Angel Landing (15 page)

“Can I help you?” she asked.

“I'm here to see the congressman,” Minnie said far too loudly, as if the housekeeper might be deaf. “Right away,” my aunt said.

The housekeeper gazed from the battered Mustang in the driveway to Minnie's unruly white hair. “Do you ladies have an appointment?” she asked.

“Ladies,” Minnie said to me. She leaned forward confidentially. “How well does he pay you?”

“What?” the young woman said as she drew back.

“I'm curious,” Minnie explained. “When I first came to Fishers Cove I thought of trying to get a job in one of these houses. I'm a terrific cook,” she told the housekeeper. “But they paid their help shit then, and I suppose it's still the same. What domestic workers need is a union.”

“We do have an appointment with the congressman,” I said in what I hoped sounded like a rational voice. “Perhaps he's forgotten. He definitely said at three on Sunday, and it's just about three.”

“Just a minute,” Bruner's housekeeper said as she closed the front door.

Minnie turned on me. “Why did you lie to her? We don't have to humiliate ourselves. Bruner works for us. We're the people.”

“I thought you wanted to get inside?” I said. “What difference does it make now?”

“It makes a difference,” Minnie cried. “We don't have to bow and scrape.”

“No one bowed,” I said. “Nobody scraped. I simply lied.”

The housekeeper was back in only a few minutes to show us inside. “The congressman will see you,” she said to me, but she kept her distance from Minnie.

We were led into Bruner's den. The ceiling was two floors high, bay windows lined the wall facing the harbor, there were white velvet couches grouped around a thick red rug. Congressman Bruner stood behind his desk; he bit off the top of a cigar.

“I don't think you two ladies really have an appointment.” Bruner smiled. “But I love it when my constituents feel they can just drop in on me. That means we're close, and closeness is what counts in government.”

“This isn't a social call,” Minnie said, refusing to shake the congressman's hand and going instead to sit on a velvet couch.

“How do you do?” I said.

“He does very well, can't you see that?” Minnie said, waving her hand at the furniture and rugs.

“What brings you ladies here today?” the congressman asked.

“You don't have to be polite with me,” Minnie smiled. “I know you from way back.”

“And do I know you?” Bruner asked.

“Minnie Lansky,” my aunt said proudly.

“Lansky,” the congressman said. “The letters. I remember you.” He nodded glumly. “Your whole family, too.”

“I never had anything to do with those letters,” I explained.

“I've had my eye on you for a long time,” Minnie told Bruner. “And now I've got you.”

Bruner sat behind his desk. “All right,” he said. “Let's not spend time fooling around. What do you want?”

Now that the congressman had begun to look more uncomfortable, Minnie relaxed. She took off her gloves and unbuttoned her coat. “This is my niece.” She pointed to me.

“Very nice to meet you,” Bruner said cautiously.

“The truth is,” Minnie said, “I'm here because I want D. F. Beaumont released from jail.” She paused and smiled. “Today.”

“Oh you do, do you?” Bruner said. He turned to me. “Who is Beaumont?”

“This takes the cake,” Minnie cried. “What kind of politician doesn't know what's going on in his own town? Don't you read the news?”

“Now just a minute,” Bruner snapped. “I'm very busy. I can't be expected to know everyone in the county by name.”

“That's what they all say,” Minnie nodded.

“Beaumont has been a boarder at my aunt's house since nineteen fifty-six,” I explained. “Now it seems he's been arrested.”

“And he's sixty-three years old,” Minnie said. “Sixty-three.”

“All right,” Bruner said, reaching for a notepad. “What was he picked up for?”

“Nothing really,” Minnie said. “He says he's the bomber.”

“The bomber?” Bruner frowned. “That weasel? Does he think he can stop progress?”

“Progress?” Minnie sniffed. “Hah.”

“We'd like him released in our custody,” I said.

“You'd like the bomber released?” Bruner said. “You've got to be kidding.”

“Beaumont wouldn't know how to make a bomb if you paid him. He was in my house at the time of the explosion, I can vouch for that. The truth is he's just an old eccentric,” Minnie explained.

