“Grace, are you gonna let somebody get away with murder?”
I look into his face with its sheen of sweat. I feel a stab of confusion and nausea. I yank on the door. “I have to go.”
“Is that the way it’s gonna be? Is it?” he calls after me, as the heavy door closes between us.
I lurch into an empty stall, lock it, and drop on to the seat until the wave of nausea passes. I hang my head, examining the speckles in the floor tile; gray, black, and white fragments tumble together like a kaleidoscope. Between each tile is a steel line where the grout would be, but it wiggles from time to time. I right myself and wrestle with the oversized dispenser for a square of toilet paper.
Are you gonna let somebody get away with murder?
I wipe my face with the thin square and decide to stay there until the earthquake stops. I listen to other women flush the toilets, wash their hands, and leave. I wait until all the hands are washed and all the women have gone. In time, the voices outside the bathroom diminish, then disappear altogether.
I think of the checkbook. I think of Armen. I’m not sure if I can’t move or won’t. I stay a long, long time at the bottom of the tall, glistening courthouse, sitting on the john in silence, thinking about my murdered lover. The judge with the alias.
What does that reporter know?
I hear the bathroom door open.
Shit. Who’s coming into my bathroom? I feel intruded upon. I hate to share a public bathroom with the public, especially when my stomach is barely parallel to the floor.
Whoever it is walks farther into the bathroom. There’s no sound of pumps on the floor; she must be wearing flats. I lean over and squint through the slit where the door meets the jamb, but I can’t see anybody.
I know someone is there, but she’s not going into a stall. She doesn’t turn on the water, either, or strike a match for an illicit smoke. Maybe she came in to fix her makeup or brush her hair. I listen for the sounds, but nobody’s fumbling in a handbag.
Still, someone is there. I heard the door. I feel a presence. I squint through the slits but see nothing.
Then I hear the faintest sound, of human breathing.
Someone is standing right in front of my door.
Panic floods my throat. I rise involuntarily.
There’s a shuffling outside the stall as the presence moves closer in response. I lean next to the door, every nerve taut, straining to listen.
I hear the breathing, louder now.
I look underneath the door to my stall.
Planted there is a pair of large black shoes.
A man’s.
14
“Who’s there?” I shout, terrified.
“Are you all right?” says the man. Concerned, professional. “You’ve been in there awhile.”
“Is that you, Faber?”
“No, I’m a special agent with the FBI.”
“In a ladies’ room?” My voice clatters off the tile walls. “Go away or I’ll scream, I mean it! Right now!”
“Wait, relax. I swear to you, I am an FBI agent. Our office is here in the building. Seventh floor.”
“Anybody would know that. It’s on the directory.”
“I’m with the agency for ten years now. I trained at Quantico. Eighteen months, not counting in-service training.”
“Quantico, Virginia?” I think of the man at the memorial service, the car with the Virginia plates.
“Yes. Listen, I don’t have much time. Here’s my ID.” A hand materializes above the shoes, carrying a card-size plastic wallet.
I start to reach for it, then draw back. What if he grabs my wrist? “Drop it. Near the toilet. Now.” I sound ridiculous, even to myself.
“All right, all right.” He tosses the wallet into the stall like a Frisbee; it banks against the toilet and settles at my feet. I’m not close enough to the door for his hand to reach under, so I pick it up. My hands have stopped trembling. So has my stomach. I open the billfold like a tiny book. On one leaf is a photo of Tom Cruise and on the other is a Pennsylvania driver’s license.
“What is this, a joke? Where’s your FBI badge?”
“I can’t carry my creds, I’m undercover.”
“Sure you are. You a friend of Tom’s, too?”
“It goes with my cover. Look at the license, at least you’ll see who I am.”
I look at the driver’s license. His features are nondescript in the state-sponsored mug shot, and it says that he’s six feet one, 185 pounds. His hair is dark brown, eyes blue. It could be the man with the Virginia plates, but I had only a glimpse of him. “What’s your name?” I ask.
“It’s right on the license.”
“Maybe you stole the license. What’s your name?”
“Oh, a test. I get it. Abe Lincoln.”
“You think this is funny? You scared the shit out of me. If this is standard FBI procedure—”
“It isn’t, believe me. They’d have my ass. I wouldn’t do it unless I were absolutely desperate.”
That rings true. “So what’s your name, desperate?”
“Thaddeus Colwin.”
I strain to read the name on the driver’s license. Thaddeus Colwin III. “Thaddeus?”
“It’s Quaker.”
“A Quaker cop?”
“A good cop, a bad Quaker. Call me Winn anyway. Thaddeus is my father.”
“Wait a minute, if you’re undercover, why are you carrying around your real license?”
“I knew I’d be contacting you after the service, and I knew you’d bust my chops.”
“How’d you know that?”
“You’re a lawyer. Duh.”
Hmmm. “Do you have kids?”
“No, and my favorite color is yellow. This is getting kind of personal, isn’t it? We just met.”
A comedian. “What’s your address?”
He sighs. “Twenty-one thirty-three Adams Street, Philadelphia. Pennsylvania.”
“Social security number?”
“What?”
“Tell me your social security number or I scream.”
