Stuart Kaminsky - Denial

I didn’t want a baby’s life literally in my hands. I don’t trust fate and I know if there is a God or gods, devils or demons, they can play games a certified sociopath might admire.

Flo came back with a colorful Indian blanket and rolled it out on the living room floor. Adele loosened the baby’s grip on her hair and placed Catherine on the blanket on her stomach, facing us. The baby lifted her head unsteadily, hands pushing against the rug, and looked at me. Our eyes met.

“Lew,” said Flo. “Lew.”

The thought had crept up on me. My wife, Catherine, and I might have had a baby like the one who was looking up at me if a hit-and-run driver on Lake Shore Drive in Chicago hadn’t killed her four years ago.

“Yes,” I said.

“You all right?” asked Adele, coming to my side. Roy Rogers had stopped and Johnny Cash was singing about killing a man in Reno as I rejoined the living.

Adele was about my height, blonde, clear-skinned and definitely pretty. She had lost the touch of baby fat shortly after I first met her.

“How’s school?” I asked.

Catherine rolled over onto her back.

“Straight A’s, arts editor of the paper,” Flo said.

Catherine rolled onto her stomach, heading toward the edge of the rug. As she rolled again, Adele stepped over and put her back in the center of the rug. Flo picked up a red plastic baby toy that looked like a ball with handles and placed it in front of the baby.

“How’s life treating you, Mr. F?” Adele said.

I knew how life had treated Adele. Her father had sold her to a local pimp when she was thirteen. Her father had murdered her mother. Adele had gotten into an affair with the married son of a famous man when she was fifteen, who had taken her in. Result: Catherine was named for my wife. Catherine’s father was serving a life term for murder. And yet there was Adele smiling, finishing high school, and writing award-winning stories that were sure to get her an invitation to major universities.

“Fine,” I said.

“He’s been bumping into things,” said Flo.

Johnny Cash was finished. The Sons of the Pioneers were now singing “Cool Water.”

I drank some Diet Dr Pepper and watched Catherine suck on one of the handles of the circle.

“You know a boy named Kyle McClory?” I asked as Adele sat cross-legged on the rug next to the baby.

“Knew,” Adele said. “He got killed about a week ago. Hit-and-run.”

“How well did you know him?” I asked.

“Hardly,” she said. “He was a freshman. Two years apart in age. Two decades apart in life school. He was a kid. You trying to find the driver, right?”

“Yes. I’m working for his mother.”

“Wait, wait,” said Flo. “How’s knowing about the boy going to help you find some hit-and-run drunk?”

“He thinks maybe Kyle was murdered, right, Mr. F.?” Adele was smiling, her hand gently rubbing the back of the baby, who was totally absorbed with the difficult choice between which handles of the toy she was going to put in her mouth.

“It’s possible,” I said. “What about Yolanda Root? Kyle’s sister.”

Adele looked up and said, “Half sister. She wants no part of Doc McClory or his name. He wants no part of her. Probably the only thing they ever agreed on. Her, I can tell you a whole lot about. What are you thinking, Mr. F? Someone ran down her kid brother to get back at Yolanda or something?”

“I don’t know.”

And I didn’t

Flo had sat on the sofa, diet drink in hand, watching the baby.

“Yolanda’s two years older than me,” Adele said. “She just graduated. No, I take that back. She wasn’t graduated. She was ushered out after an extra year to make up the courses she had flunked. Haven’t really been in touch with her much since they handed her the diploma and probably asked her not to come back for reunions.”

Bob Nolan and the Sons of the Pioneers sang about someone who was a devil and not a man.

“Yolanda was trouble?” I said.

“Name it,” said Adele, gently rubbing her forehead against the top of the baby’s head. “Drugs, maybe even a little low-level dealing, men, boys, maybe even girls. She tried to come on to me back when I was with… you know. But she wasn’t good at it. She was just playing bad girl. You know? Diamond in her tongue, triple rings in one ear and makeup that said put up or shut up. This Goth is watching you. Tolstoy said you play a role long enough, you start becoming the character.”

“That’s what happened to Yolanda?”

Adele nodded.

“Possibility,” I said. “You think maybe someone might try to get back at her by going after her brother? Or maybe she got Kyle into something?”

“No,” she said. “She liked the kid, wanted to protect him, be big sister, which didn’t play well being who she was. Haven’t talked to Yola in, I don’t know, maybe a year.”

“Andrew Goines?”

“Who?”

“Friend of Kyle,” I said.

She shook her head. The name meant nothing to her.

At the door, Flo handed me what looked like a candy bar.

“PowerBar,” she said. “Super-high protein.”

I put it in my pocket.

“Thanks.”

“You don’t need an excuse, Lewis,” she said.

“Excuse?”

“For dropping in just to see Adele and the baby and, if I can flatter my old ass, to see me. You didn’t really need what you got from Adele. Lots of better ways you could have got it.”

“Yes,” I said. “I do need an excuse.”

She put a firm hand on my right arm and said, “Fooling God?” she said. “If he sees you getting too close to someone, he may play another one of his tricks on you?”

That wasn’t quite it, but it was close enough.

“Here,” she said, handing me something in a small white tube. “Rub it on your knee and shoulder. Hell, rub it on your ass if you’ve a mind to.”

“Thanks,” I said, putting the tube in my pocket.

“Happy trails,” she said and closed the door after me.

I made some turns, a right onto Webber, a left at Beneva, a U-turn and up to Bee Ridge to be sure no one was following me.

Maybe the guy who had tried to run me down had a life outside the one related to trying to kill me. Maybe he had a job, a family, places he was expected. Maybe he just went after me on his lunch hour. Then again, maybe not.

I drove back down Beneva, stopped at Shaner’s and picked up a pair of large pizzas, one with double onions and one with mushrooms and double sausage.

It was past seven. I drove to Sally’s apartment in the Alhambra. I took off my Cubs cap, tucked it into my back pocket and pushed the button. Susan opened the door.

Sally’s daughter was eleven, wore glasses, was dark like her mother, and spoke her mind, which at this moment told her to call over her shoulder, “Mr. Smiley Face is here.”

Michael appeared, tall, gangly, a head of curly hair and blue eyes, which he definitely got from his father.

“I thought we were going out,” Susan said.

“Something came up.”

“At least he comes bearing gifts,” Michael said.

“Mushroom and double sausage,” I said, holding out the pizzas.

Michael took both pizza boxes and with a hand on his sister’s shoulder, stepped back to let me in.

Sally came out of the tiny kitchen just off the dining room area. She had changed into a loose-fitting green dress. Michael and Susan had both boxes open on the dining room table and were reaching for pizza slices.

“You’re late,” Sally said quietly.

“Someone tried to kill me,” I said, low enough so the kids couldn’t hear me.

“Well,” she said. “I just got here a few minutes ago myself and I don’t have as good an excuse as you.”

“I’m not making a joke,” I said.