“He's innocent,” I said. “There's no doubt about it.”

“That may be,” Bruner said. “But there's nothing I can do, even if I wanted to. And I don't really think I want to,” he said pointedly.

“All right,” Minnie said. “Fine.” She began to button her coat, she reached for her gloves. “If you can't help, maybe your brother-in-law can.”

“What brother-in-law?” Bruner said.

Minnie smiled and patted the mohair scarf around her throat. “Let's go,” she said to me.

“What does Allen have to do with anything?” the congressman asked warily.

“Your brother-in-law's a big shot, isn't he?” she said to the congressman. “Although to tell you the truth he does a lousy job running the Mercy Home, I can't see how he ever got the contract from the county in the first place.” Minnie wrinkled her brow. “Does he have a degree in business administration?”

Bruner sat up straight in his chair. “The Mercy Home?” he said.

“I work there,” Minnie said. “A volunteer.”

“How do you know who runs the home?” I asked.

“What do you think?” Minnie said. “I looked through the records.”

Bruner relit his cigar. “It's illegal to look through private records.”

“So?” Minnie shrugged. “Send me to jail.”

The wind rapped against the bay windows, sea gulls circled the wide, sloping lawn.

“Do you intend to make your knowledge public?” the congressman asked.

“Not necessarily,” Minnie said.

“All right,” Bruner sighed. “I'll see what I can do.”

While Bruner reached for his phone and dialed the Fishers Cove station house, I watched Minnie; she was just like the woman I remembered, the one walking through all of my summers with giant steps. And no one who saw her, sitting on the white velvet couch, patting stray strands of hair back into place, would have guessed how strong she was.

Bruner hung up the phone and turned to Minnie. “Beaumont isn't the bomber.”

“We know that,” Minnie said.

“The police plan to send him back to the Veterans' Hospital, but if you're willing to take him on, fine. Naturally he no longer has his job at the power plant; he's too unstable to be a night watchman.”

“Good,” Minnie nodded. “That was no job for him anyway.”

“Well, then, ladies,” Bruner spread out his hands and smiled, “I believe our business is finished.”

“No,” Minnie said, settling back on the couch, “it isn't.”

“Please, Mrs. Lansky,” Bruner said, “my daughter and her family are driving out from Manhattan for dinner.”

“Lobster?” Minnie said. “Because if it's lobster from our harbor, it's been crawling around in polluted waters.”

“Steak,” Bruner said grimly.

“Filled with DES hormones,” Minnie said. “Do you really want your grandchildren to eat that?”

“Mrs. Lansky,” Bruner sighed.

“A little favor,” Minnie said. “In return for not spilling the beans.”

“Spilling the beans?” Bruner said.

“That an unqualified person like your brother-in-law was made board chairman of the Mercy Home.”

“Let's not talk about my brother-in-law,” Bruner said. “All right?”

“If there were improvements at Mercy, I would never mention him again,” Minnie said. “Better food and clothing and a recreation staff. I think it can be done by the end of the week.”

“Mrs. Lansky,” Bruner said, “these things take time.”

“He's right,” I said. “And the congressman might not even have the power to do what you're asking.”

“My niece,” Minnie said to the congressman. “Don't listen to her. What does she know? I know. You have more power than anyone else in the country.”

The congressman looked at my aunt, pleased. “I wouldn't say that,” he said.

“I would,” Minnie insisted.

“All right,” Congressman Bruner nodded. “I'll see what I can do. I'm not promising anything.”

“Fine,” Minnie said. “I have faith in you,” she told Bruner. “I'm sure you can manage something.”

“I should have been in politics,” Minnie said when we followed the congressman's housekeeper to the door. “I'm hot stuff,” she whispered.

Once we were out of the house I said, “You just blackmailed a congressman.”

Minnie shook her head and opened the door of the Mustang. “Plea bargaining,” she said. “Lawyers do it all the time.”

