“Please tell me you haven't shown this to anyone else.”
“Just you, Miss American Pie,” John said. “Just you.”
Michael was reaching the end of a long shift. It had been a hectic day, par for the course during the holiday season, but it was the stress, the abstruseness of the last few months that was really wearing him down.
Everything was finally starting to sink in, and Michael was beginning to realize how much he had gained and lost over the course of the year. In effect, he had been handed his life's dream, only to watch it get pulverized. And through no fault of his own. He had been the passenger in a head-on collision. A casualty of someone else's fate. And yes, he was disappointed. But admitting disappointment was asking for trouble. This he'd seen firsthand with Paul. Left unchecked, disappointment had a way of rendering the good things in life meaningless.
Michael had a wife who loved him, they had food on the table, a little money in the bank, and he would never be able to say he hadn't tried.
He made the decision to be oblivious rather than bitter, numb instead of heartbroken. Case in point: just two days earlier, he'd told Vera that his music career was over and he'd already submitted his résumé to a few commercial art and graphic design firms in the city.
It's so much easier to surrender than to fight.
“How's the shepherd's pie?”
The customer's voice seemed to come out of nowhere, pulling Michael back into the moment. He was about to tell the man that the shepherd's pie was his favorite item on the menu when he felt a tug on his arm and turned to see his sister behind him.
“I need to talk to you,” she said breathlessly, as if she'd run all the way there.
He couldn't tell if she was upset or excited. With Eliza it could go either way. He asked her to wait for him at the bar, and after pawning his current table off on a coworker, he went into the kitchen and threw a plate of pasta together.
“In case you're hungry,” he said, setting the plate in front of her, taking the seat catty-corner.
She moved the dish out of her way, too busy chewing on a straw to consume food. “Michael, I need you to promise you'll listen to everything I say before you freak out.”
“Uh-oh.”
“Just promise.”
There was passion in her eyes. And she had a glow Michael hadn't seen in a long time. “Eat something,” he said, taking the straw from her and asking the bartender for two glasses of water.
She picked up her fork and absent-mindedly twirled a mound of pasta Michael knew was never going to reach her mouth. “Okay, what would you say if I told you there's a chance…” She put down the fork, chuckled once, and then got terribly serious: “Forget it…I'm just going to come right out with this…I think Paul is still alive.”
Michael had a mouthful of water. He coughed half of it back into the glass. The bartender gave him a look but said nothing.
“I know it sounds crazy,” she said, hands flailing like an Italian. “Just hear me out.” She pulled a newspaper clipping from her pocket and shoved it at him. “The part that's circled. Try reading it in Paul's voice.”
After shooting her a wary look, Michael read the blurb, imparting Paul's prolix verbal style in his head. Two thoughts occurred to him, one right after the other. First, Paul was an idiot. Second, his sister, unfortunately, was not.
“You see it, don't you?”
He set the clipping on the bar and sat on his hands to keep them from shaking. “I don't know what you think you see, but let me just say this—Paul couldn't have been the only man in the world who used goddamn as an adjective.”
“Like I said, I know it sounds insane, but—”
“Insane?” Michael shook his head. “How about certifiable? How about impossible?”
“Will you at least listen to my theory?”
“I'll give you one minute.”
She spoke quickly: “All right, I think Paul was the eyewitness that night. I don't think he was in the car with Feldman at all. I think Feldman is lying. I think Feldman is in on it and I think Paul is Will Lucien. That's what I think.”
Michael tried to keep his voice down. “Eliza, Paul was my best friend. I miss him too. But you have to let go. Do you hear me? This isn't healthy.”
“You didn't let me finish,” she said. “I have evidence.”
Michael didn't like that word, evidence. It sounded like something that could occupy space.
“Did you know Hudson wasn't Paul's real name?”
“No,” he lied. “What was his real name?”
“I don't know. I asked him a million times and he always said he couldn't tell me until we got married. But guess what? I have a sinking suspicion it's Lucien. Here's something else you might find interesting: his father's name was William, and Paul was known among his BINGO lady friends as Willie.” She took a quick sip of water and Michael tried to seize the moment to escape. “Wait. There's more.”
“I don't want to hear anymore.”
Michael was about to point out that, in case she'd forgotten, Paul's body had been recovered and identified. There's some evidence for her.
She was a step ahead of him. “Tell me something, if Paul had gotten a new tattoo before he allegedly killed himself, would you have known about it?”
“Probably,” Michael answered. “Why?”
“To your knowledge, had he gotten any new ones?”
Michael felt like he had dice tumbling in his chest. He didn't want to tell her about the tattoo, nor could he imagine how she'd found out about it. But since he had no idea where she was going with this line of questioning, he had no choice but to answer her honestly.
“Yes.”
At first she looked puzzled, then thoroughly devastated. “Yes?”
“I told him it was ridiculous, believe me. I tried to talk him out of it for days. And anyway, I thought it ended up looking more like a train track than a scar.”
“What?”
Michael took Eliza's wrist and flipped it over. “I don't know, maybe a little.”
