Beautiful Lies (21 page)

twenty-one

Looking back at things now, I’m amazed at myself, really. I know they say hindsight is twenty-twenty and all that, but honestly, there were so many things about my past that I just accepted on face value, never questioned, never even wondered about. It’s mind-boggling. On the other hand, doesn’t everybody accept the life they’re dealt at face value? Shouldn’t they be allowed to? There were signs, though, I think. I’d always internally slagged on my mother for her dogged denial of anything and everything that came close to disturbing her concept of herself and her life, like her ability to pretend that Ace had never existed. But it was a trait I had inherited from her without even knowing it.

Is it strange that I have never once in all this time thought back on the last night I spent with my uncle Max? His death was so shocking that all the events following the phone call to our house announcing Max’s car wreck had taken over all other memories of that night.

It was a perfect Christmas Eve. A light snow fell and all the houses on the street were glittering with tiny white lights. (It was a town ordinance that no multicolored-light strands could be used; that’s how precious it is there.) All the neighbors had been saving their gallon milk and water jugs for weeks, and now they lined the streets, filled with sand and votive candles. The effect was magical, roads lined with glimmering white candles, protected by the plastic containers. After dinner, families would take to the streets, where the gaslight street lamps had been dimmed for the evening, and stroll off their heavy meals, stopping to chat with neighbors and friends amid the candlelight. It was nice. Even a hip, jaded New Yorker like myself had to admit there was simple beauty to it.

Nobody except me seemed to notice that Uncle Max showed up drunk. Well, maybe my parents noticed but nobody acknowledged it. Are you starting to get how it is with my family? I am, finally. Ugly or worrisome things are ignored. It’s such a Waspy cliché. Not that we’re actually Wasps. But the ignorance of these things was so deliberate, so total, that mentioning or discussing them would be tantamount to setting the house on fire, met with alarms and pandemonium. Denial, she’s a fragile bitch, isn’t she. So brittle and self-conscious, she can’t stand the sight of herself.

Uncle Max was a practiced, functioning alcoholic. Maybe if you didn’t know him, you wouldn’t hear the lilt in his voice, see the glitter in his eye, the teeter in his gait. We had a house full of guests. Some of the young doctors my father worked with and their spouses, as well as Esme. Zack was also there; we were at the beginning of our relationship; it was still new, still promising, and though not thrilling, exactly, at least pleasantly tingling. Some of our neighbors had joined us. My mother had slaved to make everything perfect, from the flowers to the food. She was running around like an overstrung wind-up doll, marshaling the perfection, her face a grim mask of concentration among the sea of flushed and smiling ones. I remember Zack saying to me, “What’s up with your mom? Is she okay?” I looked over at her. The tension was coming off her in waves as she straightened and served, moved quickly to and from the kitchen. “What do you mean?” I asked over the din of carols and conversation. “She’s always like that.” In that moment I really didn’t see the problem. My mother was a basket case in her frenzy to have everything perceived as perfect; any flaw in the evening would be seen as a disaster and would be met with her total emotional withdrawal from everyone around her. And that seemed absolutely normal to me.

Looking back, I realize my father stayed as far away from her as possible. I remembered her scolding him for removing an hors d’oeuvre tray from the oven with a dishrag instead of an oven mitt, for overfilling the coffee filter, making the coffee too strong, any number of minor things. She’d scold him quietly but in a tone sizzling with white-hot disdain. By a certain point, he’d just learned to stay out of the line of fire. Again, none of this seemed odd to me. My obliviousness was total and I was having a perfectly lovely time.

Max blew in like a gale-force wind, all smiles and arms full of shopping bags filled, I knew, with impossibly extravagant gifts. He was a magnet and all the partygoers swirled around him like metallic dust. I don’t know if it was his personality or his money or the powerful alchemy of those two things that drew so much attention to him, but from the minute he entered the room, he was its center and the joviality level increased tenfold. His booming voice and laughter could be heard over all the other auditory confetti. Even my mother seemed to relax a bit, the attention drawn away from her performance as hostess.

