Travel Writing Read online

  “I have no information . . . listen, this sounds like you’re fishing. I can’t—”

  “I know, I know. Just one more, I promise. Just one more. How about on Tuesday, November 20?”

  I did not hear an answer. “Are you still there?”

  “Still here,” she said.

  “Okay, then. Thank you very much,” I said.

  “You’re welcome.”

  I hung up the phone and whooped. I drained the Dr Pepper. The son of a bitch had been treating her. He had seen her on November 24, just before Thanksgiving and just about when she’d written the letter. What had happened to prevent her from sending it may have happened in that session.

  I looked at the clock. An hour until I was to pick up Lydia. I went into the bathroom and ran the shower. The phone rang and it was Lydia. She said she had another ride.

  “But you said you had no way—”

  “Pete.”

  “Yes.”

  There was a pause. Then she said carefully, “That was too hard for me yesterday. I can’t do that anymore. It was that dumb sandwich. I gotta go.”

  “Wait, Lydia, wait a minute.”

  “Can’t. They’re here for me.”

  “What about Charlie’s letter?” But the phone was dead. I went back to the bathroom and turned off the shower. I sat on the deck. I could remember living with Lydia, but I could not imagine doing it again. It all seemed past tense. I had a strange sense of something like emotional gravity weighing at me, pulling me down. I went back in the living room to the “things to do” list. I added this: Look for an apartment.

  Then I lay down on the floor.

  11

  …

  Back to School

  THE LAST TIME I’d seen Steve Lotts had been at Wendy and Carolyn’s good-bye party, and he’d walked away in what looked a lot like disgust. Despite Carolyn’s suggestion, I had no intention of calling him. Strangely, he called me instead. Of course, it wasn’t strange at all. I found out later that Carolyn had talked to him right after she had talked to me and told him that I might be on to something after all, and that I needed some advice.

  Steve suggested we eat lunch at his favorite place, the North Pond Café in Lincoln Park. He was waiting for me over a glass of pinot grigio since it was his first day off in a while. I had one, too, since it was nearly my last day off. A front had come down the lake and cleaned the city out; it was clear and almost cool for the first time in weeks, cool enough that you knew for the first time that summer would not last forever. As always, Steve had chosen the perfect table. We were looking out across the pond and the trees to the skyline.

  “You gotta try this thing, this asparagus-mushroom-cream tart. Unbelievable,” he said. He didn’t mention the words we had exchanged at the ball game or at the dinner, and he didn’t mention Lydia. I filled him in on Albert Decarre.

  “He lied to her. He lied to his own wife,” I said.

  “Oh, like what else is new. I mean, how many guys don’t lie to their wives? Exactly why I’m not married.”

  “Why would he tell her it was the hospital calling?”

  “So he wouldn’t have to say he was being exposed or threatened or blackmailed or slandered,” he said. “So he wouldn’t ruin her dinner party? I don’t know, or maybe he was boinking this Korean chick, and he had something to hide. Doesn’t mean he killed her, Pete.”

  “There’s an eyewitness. I’m an eyewitness. I saw him get out of the goddamn car with my own two eyes.”

  Steve said a bad drunken lawyer would take me apart on the stand over that.

  “You don’t think I’d make a credible witness?” I asked.

  “It’s not that. It’s all the other stuff. It’s dark. It’s raining. You don’t remember this guy for seven months, and then only under hypnosis. Yikes. Hypnosis makes juries nervous. Hocus-pocus. Besides, there’s your personal stake in all of this. I’m sorry, Pete, but—”

  “I mean it almost sounds as if you think I’m making all of this up,” I said.

  “Of course not. I believe the guy was there. I believe he was involved in the girl’s death. He could have at least prevented it, and it’s possible he caused it. He’s mixed up in it somehow, but that’s just my belief. Believing and proving are two different things, and frankly you just don’t have any evidence at all.”

  “So how do I get evidence?”

