The Man in the Blizzard, page 16
“Jesse?” Erica shouts, excited.
“Yes.”
“Oh my God.”
“And he’s really sick-looking up close; his skin’s kind of scaly. He’s like a cross between an old Hell’s Angel and, I don’t know, a dung farmer. And then he kind of brushes past me as he goes by.”
“You touched him?” Erica exclaims.
“No, he…”
“He touched you? Gross.”
“You voted for him, Erica,” I said.
Erica shrugged. “But I never wanted to be touched by him.”
“He didn’t exactly touch me. He just sort of brushed by. But that was gross enough. I mean the guy just sort of oozes testosterone.”
“Gross,” Erica agreed.
I sat there wondering if I’d ever oozed testosterone.
“And then he apologizes to me. He like turns his giant head and goes, ‘Sorry about that, miss.’” Rose managed a decent imitation of Jesse’s steroid voice. “But here comes the really sad part—I answer him. I go, ‘No problem,’ just like some suburban nerd. Meanwhile, my dad is going nuts. He goes, ‘The governor told you he’s sorry. The governor told you he’s sorry on your sixteenth birthday.’”
Erica shook her head. “I can’t believe you touched him. The man’s feral.”
“And you voted for him,” I said.
“Who else was I going to vote for? Norm Coleman, that slimeball? Skip Humphrey? At least he’s better than the asshole we’ve got now.”
“Really,” Rose agreed.
I winked at her. “So how long are you in town, Rosie?”
“Well, you know, I’m here through Monday to do the Labor Day protest gig, and I may stay through the week for the convention. There’s supposed to be some righteous protests going on. Is it cool if I crash here?”
“It’s your home.”
Erica stood. “Look, I gotta go. The babysitter beckons. Sorry to leave you with the dishes, Augie.”
“I’ll help him,” Rose said, jumping up with a burst of girlish energy.
Erica gave her a warm smile. “So nice to meet you. Sorry for the shock.”
ZOMBIE
“Where are you?” I asked the violinist when I finally got her on the phone.
“I’m at home,” she said.
“Been trying you all day. You okay?”
“I’m fine. I stayed and had dinner with my aunt and uncle, then they had someone drive me home.”
I propped myself up against one of the fat arms of my mohair easy chair. “What’s going on with you and your uncle, Elizabeth? What’s he trying to make you do?”
“Nothing,” the violinist said, her voice sounding far away, drugged like a zombie.
“Did your uncle give you any medication?”
“No.”
“You didn’t take anything?”
“No.”
“Tell me about your uncle and Dr. McCracken.”
The violinist didn’t answer.
I began pacing. “Who pays your therapy bills, Elizabeth?”
“I do.”
“For five sessions a week?”
“Yes.”
“Was there a message for you from McCracken?”
“No, but I remember him saying something about having to take off today.”
The woman was lying to me. “What’s it like with Perry?”
“He’s gone.” Her voice was flat and unemotional.
“What do you mean he’s gone?”
“He took both of his large Tuscany suitcases. He didn’t leave a note.”
“He just split?”
“Well, he swept up all the glass from the mirror.”
“How about his closet?”
“The closet’s locked.”
“Where do you think he went?”
“I don’t know, but his car’s gone.”
For some reason, I’d left the GPS monitor on top of my bureau all day. “Listen, I’m going to be over to your place in twenty minutes. I don’t think you’re safe there.”
“I’m safe,” she said, distant again. “I feel very safe.”
“That’s great, but I don’t like the way people have started to disappear. I don’t want you to be next.”
I ran upstairs and picked up the device. Odegard’s Jag was parked at the airport. I found Rose sitting in a contorted yoga position in the middle of the living room. She smiled at me.
“Got to run out for something,” I said.
“Trouble?”
“Preventative.”
THE T-WORD
Sabbatini got me on the cell while I was waiting to pay for a scorched black coffee at SuperAmerica.
“You’re working late,” I said.
