Malice Times Page 10

  "Congratulations,” she said. “You’re smarter than you look. I don’t know the combination.”

  I ignored her and turned the dial to zero, then right to thirteen, back left to fifteen, then right to twenty-two. I tried to turn the handle, but the safe still didn't open. I looked down at the lease and read the combination, 13-5-22. It was five not fifteen. I was getting irritated with myself now. I went to the right to thirteen, back left to five and right to twenty-two. This time I heard a slight click from inside the safe. I turned the handle of the safe and it came down easily. After pulling on the handle the door swung open exposing a very small safe. Inside the safe along with some personal papers sat a claim ticket and a safety deposit key. I grabbed both.

  I walked over to where Regina was eyeing me thoughtfully and showed her the ticket. "You know where this came from?"

  "It looks like the claim tickets the post office uses. I have a box there myself. This is the claim ticket they use if the object is too big to fit in your box."

  I went back to the safe, closed it and pushed the clock back in place until I heard a click from inside the wall. I looked at my watch, four-thirty. It was too late to go to the post office, so I pocketed the ticket. I told her she could get back to work and thanked her. She nodded and headed for the door.

  “Who else knows about this safe?”

  “Other than me and your brother, probably only Lynda Cranston.”

  “Thank you.”

  "Oh, I almost forgot," she said. "The decorator is coming today. In fact, she should be here any moment.”

  “Decorator? I really don’t plan on being around town that long.”

  Then as if on cue, Rae Dempsey stepped through the door.

  17

  Rae and I sat there not saying much for the longest time. I couldn't figure out what possessed Regina to hire Rae Dempsey, my ex-girlfriend, the woman I had left without saying a word to ten years ago. I didn't know what to say to her. I felt like I was walking barefoot across a snake pit. The conversation the night before didn't prepare me for Rae's willingness to speak with me, let alone work for me. She looked different that morning.

  "Long time no see." I regretted it as soon as the words left my lips. I had stepped on a snake and I waited for the bite.

  She laughed. I wanted to join her, but decided that I didn't want to step on any more snakes so I just gave a little smirk. I shuffled in my chair a bit and could feel nausea building in the pit of my stomach.

  "Relax Joe, it's been ten years. I tried telling you that last night, but you didn't listen. I'd given up hope that you'd be back for me a long time ago. I moved on. Besides we were just kids. So let's not talk about it. Renew old acquaintances and talk about what you want me to do with this dump."

  I thought of what Dempsey had told me last night, about how much she had changed when I left and how I had broken something in her. There was no ring on her finger. No outward signs of moving on. She was twenty-eight-years-old. She had wanted to get married and have a litter of kids. Or was it that she wanted to marry and have a litter of kids with me.

  "Why did you walk out like that last night?" I asked.

  ”Maybe I wanted to hurt you the same way you hurt me. It didn't feel as satisfying as I imagined, just stupid. A little bit of anger welled up inside me last night when I saw you. I acted like a three-year-old and I'm sorry. I thought all of that anger was gone, but there was still some there. I should have handled the situation better."

  “I thought you said you had moved on.”

  “Doesn’t mean I’m not pissed at you for just leaving without any word. No one would tell me where you had gone or what had happened to you. Brad eventually told me that something had happened and that you just couldn’t stay here anymore. Then, I went looking for you and I couldn’t find you. I thought Brad was just sparing my feelings. That you had run off with some other girl. Then, I got really angry. The anger didn’t last long. It turned quickly to an uncontrollable sadness, because I knew that it didn’t matter what happened to make you leave, it was all just an excuse. You had been waiting for any reason to ditch Malice Grove and everyone here for a long time. I’m sure whatever caused you to finally up and take off was at least for you a very good reason. But it was just an excuse to do what you had been wanting to do for years.”

  “That’s not true,” I said. “I never wanted to leave you.”

  “Oh, please, I never even entered your thought process. I was just another part of this place that you had come to hate so much. It took me a long time to understand that. That you could hate this place and still love me, but that your desperation to get away from here was just too great for you to overcome.”

  “That was a very nice little speech,” I said.

  “Thank you, I’ve been working on it since yesterday afternoon when Regina called me. You caught me a little off-guard last night. I wasn’t quite ready for our talk yet. I am sorry I acted so badly.”

  "If it makes you feel any better, your little friends tried to beat me up last night after you left.”

  "I heard you handled yourself rather well. Now, can we just drop the past and get down to business?"

  "Since when did you become the business type?"

  "I've always been the business type," she said. "You just never noticed, being the male sexist pig that you are."

  "Excuse me, I am not sexist."

  "Yes, you are. You always thought that every woman on Earth couldn't resist your manly charms.”

  "That's not sexist," I said. "It's irresistibility."

  "My point exactly. I saw how you leered at Regina as she walked out of the room. You have an infantile brain that looks at women as a pair of breasts with a mouth."

  “That is unfair.”

  “Is it?”

  “I’m not exactly hitting it out of the park these days.”

  “I know it’s just a front, Joe. It always has been. Like your sarcasm. Just tools to keep people at a distance without creating any real attachments to anyone.”

