Ladies and Gentlemen (10 page)

For the better part of Saturday, Thane redoubled his efforts on a piece he’d been drafting for an academic journal on Robert Louis Stevenson entitled “The Gothic as Antidote” (
“The Gothic,”
he wrote, “
is a radical form of delimitation, a concoction as potent, as destabilizing and fantastic, as Dr. Jekyll’s potion; a solution invented by the imagination that is a
solution
to the limitations of imagination
”). He was productive, focused, and the work seemed to relax him. But that night he found himself unable to ramp down, and stayed up so late watching television that he slept well into the next morning. He had a pile of papers to grade by Monday and a seminar to give the next evening. He was disciplined for the first few hours of the day, but turned on the television to watch a quarter or two of football, and the next thing he knew the whole afternoon had gotten away from him.

He began the week behind in everything. It was frigid outside, the mountains crusted with frost, and his car took over twenty minutes to start. In answer to his worst anxieties, the first student he saw walking toward him on campus was Ramelle. She was with a friend, and Thane fought the urge to lower his eyes when she passed him. But she said hello brightly, without implication, as if everything had been forgotten.

At his office, Thane found a note pinned to his door.

He crumpled the note, stuffing it into his pocket immediately. Donato’s enthusiasm for his idea embarrassed him now that his own interest had waned. He vowed to make himself scarce for the rest of the day, and to avoid Donato until he got the message.

But that evening, Mike knocked on Thane’s door.

“Professor?” He stood there, slightly abashed, with a newspaper tucked under his arm.

“Come in,” Thane said, trying to look even busier than he was.

Donato remained at the door, shifting his weight back and forth between his feet. He’d arrived in a pressed shirt and pants, as if they were now on a formal basis, and Thane flushed with shame. Donato pointed at the chair across from Thane’s desk with the rolled-up newspaper. “Is this a bad time?”

“I have a seminar in an hour.”

Donato sat down. “This won’t take long.”

Thane looked up from his papers.

Donato stuck his chin out, waiting. “Do you want to take notes or something?”

Thane tapped his temple with his pen. “It’s all up here.”

“All right.” He cleared his throat. “I ever tell you about my friend Mick the Knife?”

Mick the Knife, Thane thought. Unbelievable. He considered his book idea and was hit with another wave of mortification. He shuffled papers on his desk. “I’m all ears.”

“He’s actually a cousin of mine. Second twice-removed or something. But in the family.”

“Cosa Nostra,” Thane said, pointing at him.

“That’s right. He’s been all over the country the past few years.
He was in Miami for a while. Dallas. He did time in Missouri. We’ve run into each other a few times but never really got together, and then on Friday he up and calls me.”

“What does he do?”

“He’s a hit man.”

Thane looked at him, folded his hands on his desk, and smiled. “I hope he called long distance.” He decided he had to keep his composure. To be impressed, of course, but not to react too strongly to anything he said.

“Unfortunately,” Donato said, “he called from across town.”

Thane leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. Mafia hit men, gun running, death in the tropics. No, he thought, it would be foolish
not
to act on this,
not
to use Donato for these stories. Thane would have to schedule their first official meeting as soon as he had a clear stretch of time. He looked at his watch again.

“You’ll like this story,” Donato insisted, catching Thane’s eyes coming up from his wrist. “Like I said, I hadn’t spoken to Mick in a while, but then he calls me up—right here, on Friday, when I was in your office. So anyway, on the phone he’s hysterical. He says, ‘Mike, you gotta come quick.’ I’m like, ‘Slow down already.’ He’s like, ‘Mike, life or fucking death.’ He tells me he’s at his house. I’ve got to come over now. What do I know, right? I tell him I’ll be there ASAP. So I drive to the cross street and pull up, but I don’t see anybody. I’m about to honk when Mick comes tearing out of the bushes with a shotgun. Then he dives into the car and lies down on the floor in the back.”

