A Brilliant Death (17 page)

Travis went back to working in the bakery, loading and unloading bread trucks. He worked a split shift, four to eight a.m. loading the trucks for that day’s deliveries, then again from three to five p.m., unloading the returns that were sold at half-price at the discount store in the front of the warehouse. Consequently, there was always a box of day-old cupcakes or cinnamon rolls in the Baron kitchen, which was the only thing Travis did on a regular basis that seemed to make Big Frank happy.

The second week of June, Travis got excused from his afternoon shift at the bakery and we headed for Pittsburgh. The Pirates were in town against the Giants and, ostensibly, we were going to the game to celebrate the arrival of summer and officially becoming high school seniors. This caused my mother’s eyebrows to arch, and she said, “I hope this trip isn’t as painful as your last celebration of summer,” a snide reminder that she still didn’t believe our stories of how we came to be injured the night we encountered the mystery man. The Pirates game offered a good cover for the next stage of Project Amanda, which was our real reason for going to Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh is a traffic engineer’s nightmare. Located at the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers, the city was built around water and hills. The streets were narrow and crowded by trolleys, which rumbled and squeaked and clanged, zipping by pedestrians who seemed oblivious to the steel monsters. There was no semblance of order in the traffic patterns, and you could become hopelessly lost in an instant. Still, there is no more magnificent view than emerging from the Fort Pitt Tunnels to see the city burst to life in gleaming steel and glass. As we came down off the bridge, we pulled into a nearby parking lot, just off the Boulevard of the Allies. I loved the city. It was a gritty steel town, still full of many first-generation immigrants. The banter on the streets could be heard in any number of languages, and the air was full of the smell of smoke, sulfur, and cheap cigars. We walked the narrow streets, heading south in the direction of the Lafayette Building. We had hours to spare before the game, and the freedom of walking the streets of the city was invigorating. There was, however, a fire down deep in my belly, a nervous churning not unlike the feeling I got just before game time.

We passed through Market Square, where street vendors were selling flowers and fresh vegetables and newspapers were held down under a stone and you paid your dime on the honor system, and past Trinity Episcopal Cathedral, a monster of a stone building that had been stained black by decades of steel mill smoke. The sun was shining and hot. We bought Cokes from a vendor and continued to weave our way across town. The jitters were getting worse as we neared the Lafayette Building at the corner of William Penn Place and Seventh Avenue. It was an old building, sixteen stories of dirt-stained red brick. It housed several low-budget law firms—ambulance chasers; a sheet music sales company; several insurance agencies; Teamsters Local 203, which marked each of its windows with “UNION YES” bumper stickers; and the Western Pennsylvania office of the Veterans Administration, which occupied the middle six floors.

A security guard in the lobby sat behind a steel desk working a crossword puzzle, barely raising his head as we passed. A glass-encased building directory was on the far wall, where I found my target. “You know, you don’t have to do this if you don’t want to,” Travis said.

“I know. I’m okay.”

“Scared?”

“Not scared. A little nervous, though,” I admitted.

“Great, that means you’re ready. You’re going in alone, soldier.”

“What? Why? I thought this was a team project.”

“It is. But I’d just be baggage.”

He was right, and when I turned after stepping onto the elevator, he had disappeared into the newsstand on the far side of the lobby. The elevator was small and slow, groaning its way to the fifth floor. My throat tightened as I stepped out and started down the hall in search of room 518. Like the others on the floor, the door was solid oak with a frosted glass window. Painted on the glass was:

518
Counseling Services

I tapped lightly on the glass and a woman’s voice answered, “It’s open.” I stepped into the small outer lobby where a receptionist sat. She was a stout, middle-aged woman with a friendly smile and several large moles on her neck. Next to her, standing stiff-legged and leaning over the side of the desk, was a man in his mid-twenties, handsome, with chiseled features and broad shoulders. He glanced up, “How ya doin’?” he asked.

“Good,” I said.

The man gave the woman a few more directions, tapping a paper on her desk with the eraser of a pencil, then turned and walked with an unsteady gait toward his office.

“Can I help you, young man?” the receptionist asked, just about the time that the image of my face began to faintly register deep in the brain of Alex Harmon. He took hold of the door jamb and turned slowly, his artificial legs moving in halted, jerky steps.

He stared for a long moment, the gears continuing to churn. Finally, he asked, “Mitchell?”

I picked up where I had left off three summers earlier and tears welled in my eyes. “Good to see you, Alex.”

