On a country road,
a single lamppost spotlights
wild asparagus—Soezi
I show myself out. Stunned by the brightness of the street lights and the vitriol in the woman’s condemnation, I drift down the walk. Not until I’m in Old Paint do I shake off the spell and get my first good look at Hector Waltann. The map light shows I have a two-year-old color photo Christmas card. “To Our Valued Friends and Customers—May the beauties of the Christmas season be an inspiration to you all year, The Waltann family—Hector, Marybeth, and Terry.”
In a green holiday dress with red plaid trim and lots of big jewelry, Marybeth Waltann is the picture’s focal point. She sits flanked by two men in dark suits, each with a hand on her shoulder. The taller one gets my attention next. Mid-twenties, pasty-faced, long, thick dark blond hair slicked back in a style unsuited to its weight and length, a normally wild mane cleaned up as a concession for the photo. This must be Terry, their son. A young man wearing mature man’s clothes with an arrogant smile that says he’s doing the folks a favor, posing for this picture.
The head of the clan is fleshy-faced and fifty-ish. Dark hair worn in a nearly successful comb-over covers any bald spot Hector Waltann might have. Thick arms and a big stomach fill out a suit whose custom-tailoring makes him look robust rather than fat.
Chin up, he stares down the camera. The pose proclaims him a rich man. A powerful man. One with his hands on the controls. A man who should be driving an Eterniti, who, if he had even heard of the Mercy Mission, might donate to it, but not drink its soup.
Hector Waltann, prosperous businessman. Now what is he doing in Sister Clyde’s Mercy Mission? It’s too late to call at his business tonight. I head up Queen Street to Route 9. Floodlit billboards along the four-lane blacktop vie for my notice. One for Verve cigarettes shows a young attractive couple artfully arranged in a cheery den, heads thrown back, mouths open in delight. Not one bad odor, stained tooth, yellowed fingertip, or black lung spoils the image, even though Verves are unfiltered and about the highest tar brand around. By the looks on their faces, they have just had either a smoke or an orgasm. The hell with the orgasm, I could really use a cigarette. Lighting up is as much a part of driving as turning the ignition.
In another sign, Naiad Spring Water’s buxom spokesnymph beckons me to partake of her mountain stream, conveniently packaged in twelve-ounce sport-top plastic bottles. One sip will no doubt transport me to her unsullied sylvan aerie, free from pollution and stress. A slug of bottled water is no substitute for an afternoon in the woods, for which I must be overdue as I find myself salivating.
Touchstones they are, for what we are told we must have in order to be happy. These days I am happiest when I practice zazen, sitting meditation. If I concentrate, for a brief moment the gory scene of the Terminal Road shootout stops replaying itself against the inside of my eyelids, and I can luxuriate in simply being alive.
Every other sign is for fast food. I’ll be treated right, I can have it my way, I deserve a break. My Pavlovian stomach rumbles. The masters say a man functions best at two-thirds full but I believe I am one-hundred-percent empty. The pictures of juicy sandwiches are more than I can resist. Once over the bridge I detour north up River Way—Restaurant Row, threaded with fast food outlets like beads on a string. At the first one I come to, I pull up to the speaker, and order. “I’d like a Bingo Burger, no sauce.”
A disembodied voice, scratchy and coarse, replies, “You say you want ‘The Boss?’”
“No, a burger, hold the sauce.”
“What you said. ‘The Boss.’”
The Boss? Oh, I see, it’s their meal-deal of the month: a triple burger, triple cheese, extra-large fries and drink. More food than I want, but I am too tired and hungry to argue. “Fine. Give me that.”
“Pull up to the window, please.”
Back on Bridge Street, I am so busy juggling my food I nearly overshoot my only chance to turn onto Crosspath and I cut off another driver so as not to miss it. He lays on the horn, I flip him off, and gnash my burger in fury the entire dark length of Crosspath to the T-intersection with Riverbank. A single street lamp casts a yellow circle on the corner, gilds the stubble of wild asparagus, the oaks and elms beside the river, and the ripples in the water below. It’s a peaceful, soothing tableau, a scene I like coming home to, and that’s why I live here, although the wood-frame colonial in which I rent rooms is drafty and expensive to heat.
My apartment is dark but I don’t need a light to find my way to the attic bedroom. It’s late, I’m weary, and logy from too much food. I shuck the tight and tired clothes I’ve worn all day and turn down the covers, ready to slip between the sheets.
But there is meditation practice.
In a hurry to get it done and get to sleep, I don’t chant or light incense or perform any of the other rituals the Zen book described, and I definitely don’t bow. Formal practice includes prostrations, forehead to floor, not once but three times, in homage to the Teacher, the Teaching, the others who follow the Teaching. The couple of times I made myself do this I felt anything but reverent. At best I felt embarrassed, ridiculous, at worst resentful, defiant. So no, I don’t bow.
