The Last Kind Words: A Novel Read online

  “The report I read said she was being tutored in an advanced physics class that evening. That she and several other students were at a teacher’s home. Mrs. Dan—” I couldn’t remember the name. It was Greek.

  “Mrs. Denopolis.”

  “Who lived near Autauk Park. Your sister didn’t drive?”

  “She jogged. She was on the school track team. She ran everywhere.”

  “You must live at least eight or nine miles from the park.”

  “For Becky that was nothing. She was a long-distance runner. She’d run down Old Autauk Highway.”

  I thought I had a good poker face in place but she must’ve read something in my expression.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “I just jogged that way yesterday morning.”

  “A lot of people do.”

  “Right. Did she ever mention Collie? That she knew him? That he was bothering her? Anything like that?”

  “No.”

  “Did she mention having any trouble with anyone? An ex-boyfriend?”

  “No. I was only twelve but we talked a lot and shared secrets. The same way Sharon and I do now.”

  It reminded me that I didn’t know her name. I asked and she said, “Cara.”

  “Why aren’t you at school?”

  It made her scoff. “What are you, a parole officer? I quit and got my GED. I work part-time at Kohl’s. I’m taking night classes at Suffolk Community.”

  “Cara, would it be all right if I called you in case I have any other questions about your sister?”

  “I’ve told you everything I can. But if you want to come back you can talk to my parents. I think they might listen. But I’m not sure they could help at all.”

  “I doubt anyone can. I’m just spinning my wheels.”

  “So am I. That’s how it feels. Like I’m wasting time. That’s why I—” She didn’t have to finish. I knew she meant the pills. She was beginning to tap the gun against the side of her leg. Her agitation was growing worse. I could see the fear in her eyes. It had nothing to do with me. The meds were wearing off. She had to be popping ten or twelve a day. The charge of her emotions was overcoming her, and she needed to deaden it.

  “Where’d you get the scrips?”

  “Like that’s your business? I stole them from my mother’s ob-gyn.”

  “You’ve been on the meds for too long. You’re taking too many.”

  “I need them.”

  “But they’re making you sicker now. You know it’s the truth. You’re taking more and more pills and they’re not working as well.”

  “Who are you to say that? You don’t know me.”

  “I know when someone is an addict. You need to ease off. Slowly.”

  “Maybe I will.”

  “You can’t do it on your own. Talk to someone.”

  “I think I might. Soon. One of these days.”

  “Listen, Cara, one final thing. Even if you’re out of the house for a few minutes, even if you’re only walking to the corner. Lock your door.”

  She hadn’t softened while we’d talked. A ribbon of hair had fallen across her face and she brushed it away and it fell back again. She raised the gun. I took a step back and a mean titter spilled from her mouth. “You think I was kidding about using this thing? I hope someone does try something. I hope you come back and try something. Next time I won’t chat. And I was lying about shooting you in the leg or the nuts. If I ever pull the trigger, it’ll be a head shot.”

  Jack “Fingers” Brown worked out of a bowling alley in Huntington Station. He held court on the last lane and never kept any hardware on the premises. If you wanted a clean, untraceable piece, you came to Fingers. Sometimes the serial numbers were filed off and sometimes they weren’t. It didn’t matter. They either were ripped off from a gun shop, had fallen off an army truck, or were police-academy-cadet fresh.

  Collie had used a clean S&W .38 on his mad-dog outing. There were a couple of other guys on the island who might’ve been able to supply a piece like that, but I figured Collie would’ve gone to Fingers first. I wanted to know when Collie had decided to pick up a pistol. Had it been right after he’d left the Elbow Room or right before? Or had he nabbed it weeks in advance, preparing for his decline into the underneath?

