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  “Was he scared?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. Probably. My sons were never very forthcoming with the details of their lives.”

  “That’s funny. Neither was my father. It's getting late. I think I’ll head home. Crime can be exhausting."

  15

  Ididn't go home. I drove across town to see how the other half lived. Dempsey's place, Donna's, was named after his late wife. The man at the door wasn't nearly as friendly as the one at my father's place, but I got lucky when Dempsey came out to check on the restaurant. He walked over when he saw me.

  "Joe, what are you doing here?" he asked.

  "Poking my nose around."

  Unlike in my father's establishment, I wasn't sure if I enjoyed the nostalgic feel and smell of the place or not. It made me a little sad being there. Dempsey was certainly on hard times. The clientele was lesser, the tables were worn and faded.

  "You seem to be struggling,” I said.

  “A bit,” he said.

  "Where's the roulette wheel?" I was feeling a little generous after my windfall at The Garlic Clove.

  "In the back."

  He led me by the tables full of beer swilling poker players to the rear where the nicer equipment was placed. A relatively new roulette wheel was in the process of spinning down. Twenty brand new slot machines stood against the wall in the corner. The roulette wheel spun to a stop and the silver ball fell into a slot. A weasel of a man shouted from behind the wheel, "Black 19, Black 19."

  "I won," shouted a big man smoking a cigar and drinking a beer. "This is my lucky night."

  I looked over at Dempsey who was smiling. "Fixed to win," I said.

  "I expect I'll lose a little bit of money this week. People have been getting very lucky here tonight."

  "And I was trying to be generous to you. If you lose money on a gaming room, you must really be dropping money to your customers."

  "It'll get everyone's attention and once I get everyone back, I'll start to make a profit again, while still letting people win, just not as much."

  “Why is business so bad?” I asked.

  “Drake’s big beautiful monstrosity on the lake has been cutting into my business.”

  “That fake boat thing belongs to him?”

  “Yes. It really is the nicest place in town. Best restaurant by far. The gaming room is spectacular and the dance floor is exquisite. If I sound jealous, I am. The man knows what he’s doing. He ran a casino in Las Vegas before coming here.”

  “Why come here? This is a bit of a step down from Las Vegas.”

  “Heard he got chased out of Vegas,” he said.

  “By whom?”

  “Drake ran The Golden Seagull. When Buddy Costello died, his son sold it to Dutch Gordon. Gordon changed the upper management. He didn’t want anyone left who had been loyal to Costello, so he sent Drake packing.”

  “That thing on the lake couldn’t have been cheap to build,” I said.

  “Of course not. I imagine Drake got paid very handsomely by Dutch Gordon to leave Las Vegas.”

  “Sounds less like he got chased than he got paid handsomely for his absence,” I said. “Wish someone would try to pay me that handsomely for my absence.”

  “When Dutch Gordon pays you handsomely for your absence, it is getting chased, because the alternative is a hole in the desert. You see, there are really bad guys in this world. A lot worse than me or your father.”

  “I see. And you’re just going to let him take over your business.”

  “I don’t have the stomach for it, anymore. If he wants it, he’s welcome to it.”

  "In that case I think I'll try my luck at the roulette wheel. I have a feeling I'll be very lucky."

  He patted me on the back and walked away. I moseyed over to the table and laid some of my winnings from the poker game down on the table. In an hour I had picked up another six hundred bucks. Not bad for an hour at the wheel. The wheel wasn't exactly the easiest game to win money at, but it could pay off some big dividends and it was the easiest to fix. I don't think a single player I was playing with lost any money. It seemed like the weasel-like man behind the wheel was taking turns with who would win with each spin of the wheel. Not once in that hour did a number come up that there wasn't a bet placed.

