The Shadow Box (10 page)

He was in a book that Michael found.

During his first lonely weeks on the island, he had
hardly spoken ten words to any of the locals except Millie,
the real estate lady, and the bartender at the Harborview Hotel. To forestall speculation and to explain his black
moods, he concocted a story about a
fiancée
who had
broken their engagement when her former boyfriend
drifted back into town. He said he got angry, punched a
wall like a jerk, ended up fracturing his wrist. Damned
cast itches. Poked holes in it so he could scratch it with a wire coat hanger and now it's falling apart.

It seemed a serviceable, leave-th
e
-poor-guy-alone kind
of story. He said he wasn't sure how long he'd stay. Long
enough to get her out of his system. He felt no rush, he
told them, to get back to work. No real need either. In ten
years on Wall Street he'd done fairly well.

Millie Jacobs's eyes brightened at the mention of ready
cash. She reached for her book of pricey listings. She also
mentioned that she had a niece on Nantucket, bright girl,
honors grad from Radcliffe who plays a good game of tennis and writes wonderful poetry. Fallon told her that
the
n
iece and the listings would have to wait. He wasn't
ready. But he did agree to rent a small house from her.
His hotel room had begun to close in on him and it was
only a matter of time before a chambermaid found that
pistol.

But he still spent most of his evenings at the Har
borview bar because Kevin, the bartender, had moods that were even darker than his own. He was a dour, defeated-
looking man of about fifty who had taken this job to wait
out a recession. But for him, that recession never ended.
He had been a systems analyst with IBM until his dreams
of a comfortable retirement went up in smoke.

Kevin also knew, firsthand, what faithless bitches
women are. His wife, a dental hygienist, had served him
with divorce papers on the very day his severance had run
out and a week after the bank had repossessed their condo.
Kevin hated bankers and divorce lawyers just as much as
he hated women. And he hated fat-cat senior executives
who tell you one month not to leave, your job is safe, and
then dump you when they've found some kid who'll do
your job for half your salary.

It struck Fallon that the next wave of serial killers might well come from the ranks of the white-collar unemployed.
Kevin's view of the world was so bitter, his future so
bleak, that Fallon found himself starting to count his own
considerable blessings. Perhaps the healing process had
started after all. That aside, Kevin's primary appeal was
that he poured the only decent drink in Edgartown.
Every other bar and restaurant measured a precise ounce
and a half of scotch because that was state law. The same
law forbade bartenders to serve doubles. Kevin paid no
attention. His idea of measuring was to pour until all the
ice floated. He didn't like politicians either.

On slow nights, as most of them were, Kevin would
retreat to the far end of the bar reading books that had
wistfully pathetic titles such as
Starting Over
and
Jobs on
Cruise Ships.
But the books started Michael thinking. It was time to consider his options. Where to go from here.
A book might have some ideas.

He spent an hour in the Edgartown bookstore at the
shelf marked
Self-Help.
Several of the titles dealt with
being fired and how to land back on one's feet. All of
them had keep-your-chin-up sections aimed at people in
their fifties whose jobs had been their identity and who
were scared to death that they might never find another.
None of these had much relevance to his situation.

For one thing, they hadn't been blackballed. No one
had. set out to destroy their careers. No one had tried to
kill them.

And Fallon was, after all, in good shape financially. His
investment portfolio was worth almost half a million.
Doyle had been managing it for him. And he would inherit a lot more from Jake. There was Jake's house in Brooklyn,
a condo in Florida, and all that sports memorabilia, much
of it pretty rare. Even after splitting it with Moon, and
after taxes, Jake would leave him at least another million or so.

But that was later, this was now. He still needed some
one to talk to. That someone became Sheldon Greenberg.
Fallon found his book on the bottom shelf.

Greenberg’s book was about big-time stress. Severe
emotional trauma. There were chapters devoted to people
who've been mugged, burglarized, stalked, and shot at.
Most of which fit. There was even a section on people
who had lost a loved one to violent crime.

