Back Story s-30 Read online

  "That describes my life before I met you," I said.

  "Oh, oink!" Susan said.

  "Sexism again?" I said.

  "In the extreme," Susan said.

  "You chicks are so sensitive," I said.

  "You too, big guy," Susan said. We were quiet, listening to the faint breathing sound Pearl made as she slept.

  "I don't love her yet," Susan said. "Like I did the first Pearl."

  "Not yet," I said.

  "But we will," Susan said.

  "Yes."

  The room was nearly dark, lit faintly by the ambient illumination of the outside city.

  "It's fascinating to see her beginning to morph into Pearl," Susan said.

  "She's doing that," I said. "Isn't she."

  "I know it's me, of course," Susan said. "I know she's not really changing."

  "Maybe she is," I said.

  "You think?"

  "There are more things in this world than in all your philosophies, Horatio."

  "I think you might have somewhat mangled the quote," Susan said.

  "Is there a copy of Hamlet in the house?" I said.

  "I don't think so."

  "Then I stand by my quote," I said.

  Pearl stood up and turned around several times and settled back down with her feet sticking into my stomach.

  "You're lying on her side of the bed," Susan said.

  "I prefer to think of it as her lying on my side."

  "Well, at least she's the only one."

  "Oh, good," I said.

  "She does present something of an obstacle," Susan said.

  "You feel that if I were to press my pulsating maleness upon you," I said, "she might react?"

  "Pulsating maleness?"

  "Throbbing masculinity?" I said.

  "My God," Susan said. "And yes, I think she'd bark and snuffle and paw at us and probably try to become part of the festivities."

  "And if we put her in another room?"

  "She'll yowl," Susan said.

  "We could pretend it's you," I said.

  "We could run cold water on your pulsating maleness," Susan said.

  "She's pretty used to the car," I said. "I could take her out and put her in it."

  "Yes," Susan said. "That would work, I think."

  "I could even give her a ride around the block so she'd think she actually was going someplace."

  "Even better," Susan said.

  "While I'm gone you could take off those pajamas," I said.

  "I bought these pajamas for you."

  "When I complained about the sweatpants?"

  "Yes. They even had the word 'enticing' on the package," Susan said.

  " 'Better than sweatpants' doesn't look as good on a label," I said.

  I put on my pants and shoes and took Pearl on her short leash downstairs to the driveway. I let her jump into the backseat and drove once around the block and back into the driveway.

  "I'll be back soon," I said.

  And she fell for it.

  11

  It wasn't quite a play Paul had written, nor exactly a dance that he'd choreographed, nor precisely an evening of cabaret, though it had all those elements. It was called "Poins." And it integrated Shakespearean characters, songs from 1950s musicals, and choreography which referenced both eras. I had always liked watching the kid perform, but over the years some of the things he'd performed in had made me tired. But that had been other people's stuff. Doing his own stuff, Paul was touching, smart, and funny. If I weren't so hard-bitten, I'd have been thrilled. When the play was over, Paul and Daryl came back to Susan's place to meet Pearl.

  "My God," Paul said when Pearl got off the couch, came over carefully, and sniffed him with considerable reserve. "She's really beautiful."

  Susan said, "Pearl, say hello to your brother, Paul."

  Daryl looked a little cautious, and when Pearl sniffed her I could see her tense. This did not bode well.

  "I have sandwiches," Susan said. "Let me set the table while you have a drink."

  "We can eat at the counter," Paul said.

  "No, no," Susan said. "It will only take me a minute."

  Paul smiled at me. "Why did I say that?"

  "Because you're a slow learner," I said. "You knew what the answer would be."

  "Good china," Paul said. "And many glasses and two spoons each and linen napkins in napkin rings."

  "Should I help?" Daryl said.

  She was still alert to any false moves Pearl might make.

  "No," Paul said.

  Paul drank a couple beers in what appeared to be one continuous swallow. His performance had been exhaustingly physical, and even when it wasn't, it always took him some time to come down. I knew he'd be quiet for awhile.

  "Does your aunt still live in Boston?" I said.

