Grandfather was released on bail late on Monday afternoon. He climbed into a cab outside the Hall of Justice after letting me kiss his cheek and telling me to watch over Davie. He looked up at me, holding the cab door open. “It might be a good idea, Theophania, for young Davie to stay with you for a few days.”
“What about you? Would you like me to come with you?”
“No need, my dear.” He seemed about to close the door, so I said hastily, “What did Adolphus Pratt say would happen next?”
“The police will be building their case. So far they have my fingerprint on the hoof pick and my blood type on Sergei’s ring. It will take some time for DNA test results to confirm that it is my blood, but when that happens, I fear my bail will be revoked.” He pulled thoughtfully on one ear and looked up at me. “Thank you, my dear, for speaking to Valentina.”
He seemed about to leave, but I stopped him with a hand on his arm. “You said you and Sergei had a disagreement. Did you meet him at the Venus de Milo Club?”
He chuckled. “You are impressing me more and more, my dear. I feel sure my fellow members of the club are underestimating you. I am going home now, Theophania. I’m a little tired; I may take a nap.” That scenario was so unlikely that I was still watching in astonishment as he pulled the door closed, and his cab drew away into traffic.
Ben and I went to collect Mr. Rillera and took him to get Davie out of custody.
Davie and Ben exchanged fist bumps as he and his father came down the front steps. “Good to see you, man,” Ben said, and Davie said something equally manly and unemotional, while I sniffled into a tissue. Remembering Grandfather’s suggestion (another parliamentary writ), I suggested Davie might want to stay the night at my place.
“Sounds good. You okay with that, Davie?” Mr. Rillera said quickly. “I’ve got stuff to do; you’ll be fine with her, eh? Closer to school, too.”
Davie said, “Sure, Dad,” and looked desolate.
At Davie’s request, we had pizza for an early dinner, and then he, Nat, and Ben went to a Giants game. I telephoned Grandfather, who said he was visiting a friend for a couple of days and ignored my queries about who he was staying with and where.
“It hasn’t escaped my notice that neither you nor Davie are at home in your own beds,” I said sharply.
“Just a precaution, my dear. Probably quite unnecessary.”
“Only probably?”
“Likely, then. Don’t worry, my dear. Good night.” He hung up.
I made up the futon in the second bedroom for Davie. He had school the next day, which meant he’d need to be on his way by seven. He went to Lowell, out near Lake Merced, near where Valentina lived, and which, as Davie once told me proudly, was the alma mater of Rube Goldberg. I had to look him up. Eccentric alumni aside, Lowell was a public magnet school. Their standards were high, and the workload was heavy. Even on days when he wasn’t on the schedule to work at Aromas, Davie frequently did his homework here rather than at home.
I made a quick visit to Mr. Lee’s grocery store to pick up some food suitable for feeding two male appetites. Mr. Lee’s fortune-teller advises him to arrange his products according to some sort of incomprehensible system that places toilet paper next to the Hamburger Helper, while paper towels and boxes of cereal (except for the Grape-Nuts) are with the peanut butter and window cleaner. His small deli area, under the iron control of his daughter-in-law, is immaculate and logical, but chaos reigns everywhere else. Tinned peaches and light bulbs surround Mr. Lee at his cash desk, where he usually sits reading a Chinese-language newspaper or an out-of-date copy of People magazine. None of this seems unusual anymore, and when I find myself in a regular grocery store it seems wrong not to find Swiffer refills next to the cranberry juice, and jars of salsa with the baby wipes.
I made Davie a couple of thick roast beef sandwiches to take the next day for his lunch. I felt better about the roast beef after I piled on some lettuce. Even if he scraped it off, I’d done my best. I added two candy bars, a couple of apples, a banana, some string cheese, a bottle of water, and two orange sodas. I looked at what seemed like enough food to feed a family of four and transferred everything to a larger paper sack, then added a cheese sandwich, a bag of carrot sticks, a couple of rice pudding cups, and two bags of chipotle chips. Half an hour later, I added a box of cookies in case he wanted a snack some time before or after lunch. Then I put a five-dollar bill in there in case I’d forgotten anything.
When Ben and Davie got in it was nearly eleven. They’d eaten a second dinner at the ballpark and agreed that the game was good, but not great, since one of the stars was on something called the IL, which, Davie was careful to explain, used to be the DL. Since I’d never heard of either, I just let it go. They relived for my benefit a bases-loaded situation, which was apparently a highlight.
“That sounds amazing, Davo; so did the Giants win?”
“Nah, but it was a good game.”
“Oh.” Sympathy didn’t seem to be required. “Well, it sounds very exciting.” Ben winked at me from behind Davie’s back.
“Where am I gonna sleep?” Davie looked around as if he expected to find a pallet on the kitchen floor.
