“I did, Rico. And I was impressed. You’re a nascent feminist.”
“Okay, I don’t know what that means, but I’m looking it up.”
“You do that, wow man.”
He started back to his car as Yolie emerged from the carriage house with Mitch. “Girl, I left your keys in the ignition,” she said, coming over to Des.
“Great, thanks.”
“I’ve, um, decided to stick it out a little while longer with Soave.”
“Glad to hear that. You keep your eyes and ears open, you can learn a lot.”
“Dig, I’m not sure that what I learned on this one belongs in any how-to manual,” Yolie said, crossing her rippling arms in front of her boom booms.
“Why, what did you learn?”
“You’re supposed to assemble the facts until they point you at the truth, check? But this one’s ass backwards. The truth’s already a done deal and now we’re going looking for the facts.”
“In Hollywood they call that retrofitting,” Mitch piped up.
“Retro-what?” Yolie shot back, cocking her head at him.
“You insert an earlier scene as story foundation for the climax you ended up improvising on the spot.”
Yolie peered at him in confusion. “Sure, whatever…”
Des said, “Word, it’s the stuff they don’t teach in the manual that makes you wise.” She stuck her bandaged hand out to her. “Stay in touch, Yolie. Put a shout on sometime, hear?”
“I hear,” said Yolie, clasping it gently. “It was all good, Des. I’m wishing we can do this again.”
“That’s something else they don’t teach you.”
“What is?”
“Be careful what you wish for, girl. Because it just might come true.”
CHAPTER 15
Nuri Acar was methodically brushing a thick coat of tan-colored primer over the graffiti Dodge had spray-painted on his wall when Mitch pulled into the minimart for his morning fix. Nuri must have been on his second coat by now, because the red paint was becoming all but invisible to Mitch’s eye.
“That doesn’t look bad at all, Mr. Acar,” he said encouragingly.
“It will be fine.” Nuri smiled at him broadly. He seemed more at ease than Mitch had ever seen him. “All we have wished for since we arrived in Dorset is to be good neighbors. I am so glad that this matter is resolved now. I wish I knew how to thank you, Mitch.”
“Not necessary.”
“No, it absolutely is. Nema and I have decided that from now on we will accept no money from you for coffee or pastry. Gasoline only.”
“That’s insane. I can’t let you do that.”
“Mitch, you must allow me to show my appreciation. To deny me is to insult me.”
“Well, okay, but the resident trooper won’t be happy about this. She’s very particular when it comes to my caloric consumption.”
“She is one very tough lady, our resident trooper,” Nuri observed quietly, his mouth tightening.
“Tougher than you can possibly imagine.”
“But she is also what you call a ‘straight shooter.’ And I respect her for that.”
“Good,” said Mitch, smiling. “Now I’m the one who’s glad.”
They shook hands, Mitch wincing slightly as Nuri gave his arm a hearty yank. The ribs felt okay unless Mitch made a sudden movement or, God forbid, sneezed. Then it felt as if someone were jabbing him with a boning knife.
Mostly, he was still just really resentful that Clemmie had chosen to stay up in the loft with Des after they got home from the clinic instead of on the sofa with him. He’d been hurting, too, after all, and wasn’t she his cat? Didn’t he feed her and tidy up her gaaacks? Where was the fairness in this? Where was the loyalty?
Deep down inside, Mitch figured he still didn’t totally understand cats.
He tried to slip one past Nema and pay her for his baklava and coffee, but she wouldn’t go along.
“Your money is no good here, Mitch,” she clucked at him.
“You knew, didn’t you, Nema?” Mitch said to her. “You saw Dodge throw that rock through your window.”
“I did, yes,” she admitted reluctantly.
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“We were afraid,” she replied, lowering her large, dark eyes.
“Of what?”
“Mr. Crockett is part of the hierarchy. A man with connections. Who knows, he could get our business license revoked. Possibly even get us deported. So Nuri felt it is best to keep quiet.”
“And you went along with him.”
“He is my husband,” Nema said, as if that answered everything.
For her, it did.
From there Mitch piloted his truck up Old Shore Road to the post office, munching on his baklava. He bypassed Dorset Street entirely so as to avoid the media crush at town hall, where Soave was busy putting out information about Will Durslag’s death. Thirty-six hours after the fact, Des’s former sergeant was still playing it very close to the vest until the forensics people up in Meriden finished sifting through those ashes in Will’s woodstove. Soave had still not made public Will’s tortured love affair with Tito Molina. All he was saying was that Will had been found dead at the base of Chapman Falls, that they were in possession of his taped confession, and that an investigation was proceeding.
He had not mentioned one word about Mitch’s involvement in Will’s death. This was fine by Mitch.
When he arrived at the post office he fetched his mail from his box and was starting back outside with it when Billie, the jovial old girl who worked behind the counter, called out, “Hey, Mitch, I got something for you. Been holding on to it.” She reached down under the counter and produced a torn, overstuffed ten-by-thirteen manila envelope. “Somebody dropped this in our mailbox out front the other night,” she explained, her eyes gleaming at Mitch with keen interest.
Mitch took one look at the envelope and immediately knew why. It had originally been addressed to Tito Molina-from a talent agency in Beverly Hills. Someone had crossed out Tito’s name and box number, and hurriedly scribbled Mitch’s name across the top. No box number or address for Mitch, no postage, no nothing. The envelope wasn’t even sealed shut.
“You owe me a buck sixty-five, my dear,” Billie said apologetically.
Mitch paid her and went back outside and got into his truck, his heart racing as he sat there staring at the envelope. He opened it. Inside he found a fat sheaf of lined yellow legal pages covered with crude, almost childlike handwriting.
On the first page a note had been scrawled in the margin: “Mitch, hope you like it. But please be honest-Tito”
It was his unfinished screenplay. He’d called it The Bright Silver Star.
Mitch devoured it at once, seated there in the post office parking lot. What he read turned out to be the heartfelt story of a sensitive, special little Chicano boy named Ramon who sees imaginary creatures he calls the Bad People and fears they are about to murder him in his sleep. Ramon has an Anglo mother who lives in her own dream world. His Chicano father, a day laborer, can’t understand either one of them. Enraged, he lashes out in a violent drunken outburst, beating Ramon’s mother half to death before he packs up and clears out.
Mitch found The Bright Silver Star brutal yet surprisingly delicate and poignant. It reminded him quite a bit of The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams. In fact, it was written more as a play than a movie. The action, such as it was, consisted of a series of conversations that took place over a single day in a squalid two-room apartment. There were no exteriors, no camera directions. Tragically, there was also no second act. Tito had managed to write only the first fifty or so pages, leaving the crisis in little Ramon’s family life unresolved. Even so, this glimpse into the private hell that was Tito Molina’s childhood was so painful that it very nearly brought tears to Mitch’s eyes.
He was still sitting there in the cab of his truck, totally decked, when Martine Crockett pulled up next to him in her silver VW Beetle convertible, her golf bag tossed across the backseat. Mitch was pretty hard to miss there in his ’56 Studey half ton, but Martine did her best anyway, scrupulously avoiding eye contact with him as she got out and strode inside, her gait long and assertive.