Instead I haul my zafu from its corner and plant my butt on it. The floor-sitting cushion is stiff and unyielding as a sandbag and it takes much wriggling to achieve a position that’s even remotely comfortable. Against the black cotton case, the stuffing of buckwheat husks rustles softly as a woman’s satin dress. Full lotus is the recommended position, but all I can manage is a quarter lotus, left foot over the right calf. I try sitting seiza, kneeling astride the cushion, feet behind with soles upturned, like a geisha girl. Torn nerves and muscles in my thigh protest even at that.
The breath. Pay attention to the breath.
My breath comes short and shallow. Like wild horses, stray thoughts canter over a prairie landmarked by the Mercy Mission, the Miracle Mile, the Waltann home. They gallop to the precipice that is tomorrow and peer over the edge. Sometimes when I sit I can hear the frogs outside in the grass or the wind in the trees. Tonight my ears ring with the scrunch of ice between Mrs. Waltann’s teeth.
Waltann. Hector Waltann. Shrike. No, not Shrike! I drag my mind kicking and screaming back to the here and now. What is happening now?
What’s happening now is that there’s a piece of hamburger wedged in a back tooth and I’m gassy. Ate too much too fast and took in too much air while doing it. A burger is impossible to eat slowly and with attention. There’s no way to put it down between bites without it falling apart, the shredded lettuce and the patties skidding out from between the buns. Once picked up all anyone can do with it is wolf it down. Not a food so much as a product calculatedly engineered to promote over-consumption.
My foot has fallen asleep and an irritating numbness extends to the ankle. From my reading I know that many Westerners find floor-sitting painful. We are advised to make the pain our practice, detach from it emotionally, accept it as a matter of the moment, a sensation that ebbs and flows, impermanent. Still, my strongest urge is to escape it.
My joriki, my power of concentration, must not be strong enough. Perhaps, without a teacher to guide me, I have gone too far too fast in my practice. I try counting breaths, which helps to dispel distracting thoughts. I focus on my breath not in my nose or chest but in my lower abdomen, the seat of psychic energy. My mind slows, stops, and for a moment there is peace, utter contentment. When I next check in with my foot it is still asleep. In fact, it’s worse. The numbness has crept up to my calf. But for a second there, I had lost track of the pain.
*****
The Buddha said that on arising, we should be aware enough to know whether our first conscious breath is an inhalation or an exhalation. After a sleepless night, the question is moot. My first thought is for a cigarette. After I struggle with that craving, my mind turns to Hector Waltann’s disappearance.
Light rain mists Old Paint’s windshield on the drive downtown. The Kaffeteria rings with the shouts of patrons calling out their orders, the hiss of the espresso machines, and the clink of heavy white porcelain cups. The old red brick walls do little to muffle the noise. Freshly ground French roast and warm ginger spice the air.
Duncan Phyffe races back and forth behind the fruitwood counter, taking money and handing back to-go orders, his curly black ponytail bouncing against his white shirt collar. “Hey, Will! The usual?” he yells.
Dunk’s shelves hold beans from Antigua to Zimbabwe and every caffeine-starved cell in my brain screams, “Java!” but I say, “Sure.”
I sip my genmaicha, munch my muffin, and gaze at a corner table where sits a computer with access to the Internet. Dunk leaves it available to anyone who wants to cybersurf and it’s as much an attraction as the coffee. From about three o’clock in the afternoon on, it’s monopolized by rabid computer nerds; at this hour the people who dart into the shop are intent on hitting a real rather than a virtual highway, so it’s available.
If I were at the office working an official case, I could use the department’s computer to background Hector Waltann. Sure there are private data services on the Net that offer similar information—criminal record, financial background. They charge a fee, though. A cop’s pay permits few extras, especially when that cop is drawing disability. Fortunately there are free sites that sometimes yield up good information, like the online archives of the Paradise City Crier.
A search on the keywords “Hector Waltann” provides hot links to several citations. One is from the business section. Six months ago, Hector Waltann, owner of Facets, a jewelry store in the Canterbury Bazaar, announced the promotion of comptroller Marvin Overshort to partner.
The article quotes Terry Waltann, Facets’ gemologist, as wishing Marvin Overshort “a lot of luck” in his new position with the store. Somehow, the sentiment rings false.
*****
People buy at the mall but they shop at the Canterbury Bazaar, a plaza of upscale boutiques in “Noho,” the recently gentrified corner of Nonotuck and Hobbes. I steer Old Paint under the Bazaar’s entrance, a hatchmented arch of attractive but impractical alabaster allegedly quarried at great expense in Britain. A parking valet in Olde English footman’s livery politely but authoritatively halts my progress.
“Can I self-park it?” I ask.