“You’re in here,” I said, leading him down the hallway. “That’s a clean T-shirt and track pants of Ben’s to sleep in. You know where the bathroom is; I’ve left a toothbrush and a fresh bar of soap for you.” He dropped his backpack on the floor by the bed. “I’ve made a lunch for you to take tomorrow; it’s in a bag in the fridge, so don’t eat it if you get up in the night and want a snack. There’s some leftover pizza if you’re hungry.”
He blinked at me. “You made me a lunch?”
I hesitated. “Wasn’t that the right thing? I didn’t know if you took a lunch or not…”
“Nah. That’s good, Theo.” He frowned down at the clean towels on the bed and then turned away.
“If you drop your stuff in the bathroom I’ll run everything through the washer and dryer for you before I go to bed, okay?”
“Yeah.” He cleared his throat. “Sounds good.”
When I woke up it was only about four a.m. I wasn’t sure I could get out of bed without waking Ben, since our legs were more or less braided together. He had pulled his pillow over his head in the night as he often did. For some reason I found it endearing. I was on my stomach; one of my arms was tucked under my own pillow, and the other was resting across his chest, with my hand caught up in his. That was pretty endearing, too.
I thought about Davie—I had to start thinking of him as Davo, since that’s what he wanted—and that led me to thinking about my grandfather. The judge had taken his passport and set his bail at an eye-watering two million dollars. Lichlyter hadn’t looked happy when Honest Eddie had come up trumps, and Grandfather was released. His arraignment had made the news. I could only hope the little local news story didn’t break out into the wider world and reach the eyes and ears of our family.
The blot on the family escutcheon was poor repayment for moving here to help me. Like me, he’d been grieving; he just didn’t show it. His generation believed feelings were embarrassing, so they tried not to have any.
His two older brothers—including the current Earl—were kind enough, but the cause of genteel eye rolls in the family whenever their names came up. My two great-aunts were content to roll their eyes and return to their mah-jongg cronies (in Great Aunt Kitty’s case) and a London penthouse (in Great Aunt Georgie’s). The sisters took Grandfather’s recommendations to their stockbroker and managed to double their inheritances, which hadn’t been as large as their brothers’, because that’s the way it was then. He was the youngest of his siblings, but I always believed he was the only one with any real brains. Great Uncle James had three interests—breeding, racing, and betting on Thoroughbred racehorses. Great Uncle Teddy was the Earl, and he struggled to find the resources to support the leaky and decrepit family manor he’d inherited. He’d lately brought in a herd of bison to encourage visitors and opened a farm shop to sell things like meat butchered on the estate, cheese made at the home farm, and baskets woven from reeds from the estate waterways. My cousin Frederick, who was always in need of a job because he was basically unemployable, had been Uncle Teddy’s first choice to run it. Grandfather had persuaded him to hire a competent manager instead, so it was doing well.
When life wasn’t filled with drama, Grandfather and I met every two weeks for tea, which his cook/housekeeper presented on Royal Crown Derby china, Arthur Price sterling, and starched Irish linen. Our topics of conversation ranged from the weather, Aromas, and either Davie’s latest escapade or their most recent outing. Sometimes I asked him to play a piece on the piano, and we finished off the visit with a final thought about the weather before he allowed me to kiss his cheek and I left. Approaching him with more questions about a strip club wasn’t even remotely possible.
“What do you think?” I asked Ben later that morning. “How likely is it that my grandfather—and you know him, Ben—would spend an evening at the Venus de Milo and then get into a physical fight with a priest in said club while naked women gyrate to Nickelback and the Arctic Monkeys.” I shook my head. “I can hear myself saying it and I can’t believe I’m even thinking about it.”
Ben rinsed his coffee mug and stuck it in the dishwasher. “The Venus doesn’t sound like somewhere he’d go for entertainment; but if I was a seventy-year-old British aristocrat with an impeccable reputation for sobriety I might choose a strip club to meet someone because it was the least likely place for people to look for me.”
And I thought I was doing well to dye my hair and wear a pair of unnecessary glasses.
Two mornings later I waited with Ben for an Uber driver to take him to SFO and said goodbye—again—as he left for his flight to DC. He hesitated as he tossed his bag into the trunk and turned back to me.
“I have to go,” he said, answering an objection I hadn’t made. “I’ll deal with things as quickly as I can and be back, probably four or five days.” I nodded. We’d already been over this. He looked away for a few seconds, then turned back to me, his jaw set. “Look, think about telling me why you needed to get into Katrina’s office. Whatever it is, we’ll deal with it, okay? You can trust me; I’m a lawyer. And if you go anywhere else off the beaten track, make sure you take Nat with you. I love you.” I stood, unmoving, struck dumb. He touched my cheek with his hand before kissing me lightly on the lips, and then he was gone.