James Burke - Light of the World

“What about her?”

“You don’t think the same guy who killed Angel Deer Heart might have kidnapped the waitress?”

“There’s no evidence linking the two cases.”

“I’m trying to track your logic, Detective. The stuff you ain’t been able to find somehow proves there ain’t no relationship between the two cases?”

“Maybe you ought to apply for a job with the sheriff’s department in Mineral County. You could conduct your own investigation.”

“I’ll think about it.”

The detective picked up the boot and replaced it in the sack. “I thought we might have our man,” he said. “Too bad.”

“Are you supposed to give away the name of a suspect in a photo lineup?”

“What difference does it make? You said he’s not our guy.”

Wyatt picked up his gin bottle from the grass and flipped it in the air and caught it. “You said something about me riding a woman hard and putting her away wet. Was you talking about Miss Bertha or not?”

There was a long silence. “It was just a joke.”

“A joke about Miss Bertha?”

The detective’s throat bladed with color. “I wasn’t talking about any woman in particular,” he said. “No, I wasn’t saying anything about her.”

“That’s what I thought,” Wyatt said.

It was evening before Wyatt Dixon worked up the courage to go see Bertha Phelps. He rode the elevator up to her apartment overlooking the Clark Fork and knocked. When she opened the door, it was hooked on the chain. He saw her nostrils swell. “Have you been drinking?” she said.

“I was. I ain’t now.”

“Is that detective out there?”

“No. He come to my house, though. You want me to go away?”

“I just don’t like to see you hurt yourself. If you want to know the truth, I’ve been awfully worried.” She slid the chain and opened the door. “I didn’t think you were a drinking man.”

“I ain’t. At least not the hard stuff.”

“You sit down at the table. I’m going to fix you a cup of coffee and a plate of lasagna. I called you three times. Why didn’t you answer?”

“I was out of sorts. I get that way sometimes.”

“Because I deceived you?”

“That plainclothes detective said you spoke up for me.”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“Did you know there’s people that’s not capable of doing wrong, at least not deliberately?” he said.

“You fixing to give me a compliment? If you are, don’t. I don’t care for flattery, Wyatt.”

“You’re one of them kind, Miss Bertha. You’re a good lady with a big heart.”

“Don’t be calling me ‘miss’ anymore, either.”

He sat down at the table by the window. There were children riding the wooden horses on the carousel, each of them leaning far out of the saddle to grab the brass ring that guaranteed them a free ride. “Did you study history in college?” he asked.

“I went to business school. I’m not as highly educated as you think.”

“I’m looking for a preacher who calls hisself Geta Noonen. I couldn’t find nobody by that name on the Internet. You ever hear the name Geta before?”

“Not that I recall.”

“I did a Google search on it. There was a Roman emperor with that name. He was the brother of a guy named Caracalla.”

“I don’t understand what we’re talking about.” She took a plate of lasagna out of the microwave with a dish towel and carried it to the table. “Start eating. You need to start taking a whole lot better care of yourself.”

“When this guy Caracalla wasn’t building baths, he was killing people, including his brother Geta.”

“Why are you looking for this preacher?”

“I think maybe he kidnapped that waitress up by the Idaho line. I don’t believe he’s a preacher. I think he’s somebody who comes from a place people don’t want to study on.”

“Those are the shadows of the heart speaking. It’s part of our upbringing that we have to get rid of, Wyatt.”

“I didn’t learn about evil in a church house. I learned about it from my fellow man.”

“That’s because you never knew love. You have to forget those years in prison and forgive the people who hurt you.”

“I ain’t real big on the latter.”

“It’ll happen one day down the road. Then your life will change. In the meantime, just be the man you are.”

“That preacher may be the man who killed your brother.”

She brought him a cup of coffee and sat down across the table from him. Through the window, he could hear the music from the carousel. “I don’t want to talk about that anymore,” she said. “I want to let go of all the evil in the world and never have it in my life again.”

“Why would a phony preacher choose the name of a Roman emperor?”

“You mustn’t drink anymore,” she said.

“I won’t.”

“Please don’t go out and do something you’ll regret.” When he didn’t reply, she said, “Are you going to answer me?”

He put the tines of his fork through a piece of lasagna and placed it in his mouth, gazing out the window at the redness of the sun on the river and the way the children kept grabbing at the brass ring, no matter how many times their outstretched fingers went flying past it.

The day was cooling, the leaves scudding along the concrete walkways, more like fall than summer. Wyatt felt a chill in his body that he couldn’t explain. “I never make plans. Nobody knows what’s gonna happen tomorrow. So there ain’t no use in planning for it. That’s the way I see it.”

“You can choose to be the person you want, can’t you?”

“What some call revenge, I call justice.”

“They’re not the same.”

“Is this food Italian?”

“Don’t hurt me any more than you have. Don’t you seek revenge in my name.”

“I ain’t meant to hurt you, Bertha. You ever been on a carousel?”

“When I was a child.”

“Let’s go down there and take a ride in those big seats for adults. Then we’ll go for ice cream,” he said.

“If that’s what you want,” she replied.

“See the sky? It looks like it’s raining way out there on the edge of the world, like you could sail right into it and leave all your cares behind. That’s what I’d like to do one day, with you at my side. Just sail right off the edge of the earth into the rain.”

That same evening Gretchen Horowitz lay on her stomach in front of Albert’s television set, on the bottom floor of the house, and watched a DVD of the cable series The Borgias . She watched it for three hours. Albert came downstairs from the kitchen with a cup of cocoa and a plate of graham crackers. “I thought you might like these,” he said.

“Pardon?” she said, not taking her eyes from the screen.

“I’ll put them down here,” he replied, and turned to go.

She paused the show with the remote. “That’s nice of you,” she said.

“What do you like most about that series?”

“It reminds me of The Godfather . I think The Godfather is the best movie ever made. Every scene is a short story that can stand by itself.”

“Really?” he said.

She turned on her side and looked up at him. “See, The Godfather is not about the Mob. It’s about Elizabethan tragedy. Have you ever met anybody in the Mob?”

“I don’t recall anyone introducing himself to me that way. Do they hand out business cards?”

She ignored his joke. “Most of them are dumb and smell like hair oil and garlic. My mother used to be the house prostitute in three hotels on Miami Beach. She did the Arabs for a while, then went back to screwing the greaseballs. On balance, I think the greaseballs were the bigger challenge. I think that’s why she got out of the life.”