44
The prison guard took out his keys to unlock the door. Through the glass panel, Mickey could see Sean, dressed in his orange prison jumpsuit, sitting in a chair with his head bowed, studying the handcuffs secured to a chain wrapped around his waist. Under the fluorescent lighting, he looked withered, the skin under his eyes bruised from lack of sleep, his thin lips bloodless.
‘You’ve got thirty minutes,’ Martin Hager said to Mickey. The lawyer, his black hair slicked back à la Gordon Gekko from Wall Street, wore too much cologne and sucked on a peppermint Lifesaver. ‘And try to show some compassion to your old man, okay? Your father was throwing up all night, the shakes, everything. They had to take him to the doctor, give him some meds to treat his PTSD. That stands for post-traumatic stress –’
‘I know what it stands for.’
‘Good, then you know why your old man’s acting like he’s crawling out of his skin. Look, I don’t know what the deal is between you two, and I don’t care. I’m not a therapist. What I do know is that the man in there is a war hero, and, while you may not like him, now’s not the time to be busting his cherries, know what I mean?’
The door opened. The small room held a desk and two folding chairs. Sean sat in a swivel chair bolted to the floor. He looked at his lawyer and said, ‘He give you the money?’
‘We’re good,’ Hager said. ‘Sean, you need anything, I’ll be standing outside the door with the guard.’
Then the lawyer left, and Mickey was alone with the creature that shared his DNA.
‘You find the pictures inside the safe?’ Sean asked.
Mickey slid out the chair. He sat and folded his hands on the table.
‘Where’d you get those pictures of my daughter?’
‘What pictures?’
‘The ones on your bureau,’ Mickey said. ‘You take them yourself?’
‘What, you think I hired a photographer?’ The words came out slurred and cotton-mouthed, and his eyes were dull. What had they given him for his anxiety? Xanax?
‘That wasn’t right, keeping my only grandchild from me,’ Sean said. Drops of perspiration ran down his forehead. He smelled of soap and shaving cream. ‘You are one cold son of a bitch.’
‘I had a great teacher. How did you find out where Mom was hiding?’
‘Hiding?’ Sean laughed.
Mickey pointed a finger at him. ‘Back out of your promise, and I swear to Christ I’ll take the rest of the money I found and donate it –’
‘Arthur Lewis.’
‘Who’s that?’
‘The Kellys’ mailman,’ Sean said. ‘Artie was a regular at McCarthy’s – came to the bar every Friday night. One night he asks me why your mail is getting delivered to the Kelly house. I said to him, I don’t know what you’re talking about, and he tells me about this package you got all the way from Gay Paree. We get to talking, I buy him a few beers, and I asks him to keep an eye out for any more mail with your name on it, tell him if he hand-delivers it to me personally I’ll give him two hundred each and every time.’
‘So she sent a second package.’
‘More like a note. It was written on one of those heavy, expensive note cards. Then again, your mother always valued expensive things. Did I ever tell you how she almost bankrupted me? No, of course I didn’t. Why would I? You always took the bitch’s side.’
Mickey felt warm underneath his clothes. Sean might be drugged up, but Mickey could tell his old man was working up to something, sharpening his knives.
‘Money was tight in the beginning,’ Sean said, ‘but that didn’t stop your mother from treating herself to nice things. She always hid them around the house, thinking I’d never find them.’ His eyes were no longer dull. ‘You ever see her do anything like that? Your mother?’
‘What did this letter say?’
‘She tell you the story behind that blue scarf of hers? You know the one I’m talking about, right? The one she hid downstairs in those boxes of hers?’
‘Doesn’t ring a bell.’
Sean tilted his head to the side, confused. ‘I thought you came here for the truth? Or are you looking for me to back up the bullshit she sold you?’
‘She said her father gave it to her.’
Sean chuckled. Shook his head.
‘What’s so funny?’
‘Her old man was a waiter who could barely afford the groceries,’ Sean said. ‘Her mother died when René was four.’
Mickey searched his memory for stories his mother had told him about her parents – something to set against what Sean was saying, prove he was lying. He couldn’t come up with anything.
‘The note,’ Mickey said. ‘What did it say?’
‘I don’t remember the exact words, but it was something along the lines of how much she missed you, that she carried you in her heart and in her thoughts. That sort of shit.’
‘That’s it? That’s all she said?’
