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Authors: Jeremiah Healy
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and Vickie
and said, "I’m working on a miserable case, kid. Divorce."
I thought you didn’t do them.
"So did I. But it’s a favor for Chris
Christides."
Chris. Chris and Eleni.
"Right. She’s no better, though. In fact,
she’s much worse. In a wheelchair now and so old, old and worn."
I squatted down beside the flowers. The topmost bud had opened a
little, and the wind off the harbor bent the petals, like a moistened
finger on the page of a book. "Remember how Chris used to
revolve around her, spend all his time describing what new American
thing she’d seen or learned?"
My mother used to say that.
"What?"
That you know you love people when you think of
past times in terms of events in their lives rather than your own.
"I’m not sure Eleni and Chris qualify
anymore."
Oh, I ’m sorry.
"Yeah, me too."
I looked down the slope to the water. Two people with
nothing better to do on a Monday than sail seemed to be racing each
other as a low-slung, enormous freighter of some kind, black except
for the rust patches, sloughed past them. The sailboats, probably
twenty-five feet each, looked like tiny moths fluttering around a
shambling old dog.
John, do you think Eleni is close?
She didn’t have to say close to what. "I don’t
know much about MS. Just that it takes a long time to take you."
A minute passed, then: If
there’s a time you think it would help, tell Eleni that afterwards
isn’t so bad.
* * *
I backed and hauled, a half-turn of the wheel at a
time, into the pitiful parking space in the alley behind my office
building on Tremont Street. I could barely open the driver’s door
because of the Dempster Dumpster and the fringe of near-miss trash
around it. In downtown Boston, however, a manageable slot for a car
is nothing to get mad at. Plus, with the Fiat there, I could drive to
the condo to shower and change before picking Nancy up for dinner.
I used the stairs to my office, which smelled musty
when I unlocked the door and scooped up the mail. I left the door
open and pulled up one of my windows, enjoying the bustle of the
Common and letting the refreshing air cross-ventilate the room. I’d
let slide two reports on insurance scams, so I wrote them out
longhand; the claims departments involved would have them typed and
returned to me for signature. After the reports, I read a letter
request from a concerned mother in Kentucky. She believed that her
Marbrey, aged fifteen, had run off to Boston and would get in more
trouble than a rooster at a fox farm. Finding my name in a telephone
directory at the library in Lexington, she trusted me because she
once knew an honest storekeeper over to Clay City named Cuddy who
came from back east somewheres. Enclosed was a weathered family
photograph (with a penciled arrow pointing to a boy who couldn’t
have been older than ten) and a postal money order for $100. She
didn’t include a telephone number. I wrote her back a polite
letter, returning the photo and the money order and suggesting that
she contact me if she could assemble the laundry list of information
I requested.
I called Hanna, who said that she’d seen no sign of
Roy and that Vickie really loved her new kitty. I told I her I
thought the worst was over and that the divorce would probably go as
smoothly as those things could. I hung up, tried Chris’s number,
and got him on the third ring.
"Christides."
"Chris, John Cuddy."
"Jeez, what have you done now?"
"Nothing, Chris. That’s why I was calling, to
see if you needed anything else."
"Anything else? Listen, I got plenty now. A
driving-under tomorrow morning with a guy whose Breathalyzer shoulda
belonged to a beer vat, another closing with that bank—"
"Chris, Chris, nice and easy. Any progress on
Hanna’s case?"
"No, and if I don’t have anything better to
tell Felicia Arnold than what you gave me on Friday, I don’t see
any."
"What do you mean?"
"Marsh is still saying you roughed him up."
"Believe me, I barely touched him. His
and said, "I’m working on a miserable case, kid. Divorce."
I thought you didn’t do them.
"So did I. But it’s a favor for Chris
Christides."
Chris. Chris and Eleni.
"Right. She’s no better, though. In fact,
she’s much worse. In a wheelchair now and so old, old and worn."
I squatted down beside the flowers. The topmost bud had opened a
little, and the wind off the harbor bent the petals, like a moistened
finger on the page of a book. "Remember how Chris used to
revolve around her, spend all his time describing what new American
thing she’d seen or learned?"
My mother used to say that.
"What?"
That you know you love people when you think of
past times in terms of events in their lives rather than your own.
"I’m not sure Eleni and Chris qualify
anymore."
Oh, I ’m sorry.
"Yeah, me too."
I looked down the slope to the water. Two people with
nothing better to do on a Monday than sail seemed to be racing each
other as a low-slung, enormous freighter of some kind, black except
for the rust patches, sloughed past them. The sailboats, probably
twenty-five feet each, looked like tiny moths fluttering around a
shambling old dog.
John, do you think Eleni is close?
She didn’t have to say close to what. "I don’t
know much about MS. Just that it takes a long time to take you."
A minute passed, then: If
there’s a time you think it would help, tell Eleni that afterwards
isn’t so bad.
* * *
I backed and hauled, a half-turn of the wheel at a
time, into the pitiful parking space in the alley behind my office
building on Tremont Street. I could barely open the driver’s door
because of the Dempster Dumpster and the fringe of near-miss trash
around it. In downtown Boston, however, a manageable slot for a car
is nothing to get mad at. Plus, with the Fiat there, I could drive to
the condo to shower and change before picking Nancy up for dinner.
I used the stairs to my office, which smelled musty
when I unlocked the door and scooped up the mail. I left the door
open and pulled up one of my windows, enjoying the bustle of the
Common and letting the refreshing air cross-ventilate the room. I’d
let slide two reports on insurance scams, so I wrote them out
longhand; the claims departments involved would have them typed and
returned to me for signature. After the reports, I read a letter
request from a concerned mother in Kentucky. She believed that her
Marbrey, aged fifteen, had run off to Boston and would get in more
trouble than a rooster at a fox farm. Finding my name in a telephone
directory at the library in Lexington, she trusted me because she
once knew an honest storekeeper over to Clay City named Cuddy who
came from back east somewheres. Enclosed was a weathered family
photograph (with a penciled arrow pointing to a boy who couldn’t
have been older than ten) and a postal money order for $100. She
didn’t include a telephone number. I wrote her back a polite
letter, returning the photo and the money order and suggesting that
she contact me if she could assemble the laundry list of information
I requested.
I called Hanna, who said that she’d seen no sign of
Roy and that Vickie really loved her new kitty. I told I her I
thought the worst was over and that the divorce would probably go as
smoothly as those things could. I hung up, tried Chris’s number,
and got him on the third ring.
"Christides."
"Chris, John Cuddy."
"Jeez, what have you done now?"
"Nothing, Chris. That’s why I was calling, to
see if you needed anything else."
"Anything else? Listen, I got plenty now. A
driving-under tomorrow morning with a guy whose Breathalyzer shoulda
belonged to a beer vat, another closing with that bank—"
"Chris, Chris, nice and easy. Any progress on
Hanna’s case?"
"No, and if I don’t have anything better to
tell Felicia Arnold than what you gave me on Friday, I don’t see
any."
"What do you mean?"
"Marsh is still saying you roughed him up."
"Believe me, I barely touched him. His
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