2 Grand Delusion (11 page)

At least I hoped so.

12

At that time of day—six a.m.—the only place where you can chow down in Saratoga is the Spa City Diner, on Route 9 next to the Greyhound station. Not exactly a four-star joint, but what the heck. We went back to my house, looking around to make sure no cop cars or TV vans were lurking. Then I grabbed my car and we zoomed on out.

I ordered pancakes, and so did Tony. Then we ordered some French toast for good measure. After we finished all that, we scarfed down a couple of jelly doughnuts. Hanging out in cold, dark cemeteries is a great way to build up an appetite.

By the time the jelly doughnuts had met their destiny, Tony and I were feeling warm and cheery, the world seemed like a happy place, and best of all, we had come up with A Plan.

Actually, two plans. One of our plans was a sneaky little hustle that we'd try to pull off tonight, if possible. The other, more immediate plan was to find Tony a temporary safe haven where he wouldn't have to live in fear of his mother's crack-induced mood swings. Or her boyfriends' sexual perversions, I thought to myself, remembering his comment in the cemetery.

Since it was already seven when we left the diner, I called Andrea. I figured the kids would be up already, and they'd be wondering where I was. And I was right. When Andrea picked up the phone with a tense "Hello," I could hear Babe Ruth and Gretzky—Leonardo and Raphael—bawling in the background. The kids had come into our bed at six-thirty, and when I wasn't there they decided I must be in jail again. They'd been freaking out for thirty minutes straight.

Andrea, her own voice edged with hysteria, yelled at me—totally justifiably, I knew—for not leaving a note saying where I was going. I said "I'm sorry" several times, in several different ways. But I still didn't tell her about Tony and the investigating I was doing. I figured that would just rile her up even more.

Then Andrea put our four year old on the phone. "Hi, Raphael," I said.

His frantic crying stopped, replaced by heavy breathing. Then I heard a gulp, then more heavy breathing, as he tried desperately to make himself relax.

"Sweetiepie," I told him, "I'm not in jail. I'm in a restaurant having breakfast. I'll be home just as soon as I finish eating."

Another gulp came over the phone, then Raphael said, "Daddy?"

"Yes, honey?"

"Do you think God made me love Ninja Turtles?"

What?
If men are from Mars, and women are from Venus, then children are from some other galaxy entirely. "I don't know, kiddo. What do you think?"

"I think first God made me love dinosaurs, and then robots, and now Ninja Turtles. Because he has a magic invisible hand that makes you love things. And I think I'm going to love Ninja Turtles forever."

I had no idea what to say to that. But as so often happens when you don't know what to say, I ended up saying the exact perfect thing. "I love
you
forever, Raphael."

His breathing changed, and I could feel him turning calm. "And I love you forever, Daddy."

After Raphael and I got that squared away, and Leonardo got on the phone and asked me to bring him back a cinnamon doughnut, I took Tony to his new temporary home—Dennis O'Keefe's house.

Besides running the Arcturus youth group, Dennis also ran an emergency shelter for kids out of his home, a few blocks away from us on the West Side. He had two extra bedrooms for that purpose. I felt funny ringing his doorbell at seven-thirty on a Sunday morning, but hey, what are friends for?

When Dennis finally answered the door, he gave me a perplexed look. He scratched his beer belly—or given his years on the wagon, maybe I should say coffee belly—and declared, "Jacob Burns, I thought you were in jail." Tired though he must have been, his voice was startlingly loud in the early morning quiet. His T-shirt was loud too, with the old 60s slogan
challenge authority
written in canary yellow on a magenta background.

"No, they let me out on bail. This is my friend Tony—"

"Hey, Tony, what's up?" Dennis greeted him heartily, then turned back to me. "Jake, I want to be up front with you. The cops came around asking me questions, and I had to tell them the whole thing."

Now it was my turn to be perplexed.
"What
whole thing?"

