Cal
I
saw it first on CNN the next morning. Flipped over to the
Today
show, found they were covering it, too. All the morning shows were focused on Promise Falls. We were famous. I’d noticed the emergency vehicles the night before, as I stood on the porch next to my brother-in-law, but figured it was probably just a multicar accident.
Turned out to be much bigger.
I’d said my good-byes to Celeste and Dwayne and, having no interest in chasing ambulances, headed home.
I woke around six, but lay in bed for nearly two more hours. There was nothing to get up for, so it didn’t make much sense to me to greet the day with any enthusiasm. But a logy head finally forced me to throw back the covers. I padded, barefoot, into the kitchen nook—the apartment wasn’t big enough to have an actual kitchen, but a fridge, a stove, and a sink were tucked off into the corner of the living area. I put on some coffee, turned on the small TV beyond
the couch—I like having some noise going on in the background—and intended to have a shower while the coffeemaker did its thing, but the first two words I heard were “Promise Falls.”
So I stopped. Stood by the couch and watched. When the coffeemaker beeped, I poured myself a cup and continued to watch.
Jesus.
Four dead. A couple in their sixties tentatively identified as Adam and Miriam Chalmers, whose vintage Jag had been turned into a sandwich board by the plummeting screen. And a teenage girl and her boyfriend, seventeen, who’d borrowed his parents’ Mustang convertible so he could take her out. Their names hadn’t been officially released yet.
There was my old friend Barry Duckworth talking to TV crews that had swarmed in from Albany and beyond.
“Is this an act of terror?” someone shouted at him.
Barry looked at the reporter stone-faced. “We have a long investigation ahead of us. There’s nothing at this time to suggest anything remotely connected to terrorism.”
“But it was a bomb, wasn’t it? The screen didn’t just fall down. People say there was a huge explosion.”
“Like I said, we’re just at the beginning of our investigation.”
A number of people who’d gone to enjoy the Constellation Drive-in’s last night of business had shot video with their cells and sent it to various media outlets. At least one person was actually recording what was on the screen—something about trucks turning into robots—when all hell broke loose.
So now I knew where all those ambulances had been heading last night when I stood on the porch with Dwayne. I’d figured they were headed to a major car accident on the bypass. Never would have guessed it was something like this.
I gave it about half an hour, left the set on, and had my shower. When I got out, they were still covering it. Matt Lauer was talking to a mother who’d taken her daughter and her daughter’s friend. When he was done with them, he brought someone else on camera.
“This is Randall Finley, the former mayor of Promise Falls. You were one of the first to the scene, Mr. Finley. Can you tell us what you saw?”
“Bedlam, Matt. Pure bedlam. It was like a war zone.”
Finally someone said it. Every disaster was always “like a war zone.” That’s how these things were always described by people who’d never seen a war zone.
“I got there as fast as I could to lend help in any way possible. This is a terrible tragedy for the people of Promise Falls and I’m in the process of setting up a relief fund to help the families affected by this disaster. There’ll be more later today at ‘Randall Finley dot com’ for those who want to contribute.”
It was laundry day.
I returned to the bedroom and gathered up some stray socks and boxers and tucked them into my laundry bag. Shirts I kept separate in a second bag, which I’d drop off at the dry cleaner’s on the way. There were no laundry facilities in my apartment, or anywhere in the building, so I trekked over to a Laundromat several blocks away once a week.
I shaved, got dressed. Made myself a piece of toast with strawberry jam, ate it standing in front of the sink. Washed off the plate and left it there. My mini-palace was also minus a dishwasher, except for me.
I slung the bag over my shoulder and headed out, pockets stuffed with quarters.
My place was right downtown, and being above a bookstore had its advantages. I could have done worse, like renting over a bar. I didn’t have to suffer through late-night parties, drunken fights, fried-food smells, people throwing up and taking a piss out back.
Occasionally, when home through the day, which was often, I could hear opera music coming up through the vents. Naman Safar, who ran the place, was an opera buff. I was not, so I never knew whether I was being subjected to Offenbach or Bellini. I’d broken the music down into two categories. Some of it was annoying, and
some of it was less annoying. But none of it was annoying enough that I ever complained to Naman. He was, after all, my landlord, and it was smart to stay on his good side in case the toilet plugged up or I started hearing mice in the walls.
