Chance (13 page)

It was Chance’s inclination to believe in problems surrendering themselves to reason, if one could only come at them with a clear eye and open heart. It pained him to see a soul in torment. It pleased him to imagine that he’d found a way out. To be frank, it had pleased him to imagine himself Jaclyn Blackstone’s knight, though he was aware, as Janice Silver would have been quick to point out and in fact had, that this was dangerous ground, even for a man without Chance’s particular history and predilections.

The fact was, the sale of the furniture, the finality of it, had forced a new perspective on certain recent behavior. He was suddenly less certain of himself than he had been only hours ago, leaving his office for his meeting with Janice. Perhaps, he thought, it was not too late to set things right, to return them to their natural order. The very idea
seemed to lift his spirits and he resolved to do just that.
Every
thing up to now, in his dealings with both Jaclyn and Allan’s Antiques, had been a kind of aberration. But the veil had been lifted. The coming meeting would be brief and to the point. He would not imbibe. And that was only the beginning. He began to think about clearing things with the Russian as well. The money after all had not been spent. He would not put anything off on Carl or D. He would explain that it was all on him. The furniture was as the Russian had bought it when Chance brought it to the store. He, Chance, was the one who knew its secret history and he alone. But
now
that the set had actually been sold, he was just not feeling right about it. Or, and here he was willing to hedge a bit, he might claim
himself
as victim. It had only now come to his attention that the furniture was not as he had thought. They had
all
been deceived. News had reached him by way of some anonymous tip or some other fucking thing . . . whatever, really. The point was, he would offer the Russian his money back, or at least some portion of it, should the man still choose to purchase the set. He would go to Carl in the morning. He would make it plain. He would be equally clear with Jaclyn. He was sorry but his plan with the DA’s office was simply not working out. Janice was willing to make herself available but Jaclyn would have to manage the rest on her own. Chance had done what he could to put things into motion, but that was as far, ethically speaking, as he was prepared to go.

One might have imagined such waffling accompanied by guilt, or at least some slight twinge thereof, given the recklessness with which he was apparently willing to abandon all previously held plans and positions. And while he would not have ruled such feelings out of his future, what he really felt just now, exiting the train for Market Hall and Highwire Coffee—one of their blends being a particular weakness and his reason for choosing the Pittsburg/Bay Point train over and above the more direct Richmond train—was a great weight lifted from his shoulders. He could after all
live
with guilt. What else was new?

Having completed his purchases, coffee beans and a number of breakfast buns he intended to share with his daughter, he entered a cab
near the station, continuing his journey in the company of a wizened black man of perhaps eighty, his driver. Chance took him for a man of Haitian descent, in part as he was listening to a strange religious program that smacked of Santeria, though how and where such a program would and could exist was a mystery. Perhaps it was a tape or CD, the recorded program from someplace more exotic than the present. But then these were strange times, the skies parting at day’s end, allowing by the last long rays of light for the occasional glimpse of the blackened hillsides, of burnt structures like ruined teeth, as nearing the campus, he became aware that the old man at the wheel had begun to chant softly in concert with the radio, beneath his breath in a foreign tongue.

The restaurant was as he remembered it, small and dark, outfitted in bamboo and party lights. He was a bit early. There were only a handful of customers, students mostly, seated at windows with a view of the tree-lined street, the campus beyond. Chance moved to the back of the room, seated himself in a booth that was finished in dark red vinyl, and ordered hot tea. He was still composing imaginary conversations regarding both his future and his furniture when a man entered the room. Chance did not at once take his full measure. When he did, he saw that it was Raymond Blackstone.

The detective stood for a moment framed by the doorway that opened onto the street. When he spotted Chance in the booth he waved off a hostess and crossed to where Chance sat. To Chance’s great surprise Detective Blackstone said nothing by way of greeting but moved to sit opposite him in the booth, taking occupancy of the very place where Chance had thought to find Jaclyn. The detective didn’t say anything right away and neither did Chance. There was a place setting on that side of the table and a second cup. The party lights strung gaily upon a wire above their heads bathed them in a rosy glow, as outside the evening had grown dark with a light mist falling once more.

“Expecting someone?” Raymond asked. He looked to the unused
place setting and then, before Chance could respond, “Dr. Chance, isn’t it?” He spoke in a pleasant, conversational tone.

Chance nodded, not immediately willing to trust his voice.

“We met in the hospital,” Raymond went on in his pleasant manner. “You were looking in on my wife.”

“Yes,” Chance said. “That’s correct. I remember you now.”

“Now. As opposed to when you saw me walk in?” He made no adjustment in tone for the bullying nature of the question.

“You looked familiar. I meet a lot of people in the course of a day. That was some time back, as I recall.”

“Uhm,” was all Detective Blackstone had to say. He turned over the cup before him and reached for the pitcher. “Do you mind?” he asked. He poured without waiting for a reply.

“Please,” Chance said. “Feel free.”