“What is it with you?” he says, amused no longer.
“I’m somebody’s mother, that’s what it is with me. If you kill me, my daughter’s stuck with a dog. For a father.”
“166-28-2810.”
It matches the driver’s license. Maybe he is for real. “What do you want anyway?”
“Can you come out? I need to talk to you. I don’t have much time. Somebody could’ve seen me come in here.”
“Why do I have to come out? Why can’t we talk like this?”
A huge sigh. “Artie told me you were like this.”
“Artie? Artie who?”
“Weiss. The law clerk.”
“You know Artie? How?”
“We play ball.”
“Where?”
“At the Y. Now I have three minutes left. Will you please open the goddamn door?”
“Where did Artie go to school, if you know him so well?”
“That’s a no-brainer, it’s the first thing he tells anybody. Now open the door, I’m backing up against the wall. See?”
I look through the slit but see only the dark edge of a coat. “Go over to the sink and turn the water on. Keep pressing on the faucet top, so I know you’re at the other end of the room, away from the door.”
“Very clever. You go to Harvard too?” I hear the sound of footsteps, then the water being turned on.
“Are you pushing the top?”
“What?” he shouts. “You know I can’t hear you when the water’s running.”
I’m beginning to hate this guy. I open the thumbscrew and peek out of the door. I freeze on the spot. I can’t believe my eyes.
It’s Shake and Bake. He’s standing at the faucet in the ladies’ room, complete with beard, cellophane rain bonnet, and black raincoat.
My God. A paranoid schizophrenic. I slam the door closed and bolt it. He must have stolen the driver’s license. “Get out! You’
re not supposed to be in the courthouse! I’m going to scream!”
“Fuck!” I hear him shout. I look through the crack and watch him release the faucet in disgust, then slap it. “Fucking fuck!”
“You’re not allowed in here!”
He turns toward the closed door. “It is me, I’m with the FBI,” he says, in a voice as cultivated as someone named Thaddeus Colwin III would have. “Look, I ran the water, didn’t I? Would a crazed killer do that? Open the door. Please.”
“You? Shake and Bake? A federal agent?” I watch him through the crack.
“Open the door,” he says. He slips the rain bonnet off the back of his head like a major leaguer after a strikeout. “Please.”
“If you’re an FBI agent, why did you make that scene at the oral argument, with the bomb?”
“It was part of my ingenious master plan.”
I can’t tell if he’s kidding. “What plan?”
“Trust me, I’m smarter than I look.”
“Smart? It got you banished from the courthouse.”
“But it got me in good with the reporters, and that’s very useful to me right now. Please come out. We don’t have much time.”
“We?”
“Please.”
I open the door a bit. “So you’re a federal agent or a schizophrenic impersonating a Quaker.”
His expression settles into businesslike lines behind the grimy beard. “You were close to Armen, right?”
I can’t get over the incongruity of such an educated voice coming out of a bag man. “A reporter just asked me that.”
“Were you close to him?”
“Wait a minute. Does Artie know about you?”
“No. No one does, except you.”
“Why me?”
“Because I need you.”
“What for?”
His eyes look slightly bloodshot in the harsh overhead lights. “This is confidential. All of it.”
“Fine. What?”
“Are you going to work for Judge Galanter?”
“Possibly. How did you know that?”
“You told Sarah, Sarah told Artie, Artie told me.”
“They teach you that at Quantico? Whisper down the lane?”
“Hey, whatever works. It’s the only rule in this game.” He breaks into a crooked grin, but I don’t like his insouciance. Or his scummy teeth.
“You know, Artie really likes you. He worried about you when you were in jail.”
“I know.”
“He risked his career pretending to be your lawyer.”
He purses his authentically parched lips. “Don’t worry about me and Artie, okay? I have a job to do, he’ll understand.”
“Oh, I see. Manly men, ye be. So what’s the story?”
“I’m undercover in an investigation supervised by the Justice Department. I can’t tell you the details, I shouldn’t even be meeting with you myself. All I can tell you is that it concerns charges of official corruption.”
I feel my nausea resurge. “Corruption?”
“In the judiciary.”
I think of the checkbook nestled in my Carter’s at home. Armen’s checkbook. “What kind of corruption?”
“Bribery, obstruction of justice.”
Oh, God. “A federal appellate judge? Those are impeachable offenses.”
“They’re also crimes, so I couldn’t care less if he loses his job. I need you to help me look for certain evidence.”
“What’s the matter with a search warrant?”
“I don’t have enough for probable cause, not yet.” His face grows tense. “What time is it anyway? I can’t wear a watch on this job.”
I glance at my wrist. “Noon.”
“Shit. I have to be at the shelter, otherwise they run out of sandwiches. If you’d come out of the goddamn stall earlier—”
“What kind of evidence are you talking about?” I say, but he’s busy yanking out the bottom of a ratty T-shirt so that it shows under his faded WHITE WATER KINGDOM sweatshirt.
“Do I look pathetic enough? I only made seven bucks yesterday. All this bullshit about not encouraging us.”
“Tell me more about the investigation. Is Galanter the only suspect?”