The valet casts a disdainful eye at Old Paint and points me to a remote lot behind the stores.
Heavy dark timbers X-brace the rough-surfaced stucco of the Canterbury’s Tudor-style stores and eateries. Fancy but nonfunctional brass knockers decorate huge wooden batten doors. Second and third stories jut out over the first. In summer these tiers provide welcome shade, in winter they help keep the walkways clear of snow. Today they only magnify the claustrophobic feel of the low dark sky. In clear vinyl overshoes that transform them into glass-slippered Cinderellas, the ladies who lunch mince over slick cobblestones in groups of two and three and smile at me from under logo umbrellas.
A chime sounds when I enter Facets. Coffee aroma tempts me from a delicate table with a silver coffee and tea service just inside the door. Pearls, gold, colored gems, and diamonds glimmer in glass showcases ranged along the walls. Salespeople offer velvet trays of merchandise to customers who sit in plush armchairs and sip from china cups. A tall glass pillar at the room’s center holds watches, pens, and glossy figurines and vases like the ones in the Waltann home.
From a door between two showcases a young blonde woman in a slim mint green linen dress and, no surprise, a lot of jewelry, emerges. Greeting me with smiling green eyes, she makes her graceful unhurried way across the dove gray carpeting. She offers me a long-fingered hand tipped with manicured nails the color of nacre.
“Welcome to Facets. I’m Heidi Quince.”
So it says in script on a gold name badge that also identifies her as a certified gemologist.
“May I interest you in something? I see you’ve noticed our watches. We have some lovely Rolexes.”
“No, not a watch—”
“Ah, a fountain pen, then. We have the Optima Oscar Wilde. Limited edition, of course.”
Of course. Why else would anyone spend—could that be—damn near three months’ pay! For a pen? “Why, did Oscar himself use it?”
Heidi Quince’s green eyes twinkle as brightly as the emeralds in the showcases. “Only 15,000 were ever made.” She unlocks the cabinet, removes the pen, and hands it to me. “You can see the edition number engraved right on it. It’s a very fine instrument. The Optima name embossed on the clip is an assurance of quality craftsmanship that everyone recognizes.”
“Everyone. Sure.”
“The barrel is a monument to craftsmanship. It’s all hand-painted, hand-lacquered, and hand-polished.”
A tiny scene like something from a Japanese scroll encircles the pen. A tufted cliff looms over a robed monk and temple with a low-pitched roof. The painting’s brush strokes are so fine they must have been laid on with a single bristle.
Heidi Quince points to the flagstone path in the painting. “See those paving stones? They’re not painted on, they’re actually inlaid flecks of abalone.”
The minute stones are smaller than dandruff flakes. The human effort lavished on this pen, however beautiful, boggles the mind. The most attention I’ve ever given a pen was making sure none of the city’s ever went home with me. “You sell a lot of these?”
“A fair number, to men especially. They understand the most important thing they have is their signature. After all, it’s with your signature that you close deals, seal fate, change history. It should be done with an instrument that transforms simple writing into an act of self-expression. Would you like to try it?” she asks.
And soil it with mere ink? But she has already uncapped a bottle. She takes my hand in hers, turns it palm up, and with a stunning smile, lays the filled pen on it. She stands close to me and watches as I write, or rather as my hand moves with the pen that seems to glide effortlessly over the paper.
“It’s a beauty,” I tell Heidi Quince. “But I didn’t come to shop. I’m here to see Mr. Waltann.”
Her sweet smile fades and she puts a little space between us. “I’m sorry, he’s not here.”
“When will he be back?”
She doesn’t respond and I ask, “Well, then, where can I find him?”
Her face clouds, she catches her lower lip between teeth as white as Facets’ best pearls, and gives her head a little shake.
“In that case I’d like to see Terry Waltann.”
“Terry? Terry’s no longer with Facets.”
“I thought he was the gemologist.”
“He was. He ... moved on, out of state. I’m ...” She taps her name badge.
“His replacement. I see. How about Mr. Overshort?”
She glances to her right, her left, but no one, nothing, comes to her rescue. With resignation she says, “Just a minute,” and heads for the door she originally came through. When she realizes I’m following, she turns and says, “If you’ll wait here, I’ll get him for you.”
“I don’t want to keep you from your work. Just show me where his office is.”
Heidi sighs and opens the door marked “Staff” that leads into a short corridor. No soft gray carpeting here. The floor covering is thin industrial stuff the color of dirt. The door-less openings on my left show the offices to be small and cramped. To my right a heavy steel door seals the vault room. Next to it is the only office with a door. Small nail holes and a darkened rectangle hint where a sign once was.
Heidi Quince takes a deep breath and knocks. There is no answer. She hangs her head, raises her fist, and knocks again.