  "She retired," Daryl said. "Someplace up in Maine."

  "Have you seen her since you've been here?"

  "No. We weren't really close after my mother died."

  "So you went back to La Jolla."

  "Yes."

  "And lived with your father?"

  "Yes."

  "When did you start performing?" She shrugged. "My mom used to take me to the children's program at the La Jolla Playhouse," she said. "Both my parents were very supportive. My mom and dad never missed anything I was in."

  "Your father still in La Jolla?" I said.

  "Yes," Daryl said. "I had an unusually wonderful childhood, before. " she made a little rolling gesture with her right hand. "We were a really close-knit family. We did everything together."

  "Siblings?" I said.

  "No. Just Mom, and Dad, and me."

  "Where in Maine does your aunt live?"

  "I don't know, a funny name. I think it's the place where that ex-president lives."

  "George Bush?"

  "Yes."

  "Kennebunkport," I said.

  "That sounds right."

  Paul was watching me.

  "What's your aunt's name?" I said.

  "I think it's Sybil Pritchard now," Daryl said. "Why?"

  "I thought maybe I'd talk with her," I said.

  "I'd rather you didn't."

  Paul was frowning a little.

  "Okay," I said.

  "And your father's name is Gordon," I said. "Like yours."

  "Yes."

  Susan came in wearing a small, clean apron that said BORN TO COOK across the front.

  Paul looked at the apron and smiled. "That would be irony," Paul said, "right?"

  "It would," Susan said. "Supper's ready."

  There was a very big platter of finger sandwiches and composed salad plates with asparagus, cherry tomatoes, and artichoke hearts.

  "My God, Susan," Daryl said. "You put this all together while we were having a drink?"

  Susan smiled modestly.

  "What kind of sandwiches are they?" Daryl said. She seemed a little uneasy about Pearl's nose resting on the edge of the table near her.

  "Oh," Susan said, "a lovely assortment."

  Paul looked at me and made a little sound that might have been a laugh, smothered.

  "Are you laughing?" Daryl said. "I need to know what they are. There's a lot of stuff I can't eat."

  "I'm not laughing at you," Paul said.

  Susan said, "He's laughing at me, Daryl. I have never actually made a sandwich, I believe, in my entire life."

  "So where'd you get these."

  "I have a caterer friend who has a key," Susan said. "I called her on my cell phone."

  It was in fact a lovely assortment: tuna, smoked salmon, egg salad, cheese, turkey, cucumber with Boursin, and corned beef. Daryl carefully examined the contents of each one before she selected from the platter. She ate two sandwiches, both turkey, and ate the cherry tomatoes from her salad.

  We talked about the play. We complimented both of them. We had no further conversations about Daryl's aunt, whom she'd rather I not talk to, nor Daryl's childhood, which had been idyllic.

&
nbsp; 12

  Hawk and I were in Codman Square in a coffee shop eating grilled English muffins. A tall, thin, hard-faced black guy with a gray Afro, wearing a white dress shirt buttoned to the neck, walked in and came to our table. Several people in the coffee shop looked at him covertly.

  "Hawk," he said.

  "Sawyer," Hawk said.

  The black man sat down next to Hawk.

  "The blue-eyed devil is Spenser," Hawk said. "Sawyer McCann, the last hippie."

  We nodded at each other. Sawyer made no attempt to shake hands.

  "You notice how out of place you look here," McCann said.

  I was the only white person in the room. "I do," I said.

  "That is how it feels for us, much of the time."

  "I thought of that," I said.

  "So how's it make you feel?" McCann said.

  "Like clinging to Hawk, but I'm too proud."

  Hawk grinned. McCann's face never changed. "Well," he said. "At least you don't apologize for being white."

  "Not my fault," I said.

  "Sawyer know something about the Dread Scott Brigade," Hawk said.

  I nodded and looked at McCann and waited. The waitress came and refilled our coffee cups and poured one for McCann. McCann stirred in six spoonfuls of sugar, pouring it from the old-fashioned glass container into his spoon to measure, and then into the coffee.