“No, and that’s all you need to know. Don’t tell anybody we talked. Give me back Tom Cruise.” He slips on his rain bonnet and ties it under his chin like a babushka. “After all, I’m the Rain Man.”
“I get it.” I hand him the wallet, which he slips into a pocket sewn into the folds of his trousers. “What if I want to call you?”
“You can’t. I’m homeless, remember?” He pushes his pants down around his hips and starts to leave the bathroom. “I have to go. I’ll explain it all later.”
“Do you think Armen was murdered?”
His face falls suddenly behind its hobo’s mask. “Why do you ask?”
“Why don’t you answer?”
“Maybe.”
I feel my heart pounding. “Do you think it has to do with your investigation?”
“Maybe.”
I think of Armen, lying face forward on his desk. Did he really take money for a case? There are so many questions, and only one thing is clear. It hurts inside.
“I miss him too,” the agent says. Then he opens the ladies’ room door and slouches out.
15
Maddie’s gone outside to play, and my mother hands me her dinner dish for rinsing. The child left more peas than I thought. Puckered now, they careen randomly on the surface of the dish. “Let’s talk about Dad,” I say, taking the plate.
“Let’s not,” my mother says. She walks back into the dining room without meeting my eye. I watch her receding form, soft and shapeless in a pink acrylic sweatsuit. The back says NUMBER ONE GRANDMA. She bought it for herself.
“Why not?” I call after her.
“It’s not that time of year yet.”
At least she’s in a good mood. “What do you mean?” I maneuver Maddie’s plate into the wire dishwasher rack. Bernice, standing at her now-customary place at the dishwasher door, sniffs the plate, disappointed to find it clean already.
“You’re early,” my mother says, returning with my messy plate of waxy mashed potatoes. “You usually don’t start with those questions till Christmas.” Her mouth is a tight smile; wrinkles radiate like tiny scars from the edges of her lips.
“I could be late, did you ever think of it that way? I mean, is the glass half empty or half full?” I take the plate and she turns silently on her heel. “Depends on your perspective, Ma, right?” I watch the water splash harmlessly off an insoluble potato mound, then stow the dish in the rack to let Bernice finish the job.
My mother comes back as Bernice is in mid-meal. “Don’t let the dog do that, Grace! It’s unsanitary. We eat off those dishes. Shoo, shoo!” She bangs a glass down on the counter and takes a swipe at Bernice, who backs up, confused.
“It’s all right, Ma. It’s going into the dishwasher.”
“They’re not even cheap dishes, they’re expensive dishes. It’s unhealthy. The germs.”
“The hot water kills the germs.”
Her frown deepens as she eyes Bernice, who’s licking her chops sheepishly. “When I sit at your table, I don’t like to think I’m eating off a dog dish.”
“It’s not like I feed her from the dish.”
“It’s the same thing. You’re lucky my mother can’t see this. You know what she would do? She would set your place at the table with the dog’s dish.”
She never talks about her childhood. “Your mother would do that?”
“She sure would. My mother was spiteful. She’d explain it to you this way. If your dish is good enough to feed the animal, then you don’t mind eating out of the dog’s dish. Believe me, Grace, she would.” She shakes her head and walks into the dining room. “It’s so common.”
I would remind her that we’re common, that she manicured nails to support us, but this is family history long since revised; she tells peo
ple she was in the beauty industry, whatever that is. “Is the table clear, Ma?” Bernice trots back to the dishwasher, but I wave her off.
“One left.” She comes back in and hands me her own plate. It doesn’t need rinsing; you would never know anybody ate off it.
“Tell me about my father.”
Her frown is replaced by a cynical smile. “What do you have to know? He had dark hair, he wore it slicked back. He was Sicilian, he might as well have been black. He was younger than me, so I should have known. End of story.”
“Do you miss him ever?”
Her smile, weak to start out with, now fades completely. “No.”
“Were you ever happy?”
“No.”
“Not even before he started drinking?”
“He always drank. He drank from the beginning.”
“So tell me—”
“There’s nothing to tell.”
“Tell me about his drinking, then. It’s hard to remember.”
“Good. It’s better you don’t.” She does an about-face and heads out of the room. I brace myself as she returns with another glass.
“I remember that he drank Crown Royal.”
Her face reddens but her expression remains rigid. She sets the glass down. “He drank everything. Beer. Wine. Whiskey. Cough syrup.” She pushes back a steel-colored curl. “You know all this. Why do we have to go over and over it?”
“I remembered something about Crown Royal. It used to come in a purple sack with gold letters.”
Her eyelids flutter. “It still does. You know that from now, not before.”
“He gave me the sacks for purses,” I say, the sentence popping out of my mouth of its own force, a memory I didn’t know I had until this very moment. “For dress-up.” I scan her face for verification, but it’s a perfect blank. “Remember?”
“No.”
“The purses? The gold braid on the side?”
“No.”
“There was a drawstring.”
She turns to go, but I grab her arm. My grasp is rougher than I intended, and in the half second she looks back I catch a fleeting expression on her face. This one I can read: fear. She’s afraid I’m going to hit her. Suddenly I understand.
“Did he hit you, Mom?” I ask, horrified. Outraged.