All the Dead Yale Men (34 page)

A truck shifted down on the highway and made the asphalt we stood on tremble.

“So, I wanted to show you just how good I could make you feel. If I was in the mood.”

The concrete path went along the fronts of the empty motel rooms, all the same, the plastic curtains behind the dusty glass, the aluminum frames of the window, the doors with the thin veneer of wood, the doorknobs that looked as if they had come from Wal-Mart, and yet in the empty rooms I felt the valence left by fatigue or a desperate passion that had been there and gone. These things left a kind of vacuum behind. The trucks went by on Route 2, shifting down with a rumble and a cloud of smoke. Pauline put the key in the door with one hand and held my arm with the other.

“Oh, Frank,” she said. “I get trembly. After all this time. That's what I'm so bitter about. Why won't it just go away? Do you think it would go away if I helped you?”

“I don't know,” I said.

“Maybe it would make me feel superior. And not so fucking bitter.”

She pushed the door open. The place smelled of air-conditioned cigarette smoke, cheap perfume, antibacterial soap, and ozone from the professional-grade vacuum cleaner. A small desk had
been against one wall, but it had been swung around so that one person could sit on one side and another could sit opposite. A chessboard had been set up there, white pieces on one side, black on the other. Pauline stood next to me.

“It wasn't easy, Frank,” she said.

His hair was shorter, but his skin was the same snake belly white, improved by the acne scars that, in an odd way, suggested dueling scars. His hands were white, too, the fingers still long and delicate, like a pickpocket's. He wore a Don't Tread on Me tee shirt with a snake on it, a pair of blue jeans, and some Timber-land boots. A leather jacket lay on the bed next to him.

“Sit down, Frank,” he said.

The chair had a black plastic seat, a veneer back, little gold tabs on the end of the legs. Aurlon Miller lit a cigarette and blew a cloud of smoke into the air.

“I thought we'd play chess,” he said.

He picked up a black pawn and a white one and put them behind his back.

“Pick,” he said.

I drew white.

Pauline sat down on the bed, crossed her legs, put her laced fingers together over her knee.

“Aurlon and I go way back,” said Pauline.

He opened with a king's pawn. I answered, doing so by rote, although I kept my eyes on that pale skin. He moved a pawn. I knew he was going to bring a bishop out and then a knight. A basic opening. But I wondered if he had learned anything new since we had last played. Trade for pieces, concentrate on endgame? Simplify things to the point where it was easy to see. Pauline squirmed on the bed. Ran one hand along her leg, down to her ankle, where she undid the buckle of her shoe and let it fall to the carpet. She smiled.

He traded when he could. I castled. He looked across the board and said, “I bet you're surprised to see me.”

“Yes,” I said. “I thought you were gone.”

“You mean dead, don't you?” said Aurlon.

“Yes,” I said.

He castled, too.

Aurlon looked at me. “You thought you were pretty hot with that Aron Nimzowitsch stuff. Took me a while to catch up, but you were always one jump ahead of me.”

“I played a lot of chess,” I said, “when I was in school.”

“Uh-huh,” said Aurlon. “And you couldn't resist it, could you? You had to rub it in, right?”

“I don't know,” I said.

“Sure you did,” said Aurlon. “You rock-ribbed snob. You turned up your nose at me. You had to beat me. You had to show Pia that I wasn't up to your standards, right?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Hmpf,” he said. “That's what I thought.”

He traded, bishop for bishop, set up a trade for queens. Did he really want to do that?

“So, you wanted to beat me down. Make me feel like something from a gutter, like something that climbed out from under a rock,” he said. “You know what I thought about that?”

“We were just playing chess,” I said.

“Fuck you,” said Aurlon. “We're here to settle things. You wanted to beat me down. And you know what? I don't take that easily. Everybody does that. They underestimate me, you know that?”

“Tell me where you've been,” I said.

“Ask her,” he said. He pointed at Pauline.

“Here and there. Up and down the coast. Florida to Maine,” said Pauline. “Yana told me they were going to sell you up and down the coast like an air bag.”

“Too bad,” said Aurlon. “We were going to fuck this guy up.” He lifted his chin toward me. “You thought you could somehow humiliate me, and that I won't play for higher stakes. That's what I do, see? I play for higher stakes. You may think I was just after your daughter, but after a while, when you started in with that Aron Nimzowitsch bullshit, I thought I'd show you what high stakes are.”

I moved a pawn. He answered. Outside the trucks rumbled when they shifted down.

“How much cash have you got on you?” said Aurlon.

“Three hundred dollars,” I said.

“There's an ATM in the lobby of the motel. Let's play for five hundred,” he said.

“Why?” I said.

He shrugged.

“When I saw how you were trying to bust my chops, I went to see Stas. And then when you needed a car part, I sent you out there, and he charmed you. So I went back to Stas and Stas said, ‘The guy wants to get rid of you.' And, I said, ‘So what if I go?' Stas said that would make for some interesting possibilities. Like I'm gone, and Frank Mackinnon here asked to make me disappear.”

“How could you make sure I'd go out to see him?”

“Oh, Frank,” he said. “I could see you hated paying those prices for Audi parts. And you know what? I kept putting a little pinhole in the hydraulics. It was just a matter of time until you said, Hey, I'm not paying that kind of money at the Audi dealership. You were just a sitting duck.”

He ran a finger over a pawn.

“Ain't that the truth?” he said to the wall. Then he turned to me and said, “So, let's make it for five hundred.”

“How did you get him to come here?” I said to Pauline.