The door to my place—it was the one with the very small plaque that read
CAL WEAVER INVESTIGATIONS
—opened from the sidewalk right onto a flight of stairs and was directly beside the entrance to Naman’s Books. As I was coming out, he was going in. The sign in Naman’s window said he opened at ten, but that was only an approximation. Some days he was there early, but most days he didn’t open up until at least half past. Today was one of those days. It didn’t matter to his customers, who knew better than to come before eleven. They also knew there was a good chance Naman might be there hours after closing time.
“There’s nothing to do at home,” he told me once. He’d never married, had no kids. “I get bored.”
Born in Egypt, Naman and his family moved to America when he was nine. He’d majored in English literature and taught high school for a couple of decades, but trying to manage a classroom full of kids eventually became too much for him. He didn’t know whether he’d become less tolerant or the students had gotten worse. Either way, he opted for running a shop that was devoted to his love of books.
“Did you hear?” he asked when he saw me.
“I heard,” I said.
“A shock. A terrible shock. They are saying it could be terrorism.”
“A bit early to say.”
“Yes, yes, I agree. That’s the first thing everybody thinks these days. This country is totally paranoid. Everyone is out to get America.”
I wasn’t up for a discussion of America’s temperament.
“Laundry day?” Naman asked.
“Heading over now. Catch you later.”
The Laundromat was five blocks from home, the dry cleaner en route. I dropped off the shirts, continued on. The place wasn’t that busy. I’d found midmorning was a good time to be sure of getting a couple of machines.
The woman who ran the joint—Samantha Worthington was her name, but she went by Sam—was taking a rag to a washer, wiping away spilled soap.
“Hey, Sam,” I said.
She gave me a nod. She didn’t talk a lot.
I didn’t know much about her, except that she had a nine-year-old kid named Carl. He hung out here after school many days. She was an attractive woman, but there was a hardness about her. She’d been through things. She looked thirty-five, but I was betting she was late twenties.
“Hey,” I said.
She glanced my way. “Hey,” she said back. “Hear about the drive-in?”
“Terrible,” I said.
That seemed to cover it. She went into the office at the back, returned with a small leather bag. Using a key, she unlocked the coin boxes on each of the machines and dumped quarters into the bag. She drew the drawstring tight at the top and went back into the office, where I was betting she had a machine that would collect those quarters into neat stacks for taking to the bank.
I dumped my stuff into two machines, dug to the bottom of the bag for the box of soap powder and the plastic bottle of fabric softener I’d brought along, poured them into both washers, and closed the lids. I brought out all the quarters from my pocket, fed them into the appropriate slots, and drove them home.
As always, I’d brought a book, one I’d picked up at Naman’s. A Philip Roth novel. I’d only gotten around to him recently, starting with
The Plot Against America
, but today I was into
Nemesis
, about a polio epidemic in 1940s Newark. I guess I’d been thinking
that reading about people whose problems were as bad as my own or worse might have the effect of putting things into perspective.
No, don’t think that way,
I told myself. No self-pity. It was like I’d told Celeste. Had to look forward, not backward. No sense worrying about things that could not be undone.
I grabbed a spot on the bench from where I could keep an eye on my two washers, set the box of soap and the bottle of softener next to me, and opened the novel to where I’d last left my bookmark.
I’d read only a couple of pages when I heard, “What do you think?”
I looked up. It was Sam.
“It’s good,” I said.
“Some people say he’s a misogynist, but I don’t buy it,” Sam said. “Have you read
The Human Stain
?”
I shook my head.
“It’s about a college professor who has an affair with this woman who’s a janitor. He gets accused of racism by two black students, but what no one realizes is—whoa, I shouldn’t tell you if you haven’t read it.”
“Okay,” I said. “I might get to it at some point.” I managed a smile. “I’ve only read a couple of books by him. You?”