Someone entered the hallway. It was Gerry, the department secretary. Thane saw her leave earlier, but she’d come back, probably
having forgotten something. She greeted them both as she walked past, and after Donato said hello he got up and closed the door.

“And he says to me, ‘Drive.’ ”

“So what did you do?”

“What did I do? The guy’s got a loaded gun. And
he’s
loaded on top of that—I can smell it on him—so I drive. He’s got scratch marks on his face, five deep grooves on his cheek, the top of his eyelid’s torn too, split down the middle, so even when he closes it I can still see his eye. So obviously this is a situation. I say, ‘Mick, what the fuck happened to you?’ And he says, ‘Just keep driving.’ And I say, ‘Mick, unless you tell me what’s going on, I’m pulling over.’ And he says, ‘I just shot my old lady.’ ”

“Jesus.”

“That’s what I said. So I’m like, ‘What the hell do you want
me
to do about it?’ He says, ‘Get me to Frank’s.’ This Frank’s a bookie, a local guy. ‘Frank’ll get me to a safe house.’ ” Donato shook his head sadly.

“So what happened at Frank’s?”

“
Fuck
Frank. Guy’s a piece of shit. I wouldn’t take anybody in real trouble to Frank’s.”

“Did you turn him in?”

Donato looked around the room at his audience, then back at Thane in amazement. “Mick? No chance I’m turning him in.”

“Well, how’d you handle it?”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“No.”

“I
am
handling it.”

“I don’t understand.”

With a snort, Donato tossed the newspaper on the desk. “He’s at my house right now.”

An interval of time passed—certainly no more than five seconds—but it was unlike anything Thane had ever experienced in his life. He imagined it was something a hummingbird must feel: an awareness of moving with great rapidity while the surrounding world remains stuck in slow motion.

Donato flipped the Roanoke paper open and tapped the cover story. EX-CON KILLS WIFE IN BRUTAL SHOOTING. SUSPECT STILL AT LARGE. There was a police hotline to call if you had information and an inset mug shot of Mick “The Knife” Mancuso. He was a thin man with a long nose, black tousled hair, and a keloid scar on his chin in the shape of a Y—a face, Thane realized through his panic, he’d seen on television three nights ago.

“You seem upset,” Donato said.

“No,” Thane said, looking at him. Adrenaline thudded from his chest, making his fingertips tingle. “I’m okay.”

Donato sat there smiling expectantly. “We’ve got a hell of a story here, don’t we?”

Why has he told me this? Thane wondered. Is this some kind of test, like him trying to find out if I can keep a secret? If I’ll believe the things he tells me? Or maybe it’s innocent and he’s just taking me up on my offer to listen, now that something’s happened, and he can’t process how bad it is. Or else it’s the perfect imitation of innocence.

He scrutinized Donato’s face, but it revealed nothing. He seemed to be waiting for a reaction, glancing back and forth between Thane’s eyes and the newspaper.

For a moment, Thane allowed himself to appreciate the move Donato had made, if in fact he’d made one. Then, slowly, he said, “What if instead of going home right now, you stayed here, and the police showed up at your place? From an anonymous tip, say.”

Donato screwed up his face and sat back in the chair, hands turned inward on his legs so his elbows pointed out wide, like a samurai. There was a hint of rage in his expression.

When someone knocked at the door, Thane and Donato looked at each other. After a pause, Donato got up, cracked it open, and peered out.

It was Gerry.

“Excuse me, Roddy,” she said. “I’m sorry to interrupt. Mike, I can’t get the steam heat to turn off in the main office. Can you fix things in there before I lock up?”

Donato told her he’d come right away, then closed the door and leaned against it. He took off his glasses, held them to the light, and cleaned them with a handkerchief. “I’ll come back and tell you the rest of it,” he said.

“I don’t want to hear any more.”

“How’s that?”

“Christ, Mike, if I believe you—”

“You
don’t
believe me?”