  McCann sipped some of his coffee, watching me as he did. "I might help you," he said. "But if I do, it's because Hawk ask me."

  "Okay."

  "I never met a white man I could trust," McCann said.

  I waited.

  "I never met one I liked."

  I let that slide.

  "I never met one wasn't a racist motherfucker," McCann said. "You a racist?"

  Hawk watched quietly, his eyes bright with pleasant amusement.

  "Not till now," I said.

  McCann's tight face got tighter. "You fucking with me?" he said.

  "I am," I said.

  McCann sat back in the booth a little and put his coffee mug down. "You ain't scared of me," he said. "Are you."

  "Nope."

  "Most white people you get in their face they get scared."

  "That's a racist reaction," I said.

  Hawk didn't say anything, but there was still a hint of amusement around his eyes.

  "I usually count on it," McCann said.

  "Sorry," I said.

  "Okay," McCann said.

  He drank some more coffee.

  " 'Bout 1972," he said. "They having a lotta problems between the black prisoners and the white prisoners in the various prison systems. So they invite a bunch of radical white kids from a bunch of, ah, liberal universities to come in and promote racial harmony. Workshops, seminars, that shit. You remember what it was like in 1972."

  I nodded.

  "And it don't work so well," McCann almost smiled. "Kids decide the black prisoners are victims of white racism and they stir up more trouble than there was before."

  "You think the kids were right?" I said.

  McCann had decided to accept me, for the moment at least, and most of the hard-case manner had sloughed off, though it hadn't been replaced by anything resembling soft.

  "Some of the brothers in jail were political prisoners," McCann said. "Still are. Some of them were rapists and murderers and thieves and bullies, and the kids' problem was they couldn't tell which was which."

  "Because they were all black," I said.

  "Uh-huh."

  "Racism works in mysterious ways," I said. "It's wonders to perform."

  "So these kids decide to form the Dread Scott Brigade, which a sort of loose national network to help victims of white fascist oppression," McCann said. "Kind of name college kids would think up. And they going to work for the freedom of the prisoners."

  "How'd that go?" I said.

  "Couple of the prisoners escaped. Don't know if the kids helped them or not."

  I waited. McCann looked thoughtful. The waitress came by and filled our coffee cups. I watched McCann go through his sugar-loading routine. He stirred carefully until he was sure all the sugar had dissolved into the coffee.

  "One of the prisoners they working with was a brother name Abner Fancy."

  "Abner Fancy," I said.

  "He change it to Shaka in prison."

  "Don't blame him," I said. "Did he stick with the Dread Scott Brigade?"

  "Become the boss," McCann said.

  "He shoot the woman in the bank holdup?" I said.

  "Don't know."

  "You know him?"

  "Nope."

  "But you heard about him."

  "Yep."

  "You got any other names?"

  "Brother in there with him name Coyote."

  "You know his, ah, slave name?"

  "No."

  "Know any of the white kids?"

  "No."

  "Know where any of these people are now?" I said.

  "No."

  "Cops ever talk to you about this?" I said.

  "I don't talk to cops," McCann said.

  We were silent for a moment.

  "How come you never changed your name?" I said.

  "Some of us be who we are," McCann said. "You see Jim Brown call himself Shaka?"

  "No," I said.

  "Everybody get named by somebody," McCann said. "My father named me."

  "Funny," I said. "That's what happened to me."

  We all drank our coffee. My English muffin was gone. Did I want another one.

  "Lemme ask you," McCann said to me. "I decided to come upside your head, you think anyone in here would help you?"

  I decided I did want another English muffin, but I wouldn't have one because it would be self-indulgent, and Susan might find out.

  "Two answers," I said to McCann. "One, I wouldn't need any help. And, two, he would."

  I gestured toward Hawk with my head. McCann shifted his stare onto him.

  "You do that?"

  "Two answers," Hawk said. "One, I would. And two, I wouldn't need to."

  "Why do you ask?" I said.

  "Just getting the lay of the land," McCann said.

  "Well that's how it lays," I said. "Thanks for your help."