Her eyes were expanding, as if someone were pumping air into her head. “Listen to me Michael, listen very carefully…” She drew him in and lowered her voice to a scarcely audible whisper. “I have a copy of Paul's autopsy report, and according to the doctor who did the examination, the guy they pulled out of the East River had a skull and crossbones on his right shoulder but did not—I repeat did not—have ‘self-portrait hanging from a butterfly’ on his forearm or a Chinese wu on his shoulder or a train-track scar on his wrist. Do you understand what I'm saying?”
Michael clenched his fists. He understood he had to offer his sister some kind of logical explanation, he just couldn't think of one. “I'm sure it was just a mix up.”
He also knew he had to do better than that.
“Mix up?” she shouted.
The bartender looked again, and Michael shifted Eliza's chair toward the front of the restaurant.
“Yes, Eliza. This is New York. They foul up all the time.” Sweat was running down his back. “Don't get mad at me for saying this, but you dumped Paul, remember? You didn't want him when he was alive so why this crazy obsession with him now that he's gone?”
Tears ran down her cheeks and Michael moved over because he figured she was going to try to kick him. “Do you remember the day Paul and I broke up?” she huffed. “When he so conveniently walked in on me and Loring kissing?”
Michael didn't like her intonation. It sounded like another bomb about to drop.
“Do you want to know why I was kissing Loring?”
“Not particularly.”
“Paul was an hour away from turning down the Drones tour, that's why.”
“What?”
Now she was nodding. “I wasn't going to let him throw it all away just because I wouldn't get on a plane. Don't look at me like that. I wanted—hell, I don't know what I wanted anymore. But besides that one kiss, I never so much as touched Loring until Paul hooked up with Jilly Bean. U
ntil he'd moved on.”
Moved on, Michael thought. Yeah, that's a good one.
She waved the news clipping in his face. “Don't you want to at least talk to someone about this? Maybe the police can check and see if—”
“No.” His head was pounding and he needed to get Eliza out of the restaurant before he had a meltdown in front of her. “Listen. Shit. Can you just let me sleep on this? You really hit me with a ton of bricks here, and what I want you to do, right now, is to go home, calm down, don't talk to anyone, and let me think this over. Okay?”
Michael was barely cognizant of walking Eliza to the door, putting her in a cab, and watching the car drive away.
Back inside the restaurant, he rushed downstairs, directly to the payphone. After making sure both restrooms were empty, he removed a two-by-four-inch piece of paper from his wallet on which he'd written a series of numbers separated by dashes and spaces. He'd been trying to make it look like birth dates, a combination to a lock, a bank account. Anything but a phone number.
They hadn't talked since the afternoon the body had been recovered, when Michael thought there was a possibility it had actually been Paul and called to make sure something hadn't gone terribly wrong.
“That's a frightening turn of events,” was Paul's response after Michael informed him that his corpse had just been plucked from the East River.
But the only thing Paul had really seemed to care about was how Eliza was taking the news. “Did she cry?” he'd asked over and over, until Michael finally said, “Yes, she cried, okay. And she seems pretty pissed off.”
“Pissed off? Holy Hell, that's so Eliza. She's a real piece of work, your sister. She's supposed to be crushed, not pissed off.”
“Paul, forget Eliza! Someone is dead. We could end up in deep shit if—”
“Stop calling me Paul.”
Michael gave Paul a quick play by play of Feldman's visit, starting with the way Feldman dragged him outside, called the body “insurance,” and said that his “friends” assured him it belonged to a very bad guy whom no one was going to miss. The last thing Feldman told Michael was that if he knew what was good for the well-being of his family, he wouldn't ask any more questions.
“Holy Hell,” Paul had said, his voice shaking. “I don't feel good about this body either. But, realistically, it probably solidifies the story, not jeopardizes it, right?”
Michael and Paul had ended that conversation agreeing that unless an emergency arose, there would be no more communication between them until the week before Paul was scheduled to leave the country.
Michael deemed the current situation a legitimate, five-alarm crisis.
He dialed the number, let it ring twice, hung up, and then dialed once more, per their code.
Paul picked up right away.
“It's me,” Michael said. “Are you sitting down?”
How does that goddamn cliché go? If I'd known then what I know now.
Or maybe I should have heeded the opposite warning. Maybe I should have delved a little deeper into then back when I was wandering aimlessly around now.
The holy truth is that I'm standing in front of a window looking out over Ora—wait, maybe I shouldn't say where I am— Michael told me to stop divulging secrets on tape, which is why my reports have been sporadic. He's right, I know. But I'm stir crazy. I need someone to talk to.
Let's just say I'm in a New-that's-not-York state, I've been holed up in this little apartment for two months, and I just got off the phone with the aforementioned Michael.
First of all, when nobody calls you for like, a zillion days, just hearing the phone ring is a monumental thrill. Michael's voice was a goddamn Verdi opera in my ear. And besides going out for midnight runs, which Michael doesn't know I do, I don't leave this room. Not that I need to. I've got two guitars, a box full of books and music, a computer, enough food to last me through a long war, and about ten gallons of toothpaste and moisturizer. I have no idea why I thought I was going to need so much toothpaste and moisturizer.