"You know, how you came around with the petition, and you were saying Pop was criminal and ought to be shot—"

"What are you talking about?! I never said that!" Dennis just gave me a sad look. "If I
did,
I didn't mean it!"

"Hey, I had to tell them the truth—"

"For God's sake, Dennis—"

"My sobriety is dependent on it!" he announced firmly. I stared at him, exasperated. Sometimes I can't stand twelve-steppers—they get so sanctimonious. Dennis switched into earnest lecture mode, like I was an AA newcomer he was proselytizing. "If I start being deceitful and telling lies to people, then my mind gets all twisted and messed up. Pretty soon I'll be back to a pint of bourbon and a line of coke every morning when I wake up!"

I stepped forward into his face. "Dennis, screw you, and screw your sobriety."

I was so steamed up, I'd already begun walking away before I even remembered about Tony. "You got room for a kid?" I asked Dennis through gritted teeth. "Abuse, drugs, family in crisis, the whole megillah."

To his credit, Dennis was able to shift gears immediately. He stooped down to Tony's level. "Pretty bad, huh?" he asked the kid.

Tony nodded, his lower lip quivering. Dennis patted his shoulder. "Yeah, I got room. Come on in, Tony."

Then he opened the door for Tony and me to enter. "No, I'm going home," I told him.

"No hard feelings, Jake." He stuck out his hand. I didn't take it, but he seemed oblivious. "So what's the story anyway?" he asked. "Did Pop pull you out of bed and start popping you or something?" I just stood there, incredulous, and Dennis nodded to himself, as if my silence was confirming what he had just said. "Yeah, I figured it had to be something like that. Even with all the stuff you said to me about Pop, I knew you wouldn't just murder the guy in cold blood."

"Thanks for your confidence," I said dryly.

My sarcasm didn't seem to register. "No problem. Listen, buddy, if you want me to testify at the trial about what a nasty, violent sonufabitch he was, I'll be more than glad to. You gonna try for manslaughter?"

I searched my mind for an incredibly snappy retort, but my internal hard drive crashed on me. Fortunately Tony stepped in. "Mr. Burns didn't kill Pop.
He didn't."

"Thanks, kid," I rubbed his head. "I'm glad
somebody
believes me."

"I'll see you later," Tony said, anxious about my leaving.

I bent down and hugged him good-bye. "Don't worry, little guy, Dennis will take good care of you. He may have his head up his ass—but at least his heart's in the right place."

It wasn't a bad line to leave on. So I left.

I'm not a big fan of Wal-Mart. In fact, I hate everything about Wal-Mart—their ubiquitousness, their union busting, their bright fluorescent lights, their inanely smiling robotic employees.

So why is it that at least twice a month I find myself shopping there?

Today I had no choice. I mean, where else can you buy a video camera in small town, U.S.A., first thing on a Sunday morning?

To inflame my Wal-Mart fear and loathing even further, when I came in that day the store robots were in the middle of their morning cheer. From inside the manager's office, I heard the master robot call out, "Give me a W!" A chorus of perfectly synchronized robot voices shouted as one, "W!" Then the master called out, "Give me an A!" And the cheer continued until everyone yelled
"WAL-MART!"
in one wild robotic orgasm.

I bought the cheapest Taiwanese piece of junk I could find, since all I needed it for was tonight, for the sneaky hustle that Tony and I had concocted back at the Spa City Diner. An elderly woman robot showed me how to work the thing. "Will you be using it to videotape your children?" she asked, with an approving robot smile.

Just to knock her out of automaton mode, I told her the truth. "No, I'll be using it to blackmail my next door neighbor."

She didn't even blink. "How nice," she said. "Well, I'm sure you'll be happy with it. Is there anything else you'd like to purchase today?"

Yes, they train them well at Wal-Mart.

The camera and accessories came to $350, which I paid for with a credit card, feeling wistful. Our $300,000 nest egg had dwindled down to about negative $800. If things kept up like this much longer, I'd have to find an actual job.

