William Lashner - Marked Man

“Great, then you’ll, like, tell them we’re dating, right?”

“Excuse me?”

“They’re afraid I’m too often alone. They’ll be so reassured to know I have a boyfriend who’s a lawyer.”

“Monica, is that a good idea?”

“I know they might not be so happy about the lawyer part, but they’ll get over it.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“You can say you met me at work.”

“At the club?”

“No, silly. They think I’m a legal secretary. And your being a lawyer and my fake job being a legal secretary, it makes perfect sense that we would have a fake relationship.”

“Should I call you Hillary, too?”

“Why would you call me Hillary?”

“To be consistent.”

“I knew a girl named Hillary, once,” said Monica. “She wasn’t a legal secretary, but she had a very nice figure. Not too smart, though. Thought Canada was a foreign country.”

“It is a foreign country.”

“That’s good, teasing me like that, just like a boyfriend would.”

“Monica, I’m not so comfortable lying to your parents.”

“Are you sure you’re a lawyer?”

“Pretty sure, though a lot of people seem to be doubting it lately. But if you’re so ashamed of your life, don’t lie about it, change it.”

“I’m not ashamed of what I do, I just have secrets. You don’t have any secrets, Victor? You tell everything about your personal affairs to your parents?”

I thought of the escapade with Sheila the night before. “Well, no.”

“There you go. Their life has been hard enough already, they don’t need to be burdened with the truth about mine. So the story is we met at the office and we’ve been dating for only a few weeks, but things are going really well.”

“What do we do together?”

“See movies, take walks. I cook you dinner. Veal parmesan.”

“Do you really?”

“No.”

“But I like veal parmesan.”

“I’ll fake-cook it.”

“Do I have a fake dog?”

“You did, but it died.”

“That’s a shame.”

“You’ll see, Victor, this is going to work out famously.”

I doubted very much that it would.

I was visiting Monica’s parents to learn what I could about the disappearance of Chantal Adair and its connection to Charlie Kalakos’s Rembrandt. That there should be a connection at all was too strange for words, but both girl and painting went missing almost thirty years ago, and each seemed to be of great concern to the family Hathaway, father and daughter. None of it made any sense, but I was not naïve enough to assume it was all a coincidence. I could no longer believe that the tattoo was evidence of a deep and abiding love found during my missing night. There was something else going on, something dark and as of yet inexplicable. But I was going to figure it out, yes I was, and when I found who the hell had induced me to tattoo the name on my chest, a price would be paid.

“And you’re sure they won’t mind talking about your sister?” I said to Monica as I parked the car in front of a small, tidy house.

“Don’t worry.”

“It must be difficult for them to discuss.”

“Not at all,” she said. “Chantal is their favorite topic of conversation.”

There are canyons of loss among us, chasms of pain hidden behind well-tended lawns and freshly painted exteriors. Drive by a seemingly innocuous house and you can feel the tug, like a deep, swirling ache reaching out to pull you in, and all you want to do is keep driving until you slide into shallower, more placid waters. These are churches of sadness and doom, where voices remain hushed and candles burn in sad remembrance. Lower your gaze, speak with soft reverence, hunch your shoulders, stifle your joy. Such was the Adair household on a narrow residential street not far from the western mouth of the Tacony-Palmyra Bridge, just a stone’s throw from where Ralph Ciulla had been murdered.

“Mommy, Daddy,” said Monica, suddenly hugging my arm as the door opened, not giving me the chance to step away. “This is my new boyfriend, Victor.”

“Hi,” I said, trying and failing to take back my arm.

Mr. Adair was lean and gray, stoop-shouldered, parched by life, looking like a dried-out seventy even though still in his fifties. His smile was pained, his handshake thin, his averted eyes glassy, as if he had been throttled just moments before I arrived.

“So you’re the young man Monica has told us about,” he said.

I glared at Monica. “That would be me.”

“Come in, please,” said Mrs. Adair, a wraith with black eyes and nervous hands. “I put out some Chex Mix. I hope you like Chex Mix.”

“It’s my favorite.”

“And you simply must meet Richard.”

“My brother,” said Monica.

“Of course,” I said. “Your brother, Richard. The whole family.”

“Not quite the whole family,” said Mr. Adair.

“But Richard so enjoys guests,” said Mrs. Adair, “and he’s especially looking forward to meeting you.”

“I bet,” I said.

He didn’t get up when first he spied me. Richard Adair looked like he wouldn’t get up for a tornado. His heavy hips spread out on the couch as if planted there. Sweatpants, Eagles jersey, stocking feet propped on the coffee table with the tips of his socks flopping over his toes. He was about a decade older than me, big and balding, with a round face and graying mustache. A bunch of billboards were roaring around some oval piece of asphalt on the television, and Richard kept staring at the tube as if, instead of the current running order, the secret of the universe was about to be broadcast and he was just waiting to sneer at it.

“Richard,” said Mrs. Adair as if to a spoiled child. “Monica’s brought her friend to the house.”

“I’m watching here,” said Richard. “What do you think?”

“Richard loves his television,” said Mrs. Adair. “When he’s not on the computer, you can always find him in front of the television.”

“We got a big one from Best Buy,” said Mr. Adair. “What is it, Richard, the thin-screen thing?”

“LCD.”

“It was on sale.”

“Can you keep it down?” said Richard. “I’m watching.”

The living room had that closed-in, windows-painted-shut feel, stifling and hot. We set ourselves on the various pieces of furniture, Monica still clutching my arm, as if she were the one in foreign territory. There were pictures of saints clustered on one of the walls, and plates painted with clowns with their big sad eyes on another. Chex Mix was scattered about in various bowls. I wasn’t lying, I always liked Chex Mix, and Mrs. Adair didn’t just open the boxes and stir, she did the whole margarine and Worcestershire sauce baking thing, which filled the house with a savory scent while imparting to the Chex Mix a nice garlicky crunch.

“Lovely Chex Mix, Mrs. Adair,” I said.

“Thank you. Richard, dear, Victor is a lawyer, did you know that?”

No answer from Richard. I guess he knew.

“NASCAR is on,” said Mr. Adair in explanation. “The racing cars.”

“Yes, I know,” I said. “Who among us doesn’t love NASCAR?”

Mrs. Adair clapped her hands together and rubbed. “So how long have you two kids been an item?”

“Not too long,” I said.

“When Monica called and said she had a date with a young man she met at work, we were just so thrilled. You would think someone as pretty as our Monica wouldn’t have trouble finding a young man, but she is very particular.”

“Oh, Mommy, stop it.”

“She works all day and then just stays at home all night, poor thing. She needs to get out more. Don’t you think so, Victor?”

“Oh, you’d be surprised,” I said.