  Then out of the corner of my eye I saw her. Through the smoke of the room, she looked like she had stepped right out of a music video and into my dreams. A skin-tight black dress clung to her athletic, lithe frame. Her eighties hair was gone and now hung down at her shoulders. I don't think she had seen me until I saw her. Her smile faded. The urge to run overcame me, but who was I kidding. I hadn’t come to Donna’s for the gambling or even to chat up Dempsey. I came here to see her. Of all the people I had run into since coming back, she was the one I both dreaded and desired. The anticipation of the meeting had been keeping my nerves on edge since I got back. I walked over to where she was sitting at the bar with three guys talking to her. The three men all looked at me with menacing looks.

  "Do you mind?" I asked. "Me and Rae go way back."

  One of the men, a big strapping young man with a red goatee said over his shoulder, "You want to talk to this dude?"

  "Sure," she said. "I don't hold grudges."

  "That's not what your father told me," I said through the wall of men.

  "My father doesn't know me very well."

  "All right," I said to the three men. "You heard the lady. Part like the Red Sea."

  They all did what I said and I sat down next to Rae. The three men stood there watching me carefully.

  "Go play in traffic guys," I said to them. The big red head sized me up. I stood my ground tempting him to try something. I was itching for a fight. No one seemed to want to give me one. Red didn’t either.

  Rae gave a little chuckle and said, "Go on guys. Let me talk to Joe alone."

  The three men walked away without much argument, leaving me and Rae sitting at the bar with nothing to talk about except my abandoning her ten years before. She motioned for the bartender. She sat there looking at me with those light brown eyes. She tugged on her thin lower lip with her teeth.

  "You want a beer?" she asked.

  "Red wine," I said to the bartender. He moved away and poured the wine into a glass.

  "Wine," Rae said. "I heard you’ve been drinking your weight in tequila. Are you just trying to impress me?"

  “You’ve been keeping tabs on me. I’m flattered.”

  “Don’t be.” She looked straight ahead at the room of people. Her body rigid. The anger wafted off of her like steam from boiling water.

  The bartender returned with the glass and set it in front of me. I paid him and he walked away. I could see Dempsey across the room looking nonchalantly in our direction. I raised my glass towards him. He nodded almost imperceptibly. “We have an audience,” I said.

  We sat there for a few minutes in silence. The three men were standing in the corner looking at us. Dempsey was looking at us. I’m pretty sure everyone was taking an interest in the little drama being played out at a cheap imitation oak bar. It didn't seem right, but nothing ever does. She took out a cigarette case and lit one up.

  "You shouldn't smoke," I said. "It's bad for your lungs."

  "I've tried to quit. It never seems to take." She tugged at the cigarette with those perfect lips. She blew the smoke up into the air. It rose quietly above her like a small balloon hanging above her head.

  "I'm sorry.” The words escaped my lips like air escaping from that smoke balloon hovering over her head. "I can explain."

  "I don't need an explanation. It happened ten years ago. It's ancient history."

  Then she got up and walked out of the room. The three men walked over to where she left me and red grabbed my right arm and said, "What did you do to her?"

  "Get your hands off of me red. I don't like being violent, but in your case I think I can make an exception."

  "Screw you dude," he said and swung his other hand at my face. />
  I ducked out of the way and jabbed my left hand into his rib cage. He let go of my right arm and doubled over in pain. If only my physical therapist could see me now, he would have all the evidence he needed to know that my injury was completely psychosomatic. I jumped up out of my chair and the other two moved in on me. Dempsey jumped into the picture and grabbed the two hooligans around the neck and pulled them back.

  "Help your friend out of here," he said.

  The two men helped red up off the floor. Red stared at me, pain etched on his face, trying to suck in the oxygen that his lungs were rejecting.

  "Did I say that I didn't like to be violent? I lied," I said.

  They dragged red to the back of the room and through a door. Dempsey turned to me with a scowl on his face. "What did you say to her?"

  “I said I was sorry,” I said. “She didn’t want to hear it.”

  "Maybe she wasn’t ready to hear it."

  "It's been ten years. I thought she'd be ready to hear it by now."

