James Siegel - Deceit

Once upon a time, my dad bought me a Hardy Boys crime-detection magnifying glass on the last birthday we celebrated as a family. After he left, I would sit outside in the searing afternoon sun and train the glass on my naked palm until blisters formed and I couldn’t stand the pain.

That’s what Mr. Birdwell’s smile felt like on my quickly retreating back. It burned a hole in me.

Where was I?

I’m losing track here.

Maybe because I’ve eaten once in the last two days. Make that three days-I’m not sure. I’m all out of Nabisco crackers-that’s the sad truth. No more Tostitos or Jolly Ranchers or beef jerky, provisions scored from my last foraging expedition to 7-Eleven, when I emerged from the motel room wearing Ray-Bans and a cowboy hat and scared the 7-Eleven clerk half to death. When I pulled out my loose cash, she looked relieved that it wasn’t a gun.

I have to take precautions.

They’re looking for me. I am a marked man.

Where was I?

Finding the note?

I’ve been through that, correct? The note from Benjy , complete with postscript greetings from the mysterious Kara. Kara Bolka. Who’s this Kara anyway? Benjy’s wife? His girlfriend?

Hold on. Be patient. Soon enough you’ll know who Kara Bolka is. You’ll know who everyone is. Soon enough you’ll know about the accident, about everything. The dead will all stand up and take a bow.

Not yet.

I need to pick up the thread.

To sew things up nicely and neatly, even professionally.

My journalism professor used to say that every reporter has one great story in them.

This is mine.

I told you about the note. I distinctly remember telling you about it.

Happy hundred birthday.

Love, Benjy.

Greetings from Kara Bolka.

Like a haiku.

Haikus may read simple, but they’re infused with mystery.

Wait.

Did I mention my Miata? That it broke down?

No, not the first time, at the bowling alley.

The second time, four blocks away from the nursing home.

I was driving, then I wasn’t.

The engine went dead, and the car lurched to the side of the street like the victim of a stroke.

I was pissed off on two counts.

No car and no air-conditioning.

It was wicked hot.

On the other hand, at least I had a chance. Something about a loose coil wire, Anna had said. I had a clue.

I lifted up the sizzling hood and looked inside with a vague sense of hope. I zeroed in on the place I’d seen Anna poking around. Sure enough, there it was-a loose wire hanging out of the fuselage.

I managed to reconnect it. I was about to shut the hood when I noticed the words written on my transmission cover. I believe it’s a transmission cover.

Someone’s finger had traced the letters through the built-up grime.

It was an SN. Screen name, for those of you who haven’t yet joined the Internet generation.

AOL: Kkraab.

Anna had left me the modern equivalent of her phone number.

I thought that was kind of cute. Okay, more than that.

I’m not going to pretend casual indifference. I hadn’t had a woman I liked like me for a while. It had been a long time between watering holes-a bedouin expression.

I was parched.

When I got back home, I tried it out. I signed onto AOL, where I was known as Starreport, a screen moniker I’d taken before Ken Starr spent 80 million taxpayer dollars investigating oral sex. Also before my own actions made a derivation of star reporter farcical in the extreme.

I’d never bothered to change it.

The profile for Kkraab read as follows:

Name: Anna Graham.

Location: The State of Confusion and occasional Kkrabbiness.

Gender: Guess.

Marital Status: Isn’t that an oxymoron?

Hobbies and Interests: I play the conundrums.

Occupation: Yes.

Her personal quote was a song lyric from one Robert Zimmerman, a.k.a. Bob Dylan: You better start swimming or you’ll sink like a stone.

It was hard to resist a profile like that-especially her homage to one of the seminal songs of the twentieth century, a personal favorite of mine already safely ensconced in my iPod.

I checked to see if Kkraab was currently online. She wasn’t.

I sent her an e-mail.

At least, I attempted to. I tried to strike the right balance between casual friendliness and raging lust. To do so in a manner that seemed remotely intelligent and witty.

I was stuck on Hello .

Like I said, it had been awhile. I used to be able to manufacture flirtatious banter with no trouble at all. Of course, that was back when I was manufacturing news stories. Perhaps they went hand in hand, creating fiction about other people or myself. Isn’t that what people do in the gloom of bars-make up personas they hope will get someone else to like them?

Now that I wasn’t making things up anymore, I was finding it difficult to construct a complete sentence to Anna.

I managed.

Hello, Anna, I wrote.

Good thing my coil wire came loose again or it might’ve been awhile before I saw your message.

I briefly considered whether that might’ve occurred to Anna as well and if she might’ve loosened it on purpose. No-believing that for one instant was the height of hubris.

I was hoping I would run into you again. I was considering driving to Santa Monica and taking a seat on the Third Street Promenade until you passed by. Are you still in town? If so, I’d love to buy you a drink. Or an island. Whatever it takes

After I sent it, I thought it smacked of desperation.

Too late. There might be a way to cancel a sent e-mail, but I didn’t know it.

It reminded me of high school. Blabbing something into the phone and instantly regretting it.

Then again, maybe she was desperate, too.

There was a lot of desperation going around these days.

Bowling night.

Muhammed Alley was unusually crowded. Unusually noisy, too-even for a bowling alley. For some reason the women’s league had been forced to switch nights.

Sam began the evening by propositioning me about buying life insurance again. I declined again.

Seth was another matter. He was acting weirdly hyper-a 2-year-old in dire need of Ritalin. Every time he threw a strike, he gave an impromptu rendition of “Who Let the Dogs Out”-the guttural choral part. Ooho-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh , accompanied by a series of Lil’ Kim-like pelvic thrusts.

Some of the women bowling four lanes down froze in mid-throw to watch him, as if they couldn’t quite believe what they were witnessing.

I questioned Marv about my car problems.

“Coil wire, huh? Bring it in and I’ll take a look,” he said. “Gratis.”

“Thanks.”

“No problemo.”

Marv was famously low-key, the kind of person who might actually watch grass grow and get a kick out of it. A demeanor you’d want at the other end of a suicide hotline. If I ever contemplated offing myself again, I’d call Marv.

Now I was contemplating other things.

The accident investigation was going nowhere. When Sheriff Swenson returned my call-after several days-he’d greeted my news about Cleveland having no record of Ed Crannell with a barely suppressed yawn. It was an accident , he reminded me. Meaning, who cared about finding Ed Crannell?

There was also the intriguing but ultimately unfathomable note from Benjy.

And there was Anna.

She’d actually gotten back to me.

I’ll take the island , she wrote. Palm trees and warm water preferable. While you’re shopping, I’ll take a cosmo.

It was kind of pathetic how happy I was to receive three lines. As if she’d whispered the three little words . I immediately e-mailed her back. We were meeting tomorrow night at Violetta’s Emporium, the only decent Italian restaurant in town.