“My God, I don’t believe it.” He took a couple of steps and extended his right hand, gripped and pulled me close, hugging me with his muscular left arm. “What the hell are you doing here, boy?”

I returned the hug and took a step back, taking a quick swipe at my eyes with the back of my right hand. “I was in Pittsburgh for the Pirates game and thought I’d stop by and see you.”

“Damn. I can’t believe it.” He gripped my shoulders. “My God, look at you. You’re a man.” He slid his hands down to my biceps and squeezed. “Been hitting the weights, huh?”

“A little, sure.”

“I guess. You’ve got some nice shoulders there.” He turned toward the receptionist. “Rose, this is Mitchell Malone, my across-the-alley neighbor back in Brilliant. Mitchell, this is Rosemary O’Hara, my secretary.”

The chubby lady smiled. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Malone.”

“Man, I just can’t believe this,” Alex continued. “I haven’t seen you since . . .”

“The parade.”

“Yeah, the parade. Jesus, it’s been that long, huh?”

I nodded.

Alex slapped my shoulder. “Come on in,” he said, pushing me toward his office. “I’ve probably wondered how you were doing a million times. Whenever I talk to my cousin I always ask about you, but he never seems to know anything. You’re going to be a senior this year, aren’t you?”

“Yep. Can’t wait.”

“Great. What do the Blue Devils look like this year?”

“Not bad. We’re a little light on the line, as usual. But we’ve got good skilled people.”

“Are you one of them?”

I showed him my hands. “Split end, maybe a little tight end, and I’ll do all the kicking.”

“Man, that’s great, Mitch, just great.”

And so our reunion began. He was, it seemed, the Alex Harmon of old. Laughing. Talking about football and Brilliant. “So, it’s been since the parade, huh? Well, let’s see, what have I been up to in the meantime? I finished up my rehabilitation at the VA Hospital in Chillicothe, before they sent me to another veterans’ hospital up here for a mental evaluation. The doctors in Chillicothe said I seemed to be adjusting too quickly and too easily to my injuries.”

“Is that true?”

He shook his head. “Nope. It was harder than hell, but no amount of bitterness or complaining or wishing was going to bring my legs back, so I needed to make the best of the situation. Fortunately, I hooked up with a therapist up here who believed me when I told her that I wasn’t going to commit suicide or end up in a bell tower with a high-powered rifle.”

“Good thing you got assigned to her,” I said.

He smiled and pointed to a photo on the credenza of a gorgeous brunette with perfect teeth. “I ended up marrying her. She’s the one who got me interested in counseling. I didn’t harbor the bitterness that a lot of injured vets have when they return, and she thought that would make me a good counselor. I’m about two courses away from a bachelor’s in psychology at the University of Pittsburgh. I’d like to be carrying a football for the gold and blue, but I just can’t cut back against the grain with these things.” He smiled and knocked twice on his artificial right leg.

On the shelf behind his desk were Alex’s Brilliant football helmet, his all-Ohio certificate, and a trophy denoting him as Brilliant High’s football MVP his senior year. He saw me looking at the mementos and said, “I’m not on a big ego trip. I figured I need to show the guys who come in here that I lost something besides my legs. I lost the plans I had for my future. I was hoping those legs were going to carry me to a football scholarship when I got back from the war. I tell them, this isn’t going to be easy, but you can still live a full life.” He smiled. “You might even meet a beautiful woman who is completely out of your league and convince her to marry you.” He winked.

We had visited for an hour and I was a little ashamed that I had waited until I needed something to make the contact. Alex suspected the call wasn’t purely social. “So, what’s on your mind, champ?” he finally asked, grinning. “What’s the other reason you stopped by?”

“Nothing. I just wanted to see you.” I was such a coward.

“Is that a fact?” Alex persisted, now smiling broadly, enjoying watching me squirm.

“That’s a fact,” I said.

“So there’s no other reason,” he continued. “You just wanted to look up your old buddy.”

“That’s it.” I forced a smile.

Alex Harmon put his palms on the surface of his desk and used his muscular arms to push himself up. He took a few steps and eased himself onto the corner of his desk. “My friend, you are such a terrible liar. How do you get away with anything at home?”

I took a breath and looked away. “I don’t get away with much there, either.”

“Probably not. You know, your Adam’s apple rolls like the tide when you lie.”

“Yeah, so I’ve been told.” I rubbed that cursed Adam’s apple—my lie beacon.

“Okay, out with it, champ. What’s up?”

“I need a favor.”

He nodded. “Shoot.”

“Do you remember Travis Baron?”