  McCann finished his coffee, put the cup down very carefully on the table, nodded at Hawk, stood, and walked away.

  "Effervescent," I said.

  Hawk smiled. "Sawyer a little stern," he said.

  "He is," I said.

  13

  The theater was dark on Mondays, and I took Paul to dinner at the world's greatest restaurant, which is, of course, The Agawam Diner in Rowley. The place was always crowded for breakfast and lunch, but on a Monday evening, early, it was not busy and we got a nice booth with a view of the traffic light at the Route 133 intersection.

  "Are you and Daryl an item?" I said.

  "God no," Paul said. "I like her, but she's way too crazy for me."

  "Crazy how?" I said.

  "She drinks too much. She smokes dope too much. She sleeps around too much. She's too intense about her career."

  "What do you know about her family?" I said.

  "Nothing," Paul said. "Except for her mother's murder she never talks about her family, except that it was a close-knit loving family. Like the other night."

  "So she didn't talk specifically about her mother?"

  "Just about the murder. The murder is very big in her life."

  The waitress brought us menus.

  "My God," he said. "Actual food."

  "No reduction of kiwi," I said.

  "No skate wings," Paul said. "No pate of Alsatian bluebird. No caramelized parsnip puree with fresh figs."

  The waitress took our order.

  "Why do you suppose she didn't want me to talk with her aunt?"

  "Daryl's hard to understand," Paul said.

  "She ever talk about her father?" I said.

  "No. I always sort of assumed he was dead."

  "Sibli
ngs?" I said.

  "She never mentioned any."

  "How long have you known her?"

  "Two years," Paul said. "We worked together in the first play I did in Chicago. When she's up, she's a hell of a lot of fun."

  The waitress brought smothered pork chops for Paul, spaghetti and meatballs for me.

  "Why are you asking about her?"

  "Because I don't know about her."

  Paul was nodding as I spoke.

  "And that's what you do," he said. "You ask unanswered questions."

  "Information is good," I said.

  "So how come you didn't ask more about the aunt?"

  I smiled.

  "Because you're going to go up to Maine and see her," Paul said. "You have her name and the town she lives in."

  My mouth was full of spaghetti. I nodded. I was eying the assortment of pies behind the counter as I ate. Plan I ahead.

  "I know another reason you asked if she were my girlfriend," Paul said.

  "Paternal solicitude," I said.

  "Besides that," Paul said. "If she were my girlfriend, then you'd have to welcome her to the family. And she's afraid of dogs."

  "Not a trait I value," I said.

  I eyed the pies again. I thought one of them might be cherry.

  "Of course we're not exactly family," Paul said.

  "Depends on how you define family," I said.

  "You, Susan, and me?"

  I nodded.

  "And Pearl?" he said.

  "Of course," I said.

  "How about Uncle Hawk?"

  "Uncle Hawk?"

  "Uh-huh."

  "I think Uncle Hawk is all the family Uncle Hawk needs," I said.

  14

  In Kennebunkport, Sybil Pritchard lived in a small house with an oblique view of the water. She had shoulder-length gray hair and bare feet and wore a floral-patterned blue-and-yellow ankle-length dress.

  "Well," she said when she answered the door. "You're a big strapping boy, aren't you."

  "I am," I said. "Could we talk for a bit? About your sister's murder?"

  "My sister was murdered thirty years ago," she said.

  "Twenty-eight," I said. "Can we talk?"

  "Are you a policeman?" she said.

  "I'm a private detective, working for your niece."

  "Daryl?" she said. "Come in. Sit down. Tell me what you want."

  Her house was coastal cute, with a hemp rug, lobster pot coffee tables, steering-wheel mirrors, ship's captain lamps, and big scallop-shell ashtrays. There were a lot of butts in the ashtrays, and when we sat in her front room, Sybil immediately lit another cigarette and didn't apologize. There was a big Shaker table in front of a bay window where you could see a scrap of the ocean. On it were several spiral-bound notebooks and a blue champagne flute with pencils in it. She saw me look.