“You’ve put me in a horrible position.”

Donato looked around the room again, stunned. “You want me to tell you stories, so I’m telling you my fucking stories. Did you think this was gonna be
Alice in Wonderland
?” When Thane made
no response, he dropped his chin to his chest, closed his eyes, and shook his head. “Look, give me a minute.” He pointed to the phone. “Just don’t get any ideas.”

After he left, Thane sat there looking at the newspaper. He had to do something, like call the hotline. He picked up the phone and began to dial but then heard Donato down the hall, laughing with Gerry. He hung up the phone and walked quietly to the door to listen, thinking he should go straight to the police. He sat down at his desk again and read the article from start to finish. He imagined driving to the precinct and telling an officer at the front desk, “I have information regarding the whereabouts of Mick Mancuso.” He could demand protection, but what would that mean? Witness protection? And what if they don’t offer anything? What might happen then? He was sure his life was over, that all normality had come to an end.

But if I do nothing? He imagined the woman’s family members and friends waiting for news, grieving. He got up and paced the room. Shivering, he put on his blazer and crossed his arms.

Suddenly, Donato was back, sitting down and exhaling loudly.

Thane leaned against the windowsill. For a minute, they both stared silently at nothing.

Before heading out again, Gerry peeked in the office. “I see you’ve made friends.”

The two men regarded each other.

“You boys have a pleasant evening,” she said, and left for good.

“What now?” Thane asked.

“What do you mean?”

“What are you going to do with Mick?”

Donato looked tired, crestfallen, like he was the one who’d failed some kind of test. “I’m gonna take care of him,” he said. “Keep him safe.”

“For how long?”

“As long as he wants.”

Thane was baffled.

“It’s his call,” Donato said. “That’s the rule.”

“But think of the trouble you could get into, Mike. Why risk it?”

Donato stared at him as if this observation was too outlandish to merit an answer. He sighed again. “Well, that’s the long-term plan.”

“What about for now?”

“Right this minute, he’s hungry, so I’ll get him something to eat.” With great effort, he pressed himself up. “I’ll let you know what happens.” He wouldn’t look Thane in the eye and seemed terribly disappointed.

Then, without ceremony or threat, he was gone.

As soon as Thane heard the building’s front door close, he picked up the phone and called his ex-wife. There seemed something inevitable about this, as if everything lately had been pushing him toward it—his restlessness, his inability to concentrate, now these outrageous events. He was sure she was home; he could feel it. He still knew her number by heart; it filled him with bitterness to call it. While he was in graduate school in St. Louis, Ashley had refused to consider living in Manhattan. She always said she was
a Tennessee girl; she’d be miserable so far away from home, from the mountains, especially if that meant living in an apartment the size of a closet. Besides, she was a lawyer, and for
her
to afford living in Manhattan—Ashley never said for them—she’d have to become a corporate attorney working ninety-hour weeks. But after they divorced and she moved back to Tennessee, she met a man at her new firm, married him within a year, and promptly relocated to Manhattan. Two years later, she had fraternal twins, a boy and a girl.

Of all the injustices Thane believed he’d suffered in their divorce, this was the worst. At times he dreamed of killing her: flying to New York, showing up at her door, and shooting her and her husband dead. Or else he’d fall to his knees and beg her to come back to him—something he always feared he’d do if he ever saw her in person again. Other times he fantasized about saving her life, a recurrent daydream that seized him almost weekly: she and her husband are being mugged, and Thane happens to come around the corner and interrupt it. There’s a fight, and he’s stabbed or shot, mortally wounded, bleeding to death on the street while he confesses his undying love. A boy’s romantic dream so clichéd yet so powerful that he sometimes found himself drifting off midlecture thinking about it. Even now, as the phone rang, he longed for such an opportunity to say something pure to her. Some unalterable thing that would redeem their failed past, but still recognize it. Because Ashley’s new life had wiped their old one out.