  "It hasn’t been ten years, Joe. It has been less than a week since she heard you were back in town. When you left her high and dry that summer, she shut down. She wouldn’t talk to anyone. Whenever I tried to talk to her about it, she would tell me that you were coming back. And you never did. You broke something inside of her that day, Joe. Don’t get the mistake that we are buddies, because we’re not. I’ve been trying to be nice, but I hate you as much as I hate anyone for what you did to my little girl. So finish your wine and get the hell out of here.”

  I loved Rae Dempsey and I suppose that I always would. I thought that had disappeared forever into the long dark tunnel of my past. I finished my wine and went home to Michael's apartment. I fumbled through my pockets for my keys and unlocked the door. I swung open the door and entered the apartment. A breeze came through a window on the far side of the room. I shut the door behind me. I hadn't left a window open. It was then I realized that I wasn't alone. Before I could do anything, someone hit me from behind. I heard a crashing noise and a big pool of light flashed out over my eyes. I fell to my knees. A little hole opened up in the ground in front of me like a drainpipe. I dove in head first. How I could fit into such a tiny little hole was a mystery. I just squeezed in and everything was dark and cold, but somehow comfortable. As I slithered slowly through that little pipe like a snake, I heard a door open and shut.

  16

  It was still dark outside when I regained consciousness. I reached for the lamp that had been on a table by the couch earlier in the day and noticed it was on the ground. There was a hot sticky substance on the back of my head. I searched for another light switch and finally found one on the wall. The apartment had been ransacked. Furniture was overturned, shelves were torn down and clothes strewn all over the place. Why? What was someone looking for here? Is that what happened to my brother? Did he catch someone he knew going through his apartment?

  I wandered into the bathroom and took a look in the mirror at my head. My hair was matted down with blood, but the bleeding seemed to have stopped. I cleaned the wound the best I could with some soap and water. It didn't seem that any glass had imbedded itself into my scalp. My ears buzzed like a streetlight. I decided on a trip to the emergency room.

  At the hospital a nurse took a look at the wound and picked some glass out of the wound. She wrapped my head in a bandage. They checked my eyes, ears and other things. Finally, they came to the conclusion that I hadn't suffered any permanent damage, although a mild concussion caused the ringing. They warned me that I shouldn't sleep for a few hours and asked if I had anyone that could sit with me. After assuring them that I did, I went home. I suddenly felt very alone.

  Whoever had hit me on the head left no trace. I wondered if I should call the police and decided that there was no point. I was dead tired by the time I got home, so I ignored the doctor's advice and passed out. It was creepy sleeping in my brother's bed at first, but I was too tired to give a damn.

  I slept late and headed to The Malice Times at a little after one in the afternoon. I had an idea about how to gather some information. Regina was sitting at her new computer typing away.

  “Those came fast,” I said.

  “Was on the phone right after the meeting and got them ordered. Had them rushed over and they were installed while you were enjoying your very late morning.

  “Sorry, rough night.”

  “I can see that,” she said looking at the bandage on my head.

  "What are you typing?" I asked.

  "An e-mail to my mother."

  “Your mother has e-mail?”

  “The nursing home has AOL accounts for some of the residents. Most of the older folks think it is crazy, but she likes getting them.”

  I noticed the picture of the gray-haired woman on her desk again and picked it up.

  "This her?"

  "You are a good detective." Besides the gray hair and wrinkles of age, they looked almost identical.

  "Where is this nursing home?"

  "Upstate New York," she said.

  "How old is she?"

  "Sixty-five," she said. "I'm the youngest of six."

  "She's awfully young to be in a home."

  Her body went rigid. "She had a stroke a few years ago. There are still some days when she can read my e-mails and know who they're from."

  "What about your father?"

  "I never knew my father,” she said and stopped typing. “I had a different father than my brothers and sisters. Their dad died before I was born. I was the result of an affair our mother had afterwards.”

  "Sorry. Didn’t mean to pry.”

