His face, when he heard that word, was like a time-lapse film of the wilting of a flower, an ugly bulbous flower, true, but still a flower, losing its bloom in the blink of an eye.
“Magnolia.”
It took me a while to figure it out. Was it code? Was there a particular tree? Was it the name of one of Manley’s strippers? Gentlemen, get ready to open your hearts and wallets for the jolt from Georgia, a walking heart attack who puts the hospital in Southern hospitality, the one, the only, Magnolia DeLight. It took me a while to figure it out, but I did, finally. And Manley himself had given me the clue. For Dante, in a desperate situation, would have threatened Manley at his softest point. And the only soft point Manley appeared to have was a son, in troubled health, stashed away somewhere in New Jersey. All it took was a quick look at the atlas and there it was, between Barrington and Somerdale, between Kirkwood and Runnymede, the little hamlet of Magnolia, New Jersey. Dante was threatening Manley’s boy, and he was using me to do it. But you tell me if Manley didn’t deserve to know.
“Where are you heading now?” said Slocum as he dropped me off in front of the hospital’s parking garage.
“Home. To sleep. Perchance to dream.”
“You sure?”
“I could use some.”
“Look, Carl, I respect that you promised Manley not to tell us what he told you. I don’t know if privilege is really attached, and we could probably get a judge to force it out of you except that we’ll hear it from the horse’s mouth soon enough. But whatever he told you, if it really did have something to do with that fire the other night, you should let McDeiss and me take care of it.”
“Fair enough,” I said. “You’re the pros.”
“Yes, we are.”
“And I’m basically a coward.”
“That’s one of the things I most admire about you.”
“Much appreciation,” I said, “though you shouldn’t slight my ignorance. That deserves your admiration too. Along with my general lack of physical prowess.”
“Not to mention you’re as ugly as the wrong end of a dead dog.”
“Thank you for that.”
“So you’re going to go home now, right?”
“Right.”
“To sleep?”
“Heaven knows I need it.”
“Good. I’ll be in touch.”
I watched as the Taurus drove away, then wandered around the parking garage looking for my car, which didn’t bother me much since I decided I would wait a bit before I drove out anyway, just to make sure Slocum was gone. While I waited I called a number Derek had given me, 609 area code, and gave the woman on the other end of the phone a message I didn’t understand: “That time on the way to the beach, it’s that time again.” Then I called Beth. There was no answer so I left a message on her machine, saying I had news, big news, and I would tell her everything tomorrow morning at Lonnie Chambers’s funeral.
Slowly I backed out of my space, followed the painted arrows down the ramps, paid my fee, all the time checking my rearview mirror. I kept checking it even as I pulled out of the lot, turned right and then left and then right and then left again, driving through the narrow North Philly streets as if through a maze, making sure I wasn’t followed. Satisfied, I headed south, not up Broad, where I would be expected to drive, but up Nineteenth, again checking behind me. I would go home to get some sleep some time that night, just as I had told Slocum, but not just yet. I had someplace first to visit. See, it was all coming into focus, and it was focusing on one man. Up Nineteenth, across the Benjamin Franklin Parkway. Around Rittenhouse Square, and then again up Nineteenth until I found a parking spot.
“What the ’ell do you want?” came the familiar voice over the intercom speaker.
“I’m here to see Mr. Dean.”
“Mr. Dean has retired for the night.”
“Tell him I’m here. Tell him I’ve got a question for him.”
“You’ve got a question? That’s a surprise, isn’t it? Solicitors are always full of questions. Like a cow is full of shit.”
“Tell him I’m here.”
“Ever seen a slaughtered cow split right down the gut. The shit slides right out onto the ground. I wonder if it’s like that with solicitors, slit their bellies and the questions come sliding out, slapping down on the floor, along with their intestines, small and large.”
“Thank you for that image. You should write children’s books.”
“You’ve got a question. I’ve got your answer right here. Bugger off.”
I rang the bell again.
“You didn’t ’ear me?”
“Oh I heard you. Tell your boss I’m here.”
“Climb into your bung hole and get lost.
“Do we have to keep doing this? Isn’t it getting tedious, this little give and take? Because in the end you’re just a servant boy, working for the boss. So be a good little servant boy and let your boss know I’m here.”
“I already said he’s asleep.”
“Or maybe he’s standing right behind you, whispering in your ear. Either way, I think he’ll want to see me. Tell him I’m here. Tell him I have a question. About the Dane.”
Chapter 61
“HAMLET?” SAID EDDIE Dean from the doorway.
I was in the parlor once again, with the red walls, the grand piano, the paintings of horses, the model ship, farther along in construction than before, but still incomplete. I was standing by the shelves of books, holding the volume of Shakespeare’s tragedies, opened to Hamlet. I looked up to see Eddie Dean, in his paisley dressing gown, with his dead face, his ascot, his cigarette and long blond hair, looking like a ludicrous mannequin from a long-gone age. He belonged on that dead ship he was so concerned about, I thought. They both were ghosts.
Behind him stood the glowering Colfax.
“You told us Hamlet was a great favorite of yours,” I said. “I’ve been reading it myself and I find I have a question.”
“This late at night?”
“Literature doesn’t keep banker’s hours, does it? I have a question and I thought you’d be the perfect person to ask.”
“I’m no expert,” he said, a false modesty stretching his voice.
“Don’t slight yourself.”
Maybe my voice was a bit harsh, because Eddie Dean’s chin rose for a moment before he turned and nodded at Colfax. Colfax stepped inside the room and closed the door behind him. Dean walked toward me. “Fire away, then, Victor. What part of the play can I elucidate for you?”
“See, here’s my problem,” I said. “I’ve read it over a couple times now and each time I can’t help wondering why it is that Hamlet dithers so.”
“It is part of his nature. A fatal flaw so to speak. It is simply what Hamlet is.”
“A dithering fool?”
“Not a fool. But a man, perhaps, who is unable to act with great force because his mind goes off in too many directions.”
“When it should be focused on the one.”
“Precisely.”
“Revenge,” I said.
“Yes, well, remember, Victor, it is, at heart, a simple revenge play after all.”
“And Shakespeare was such a simple writer.” I looked down at the book, carefully turned a page. “So you believe Hamlet is right to seek a bloody revenge against his uncle, the king?”
“The king killed Hamlet’s father, he married Hamlet’s mother, he usurped Hamlet’s crown and wealth. What else is to be done?”
“Ergo murder.”
“I believe in the law it is called justifiable homicide.”
“No, it’s not,” I said. “Revenge is not a legal justification for anything. A man named Lonnie Chambers was killed a few nights ago. His funeral is early tomorrow morning. It turns out he was an old friend of Tommy Greeley’s.”
I looked carefully at Eddie Dean’s face. It was a mask, frozen, inscrutable, hideous. “I didn’t know.”