“Yeah, I managed to get Agent Synge interested and he’s finding us a couple of guys from the terrorist unit to work on it. They’re going to inspire the Saint Paul and Woodbury police departments.”
“Sweet,” I said, sounding to myself like Rose.
“Yeah, the only way to get any attention these days is to use the T-word. But it is terrorism, Augie.”
“Just like the war in Iraq. Just like Abu Ghraib. Just like Guantánamo Bay.” Now I was really sounding like Rose.
“I’ve got to agree with you, Augie.”
“Does the department know you’ve become a left-wing freak?”
“They’re more freaked about the poetry. I’ve got a few others memorizing. Detective Rossi, a two-hundred-pound lass from Coon Rapids, is all over Anne Sexton. And Lieutenant Bosco, from Boston, is working on Olson’s Maximus poems.”
“You’re crazy, Bobby. You may become the first cop ever tossed off a force for agitating with poetry.”
“It’s a revolutionary movement, Augie. Once you get a cop to memorize a poem, it becomes part of his marrow. One poem leads to another. His mind’s more supple. Once the mind opens, the heart is next.”
“I gotta go, Bobby.”
“Sure. So Synge’s looking for a search warrant tomorrow morning, and Blossom got us somebody in the governor’s office. You were right, Augie; they don’t want trouble.”
I put my money down on the counter. “Gotta go, Bobby. I found the violinist and have to collect her for safekeeping.”
“Hey, is it true what I hear, Augie? That she’s a looker?”
“She’s not my type, Bobby.”
BOYER, YOU’RE FUCKED
In the car, after a few painful sips of coffee, I hit Blossom’s number. It was a lot to ask, and I felt almost sorry that Blossom answered.
“Hey, Blossom, I hear you did some good work over at the governor’s office.”
“That what Bobby said?”
“Yeah, he’s proud of you. I’m proud of you, too. Listen. I found the violinist and I’m on my way over to fetch her now. I think they’ve either drugged her or womped her with some mind control. I have a big favor to ask you. Can she bunk with you tonight? She can’t stay alone.”
“Oh, Christ, man, are you kidding? My place is a fucking mess. I made myself a gumbo and I haven’t cleaned up.”
“Don’t bother with that.”
“I don’t intend to. All right, she can have the futon. It’s a little ratty, but she’s not getting my bed.”
“Keep your bed, Blossom. Hey, I’ll owe you.”
“Augie, it’s gonna take you a lifetime to pay back all the shit you owe me for.”
After talking the violinist into packing a bag for the weekend, I picked the lock on Perry Odegard’s fabled closet. It looked light—a suit or two, maybe a sport coat, and a short stack of laundered shirts. Wading through the woolens, I wasn’t surprised to find the valuable goods gone. There was nothing left on the shelves except a motley bunch of books on violins and Lugers. I wondered where the dude stashed his guns. They wouldn’t have made it through security. Probably in the trunk of his Jag.
Only a single violin case remained in the closet. I lifted it and, as I expected, it was empty. Still, I felt compelled to unzip the canvas cover and unlatch the case. I did it carefully as if I were handling something potentially explosive. As if I knew how to handle something explosive.
There was nothing inside the velvet-lined case. Not even a bow. I unlatched a frog to the lid of the resin pocket. Had the dude even taken his cake of resin with him? When I lifted the lid I saw my name—Boyer—written in blue ink on a folded piece of yellow-lined paper. I unfolded it quickly. Three words were scrawled: “Boyer, you’re fucked.”
STRANGE BEDFELLOWS
Blossom’s Lowertown loft, a large, high-ceilinged warehouse of a room with a kitchen nook piled with crusty dishes, was getting blasted by loud music from a neighbor’s pad.
“I don’t even hear it anymore,” Blossom said, shaking the violinist’s hand. “That’s the price you pay living in one of these artist lofts.” Blossom smiled at the violinist and took her small suitcase. “Come on in, Elizabeth; it’s not exactly luxury living, and the appointments are a little raw, but we’ll make you up a cozy spot.”
