Christopher Bohjalian - The Double Bind

“A carnival freak?”

“Yeah. A carny. This was some time ago. But from the little he said that made sense-and, trust me, Bobbie did not make a whole lot of sense in this case-our late friend met the devil at the fair they have in Essex at the end of the summer.”

“The Champlain Valley Fair.”

“Right. Eight, ten miles from here. Whatever. It goes till Labor Day. You got the sheep shearing and the milking and the giant pumpkins. The farming stuff. And then you got the midway with the carnies. The geeks who run the games and the rides. I am sure Bobbie met his so-called devil there. Maybe it was someone who hurt him-you know, physically. Beat him up. Or stole what little money he had. Or maybe it was just some creep who in Bobbie’s eyes looked even scarier than he was.”

“Maybe you’ll find him in those pictures of his you got,” Howard said.

She considered this for a moment. So far she hadn’t come across anyone demonic. Nor had she found any images from the county’s annual end-of-summer exposition and fair. She wondered, based on the photos she’d printed, if Pete was mistaken and it was actually someone from Bobbie’s childhood she should be looking for, perhaps an image of someone he’d known growing up. Someone from his own family.

“Are you sure he was talking about the Champlain Valley Fair, Pete?” she asked.

“Not completely. You can’t be sure about anything when you’re talking about Bobbie. Maybe it was a carny in New York. Or Minnesota. Or Louisville. You said he had family there, right?”

“I did.”

“Look, you want a story?” Pete asked.

“I do.”

“Then here you go. This is the Bobbie Crocker who was my friend. Our friend. This past summer, we were watching the cranes as they put up that new building by the lake. The one that will have the luxury condos and the shops. It was just me and Bobbie, and we were sweating like pigs. It must have been July. I don’t drink anymore, but I was really hungry for a beer. I could just taste it. An ice cold beer-in a bottle. Maybe even one of those Budweiser liters. I haven’t had a drink in three years-not quite three years then-but I had a couple bucks in my wallet and there’s that convenience store right near where the apartments will be. And I was thinking: a beer. What the fu-heck? Really, what’s one lousy beer? Even a liter? What, is it gonna put my ass back on the streets? Well, of course the answer is yes, it will-because I can’t have just one. I have to have, like, a case. But I was gonna do it: I was gonna get me a beer. And Bobbie, thank God, read my mind and got me out of there. Took me to a shady bench and sat me down with a couple of Yoo-hoos. You know, that chocolate milk in a bottle?”

“Yogi Berra used to drink ’em,” said Howard.

“Well, he used to say he did in the ads. I think he probably drank beer, too,” Paco observed.

“Those Yoo-hoos kept me clean. Sometimes cold sweets help. And it was Bobbie who was looking out for me.”

Laurel thought about this for a moment, and she remembered what David had told her to try as a researcher the other night when they were in bed. “Uh-huh,” she said simply, nodding. And then she went silent.

Sure enough, Pete-even cool and jaded and skeptical Pete-continued. “We were sitting in the shade under one of them maples they didn’t cut down, looking at the water and the Adirondack Mountains, just sipping our Yoo-hoos. And Bobbie says, ‘You think this view is grand? You should have seen the view I had from my bedroom when I was a boy. The Long Island Sound out one window and a mansion with a turret out the other.’ A turret! Imagine! Course, I was sure he was in Bobbie Crocker la-la land, so I just smiled and changed the subject.”

Suddenly, Howard pushed his plate aside and clasped the fingers of his hands together on the table. “You know what was the best thing about Bobbie?” he said meaningfully.

They all waited.

Finally: “He was just a regular guy.”

Pete allowed himself another of his hard, short, bitter laughs: “Yeah, that was Bobbie Crocker. While some old codgers are playing golf in Fort Lauderdale, he was summering behind a Dumpster on Cherry Street and spending his winters in the state mental hospital. Just a regular guy, that Bobbie Crocker.”

When Laurel looked back at Howard he was nodding in agreement, his eyes wistful and slightly downcast, absolutely oblivious to the anger and the irony that laced so much of what Pete Stambolinos said.

MID-MORNING, KATHERINE put her head into Laurel ’s office. Laurel was with a new client named Tony, a young man who claimed to have been a high school football star from Revere, Massachusetts, eight or nine years ago, and had spent last night in the men’s wing of the shelter. He was estranged from his family-like Pete and Paco and Howard and (yes, she thought) Bobbie. The only difference was that he was a lot younger. He fidgeted in his seat and had a habit of flexing and fanning his fingers, and he had bitten his nails to the point where all of his cuticles seemed to have bled in the night.

“I’m sorry to interrupt, but I have to leave right now for a meeting in Montpelier and I wanted to snag you before I left,” Katherine began. She gave Tony a small wave of apology, and held up her hands in a gesture that suggested she was helpless to do anything but interrupt. Laurel joined her in the hallway.

“You may get a call from a New York lawyer asking you to stop printing Bobbie Crocker’s photographs,” she said. “He might even ask you to turn them over to him-or to someone. And you are not to do that, do you understand? Do not feel intimidated.”

“Whoa, lawyers? When did we bring in the lawyers?”

“We didn’t,” said Katherine, and Laurel understood instantly who had-and why Katherine’s demeanor was slightly frenzied. She was feeling coerced, and she wasn’t going to stand for it. Nor was she going to allow what she perceived to be the desire of one of her clients to be cavalierly ignored. She told Laurel about her conversation with the city attorney, and then continued, “The woman didn’t phone herself, of course. The entitled never do. Her lawyer did. He called Chris Fricke. Anyway, this old crone believes the photos belong to her family because she’s in some.”

“She’s in one.”

“And her brother’s in some.”

“Her brother’s in one.”

“And there are some of her old house.”

“Yes.”

“Anyway, she’s claiming that Bobbie must have stolen a box full of photos and negatives from her family or found it somewhere, and she wants everything returned intact-exactly as Bobbie left it. She wants to see what else is there that might belong to her.”

“Bobbie didn’t take anything from her family: He is her family! He’s her brother!”

Katherine paused and studied her closely. “Do you honestly believe that?”

“I don’t believe it,” she said quietly, irritably. “I know it. I am absolutely sure of it.”

“Well, don’t be. Please give up that notion right now. Do you understand?”

“What? Why?”

“If Bobbie really was her brother-which, I gather, is completely impossible-then we might actually have to turn everything over to her.”

“I have news for you, Katherine, I have no doubts whatsoever,” Laurel said, trying (and failing) to keep her voice calm. “Everything fits, it’s obvious. Just this morning I had breakfast with some of the guys from the Hotel New England-”

“Let me guess, Pete and his pals? That must have been a trip.”

“It was great. They made me a feast. But my point is that even the things they shared with me indicate that Bobbie is this woman’s brother.”

“Really?”

“Bobbie told them he grew up on Long Island. He told them he had family in Kentucky!”