  Fingers was about fifty, with a smarmy leer, a snow tire around his middle, and a mountain of oiled hair that he kept swept to one side so it looked like he might topple over at any second. He’d been a gunrunner for twenty years or more and got picked up at least once a month by the cops, but they could never hold him for more than a day. He was smart and well connected, and word was he’d ace anyone who even looked like they might rat on him. His public persona of a bowling geek wasn’t a persona. Fingers really did spend several hours a day knocking pins down. I looked around at the signs on the front door as I walked in. They’d been there forever. Senior citizens bowled free on Tuesday nights. Fridays the high school kids got in for half price. Special prices for parties of more than twenty. Ask about discounts.

  My family had bowled here when I was a kid. Grey was a natural who regularly broke 250. My mother was damn good too. She had a deceptively soft way of throwing the ball. It would drop from her hand and seem to barely have enough power to make it all the way down the lane, but once it got to the pins they practically exploded. Mal couldn’t break 100 to save his life, and I wasn’t much better. Collie had always been competitive but never with himself. Only with me. So long as he beat me by even a pin, he was happy. My old man would just sit and watch the rest of us and laugh while Gramp hung around in the bar and snatched enough pocket change to pay for his beer.

  It was twelve-thirty. Fingers never came in before noon. He was working a four–six split in the fifth frame when I stepped up and sat behind his entourage. His right-hand man was an ex-con leg breaker named Higgins who stood six-three, weighed 230 of mostly muscle, and wore sunglasses day and night so you could never tell when he had a bead on you. It wasn’t a bad guess to figure he was always watching. Word was he used a beaver-tail sap. I kept my hands on my knees.

  Two young women were chattering, clapping, and urging Fingers on. They might have been twins or were just affecting the look. Short blond hair feathered across their eyes, lots of neck jewelry, both in muted summer dresses. The bowling shoes actually looked good on them. They each turned and gave me a beaming smile. I grinned back. Higgins kept his body angled toward me. If I made a fast move he’d find the sweet spot of my skull with that blackjack in no time flat.

  Fingers had good form, a nice extension as he threw the ball, a solid curve that hooked the edge of the gutter and held on, breaking only at the last moment. He picked up the spare handily and the women clapped and woo-hooed.

  He noticed me immediately but chose to ignore me until he and his lady friends had finished their game. Afterward, he gave each of them a juicy kiss that made me think this crew was a little kinkier than at first appeared to be the case. Maybe the bowling shoes should have been a giveaway. The women retired to the bar. Higgins kept focused on me the entire time.

  Fingers finally turned his chin and waved me over. I got up and so did Higgins, who shadowed my every move. I stood before Fingers while he cleaned his ball with an oil-stained chamois rag.

  “I know you?” he asked.

  “We’ve never met,” I said. “My name’s Terry Rand.”

  He nodded. “Family’s got a good rep, except for that one black mark on it.”

  “Right. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”

  “I’m entertaining some friends right now.”

  “This will only take a minute.”

  “Not here.” He stuck his ball in a bag. Higgins kept eyeing me. Whatever intimidation the sunglasses got him would eventually cost him. He’d be rough to take under these bright lights, but in a parking lot at night he’d go pretty easy. “Make an appointment with my partner here. Maybe we can set something up in a few days. Maybe next week.”

  “
It can’t wait.”

  “I told you. I don’t do business here.”

  “From what I hear, Fingers, this is the only place you do business. No chance of the feds bugging you with all these pins flying.”

  “Like I said, I’m entertaining some close friends right now—”

  “Yeah, I saw. They really twins or do they just like to play dress-up and pretend?”

  It made him reassess me. He held his bowling bag on his lap and wet his lips.

  “What do you need?”

  “I don’t need anything. I want to ask you a few questions.”

  “I don’t answer questions.”

  “How do you get through life without answering questions?”

  “I just do.”

  I put a little ice in my voice. “See that, Fingers. You just fucking answered one.”

  He checked over his shoulder at Higgins, to make sure he was still close by. “You don’t want to be troublesome now, kid.”

  “You’re right, I don’t. But like I said, this can’t wait. I think you know why.”

  “We’re through here,” Fingers said.