“It’s nothing against your place,” the violinist said, looking back and forth between Blossom and me, “but I don’t see why I have to stay here.”
“You’re not safe at home, Elizabeth,” I said, speaking slowly, as if to a child. “Your uncle has made some very serious threats, and your husband is acting crazy.”
The violinist nodded and put her instrument down beside the suitcase.
“Why don’t you sit?” Blossom said, motioning to the futon, which was covered in a heavy cotton print—a noble safari scene featuring elephants and giraffes.
I watched the violinist sit. I figured the futon couldn’t be any less comfortable than my teak sofa. Still, I decided to remain standing. I didn’t plan to hang out.
Blossom sat down beside the violinist. I was amused to see the two women together. Strange bedfellows. The one with spiked red hair and tattooed hands, the other a prim, blond virtuoso.
The violinist glanced around the big room, and said, “I like your place.”
Blossom laughed. “Why, thank you.”
It had been a long time since I’d been there. I took a quick look around. A Victorian plant stand, with a huge succulent growing out of a coffee can, sat between a pair of orange molded-plastic chairs from the sixties. Behind the chairs, a bank of windows was adorned with a couple of dozen prisms suspended by fishing line from the ceiling. I was surprised to see a framed poster of Rose from The Yours Truly of the Tale across the room, in the middle of a wall of musician portraits. Rose, her hair beautifully braided, sat on a bench above the Mississippi.
“Hey, Blossom, Rose just popped into town this evening.”
“You better get that girl to call me.”
“I’ll do what I can.” I thought about Rose walking in on Erica and me that evening. I’d never forget her scream, or watching Erica take a final spoonful of yogurt before climbing off the kitchen counter.
Meanwhile, the violinist stood up and walked toward her violin. It almost seemed as if there were a magnet pulling her toward the instrument.
Once she lifted the case, she turned to Blossom. “Do you mind if I play?”
“Of course not.”
“It might help settle me down. You guys don’t have to listen.”
“I just hope you’ll be able to hear yourself,” Blossom said, “with all the racket.”
My client went through a series of preparations with her bow and her chin pad before tuning the instrument. She strolled with her tuned fiddle toward the bank of windows. I wondered how the sound vibrations would affect the hanging prisms.
Then, with her back to us, the violinist raised her instrument and dove into the Sarabande from Bach’s Partita no. 1 in B Minor. I knew it well from the Arthur Grumiaux performances I’d listened to so often on my iPod. But this was something else. I couldn’t believe the crispness of the violinist’s attack. The first chord rang in the air at the instant the bow hit the strings. Absolute authority. It reminded me of how baseball announcers described certain hitters—the ball just jumps off his bat. I was amazed at the ease with which she managed the double stops, fingering the multiple strings with both precision and flair. Her bow arm worked as a fluid mechanism, at once supple and powerful.
I closed my eyes as I listened. As a nonbeliever, I rarely use the descriptor godlike, but it’s the only way to convey the richness of the violinist’s tone and the purity of her intonation. With my eyes closed, it was easier to appreciate the architectural perfection of the Bach. Had I ever heard it played with such ringing clarity? When I opened my eyes, Blossom smiled at me, and I let out an audible sigh of appreciation for what I was hearing.
After all the fiddles in trunks and closets, and the absurdity of their dollar values, it was easy to forget that violins were made to be played. How good to finally hear one, especially one played with such majesty. Maybe every hundred years, a violin like Elizabeth’s is lucky enough to end up in the hands of someone so talented.
I wondered for a moment if the violinist was fully there or if she was only present in the playing, as technique and habit, muscle memory and nerves. But the sound of the violin had a warmth at its center, a resonance within its ringing, and I knew that she was playing with everything she had.
When she finished, Blossom and I applauded. Elizabeth bowed a little shyly and slipped the violin back in its case. The electronic hash and the pounding of the bass drum from Blossom’s neighbors filled the loft again. The three of us were quiet.