“I wanted to show you I could make you feel good,” she said. “If I was in the mood.”

“How?” I said.

“Aurlon is wanted here and there. Theft in Florida, rape in Orlando, some other things. Yana told me.” “Ukrainians. Jesus,” said Aurlon.

“So, I used the rape charge in Florida. And some other things. I told him I'd call Orlando, some other places where people would like to talk to him. And he knows I don't lie.”

“She doesn't lie,” said Aurlon.

“So I told him he better meet me here,” said Pauline.

“And if you were gone,” I said to Aurlon. “Why, then Stas could try to get me to help him with a case, right?”

“Make your move,” said Aurlon. “Five hundred, right?”

I set up two castles, one behind the other, power right down the middle of the board.

“That was the idea,” said Aurlon. “Yeah, we almost had you. That's what I call stakes.”

He countered, brought out a knight.

“So, five hundred?” he said.

“But you'd have to stay gone,” I said. “For this to work.”

“Check,” said Aurlon. “Just two moves.”

“But you'd have to stay gone,” I repeated. “Otherwise I wouldn't be so cooperative.”

“Make your move,” said Aurlon.

I moved a bishop.

“You're such an innocent, Frank,” said Aurlon. “I'd only have to be gone long enough for you to help Stas and his friends
once
. Just once. Then they'd have you. I could come back and they'd have the goods. How would you explain helping them? They'd have you good and proper. Check.”

One move. Mate.

“That's five hundred you owe me,” said Aurlon.

That institutional smell seemed to grow in intensity. The scent of exhaust from Route 2 came into the room.

“I could make a list,” I said. “Of the things I could charge you with. Conspiracy to obstruct justice, conspiracy to blackmail, and, you know, some other matters that would be pretty easy to hatch up . . . ”

“That's five hundred dollars . . . ,” he said. “But look, you don't want me. You want Stas. He's the bad character here, right?”

I knocked my king over. Pauline put her hand in her dress to adjust a strap.

“If it hadn't been for her, I'd never have come here. But when she makes promises, you got to watch yourself . . . ”

The drawer of the desk opened with a squeak, and the heavy motel paper (as though good stationery would make the stink and desperation of this place go away) made a little rumble as I pushed it across the table. I put three hundred dollars on the table, too. And a pen.

“Write Pia a letter. Tell her you are sorry that you disappeared. You just had to go. A rambling man, right?”

“And you'll get the other two hundred from the ATM?”

“Start writing,” I said.

The ATM was in a glass booth with an oily film of handprints on the sides, and these obscured the parking lot and the highway. The machine made an ominous clicking, and then the twenties came out. Heavy, new, and as crisp as if they had just been ironed. Then I went back to the room.

He held out the blank paper. Not a word.

“See, we've got to work this out delicate like,” Aurlon said. “We've got to solve some problems here. You're a smart guy. So the first problem is Pauline.”

“I just wanted you to know I could help, if I wanted,” Pauline
said. “And then, you know, say I don't help you. I let Aurlon slip away into the shadows. It might be fun to watch a scandal with you at the center and for you to know that I could have stopped it. You see what ‘bitter' means?”

“I'm getting the idea,” I said.

The building shook as another truck came down that grade outside.

“But say I go see Stas,” I said. “I tell him I've seen you. I guess he'd have you at the bottom of the harbor in about twenty minutes.”

“That's a risk,” said Aurlon. “But I don't think he's there yet. I think he'd help me get away.”

“That's a pretty thin reed,” I said. “That thought.”

“It's a risk,” said Aurlon. “I have to say that.”

“So what are we going to do?” I said.

“Give me the two hundred,” said Aurlon.

I passed it over.

“Now I could write to Pia and say I had to leave town because you hired a thug to come after me,” said Aurlon. “She kept after me, you know, to tell her if anyone threatened me. A cop, she thought. But cops, thugs, it all sort of runs together sometimes.”

“Don't you see, Frank,” said Pauline. “It all depends on me. If I want to help, we'll feed Stas to the wolves. We'll get Aurlon here to testify against him. And, you know, we'll work out a deal where we forget those charges in Florida.”

“It could be done,” I said.

“Just listen to him,” said Pauline.

“Sounds good to me,” said Aurlon. “So?”

Pauline closed her eyes. Then she said to Aurlon. “All right. Get the fuck out of here. I'll let you know what I decide.”

Aurlon stood up, put two hundred dollars in one shoe, two hundred in the other. A hundred in his pocket.

“I could just grab you right now,” I said.

“You haven't got a legal right to do that. You'd have to get a warrant. Or you'd have to call a cop. And I'd be willing to bet that Pauline would help me get out the door. So, just forget it. And what would it look like anyway, if it comes out that you were trying to grab some guy who was blackmailing you? Where's there's smoke, there's fire. This is Boston, remember? Its lifeblood is scandal.”

“Get out of here,” said Pauline.

“Too bad, Frank,” said Aurlon. “We almost had you. And we might yet, if this one”—he pointed at Pauline—“helps out.”

He went out the door. The trucks went by on the highway and then a cop car shrieked. Outside the maid pushed her cart along the concrete, the wheels squeaking. Pauline undid the first button on her dress. She turned back the sheets on the bed.

I took her hand.

“You didn't believe me,” she said. “All you had to do was ask for my help.”

We sat at the end of the bed. Pauline undid another button. The familiar scent of powder rose from her chest. The sheets smelled not clean so much as disinfected.

“I think we should just sit here,” I said.

“Don't you want to thank me,” she said. She touched the turned-back sheets.