Walter Mosley - Known to Evil

"HE REMEMBERED THAT, HUH?" I said.

"Yes," Bertrand replied, vehemently.

"Let's sit down, Leonid," Katrina, the peacemaker, said.

"You look kinda old to be one of D's classmates," I suggested to Bertrand as we sat down.

"My parents own a bakery. Arnold Bakery in Astoria. I wanted to open up a branch store in SoHo. But when the bank asked me for a business plan I realized that I didn't know enough to start a business on my own. So I decided to go back to school. At first it was just an extension course at CCNY. But then I began to realize that I really liked business and so I decided to get a degree. I met Dimitri last year."

It all sounded very plausible. Generation X and their heirs took longer to mature than their elders. I knew nothing about Dimitri's life, but he must have had friends and schoolmates.

"Is D in his room changing or something?" I asked.

"No," Katrina said. "He still hasn't come home."

"Then why are you here?" I asked the boy-faced man.

"I haven't seen Dimitri for a few days," he replied. "He's not in class. He doesn't answer his phone. So I decided to drop by to see if he was okay."

My breathing was normal again. The rage I'd felt at my own helplessness was lessened by the trial of the stairs.

But the headache was getting worse.

"I was asking Mr. Arnold if he knew anybody I could call to get in touch with Dimitri," Katrina said.

"Do you know a friend of D's," I asked Bertrand, "a girl named Tanya-something like that. She might be Russian."

"I've seen him with a blond girl once or twice over the last couple of weeks. I don't know her name. She never spoke and Dimitri would always hustle her off if I was around. I think he was a little jealous."

"Why? You makin' eyes at her?"

"She's very pretty, but I wouldn't go after a girl that he was with."

"I'm very worried, Leonid," Katrina said.

"I talked to Dimitri on the walk back home," I said. It wasn't completely a lie. I had talked to him. "He said that he and Twill were with these Russian girls. Mardi told me that Dimitri's friend was maybe called Tanya."

"Mardi Bitterman?" Katrina said.

"Yeah. She's my secretary now. Twill wanted me to hire her and I think she might work out."

"Do you really want a girl like that working for you?"

"A girl like what?"

"You know what… her history. You were the one who told me."

"She gets raped so now that means she can't work?"

Katrina's stony silence was a throwback to the days when we openly detested each other.

"I should be going," the baker said.

He stood up.

"Could you write down your phone number?" I said. "I mean, if D doesn't show up I might want to ask for your help."

"Sure," the helpful baker replied.

"I'll get pencil and paper," Katrina said.

She didn't want a confrontation with me; not over Mardi Bitterman, at any rate.

Bertrand stood there uncomfortably while I studied him. He could see that I didn't trust a stranger in my home. And he was right. I didn't know what trouble Dimitri was in. Maybe Bert was trying to get the lowdown on my son.

No words had passed between us while Katrina was gone. She returned with a Bic and a wire-ringed notepad.

"This was all I could find," she apologized.

Bert took the notepad and started scribbling.

"The first number is my cell phone," he said. "The second is the bakery, and I put down my e-mail address, too."

"You got a home phone?" I asked.

"No. Just the cell."

He shook my hand and my wife's hand. Katrina walked him to the door.

I remained in my seat, wondering if we lived on the eighteenth floor would I be retired by now.

My thoughts slowly merged with the pain behind my eye. I pressed a thumb against the bridge of my brow and the ache lessened maybe three decibels.

"Leonid," Katrina said.

The headache flared back.

"Yes?"

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing. It's just a twitch."

"I was hoping that we could talk," she said, lowering into the chair next to me.

"I swear Dimitri's fine," I said. "The only trouble he's got is girl trouble. And you know young men been runnin' after that since buckskins were in style."

"About us."

"What about us?" I said, wondering at the brightness of the pain.

"I've been back home for over a year now, Leonid."

"Yeah?"

"You're still so… distant."

I looked at my wife then. She was a few months past fifty-one, but regular exercise, spa treatments, and minor cosmetic surgery had kept most of her youthful beauty intact. Those pursed red lips could whisper the nastiest things in the dark of night.

It had been a long time since those lips had been next to my ear.

"It's not you, Katrina," I said. "It's, it's… you know how you read sometimes about men going through midlife crises?"

"Yes."

"I'm having a goddamned lifelong catastrophe. The ship is sunk and white-tipped sharks are headed my way."

"I don't understand," she said.

"You see these hands?" I asked, holding up my mitts.

"Yes?"

"They look normal, don't they? Just some big hands on a stout man. But if you look close you can see the blood on them. Blood and shit and, and, and maggots turnin' into flies. I wash 'em every night, and every morning they're filthy again."

"Is it because I left you for Andre?" she asked.

"No, baby, no. That's the dirt on you. That's your guilt."

"Why did you take me back if you don't love me?"

"Because you asked me to forgive you."

"But you never have."

The pain broke through some kind of barrier and now it was behind both my eyes. I lowered my face into those hands and grunted.

I stayed like that for a minute or two, and when I sat up Katrina was gone from the room.

I HAD THREE TABLETS of Tylenol with codeine in the medicine cabinet. A dentist gave them to me after a tooth extraction. I took one and sat in my office chair with the shades drawn, the lights turned out, and my eyes closed.

Thirty-seven minutes later, by my father's Timex, the only physical thing he left me, I opened my eyes.

The pain was still there but it was as if it had been sent to another room. I felt it through the wall, pulsing and singing red. But I could think again. I could concentrate through the bifocal lens of the medication.

I KEPT RON SHARKEY'S file in a locked cabinet next to my desk. It was quite thick, as it went back all the way to the time that I framed him and he was sent to prison.

I opened the folder to the first page but realized that thinking about Sharkey at that moment would break down the fragile wall the drug had erected. So instead I pulled out a file from Rinaldo's briefcase that I had not yet perused. It was labeled RELATIONS.

There were fourteen single-spaced typed pages, most with photographs paper-clipped to them, detailed synopses of Angie's friends, family, and daily acquaintances.

Paging through these names, I was even more aware of how dislocated I felt. It was as if the codeine had snagged in that moment of alienation that characterized my life.

Focusing on the subjects' professions, I decided on the one I was most likely to catch at that time of day. I studied his history and habits, his relationship to Angie, and his picture, taken without his knowledge.

"LEONID, " SHE SAID AS I was about to go out the door.

"Yes?" I tried to sound friendly, open.

She had changed into a beige dress that accented her figure. Katrina had a figure that any man from twelve to a hundred and twelve could appreciate. The hem came down to the middle of her calf and the neckline did an arc just under the beginning of her cleavage.

"I'm sorry for what I said about Mardi. It's really very nice that you want to help her."