A PARK AVENUE ORTHOPEDIC surgeon spent four hours putting the blown shreds of my old javelin shoulder back together again. Afterward, he told me he couldn’t remember the last time he’d had so much fun. It was just like building a model airplane, is what he said. Surgeons are weird people. Necessary but weird. After it healed, there would be three visits a week with a no-nonsense sadist who called herself a physical therapist. For the time being I had to carry my right arm around in a sling, my coat thrown over my shoulders like one of those pieces of Eurotrash you see floating around town.
When I felt up to it I went out looking for Malachi Medvedev. Found him holed up with Coochie in his roost on East Fifty-eighth Street. It was a newish high-rise. They had a one-bedroom on the eighteenth floor with a terrace overlooking the Roosevelt Island tram. The decor was from straight out of the Mr. Goodbar days. Lots of kidney-shaped chrome and glass. A fake leopard skin on the floor. There was even a mirror ball on the ceiling. Malachi greeted me wearing a caftan and bedroom slippers. Coochie had on a sleeveless terry-cloth top, black leather hot pants and way too much eye makeup. And if she was more than thirteen years old, then I’m T. Coraghessan Boyle. But that was Mal’s business.
Besides, she got on well with Tracy, who happened to be in my care that day. They played on the living-room floor together while Lulu shopped around in vain for a comfortable place to lie down. Malachi fixed him and me hot tea with lemon and honey and brandy, conversing with me over the counter while he waddled around in the kitchen, forever a bartender.
“How’s the flipper?” he asked, slicing up a lemon.
“Better than new. In fact, I’m thinking about making a comeback.”
“Oh, yeah? What as?”
“And you, Mal?” I growled. “How are you?”
“Place may not reopen, is how I am. Partners may just shut it, now that The King’s gone.”
“What will you do, Mal?”
“A good bartender can always find himself a spot.”
“I’m well aware of that, but what will you do?”
“Always the kidder, huh?” he said, grinning at me. “I’ve had a million calls from the newspapers and the TV shows. A book publisher even. But between you and me, I ain’t up for it. Man’s dead, you know what I’m saying? I dunno, I may just give it up. Got my other business interests, three apartment houses in Queens earning me rentals, the condo down in Boca … I’ll be fine.” He ran a hand over his face, his doughy features scrunching up in sorrow. “About that gun, Hoagy. The one he used on himself. I hid it good, just like you told me to. Only, he found it. I-I don’t know how. I just don’t.”
“Don’t blame yourself, Mal. He wanted to go. If he hadn’t found that gun he would have just bought himself another one. Or thrown himself off the top of the Empire State Building. It wasn’t your fault.” Although I must admit that part of me did wonder whether Malachi Medvedev had performed his own little random act of kindness—by leaving that Smith & Wesson lying around for Tuttle to find and to use. But I would leave that one alone, I decided. Like he said, the man was dead.
He pushed my hot tea over the counter to me and took a noisy slurp of his. From the living room came cascades of juvenile laughter, Tracy and her new playmate.
“Exactly how old is she, Mal?”
“What difference does that make? She’s fan-fucking-tastic.”
“And Muriel?”
“I love my wife,” he said, simply and sincerely.
“I envy you, Mal.”
“You do? Why?”
“Because you have an answer for everything. And you believe those answers. That must be a wonderful way to go through life.”
He stood there across the counter studying my face a moment with those moist brown eyes of his. “Something you want to spill, Hoagy?”
I reached for my mug with my good hand and took a sip. “Not today.”
“Sure, sure. Anytime. You know where to find me.” He took another slurp. “I’ll miss the action, Hoagy.”
“You’ll miss Tuttle.”
“He was like a son to me,” Malachi conceded, shoving his wet lower lip in and out. “Fathers ain’t supposed to bury their sons. Violates the laws of nature. Leaves me feeling kind of empty.” He paused, pondering this. “How does it leave you feeling?”
I smiled and said, “Like celebrating.”
SO I WENT TO the Oyster Bar for some bluepoints. Not a dozen, not six, nine. Seemed like the thing to do. This was where I had been on that crisp early December afternoon when the first chapter arrived. Besides which, a bowl of Tony’s pan roast seemed like the least I could do for Lulu. I’d put her through a lot, and now that Tuttle was gone she was my best friend in the whole world. Please don’t tell her I said that.
