Purgatory Chasm: A Mystery (15 page)

I thought about the memorial while I drove to Framingham. These days, it seems a half dozen Barnburners die every year. The old joke: Dying sober is the only prize you get out of AA, and then you’re not around to enjoy it.

I stepped into my family room. Kieu and Tuan were watching a kids’ show. I pidgin-asked where Trey was. Kieu smiled and pointed past the living room. On TV, something green rode a unicycle. Tuan giggled and clapped.

I stepped through the living room into the narrow area—call it sixteen feet by six—that used to be a front porch. Some long-ago owner had slammed clapboards across it and turned it into a room, but the conversion was a hack job; the insulation was useless or nonexistent, the windows were cheap, and there was one measly electrical outlet. Freeze in the winter, bake in the summer, electrocute yourself year-round.

I’d decided to strip it to the studs, bring the electrical up to code, insulate the hell out of it, and install decent windows. Randall and I had done most of the work and were ready to hang Sheetrock. That’s what I’d hoped to do today, but Randall still wasn’t answering his phone.

When I walked in Trey was squatting, taping craft paper to the floor. He looked up and said, “Does this look right?”

“What are you doing?”

“Randall called and got me started. He said you and I would be putting up walls today.”

“How come he’s calling you but not me?”

“He said he met someone.”

Huh. “You know how to hang Sheetrock?”

Trey rose. “I’m stronger than I look, I’m good at taking orders, and I won’t speak unless spoken to.”

“Perfect.”

“That’s what Randall said you’d say.”

“When does the not speaking start?”

He smiled.

As I turned to fetch Sheetrock and screws, motioning “follow me” over my shoulder, I might have smiled, too.

*   *   *

An hour and a half later, Trey sank the last drywall screw. I looked at my watch and said, “Not bad.”

“There wasn’t much to hang, when you got down to it.”

“But lots of trimming and finessing,” I said. “That’s the hard part. Thanks.”

He ran his hand along a wall. “I would think making all these screws and seams disappear is actually the hard part. I’ll help with that, too.”

“I went to New York City,” I said. “Learned something about your father’s five happy years.”

His mouth made a soft O. After maybe ten seconds he said, “You
did
?”

“Let’s take a break before we mud these joints,” I said. “Walk down to Dunkin’ Donuts?”

“My curiosity is beyond piqued.”

“Let’s take a walk.”

When Trey told Kieu where we were headed, she had quite a bit to say. He said something back. She set hands on hips, pointed at Tuan in front of the TV, and made an even longer speech.

Trey turned to me. “She wants to know if they can come.”

“Sure.”

“They’ve been … we agreed they should stay inside as much as possible,” he said. “This neighborhood.” He half bowed as he spoke.

“It’s a shitty neighborhood and getting worse,” I said. “Don’t be embarrassed to tell me that. Not exactly breaking news. Tell them ‘Let’s go.’”

He did. Big smiles all around. As Kieu wriggled Tuan’s feet into tiny sneakers, Trey said, “I didn’t want to insult you or your home, which incidentally—”

“It’s not my home.”

“Pardon me?”

“It belonged to a friend of mine,” I said. “He left it to me in his will.”

“I assumed from the thoughtful way you’re revamping it—”

“I’m not revamping it. I’m bringing it up to code so I can get the hell rid of it.”

I ignored his puzzled look and led everybody outside.

Tuan was all over the place as we headed west toward Union Avenue, the main drag. He juked like a puppy in a new park, right down to the sniffing, as his mother tried to herd him in the right direction. I looked at the houses, hundred-year-old Victorians mostly, and daydreamed of rehabbing them all—junking vinyl siding, replacing rotted trim, painting them in their funky old colors.

Framingham’s a funny city. Its northern end is a solid suburb. Decent schools, lots of commuters to Boston and office parks. Splitting the town is Route 9, one of the original strip-mall roads. Fast food, car dealerships, furniture stores, traffic lights. Like that.

