Romeo's Way, page 15
part #2 of Mike Romeo Series
“You’re wavering?”
“You work in politics. You tell me.”
“That’s a low blow,” she said.
“Is it?” I said.
“You don‘t have any right to judge me.”
“I’m talking about the world you run in. Do you always tell the truth in your press releases?”
“You know how the game is played,” she said.
“You feel okay about that?”
“It’s not a question of feeling. It’s a question of dealing with things as they are. There are good ends and bad ends and it’s my job to try to make sure the good side wins.”
“Who decides what is good?” I said.
“Sometimes it’s obvious,” she said.
“And other times?”
“It’s not my job to think about the other times.” She sipped more wine and shook her head a little.
I said, “Is it your job to think about the death of T’Kia Wilson?”
She looked at me evenly. “That’s a terrible thing to say.”
“I mean, how is the campaign going to spin it?”
“I hate that word,” she said.
“That’s your stock in trade, isn’t it?” I said.
“You don’t have to be nasty about it.”
“Was I nasty?”
Kat ran a fingertip over the rim of her glass. “Most people think spin is just a fancy term for lying.”
I nodded.
“But I don’t deal in lies,” she said. “I am an advocate for the facts, and facts are open to interpretation.”
“Nicely said.”
“You believe me?”
“That’s open to interpretation,” I said.
“I wish I could figure you out,” she said.
“What fun would that be?”
A question that prompted Kat to get up and walk to the window. Her back to me, she looked out for a long time without saying a word. I watched her in her soft sweater, looking little against the massive darkening sky and jeweled lights outside. Not a master of the universe, because who really is?
I wanted to go to her. Give up and go. Forget what it might mean. Figure all that out later.
And then she turned around. She held her wine glass in both hands and looked into it. She did not move from the window.
“Mike, you don’t have to go.”
At that moment I didn’t want to lie to her. So I didn’t say anything.
“Damn,” she said.
I got up and went to her, and when I got there she was shaking her head.
“I suppose I could be a little less obvious,” she said.
“That would make me have to guess,” I said.
“Like I’m doing now.” She made kiss-me eyes that were very effective.
One of those long pauses they used to call pregnant followed.
Will power, Romeo.
“How about those Giants?” I said.
“If you weren’t hurt, I’d hit you,” she said. Now her eyes were cold steel.
“I’m glad you won’t,” I said. “I’m afraid of violence.”
“Why do I have this sudden, horrible feeling that I’m making a great big mistake?”
“Because you are.” At least that was an honest answer.
She said, “That only means you’re a challenge. I can break you down.”
“You want to fight?”
“Are you man enough?” she said.
“Gosh, you preacher’s kids are tough.” I said.
“And if you‘re not nice to me I will slap some Bible verses on you.”
“A soft answer turneth away wrath,” I said as I took one step forward, cursing silently.
“Answer not a fool according to his folly,” she said.
My left arm wrapped around her neck. For a long moment our lips made like David and Bathsheba.
“You want to know me better?” I said.
“There is no going back now,” she said.
“Then lend me your car.”
She took a step back. “What?”
“With you in it, of course. I need to go looking for something. And I may need a partner.”
“I like the sound of it,” she said. “But why?”
“Somebody shot me,” I said. “I take that personally.”
“When do you want to go?”
“In the morning.”
She kissed me again. “That means you’re spending the night.”
“Lead me not into temptation.”
“Why don’t you take a flying leap?” she said, and headed for the kitchen.
“That’s not in the Bible,” I said.
“It should have been,” she said.
I WOKE UP on her sofa and for a minute forgot where I was. Then I thought I was in New York and I flashed back to when I was fourteen and in the West Side apartment of Zbysław Osage, the philosopher, a friend of my father’s. It was a summer job and I was helping him do some research on the history of ontology in German thought. His apartment looked over Central Park and it was a rainy day and I remember thinking I should be outside playing football, football in the rain, but I was not built for football but for reading books.
I came to myself and remembered it was Kat’s apartment and the day was starting to dawn. I smelled her. We’d held each other for a long time on the sofa last night before she went to bed and I went into a deep dream. In the dream, Harrison Ford was a priest in a hooded robe and he was out to get me.
I heard Kat in the kitchen. And smelled coffee. I flexed my shoulder and made a noise that was somewhere between a groan and a huff.
“Good morning,” she said.
I sat up. All I had on was boxers. The blanket was warm over my legs.
She came to me.
“Not very modest this morning,” she said, smiling, sat next me and put her hands on my chest, then wrapped them around my neck and kissed me.
It was a good way to start a morning. The kiss was long and full and when we finally parted I said, “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure,” she said.
“What about me not telling you who I am?” I said.
“We can chance it.”
“What about your work and my work?”