SMOKING BUDDIES
When I got home, I was surprised to see Rose still up.
“I’m a night owl, Dad, and I’m on West Coast time.”
We stayed up late talking. I told her a little about the threats to the abortion doctors, but not about the violinist. I didn’t want to think about the violinist. For a few hours, at least, she was in Blossom’s hands.
“I don’t like you being a part of this rally,” I said. “Not with all these kooks running around.”
“I’ll be safe, Dad; all I’m doing is singing a song or two.”
“Let’s see how it goes. If things don’t cool off, I’m going to ask you not to sing.”
“That’s exactly when I should be singing.”
“Not when your safety’s at issue.”
We sat together in the living room sipping a “rare” jasmine tea that Rose had brought with her from LA.
“You must get a lot of rare things in LA, Rosie.”
“Hey, you can make fun of LA really easy, Dad. I do all the time. The thing about LA is that the people truly surprise you. There’s a lot of good people out there. I’m seeing positive changes. People are getting more political. They’re starting to come around on animal rights.”
Rose stretched out on the Persian carpet that her mother left behind. I watched her contort her lithe body into a half-dozen yoga postures. Then I got down on the floor beside her and rolled a fresh joint of Pontchartrain Pootie. Rose and I had smoked a little bit together on the Memphis trip. She claimed not to be scandalized that time. “I always knew you were an old doper, Dad.”
Now the joint went back and forth and it seemed as if we’d been smoking buddies for years.
“Hey,” I said, “you talked to your mother?”
Rose shook her head in the negative.
“I had coffee with her the other day,” I said, and filled my lungs with Pootie.
Rose grinned at me. “So are you guys entering a period of détente?”
I shrugged and watched Rose draw on the doobie. “Your mother has some big news.”
Rose blew out her smoke in a hurry. “What? Is she getting married?”
“That’s what I thought,” I said.
“Tell me,” she demanded, passing the fatty to me.
“She should tell you, Rosie.”
“Come on, Dad. You can’t do that.”
I put a clip on the roach and handed it to Rose. “She’s pregnant.”
Rose’s face went blank. She opened her mouth and looked as if she might catch a fly. “She’s not going to have the baby,” Rose said, finally.
“No, but she’s pretty upset about the whole thing.”
“Who cares?” Rose got a mean look on her face, the kind she wore as a teenager, when she was on the lip of spitting rage. Now her eyes opened wide with concern. “How about you, Dad? How’s it make you feel?”
“Hey, it’s life in the big city,” I said, a little too glibly. “Your mother’s got a new life and so do I.” I flashed Rose a big show smile.
“It’s good,” she said, taking a final toke, “to see you happy, Dad.”
Was I happy? I wouldn’t go that far. I didn’t even know if being happy was the goal. More than anything, I wanted not to be bothered, to hold the world at arm’s length. Why not move to the suburbs, dude?
“Erica seems so cool,” my daughter said with a grin.
“Yeah, she’s a good egg. How about you, honey? Are you happy?”
“Am I happy? I don’t know. I get wound up. I spend a lot of time spinning my wheels. Dad, I want to be relevant, but I don’t know how.”
“You’re very relevant, honey,” I said.
Rose smiled at me. “And I’m clueless about men. I had this thing with our bass player. I guess it wasn’t very smart of me to get involved with him. You know, we’ve been on the road together for quite a while now, and he’s like ten years older than me, and about as laid back as I’m wired. But a few months ago he started acting—I don’t know—very courtly toward me, and the next thing you know I’m all dreamy about him and his beautiful green eyes. Funny, the way your mind runs away with you,” she said, tilting her head back. She rubbed at her eyes as they started tearing. “Next thing you know, he’s cheating on you.”
“I’m so sorry, honey.”
She nodded to me. “Guess you know all about that.”
I didn’t say anything.
Rose gave me a bright smile. “Well, you sure have a nice thing going with Erica.”
“I’m afraid she’s too young for me. She’ll come to her senses sooner or later.”
