Stuart Kaminsky - Midnight Pass

“Which says?”

“Mother and children present at a suspicious death. Mother in bed with a man who wasn’t her husband. Family bears watching. We add that to the complaint about them from before and…I don’t know.”

“What?”

“Report on Stark,” she said. “Lost his wife. Had some trouble with the law when he was young, but he’s been a regular churchgoer for years. Upstanding businessman. Volunteer at the food bank.”

“And child molester?” I added.

“Nothing in his past and no proof but Janice Severtson’s word,” said Sally. “Neither child remembers ever being touched by Stark.”

“It would have happened. It was about to happen.”

“But it didn’t,” Sally said. “Can you do me a favor and write out your version of what you know happened, what she told you, how Kenny and Sydney behaved? I’ll attach it to my report and list you as a semiretired former member of the Office of State Attorney of Cook County, Illinois.”

“When do you need it?”

“Soon,” she said. “Tomorrow? The kids want to go to the movies Saturday. How about coming over here for dinner and you join us?”

Sally couldn’t help it. It was her mission. Saving children and reclusive process servers. She knew I didn’t like going to the movies. I preferred my cot, something old in black-and-white, and being alone. She had made progress with me. I had gone out to restaurants alone with Sally five times, and seven or eight times with her and kids. The kids liked The Bangkok. Susan liked getting a sugar high on Thai iced tea.

The rain started to come down harder. I could hear it beating on the concrete outside my door.

“Dinner is fine,” I said. “I’ll let you know about the movie.”

“I was just joking when I called you Mr. Sunshine,” Susan suddenly came on.

“I know,” I said. “You know any real jokes?”

“Sure. Blond jokes. Lots of them. Why?”

“I’m collecting them for a friend I have to see in the morning.”

Susan told me a joke. I jotted it down in my notebook and thanked her and then Sally came back on.

“Tomorrow,” she said. “Afternoon. I have to be in court in the morning. Another crack child is going to be given back to his mother who just got out of rehab.”

“And you’ll fight it.”

“And lose,” Sally said. “And then I’ll have the case back in a month or two or five and we’ll start the same cycle again. Listen to me. I’m starting to sound like you.”

“Did you hear the joke Susan just told me?” I asked.

“No.”

“Ask her to tell it to you. I think it will make you smile.”

“Did it make you smile, Lew?”

“No,” I admitted. “I’ll see you tomorrow afternoon sometime.”

When we hung up, I turned off the office light, went into my cubbyhole room, hit the light switch, and got undressed. I put on a fresh pair of underwear, turned on the VCR and the television, and popped Forbidden Destiny into the slot.

I watched George Nader and Ernest Borgnine plan a bank robbery before Claire Collins appeared, her hair swept back, a knowing smile on her face, a dark sweater and skirt, her mouth pouting, her eyes darting.

When it was over, I turned off the television with the remote and lay in the dark listening to the rain.

Tomorrow was a busy day. I hated busy days.

The rain had stopped by morning but the sky was still dark and the DQ parking lot wet with puddles where the concrete was indented. Cars kicked up splashes and small waves on 301. My watch told me it was eight o’clock.

The phone rang. I got to it before the answering machine kicked in.

“Fonesca,” I said.

“You know where the Seventeenth Street softball fields are?” Kevin Hoffmann asked, full of energy.

“I can find them,” I said.

“Go east down Seventeenth past Beneva,” he said. “You’ll see the sign on the right. Drive past the big enclosed field where people run their dogs, and park in the lot. You’ll see the fields. I’ll be at the first diamond on your right.”

“When?”

“If the rain doesn’t come back, we’ll start our first game in about half an hour.”

“I’ve got a ten o’clock appointment,” I said.

“It won’t take long,” he said.

“I can come to your house later,” I said.

“I think it’ll be better if you stay away from my house,” he said.

“And from William Trasker?”

“Healthier,” he said.

“For who?”

“Everyone involved. Get to the game as soon as you can.”

I hung up, checked my watch again. I had time.

I put on clean underwear and my jeans, picked up my clean towel and green plastic bag with my soap, razor, toothbrush and toothpaste, and went out on the landing. The air was heavy and wet and I didn’t want to deal with it.

The rest room was empty. Digger had moved up in the world, at least for now. The mirror could have been cleaner, but it was clean enough to show me the thin, hairy-chested bald man with sad, brown eyes.

“Good morning,” I said to myself.

The guy in the mirror didn’t think so. Besides, he needed a shave. Washed, clean-shaven, and toothbrushed, I left the rest room with the towel around my neck and my green plastic bag under my arm.

I had left the door unlocked.

Digger sat in the chair across my desk. He looked relatively clean and very nervous.

“The door was open,” he said.

I nodded.

“I came in,” he said. “Can we talk?”

“I’m going down to Gwen’s for breakfast,” I said, moving toward the back room. “I’ll buy you breakfast.”

“That’d be nice,” he said. “Very nice.”

I put on a shirt, white socks, and sneakers, and motioned for Digger to follow me. When we were on the landing, I locked the door.

“I’m scared,” Digger said as we went down the stairs. “I gotta dance tonight. I don’t think I can do it.”

“You can do it,” Knute Fonesca said evenly.

“No, it’s too late. Life waltzed right by me while I was two-stepping in the desert of despair for all these years,” Digger said.

“Colorful talk for a frightened dance instructor. Talk like that to the old ladies and you’ll have your salary doubled in a month.”

We crossed the DQ parking lot and turned right, staying as far away as possible from the curb where cars were spraying rainwater as they passed. We passed the workout club, antique shop, and a storefront for rent before we got to the diner.

Gwen’s Diner is a holdover from a few years before the day Elvis supposedly came in and bought two cheeseburgers and a Coke sometime in the Fifties. A poster of Elvis, guitar in hand, mouth open, arm reaching up in midsong, hung on the wall with a little index card Scotch-taped to it with Elvis’s autograph.

If you sat in the right place at the counter, you could see both Elvis and any collisions that might take place where 301 met the curve at Tamiami Trail.

People who had been coming here regularly for a decade or two called the place Gwen’s II. No one remembers the original Gwen’s, if there ever was one. The place was owned and run now by a woman named Sheila and her two daughters, one of whom, Jesse, was eighteen and about to graduate a year late at Sarasota High School a block away. She was a year late because she had taken time out to have her second baby. The other daughter, Jean, had graduated a year ago. They were all natural blonds and all able to deflect a sharp or heavy innuendo with the skill of a seasoned and well-armed gladiator.

Digger and I took a booth in the no-smoking section. The no-smoking section was four booths against one wall with smokers surrounding it.

Gwen’s was busy, and the three women were scurrying around but making it look easy, taking care of the counter-sitters and going from a table of roofers, to a single car salesman reading his newspaper, to three women who looked as if they were just going to or coming from the fitness center Digger and I had passed on our way here.