  Higgins drifted nearer and began to brace me. He stuck his chest in my face and backed me up a step. Like most big bruisers, he underestimated anyone who wasn’t as tall and thick as himself. He got in closer and angled a hip at me so he could yank his sap quickly. His right hand dipped into his pocket. He said nothing. What little of his face I could see held no expression. He started to draw the beaver-tail blackjack.

  I grabbed the bowling bag out of Fingers’s lap and hurled it down as hard as I could on Higgins’s left foot. There was a crunch like a box of matchsticks snapping. He let out the first note of a yowl and bent over to grab at his mashed toes. I snapped a knee up into his chin. I couldn’t see his eyes but they had to be rolling. He took one step backward and fought for balance. I knocked his other leg out from under him and he fell flat on his back.

  While he was down, I kicked him twice in the face. His glasses cracked and sailed off.

  The bowlers in the other lanes kept right on playing. I had to hand it to these folks. They certainly had dedication and passion. Jesus, were they focused.

  Fingers didn’t even try to take a swing at me. He just sat with a resigned air, sucking his teeth and shaking his head, probably already plotting how he’d snuff me.

  “Did you sell a piece to my brother?” I asked.

  “You’re finished, you know. I can’t let this go. Even if I wanted to, I can’t.”

  “We’ll cover that later. But for right now, focus. Tell me about my brother.”

  “I don’t talk about my customers.”

  “Then you’re admitting he was a customer. I’m not the cops, Fingers. It’s not like I’m holding you responsible. But I need to know where he got his pistol.”

  He shrugged, his bony shoulders nearly spiking through his bowling shirt. “Why do you care?”

  “How about if we don’t chase each other around the track all night long? Did you sell him a clean piece?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “How about a knife?”

  “That too.”

  My heart pounded and I crossed my arms over my chest as if to hold it in. “Right. When?”

  “You want the date?”

  “I do.”

  “How am I supposed to remember that?”

  “You remember selling it. I bet you never forget a customer, a price, a date, or a caliber, especially if it’s used in a spree like the one he went on. So tell me. When?”

  Higgins let out a moan and started coughing blood. He blinked and tried turning over. I put a foot on his chest and said, “Shh.”

  Fingers kept wagging his head. It made that mound of hair waver and flap.

  “Even if I wanted to let this go, you think he’s going to?”

  “What’d I say? Stay focused, right? Tell me when my brother came to you.”

  Fingers told me. It turned out to be the day before Collie went on his rampage. He said, “You’re dead, you know.”

  “Bring along someone better than this goon.”

  “I will. See you soon.”

  I hit the door with my heart tripping. Collie hadn’t gone off on a mad tear. It hadn’t been anything that had happened at the Elbow Room to push him over the edge. He’d either been planning to drop into the underneath or he’d picked up gun fever once he’d held the piece in his hands. A fever that had risen by degrees through the night. My brother, a living storm of urgency and indulgence, sweeping across town.

  I wondered if I’d been home, would he have saved the last shot for me?

  I drew back my arm and tossed the stick. JFK brought it back and I tossed it onto the lawn again. He hung his head, looked at me like I was an asshole, and laid down at my feet.

  I wanted to see Kimmy. I wanted to do more than that. I longed to fold up in her arms and beg forgiveness, but only if she would give it to me. I knew she wouldn’t. I would stand there exposed and empty and begging and she would stare at me with no idea of what to say or do. Her eyes would be steamed with years of tamped-down puzzlement and hate. Scooter would jet around and I would want to call her my girl.

  I had apologized to my old man for leaving, and now the urge to run was starting to overwhelm me again. In thirty or forty years my brain would turn to tapioca and I’d die in front of a television, watching cartoons and muttering about a dream I’d once had of carrying a woman to the top of the lighthouse.

  I sniffed and smelled Mal behind me, standing in the screen door. I hadn’t thought anyone was home. He was a damn good creeper even though his talents lay on the grift. If he quit the stogies, he could still be a solid second-story man.

  I turned and said, “Heya, what’s this?”

