SHIRTLESS, I went down the hall to my study and sat down at the computer. I didn’t spend as much time here as I once did, when I was writing science fiction novels. I still had the room decorated with SF toys and souvenirs-I’d recently put a framed Fantastic Voyage poster on the wall: orange with yellow lettering, some people spilling out of a guy’s eye, pretty cool, really-but they weren’t proving to be as inspiring as they once were. Someone being mischievous, Angie probably, had left a Batman action figure sitting on my keyboard. A Post-it note had been stuck to Batman’s chest, and written on it were the words “Make up with Mom.” The handwriting, I realized, was Paul’s.
I set Batman aside and fired up the e-mail program. I had a couple of dozen messages, most of them offering various services to enlarge my penis, drugs to enlarge my penis, or Rolex watches that would allow me to time, to the millisecond, how long it would take my penis to reach its full potential (i.e., become big enough to wear a Rolex, if some of the other e-mails were to be believed). Also, some businessmen in Nigeria were seeking my assistance in helping them transfer millions of dollars to North America, and if I could supply them my bank account information, thereby allowing them a place to hide their cash, I could keep a healthy percentage for my trouble.
And then there was one from Brian Sandler.
I clicked on it. His note read, “Dear Mr. Walker: This is me and my supervisor Frank Ellinger talking about the situation. I believe you will agree that it is very damaging for him and also for me, but I am playing a role here to get him to say what he does, which you should make clear in your story. I’m the whistleblower here, you understand. Brian Sandler.”
I opened the attached file and clicked on the tiny triangle pointing to the right. There was a small delay, and then the conversation began. It took only a moment to figure out who was who.
Ellinger: Yeah, sure. Grab a chair. Want one? (sound of rustling bag)
Sandler: No, no, well, sure. (more bag rustling) You got a sec?
Ellinger: Yeah. You see that game last night? Fuck.
Sandler: Yeah, that was something. Talk about coming from behind.
Ellinger: Fuck, yeah. Wassup?
Sandler: Oh, same old. You know. Busy.
Ellinger: Yeah, busy. Things good at home?
Sandler: Oh yeah, sure. You?
Ellinger: Just got a hot tub. You should come over. Fuckin’ awesome.
Sandler: Sure, that’d be fun. Listen, you got a sec?
Ellinger: I said yeah, sure, you gonna sit down or just stand there?
Sandler: Yeah, thanks. So, about Mrs. Gorkin.
Ellinger: Oh yeah. Some hunk of woman. (laughs)
Sandler: And those daughters of hers. The twins.
Ellinger: In Russia or Kanuckistan or Fuckistan or wherever the bejesus they come from, they’d be beauty contest winners. Over here, they look like they should be wearing an Amana box.
Sandler: Yeah, well. They’re strong, no doubt about that. Anyway, I just want to check with you, that we’re okay with them.
Ellinger: Sure, yeah, we’re okay. What are you talking about? Everything’s fine.
Sandler: I mean, I wonder if maybe I should be getting a little more than I’m getting. Like, I’m not really taking anything right now. I just, you know, I look the other way because I don’t want them, I don’t know, hurting my family or anything.
Ellinger: Jesus, Brian. Don’t be such a pussy. They’ve got money. How you think I got my fucking hot tub?
Sandler: Well sure, that’s what I was thinking. I mean, how much did they give you anyway? If I start hinting around, what should I be looking at, for them to give me?
Ellinger: Shit, they usually gave me a hundred any time I dropped by. They’d get pissed, right, thinking I was dropping by too often, but I explained, hey, if I don’t come by, it’s gonna be someone else, and just how many people do you want to put on the payroll? So once, every couple of weeks, I do a walk-through, tell them some things maybe they should clean up, stuff anybody could see, but the stuff you can’t see, that’s not a big problem.
Sandler: Okay. So, I go in, I say, you know, I want the same deal you had when you inspected Burger Crisp, before you got shifted.
Ellinger: You want, I can make a call to them. Pave the way, you know? I mean, they got the money, they’re doing a lot more on the side than selling burgers. You want me to do that?
Sandler: You don’t mind?
Ellinger: Fuck no, no big deal. You ever eat there?
Sandler: No, never.
Ellinger: Yeah, well, that’s a plan to stick with.
