“They should be burned.”
“Touch them again and I’ll kill you,” she said, her lack of affect positively chilling.
“Alura?”
“Don’t,” she said.
“Alura.”
“Shut up,” she said.
And he did, and they stayed there for a moment in the pathetic tableau, she mothering her journals as if they were a child, turning her back on the husband who loved her far too foolishly and far too well. And he, trying to explain himself to a woman who cared not a whit for anything but the jottings of an inner life that was warped by the very process of its saving. The unexamined life might not be worth living, but the examined life is pure murder.
“All right,” I said, finally, “are you guys through with your marital drama here, because any more and, frankly, I’m going to puke all over the bed.”
The justice stared at me for a moment and then at his wife, still kneeling with her journals, still holding them tight to her chest. Then he looked around at the whole of the studio, the scattered books, the photographs of his wife taken by her lover, the mess of clothes I had thrown about in my search, the great bed sitting like a lurid whale in the middle of the space, and on top of the bed, Tommy Greeley’s suitcase. This is my private place, as private as my soul, she had said. You have no business meddling here. She was wrong about him having no business there, but it seemed clear, as he looked around, that he couldn’t bear to stay there any longer.
“Don’t worry, Mr. Carl,” he said, his face twisted with disgust. “I am finished here.”
And then he walked out of the studio, passing by his wife as if she were made of stone, slamming the door closed behind him, the rusted metal banging shut with the solid echo of a cell door.
Alura Straczynski seemed to slump at the sound, and then, without looking my way, started placing her notebooks back in their stacks, checking each one for the date, sorting and arranging. I looked again at the pile of folded book cartons in the corner.
“Where is he?” I said.
“I don’t know.”
“Why don’t I believe you?”
“Because you are a cynic, Mr. Carl, as well as a coward. I want my notebooks.”
“You’ve made that clear to me, and to him too, I’m sure. Are you going to leave with him this time?”
“I’m a married woman, Mr. Carl.”
“Not for long, I figure.”
“Oh, I’m not so easily rid of.”
“Sort of like syphilis. But still you are packing.”
“I haven’t yet decided my future path for certain.”
“Can I ask you something? One thing that’s still not clear to me.”
“Ask what you want.”
“Were you the one who bashed Lonnie in the head that night?”
“The motorcycle man? I only found out at the last moment that he would be guarding Tommy and the suitcase. There was no telling what could have happened had he spotted Benjamin’s men at the meeting place.”
“So you cracked his head open.”
“I was a switch hitter in softball.”
“Oh, I bet you were.” I closed the suitcase, pulled it off the bed. “Do you know where he is?”
“No.”
“Do you want to tell me where you’re meeting him?”
“No.”
“He’s a selfish psychopath out to further his own rotten ends.”
“He always was.”
“Okay, then,” I said as I walked toward the door. “Just tell him if anything happens to my partner I’ll never stop until I destroy him.”
“That’s between the two of you.”
“No, it’s not,” I said. “You’re smack in the middle of it and so I’m holding you responsible too. You know, I must say, Mrs. Straczynski, I look at you and I am stumped. I have no idea of what makes you tick.”
“I’m a simple girl, Victor, with a simple view of the world. Everything on this earth exists only for the purpose of providing either for my pleasure or my art.”
“Well,” I said, “I guess that explains it.”
Chapter 68
I PLANNED A quick visit to the hospital, just to say hello to my father, to spread some cheer, to banter like a bantamweight, and then I’d be free to finish my preparations. I had planned a quick visit, but Dr. Mayonnaise had different ideas. She was behind the desk at the nurses’ station on the fourth floor and when she saw me leave the elevator she nearly jumped out of her chair.
“Victor, I’m so glad you’re here. Have you spoken to your father? Have you heard the news?”
“No,” I said. “News?”
“Good news,” she said, her face bright, her blue eyes shining. “Great news.” She stepped out from behind the desk, took hold of my arm, started leading me down the hall. “We’ve scheduled your father for tomorrow.”
“Scheduled? You mean his release?”
“No, Victor. His operation.”
“I thought his condition had to be stabilized first.”
“But it has. His response to the Primaxin has been terrific. There’s no reason to wait. And you’ll be really happy to hear that a hole opened up in Dr. Goetze’s schedule and she’s agreed to do the operation.”
“Dr. Goetze?”
“She’s brilliant. Really. Amazing. The top pulmonary surgeon in the region. Your father’s very lucky.”
“Lucky lucky lucky.” I glanced at the door to his room, partially opened. “Does he know yet?”
“Of course.”
“Has he met Dr. Goetze?”
“Just this afternoon.”
“And?”
“And what? Victor, trust me. If you need someone to surgically resect your lungs, you want it to be Dr. Goetze. She practically invented the procedure. The operation is scheduled for tomorrow morning. Your father is fasting now and we’ll gently sedate him tonight so he gets a full night’s rest. He’ll spend the next couple days in intensive care and then, after a few more days of recovery, you can take him home.”
“It all sounds so easy. So tell me, Karen, how did a hole open up in Dr. Goetze’s schedule?”
She squeezed her lips together. “Oh, you know,” she said. “Things happen.”
“Yes, they do.”
“Good luck, Victor. We’re all very hopeful.”
“I’m sure all indicators are promising.”
My father was lying in his bed, his eyes closed tight, his arms placed at his sides. It was as if he was already in position for the coffin. I think all the death we see, all the funerals we attend, are in some ways practice for the day we bury our fathers. I should have been prepared, I should have been overprepared, but still, to see him there, lying peacefully, without his anger or bitterness, without his prickly personality, without everything that had made him my father, brought me to tears. I don’t think I would have felt like that before he entered this hospital, before he started to tell me his story about the girl in the pleated skirt, but something had changed, something in me, and now grief at the possibility of losing him overwhelmed me.
I closed the door behind me, sat down by his bed, leaned my head back, tried to gain control of myself. That was when something started shaking in my pocket.
Yes, I know, no cell phones in hospitals, but I was in the middle of an emergency, dammit, and so I hadn’t turned my phone off, just set it on vibrate. I grabbed it out of my jacket pocket and snapped it open.
“Is that you?”
“Yes, it’s me,” I said softly. “Where are you, Phil?”
“Still outside that damn studio. She went out for a bit of errands, had a drink at that bar of hers, and then went back to her building. You said she had a bed in there, right?”
“That’s right.”
“It looks like she might spend the night. How long you want me to stay out here.”
“Until morning if you have to. If he shows up, call the FBI at the number I gave you. If she goes somewhere, follow and then call me. If we can take care of this tonight, that’s what I want to do.”
“All right, mate. It’s your call.”
“We have to find her, Phil.”
“I know we do.”
When he hung up I raised my chin and let out a great sigh of fear and frustration, and it was that sigh, I think, rather than my conversation, that woke my father, because when I looked down again there he was, eyes open, staring at me. It gave me a start, like a corpse coming to life, and I jumped a bit.