New River Blues (22 page)

‘Better not be. Because Felicity's right about one thing,' he said. ‘She's too nervous to talk to cops.'

‘Well, it's up to you to calm her down. Or if you really want her gone,' Madge said, drawling his words now, shrugging, looking out the window casually the way he did when he was about to suggest something outrageous, ‘why don't you give her the money yourself?'

‘Oh, no.' Zack bristled up like an angry dog. ‘Put that thought right out of your mind. I did all the dirty work like I promised, now it's up to you to come up with the money like
you
promised.'

‘Which I'll be doing soon.' The little hand-flip shooed away pesky difficulties. ‘I'm just saying –' he yawned – ‘it's only eight thousand she's waiting for. Surely you could put your hands on that much, couldn't you? Get her off our backs and we can add it to your share later on.'

‘In your dreams,' Zack said. ‘Every penny I've got is hard at work in the business. I told you that going in.'

‘Fine, then tell Felicity her money's on the way and she should quit being a pain.'

‘Easy for you to say,' Zack said. ‘You're off cooing over dream houses with your fancy friends. I'm here cleaning up the mess as usual.'

‘Oh, God, martyrdom is so boring.' Madge slid away across the bench seat and swung his feet out the door. Just before he dropped out Zack reached out his long right arm and seized his neck from behind. Madge cried out sharply as Zack pulled him back and clamped his left hand around his throat. Madge hung there off the edge of the seat, his immaculately clad feet kicking the air, while Zack leaned into his ear and rasped, ‘You even think about cheating me and you're a dead man, capeesh?'

Without waiting for an answer he let go his hold and Madge slid out the door and fell on his knees on the dusty pea gravel. He got up slowly, bent over, gagging and gasping for air. Watching him, Zack put the car in reverse but did not release the brake. When Madge could breathe again he turned back to the car and screamed, ‘You wrinkled my
shirt
, you
pig
!' He slammed the door as hard as he could. Zack flipped him the bird and backed away.

Giving vent to honest anger felt good for a couple of minutes. But as he drove away Zack realized he had jumped a wall he hadn't really wanted to get over. He had never before acknowledged, even to himself, his growing suspicion that instead of just being a self-indulgent wastrel with a gambling problem, a weakling who could be exploited, Madge might be a clear-eyed user who was close to getting what he wanted and was looking for a way to cut Zack out of the game.

Zack hadn't lost any sleep about what happened to Pauly and Nino. Couple of losers, they were going down anyway. As for Felicity, good luck to anybody who got ahead of her in the using game. Now, though, facing the possibility that he was next on the list to be discarded, he was beginning to see a red outline of rage around everything.
A ring of fire
, he thought, hearing the Johnny Cash song,
a ring of fire
.

The edge of adventure and gamesmanship that Madge had brought into his life was fading fast. He felt himself backsliding to the old ugly Zack, the one whose stepmother beat him, whose girlfriends left, who got a dishonorable discharge from the army after his squad wasted an entire family of Iraqis because somebody nearby had fired a gun. He was back to the life he had been trying to climb out of, and it was still the same old dirty, tiresome slog.

But at least, he reflected, Madge hadn't noticed any of his scrapes and bruises, hadn't asked if there'd been any trouble with Nino. And he probably wouldn't, either. Madge usually only noticed what he wanted to. And he was probably thinking that it was better for him, easier, if he could honestly say he had no idea where in the desert Nino was buried.

By ten minutes after six Sarah was coming out of her bedroom at home, comfortable in jeans and a shapeless shirt. The last hour at work had felt like the end of a marathon, but she had cooled out pretty well on the way home. She was good at leaving the job behind. She joined her mother at the stove, asking, ‘Quick, tell me, how was ballroom dancing?'

‘Sam says I should remember he's good with a hammer and saw,' Aggie said, ‘and leave him alone about the cha-cha-cha.'

‘But you can't shake your booty while he builds a cupboard, can you? Hey, this smells good enough to eat.' She peered into a bubbling pot.