“Vaguely. I remember seeing him horsing around in the alley with you. Frank Baron’s kid, right?”

“Yeah. That’s the one. His mom drowned when he was real little.”

“Sure. The big mystery of Brilliant. She was out on Frank’s boat when it got rammed by a barge. They never found her or her mystery lover. So, what about it?”

“Well, for the past three years I’ve been helping Travis try to find out about his mom and her family. I’ll spare you all the gory details, but Big Frank doesn’t like to talk about it, so Travis was forced to do the investigative work on his own.”

“And he hired you as his trusted assistant?”

“The pay’s lousy and the hours are worse, but it’s been a lot of fun.” Alex smiled. “Anyway, in the process of this search, we found out that Travis’s grandfather was a career Navy man. Travis asked his dad about the grandfather, and he said the grandfather died not long after Travis’s mom drowned in 1953.”

“And you want to find out when he died?”

“We want to find out if he died at all. Travis has asked his dad some questions and he’s been pretty liberal with his versions of the truth.”

Alex’s eyebrows arched. “Interesting. So, you want me to find out if the old man is still alive.”

“Yeah. And, if he is still alive, where is he? If he was career military and retired, he’s got to be drawing a pension, doesn’t he?”

Alex folded his arms and exhaled, long and slow. “You know, those records are private. I get caught doing that and they’ll put my balls in a sling.”

“I know. But we don’t know where else to turn.”

For several moments, Alex stared out the window. Finally, he smiled and squinted. “Did I ever tell you about the time Frank Baron switched my ass raw?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“We were just kids, me and Jimmy Kidwell—about six, I guess. Big Frank lived in an old place up at the end of Shaft Row.”

“That’s where they were living when Travis was born.”

“Jimmy lived just a few doors down from Big Frank. He and I had been down in the creek catching crawdads and minnows to sell to the bait store. We were coming back, cutting across Big Frank’s backyard, and we saw that he had poured some fresh concrete over the cistern . . .”

“The what?”

“The cistern. Before we got city water in Brilliant, everyone had cisterns. They were like wells to catch rainwater. People used that water for their gardens so they didn’t drain their wells. Once we got city water, they didn’t need the cisterns, so people capped them.”

“Why?”

“So little kids out catching crawdads and minnows didn’t fall in them and drown, I guess.”

“Okay. Go on.”

“We saw that they had just poured this cap over the cistern, so we found a couple of sticks and started writing our names in the wet cement. Well, we didn’t see Big Frank behind us. He grabbed a switch off a mulberry tree, sneaked up behind us, and beat our butts royal—called us some names that I had never heard before, or since, and I was in the army,” Alex laughed. “Needless to say, that was the last time we went adventuring up to Big Frank’s.”

“He’s a bastard,” I said.

“Yes, on a good day he’s a bastard.”

There was a light tapping at the door and Rose poked her head in the door. “You’ve got a one-thirty with Mr. Lambert.”

“Would you give him a call and tell him I’m running about ten minutes late?” She nodded and pulled the door closed. “Who else knows you were coming up here to make this request?”

“Just Travis. He’s waiting downstairs.”

“Okay. You tell Travis to keep his mouth shut, and I’ll see what I can do. No promises, mind you. If it looks like there’re going to be problems, I’m going to drop it.”

“Fair enough.”

“What’s his name?”

“Ronald Virdon.”

“Navy?”

I nodded. “Do you want me to call you back?”

“No. I’ll get word to you. It may take a while, but I’ll see what I can do.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

On the Fourth of July, the city blocked off the village’s two-block business strip, and the Brilliant Polish-American Club held its annual festival. Even as a young boy, I somehow knew the celebration was special, a slice of Americana and one of the memories of growing up in Brilliant that would remain with me long after I left. The carnies descended on the town several days prior to the festival to set up the Tilt-A-Whirl; Scrambler; Ferris wheel; my favorite, the Octopus; the mini roller coaster that occupied the alley space behind the funeral home; the Rock-O-Plane, on which I rode just once and vowed to never again set foot in; and the deadly spinning tubs, in which, when I was twelve, Snookie spun me until I slumped to the floor and centrifugal force pinned me against the wall of the car, making me so sick that I sprinted past the mini roller coaster and hurled on the hood of a 1959 Chevy in the used car lot owned by Urb Keltenecker’s dad. The tubs then went on the list with the Rock-O-Plane. The carnies also set up games of chance, and it took me years of trying to knock down milk bottles and throwing softballs into tilted peach baskets and trying to climb a rope ladder to realize they were all fixed.