“You’re full of questions,” she said.
“Sometimes that’s all I’m full of,” I said.
“No questions right now. Coffee?”
“Oh yeah.”
She went to the kitchen and came back with two large, earthenware mugs. She sat again and we drank the coffee black and it was like being in a ski lodge with her and I thought, This is what a normal life is like, Romeo. This is what you could have if …
… if what? If I could take away every bad thing and the shadows that always pour out of me and cover anyone close?
When was the last time I’d kissed a woman like that, and I knew that I never had, there had always been a holding back and then a taking, and then it would be time to say goodbye and I would go and know that I’d left some of my shadow behind with her, and I hated that, but it didn’t stop me from the taking.
But with Kat it was different. At least it was at that moment. But how long would that last before there would be another taking and another goodbye?
“I have to go into the office,” she said.
“We never talk anymore,” I said.
“Shut up. I can be back around eleven and take you where you want to go.”
“I’d really like to go to New Zealand,” I said.
“That’ll have to wait.” She stood. “Now drink your coffee and try not to mess up my place.”
Five minutes later I heard the shower.
It was the sound of normal.
Something I hadn’t known since the day my parents died.
I DID STAY with my aunt for a year. She and other well-meaning people who knew my parents tried to get me to go back to Yale.
But I wanted no part of Yale. Ever again.
When I turned eighteen I left my aunt a note and hit the road. Got in my old heap and drove south. When I was out of money I stopped. I was in Louisville.
Downtown.
Walking around.
I came to an odd marker. It was right there on the street. A permanent monument. It said this:
A Revelation
Merton had a sudden insight at this corner Mar. 18, 1958, that led him to redefine his monastic identity with greater involvement in social justice issues. He was “suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all these people….” He found them “walking around shining like stars.”
Merton? Yeah, Thomas Merton, my mom had mentioned him once or twice.
What a sucker.
And I had my own revelation right there at that sign. My own idea about redefining my identity. And it didn’t have anything to do with loving other people.
It had to do with giving other people what they deserved.
It would start with my body and end with my mind.
I found a gym that taught boxing and martial arts. The guy who ran it was Demetrius Boland, out of Jersey. I knew how to talk to guys from Jersey. So he gave me a job cleaning up, with a small room to stay in.
In return, he taught me how to fight.
And eat.
And push weights.
In a year and a half I was an absolutely new person, made of cement, with unfinished business in New Haven.
KAT KISSED ME and then left for the office, as if we were in an upside-down episode of Leave It to Beaver.
I called Ira.
“What’s going on?” he said.
“I’m living with a woman,” I said.
Silence.
“Temporarily,” I said.
“Katarina Hogg?”
“The very same,” I said. “She’s giving me a bed.”
“Dear God.”
“On her sofa,” I said.
“Why am I not comforted?” Ira said. “By the way, the building where you found the Wilson girl has strange ownership. Two shell corporations involved. That’s not uncommon, and neither one lists officers or directors. But they have to have an agent for service of process, and they both have the same one. A lawyer named Gail Goodman. Office in Sausalito.”
“Maybe I should pay her a visit,” I said.
“Hold on there, Lightning. Let me do some more digging before you go blustering into somebody’s office.”
“I glide, Ira. I never bluster.”
A very audible sigh glided into my ear.
THAT AFTERNOON KAT drove us over to Walnut Creek.
She talked about her childhood and strict upbringing and how sneaking a listen to The Backstreet Boys was her first act of rebellion. She asked me about my first act of rebellion.
“You’ll laugh,” I said.
“No I won’t,” she said.
“I stayed up all night, under the covers with a flashlight, reading The Nature and Destiny of Man.”
She didn’t laugh. “How old were you?”
“Seven,” I said.
“Seven? And you were reading, what was it again?”
“The Nature and Destiny of Man by Reinhold Niebuhr.”
“It doesn’t sound like a kid’s book.”
“Depends on the kid.”
“And you rebelled by reading a forbidden book?” she asked.
“No, by staying up all night. My mom wanted me to get eight hours.”
She said, “I think you must have some serious brain power going on.”
“Brain power is overrated,” I said.
We changed the subject and drove on, and when we got to the Walnut Creek neighborhood I made a change. I gave her the address and went into the back of her car, where I could lie down, with instructions to drive by slowly once. She could be a woman out looking for houses on the market.
As she drove by the house, I asked her what she saw.
“Looks like a nice house. Neat. A couple of cars in the driveway.”
“What kind?”
“A nice black one, looks like a Caddy. The other one is an SUV. Mercedes. There’s a black pickup at the curb.”
“Any people around?”
“I don’t see any.”
I popped up enough to look out the window. It was as she described.
“Keep going,” I said. “Around the block. Go back around to the beginning of the street.”