‘You mean did she say when she was flying back to the good ole US of A to come rescue you? She did not.’ Sean licked his lips. Grinned. ‘You don’t believe me.’
‘You’re right. I don’t.’
‘I still have it.’
‘Have what?’
‘The note. Would you like to read it?’
Mickey felt his pulse quicken in his throat.
Sean didn’t speak. He made Mickey ask the question.
‘Where is it?’
‘You sure you want to read it?’ Sean asked. ‘’Cause once you read something, you can’t, you know, erase it or –’
‘Where?’
‘Basement,’ Sean said. ‘Top drawer of the Gerstner.’
The Gerstner was a solid oak tool-chest made by H. Gerstner & Sons. Sean stored his wood-working tools in it. Mickey said, ‘So in this second letter, she had to have included a return address. That’s how you found her.’
‘Look at you, playing detective. I’m proud of you, son.’ Sean winked.
‘And once you had her address, you just hopped on a plane to Paris.’
‘I did. Didn’t want to, mind you, given how much I hate flying, but I did it because –’
‘Why use a fake passport?’
‘There was a misunderstanding between myself and the authorities at the time. They believed I might have had something to do with the theft of certain electronic items from a warehouse in South Boston, which was ridiculous. Stealing was never my thing.’
‘Just murder.’
Sean smiled. Said nothing.
‘Only you hate to fly because you’re claustrophobic.’
‘I don’t fly because I don’t trust planes.’
Mickey waved it away. ‘So why not call her? You had her address; you could have found her phone number. Why bother hopping on a plane?’
‘Boy needs his mother,’ Sean said, Mickey feeling the heat in his old man’s voice, words coming together to form a fist.
Why is he acting so confident?
Mickey knew why. Sean was setting him up. But for what?
‘Your problem is you always considered your mother this great saint,’ Sean said. ‘The day she left? She took all the money I had in our bank accounts, left us with nothing. She’s the reason I don’t trust banks.’
‘She –’
‘You forget about all the things I did for you – the ball games, all the equipment you needed for football and baseball. Your tuition for St Stephen’s. Who the hell do you think paid for that after she drained my bank account? Your mother?’
Mickey had no idea whether or not that was true – and didn’t care.
‘And when you and Jim started your business, I offered you money. You turned me down, being the spiteful son of a bitch that you are, but did that stop me from steering clients your way? Making sure you two had money coming in? Anything you ever needed, I gave you.’
‘Including beating the shit out of me.’
‘You needed toughening up. Your generation? You’re a bunch of pussies. You whine to your therapists and to each other about how unfair life is, have meltdowns when you get the wrong coffee order at Dunkin’s. Your generation gets off on being treated unfairly. What’s that shit they taught you in AA? Accepting life on life’s terms? You ever catch me bitching and moaning about my life? About losing my brother in a shit war or spending almost a year in a POW camp?’
‘Tell me what you did to her.’
‘What do you think I did? I tried talking her into coming home.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘Did me and your mother get into it over there in frog land? Absolutely. Sometimes our tempers get the best of us. You, of all people, know what I’m talking about.’
‘I’m nothing like you, Sean.’
‘Oh, yeah? Then let’s talk about that night you went over to Byrne’s. I mean, let’s really talk about it. I’m sure you convinced yourself you didn’t go over there with the intention of beating the living shit out of him, but you told me something else that night at McCarthy’s. You told me you were going to kill the son of a bitch, and I said –’
‘I’m not judging you, or what you did. But don’t try selling me your bullshit, ’cause I’m not buying it. And if you want to believe I hurt your mother, killed her, whatever, then you go right on believing it along with Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and Jesus Christ. You don’t want to accept the truth the way it is, warts and all, feel free to get the fuck on out of here.’
‘The guy in the pictures,’ Mickey said. ‘Who is he?’
‘Timothée Peltier.’ Sean searched Mickey’s eyes. ‘Name doesn’t ring a bell?’
‘No. Who is he?’
‘You sure? He and your mother were real close – thick as thieves, you could say.’
‘I already answered your question; now answer mine.’
‘They grew up together – were quite an item when they were young. Inseparable, from what I was told. Then your mother moved to the States. She was fifteen and hopelessly in love. She and Timothée kept in touch by mail, by phone – only Timothée had to do the majority of the calling since your mother’s father wouldn’t have allowed phone calls to France. As Timothée got older – would you like for me to continue, or have you had enough?’
