the younger man wasn’t sure if his own recollections were any more accurate.
At some point the woman in the wheelchair began snoring softly. Soon after the orderly came to wheel her away.
“Has anyone been asking about me, France?” John asked when they were alone.
“What do you mean, CC? Like bill collectors or something? Do you need money?”
“No, no, I’m doing all right. I was just wondering if anybody mentioned me. I’ve been getting these letters but I can’t make out the signature. They seem to know a lot about me. You know the only people I was ever close to as a kid were mom, dad and you. Dad’s gone and I haven’t heard from my mother in years.”
“Anonymous letters?” France winced. “Are they bad? Threatening?”
“No. They’re signed but the handwriting is mostly flourish. Postmark is from Arizona. They talk about the old days and I thought it might be someone you know.”
“No,” France said. “I haven’t spoken to anyone about the old days. I had a girlfriend for a while, Alison Dawson. I did talk to her about you and Herman but she died five years ago and didn’t have any friends but me. No, CC, it’s probably somebody knows your mother. She always had lots of friends. She liked to talk if I remember right.”
“That she did,” John said.
“It was probably her.”
“Probably so, France,” John agreed. “It’s not important anyway. I was on my way to Seattle for a job interview. I read about you on the web so I thought I’d drop by.”
“What do the letters say?”
“Not much. Just about the Arbuckle and dad. I can’t read the signature is the problem. Postmark is from Arizona so I knew it wasn’t you but I thought maybe it was someone we both knew.”
“No... You want to stay for dinner, CC?”
Meat loaf with mashed potatoes made from a powder, broccoli spears and unseasoned apple pie made up the meal. The coffee was decaffeinated and there was no salt shaker in evidence.
France talked about prejudice against the elderly and how when so many people got old they lost heart.
“It’d be better if they offered us suicide alternatives,” Bickman said at a table with four of his men friends and John. “We could go out with good liquor, cigarettes and watching movies with naked girls while they pumped a sleeping gas in real slow. Maybe two or three of us could pass on together talking about the olds days.”
“That sounds grand,” Timor Parker, a retired plumber from Redwood City, said. “Maybe we could have music too... and dancin’.”
Two orderlies on duty watched the table closely. John thought that if he wasn’t visiting they might have tried to separate the men.
“If I had my old twenty-two they wouldn’t fuck with us,” France said when John shared his notion. “Bethy, my youngest, took it out of my suitcase when she put me here. But you know if I had my pistol those apes would show me some respect.”
“I have to get going, France,” John said, realizing that his presence was exciting the older man to these protestations of violence.
“You go on, son,” France said. “And don’t you worry about those letters or nuthin’. I got it all covered.”
“Covered how, France?”
“Just don’t you worry. As long as there’s breath in this body I won’t let them hurt you.”
The next morning John boarded a flight to Miami. The acronym for the airport was MIA. The idea of travel and being missing in action tickled the history professor.
He took a bus into town, found a Cuban diner and ordered a meal that consisted of a pressed ham and cheese sandwich with pickles, Caesar salad, and beer from a local brewery. He asked the waiter if there was a pay phone anywhere around. After a moment of consideration the copper-skinned mustachioed man said, “Down at the library. Not too many booths anymore. But they have them inside the library: the old kind with levered doors, wood seats and everything. Two blocks up and half a block over on your left.”
John had gotten two rolls of quarters from a bank in Portland before driving his rental car to Cavaliers. Donning cotton gloves he broke open a roll of quarters and called the operator, directing the woman to dial a Manhattan phone number. She asked for three dollars and he dropped twelve quarters into the old-fashioned pay phone. Each descending coin conjured a gong.
Before the phone could ring a man announced, “Hotline.”
“May I speak to Lieutenant Van Dyne.”
“She’s not here at the moment. Can I help you?”
“Not really. I can only speak to her.”
“Then you’ll have to leave a message.”
“Tell her that Cornelius Jones called.”
After a brief pause the man asked, “Who?”
“The man she’s looking for.”
“Hold on.”
Four minutes passed on John’s father’s Timex when a woman said, “This is Lieutenant Van Dyne.”
“I recognize your voice, Lieutenant.”
“Who is this?”
“The first time we met was in the basement office of the old Arbuckle. You were Detective Margolis back then.” John had designed the sentence to convince his ex-lover of his identity without referring to the intimate nature of their relationship. He thought the call might be recorded and didn’t want to cause her trouble.
“Cornelius Jones.”
“Yes. I heard that you were looking for me and I remembered how nice you were, how understanding. I thought I’d call and say hi.”
“I’d like it if you came in for a talk, Mr. Jones.”
“That would be nice but I’m out of state now.”
“Where?”
“Minnesota. Been working as a salesman out here for the last few years.”
“I could come to you.”
“No. That would be way too much.”
“We want to talk to you.”
“Yes, something to do with Chapman Lorraine I heard.”
“He was murdered.”
“That’s awful.”
“Killed in the projectionist’s booth of the Arbuckle.”
“You don’t need to go out of your way, Lieutenant. I don’t know anything about Lorraine. That’s what I called to tell you.”
“We have to meet, Mr. Jones.”
“The next time I’m in New York I’ll call.”
“This is serious.”
“I’m sure it is. But as I said, I have nothing to do with it. It’s been nice hearing your voice again, Detective Van Dyne. Bye now.”