Down here, south of Route 9, it’s a ground-down city. Former mills, former factories, train tracks that screw up traffic all day long. Methadone clinics, halfway houses, a hospital with a busy ER. Lots of illegals, lots of old folks who can’t afford to leave. Most of the businesses in the downtown blocks have Brazilian flags or
Falamos Português!
signs.

Trey said, “How in God’s name did you learn anything about my father?”

I told it, starting with the address book. The two-one-two number, Chas Weinberg, SoHo. It was a lot to dump on Trey, who’d obviously had problems with his old man. I wondered if it was too much at once. But he listened like hell.

We scuttled across Union Avenue and into Dunkin’ Donuts. Tuan was overwhelmed by the noise, the choices, the tall people. Kieu picked him up, settled him, and started pointing at the shelves.

Three minutes later we were outside, Tuan holding a chocolate-chip muffin about as big as his head. We sat on a bench in front of a dentist’s building. It had enough grass for the kid to run around on, and it was the closest thing to a park we were going to find in this neighborhood.

Medium regular for me, large black for Trey. We sipped, watched traffic bunch and ease. After a while I said, “The name Myna Roper mean anything to you?”

He shook his head.

“Your father and Myna Roper were an item in New York,” I said. “Made a big splash on the artsy-fartsy scene around 1960.”

Trey smiled and toasted. “That’s gratifying,” he said. “It’s hard to picture my dad making a big splash in any way, shape, or form.” He put his Styrofoam cup to his lips.

I said, “Myna Roper was black.”

He jerked and spit hot coffee, which hit the side of my face, missing my eye only through dumb luck. I sleeve-wiped my face and turned. Trey was staring at me, coffee dribbling down his unwiped chin.

“You are shitting me,” he said after apologizing for the spit-take. “
My father?
Are you
sure
?” He barked Vietnamese. Kieu hustled over, plucked a Dunkin’ Donuts napkin from her sleeve, and handed it to me. It took maybe ten seconds, but that was long enough for Tuan to get close to the street. Kieu intercepted him and herded him toward grass.

I told more. I watched Trey’s body soften as he learned about his father’s New York years. I watched his head tilt, then watched him smile and weep at the same time. When I was done I let him cry. He wasn’t embarrassed about it; he just sat sipping coffee and crying, wiping his eyes once in a while.

Finally he said, “I’m so proud of him.”

I said nothing.

“I wish I’d known that before,” Trey said. “I wish … I wish he’d been that man while I was growing up.”

“What man was he?”

Long pause. “My mother died in childbirth,” he finally said, “but she was a ghost even before that.”

“
Your
mother died in childbirth?” I said. “Same way your father’s mother died?”

“She did.” He looked like he wasn’t sure what he wanted to say next.

Trey watched Tuan wobble past, Kieu hot on his trail. He smiled, sipped. “Every other generation gets stuck in between, you know?”

“No.”

“The lucky ones got the Summer of Love, Chicago ’sixty-eight, Woodstock. The ones born five years down the road got stagflation and the Ford Pinto. Hell, they got
two versions
of ‘Muskrat Love.’”

I kind of liked that song. Didn’t say so.

“Sorry to get on my hobby horse,” Trey said. “The point is, my father got stuck in one of those tweener generations. At least I thought he did until two minutes ago. If he’d been born five years earlier he would’ve been a World War Two guy. Instead, he was a Korean War guy. And his dad made damn sure he stayed in college so he could give Korea a wide berth.”

“Sounds like you’re calling the World War Two guys lucky,” I said. “The ones got killed might not agree.”

“Touché.” He toasted me. “But the ones who
didn’t
get killed became the ‘greatest generation,’ as the book says.”

I wondered what the hell book he was talking about. He read my face. “Here’s where I’m going with all this,” he said. “I always felt bad for my father. He was a little too young to be a World War Two guy and a little too old to be a sixties guy. He always seemed bitter about it.”