Sandler: So, Frank, you don’t mind my asking, how much, you figure, they paid you altogether?
Ellinger: I don’t know. Seven, eight grand maybe. But that was over a couple of years. Can’t buy a hot tub that way. Got to have a few Burger Crisps, you understand.
Sandler: Eight, ten grand. That’s great. Really helps out, right? We all got a lot of bills. So, how many other places you got an arrangement with?
Ellinger: Brian, what is this? You want to know whether I’m declaring this on my income tax?
Sandler:(laughs) No, shit, no.
Ellinger: It’s just, you’ve got a lot of questions.
Sandler: This whole thing, it still makes me nervous, you know? And those twins, they did hold my finger in the fryer, remember.
Ellinger: Yeah, that’s gotta hurt.
Sandler: So I’m just sayin’, I want to feel my way carefully with this. I got bills too.
Ellinger: Okay. I just need to know you’re not fucking around with me. Right?
Sandler: No, man. I’m not.
Ellinger: I just need to know.
Sandler: I told you. You don’t have to worry about me.
Ellinger: Because there’d be a shit storm, you started fucking around with me. And it wouldn’t be just me, right? Mrs. Gorkin, those little darlins of hers, you don’t want to go pissing them off.
Sandler: No, for sure.
Ellinger: You hot?
Sandler: Huh?
Ellinger: You hot? You look hot. You’re all sweating, like.
Sandler: No, I’m good. Listen, I’ll let you go. I got stuff, you know.
Ellinger: I’ll make the call. Maybe tomorrow. Okay?
Sandler: Yeah, good. That’s fine. Whenever.
That was it.
I listened to the entire exchange a second time. I had to hand it to Sandler. It was good stuff. I could see the entire conversation, reprinted nearly word for word, at least those that the Metropolitan would print without dashes, as a sidebar to a main story. People love reading those kinds of things. Brings a story into focus more quickly than a lot of exposition.
I’d have more questions to ask him the following morning when we met in Bayside Park. I decided, for safety’s sake, that maybe it was wise for at least one more copy of this audio file to be out there, so I forwarded it to Lawrence Jones, marked it “FYI” and included a short explanatory note. Lawrence does a lot of surveillance work, and might have some words of wisdom on just how incriminating this exchange was for Frank Ellinger.
I exited the mail program and decided to give the shower another try. There was enough hot water. Just.
Paul was home shortly before four, and Angie appeared not long after that.
“Why don’t you guys go out and get some dinner, give me and Mom some time alone tonight,” I said. “Things have been a bit rocky lately, and I’m hoping maybe I can smooth things over a bit now that this whole Trixie thing is over with.”
“Okay,” Paul said. “But we’re going to need some cash.”
I dug a twenty out of my wallet and handed it to Angie, who was closer. She examined the bill in my hand. “Is this some sort of a joke?” she asked. She had that wry look in her eye, the one that said You know I’m kidding, right? I dug out another ten and handed it over. “I suppose we’ll be able to get something with this,” she said.
“Jeez,” Paul said to his sister as they walked away. “I thought twenty was good. Nice going.”
There’s an Italian place down around the corner where Sarah and I sometimes go for a sit-down dinner. But they do a bit of takeout and delivery on the side, so I ordered two veal et limone with sides of pasta and arranged to have them delivered at seven.
I put on some Errol Garner (the Lawrence Jones influence), set the table with a cloth and napkins and everything, turned down the lights, lit some candles, and awaited Sarah’s arrival.
Her car pulled into the drive at six-thirty, and I met her at the door with a glass of wine.
Her eyes darted about, caught the candles, the elegantly set table in the dining room off the kitchen.
“Well,” she said, dropping her purse and taking the glass of chilled wine from my hand.
“I love you, Sarah,” I said. “I’m a dipshit, a pain in the neck, a busybody, an asshole of the first order. Ask anybody. I can supply references. I’m sorry for the things I’ve put you through. God knows how I do it. Up until three years ago, I’d barely had a parking ticket, and then, it’s like, I don’t know, I got cursed with catastrophe. And the only thing that’s gotten me through all this has been you. I love you more than anything in the world, Sarah.”
She studied my face, took a sip of her wine. “Is this whole speech just designed to get me into the sack?”
