Providence (31 page)

We said our good-byes for the night, and I showed myself to the door, leaving Aaron to stir the dying fire.

I slept in Providence that night, then got up early the next morning to drive to Indianapolis. Arthur had asked me to come and spend the morning with his staff. And he needed me there for a photo shoot. The media firestorm Bud Abbott ignited in December had cooled. I ran into the occasional photographer when I was in Chicago, but whether or not those photos ever went to press, I couldn’t say. I don’t read the papers. But apparently, enough press was generated to suit Arthur.

“I should reimburse you for your hotel stay,” Arthur smirked. “You brought us more face time on television than two million dollars can buy.”

There were lots of new staffers at ARP, and all treated me with kindness. A new hire and recent grad of Providence, Jan Clouden, brought me a bottled water—the new status perk for VIPs. She was cute with her youthful glow and gregarious personality. She proudly showed me her engagement ring. I was envious of the exciting adventures in front of her.

Arthur introduced me to everyone in the conference room and retold his practiced pitch about the new book, one he’d honed in a million sales meetings over the past six months. I met with Judith in her office to see how my editor was faring with the pages Bud and I had been sending. Yes, she’d been getting them; yes, they were great; no, she couldn’t think of anything else she needed, but if we could put them in chapter form … I told her we’d try.

After the few brief meetings, Arthur drove me to a photo studio. I was given a haircut, makeup, and a change of clothes before sitting with a photographer, who shot dozens of pictures of my face and dozens more of me standing in various positions in the studio. I’d imagined the photo was for the inside cover, but Arthur was insisting on a full-color
cover
photo.

After the photo shoot, we cruised downtown for Mexican food. Arthur had spent most of the morning on his cell phone talking out of earshot. If a face can tell a story—and sometimes it tells the
only
story—Arthur Reed was stressed. Like a clay vase tossed in an earthquake, each phone call brought jarring tremors.

I’d heard him say, “I didn’t say I’d have it on Friday; I said I
might
have it on Friday,” when we were still at the studio. At the restaurant Arthur left the table before ordering and climbed back into his car, where he stayed on the phone until we’d finished eating.

“He’s never totally here, Jack,” Carol Phillips, ARP’s publicist, confided.

“What do you think it is?”

“I don’t know. I think it has to do with money, but I can’t understand why. I know the figures on your book. You’ve known him longer than I have. Has he always been so obsessed with money?”

“I wouldn’t say obsessed. Lured by it, perhaps. It’s important to him.”

“I haven’t worked with him long, but everyone thinks he’s acting odd.”

“How so?”

“He’s in the office for a day, then gone unexpectedly for two or three. One Friday he missed signing paychecks. You can imagine how that went over. He wasn’t back in the office until the following Tuesday.”

“I know he’s been erratic.”

“That’s not all. He’s bounced some checks too. My assistant Beth banks at Indiana National where ARP has its accounts, and last week they wouldn’t cash her check due to insufficient funds.”

“You’ve got to be kidding?”

“No. That’s why she didn’t join us for lunch; she’s looking for another job. I’ve talked to Margaret in accounting. She hasn’t come right out and said it, but I don’t think Beth’s was the only check made of rubber.”

“That doesn’t make sense at all. ARP should be swimming in dough.”

“More like swimming in debt.”

Arthur walked up to the table as the waiter cleared away our dirty dishes.

“Sorry, everyone. Business calls.”

We drove back to ARP with Arthur talking production chitchat while Carol “uh-huhed” him from the backseat. I wondered if she was thinking of joining Beth in the job hunt.

After saying my good-byes back at the office, I took off for Chicago. Bud and I had another writing day ahead of us. The next morning I had breakfast delivered from the fifth-floor deli. Fresh bagels, cream cheese, black coffee. Bud was in by eight thirty, and we caught each other up on the story between bites and sips.