Zack and I disappeared into the kitchen and sat at the table, eating from a box of cookies someone had brought as a gift to my parents. From our position, we could still see all the party activities but we had stolen ourselves a quiet spot to sit alone and talk. We ripped open the decorative red cellophane and found these luscious little bow-tie cookies filled with raspberry jelly and dusted with sugar.

“Man, your uncle can put it away,” Zack said.

“Hmm?” I said. “What do you mean?”

He looked at me. “I mean he’s had five bourbons and he’s only been here an hour.”

I shrugged. “He’s a big guy.”

“Yeah, but, Jesus, it’s barely had an effect on him.”

I shrugged again, intent on the cookies in front of me. “That’s just Max.”

That’s just Max.
As if I even knew him.

A couple hours later the house was quieter. Esme and Zack had left. My father had led a group out for the annual neighborhood candlelight stroll. My mother stayed behind, was furiously scrubbing pots in the kitchen, rebuffing all of my attempts to help her with the implication that no one could do it the way she could. Whatever. I wandered into the front room in search of something sweet and found my uncle Max sitting by himself in the dim light of the room before our gigantic Christmas tree. That’s one of my favorite things in the world, the sight of a lit Christmas tree in a darkened room. I plopped myself next to him on the couch and he threw an arm around my shoulder, balancing a glass of bourbon on his knee with his free hand.

“What’s up, Uncle Max?”

“Not much, kid. Nice party.”

“Yeah.”

We sat like that in a companionable silence for a while until something made me look up at him. He was crying, not making a sound, thin lines of tears streaming down his face like raindrops on glass. His expression was so unlike anything I’d ever seen on him, almost blank in its hopeless sadness. I think I just stared at him in shock. I grabbed his big bear-claw hand and clasped it in both of mine.

“What is it, Uncle Max?” I whispered, as if afraid that someone would see his true face exposed like this. I wanted to protect him.

“It’s all coming back on me, Ridley.”

“What is?”

“All the good I tried to do. I fucked it up. Man, I fucked it up so bad.” His voice was shaking.

I shook my head. I was thinking, He’s drunk. He’s just drunk. But he grabbed me then by both of my shoulders, not hard but passionately. His eyes were bright and clear in his desperation.

“You’re happy, right, Ridley? You grew up loved, safe. Right?”

“Yes, Uncle Max. Of course,” I said, wanting so badly to reassure him, though at a total loss as to why my happiness meant so much to him.

He nodded and loosened his grip on me but still looked me dead in the eye. “Ridley,” he said. “You might be the only good I’ve ever done.”

“What’s going on? Max?” We both turned to see my father standing in the doorway. He was just a black form surrounded by light. His voice sounded odd. Something foreign had crept into him, something dark and unrecognizable. Max released me as if I’d burned his hands.

“Max, let’s talk,” said my father, and Max rose. I followed him through the doorway and my father placed a hand on my shoulder to stop me. Max continued and walked through the French doors that led to my father’s study. His shoulders sagged and his head was down, but he turned to give me a smile before disappearing into the room.

“What’s wrong with him?” I asked my father.

“Don’t worry, lullaby,” he said with a forced lightness. “Uncle Max has had a bit too much to drink. He’s got a lot of demons; sometimes the bourbon lets them loose.”

“But what was he talking about?” I asked stubbornly, having the sense that I was being shut out of something important.

“Ridley,” said my father, too sternly. He caught himself and softened his tone so quickly, I believed I’d imagined the harshness just a moment before. “Really, honey, don’t worry about Max. It’s the bourbon talking.”