“You're not a lawyer, Minnie,” I said, but she had already closed her door and turned on the engine. When we drove back down the driveway, past the wrought-iron fence, I was envious because Minnie had managed to spring Beaumont from jail while I couldn't even manage a visit to Michael Finn. I wanted to bake Finn a rich chocolate cake with concealed hope and a file, but I was helpless, able only to ride shotgun with an old woman who seemed strong enough to bend metal bars.

Minnie was so thrilled with her own success that she insisted on treating us both to dinner before she continued on to the station house where Beaumont was being held. We stopped at a small Szechuan restaurant on Route 18, just outside town.

“Chinese food,” Minnie told me, “because they wouldn't be caught dead using chemicals. Order something with bamboo shoots—they're great for anxiety.”

We ordered black mushrooms and rice, and a dish called Three Vegetable Delight; though none of the ingredients looked familiar to me, Minnie insisted bamboo shoots were included. During dinner my mood grew worse; over and over again I thought of how Finn had walked out of my door.

“Tea,” Minnie prescribed when she noticed I was sad.

But I drank only a sip; I played with the fortune cookies the waiter had set down before us, afraid to read any of the slips of paper inside.

“You should be happy,” Minnie said. “We've had a victory.”

“You've had a victory,” I told my aunt. “You'll have Beaumont out of jail tonight, and I can't even go down to the station house.”

“Why can't you?” Minnie asked.

“I'm supposed to be an objective witness for Finn,” I said. “I can't go and visit him as if I were anything more.”

“Of course you can,” Minnie said. “You're the man's social worker, you're entitled to see him.”

“He may not want me,” I said. “There's nothing between us, you know,” I informed my aunt.

“Oh, please,” Minnie said. “Not that again.”

“Ask him if you don't believe me,” I said. “Ask him.”

“Listen to me,” Minnie said, reaching across the table to hold my hand, “there's nothing wrong in making certain he's all right.”

“I've never been inside one of these places,” I told Minnie as we walked up the stairs of the station house.

“The first time I was here was in nineteen-fifty-one to report a missing person,” my aunt said. “Alex went for a walk one day and he didn't come back. I knew he didn't have a girlfriend, he wasn't the type; so where could he be? I came here and reported him. They found him all right, asleep in the library; he had gotten locked in. What a night for a poet like Alex! Sleeping surrounded by all those books.” Minnie pinched my cheek as we walked inside. “There's nothing to it,” she whispered. “Just walk right in and act like you belong.”

While Minnie signed for Beaumont's release, I went up to the desk lieutenant and asked to see Finn.

“Who are you?” the lieutenant asked. “A reporter?”

When I said I was Finn's social worker, the lieutenant grudgingly agreed to let me into the detention cells for a few minutes. I followed a young officer to the row of cells where prisoners were held before going on to the county jail, or to an upstate prison, or in a few cases, back to the street, released by a miracle or bail. The iron door slammed shut behind us; inside, the walls of the corridors had been painted green, an imitation of spring. When we walked by the first cell I saw that Beaumont was there; he sat on the metal rim of his cot and stared mournfully at the ceiling.

“Do you mind stopping?” I asked the officer who led me to Finn. “Beaumont,” I called through the bars. “Get ready to go. Minnie's signing for your release.”

Beaumont was startled to see me; he straightened his rumpled shirt. “I can't go,” he said shyly. “I did it. The explosion was my fault.”

“He's been saying that all day,” the young officer shrugged.

“Beaumont, you're not responsible,” I said.

“Sure I am,” Beaumont said. “And I'm sorry. I really am.”

“You placed a bomb in the second unit of the power plant?” I asked.

“No,” the old boarder said.

“A lunatic,” the officer behind me whispered. “We get them all the time.”

“Did you tamper with any of the machinery?” I now asked. “Have you ever been inside one of the buildings?”

“No.”

“Then why do you keep confessing?” I asked.

“He's crazy, that's why,” the officer explained.

“I was the night guard,” Beaumont told me. “If I had done my job, the explosion never would have happened.”

“The explosion happened before five in the afternoon,” I said. “Whoever is the day watchman is responsible. Not you.”