“Not specifically, but if it works out that way, I won’t pretend that I’m sorry.” I set my wine down and took a step toward her, put my hands on the sides of her shoulders. “I want to start over. This is the night where my life, where our life together, takes a new turn. No more troubles. No more craziness. From here on, we’re going to lead the most boring lives in the world. Want an adventure? I’ll take you to Home Depot. That’s as wild as it’s going to get around here from now on.”
Sarah put her wineglass next to mine and slipped her arms around me. “I love you.”
And we just stood there for a couple of minutes, until Sarah whispered, “Let’s go upstairs.”
“But,” I said, “the food’s going to arrive in twenty minutes.”
She moved back, smiled at me. “How much time do you think you’re going to need, really?”
I nodded, took her hand, and turned her in the direction of the stairs. “You’ve got a point,” I said.
She reached up and lightly touched my forehead. “What happened to your eyebrows? There’s, like, half of them missing.”
“I’ll tell you all about it over dinner,” I said, and took her upstairs.
And over veal and pasta, I did. She said very little, stopped me only a couple of times to ask questions.
“Jesus,” she said when I finished.
I had left a couple of parts out. I did not give Sarah the details of Trixie’s confession. I hadn’t decided what to do yet with that bit of information.
And I also left out the part where Trixie opened up about her fondness for me. There was no need to get into all that, either.
Later, sitting with Sarah on the couch, I said, “I think I may quit the paper.”
Sarah turned and looked at me. “What are you talking about?”
“Well, I don’t even know if Magnuson’ll take me back, take me off suspension, but if he does, I don’t know whether it’s right for me. And my being there, it’s not working for you, either. You’re going places. I mean, you lost the foreign editor thing this time, because of me, but there’ll be other opportunities. You’ve got more of a future there than I do.”
“That’s not true.”
“The thing is, Sarah, I don’t know whether I have what it takes.” I paused. “I don’t know whether I can tell the whole story.”
“What do you mean? About what?”
“About…anything. To be a half-decent journalist, you have to be willing to let all the secrets out, to tell everything. I haven’t been doing that. Not with some of the stories I’ve already done, not with the one about what happened up at my father’s place, and not with what’s happened this past week.”
“You’re just too close to these things. They’ve all been too personal. It’s different.”
I shrugged, looked down. “It’ll all sort itself out. As long as I’ve got you, it doesn’t matter to me what I’m doing.”
We hadn’t planned to make a dramatic entrance, but when Sarah and I walked into the kitchen, my arm hanging lightly around her nightshirted shoulder, her arm loose around my waist, thumb tucked into the waistband of my pajamas, I guess we made quite a picture for the kids, who were sitting at the table, eating toast and drinking coffee.
“Ooohhh, check it out,” Angie said.
“I’m gonna be sick,” Paul said. “Guys, get a room.”
“Where do you think we just came from?” I said.
Paul grimaced. I poured coffee for Sarah and me, opened the cupboard looking for cereal.
“How about eggs?” Sarah asked. Sarah makes great eggs.
“Won’t you be late to Home!?” I asked. She was the one heading off to work, not me.
“Fuck Frieda,” she said.
“But my heart belongs to you,” I said. Paul and Angie exchanged glances.
Sarah was leaning into the open fridge. “You want eggs or not?”
“Yes,” I said. “I want eggs.”
And so she made eggs. With cheese, and Canadian bacon, and toast and jam.
“I won’t be around for dinner,” Angie said. “Late lecture, then I’m hanging out with some friends.”
“Me neither,” said Paul. “After school, a bunch of us are going to this thing, and then we’re getting something to eat, and then we’re doing this other thing. So like, I could use a bit of cash. ’Cause I don’t have a job anymore, you know.”
The kids vanished. Sarah and I sat across from each other at the kitchen table, ate our breakfast, drank our coffee, glanced at the headlines in the Metropolitan. I didn’t even read Dick Colby’s story about me and Trixie and her arrest in Martin Benson’s death. Instead, I went to the comics page and read Sherman’s Lagoon.
We were alone, together, and things just seemed so right. That morning seemed like the dawn of something much more than another day. It had the aura of a new beginning. Handcuffed in a basement with a corpse, duct-taped in a barn in Kelton, tossed about by cops in a dead-of-night raid-all these things seemed like distant memories.
Things were good.
I should have savored the moment even more. It wasn’t going to last.