“I read through the pages you sent. I’m also transcribing the tapes. Looks like you had a productive holiday.” Bud rolled his squeaky office chair over the Berber carpet. He set a thick stack of printed pages on the coffee table, a visible sign of the progress we’d been making.

“Jack, right now what we have is a lot of stories. I’ve started assembling the data, trying to think like an editor.” Bud took a bite from his bagel and chewed while he spoke. “I’m seeing a couple of holes I think we need to plug up.”

I noticed a change in Bud’s commitment to the story we were working on—my story. Maybe his opinion of me would change too.

“Like what.”

“Like this Brian Aspen guy from Chicago? I had a buddy of mine down at first district run his name through their police computers.”

“And?”

“Well, the guy’s dead.”

I looked up.

“How’d he die?” I asked. “And are you sure it’s the right Brian Aspen?”

Bud reached for his yellow legal pad and flipped through the pages. “He’s the Brian Aspen who never left Chicago other than two years of college in Indiana. He went to Chicago University for a while, dropped out, worked at XN-tricity on Ellsworth, was busted for drug possession 1987, busted for trafficking in 1990. It’s him.”

Bud pulled out a fax photo the CPD had sent him. It was Brian.

“The kid kept busy. But he DUIed into a cement embankment doing about sixty. Not good.”

I hadn’t seen Brian since the night he’d left me at the hospital with Mitch, but I felt sympathy for him.

Bud continued. “Anyway, if I can talk to some of these people you mention in your stories, then we can get a little more perspective on things. I think that’s necessary.”

“Who do you want to talk to?” I asked, dubious.

He rolled the chair back to his computer bag and pulled out a smaller notepad. “For starters, there’s Erin Taylor. Any idea where she is?”

“No, but wherever she is, I doubt she’d want to do an interview for the Jack Clayton story.” I could see where this was going.

“And Jenny. I take it she’s still in England, but your readers are going to want to know what’s become of her, as well as the other people who are key to your story.

“She’s been a missionary in England. That’s what became of her.”

“I don’t mean we guess, Jack. I mean we find out for certain.” Bud took his mug to the kitchen for a refill. “Plus, it would be interesting to learn what they think of your success as a writer. We need to wrap up the story somehow.”

“I don’t know how that’s going to help with the book, Bud.”

“You asked for my help. This is my help. Besides, you’re going to have to get permission from everyone you mention by name before we go to press.”

“These people are dear to me. We’re not going to contact them for the first time in twenty years for a ‘What do you think of Jack Clayton?’ quote.”

“Would you rather the copy editor call them all?” Bud looked back at his notes. “I also think we should find out what we can about these two goons from out west. Did you ever find out their names?”

“Just one.”

“Well?”

“Carlos Garcia. The triggerman. He showed up in Providence this week and was picked up by the cops for starting a brawl.”

Bud turned my direction with a puzzled look on his unshaven face. “What was he doing in Providence?”

“He was here to see me. That’s what the police detective said when she called. Of course, neither of us knew his actual identity until I saw him at the jail.”

“Wait, wait, wait—you went to see him at the jail?”

“Yes, I talked with him. Our conversation didn’t last long. There wasn’t much to say.”

“Well, Jack, you’ve lived quite an interesting life for a low-rent campus pastor.” Bud booted the laptop.

I thumbed through the chapters he’d printed out. Two hundred pages of life.

“Why was he coming to see you?”

“I don’t know,” I said, setting the papers back on the coffee table.

“Maybe he recognized you from all the press. You are getting a little, shall we say, ‘overexposed’ these days.”

“Yeah, for some unknown reason, I’ve had my picture in the paper recently.”

Bud grimaced a “Don’t bring that up” look.

“Maybe he came here to finish the job.”

“Who knows,” I said. “It doesn’t matter. He’s in jail and will be there a long time. Turns out he’s wanted on all sorts of charges.”

“Right.”

“But now I’m wrestling with what I’m supposed to do now that I know where he is.”