‘It's white clam sauce. I'm about ready to start the linguine, if . . . you want to make a little salad?' She peered over her glasses at Denny, who was drudging through a math assignment at the table. ‘About five minutes, honey, before you clear that away and set the table.'

‘OK,' Denny said, frowning as she erased a number. ‘Why do I have to learn percents anyway? I'm going to use a computer for this for the rest of my life.'

‘In case World War Three goes badly and we end up in caves, you'll be the one who can figure out what percent of the population is left to throw rocks.' She treated Denny to her evil-granny grin. ‘Set for three.'

‘I thought Will said he couldn't come.'

‘He did, but I'm staying. I'm too tired to go home and cook another meal.'

Something in her mother's voice made Sarah stop chopping lettuce. ‘You do look beat. How late did you dance?'

‘Oh, we left early.' Aggie waved dismissively. ‘Sam really hated it. But I had an early test this morning that I had to fast for, and it took so long I just got . . . kind of worn out with it.' She pulled out warm plates. ‘Let's eat, that'll fix me up.'

Getting the food on, enjoying the tasty meal, they were quiet. When they finished, Sarah said, ‘Sit still, I'll get the dishes. You stay too, Denny, I'd rather have you get through all that homework than help.'

‘OK.' She brought her books back to the table and regarded Aggie with a cagey smile. ‘And as long as you're sitting there so handy, may I extract information from your beautiful brain?' Denny had learned she could get almost anything from Aggie if she asked for it in an amusing way.

‘The beauty of this brain is fading fast, child,' Aggie said, ‘but go ahead, pull out what you can.' Watching her mother's tired face as she expounded on the value of percentages, Sarah thought,
I should caution Denny not to overdo it.
But the two of them got along so well, it seemed a pity to interfere. Anyway, Aggie had always been able to defend herself.

When the math lesson ended Aggie brought her coffee cup out for a refill and perched on a stool. ‘Will said he had a briefing at five,' she said, ‘but he'd have a couple of free hours later and he'll try to stop over.'

‘Good.' She scrubbed the last trace of pasta off the colander. ‘This test today, what was that all about?'

‘Oh . . . little trouble controlling my blood pressure all of a sudden.'

‘I thought you took pills for that.'

‘I do. They've always worked before, now they don't.'

‘So you saw a heart doctor?'

‘Endovascular. They think I might have a blocked artery.'

‘Oh, my. Then what?'

‘There's a clever thing they can do with a probe on the end of a . . . something. Go in through the groin. Always wondered what a groin was for, now I know.'

‘Not to mention it's where your legs hook on.'

‘Oh, right, there's that. Anyway if they find a blockage they take it out and put in something called a stent. Little flexible gadget that holds the artery open. Marvelous.'

‘You don't look like you think it's so marvelous. Is this operation dangerous?'

‘Not very. Hardly at all.' She pushed her hair back. ‘I'm not worried about the stent, I just look like this because I'm sixty-eight years old and had early tests.' She sipped coffee, and then said, so softly it was barely audible above the dishwasher, ‘Also, Janine called.' She set her cup in the saucer with a firm little click and got up. ‘I'm going home, I need to water my plants. Call me later if you have time.'

Denny finished her homework early enough to watch a game show and then went willingly to bed, yawning. Sarah started a load of laundry and phoned her mother. ‘OK, tell me about it. Janine called you where?'

‘Your house. About three thirty, just before Denny got home.'

‘Ah.' She waited. ‘What did she say?'

‘She just wanted to say hello. She's staying with friends, but she's going to get her own place as soon as she starts her new job.'

‘Which is what?'

‘Something in an office. The more I asked, the more I realized there was no new job. Just an idea that one day soon she ought to get one.'

‘Was she sober?'

‘No. She's . . . more detached from reality than ever.'

‘That's what Denny thought. Ma, you know, we've got to quit fooling around like this and get Janine to sign off on a . . . power of attorney, I think it is. I need to get Denny on my insurance, and for that I need legal custody.'

‘Is she sick?'

