Lisa Scottoline - Everywhere That Mary Went

Brent brings in the finished copy of theNoone brief. After a quick review, I walk it over to Jameson, who has stepped away again. The Amazing Stella says, “That freak spends half his time in the little boy’s room.”

“That’s because he’s full of shit,” I whisper.

She smirks and beckons me closer with a coral-colored fingernail. “You know what he’s doin’ in there?”

“What?”

“Whackin’ off.”

“Stella! Jeez!” I look around to see if anyone is in earshot. The secretaries have gone home, it’s after five.

“Mary, you always think everybody’s an angel. I’m tellin’ youse, he’s got a whole drawer full of dirty magazines in his desk. He keeps it locked, but I seen it once. There’s sex toys in there, too. Reallyweird toys.”

“Sex toys?”

“Weirdtoys,” she repeats, with a shudder. Suddenly, she snaps to attention. “Mr. Jameson! Miss DiNunzio was just bringin’ this brief to youse.”

“You, Stella.” Jameson all but adds, You ignorant dago.

I try to look at him normally, but the thought of the sex toys almost makes me gag. I have to say something, so I say, “I did manage to find some cases after all. On Lexis.”

“Knew you would. I’ll look it over later.” He scampers past me into his office. He’s telling me he didn’t really need the brief by the end of the day, he just wanted to make me do tricks. Weird tricks, I think, and almost shudder myself.

Brent howls at this later, over dinner. We eat at Il Gallo Nero, a restaurant that Brent adores because Riccardo Muti used to eat here. Brent had a heavy crush on Muti. He wore a black armband on his black shirt the day the Maestro left for Milan.

“I knew it! I knew it!” Brent shouts, laughing. “Jameson’s in the closet, Mare! He’s a closet queen!”

“She didn’t say that, Brent.” I’ve had too much chianti and so has he. I don’t care, I’m having fun. And Brent has forgotten to nag me about the cops, for which I’m grateful, because I know I’ll pay for it in June.

“Yes, she did! She said weird toys. What do you think she meant?”

“I don’t know. I’m a good girl.”

“Dildos! Nipple pincers! Choke chains! He pretends he’s a dog! He fucks rhinos! Oh, no!” We both laugh until the tears flow.

When we leave, Brent puts an arm around my shoulders and we walk up Walnut Street. The asphalt is being repaved to eliminate the potholes, which cover the city streets like minefields. Philadelphia being the well-oiled machine that it is, nobody’s working on the street even though much of it is blocked to traffic. Cars lurch to avoid the police sawhorses, although there isn’t much traffic tonight. The new mayor hasn’t been real successful in attracting suburbanites to the city on weekends. I can’t imagine why. It’s a great theater town if you haven’t seenFiddler, and there’s always that friendly pat-down before you take in a first-run movie.

“Look at this street. What a mess,” Brent says. “Here, let me walk on the outside.” He do-si-dos around me so he’s closer to the curb, then puts his arm back on my shoulder.

“Why did you do that?”

“It’s traditional. The man walks on the street side, protecting the woman from the carriages, in case they splash mud.”

“That’s sexist, Brent. And besides, you’re gay.” I switch places with him, skipping around him so that I’m curbside.

Honk-honk!A truck blares right behind my shoulder.

I jump, startled at the loudness of it. The truck’s headlights go by in a double blur. The cars, confused by the roadblocks, are moving in all directions. Suddenly, I feel afraid. I haven’t been watching out for the dark car. I start to tell Brent, but he plows into me, laughing, and replaces me at the curb.

“So what if I’m gay?” he says. “I still count!”

At that moment, just as Brent is dancing toward the street, a car jumps the curb in back of him. It bounds up onto the sidewalk and hurtles directly toward him, ramming into his back with a sickening thud.

I can’t believe what I’m seeing.

It’s the car, the one that’s been following me.

“No! Brent!” I shout, but it’s too late.

Brent’s face freezes in agony and shock as the car lifts him bodily on its grill, like a charging bull gores a matador. His body snaps back against the car and his mouth is a silent scream.

“Stop! No!!” I watch in horror as the car flings Brent’s lithe frame up off the sidewalk. He shrieks as his body literally flies through the air and slams into the plate glass window of a bank. The glass shatters with a hideous tinkling sound and rains down on Brent in a deadly sheet. Then the only sound is the clamor of the bank alarm.

And the screech of the murderous car as it digs out onto a chopped-up Walnut Street and busts up a police sawhorse with a splinteringcraaaack.

I whirl around, squinting frantically for a license plate.

There is none.

The car careens crazily up the street and out of sight.

The coarse wooden toothpick in Detective Lombardo’s mouth wiggles indignantly. “Cheese and crackers! Why do you have to talk that way? I work with cops that have a fifty times better mouth than you.” We’re sitting in the hospital corridor, waiting for Brent’s operation to be over.

“What’s the matter with it?”

“It’s not nice, for a lady.”

“You know, if you’d get as worked up about whoever hit Brent as you do about my language, we’d be in good shape.”

“I don’t have to get worked up to do my job. I know my job. I’m doin it.” He points at me with his spiral note pad.

“Fine.”

“Good.”

“Good.” We’ve been arguing like this for hours. Lombardo arrived on the scene after the ambulance got there because I reported the incident as intentional. He asked a lot of questions and wrote the answers down slowly with a stubby pencil, which he seemed to think constituted the sum total of his job. Lombardo played football for Penn State, but I’m beginning to wonder if they gave him a helmet.

Suddenly, his heavy-lidded brown eyes light up. It looks like Fred Flintstone getting an idea. “Hey, Mary, how about gay-bashing?” Hey, Barn, how about we go bowling?

“You couldn’t tell that Brent was gay.”

“You can always tell.”

“Now what’s that supposed to mean?”

“Just what I said.”

I feel my eyes well up; I didn’t know there were any tears left. “I don’t want to hear that, Lombardo. Keep it to yourself, because you don’t know what you’re talking about. Brent is a great person and so are his friends. Anything else is bigotry.”

“Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t say I don’t like gay people.” He glances up and down the glistening hallway. “I got a brother, you know, who’s a little light in the loafers.”

“Christ.”

Lombardo leans closer, and I catch a whiff of Brut. “All I’m saying is that you can tell. I knew, with my brother. I knew, right off.”

“You knew.”

“I knew. It was his eyebrows. Something about his eyebrows.” He arches an eyebrow, with effort. “See?”

I look away. I’m glad Jack isn’t here for this conversation. I called him the first thing and he arrived in tears. He poured quarters into the pay phone, calling all his friends. They came in a flash and were as loving and supportive a group as I’ve ever seen. I tried to explain to him about the car, but he was too upset to listen. It doesn’t matter how Brent got here, Jack said, only that he gets out. They all went outside a while ago to smoke a cigarette, waiting to hear if they would be going to another funeral this weekend.

“Tom, I’m telling you, the car was meant for me. It’s the same car. I’m sure of it.”