He walked away from me and disappeared behind his study doors. I hovered there a minute, heard the rumbling of their voices behind the oak. I knew the impossibility of listening at those doors; I’d tried it many times as a kid. Those doors were thick. You had to stand with your ear against them, and the people inside had to be yelling to hear anything. Plus, I’d run into my favorite aunt in the hallway. You remember her, Auntie Denial. She wrapped her arms around me and whispered comforting sentiments:
Just the bourbon. Just Max’s demons talking. You know Max. Tomorrow he’ll be fine.
As fragile as she is (she can’t take a direct assault, you know), she’s just as powerful when you cooperate with her, when you let her spin her web around you. Yes, as long as you don’t look her in the face, she’ll wrap you in a cocoon. It’s safe and warm in there. So much nicer than the alternative.

That’s the last time I saw my uncle Max. His face still wet with tears and flushed with bourbon, his sad smile, his final words to me.
Ridley, you might be the only good I’ve ever done.

Oh, God, I thought now as I watched the ebb and flow of traffic down on First Avenue from Jake’s window. What did he mean?

Jake was loading the dishwasher in the kitchen and I could hear him humming something. I loved that he got dinner and did the dishes. Zack had been such a mama’s boy. Esme had always done everything for him, even picked out his clothes every morning until he went off to college. With a man like that, even if he’d learned at some point that not all women existed to tend to his needs, there was still the scent of resentment wafting off of him when he was doing something he secretly believed was beneath him. Jake knew how to take care of himself and didn’t mind taking care of others. Maybe even liked it a little.

You’re probably wondering, When is she going to bring up the things Detective Salvo told her? First, Jake’s criminal record, and how the shot that killed Christian Luna came from the park where Jake had been hiding and not from the rooftop, as Jake implied that night. No, I hadn’t forgotten about those things. And I knew I’d waited long enough to ask the questions to which I wasn’t sure I wanted answers.

I felt him come into the room, rather than saw him, since I was staring out the window. He moved in close to me and wrapped me up in his arms. I waited for him to ask me what I was thinking, but he didn’t.

“Detective Salvo says you have a criminal record,” I said quietly.

He exhaled close to my ear but didn’t release me from his arms. “You tend to get in trouble when you do PI work. It’s not like the movies; cops don’t like PI’s. You get in the way, they bring you up on charges. None of it sticks. Anyway, I don’t actually have a
record,
per se. It’s not like I’ve done time, for Christ’s sake.” I could hear the laughter in his voice and it made me smile.

“You like the bad boys, huh?” he said, kissing my neck.

“You’re my first one.”

I was about to ask him about the shot fired in the park when I felt him stiffen and go quiet suddenly. I turned to look at him, wondering what I’d said. But he wasn’t looking at me. He was looking out the window. He nudged me gently to the side.

“What do you see?”

“That guy standing in the doorway over there. Is that the man who’s been following you? He was there when I came back from getting the food. And he’s still standing there.”

I peered over his shoulder and saw a form looming in a dark doorway. But I couldn’t see a face, could make out only a leg and a black boot.

“I don’t know,” I said, feeling that flutter in my chest. “It could be anyone.”

“I have a strange feeling.”

“Yeah, shady people lingering in doorways in the East Village…that’s really weird. Not normal at all.”

“I’m going to go check it out. Stay here.”

He’d grabbed his jacket and keys and was gone before I even finished saying, “What do you mean, check it out? That’s ridiculous.”

I heard him hammering down the stairs. I figured by the time I put pants on (I was wearing one of Jake’s T-shirts and a pair of white socks) and followed him onto the street, he’d be back. So I stood in the window and watched the man across the street.

twenty-two

Before Jake reached the avenue, I saw the form move from the darkness and take off down the street. It wasn’t the man from the train and Barnes & Noble. It was my brother.

What was he doing there? Waiting for me? I opened the window and yelled his name but the traffic noise took my voice away. I hurried to get dressed, and as I pulled on my jeans, I heard an odd ringing, muted as if coming from beneath layers of fabric. I realized it was coming from beneath the pile of my clothes on Jake’s bedroom floor. I dug through it until I found it in the pocket of my coat—my new cell phone. I fished it out and looked at the number blinking on the screen. I didn’t recognize it. I hesitated, wondering if I should bother answering it since no one I knew even had this number. Finally my curiosity got the better of me.