What a horrid thought.

Of course, if I went to jail my job worries would be over. Permanently.

On my way home I decided to stop at Judy Demarest's house, a restored Victorian a couple of blocks off Broadway—on the East Side. When I drove up, she was outside picking up
The New York Times
and her own paper, the
Daily Saratogian
, from her front steps. Her eyes narrowed as she watched me get out of my car.

"Hey, Jude," I said, hoping a little Beatles reference would get us off to a friendly start.

But she just nodded noncommittally. I came straight to the point. "Judy, I've been meaning to ask you something. All the TV stations said I confessed, but you never put that in the
Saratogian
. How come?"

Judy shrugged. "The chief said you confessed, but I didn't want to publish it until I got your side of the story."

"So why didn't you just call me up and get my side?"

She silently looked down at her fingers, so I answered for her. "Because you were afraid I'd tell you it was true."

"Hey, what did you expect me to think?" she said defensively. "I saw you fighting Pop that night, you scared the hell out of me. You were like the Wild Man from Borneo."

I nodded, and tossed her a smile. "Well, now we're even."

"What do you mean?"

"Last time around, I wrongly suspected you of murder. This time you wrongly suspect me."

She nailed me with a look. "Wrongly?"

For some reason I couldn't help laughing. "Jacob, this isn't funny," she said.

"I know. Look, can I come inside for a minute?"

A little more reluctantly than I would have liked, she opened the door for me to come in. After I got settled at her kitchen table, I asked her to tell me everything she knew about the murder. As editor of the town newspaper, I figured she must have heard some good gossip.

And she had. Unfortunately, all the gossip pointed to me as the killer. There was even a story making the rounds that the cops had found some skin with my DNA under Pop's fingernails.

Come to think of it, the way he'd pinched me, that story might turn out to be true. Yet another crooked nail in my legal coffin.

"What about Pop?" I asked. "You hear anything interesting about Pop?"

"Just that he picked the wrong time to die. He was about to make a shitload of money off of selling the Grand Hotel to the SERC."

What?
"Pop was one of the owners?"

"You bet. Majority owner."

Interesting. Dave hadn't mentioned that; I guess he didn't know it. The Grand Hotel building, even foreclosed and in disrepair, must have cost Pop and his partners serious dough—a couple hundred grand, at least. Where had Pop gotten all that green stuff? Not from his cop salary, that's for sure. Apparently his bribery scams had done him proud.

"Judy, thanks for the info," I said, getting up to go. "And listen, please don't tell Andrea I came by asking questions. I'm kind of handling this on my own."

"I hope you know what the hell you're doing."

"I don't. As usual. But if I ever figure it out, you'll get an exclusive. And if I ever really do confess," I added, "you'll be the first to know."

Judy gave me another piercing look, probably still trying to figure out if I was guilty. I gave her a lighthearted thumbs up and walked out.

Then I drove back home to the bosom of my family. But there was a TV van parked out front, lying in wait for me. I was glad I'd stashed my Wal-Mart purchase in the trunk under an old towel. I didn't want any eager beaver media people asking me why I'd bought a new video camera.

When I pulled into my driveway, Max Muldoon jumped out of the van along with a five-foot-tall camerawoman. Camera rolling, they blocked my way. He shoved a microphone in my face and asked, "Mr. Burns, where were you this morning? Meeting with your lawyer?"

I started past them, but Muldoon and his sidekick stuck with me step for step, crowding me away from my house. "It looks like an open and shut case, Mr. Burns. Why don't you give us your side of the story?"

I stopped. If I weren't afraid of "poisoning the jury pool," I'd have jammed that microphone down his throat. "Actually, I do have a comment I'd like to make."

Muldoon's eyes glinted, and his well-waxed mustache positively gleamed in the cold morning sunshine. I could almost hear what he was thinking:
"MSNBC, here I come."
But what he said out loud was, "Yes, Mr. Burns?"