The detective nodded and poured a bit more for Chance as well. “Thank you,” Chance said. It was an absurd response. He could not imagine what was next. A waitress approached but Blackstone waved her away. A certain amount of time went by. The folder containing the photographs of Chance’s furniture rested on the table between them. Raymond Blackstone took the liberty of turning it toward him and flipping it open. He looked at a number of the pictures. “Would this be what they call Art Deco?”

“It is. French Art Deco. Probably from the late thirties or early forties. Prewar. These you’re looking at happen to be signed by the designer.” Why he felt inclined to add this last bit was at that moment a mystery to him.

Raymond lifted an eyebrow. “I’m impressed. Yours?”

“It was. I recently sold it.”

“Well,” Blackstone said, “I hope you got your price.”

“Yes, so do I.”

Raymond smiled a little. He closed the book and looked at Chance. “So . . . what brings you to our side of the bay, Doc?”

“I sometimes see patients here. I enjoy being on campus now and then. It reminds me of my student days.”

The detective nodded. “Are you on staff at any of the hospitals here?”

“I was asked by Jaclyn’s therapist to look in on her. She was worried about possible trauma to the brain. She wanted to make sure they weren’t missing anything. So I came, but I’m not on staff.”

Chance was aware of the detective’s hands on the table, one of which seemed to remain in more or less constant motion, opening and closing as Chance spoke. Raymond Blackstone was not a small man. Chance took him to be about six feet in height, with the lean, rawboned build of a light heavyweight fighter. Even so, the hands at play on the table seemed unusually large and powerful, the veins prominent across their backs. They were also, Chance noted, quite well groomed, manicured even, if he was any judge. There was a plain white gold wedding band on his left hand, an expensive-looking watch on his wrist. “Well,” Raymond said at length. “I shouldn’t intrude. I saw you sitting here and thought I’d come over and say hello.” He paused for just a beat. “You did say you were meeting someone?”

To Chance’s great displeasure, he was aware of the perspiration beginning upon his brow. He’d be damned, he thought, if he was going to sit here and sweat in front of this man. As far as that went, he was damned if he was going to continue to sit here. “Actually,” Chance told him, “I
didn’t
say that. Not at all.” Exit strategies were much on his mind. A cup of tea, that was all, a walk down memory lane, the lines by which he might excuse himself and be gone. Unhappily, it was at just this moment that Jaclyn Blackstone walked in from the night, shaking the rain from her ash-blond hair.

W
ELL, WELL,”
Detective Blackstone said. “Look at this.” He made a show of waving her over. She came without a word and sat next to her husband. Chance found her expression impossible to read.

“Look who I found,” Raymond said. He was at this point addressing Jaclyn. “Dr. Chance.”

“Hi,” she said. She was looking straight at Chance. It was kind of through him, really.

“Dr. Chance was just about to tell me who he was waiting for.”

“You must have misunderstood,” Chance told him. “I was just telling you I wasn’t waiting for anyone.”

“Ah, yes,” Raymond said. “So you were.”

Jaclyn moved to push back a strand of hair that had fallen to touch her eyebrow. She was dressed for jogging in black leggings and running shoes, a light, pale blue Windbreaker that had a sporty look to it. She was far and away, Chance thought, the prettiest woman in the room and that would include the ones half her age.

“A coincidence then,” Raymond went on. “You’d be amazed how many coincidences I hear about in my line of work. You’d be equally
amazed at how often they turn out to not be coincidences at all. I’m getting to a point where I’m not even sure that I believe in such things.”

Jaclyn studied the tabletop before her. Some music began in the background. Chance took it for the recorded songs of whales. They were after all east of the bridge. He willed himself to meet Raymond Blackstone eye to eye. “A coincidence is simply the condition of coinciding,” he said. “Any number of people and or objects occupying the same space at the same point in time. I will give you an example. A workman installs a light fixture in the lobby of an upscale hotel. For some reason the job is improperly completed. Screws are left out of the assembly. Sometime later, a woman enters to join friends at the hotel bar. As she does, a large truck turns into the street approaching the hotel. To reach the bar, the woman must cross the lobby. The truck is now passing directly in front of the hotel. The lobby experiences some slight vibration, but it is enough to dislodge the fixture that falls at the exact instant she is passing beneath it, striking her on top of her head. In the case I have just described the blow led to a subarachnoid hemorrhage with a resulting global aphasia. The woman’s life has never been the same. But it is a horribly wonderful study in geometry. Short of recourse to some machination of the gods, it is a case of two objects meeting by pure chance in time and place, a pure coincidence. I see it all the time. I see lives changed, irrevocably. I sometimes imagine it is by such geometries that our lives are
our
lives, these random meetings in time and space.”

Detective Blackstone just looked at him, a long beat before turning to his wife. “And they call him Dr. Chance,” he said.

Jaclyn managed a smile.

“Not responsible for our actions then, is the point?” Raymond asked. “’Cause I’ve heard that one a few times too.”

“Yes, I imagine you have. Someone once asked William James if he believed in free will. He said, ‘Of course, what choice do I have?’ ”

“
That’s
good,” Raymond said. He looked at his wife. “He’s all right. How was your lecture?”

“It was good,” Jaclyn told him.

“That’s it?”