  He pushed through and came out onto the porch. He had an unlit cigar butt tucked into the corner of his mouth. He pulled it free, peered at it for a moment, then replaced it. “I thought we should talk. You’ve been home for days and haven’t even said hello to me yet.”

  His coarse, crude face was split by a smile. It looked like a deep fracture working through the side of a cliff. We hugged.

  I said, “Nothing personal.”

  “I realize that. It wasn’t an easy call for you to respond to. You’ve got a lot on your shoulders now that you didn’t ask for. But it’s still damn good to see you.” He led me over to one of the thin trails cutting through the brush around our property. “Let’s walk.”

  “Like when we used to feed the ducks at the lake.”

  “And bum-rush the neighborhood kids’ birthday parties. Every one of those little fuckers used to have a clown or a magician, some asshole choking the shit out of long balloons and turning them into animals. And petting zoos. Monkeys and llamas and baby brown bears. Every other kid with some poor monkey in a cage staring through the bars, the kid trying to feed him ice cream and pizza. Talk about a crime.”

  JFK followed along as we moved through the woods. Mal picked up a stick and tossed it. JFK flicked his tail once but didn’t move for it. I scratched at his ear. He let out a long, contented sigh.

  Mal looked a little chagrined, which was hard to do considering the cruelty in his features. My shoulders tensed. So did his.

  “When you cut and run you leave unfinished business. Don’t think we all can’t see it in you.”

  “I thought I looked trim and fit and tan.”

  “You do. You also look like twenty pounds of hammered shit.”

  I couldn’t help grinning. “Look who the hell’s talking.”

  Mal pulled the stogie butt from the corner of his mouth and let out a booming laugh that echoed through the undergrowth. “My beauty is for more refined tastes, that’s all.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “We’re still a pretty emotional lot, you know,” he said. “The Rands. All of us. I know this thing is bending you all out of shape. Visiting Collie. Listening to whatever crap he’s pouring in your ear.” He stuck the stogie back in. “Yo
u ever need any help, Terrier, I hope you know you can always ask me.”

  “Sure.”

  “You say that like you don’t believe it.”

  “I believe it.”

  “Let’s sit.”

  We sat on the trunk of a maple tree that had toppled over but wasn’t quite dead. The leaves fluttered when we climbed on it. Squirrels clambered in and out of a knothole, and JFK dropped his chin and watched excitedly, then bolted after them. He could still really truck when he wanted to. He vanished into the brush.

  Mal got up the nerve to ask me what Collie had wanted. I turned my chin to look at him and he was staring at the black soil under his feet. Maybe he wanted to know and maybe he didn’t. I didn’t bother to burden him with it.

  I wanted to ask why he never married. It wasn’t because he was so ugly. There had been women he’d cared about in his life, women who’d loved him. A couple that I remembered from the time I was very young. Their names and faces remained clear to me. At Christmas dinner twenty or so years ago I remembered calling one of them “Aunt Sally.” She’d put down her silverware and laughed quietly and given Mal a sweet and open look of affection. Everyone else had chuckled pleasantly, but I could tell I’d done something wrong. I’d cried myself to sleep, thinking Mal would hate me forever. In the morning Grey had said, “Some of us aren’t meant for wives and kids, Terrier. The only women we love are the black queens in a marked deck.”

  I tried to picture my life if Collie and I had been friends the way my father and uncles were. I saw Collie with a wife and three kids in that house and wondered if I would be able to live the way my uncles did. If a black queen would be enough for me.

  I asked, “Did you juke Danny Thompson forty large?”

  Mal shrugged his massive shoulders. “More like thirty-seven.”

  “Did you know that he’s had men on the street—our street, out in front of the house—waiting for you?”

  He pulled a lighter out of his pocket and lit the butt of his cigar. He blew smoke away from me. “Yeah, I spotted them.”

  “He’s not Big Dan. He’s insecure and edgy and fairly stupid.”

  “I know. He always was, even as a kid. I was surprised you took a shine to him when you were little.”