James Siegel - Epitaph

He'd tried his hand at security years before, Mr. Weeks began, but whether he'd resigned from it or whether he'd been forced to, the experience hadn't been pleasant and hadn't been long.

William picked forced to. Jean had always been a lot happier breaking laws than trying to enforce them. Does fox in the chicken coop ring a bell?

After that, Mr. Weeks continued, after a long while of doing nothing at all, really nothing, because Jean didn't read, or have a television, or even an interest, he tried to start over again. Another agency, a one-man agency. He found a storefront in Flushing, he fixed it up, he hung up a shingle. No one came. One look at the man in the one-man agency and would-be clients turned tail and ran.

"Christ, he should have been out on a golf course, they thought, maybe shuffleboard, maybe not even that, the exertion might have killed him, okay. He was seventy or so-and he looked ten years older," Mr. Weeks explained. Anyway, the agency went bust. Quickly. The store turned into a Cantonese Buffet, Jean went back to his room. "Then," Weeks sighed, "Jean maybe got a little desperate. A little seedy. That's what happens when no one wants you anymore and when you still think they should, when you think there's still a place for you." Yes, William thought. The secret, of course, is realizing there isn't. A place for you. That tends to ease your desperation just a little, or at least, keep it quiet. "Jean went looking for business, sort of," Mr. Weeks said. "Sort of, how?" "Well, he went looking for children"-Weeks winced here-"for runaways. He'd go down to the Port Authority, to the tunnel. Sometimes, he'd find them…" "And when he found them?" "He'd notify the parents," Weeks said. "Is that so? He'd notify them. How responsible of him. What a good citizen. That's all then…?" "He'd ask for the reward." "Sure. The reward. That's fair, isn't it, seeing as how he went to all that trouble. Just tell me one thing. Just asking, but what if there wasn't a reward?" "Well…" There was that wince again. "He'd name a figure I guess, a figure he thought was fair…" "Sure, Jean was always fair, wasn't he? But, just asking again, what if the parents, the ones he notified, didn't think the figure was fair? What if they maybe didn't have it, what if they were a little strapped for cash. What then?"

"Then?" Mr. Weeks wasn't happy now; William wasn't being friendly anymore, he wasn't being a friend of their old friend, laughing at his silly foibles, chuckling over those endearing eccentricities that made Jean such a card.

"Yes, then," William said. "The parents didn't have the money, let's just say they didn't, so our Jean would say, don't worry, if you don't, you don't, here's where your son is, your thirteen-year-old daughter, the one all the pimps are after, the one who's broken your heart. Here she is. Right, Mr. Weeks? That's what he'd do."

"Not exactly," Weeks said.

"Then what exactly?"

"If they didn't pay him the money, he'd hang up."

"Yeah," William said, "of course. I sort of thought that's what he'd do."

"You're just like Jean said you were," Weeks said.

So Jean hadn't just shown Weeks his picture; he'd provided commentary. Did I ever tell you about Father William, Father William and his confessional down the hall, Father William, whose wife was caught playing nooky with the Monsignor?

"What did he say?"

"He said you were a Boy Scout."

Okay, there was a definite change in tone emanating from Mr. Weeks's side of the room. No doubt about it. Mr. Weeks, who'd picked Jean's apartment clean of incriminating evidence, wasn't going to give up his friend without a fight. Maybe reliving the old days wasn't going to be such a hoot after all.

"Maybe just compared to him," William said. "Maybe compared to him, we all were."

"Look," Weeks said, "Jean thought if parents wouldn't pay the money, then they didn't really care."

"No," William said. "That might be what he said but that wasn't what he thought. What he thought was different. What he said was for us Boy Scouts. There's finding runaway kids and then there's selling them. Jean didn't distinguish. Jean wasn't a Boy Scout."

Mr. Weeks sighed, a sigh that seemed to say a lot, a sigh that said that maybe the jig was up.

"I told him I thought it was a little… sleazy. I told him that," he said.

"Sure. And I bet he cared too. By the way, why did he even bother telling you?"

"He said, you're my conscience, Weeks. That's what he said."

"Not a very big job, was it." Or maybe too big of a job, William thought. After all, there'd be so much to keep track of. You'd need to hire an assistant conscience too, then an assistant to the assistant and so on.

"Do you want me to go on?" Weeks said.

"Sure. I haven't heard how it ends yet. Jean's busy selling runaway kids, that's where we were up to. Sometimes they made it home, sometimes they ended up with the pimps. And then…?"

"Well… this."

"Yeah." William was all ears now. This. What I bequeath to you…

"Well," Weeks said, "to begin with, he was scared."

"Scared? How scared?"

"Very. Because, you see, I'd never seen it before, not from him. Jean wasn't exactly the emotional type. A little cool, if you know what I mean."

Sure. William knew what he meant. And maybe it wasn't coolness so much as coldness, which could be mistaken for coolness if you weren't careful, or if you happened to be a crazy neighbor who happened to like him.

"And then," Weeks said, "he comes in here one night looking like a ghost. Just like a ghost. Sits down in the chair-the one you're sitting on, and just sits. Sits and sits. Doesn't say anything. I think… I think, well…"

"Yeah? You think what?"

"I think maybe he wanted to be near someone, just that, just near them. And then after, oh, I don't know, an hour or so, he says, I've got a case, Weeks. Not some runaway-yes, I remember he says it just that way. Not some runaway."

"So…?"

"So I said, well, what is it, Jean? You look a little… sick. What is this case…?"

"And?"

"Big. That's what he says. Big. The biggest case of my life. That's what he says and that's all he says."

So, William thought. The biggest case of his life. Again. The woman hadn't gotten it wrong. Two people, his neighbor and his neighborhood hooker, and he told it the same way to both of them. I'm not in runaways anymore, he says, I'm back in the big time.

"And nothing more?" William asked.

"Nothing. Nothing said, anyway. But after that, I saw a lot less of him…"

"Nothing about who gave him the case? Who hired him? Nothing?"

"No. Just walked in here and said he had the biggest case of his life. That's all. That's it."

"Okay," William said, wanting to get him back on track now, this track which had seemed to be going somewhere promising but now seemed to be going nowhere fast. "You saw a lot less of him…"

"Yes. Once, when he came in to borrow some medicine…"

"Medicine?"

"Yes. He burnt himself cooking."

"And then?"

"Then, not for a while. More than a couple of weeks. Then he just showed up again. He came in here and told me about the file, told me where he kept it, behind the radiator. And he told me if anything happens to him, in case he ever gets hit by a car, or has a safe fall on his head, to go in and get it. Keep it, he says. Show it to no one. Promise me. It's my last testament, what I bequeath to you. Promise me. So I did promise. And soon after that, it happened, his heart attack. And he died."

And you went in and took the file, William thought. The file and the pictures, a friend to the end.

It was nearly time to go. Sure it was. All the signs said so; the suffocating heat, the sobering quiet, the evident weariness of the storyteller. Time to shove off.