I asked Tony to mix me a Bloody Mary for openers, extra spicy. When he brought it I raised it in silent tribute to my gallant, departed friend and my gallant, departed youth. I was about to take my first sip when someone slid onto the stool next to mine.
It was Detective Lieutenant Romaine Very. He knows my haunts.
“How’s the shoulder, dude?” he asked, patting Lulu hello. Tracy got a goofy face.
“Better than new. In fact, I’m thinking about making a comeback.”
“Oh, yeah? What as?”
“Where’s the Human Hemorrhoid?” I growled. “Shooting and smoothing in seclusion?”
“Say what?”
“Never mind.”
“Check it out, we found traces of blood from the first victim in one of Miss Smollet’s vans.”
“Diane, Lieutenant. Her name was Diane.”
“Also fibers from a coat of Miss Smollet’s match fibers we found on the second … on Laurie’s sofa. And, dig, I got a message for you from the inspector.” Very’s knee was starting to quake under the bar, rattling the bowls and silver that were on it. “Said to tell you he would have caught up with her eventually.”
I sipped my Bloody Mary in silence.
“He’s ultrasure of it, dude. Man believes in his system.”
“That’s nice, Lieutenant. Only, what if Tansy Smollet hadn’t come after Merilee? What if she’d simply resumed her so-called normal life and never killed anyone ever again—what then? Would Feldman have known what really happened? Would he have even suspected?”
“Man believes in his system,” Very said again.
“Well, tell the man from me I’m just pleased as punch that he does. Someone ought to believe in something. It may as well be him.” I drained my Bloody Mary and signaled Tony for another. “May I offer you one, Lieutenant?”
“Make mine a virgin.”
“By all means.”
“At least you found out your boy wasn’t no killer,” Very pointed out. “By trying to do right by him you didn’t cause Cassandra’s death. Or anyone else’s. It wasn’t your fault. That’s something you can put in the bank, and it ain’t no chump change.”
“You’re right, Lieutenant. That’s no chump change.”
Our drinks came. He took a swig of his. He sat there. He seemed terribly depressed all of a sudden.
I said, “Look, if you’d like I’ll see if I know anybody who knows somebody who knows her, okay?”
Very frowned. “Knows who, dude?”
“Cokie Roberts, who else?”
He brightened considerably. “You’d do that for me?”
“I would.”
“Check it out—does that mean we’re friends?”
“Lieutenant, I don’t know what we are.” I clinked his glass with mine. “Until next time.”
“Dude?”
“Yes, Lieutenant?”
“Does there have to be a next time?”
“It would seem so. I’m sorry.”
I AGREED TO GO ahead and write the definitive, the authorized, the one-and-only true story of the answer man. I donated most of my whopping advance and all of my royalties to a fund that I set up for the families of the victims. And I would only sign with a publisher that was willing to do the same with its share of the proceeds. The contract turned out to be a nightmare. For one thing, the publisher now had to come to terms with Tansy’s estate, not Tuttle’s. And she left behind many relatives and they all had lawyers who were expensive and annoying. Or am I being redundant?
The other reason the contract got so complicated was that I would only do business with a publisher who was willing to take on Novel No. 3. Package deal, take it or leave it. Hey, proud I am, stupid I am not. I know a buzz ploy when I see it. I also know the meaning of the word leverage.
I like to think Cassandra would have been proud of me.
Everyone wanted a piece of Merilee after it came out that she single-handedly slew the fire-breathing she-dragon that had been the answer man. Oprah wanted her. Barbara Wawa wanted her, Jane Pauley, Lesley Stahl … Merilee declined them, one and all. Said she was in seclusion, preparing for an upcoming play. Which she was. Although the revival of Wait Until Dark turned out to be something less than a major theatrical event. The play closed after three performances in spite of the mountain of publicity that Merilee brought it. Not to mention those unqualified raves that Luke Perry got from the critics. Audiences just stayed away. No one knew why. No one ever knows why. That’s show business. Although I must tell you that several critics did find Merilee’s performance unconvincing. I agreed with them, actually. I think she left it in our dining room and she never got it back. I think it was all just a little bit too painful for her to relive on stage every night. I think she was grateful when the show folded. I can’t say how Luke felt. We were never close.