  “I’m not sure you do.” He shrugged. “It’s an imperfect science. Fifty percent of major crimes are never solved. Fifty percent of criminals get away with it, and believe me a lot of criminals are really dumb. God knows what percent of the smart ones get away with it, and this doctor of yours is smart.”

  “But he’s guilty.”

  “So’s O. J. You know it, and I know it, but . . .” He shrugged his shoulders. “Like I said, its an imperfect science.”

  “So that’s that?” I asked. “There’s nothing more to do?”

  “Be patient. Most criminals want attention. When he feels safe enough or confident enough, he may screw up and tell someone or make some other mistake. If you want to know the truth, I think he’ll do it again, and when you have two crimes to compare, you see patterns and—”

  “You really think he’ll kill again?”

  “Not kill, unless he has to. I don’t see him as a murderer so much as a sex criminal. People can kill once out of passion, for instance, or maybe out of fear or desperation and never do it again; but sex criminals, those guys are almost always serial criminals. It’s a compulsion. My guess is that he’s done it before, and that he’ll do it again.”

  “In the meantime, what do I do?” I asked. “Wait around for someone else to be hurt or killed?”

  “It sucks, I know, but you’ve done all you can do.”

  I wasn’t so sure.

  For the first time in ten weeks, I put on long pants and went to work. There’s always a certain apprehension about the opening of school, if only because I’ve been gone for so long; this was especially true in the year of Lisa Kim. I sat through two days of meetings, refusing to pay attention. I didn’t want to be there. In the past, coming back had always been a transition because summer is such a pleasant distraction. Now work seemed the distraction. I felt that I should be sitting at my desk in front of my computer and lists, planning my next move. The first week of class, I took Friday off and went to Indiana to buy a gun in what was no doubt an attempt to hold off the dull, numbing sleep of winter and to prolong the electric uncertainty of that summer.

  I probably could have driven there, done my business, and driven home in one day, or even stopped coming or going to the cottage, but I didn’t want to. I wanted to feel comfortable there, to know my way around, to learn some street names, to walk on the sidewalks, turn the corners, so I checked into an old motel on the Red Arrow Highway Thursday evening, left Art and Cooper there with McDonald’s Happy Meals, and took myself out to dinner. I didn’t even hurry the next day. I took the dogs to the beach and ate a real breakfast in a real diner before I started to poke around.

  I found the pawnshop first, and in it I found the gun. Then I found the church, the church custodian, and the laundromat. The church was locked, but the church custodian said there was a noon mass on Saturday and open worship until evening mass. “Then I could come in and sit quietly and pray between services?” I asked.

  “That’s right.”

  In the afternoon I used my prepaid cell phone to call the pawnshop and price the gun I had found that morning including a box of ammunition and tax. Then I went to a supermarket and purchased a cashier’s check in that exact amount, using cash.

  Then I found a nice pub in New Buffalo with Pilsner Urquell on tap, drank a couple pints watching the end of the Cubs game and the news, bought myself dinner again, and went back to read in bed.

  The next morning, I found Alice. I also found Don, Arnelle, Cindy, and Mr. Hayes, but from the start I was pretty sure it would be Alice. Her flyer on the supermarket bulletin board was neatly handprint
ed and read, “House and Yard Work. Dependable Quality Cheap. No job too big. I do windows.” Not one of the fringe of little tabs at the bottom had been taken. That was good. Her enterprise was new, and she was still hungry, plus she had a sense of humor. Mr. Hayes sounded old, and I liked Don, who also did yard work, but I thought I really wanted a woman; I thought I might have an emotional as well as a physical advantage if I chose a woman. Arnelle sounded okay, but Alice was my first choice, so I held my breath when I called her at two from my car.

  “’Lo.”

  “Is this Alice?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Alice, my name is Tom. I saw your flyer in Kroger’s, and I’m calling you about some work.”

  “You come to the right place then.”

  “May I ask you a few questions?”

  “’Course.”

  “Are you bonded and licensed?”

  “I am not,” she said without explanation or apology.