From behind the door, a man bellows, “That’s it, you’re dead. I said I didn’t want to be disturbed.” A second later the door opens so abruptly Heidi Quince almost falls in.
“What, dammit?” a fat man asks.
This is Facets’ manager? Biker-bar bouncer is more like it.
“Mr. Overshort—”
Marvin Overshort notices me, stops in mid-tirade, and waits, his red face and puff-chested posture a challenge to me to explain myself. With his rotund body, round florid face, and deep-set eyes, he could be Porky Pig’s evil twin.
“Mr. Overshort, he’s asking about Hector,” Heidi says quickly.
Overshort presses his lips together, dismisses her with a jerk of his head toward the door, and with another head jerk, directs me into his office. Stacks of catalogs litter the floor and fill the seat of a chrome-framed side chair. A fan-folded printout spills over the side of an avocado-green steel credenza piled high with brochures and other literature. Ranged along the credenza’s top are gold statuettes of men with long guns. Trophies for hunting or marksmanship of some kind.
He lifts the telephone receiver, says, “I can’t talk about that now,” and hangs up. He props a broad butt encased in pilled black beltless slacks on the edge of a messy desk and folds his arms over a chest that strains a permanently not-quite-pressed shirt. “You a cop?”
“Were you expecting one, sir?”
He shrugs. “You got the look. We had a theft here a while back, thought you were one of those dicks here to tell me you’d gotten a lead on who done it, or maybe found some of the stuff.”
A theft. Seems I remember something about that. It wasn’t my case, though. Grady worked it, I think. So why did Grady act like he didn’t know who Hector was? “Sorry, no, Mr. Overshort. Just someone who’s looking for Hector Waltann.”
“Is he missing?”
“You know where he is?”
Marvin Overshort’s hunched shoulders lower slightly. “His condo? Somewhere partying? Hell do I know?”
“And you’re in charge here, sir?”
“Damn I ought to be. I’m the owner.”
“I thought you were a partner.”
Overshort throws his head back and snorts. “‘Was’ is right. Now I’m the owner.”
“Doesn’t Hector still have some ownership?”
The phone rings. He turns his head and glares at it. It stops in mid-ring and chastened, goes silent.
“OK, so what? You see him here? What do you want with him, anyway? Who the hell are you?”
“I’m helping a friend of his who’s concerned about him.”
“Oh, private heat. Sorry, can’t help you.” He dismounts the desk and shows me his back.
“Well, thanks for your time, sir.” As if in defeat, I start for the door, then ever so casually turn back. “About your theft ... any idea who did it?”
Still with his back to me, Overshort asks, “Why, you going to give me some kinda sales pitch for private eye service?”
“Not at all, sir. Just curious.”
He shrugs. “Inventory shrinkage’s my guess. I took care of that. Did me a little housecleaning, hired me all new people I can control is what I did.”
Can terrorize into submission is more like it from the way Heidi Quince behaved.
He nods with satisfaction. “They’re working out good, too, we’re back in the black. So like I said, it doesn’t matter about the theft.”
Doesn’t matter? Every other business owner I’ve dealt with on a theft has badgered me senseless over the case’s progress. “You mentioned Hector’s condo. What’s the address?”
Overshort twists around and gives me a long look. He pounds the telephone’s intercom button with his fist and shouts into the mic. “I’m sending some guy out there in a minute. Dig up Hector’s new address and give it to him, will ya, babe?”
“Yes, sir, Mr. Overshort,” a meek voice replies.
He turns back to me. “So, that everything you need? Ca’use I got work to do, you know. It ain’t easy pushing these rocks.” He grabs a fist full of paper, seizes a pen that appears to be a limited edition Optima Oscar Wilde, and pulls the hand-lacquered cap off with his teeth.
“I’ll just find my way out.”
Overshort doesn’t respond. He has already dismissed me.
A young, pretty, nervous woman meets me in the corridor and hands me a folded note. I push through the door back out onto the sales floor. Heidi Quince walks me to the exit.
“Get what you came for?”
I hold up the note. “I guess so.”
“You’re sure? There isn’t anything else here you like?”
She can’t mean that the way it sounds, despite what her expectant smile and her hand on my arm suggest. I don’t know. Could be she only wants to sell me a pen. I learned at a young age about the duplicity of women, at the shotgun wedding of a teenaged friend’s older brother. “Let this be a lesson to you, son,” my father said. “You can’t trust women. When they want something from you, they’ll do whatever it takes to get it.”
“Thanks for your help,” I tell Heidi.
The pressure of her hand on my arm increases. “If you find Hector, will you please let me know?” She sounds desperate.
“So you think he’s missing, too, don’t you?”
Before Heidi can answer, the “Staff Only” door opens and Overshort steps out.
“Can’t talk now,” Heidi says. She straightens her smile and hastens toward a young couple coming through the front door.