‘Keep going.’
‘You sure? You look drained. I’m a bit tired myself.’
‘I said keep going.’
Sean yawned. ‘So, Timothée. When he was nineteen, he flew here to meet your mother. He could afford it. He was working in his father’s papermill business when your mother moved here and was being groomed to take over the company. Peltier Paper. Big company over there – check it out online if you don’t believe everything I’m saying. Anyway, Timothée, he just loved showering your mother with expensive gifts. Like that blue scarf.’ Sean’s smile felt like a knife. ‘Expensive gifts popped up from time to time around the house.’
Unconsciously, Mickey rubbed his forehead, found it slick and greasy.
‘Having a hard time believing your perfect saint of a mother could possibly be involved in something so seedy?’ Sean searched Mickey’s face and smiled. ‘Admit it. Your life was so much simpler when you were busy hating me.’
‘If she was having an affair, I don’t blame her.’ Mickey’s voice sounded oddly calm. ‘I don’t blame her for it at all.’
‘An affair? She was in love with him the day we met.’
‘Then why’d she settle for you?’
‘Timothée’s family was very successful and very rich. Prestigious background, lots of inventors in the family, politicians – all that fancy pedigree shit that makes a woman’s panties get soaking wet. And nothing, and I mean nothing, got your mother more excited than the topic of money, as in having lots of it. And Timothée had shitloads of it. Timothée’s old man, though, wasn’t about to let his boy get involved with common trash, even if that trash was as beautiful as your mother. Got to think of the bloodlines, you know?’ A sharp smile. ‘I had no idea about Timothée when me and her got together – had no idea she was still holding out hope for him even after we married. I always knew those pictures were bullshit.’
‘What pictures?’
‘The ones in the photo albums,’ Sean said. ‘I know she showed them to you.’
The photo albums she hid in boxes in the basement – the ones she packed up and took with her back to France – Mickey remembered how she would sometimes sit alone down in the basement and go through them. The handful of times he had caught her there crying she would bring him over and go through the pictures with him and narrate the story of her family.
‘Those pictures?’ Sean said. ‘They were of Timothée’s family, not hers.’
‘Never saw ’em.’
‘He was around Belham a lot when I was away during the war. I found that out later, after I caught them together in Boston when you were four? Five? Even after that he kept coming around. That son of a bitch was, well, one stubborn son of a bitch. One time, I broke his hand in a car door and he –’
‘You knew about the affair?’
‘I had my suspicions. Fresh flowers every now and then, and she’d tell me some bullshit story about how she bought them at the florist. Or how, when I spotted a silver picture frame or a nice pair of shoes in her closet, she’d make up a story about finding them at Goodwill or some place like that.’ Sean leaned forward a little. ‘Your mother could be very persuasive with that soft, gentle voice of hers. Smoothest liar I’ve ever met.’
But Mickey was only half listening now, trying to recall times when he’d seen his mother all dressed up and heading into someplace like Boston to meet this Timothée guy. He couldn’t picture her as anything but the person he knew and loved: a kind and loving woman in frumpy, used clothing. A penny-pincher who cut out coupons, her only extravagance, as far as he could remember, the makeup she used to cover her bruises. That image was fixed in his mind because it was true – and here was Sean trying to poison it with his lies. To believe Sean would ever come clean about anything had been both stupid and foolish. The man lied for a living, and he was lying right now.
‘Those pictures you found in the safe?’ Sean said. ‘Your mother knew I took them. I showed them to her. I –’
‘We’re done.’ Mickey felt anger flush his face and explode through his limbs, but it didn’t find his voice. ‘The next time you see me will be when I’m on the witness stand, telling everyone about that morning you came by my house and told me about how you’d been inside Byrne’s house.’
‘That’s what legal douchebags call hearsay.’
‘I bet the police haven’t found the listening devices you left there.’
‘And they never will.’
Mickey put his hands on the table as he got up and leaned forward. ‘You will never see daylight again. I’m gonna make it my life’s mission to ensure you fucking die in here. That’s a promise.’
‘Timothée loved your mother, but he hated kids,’ Sean said. ‘So he gave her a choice: life with him in the city of love or life with us. Which life do you think she chose, Mickey? Any ideas?’