  “K. How many employees do you have?”

  “You talking to her. I be the CEO, CFO, and the entire rank and file, honey.” She laughed easily.

  “K. Please don’t take this personally, but do you have a criminal record?”

  “Nope. I ain’t never got nothing but traffic tickets.”

  “No DUIs?”

  “Nope.”

  “Are you sure about that?”

  “Positive.”

  “Alice, do you have a car?”

  “Such as it is.”

  “Okay, Alice.” I paused for a minute, looked at my checklist, and made a decision. I told her I would like to hire her to do something other than housework. The job would take about one hour and pay three hundred dollars in cash. It would be clean, 100 percent legal, and absolutely safe. I told her I wouldn’t ask her to do anything she didn’t want to do, and that she could say no at any point, no questions asked, but she would have to do it right now.

  “This very minute?” she asked.

  “Within the next few minutes. Would you like to hear more?”

  She didn’t answer and I thought I’d lost her; then she said, “Keep going.”

  “Okay.” I asked her if she knew where the church was.

  “Yes, I know it.” It was ten minutes from where she lived.

  “Okay. If you want to take this job, go get in your car and drive to the church as soon as we hang up the phone. Go into the church—it’s open—and sit in the next to the last pew on the left side. I’ll come and sit in the last pew right behind you. Do not turn around. I do not want you to see me, and if you do, our deal is off. Understand?”

  “What you want me to do?”

  “I’ll tell you when you get here. You still interested?” Again she hesitated. “Alice, if you have any qualms—”

  “Honey,” she said, “I can’t afford me no qualms. Give me fifteen minutes.” She was there in twelve. From the laundromat I watched her park her car half a block away and hurry toward the church. She was a big woman of maybe thirty-five who had bad knees and hair, but who wanted my business. Inside she was right where she was supposed to be, and I sat down behind her.

  “Alice, I’m Tom. Please don’t turn around.”

  “Uh-huh. What you want me to do?”

  “Across the street there’s a pawnshop called Quality Loan.”

  “I know it.”

  “If you are willing, I’ll give you a money order, and you’ll go to Quality Loan and purchase this item for me.” I slid an index card across her shoulder and she took it.

  “Item #1058. What is it?”

  “It’s a pistol. You ask the man for item #1058, and he’ll have you fill out two forms, one state and one federal. Fill them out truthfully. As long as you’re truthful, everything is perfectly legal. Then he’ll make a phone call to get approval. The answer may take fifteen minutes, it may take a half hour. You either get approved, delayed, or denied. If you have no criminal record and no DUIs, you’ll get approved. Then you give the man the check, and he’ll give you the gun. There’s an outside chance that you’ll get delayed; then they have three days to approve or deny.”

  “Then what?”

  “Then nothing. The deal’s off. You come back here, sit down, I sit down behind you and give you a hundred dollars in cash for your trouble, and we say good-bye.”

  “That’s all?”

  “That’s all if you can’t make the purchase, but you can; you will be able to as long as you don’t have a criminal record or a DUI, and it’s all perfectly legal.”

  “Not the next part,” she said.

  “Hold on. You buy the gun, then come back here and sit where you are sitting. I’ll sit down behind you again. You show me the item, then put it down on the pew beside you. I hand you three hundred-dollar bills.” I leaned forward and fanned the bills in front of her for a moment. “You leave the item under your coat on the pew and go up to the chancel to pray . . . you Catholic?”

  “For three hundred dollars I am.”

  “You go up to the front to pray. When you come back, the item will be gone and so will I. Then, at your convenience but within the next week—the next seven days—you go to the police and tell them exactly what happened. You bought a gun for self-protection, went to church, left it on the pew in a bundle with your coat, went to pray, and someone stole it from you. What’s the world coming to. That’s it. You’re clear and free, and I’m long gone.”

  I waited.

  “You sure it’s legal?”

  “As long as you report it.”

  She waited. “Listen, could I sleep on this, do it tomorrow—”

  “Tomorrow’s Sunday.”