  “Are you a psychiatrist?”

  “I minored in psychiatry.”

  “Oh, minored. That makes a difference.”

  “Do you have any friends?”

  “Loads,” I answered defiantly if not truthfully.

  “There is a load here, but it’s not a load of friends.”

  There was a break in the conversation. I forgot how awful it could be talking to someone who knew you better than you knew yourself. I must have had a wounded look on my face. “I'm sorry I called you a sexist pig."

  "Oh no, you were right about that.”

  "I'm also sorry about your brother."

  "Thank you.”

  "What happened to your head?" she asked.

  I had forgotten that I looked like a refuge from a war zone. It didn't hurt very much.

  "I had a little too much to drink last night."

  "Drink?"

  "I fell down in my living room and hit my head off of the coffee table. Knocked myself completely out. When I came to, I was a little groggy and a bit bloody so I went to the hospital and they fixed me right up."

  "How much of that story is true?"

  "A little. Not very much." I leaned back in my chair and it squeaked in protest.

  “You’re having a great year. There’s whatever happened to your head and I heard you go shot.”

  “You heard about that?”

  “Everyone’s heard about that.”

  “No good deed goes unpunished or in my case, shot.”

  “You want to tell me about it?”

  “What’s to tell? There was a girl. She was in trouble. I tried to help. I got shot for my trouble.”

  “You saved that girl.”

  “Maybe. So tell me do you think you can do anything with this dump as you called it?"

  "I think I can manage to figure something out."

  “Whatever you come up with will be fine with me. I really don’t have a lot of time to be dealing with renova
tions. I only agreed to it to make Regina happy. She seemed so eager. Now, I wonder why she was so eager. All I really wanted were computers.”

  "Why don't we have dinner tonight at The Grove? I'll have had time to contact some people and get some quotes and come up with some plans for what we can do to make this a more modern newspaper office starting with replacing those heavy steel doors. I’ll also make sure to replace the missing rug from the entryway downstairs. We can talk business and get reacquainted. What do you say?"

  "Sounds good," I said sensing that it was a mistake. "What time?"

  "How about six?"

  "Better make it later," I said. "I have quite a few things to do around here before I can even think about food. I got a late start."

  "All right, seven-thirty sound good to you?" she asked.

  "Seven-thirty at the Grove. I'll be there. Wait. Missing rug?”

  “Yes. The rug from in the entryway is gone.”

  She stood up then and I did too. I shook her hand and led her to the door. I noticed that she was the same height and proportions as she was in high school. She hadn't gained an ounce of fat, probably took off a pound or two. I watched her as she walked through the office and shook my head as old feelings started to rush back. I went back to my desk, sat down and made a note to smack myself a couple times every morning from now until I left Malice Grove.

  18

  Rae stirred up more than old feelings, she stirred up some old memories, too. I kept thinking about the times we shared, but it was more than that. The images of that last morning in Malice Grove were coming back to me. She had been right, of course. All I ever wanted to do was get out of that town, as far away as I could. Rae never even entered the equation. The feelings I had for her were deep, so deep that they reverberated even now, ten years later, but not that deep.

  The Malice Grove bus station lived up to the stereotype of being a dangerous and filthy place in which no one could possibly survive more than an hour. I had waited there for two hours for my bus to Pittsburgh. Indecision ate at me. Returning back home and just going on like nothing ever happened had some appeal. When Brad Graber walked into the bus station in his marine fatigues, I was happy. He had come to take me home. The decision had been taken away from me.

  He sat down beside me on the uncomfortable green bench. "Where you going?"

  "I thought maybe Pittsburgh, maybe Philadelphia, maybe New York. Not real sure. The ticket is for Pittsburgh."

  "What are you going to do there?"

  "Go to school, I guess. Did my Dad send you here to get me?"

  He shook his head. "He has no idea that you are even gone. He was still sleeping when I left. Your mother hasn’t told him anything yet."

  "She told you?"

  "She told me. She was a little drunk.”

  “She’s always at least a little drunk.”

  It surprised me that my mother and Brad had the kind of relationship that my mother felt comfortable confiding my whereabouts. But my mother didn't want me to go and she knew that Brad was the only person that could have talked me out of leaving.

  "So?" I asked.

  "So, what?"

  "Aren't you going to convince me I'm doing the wrong thing and take me home?"

  His voice quivered slightly when he spoke. "No. I just wanted to say good-bye. Maybe I'll see you around."

  Then he had stood and walked out of the bus station. I sat there in silence and quietly cried. A few minutes later Brad came back into the station carrying his brown leather bomber jacket. He wrapped it around my shoulders and a single tear streaked down his cheek. He wrapped his enormous arms around me and I cried into his shoulder for a moment.

  "You take care of yourself, kid," he said and released me. “If you need anything, give me a call.”

  I never saw him again. I wanted so much to give him back the brown bomber jacket that hung in the closet at Michael's apartment. I brought it here to give it back to him, to show him how much it had meant to me. How I would never have had the courage to leave if he hadn’t been there to gently push me. Now Brad was gone and I could never give it back.

