She hung up. She took another drag on her cigarette. Then she turned around.
“What are you doing?” I said.
“Just talking to an old friend.”
I looked at her. If there was a single word I could have thought of saying, I would have said it.
“Who are you?” she finally said.
“You know who I am.”
“No, really,” she said. “Why did you come here? You were gonna help Wilkins put the touch on me, right? You were in on his little scam.”
“I thought he was looking for you,” I said. “For other reasons.”
“You wanna know something?” she said. “Randy Wilkins? I barely even remember him. You know how many men we were setting up back then?”
“What do you mean, setting up?”
“God, how dumb are you, Alex? I mean, really? That was our scam back then. My whole family. Wilkins was the pitcher, right? Came from a rich family?”
I stood there for a while, going over the whole thing from beginning to end. I watched her standing there, and she watched me back.
“Everything you told me,” I finally said, “since the moment I met you, was a lie.”
“Yeah, no kidding,” she said. “I was playing you. I wanted to see what your angle was.”
“I didn’t have an angle, Maria.”
“Everybody has an angle,” she said. “And if you really don’t, well”-she took a drag on her cigarette, blew smoke to the ceiling-”then I was right. You are too good.”
CHAPTER 21
My father never said much to me about women. He had opinions about baseball, and hockey, and every other sport he had ever seen. He had opinions about how to take care of an automobile, about how to fix a piece of furniture. God knows, he had opinions about how to build a log cabin. He had opinions about all these things because he believed that there are many wrong ways to do something, and only one right way. With women, there is no right way. At least that’s what he told me. “Just try to find the one woman who’ll always tell you the truth,” he once said, maybe the only time in his life he tried to give me some advice about the opposite sex. “It’s hard enough to figure out a woman, even if they’re straight with you. If they start lying, you don’t have a prayer.”
It seemed like some pretty outdated advice the first time I heard it. Now I’m not so sure.
Maria had lied to me about recognizing Randy, about remembering him after all these years. She had lied to me about her past, and about her family. It all made sense now. Her mother did “cold readings,” as they call them in the business. It’s not so hard. You create the right atmosphere, you suspend belief as much as you can, and then you start looking for weaknesses. Everybody has them. Your parents don’t understand you. You have big dreams, but something is holding you back. You’re afraid of something. If you don’t get a nibble, you quickly move on to something else. When you finally get a hit, it’s as obvious as a neon sign over the sucker’s head. Yes! That’s it! That’s my problem! How did you know?
And then you reel them in. If it’s a young man on the hook and you need to use your daughter to pull them into the net, so be it. That’s how the game works.
The Harwood business was still a little confusing. I didn’t know how much of that was a lie. Clearly, they hated each other. But now I didn’t know who the victim was, or even if there was a victim. Suddenly, it didn’t seem to matter anymore. Not to me.
As I thought about it I was pretty sure I knew when the hook had been set, the exact moment when she must have decided I could be very useful to her. When I walked into that bar and sat down next to her, and spoke to her for the first time. Hello, I’m the guy who was with Randy Wilkins. Yeah, the con artist. Although I didn’t know it at the time. He asked me to help him find you just because he wanted to see you again after all these years. And I believed him.
She must have had me marked for the ultimate sucker right then. Was she right? Maybe she was. Although she didn’t get what she wanted, not in the end. Harwood was still alive. And I was backing my truck down her driveway.
When my truck was aimed in the right direction, I punched it. If I could have squealed my tires, I would have. All I did was kick up a little gravel. Good night, Maria. And good luck.
A half mile down the road, my night got even worse. Chief Rudiger’s squad car was parked at the boat launch, and the man himself was standing next to Whitley’s white Cadillac, looking in through what used to be the window on the passenger’s side. When he saw my truck coming, he stepped out into the middle of the road. Running him over would have felt pretty good right about then. I resisted the temptation. He stood motionless until I stopped in front of him, and then he came around to my window. I rolled it down.
“Evening, Mr. McKnight,” he said.
“What can I do for you, Chief?”
“Do you know anything about this car?” he said.
“Looks like he needs a new window,” I said.
“Do you happen to know where the owner is right now?”
“No,” I said. Technically, it was the truth.
“I think we need to discuss this matter,” he said.
“Chief,” I said. “Please. I have to tell you, I’m no longer working for Ms. Zambelli. I no longer have any interest in anything that ever happened in this town. Or anything that ever will happen. In fact, I’m on my way out of here right now. As soon as you let me go, I’m going to leave and never come back. Ever. I should think that would make your night.”
“I can’t let you leave here,” he said. He put both his hands on the top of my truck. “Not without buying you a drink.”
“Excuse me?”
“Follow me to Rocky’s,” he said. “I’m buying.”
“Chief, if you don’t mind, it’s been a long night…”
“You got two choices,” he said. “Either we go to my office and talk about what happened to that car over there or we go to Rocky’s and I buy you a drink. What’s it gonna be, McKnight?”
“Lead the way,” I said.
He got into his car and drove back to the main road, then down a block to Rocky’s place. It was just after 2:00 A.M., but the place was still doing a good business. I parked the truck and met Rudiger at the door.
“I never thought I’d be welcome here,” I said.
“After you,” he said, holding the door open.
I walked in, ready for anything. Surely this was a trap. Rocky and Harry would be waiting to jump me. They’d beat the living hell out of me, and if I was lucky, they’d dump me at the city limits instead of killing me.
Nobody jumped me. Nobody hit me over the head with anything. There were maybe thirty people in the place, mostly men, the late-night crew. The television was off now, the place transformed from a family restaurant to a bar for serious drinkers. Rudiger led me to a place at the horseshoe bar, on Maria’s side-in fact, just a few stools down from where she had been sitting when I first saw her. Rocky looked at me, then at Rudiger. If he was surprised to see us there together, he did a good job of hiding it.
“What’ll you have, McKnight?” Rudiger said.
“Beer will do,” I said.
“Two beers, Rock,” he said. “Put a shot next to mine.”
Rocky set us up without saying a word, then went back to his business.
“I didn’t think you could serve alcohol in this state after two o’clock,” I said.
“I think you’re right,” he said. “Let’s call the police.”
“Never mind,” I said.
He downed his shot and then put the glass down. He didn’t slam it. He placed it so gently, you couldn’t even hear it touch the bar.
“Are you gonna tell me why I’m here?” I said.
“Why do you think you’re here?”
“I can’t even imagine,” I said. “I was under the impression you didn’t care for me too much. I would have put the odds against you buying me a drink around ten thousand to one.”
“That’s quite a long shot,” he said. “What about the odds against me apologizing to you?”