“Most of them,” she said. “The one on baseball did nothing for me. And there’s a satire about Watergate or something, which I couldn’t care less about.” Sam leaned her head back, like she was sizing me up. “You’re thinking, a woman who runs a Laundromat reads?”
“I wasn’t thinking that,” I said.
“Or if she does read, it’s just
Fifty Shades
shit,” she said.
“I really wasn’t giving your reading habits much thought, one way or another,” I said. “But thanks for the recommendation.
The Human Stain
, you said?”
“Yeah.” Sam smiled. “Sorry, didn’t mean to give you a hard time there.”
“It’s okay.”
The opening of the Laundromat door caught her eye. It was a man, six feet, pushing two fifty, dark, greasy black hair, stubble on his neck and cheeks, jeans and jean jacket.
I noticed he didn’t have any laundry with him. Just a swagger.
“Excuse me,” Sam said, and walked toward the door. “Get out of here, Ed,” she told the man.
Ed opened his arms wide in innocence. “Hey, just dropping by to say hello.”
“I told you, get out.”
“I thought I might do my laundry?”
“Where is it?” she asked.
“Huh?”
“Your fucking laundry. You forget that?”
Ed grinned. “Guessin’ I did.” The grin broadened. “Brandon’s folks say hi.”
“You can tell Brandon’s psycho parents, and Brandon, too, that they can kiss my ass.”
“Not me, too? Because I wouldn’t mind.”
I put the book down.
“I know the lawyers have been in touch,” Ed said, “but I thought I’d drop by to reinforce what they had to say. Carl’s going home.”
“Carl
is
home. If he’s with me, he’s home.”
“Well, from what I understand, that home is not suitable, Samantha. It’s an unfit environment.”
“You think Carl’d be better off being raised by his dad? Getting some time every day in the exercise yard? Making license plates in the machine shop? Sounds like real father-son bonding time.”
“Now you’re just being silly. Brandon’s folks are ready to step up and do the right thing just as soon as you come to your senses. And right now, they’re playing nice, just using the lawyers. You don’t want it to go beyond that, do you?”
I said, “Is there a problem here?”
I was standing just behind and to the side of Sam, my hands positioned unthreateningly behind my back. She turned when she heard my voice, and Ed squinted at me.
“I think there is now,” Ed said. “The lady and I are talkin’, pal. I think it’s time you moved your panties into the dryer.”
I said to Sam, “Is this man bothering you?”
“It’s okay,” she said. “Ed’s leaving.”
“That right, Ed?” I asked.
He looked back at Sam and said, “You fucking this one, too?”
Sam opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out.
“You don’t speak to a lady that way,” I said.
Ed fixed his eyes on me again. “Excuse me?”
“Apologize.”
“Apologize?”
“About a block down, there’s a clinic where you can get your ears tested, if there’s something wrong with your hearing.”
That was when he decided to have a go at me. Started to pull his right arm back, planted his left foot forward. When the punch was just starting to come my way, I brought my hands out from behind my back and tossed the powdered soap I’d been keeping in my right into his face.
“Shit!” he said, stopping the swing halfway, putting both hands to his eyes.
That was when I drove a fist into his considerable gut. It was like punching a massive Pillsbury Doughboy. Or maybe the Michelin Man.
Didn’t really matter.
What mattered was that he dropped to the floor like a sack of cement, gasping for air, still unable to see.
I felt like giving him a good swift kick while he was down there, and might have, but the ding from my cell phone indicated I’d just received a text. I reached into my pocket, glanced at the screen, which read
Lucy Brighton
.
The message was:
Please call. URGENT.
I said to Ed, “Don’t move or I’ll add fabric softener.” He kept wiping his eyes.
I brought up Lucy Brighton’s number from my contacts list, dialed.
“Oh, Cal, thank you,” Lucy said, her voice shaky. “You remember me?”
“Of course,” I said. A recent investigation involving a student and the school board had brought us together. A former teacher and guidance counselor, she now worked as an administrator at the board office. “What’s wrong? Another school thing?”
“No, not this time. It’s . . . more personal.”
“You want to meet?” I asked, watching Ed brush soap powder from his eyes.