“Hello?” I said tentatively.

“Ridley Jones?” Gruff voice, older man. I recognized the voice but couldn’t place it.

“Yes?”

“It’s Detective Salvo.”
Crap.

“How’d you get this number?”

“You called me, remember? I saved the number on my cell phone.”

“Oh.” Another reason not to have a cellular phone.

“Listen, Ridley. I’ve got some bad news for you. We found the rifle that we believe killed Christian Luna,” he said. My heart started thumping. Why was he telling me this?

“We found it up in the parking lot beside Fort Tryon Park in the Bronx. It was registered to your friend, Harley Jacobsen.”

My mind started racing as I thought back to that night. Jake rushing from the darkness, pulling me from Christian Luna. I remembered his arm around me, ushering me quickly to the car. I remembered him driving to Fort Tryon Park and parking in the deserted lot, letting me sob into his shoulder. I didn’t remember a rifle. I would have seen it. Wouldn’t I?

“I just want to make sure you stay away from him tonight. We’re going to be taking him in. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“I told you I don’t—”

“Spare me, Ms. Jones.”

He was right. It seemed kind of silly to keep insisting that I didn’t know him when it was obvious that I did. Still, I felt the need to stick to my story.

“If you think I’m his friend, why would you warn me that you’re taking him in and risk my tipping him off?”

He paused for a second and I heard him release a breath. “Because I think you’re a good person who has put her trust in someone that doesn’t deserve it. And frankly, I don’t want you caught in the crossfire. Don’t make me regret giving you this break,” he said, and hung up the phone.

Jake entered the apartment then and closed the door behind him.

“He took off,” he said, shedding his jacket and throwing it over the chair. “He wasn’t there when I reached the street.”

I stood there with the cell phone still in my hand, not sure what to say or do. “Did you get a look at him when he ran?” I’d forgotten all about Ace. I must have looked strange staring at him, my mind rushing to process the information Detective Salvo had given me.

“What?” he said, his brow knitting.

Then I thought I could hear the sirens faintly, off in the distance. He didn’t really seem to notice. It’s not as though it’s an unusual sound in the city night. “They’re coming for you, Jake,” I said.

“Who?”

“Detective Salvo just called me,” I said, buttoning my jeans and looking at him now.

“He called you?” he said, looking at me hard. “How?”

“On my cell phone. He had the number from when I called him yesterday.” I moved closer to him. “That’s not important. They say they found the rifle that killed Christian Luna.”

“Okay, good,” he said with a shrug. “What does that have to do with me?”

“They say it’s registered to you, Jake.”

He paused as the weight of my words hit him. “Oh, shit,” he said, reaching for the nearby chair. “That’s bullshit, Ridley.”

“They’re coming for you right now.” I was putting on my tennis shoes and tying the laces. I could hear the sirens growing louder now. I put on my coat.

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “That’s not my gun. And there’s no way they can prove it is.”

What can I tell you about how I was feeling at that moment? I could hear that odd rushing sound in my right ear; my hands were shaking a little. I wasn’t sure what I believed about Jake. I guess mostly I was just in shock. I had no frame of reference for this kind of situation, so I was flying blind.

“That shot. They say it came from the trees where you were hiding, not from the rooftop,” I said.

He looked down at the floor and then back at me. “I don’t know where the shot came from, Ridley. But it didn’t come from me.”

Jake looked scared, as scared as I felt. He grabbed his jacket and started moving toward the door.

“Ridley, I want you to get yourself someplace safe. Right now.”

His words made me go cold inside. “What are you saying?”

I moved to follow him. His face was pale as he came close to me, put his hand gently on my arms.

“Listen to me carefully, Ridley. I want you to go back to your apartment, get some things, and check into a hotel. Don’t tell anyone where you are. No one. Not your parents, not your friend Zack. Do you understand me?”