Anyway, after my post-death conversation with Michael, we weren't supposed to talk again until after the New Year, when Will Lucien will be kissing America goodbye. Then, about half an hour ago, the phone rings and it's Michael and he's in a panic. He asks me to sit down, I tell him I'm already sitting and here's what he says: “She knows.”
I asked him who the hell he was talking about but he didn't answer me and I thought he'd hung up until I heard voices. That's when I realized he was at the restaurant. He was waiting for the people around him to leave.
As soon as it got quiet he cleared his throat and said, “Eliza. She figured it out. You and your goddamn goddamns.” Then he commenced a rambling freak-out of questions: What if she goes to the police? What if she blows the whole thing wide open? What if we end up in jail? Is that what I want? To spend the rest of my life in jail? Is it, Paul? Is it? Huh? Huh?
She's a smart cookie, I'll give her that.
Michael said, “Paul, say something.”
I said, “Stop calling me Paul.”
He told me this whole thing was my gig—that's what he called it, a gig—and that meant I was supposed to be able to figure it out and tell him what to do. But, at the time, a solution seemed like the least important issue. What I was wondering was why Eliza cared enough to figure it out. “What's it to her?” I said.
Michael repeated my question in his dad voice, indicating his annoyance.
“I mean it,” I told him. “I want to know. Why the fuck does she care?”
So then he goes, “Jesus, Paul, she's still in love with you, why do you think she cares?”
Talk about a left hook. Talk about a sentence that can really knock a guy on his ass and throw him down a flight of stairs.
And that's not even the half of it. The next question out of my mouth was something along the lines of what about her goddamn boyfriend, and Michael purged a lot more shit, all this stuff about what happened with Loring, how it was all a big sham. Well, at least it started out that way. I guess she eventually gave in and fell for the guy, but not until I commenced spite-fucking Amanda and Jill and, well, never mind the rest.
I have to shut this thing off for a second. I'm getting— what's that Yiddish word for when you're so overwhelmed you can barely speak? Verklempt.
Okay, I'm back. Sorry. Had to compose myself. Where was I?
I think I was about to say that if I ever see Eliza again—and the fact that this is even a remote possibility is—I don't know what it is, a goddamn miracle, maybe? After I kiss her and hold her and let her touch my chest, I'm going to hang her upside down and employ Chinese water torture until she promises never to be so stupid again.
This brings me to the new crux of my life. To echo the words Michael left me with: “You have a really big decision to make.”
Michael said he would keep playing dumb with Eliza, stave her off until I make up my mind, but we both know what a pain in the ass she can be. In other words, we don't have much time. Michael suggested I take a few days to let everything sink in before I settle on a course of action. I said I would, and he and I agreed to talk again on Friday.
But come on, who the fuck am I kidding?
I already know exactly what I'm going to do.
Over.
Officer Levenduski offered me a soda. I declined, he opened a can for himself, and then sat down behind the big steel desk.
Based on the family photographs scattered around the tabletop, I guessed the desk didn't actually belong to Levenduski, as the subjects in the pictures were not, nor did they resemble, the man sitting across from me.
When I'd called and requested a meeting, Officer Levenduski had been flippant, claiming he had better things to do than discuss the months-old, open-and-shut case of an obscure rock musician, until I mentioned I was a journalist for a national publication.
“Will I be quoted in the magazine?” Officer Levenduski had asked.
“Of course.” I saw no point in telling
Officer Levenduski that the article, as well as my job, was null and void.
The police report was sitting on the desk that was not Levenduski's when I sat down. Before opening it, the rusty-haired officer spelled his last name aloud.
“Most people end it with a Y but it's an I,” he said.
I knew what kind of man Levenduski was just by looking at him—the kind who relishes his position of authority at work because he has no power elsewhere. I guessed his wife bossed him around, he had kids he couldn't control, a dog that peed on his carpet, but here, behind the big desk, with the big gun at his hip, he was the king.
Levenduski spent sixty seconds browsing the report. “Okay,” he said. “Hit me.”
To make my visit seem legitimate, I questioned the officer on the details of the night. Then I got to the real reason I'd come. “The eyewitness.”
Levenduski looked at his notes. “Lucien.” He made the name sound Chinese, pronouncing it “Lucy-In.”
“I think that's Loo-shen,” I corrected. “Tell me what you remember about Mr. Lucien's appearance. Anything at all.”
Levenduski had a finger stuck inside his front belt loop. “The guy had a beard. A thick one, like a lumberjack.”
I suppressed my overwhelming disappointment upon hearing this. Paul had a better chance of sprouting wings than he had of growing a lumberjack's beard, never mind that I'd seen him hours before and he'd been clean-shaven. But, I assured myself, a beard can be faked. It was a long shot— asinine even—yet completely within the workings of Paul's skewed mind.
“Was he tall or short?” I asked.
“Don't really recall.”
“Well, what was his build like?”
“Hard to say. He had a sweater on. But I'd guess he was on the thin side.”
“What kind of sweater?”
Levenduski laughed like he thought my questions were the stupidest he'd ever heard. “Something dark.”
Paul had been wearing his black hooded sweatshirt when I'd found him on Michael's doorstep.