She did. I had her pull over just past the corner. From here we could see the house. It was halfway down on the left. Of the two cars in the driveway, the black Caddy closest to us.
It was the Caddy that had my interest now, more pieces floating around in my head crying out for connection, but they didn’t line up.
“Now for some instructions,” I said.
“Tell me, captain.”
“We watch. We surveil. You into surveillance?”
“Totally.”
“You know the secret of surveillance?”
“Do tell.”
“Not to be caught surveilling.”
“Makes sense.”
“So we’re going to have to do something really daring. Are you ready to get daring?”
“Let’s.”
“When we see people walking by, we have to kiss each other.”
“I like this surveillance stuff.”
“That way people will think we’re a couple of crazy kids in love. Think you can handle that?”
“I’ll give it my best shot. Let’s rehearse.”
We did. It was a good rehearsal. In fact, it was ready for opening night.
We watched for an hour and went into our dance a couple of times. I started hoping more people would walk by.
In between we talked, and I found in Kat a mind that was curious about my world, which is a world of ideas. She wanted to know what made me tick, and why I wouldn’t tell her too much about my past.
I told her one step at a time.
Then someone came out of the house. It was a man, dressed like a guy going to the grocery store. Medium height, dark hair. He walked around to the back of the Caddy and bent over. He put his hand on the rear license plate. He appeared to jiggle the plate. He popped the trunk and took something out. It was a tool of some kind. He appeared to be tightening the rear license plate.
I said, “Uh-huh.”
“What?” Kat said.
“The car that shot me, it had a bum plate.”
Somebody else came out. It was the kid with the stringy hair, one of the two who hit me when I first arrived. His right hand had what looked like a splint on his finger. He said something to the man and they talked and the vibe was father and son.
The kid went back inside and the man got into the Cad.
“What do we do now?” Kat said.
“Can you follow him?”
“Kiss me.”
I kissed her.
“I can do anything,” she said. The car pulled out of the driveway and headed away from us.
“Wait a second,” I said. “Give him a lead.”
“Bonnie and Clyde,” she said.
“Nick and Nora Charles,” I said.
“Who are they?”
“I’ll tell you later, over martinis.”
“I like them already.”
“Go.”
I coached her on distance and we followed the Caddy down two main drags. A couple of miles went by and then he pulled into the parking lot of a Lowe’s. He took a space, got out, headed for the store.
I had Kat park a few spaces away.
“Think you can get a picture of this guy without him knowing it?”
“I’m so good with that.”
“You need to be. He can’t have any idea.”
“I can try.”
“Do, or do not. There is no try.”
“Okay. Do.”
“Go and make me proud,” I said.
She headed into the store. I called Ira.
“Mike, how are you?”
“Like a one winged dove,” I said. “I need you to run a plate.”
“You never just call me anymore.”
I ignored him and gave him the plate number.
“When do you need it?” he said.
“A week ago.”
“That’ll take me a little longer. Where are you?”
“I’m out in the field. I’m with her.”
He said, “Is this going to interfere with your work?”
“It’s making the work tolerable,” I said.
“Can it be I sense a note of humanity in your voice?”
“I wouldn’t jump to any conclusions. Be quick about your business.”
“Don’t be so abrupt.”
I cut the call.
Waited.
Ten minutes. Kat came out, smiling.
“I got it,” she said. “I’m good.”
“I had no doubt. Send it to me.” I gave her my phone number.
“This is fun,” she said. “Going on Facebook?”
“Sure.”
“Now what?”
“We go back to the city.”
“It’s such a nice day,” she said.
“I hate to ruin it,” I said.
She smiled at first, then saw I was serious.
“What?” she said.
“Tell me what you know about T’Kia Wilson.”
Kat blinked a couple of times. I could almost hear the eyelids clack.
“I don’t know that much about her,” she said.
“You’re right in the middle of the campaign,” I said. “She was big news, and now even bigger in death.”
“Just what are you suggesting?”
“She was a nuclear weapon.”
“Meaning?”
“To take out Samuel Johnson once and for all.”
“He got caught,” Kat said. “The public has a right to know.”
“Or the whole thing was manufactured.”
“We have the evidence. Her lawyer, Sylvia Alton, has it.”
“Evidence can be manufactured, too,” I said.
“He was in Chicago the same time T’Kia was. There are receipts.”
“What was T’Kia Wilson doing in Chicago?”
“I don’t know! Why are you doing this, Mike?”
“Doing what?”
“Cross-examining me. I don’t like it.”
“Somebody shot me. Somebody tried to kill me or Leeza Edgar. Somebody killed T’Kia Wilson. I want to know the connections.”
“What do you expect me to do about it?”
“Tell me the truth.”
