“If you don't start paying more attention to what's going on around you, you'll see your mommaa lot sooner than you think. Take care of yourself, boy."
"Okay," I said, and watched him walk off.
I blotted my face with a handkerchief, leaned against ano parking sign, and closed my eyes. Grief flooded upward from the center of my body like a physical presence. I pressed the handkerchief to my eyes. Grief is an industrial-strength emotion, that's all I can say. Grief takes care of business, it tells you where you are.
When the onslaught subsided, I took in my surroundings. Parking lots and chain-link fences bordered auto-parts suppliers, die stampers, storage facilities, and other, less identifiable, concerns. Most of the buildings onPine Street were one-story and none higher than two. With their grimy brick facades and pebble-glass windows, they looked like reductions of larger, more accommodating structures.
Three blocks later, the chain-link fences and empty lots disappeared, and the brick buildings grew closer and taller. Traffic lights sprouted from every corner. I turned left and walked past windows displaying videotapes and liquor bottles. My shirt began to dry out.A street sign told me that I was on Cobden Avenue. I started feeling hungry.
Cars occupied by young couples and groups of teenagers flowed by. After two more traffic lights, Cobden came to an end at a four-lane boulevard and a small, triangular park. I had reachedCommercial Avenue, the center of town. I turned right and moved toward what looked like the action. Ahead of me, two couples with the uncomplicated, affable assurance of Midwestern wealth spun out of a revolving door under the attention of an impassive doorman in epaulets and brass buttons. A flushed, fiftyish man said, "Does he know what's going on? I mean, can you believe that?"
The taller, thinner man he was addressing placed a hand on his shoulder. Gold-rimmed glasses caught the fading sunlight. His rim of white hair had been cropped to a stubble. "You bet I do." Vertical wrinkles creased his face, and yellow teeth filled his carnivorous smile. “In about five minutes, he'll believe it, too."
The dark-haired woman with him said, "Honey, are you going to tell him?" Twenty years younger than the man she called "honey," shehad theaerobicized, face-lifted look of a second wife fighting to stay in the game. She sent me an irritated glare that almost immediately turned into something else, something I could not quite identity but that combined surprise, dismay, and embarrassment.
Her husband's chestyhar har har ridiculed the suggestion of "telling." “I don't have to, because, as everybody knows, our friend . . ." He noticed the look on his wife's face, glanced at me, and abruptly pulled himself upright. He was at least six foot six, another giant, in a grass-green linen jacket and sharply creased pink trousers. A lot of vibrant colors zigzagged across his bow tie. He was in his early seventies and still an unrepentant bully who thought of himself as a powerhouse.
"Do you require some form of assistance?"
I liked the "require." It had a nasty edge you couldn't get from "need." "Require" put you in your place. "Form" was a nice touch, too.
“I'm looking for a good restaurant. What would you recommend?"
Managing his surprise better than I had expected, he swept his hand toward the building beside us. A bronze plate beside the revolving door readMERCHANTS HOTEL. "Le Madrigal. Right off the lobby. We just had dinner there." He noticed something about me that stopped him cold, and his smile faded. “It's pricey, though—pricey. Try Loretta's, three blocks north. They can fix you up a good steak, ribs, anything you want."
"The Madrigal sounds perfect."
"LllluuuhMadrigal, notThe Madrigal. Around here, it's where the good people get together."
The other man said, “I love it when you talk dirty, G-Man."
"Word of advice, buddy." The G-Man slammed a big hand down on my shoulder. A silken wing of the bow tie slid across my temple. "You can show off, sure, throw your money around, fine, but stop off at the boys' room first and make yourself presentable. A polite little fellow like you wants to fit in, am I right?"
I tilted my face toward his leathery ear. “I don't need your advice, you overbearing small-town shithead."
Recoiling like a compressed spring, he grabbed his wife's arm and yanked her into the street. The other couple flapped their mouths and scurried after them. My friend forced himself to go around the front of a dark green Town Car to open his wife's door while the other couple climbed into the back seat.
For a second or two, the doorman permitted himself to smile at me.
An elderly bellboy directed me up a marble staircase to the men's room. I washed my hands and face under the regard of the black-suited attendant. I trained the hand dryer's flow of warm air onto my shirt, reknotted my necktie, and patted my hair. I used the mouth-wash anda splash of designer cologne. The attendant remarked an improvement in my appearance, and I contributed two dollars to his porcelain saucer.
On the other side of the lobby, I went up a smaller, carpeted flight of stairs. An illuminated podium and a headwaiter whose name tag identified him as Vincent stood guard before tables with candles and white tablecloths. Vincent brushed his lips with a forefinger to indicate contemplation and conducted me to a table near the bar. He produced a parchment menu and a leather-bound wine list. My waiter's name would be Julian. A girl who looked like a Norwegian high school student poured ice water into a glass, and a Malaysian sourpuss came by with biscuits and bread sticks. I opened the menu and heard someone speak my name.
Ashleigh Ashton was moving across the room. From the other side of their window table, Laurie Hatch raised her eyebrows and gave me a look that weakened my knees.
• 31
• I ordered salad frisee, a hanger steak, and a glass of cabernet from Julian, a roguish pixie. As for the cabernet, he had a special little something he wanted me to try. If Laurie Hatch saw anything unlikely in Ashleigh's story of giving me a ride to Edgerton, she kept her reservations to herself. Ashleigh had invited Laurie to dinner by reason of her connection to the legal case, but the connection went unexplained. Julian delivered his special little something and awaited the verdict. I expressed my wonder at the majesty of the little something. Julian asked if the ladies would care for their coffee now, or would they like something else? Now, Ashleigh said, she had to go upstairs to make some calls. Laurie requested a glass of the little something.
"How is your mother doing?" she asked.
"Oh, God," Ashleigh said. “I promise you, I've been thinking about your mother ever since you got out of my car. What was it, anyhow?"
"A stroke," Laurie said. "What do the doctors say?"
"They say she died this morning. They better be right, because I just bought a coffin and a cemetery plot." They stared at me in shock. “I'm sorry. I shouldn't have put it like that. It's beena weird day."
Ashleigh said, "At least you were able to spend a whole day with her. Could she talk to you?"
"She was able to say a few things." For a brief time, I found myself unable to speak. The Malaysian sourpuss removed their plates, and the Norwegian girl refilled our water glasses. Julian scurried up with the coffee and the wine.
Laurie asked, "Are you going to stay around after the funeral?"
“I might. I'd like to see more of the town."
"Let me be your tour guide. After all, I'm in your debt."
"Sounds like a great idea," I said, and made myself stop looking at her. "Ashleigh, what's happening with your project?" Her reasons for coming to Edgerton had entirely escaped me.