  “So what did you want? You didn't come to me for my life story?"

  "Who says I didn't?"

  "Me.” She sent off her e-mail and looked up at me expectantly.

  "All right. Where are the archives?"

  "Follow me." She stood up, stretched out her tiny skirt and walked towards the door. I followed her down the steps and into the printing room. The machines were stopped at this time of the day. The morning edition had already been printed and was being sent out to be delivered. She took me to a locked door in the back of the room. She unlocked the door and led me in. It was a big room with filing cabinets on all sides. I walked into the middle and noticed two doorways on either side of the room.

  I pointed to the two doors. “Where do they lead to?"

  "The one on the right is 1926 to 1955. On the left is 1956 to 1985. Then in here is the present stuff. We try to keep ten years’ worth in this room. Is there anything in particular that you're looking for?"

  "Anything that might help me get up to speed with the old home town."

  "Could you be any more vague?”

  "Is there anybody in the office that can help you?"

  "Gertie, I suppose."

  "Who's she?"

  "Older woman, gray hair, glasses. Does the social scene," she said trying to be helpful. It wasn't. I just shrugged my shoulders and told her to get Gertie down here and to find anything that related to my father, Dempsey, Watkins, Archer, Drake, Joshua and Brad Graber. To start with the most recent and work her way back and make up a report to give me at the end of the day. She shrugged and said she would.

  I was back up in my office and rummaging through the papers on my desk when I came across the lease for the Malice Times. I read through it again and the number sequence jumped out at me like an eyesore. The numbers, 13-05-22, were written very clearly across the bottom of the lease. Combination to a safe, but where? I hadn’t seen one at the apartment. I searched the office, but couldn't find anything. I looked behind all of the paintings. I even felt the walls for a switch that would pop open a secret panel, but I found nothing.

  I walked out of the office and back down to where Gertie and Regina were sitting in front of two microfiche machines. I could see news articles displayed on both screens. They had notepads sitting on the desk to their right. Stacks of boxes sat to the left.

  “I hate those thi
ngs,” I said.

  Regina looked up at me and smiled. “Good thing you have me then.” Gertie sneered at me and went back to reading, jotting down a note.

  "Do you know if my brother had a safe here?" I asked Regina.

  "Oh, I'm sorry," she said. "I should have said something earlier, but I totally forgot."

  "That's all right," I said trying to sound as little irritated as possible. "So, there is a safe?"

  "Yes."

  "Where?" Irritation filled my body.

  She walked towards me as if she were going to embrace me, but walked past me instead. I could smell the faint smell of her perfume, an unobtrusive scent, that she wore lightly the way perfume was meant to be worn, not the stuff some women wear that knocks men, women and children out unconscious on the street. She brushed up against me. The irritation magically evaporated. "I'll show you."

  She led me out of the archives room and into the printing room. Charles walked in and saw me. He waved a big hand in my direction and said, "How you doing boss?"

  "Pretty good," I said. "How's your wife?"

  "Just as ornery as ever. Can you believe she's decided that we shouldn't drink anymore? She won't buy me my beer. Dumped it all out."

  I laughed and followed Regina back to my new office. Once she had entered, she turned, smiled and pointed at the beautiful cuckoo clock by the door, which really wasn’t a cuckoo clock. It was fake with painted hands marking the time as two-thirty.

  "You've got to be kidding," I said.

  I moved over by the clock and inspected it and then I saw it. There was a button with the @ symbol in the middle of the clock where the minute and hour hands met in the center. I pushed the button and heard a click. I let go of the button, heard another click and tried to pull the clock. It didn't budge. Regina stood there looking amused. She wasn’t going to help me until I asked politely. After puzzling over the problem for a moment I pushed the button once again, heard the click and let go and heard another click. I pushed the button again and while holding down the button pulled on the clock. The clock and a portion of the wall swung open to the left, exposing a combination safe built into the wall. Regina clapped gently.