“I’m coming with you.” I couldn’t even believe the words had left my mouth. Was I really considering joining him in his flight from the authorities? The answer is yes. I was so unrooted from my life, so disconnected from my former version of reality, that it seemed like an actual option.

The sound of the sirens was louder still. I could start to see the flashing red lights reflecting on the building across the street. He kissed me lightly on the lips and looked at me with that expression I couldn’t read.

“I won’t do that to your life, Ridley.”

“Jake…”

“Just
promise
me you’ll do what I say. Swear you won’t tell anyone where you are, and pay for the room with cash. That’s important. Cash only.”

“Why, Jake?” I wasn’t sure what was happening, but I was realizing, maybe since I’d talked to Linda McNaughton, that there was something much darker, much bigger, at work here than the manipulations of Christian Luna.

“You’re in danger, Ridley. We both are. So promise me.”

“Jake, I don’t understand. What are you talking about?”

“Ridley, I’ll explain everything. You have no reason to trust me, but I’m asking you to do that now. Just tell me you’re going to do what I say.”

I could hear the banging on the metal door downstairs. “I promise,” I said.

“I’ll find you. Don’t worry.”

I nodded and he moved toward the door. I felt my stomach twist with the fear that I was never going to see him again.

“I didn’t kill Christian Luna. I want you to know that, Ridley.”

And then he was gone. I waited a second and listened to the police shaking the door downstairs. When I entered the hallway, I could hear Zelda yelling downstairs and Jake was nowhere in sight.

“Hold on, hold on!” Zelda’s voice carried up the stairs. I heard the creaking of the door and pounding footsteps on the stairs. I ran up one more flight and pushed out onto the roof. The cold air hit me hard and I stood in the dark, wondering what the hell I was going to do up here. I half expected to see Jake racing across the rooftops. But I didn’t see him anywhere. I wasn’t sure how, or if, he’d made it out of the building.

I threw my leg over the back ledge and stepped down onto the fire escape. The dogs were going crazy below me, barking their heads off as I climbed down to my floor. With a little bit of rattling, the window opened and I climbed into my apartment. It was dark and I tried to be as quiet as possible.

I heard loud voices in the hallway, the sound of police radios crackling and beeping, the heavy footsteps of big men wearing hard boots. I heard Zelda yelling, “Hey, you gotta warrant to come in here? Are you listening to me?” I looked out of my peephole and didn’t see anyone on my floor, so I opened the door a crack. I wondered briefly if I could just walk down the stairs and exit through the rear of the building. But I’d seen enough cop shows to know they’d be crazy not to have covered both the front and back entrance. As I was about to retreat, I noticed Victoria’s door was ajar and I could see her eye, wide with terror, peering back at me. I felt bad for her, thinking how terrified she must be, but I also wasn’t in any position to help her. I closed the door quickly and quietly, sat with my back against it. I was breathing hard, thinking, I’m hiding from the police right now. I have officially walked off the edge of my life. I am falling, limbs flailing, into the dark unknown.

I heard footsteps on the stairs. “She’s not here. I told you. She went out before and she didn’t come back.” It was Zelda barking at someone.

“Where’d she go?” Detective Salvo. I could hear their footfalls on the tiles outside my door, their voices getting closer.

“Hey, whatdoIlooklike, her mother?”

Detective Salvo banged hard on the door and I braced myself because I was still leaning against it. “Whatareyou, deaf?” yelled Zelda. I held my breath in the silence that followed and then he banged again.

“Ridley. Do yourself a favor if you’re in there and come out. Talk to me. Don’t make me issue a warrant for your arrest. Aiding and abetting, failure to cooperate with a police investigation. I don’t want to fuck up your life, Ridley. But I will.”

I sat as still and solid as a stone. I couldn’t go out there now. I’d tipped off Jake; I’d fled the apartment and I’d been hiding from the police. I had no choice but to hold my ground. The phone in my apartment started ringing and I held my breath. The machine picked up after two rings and I heard my father’s voice.

