Stuart Kaminsky - Bright Futures

“Mr. Gloom and Mr. Doom,” said Darrell. “You didn’t answer your damn phone. I broke out because I have to tell you something, Lew Fonesca.”

“Tell it,” I said.

“You should have brought more pizza.”

“That’s what you have to tell me?”

“Hell no. I had a visitor during the night in the hospital. I was asleep and drugged up. Room was dark. Machine was beep-beep-beeping, you know. Then I heard him.”

“Who?”

“A man, I think, or maybe a woman. He was across the room in the dark. He thought I was asleep. At least I think he thought I was asleep. He said something like, ‘I’m sorry. My fault. Silky sad uncertain curtains.’ Shit like that. Creepy. Then he said he had to go but he’d be back. I could do without his coming back. So, I got up and

…”

“Anything you could tell from his voice?” I asked. “Young? Old?”

“Like I said, couldn’t tell,” said Darrell. “No, wait. He had one of those English accents, like that actor.”

“Edgar Allen Poe,” said Ames.

“Edgar Allen Poe, the guy who wrote those scary movies?” asked Darrell.

“‘The silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain wrought its ghost upon the floor,’ ” said Ames.

“Yeah, creepy shit like that.”

“It’s from a poem by Poe, ‘The Raven,’ ” said Ames.

“I guess. You know him? This Poe guy?”

“He’s been dead for a hundred and fifty years,” I said.

I knew one person involved in all this that had what might pass for an English accent.

“I don’t believe in ghosts,” said Darrell. “You should have bought more pizza. Next time just make it sausage.”

“Let’s get you back to the hospital.”

“Let’s order a pizza to go,” said Darrell. “Do that and I go back to the hospital.”

“Ames and Victor will get you the pizza and take you back to the hospital.”

Darrell looked decidedly unwell when they went through the door. I called Information and let them connect me with the number I wanted. The woman who answered had a pleasant voice and a British accent. She told me that Winston Churchill Graeme wasn’t home from school yet, but soon would be. She asked if I wanted to leave a message. I said no.

When I hung up I walked over to the wall where the Stig Dalstrom paintings were and looked for truth in black jungles and mountains and the twisted limbs of trees. I focused on the lone spot of yellow in one of the paintings. It was a butterfly.

I folded the empty pizza box and carried it out with me. At the bottom of the steps I dropped the box into one of the three garbage cans and called Sally. With no preamble, I said, “We found Darrell.”

“Where?”

“My place. Ames and Victor are taking him back to the hospital.”

“I’ll call his mother.”

“Are you at work?”

“Yes.”

“What can you tell me about Winston Churchill Graeme?”

Twenty minutes later I was parked about half a block down and across the street from the Graeme home on Siesta Key. The house was in an ungated community called Willow Way. The house was a lot smaller than others in the community, but it wasn’t a mining shack.

Winn Graeme hadn’t called back to set up a time to talk. I wondered why.

I didn’t think Winn Graeme was home yet but, just to be sure, I called the house. I was wrong again. He answered the phone.

“This is Lew Fonesca,” I said.

“Yes?”

“I’m parked on your street, half a block West.”

“Why?”

“I’d like you to come out and talk.”

“You can come in.”

“I don’t think you want your mother to hear what we have to talk about.”

“I don’t…”

“Your visit to the hospital last night.”

It was one of those silences, and then, “I’ll be right out.”

There was no one on the street. A white compact car was parked in the driveway of the house from which Winn Graeme emerged. The house was at the top of a short incline with stone steps leading down to the narrow sidewalk. Trees and bushes swayed in the cool wind from off the Gulf.

Winn saw my car, adjusted his glasses, and headed toward me. He walked along the sidewalk, back straight, carrying a blue gym bag. He walked like a jock and looked like a jock.

He opened the passenger side door and leaned over to look at me before he decided to get in. The door squeaked. He placed the gym bag on the floor in front of him.

“I have soccer practice in half an hour,” he said, turning his head toward me. “Someone is picking me up.”

“We shouldn’t be long,” I said. “You have a car?”

“Yes,” he said. “It’s in the garage. Why?”

“Early this morning,” I said. “Say about two o’clock. Where were you?”

“Why?”

“Darrell Caton,” I said. “The hospital.”

Winn Graeme took off his glasses, cleaned them with his shirt and looked through the front window into a distance that offered no answers. Then he nodded, but I wasn’t sure whether he was answering my question or one he had asked himself.

“Is he going to be all right?”

“I don’t know.”

“We’re fragile creatures,” he said.

“You told him you were sorry. Sorry for what?”

“For not stopping what happened.”

“Greg shot Darrell, right?”

No answer from Winn, so I went on.

“He was aiming at me, but Darrell got in the way.”

Still no response.

“Okay, not Greg. You shot Darrell.”

Now he looked at me, and I at him. I saw a boy. I wondered what kind of man he was looking at.

“To scare you into stopping your investigation,” Winn said.

“First he hires me and then he tries to stop me,” I said.

He said nothing, just nodded, and then, after heaving a breath as if he were about to run a hundred-yard dash, he spoke.

“He found out something after he hired you, something that made him want you to stop. Firing you didn’t work. You found someone else to pay you. So he tried to frighten you into stopping. He hoped you would weigh your safety and possibly your life against the few dollars you were getting. He only made it worse.”

“He shot at me in the car with Augustine, and then he shot Darrell.”

“Who’s Augustine?”

“Cyclops.”

Winn looked out his window. A woman was walking a small white dog. She was wearing a business suit and carrying an empty poop bag. Winn seemed to find the woman and dog fascinating.

“Both times he shot at me he sent someone else to the hospital,” I said.

“Your life is charmed.”

“No, Greg’s a terrible shot.”

The god of irony was at it again.

“Blue Berrigan,” I said. No response, so I repeated, “Blue Berrigan.”

“The clown,” he said softly.

“He wasn’t a clown.”

“Greg didn’t do that.”

“Horvecki?”

“Greg didn’t do that. We weren’t unhappy about it, but he didn’t do that.”

“Did you?”

“No,” he said.

A yellow and black Mini Cooper turned the corner and came to a stop in front of the Graeme house.

“I’ve got to go,” he said. “I told you all this because I’m sorry that I didn’t do anything to stop Greg. He’s my friend. Whatever I’ve said here I’ll deny ever saying.”

“Why?” I said though I knew the answer.

“Why what?”

He had the door open now.

“Why is he your friend?”

“We need each other,” he said as he got out of the car. “Greg didn’t kill anybody.”

He closed the door, crossed the street and raised his hand in greeting to the boy who leaned out of the window of the Mini Cooper.

The boy in the car was Greg Legerman.

Greg looked back at me and ducked back through the window. Winn Graeme crawled in on the passenger side, and they drove off.