“Now you’re thinking maybe he was bitter about something else,” I said, nodding. “About Myna.”

“It looks as if he carved out something very nice for himself, then had it ripped away.”

We were quiet awhile.

Finally I said, “What year did your mother die?”

“I was born in ’seventy-two.”

“Your dad never remarried?”

He shook his head. “Another parallel between him and my grandfather, I realize.”

I nodded. “Your dad was in his thirties, had plenty of money and a brand-new kid. Most guys in that position in 1972 would give it six months or a year, then snap up another wife. If only to clean the house and keep you fed.”

From the sounds behind me, it seemed Tuan was about done having a good time. He bickered at his mom, and she scolded back. I rose, stretched, killed my coffee, took a few steps to toss the cup in a sidewalk garbage barrel. When I turned back, Trey was staring at nothing, tapping his lip with his near-empty cup.

I said, “Head back and mud that room?”

He stood. “You’re a strange cat. You know a thing or two about the human animal, don’t you?”

I said nothing.

“You’re saying this Myna Roper was the love of my father’s life. It’s why he never remarried.”

“I’m saying let’s head back and mud that room.”

*   *   *

Three hours later, I idled down Mechanic Street in Rourke, taking a long look at Motorenwerk.

Trey had been a natural with the putty knife and joint compound—we’d finished up earlier than I expected. With time to kill before the Barnburners’ memorial for Phigg, and with Ollie and Josh way the hell up in Vermont, I wanted a look-see through the garage.

Ollie’s BMW was parked next to the building. The street was dead on a Sunday afternoon except for my upholstery-shop Mexican pal. The guy worked hard, I had to give him that. His roll-up door was open. As I eased past, scouting the street, his pit bull went crazy. I U-turned at the railroad tracks and rolled past again. The pit bull’s barking had pulled the Mexican out front. He stood watching in gray coveralls, wiping his hands with a shop rag, and shook his head when our eyes met. I nodded, thinking he meant there was nothing new on Mechanic Street.

I should have thought harder.

I put my truck next to the BMW, looked around, ducked around back of the garage. I found the unlockable window, pulled hard, and stepped through into darkness.

“That will be fine.” The voice said
“Zat,”
and I knew right away it was Montreal.

I was caught in an awkward long step, my right foot on the shop floor, my left ankle on the windowsill. And the voice came from behind me, so I couldn’t gauge the threat. And I’d left Ollie’s P35 under the seat of my truck. And I’d ignored the Mexican’s warning.

And I felt like a jackass.

“Just stepping in, okay?” I said, spreading both hands. “If I don’t, I’m going to fall over.” I hopped like the world’s worst ballerina, got both feet planted, blinked fast to help my eyes adjust to the dark, and spun a slow 180 to face the voice.

What popped into my head was
lounge lizard
. He looked twenty-five years younger than I knew he had to be. His dyed-black hair was a slightly modern take on a pompadour, and his goatee looked drawn on. His getup was straight out of
The Dick Van Dyke Show
: narrow-legged black slacks, a shimmery blue-gray jacket with skinny lapels, an equally skinny necktie. It was all tailored and expensive-looking, so I figured the early-sixties look must be hip again.

The only thing that kept me from laughing out loud, picking him up by his ankles, and swinging him in circles was the dude next to him. The dude wore the same goatee as Montreal but was six inches taller and a hundred pounds heavier, with deltoids erupting from his yellow muscle shirt.

Across his chest he held a machine pistol with a banana clip. I’d never seen a gun like it, but it was flat, black, and ugly and I bet it fired twenty rounds a second.

I tried to ignore the muscle man, focusing on Montreal. “Where’d you leave your Escalade?” I said, playing for time. I was clicking through facts, thinking about what Montreal knew, what he
wanted
to know, and how much truth I had to spill to stay alive.