‘Not today, but what if she gets appendicitis, or breaks a leg? I can't even check her into an urgent-care unit without being able to prove I'm the person in charge, did you know that?'

‘No. Who told you that? I could take care of that, surely? Her grandmother?'

‘Don't kid yourself. I was only able to get her changed to Doolen Middle School because the social worker owed me a favor. Don't ever tell anybody I said that, by the way. See what I mean? This is crazy. I need to be Denny's legal guardian. This way, I'm responsible for her but I don't have the right to make any decisions. We can't go on like this.'

‘I suppose you're right. I've been waiting for . . . I don't know. Just waiting. Because I hate to get tough with Janine, so I always hope that . . . you know. But the next time she calls I'll try to . . .' Her voice trailed off and Sarah realized she was crying. She said something that was too muffled by sobs to be intelligible.

‘What?'

‘I said I don't know what to do!' More stifled noises came over the phone, followed by a loud, metallic bang, some rolling-around noises, and a crash that hurt Sarah's ear. Aggie, who never swore, said, ‘Shit!' in a loud, clear voice, from somewhere across the room.

‘Mother?' Sarah waited.

When she was beginning to think about hanging up and driving to Marana, her mother came back on the phone and said, ‘I'm sorry, sweetie, I knocked over a plant. May I call you back in a bit?'

She sounded so collected that Sarah said, ‘Sure,' and hung up. As soon as she was off the phone, though, evil black birds seemed to swoop at her head from all corners of the room, screaming about wretched possibilities. What if Aggie were more worried about her health than she was letting on? Besides a traumatized niece and a crazy sister, would she need to help an ageing parent now?
Then I really will need a day-stretcher.

She was folding towels, relieving her anxiety by snapping them into precise rectangles, when the phone rang.

‘Well, of course it had to be my favorite plant in my best pot and it had to be the one I just watered, right? Water and dirt all over the floor, and I bet I'll be finding pieces of that pot for a week.'

‘I'm so sorry. Are you OK?'

‘Sure. Listen, sweetheart, forget the pot. And don't worry about all that weeping and wailing before, you hear? I was just being a weenie.'

‘Well—'

‘I'm very sorry I made you listen to that. It's something your baby sister does to me that's really insane. I was always a sensible mother with you and Howard, but with Janine, even when I know she's playing me I can't seem to . . . never mind. I promised to help you take care of Denny and I meant what I said. We've got to save what can be saved, don't we?'

‘That's what I think.'

‘Me too. So here's what we need to do: you find your crazy sister and I'll drag her into my lawyer's office and get her to sign the whatever-it-is, the waiver, the power of attorney. Is that a deal?'

‘OK.' She was afraid to say any more. Aggie still sounded a little shaky.

‘You can do it, can't you? Find her?'

‘I'm an investigator with the Tucson Police Department. If I can't find my own sister I'll have to turn in my badge. But – you really mean this now? You're ready to take custody away from Janine, you'll have a lawyer waiting with the papers ready?'

‘I guarantee it. Pen in hand.'

‘I don't have any money—'

‘Never mind that. I've got enough.'

‘OK. You know something, Ma, I think maybe this is a teaching moment.'

‘A what?'

‘I think from now on, when I'm trying to make a tough decision, I'm going to try knocking over a plant.'

NINE

S
ometimes November mornings are so close to perfect they feel unreal, Sarah thought, driving to work Wednesday. Autumn sunlight blazed across the city's rooftops and turned the mountains golden umber in the high places, purple in the shadows. With temps in the low seventies and humidity too low to worry about, the air felt like a caress. NPR was reporting blizzard conditions in Montana and delays due to lake-effect snow at Chicago O'Hare. She smiled smugly at the red-tailed hawk drifting on a rising thermal across the shining face of Mount Lemmon.

As Sarah walked off the elevator on the second floor, the other elevator door opened and Ollie Greenaway walked out.

‘Ah, Sarah,' he flashed his gap-toothed, Alfred E. Neuman smile, ‘just the busybody I wanted to see.'