Fallon read the book in one day. It said, basically, that
he was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Well, no shit. He almost tossed it away because Dr. Greenberg promptly began nagging him about getting off his ass and
getting treatment. And about boozing with Kevin every
night.

“
For one thing, you're turning into
a
drunk. For an
other, Kevin hates you.''

“He hates me? For what?”

“
For having money. For still being young. Face it, Mi
chael. You're not going to get much sympathy.''

Fallon realized that this was a little nuts. Talking to a
book
. Having the book talk back.
But people talk to God
and dead saints. Why not to a psychologist who isn't
nearly as far away?

Anyway, the book seemed to help him. The book and
the passage of time. By the end of his first month on
Martha's Vineyard, so different, so quiet, New York
seemed a continent away. He had almost convinced him
self that maybe he'd been running from shadows. Someone
is
always
double-parked on 82nd Street. There were
al
ways
strangers in the building.

Those detectives, however, were real. They were reason enough to get out of town until the city gives them some
thing more pressing to think about.

What helped as much as the passage of time was finally
being rid of that cast. One evening when he could bear it
no
longer he pried it apart with his fingers and burned the
pieces in his fireplace. The skin underneath was deathly
white and had the smell of sewage. Dried blood, not his
own, caked the back of his hand. He scrubbed it raw. The
muscles had atrophied and he could barely flex the wrist
without pain but the arm felt as cool and as light as air.
He almost felt reborn.

If that felt so good, he asked himself, why stop with
the cast? The next thing he burned was his suit.

He spent a day buying all new clothing. He bought what the islanders wore. Woolrich shirts, crew neck sweaters,
Timberland boots and boat shoes. He began running again,
working out, drinking less, eating balanced meals. Day by
day, the wrist regained its strength. He bought a bicycle
and began exploring the island on it. He bought several
books about its history, its geology, its architecture. He
read about the great whaling ships, the looting of the island
by the British, and the pirate ships that had once prowled
these waters. The islanders hanged a few pirates. The Brit
ish hanged a few islanders. After that, however, things
settled down nicely. Derring-do gave way to farming and
then to marking up prices for tourists. High crime, these
days, was clamming without a license.

But it was, no question, a beautiful place. Edgartown in particular. Many fine old homes and gardens, brick walks,
delicate wrought-iron fences. His book on architecture said
there were three principal styles: Federal, Greek Revival,
and
Early Victorian. He learned to recognize and appreci
ate the subtleties of each. It seemed a gentle thing to know.
New York, by mid-March, seemed as far away as Pluto.

The pain of losing Bronwyn had begun to ease a bit.
No day went by without some thought of her, but her face,
in his mind, had begun to blur. That seemed somehow
indecent but he had known her, after all, for less than
three months. They had had no time to store up memories
and there were no snapshots of happy times to torment him. The one photograph he had of her had been stolen
for its frame. It was just as well. He needed to let her go.

Jake would take longer. In his case there were too many
memories. But day by day, a few of them were starting
to bring smiles. What he began to feel worse about was
Moon. He missed him and was worried about him, and
yet here he'd allowed six weeks to go by without even
asking whether he was still alive. People do have multiple
strokes. As much as he dreaded it, he would have to
call Doyle.

But he kept putting it off. A dozen times he'd picked
up the phone and begun to dial. It was disgraceful of him
not to call, to let Doyle worry and wonder. He realized that. It's just that it was so peaceful here.

He considered taking the ferry back to the mainland,
driving up to Boston, and making the call from there. He would not have to say where he's been living all this time. While there, he could rent a post office box so that Doyle
could send him his mail. He could open a bank account
so that Doyle could send his money to Boston as well.
When he needs it, he'll drive up and get it. All Doyle had to know is that he's safe. He doesn't have to know where.

“Michael . . . call him.”