I was there that morning in our dining room. I was there for her real performance. And it was plenty convincing, believe me.
We fled home after that. Home to the eighteen acres at the end of the twisting lane in Lyme. Home to the 1736 center chimney Colonial with its seven working fireplaces and its post-and-beam carriage barn and the chapel with the stained-glass windows where I did my writing. We made it out two days before Christmas. It snowed the first night we were back. We awoke to eight inches of fresh, white powder. Lulu went romping in it, arfing ebulliently. Tracy, done up like a Russian cosmonaut in her water-resistant Gore-Tex snug suit, ate a handful of it and pronounced it not dissimilar to cheeseboogers. Vic and I tromped deep into the woods and cut down a blue spruce—a great big one like I wanted—and dragged it home. I made a huge fire in the parlor fireplace and Merilee and I drank spiked eggnog and listened to old Nat King Cole records while we decorated the tree. Her old decorations that had been handed down from mother to daughter for the past five generations.
“I’m afraid you’re going to be stuck with me for awhile, darling,” she announced giddily. Eggnog happens to go straight to her head. “The Brad Pitt movie’s not going to happen.”
“It fell through?”
“It didn’t. I did. They went … younger.”
“Who?” I demanded.
“Romola.”
“The fashion model? They can’t be serious.”
“She’s nineteen and she’s gorgeous and the whole world wants to see her naked.”
“But she can barely speak.”
“They’ll dub her.”
“You mean like a voice double?”
“Something like that. They offered me the job, actually. I told them to stuff it. I said if they want my voice they have to take my big fat forty-year-old butt with it.”
“Good for you, Merilee.”
She sighed dejectedly. “Hoagy, I hate the real world.”
“It doesn’t have much going for it,” I agreed.
“What do you say we stay out here until spring and watch the daffodils come up?”
“Okay, but that’s not the only thing that comes up in the spring, Miss Nash,” I warned.
“Why, Mr. Hoagy. I do believe your shoulder is starting to feel better.”
“Better than new. In fact, I’m thinking of making a comeback.”
“Oh, yeah? What as?”
’Twas the day before Christmas when the polite young minister from the Congregational Church arrived to perform the ceremony. He has a red beard and keeps bees. Vic Early and his blushing bride, Pam, were married in the parlor next to the Christmas tree with a few close friends standing up for them. Merilee and me and Tracy, of course. Lulu, who blubbered uncontrollably through the whole thing. Mr. Hurlburt, the farmer next door, who Vic fishes with. And Pam’s little reading group from the Lyme library. There are ten ladies altogether. Pam, being under eighty, is the baby of the group.
Vic was trembling badly when he handed me the ring before the minister arrived. He’d cut himself shaving so many times that morning it looked like he’d been in a swordfight. I fortified him with a stiff shot of Laphroaig while Merilee and Pam fussed over Pam’s dress. Fortified myself as well.
“You d-don’t think I’m m-making a mistake, d-do you, Hoag?” Vic asked, his teeth chattering.
“I do not.”
“It’s n-not too late to make this a d-double wedding, you know.”
“Oh, yes it is.”
Afterward, we ate red velvet cake and drank champagne and Merilee officially gave them their wedding present from us, which was the deeded rights to the hand-hewn chestnut carriage barn and an acre of land around it to turn into a home of their own.
And then all of that laughter and good cheer started to get to me so I threw my coat over my shoulders and slipped out the kitchen door and sat by myself on the bench by the pond in the snow. I thought about those three bright and shining young track stars in that photograph and about what twenty years of living had done to each of us. I thought about that scrawled message I’d found in Tuttle’s notebook: Subject for short story—Doof. How does he keep going? Doesn’t he fucking KNOW? I wondered what he meant by that. God, how I wondered. I thought about Tansy and that time I kissed her good-night outside of her building. I thought about how many times over the alone years I’d almost picked up the phone and called her. Almost … I thought about a lot of things, sitting there on that bench by myself in the snow, until Merilee came out and got me and led me back inside to my own fine version of a life.