“Ridley,” he said, sounding stern and worried. “Your mother and I have had a disturbing call from Alexander Harriman. We’re extremely concerned and need to speak with you right away. Call us.” The line went dead.

So much for attorney-client privilege. He couldn’t do that, could he? Call my parents? How much had he told them? I wondered. Shit.

“You got a key for this apartment?” Detective Salvo asked Zelda outside. I closed my eyes and said a prayer.

“You got a warrant?”

“Don’t make this difficult for yourself, Mrs. Impecciate.”

“You got a warrant?” she repeated levelly. I loved her so much right then.

“No, I don’t.”

“Then I don’t got a key.” Zelda was lying for me and protecting me. She knew I was in the building. I think she knew I was sitting behind that door. For someone who’d barely spoken a civil word to me, she was really going to the mat for me. I wondered if it was because she’d secretly really liked me all these years, or because she really hated the police.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m calling her cell phone,” he said. “I just talked to her.”

I fumbled in my pocket for the phone. I heard the long beep as he pressed
Send
to make his call. I felt around in the dark for the power button and managed to turn it off before it rang.

“Voice mail,” he said, half to himself. “Goddammit, Ridley.” They walked off without any further conversation. I’m not sure how much longer I sat there. I just listened until the chaos upstairs melted away, listened as heavy footfalls disappeared down the stairs and out onto the street, until I didn’t hear the police radios and the booming voices. I sat there for so long that after a while, I think I might have dozed a bit. My phone kept ringing, but whoever was calling hung up on the machine. I still hadn’t moved from my crouch by the door when I heard the softest knock.

“Ridley,” came a whisper at the doorjamb. I jumped slightly and became aware that both of my legs were painfully asleep. I held my breath, not sure what to do. “Ridley,” the whisper came again. “It’s Zelda.”

“Zelda?”

I opened the door a bit. “Come on,” she said. “I show you the way out of here so the police don’t see. They’re waiting outside for you to come back. That cop said he was getting a warrant for your apartment.”

I didn’t know why Zelda was helping me and there wasn’t time to ask. I followed her down the three flights of stairs, through the restaurant kitchen, out into the courtyard. We walked through the crowd of barking dogs, who jumped at us in greeting. Zelda bent down and, with a heave, swung open a pair of metal doors in the ground that led to the basement. I followed her down the stairs, ducking my head to keep it from banging on the low ceiling. She led me through dark rows of shelving that held bottles of olive oil and cans of crushed tomatoes, huge containers of spices, paper plates and napkins, crates of garlic. The aromas of these things mixed with the musty smell of the underground space, and the effect was not unpleasant.

At the far corner of the room, she unbolted another metal door. It led into pitch darkness. Zelda disappeared through the door and I followed her, feeling my way along the wall. We were in some kind of a tunnel. It was damp and cold and the air was so moldy there, my sinuses started to swell.

“This tunnel lets out on Eleventh Street,” Zelda’s voice sounded through the dark. “I don’t know why it’s here, but it runs along the back of the Black Forest Pastry Shop. There’s a door that leads into their basement, too.” Just as she said that my hands touched what felt like a metal doorway. The whole situation had taken on another layer of nonreality to me and I felt laughter rising in my throat, a punchy, hysterical laughter that I knew, if released, would immediately turn to sobbing. I quashed it and kept moving. After another few minutes, I heard Zelda unhinge some bolts and then a door opened onto Eleventh Street, the crisp, fresh air feeling good on my skin. The night sky seemed as bright as day compared to the pitch-dark tunnel. I walked past Zelda and turned to her from the street.

“Thanks, Zelda.” She looked at me and seemed to consider saying something but then clamped her mouth shut.

“Be careful,” she responded. Her mouth tried a smile but it didn’t take. Something unidentifiable glittered in her eyes. She closed the door with a heavy clang.