Bud gazed up from the computer screen. “What do you mean … like revenge? That doesn’t sound like you.”

“Not revenge. I mean I’m wondering what God would want me to do about this. How far to reach out to him.”

“You’re kidding, right?” Bud asked. “You want to go save this guy’s soul? You’re out of your gourd, Jack! That guy’d rather kill you than spit.”

“You might be surprised how much danger we’ve faced in Norwood. Peter was mugged at gunpoint, Aaron had his car vandalized, my Jeep was broken into. We’ve all been threatened, but we didn’t leave. And who was threatening us? Sometimes people we were trying to reach. People who’d rather kill us than spit.”

“I get it, Jack. You’re going to go take a picnic lunch and a Bible down to this creep and turn him into your best friend, then save his soul. I’m sure that’s what he’s hoping for. It’ll give him another chance to kill you.”

“Bud, listen to me for a second. I’m not going to get on a soapbox, but I will say this: The faith I have is real, and I live by it. I honestly believe my life is not my own. God loves Carlos Garcia, and He may want me to tell him that.”

“The guy he tried to kill.”

“Maybe. Can you think of a better messenger?”

Bud didn’t reply. He was shaking off my words, letting them fall into the crazy bin. I prayed silently for Carlos and Bud, that they’d both see the Light.

“There’s more to life than a best-selling book, Bud. Or having your picture on a magazine cover. A man who shows love to his enemies does something far greater.”

Erin Taylor was on my mind when I left the building to grab dinner. Sometimes we regard our former friends as a kind of diminished hologram. A hazy picture obscured by time and distance. Or as characters who no longer exist once the chapters we shared have ended. The pictures I had in my head of Erin, Mitchell, and Jenny may have been locked in time, but not their influences on my life. Their friendships had taken up permanent residence in me, shaping me even now.

I ducked into Melvin’s for a burger and took my regular seat near the back. I’d caught the happy-hour crowd, and the place was lively with people, the floor covered with peanut shells. The jukebox pumped out another eighties track. I gave the waitress my order to the sounds of Simple Minds’ “Don’t You Forget about Me.”

Erin and I had never been friends in the same way as, say, Mitch and Jenny, but she’d been an integral member of the quartet. I lost all contact with her in the months that followed Mitchell’s death. We didn’t speak at the funeral, except when I told her I was sorry. By the time I got back from out west, Erin was gone. Like Jenny, she’d moved on to start a new life somewhere.

I wondered how I would even go about trying to locate Erin. She might be listed in the Indianapolis phone directory, but even so, her last name would probably be different. I checked anyway. Nothing. I needed to find someone who knew Erin, someone who might have stayed in touch with her all this time. Jenny would probably know, but calling her was out of the question. Howard and Angela might know too, but I wasn’t ready to go into a long explanation of why I wanted to contact her. I thought about whether Mitch’s mom would still have her number. She was another person I hadn’t spoken with in years. I was too ashamed, too condemned by what I’d done.

When Mitch and I were school kids, she’d claimed me as her other son, letting me stay overnight, feeding me, even washing my clothes once in a while. Her greatest gift to me was not saying, “How could you do this to him?”

I dialed the McDaniels’ house and waited until her voice replaced the ringing.

“Hello?”

“Mrs. McDaniels? It’s Jack Clayton.”

“Hi, Jack. How are you?” Her tone was friendly and casual. I was relieved.

“I’m well. I’m actually up in Chicago right now, and I thought to call you. I’m trying to get in touch with someone, and I wondered if you might be able to help me.”

“Who are you looking for?”

“Erin Taylor,” I said.

Instantly there was silence on the other end of the line. It lasted two or three long seconds.

“I don’t know if that’s such a good idea, Jack. I don’t know if she’d want me to give you her number.”

“I understand why you’d be hesitant. But this is really important.”

She let out a long sigh as if the story couldn’t be told in a short version, and it was a story she’d rather not tell in any version.