  “Monday, then?”

  “Sorry. It’s a one-shot deal. It’s now or never.”

  We both waited. She looked at the index card and read the number: “One-oh-five-eight. You got the check?” she asked me.

  “I do.”

  She put her hand back for it. “Let’s go then.”

  I bought a soft drink and a Sun-Times to occupy myself while I waited in the laundromat, but I was too nervous to even look at the paper long enough to read the headlines. I just looked out the window and at my watch. It was taking forever. Maybe she had to wait for service. Maybe she called the police. No. Maybe she went out the back door with the gun. No. What was taking so long? It had been forty-two minutes. Then I turned away for a moment because a man had brought his dog into the laundromat and the Hispanic attendant was trying to get him to take it out; the man was raising his voice. I thought he might have been drinking. I was concerned that the attendant might call the police. When I turned back, Alice was hurrying up the steps of the church; another couple of seconds, and I would have missed her. I crossed the street and stopped in the vestibule, calmed myself before stepping through the padded doors into the cool stillness of the sanctuary. I sat down and touched Alice’s shoulder. She put a heavy box in a bag on her shoulder so I could see it, see the brand name and illustration, but she did not let go of it; she held it tightly. I handed her the bills, and she looked at them, rubbed them between her fingers as if they were made of fabric. Then she pulled herself heavily to her feet, saying, “Go say a prayer.” She stopped, her back still to me, in the aisle. “So who am I suppose to pray for?” she asked, without expecting a reply. “I’m hoping it ain’t your wife.”

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “Don’t turn around, but listen for a minute. I’m not going to shoot anyone. I’m a writer. I’m doing this for a story just to see if it can really be done. That’s all.”

  “Uh-huh,” she said. I watched her plod heavily down the aisle.

  I went out the front door, down the steps, around the corner and across the one-way street, put the gun under my seat, got a single “ruff” out of Art, who was asleep, nothing out of Cooper, and drove away without passing the church again. I was on the highway in six minutes. Adrenaline made me keen. I let out a howl and a laugh that surprised myself and startled the dogs. God, I hadn’t had so much fun in I didn’
t know how long, perhaps ever, and I told myself, “It’s only a game. It’s still a game.” But, of course, I now owned an illegal firearm. If a cop stopped me, I would tell him just what I’d told Alice—“I’m a writer”—and driving back into the city, I thought about the story I’d already started to write.

  Now I want to tell you about the day Lydia broke up with me. I’ve already written three versions of the story, searching, I suppose, for one in which I don’t look so bad, but I can’t find it. Sometimes you just look bad and there’s no way around it.

  It happened the next Saturday morning; it was almost as if I were the first item on her list of Saturday chores, but that’s probably unfair. She did it in typical Lydia fashion: quickly, cleanly, efficiently, effectively. I would have made a mess of it, but then I didn’t do it at all, did I? I guess I knew all along that if I just did nothing, Lydia would eventually do something. After all, I’d already put a deposit down on an apartment for October first and arranged to stay with John Thompson until then.

  She was the first person all summer to ring my doorbell, and I had to search for the buzzer to let her in. She took one look around the apartment, at the big cluttered table, the lists on the walls, my bike, the furniture pushed back, and said, “Jesus Christ, does Carolyn know about this?”

  “Don’t worry; it’ll all be shipshape when she gets back.”

  “I need to tell you something,” she said still standing in the middle of the room. “I’ve taken a job in Milwaukee.” That’s how she told me that she was breaking up with me. “And I’ve rented a place that doesn’t take pets. You’re going to have to keep Art.”

  “Milwaukee? Is that what you were doing up there that day all dressed up?”

  “Not really. It was a headhunter deal that just came out of the blue, and I did it just to see what my options were, but they ended up offering me the creative director’s position, and I’ve taken it. So if you want, you can have the apartment. My movers are coming on Monday.”

  I waited. We just stood there looking at each other. “Is that it?” I said.