So I did not judge Jay harshly that evening, hearing his story, not at all. I was scared for him, but I admired the truthfulness of his intention. All of his manipulations and lies, the maze of his own devising, were in pursuit of the one good thing he could yet imagine for himself, the recognition that passes between father and child.
"So," I ventured. "Where's all this go now?"
"Simple." Jay dropped the mask from his face and found my eyes. "I'm dying, man."
Nine
"Potatoes!" Allison cried to me on the phone late the next morning. "All over the sidewalk in front of the steakhouse." I'd been lying in my hotel room bed, listening to the tape-hiss of my own head and wondering what to do about Jay, when her call came. "There's a huge green truck up on the sidewalk," she said. "A little old man is inside! And he won't come out. He says he knows Jay. He's drunk or something, says he has to talk to Jay right now. I told him I didn't know where he is, Bill!"
"Is the truck missing a front door?"
"I think so, yes."
It was Poppy. "Can you put the guy on the phone?"
"He won't get out of the truck. I'll take the phone to him."
Which she did. I heard her carrying it outside, the fuzz of the wind cutting across the mouthpiece. "Poppy?" I said when she handed it to him.
"Jay?"
"No, it's Bill, his lawyer. You remember me."
"I ain't talking to no shyster."
"I'll be down there in a few minutes." It was only about ten blocks away. "Don't go anywhere."
"You just bring Jay, just tell him I'm going to say what he don't want to hear, I can't take it no more…" His voice broke into a wretched sob. "I'm sorry, it was never, I'm-"
"Bill?" came Allison's voice. "He's crying."
"Don't let him go anywhere. Take the keys."
"Ha already did."
I told her I'd be there soon, then called Marceno's New York office. Miss Allana answered.
"Let me talk to Marceno," I told her.
"Mr. Wy-eth," came his voice almost immediately. "So you have responded to my inquiries?"
"Marceno, listen to me. Jay Rainey doesn't know what's buried on your land, and I don't, either. But I can tell you who does know, the little old man who worked on the farm."
"The fellow named Poppy?"
"Yes."
A dismissive grunt. "We already asked him."
"You personally?"
"One of my representatives."
"Who?"
"That is confidential, Mr. Wy-eth."
"If it was Martha Hallock, then I don't think you got the whole story."
This bothered him, I could tell. "And why would that be?"
"Because they are related."
"Related?"
"Poppy is Martha Hallock's nephew."
"No one told me that."
"Why would they?"
"This man Poppy knows?"
"He's here in town, at the steakhouse where we did this deal in the first place. He's looking for Jay Rainey and he's not going to find him. But he says he has something to tell him. So I'm going there right now. I suggest you show up, too."
"I was expecting information to come from you or Jay Rainey."
I stood at my window and watched the taxis edge down Fifth Avenue. "Poppy is there now. Right now, a few minutes from your offices. It's the best I can do, Marceno."
"We will see."
"Hey, you're the one with forty-two million bucks on the line, Marceno, not me."
I walked toward the steakhouse, listening to my phone ring in Jay's garage apartment. No answer. When we'd said goodbye the previous evening, he'd offered his hand to me in a gesture of friendship and apology and I had taken it willingly, sad for him, now that I understood the simple emotional logic behind his curious behaviorsall the man wanted was to find and know his daughter. On a Monday morning the city was busy, men and women climbing out of the subways ready to eat pressure and deadlines and phone calls. And the next day I'd be busy, too, finally. I'd report for work at Dan Tuthill's new firm, and from there I'd rent a new apartment- someplace with a real doorman who didn't let thugs up the stairs- and a few weeks later, Timothy would arrive, with Judith.
A block away from the steakhouse, I saw Poppy's half-ton truck bumped up onto the sidewalk of Thirty-third Street. He'd knocked one of the evergreens over. The enormous ceramic pot had broken into a dozen pieces and the tree itself lay on its side, roots exposed to the cold. Ha was out on the sidewalk, picking up potatoes and throwing them back into the truck. The wind lifted what gray hair was left on his head.
"Ha!" I called.
He looked up and nodded. "Miss Allison friend."
"Yes. She called me." I pointed at the truck. "You've got a little old man inside?"
"Every Monday, close for lunch," Ha muttered. "But Ha work anyway. The man is in that truck."
I saw a boot sticking out of the truck where the front door was supposed to be. The limp glove was still taped to the steering wheel. Poppy lay slumped across the front seat hugging a half-empty bottle of whiskey.
"Poppy, you don't look too good."
"I didn't tell them." He licked his lips in a daze. His face was swollen, as if he'd been punched a few times. "You see Jay, you say I didn't tell them."
Allison slipped out the front door of the steakhouse, arms huddled tight, eyes concerned.
"Who is he?"
"This is Poppy. He used to work on Jay's farm."
"Is he drunk?"
"Yeah, I'm fucking drunk." Poppy rolled onto his back, exposing a belly of gray hair. "I'm a lot of things, I'm a drunk and beat up and I also got coffee in me." He vomited into the well of the seat. "Christ," he moaned.
Allison stepped back from the truck. "What am I supposed to do here, call the police?"
"Don't."
"Why?"
"The night that we did the real estate deal, this was the guy who came to the restaurant."
She frowned. "I don't remember him, and believe me, I would."
"You were out with Jay celebrating. He needed Jay to drive east to his land. Remember you asked me to go out there? That night we found an old black guy dead on a bulldozer. He'd worked on Jay's farm for years. The bulldozer had gone off the edge of the cliff. Poppy and Jay and I hauled it back up using this truck, in fact. Jay thought the old guy had a heart attack."
"He did," bellowed Poppy. He pushed himself up and confronted us, his lips wet, nodding portentously, as if being questioned in a court of law. "He did, a fucking heart attack, plain and simple. I saw it with my own eyes. Nobody touched him."
I pulled on his arm to get him up. "You told us you found him."
"No, I saw him!" he growled. "I saw him die."
"You kill him, Poppy, did you kill him somehow?"
He seemed oddly fascinated by this question, distracted even, and didn't answer.
"Sir, we take deliveries on Monday," said Allison. "You're blocking our way here. You're going to have to move."