  ♦♦♦

  Elizabeth broke the trip down memory lane by trotting into the room wearing a pair of faded blue jeans and a t-shirt with the caption 'It's my home' above a picture of the earth and underneath, 'so keep your feet off the couch.' Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail. In her hand was a leather-bound folder. She sat down across from me.

  “Is it casual day?” I asked.

  “It’s Saturday,” she said. I had no idea what day of the week it was. I counted the days off in my head. I had been here for a week already. I looked at the calendar on the wall, June 24, 1995.

  "Jesus, what happened to your head?" She reached out a hand and touched the bandage. I winced a little, but it was an act.

  "I fell down some steps."

  "What steps?" she asked.

  "The ones in The Exorcist. I was luckier than Father Karras."

  "Cute."

  "What do you got there? Presents? It looks so official."

  "There are a couple of interesting things on Robert Dempsey. As you know, he is involved with Lynda Cranston. Since you wanted to know about Stephen Archer, I can tell you that he and Dempsey are very friendly.”

  “Archer and Dempsey? Impossible. He and my father went to school together. They’ve been best friends for thirty years."

  "Not anymore.”

  "How long ago did that happen?"

  "I’m not sure.”

  "Is Dulcy here?"

  "Yes, I’ll send her in.”

  She left and a moment later Dulcy walked in wearing a red dress with a black belt fitted around her waist. Her blonde hair flowed down over her shoulders and her lips were red with lipstick.

  "What happened to your head?" she asked.

  "A coyote dropped an anvil on my head."

  "That must have hurt. I won't bother with details you already know about your father. He's a hard man to dig information up on, but Tom is another story."

  "What about Tom?"

  "He’s originally from New York City. He worked for a man by the name of Regan up to about a year ago when he was sent here to work with your father. It seems he got into a spot of trouble with this Regan. Messed something up and Regan sent him here to work for your father. Kind of like getting sent to Siberia, I guess. Your father apparently owed Regan a favor.”

  “He had at one point.” There was some confusion. My father had taken Don Webb in to return a favor he owed to Regan. Now, nine years later, my father owes Regan another favor.

  She looked through her notes quickly trying to find her place. "A year ago, Brad Graber up and disappeared into thin air. Tom replaced him not long afterwards."

  "When?" I asked.

  "Excuse me?"

  "When did Brad disappear?"

  She looked through her notebook and finally found what she was looking for. "Sometime between July 4th and July 12th of last year. The story was that Brad and Celia Archer ran off together."

  Brad most assuredly was dead. And if Brad was dead, then Celia was dead, too. I feared anyone that had been able to take Brad out. Brad was a formidable foe. He was also a very dear friend. I tried to remember that granite face with the stern brow and dark eyes, but it was like looking at him through a foggy window.

  As a Marine he fought in Vietnam, but he talked about the war as if it never happened. He used to say that Vietnam wasn't worth talking about. I remember walking into his room late one night and seeing Brad curled up in a little ball with his Marine uniform clutched in his hands. He was weeping. I turned and left the room as fast as possible. He questioned me about it the next day. I denied ever being there, but Brad was no fool. He said, “Sometimes you've got to cry to cleanse your insides Joe. There's nothing wrong with it.” I only saw him cry one other time. At a bus station early one morning.

  "How well do you know Tom?" She had a little bit too much information on Tom Watkins and I was a
little wary about her use of his first name so readily.

  She blushed and lowered her eyes.

  "Come on, how well?" I asked. "You two seeing each other, is that it?"

  "I was going to tell you," she said.

  "You would have done better if you had told me that from the beginning."

  "I'm sorry."

  "Is anything you told me true?" I asked.

  "Everything I've told you is true.”

  "How long have you been seeing him?"

  "A couple months."

  “Why tell me any of that?”

  “I want him to get out. He’s in a lot of trouble.”

  “How much trouble?”

  “He has to go back to New York right after the Fourth of July. I don’t think he’s coming back.”

  "His time in Siberia over?”

  “I don’t know. He won’t talk about it, but he’s afraid. We haven’t gone out in a week. He says he’s too busy, but I think he’s just scared. He owes Regan some money.”

  “How much money?”

  “A lot of money.”

  “And he has to have it for Regan by the Fourth?”

  “That is my understanding.”

  "Watkins is a very dangerous guy. He doesn’t particularly care for me very much. The last conversation I had with him left me with the distinct feeling that he wanted to end my life. Now, if he finds out that you have told me anything about his past, those feelings may get themselves transferred to you. I don’t want to scare you, but I can see that you are scared. You should be scared. That’s good. It means you have some sense. The best thing you can do is to keep your mouth shut about what you told me. Things could get ugly around here very fast. I don’t want any collateral damage. So just keep your head low and go about living your life. If he’s desperate, he is going to just get more and more dangerous. Are you the girl he was supposedly with the night my brother was killed?”

  "Yes.” She was shaking trying to keep herself from crying, but it was no good. The tears came in a torrent. I led her to a chair and sat down next to her. She put her head on my shoulder and I patted her back, as if that is somehow comforting and not irritating.