Jonathon King - A Visible Darkness

"Ahh," was his only response.

Billy and I had spent many nights on this porch, hashing out our mothers' scheme. When the pieces were put together, he'd understood his own mother's burden of complicity, and I had a clearer grasp on gratitude.

We both looked out at the ocean. Three miles out it was raining. I could see the dark curtain slurring down with thick bands falling in curls.

"To old times," Billy said, raising his wine. We touched bottle to glass but neither of us drank.

"Our investors are t-taking us on quite a ch-chase," Billy said, interrupting the thought.

Billy had been tracking the investors. He'd run their incorporation records back through the state's Bureau of Professional Regulations. He'd found three companies filed under fictitious-but not necessarily illegal-names. He'd finally found the names of corporate officers, but none of them had raised any red flags.

"Just incorporated b-businessmen. We can follow the t-trail of money that maybe p-puts McCane's middleman in direct contact with them. But it's still a hard case t-to make."

"Invisible," I said, more to myself than Billy.

"In m-many ways, yes."

"And if all our theories are correct. They still might not know what's going on with their money?"

"Oh, they know w-what's going on with their money," Billy said. "This kind always knows w-what's going on with their money."

I stayed in Billy's guest room, on clean sheets and in air conditioning. I had drunk too much, and the good old bad times kept swimming in my head. Once I woke up shivering and pulled a blanket up from the foot of the bed. I curled up like a child and fell back into an old and recurring dream of the night my father died.

I was working patrol on the B shift. It was 5:00 A.M. and my mother had probably sat as long as she could while the daylight crept in and pushed the dark out of their room. When she could see him lying there, she couldn't stand it any longer and called.

The sergeant got me on the radio and asked me to meet him at the roundhouse. I figured I'd screwed up again on some paperwork, until I saw his face in the dispatch room. My uncle Keith, another lifetime cop, was standing next to him.

"Let me drive ya home, kid," Keith said.

Eighth Street was slick with morning rain when we made the corner at Mifflin. Porch lights and street lamps were still reflecting on the sidewalks and the wet hood of the M.E.'s van double-parked in front of my parents' house. I still had my uniform on and the beat cop, who I only knew in passing, took off his hat. On the porch next door Mrs. O'Keefe stood with her fingers curled over her mouth.

I walked in the front door and past the stairs and down the narrow hall where I knew I would find my mother, sitting at the kitchen table, dressed in her flowered day dress, staring up at the east side window like she had done every morning since I could remember. Her hands were folded like a supplicant praying to daybreak.

"Mom?"

"Maxey?" she answered, turning from the light. I pulled a chair across the wooden floor and sat in front of her and took her hands in mine.

"You okay, Mom?"

"I'm fine, Max. Just fine now."

There was not so much as a glisten in her eyes. Her face was drawn and sallow, but no more than it had been in the two years that the old man had been sick. He had gone weak fast since a liver ailment had pulled him down from his hard-drinking, anger- spitting heights. He'd been on disability with the department. Several months ago, when they'd tried to appease his hate of hospitals by bringing an oxygen tank and mask into his room, he'd slapped the offending thing away and cursed the technician until the guy slammed the front door.

But my mother remained vigilant, always with the homemade soup that he demanded. Always within earshot of his denigrating orders, and frequently still within slapping distance of his hand.

As we sat there I heard the creak of the loose wood on the third step from the top of the staircase, and I winced at the sound-and saw my mother blink also. How many times had we both heard that creaking step and held our breaths, lying in our beds hoping his anger would not visit us?

When I was young, and he came to my door first, I would cower and cry and could only wish him away and then cover my head with the pillow to drown out the curses and accusations that would inevitably come and to ward off the open-handed blows. Then when he left I would keep the pillow over my ears to shield the noise from down the hall, where a hardened fist and my mother's stifled cries bit into the night. When I got older, I wished him to my door and engaged him with a measured defiance, in the hope that at least some of his energy would be spent before he went to her. When I was fourteen I took a handful of nails and pounded them into the riser on that third step. But it never stopped the warning sound.

This morning it was my uncle's weight coming down from where his brother lay dead that creaked the stair. And like his brother, Uncle Keith's broad build filled the kitchen door. My mother looked up, dry-eyed, into his face.

"You alright, Ann-Marie?"

"Yes," she said and I felt her hands flex once under my own.

"Max boy. You wanna see him once upstairs before they take him out?"

"No," I answered.

He didn't react, knowing enough not to say more.

"Then I'll take care of it, Ann-Marie," he said, crossing the kitchen floor and laying a hand on her shoulder. She reached up to pat his back and he pressed a small brown apothecary bottle into her palm.

"So you take care of this. OK?"

I was up early. Billy had already started coffee and was practicing his morning ritual with the paper. We apologized for our respective hangovers and I went down to the beach for a run to purge my pores and memories.

When I got back, sweat-stained and vowing to do more than two miles next time, Billy was on his way out.

"There is f-fruit blend in the refrigerator and S-Sherry called," he said. "T-Tell her I appreciate w-what she's doing."

I reached her on her cell and arranged to meet her at Lester's Diner.

"Just trying to fatten you up, Freeman," she said. She had some paperwork that she needed me to see. When I wondered out loud why we couldn't just meet in her office, she knew I was needling her.

"Sure. Come right up and say hello to Hammonds. He'll be thrilled to hear you've got your fingers in another one of our cases."

When I pulled into Lester's it was past noon. There were several pickups and a couple of truck tractors in the parking lot. Lester's was built in the tradition of the old Northeast railcar diners. Long and rectangular, the outside was lined with windows. Inside, chrome swivel stools were lined up at the counter. There were three rows of booths upholstered in slick red vinyl. Richards was in the last booth in the corner, sitting on the bench facing the door. She was dressed in jeans and a buttoned blouse and she had left her hair down. Papers and what appeared to be a city street map were spread out on the table. As I slid into the seat opposite her she took a few stray strands of hair and tucked them behind her ear.

"Nice choice for a workplace," I said.

"Might as well be an annex," she said. "Sit here long enough and you'll see nearly every patrol officer and detective on two shifts."

The waitress came, dressed in a dingy, '50s-style white uniform that looked like it might have been new when she was young.

"Can I get cha, hon?"

I couldn't help smiling, waiting for the gum to crack.

Richards picked up on the grin.

"Julia Palamara. Max Freeman," she said in introduction. "He'll have coffee."

"Pleasure," the waitress said.

The coffee cup was heavy, ceramic and huge. Julia left a brown plastic pot for refills. I liked the place.