Lonesome Point (10 page)

UNTIL EARLY one Sunday morning, when he woke up before dawn. Padding down the stairs, running shoes in hand, he thought he heard a sound from the living room, poked his head in, saw nothing, and went into the kitchen. He came back out with a glass of orange juice, and now he was sure he heard something.
He followed the sound of ice tinkling in a glass, into the living room, and there, cloaked in darkness, his father sat in his club chair holding a drink. A bottle of Johnnie Walker Black stood by his feet.

Patrick inched closer. “Dad?”

His father sipped his drink. He looked up, eyelids heavy.

“Dad?”

His father turned his gaze to the floor.

It spilled out of Patrick. He’d been holding it in since spring break and now he couldn’t stop himself. “Dad, I know, all right?” His father was a statue. Patrick set his glass down on a side table, dropped his shoes, and stood in front of the man. “I know about you, about you and those Salvadoran boys or Honduran or whatever the hell they are, I know,” and his voice cracked and he started to cry, swiping hard at the embarrassing tears.

He told his father everything he’d seen, and when his father tried to talk Patrick told him to shut up, let him finish, goddammit let him finish… . His father begged him to keep his voice down, but he listened, didn’t deny anything. He kept taking quick sips of his drink, unable to hold eye contact.

He said, “Patrick, I’m sorry you saw… . Son, I’m in a pickle …”

“A
pickle
?” Patrick almost laughed.

“… and this is not about my reputation or hurting you boys and your mother, hell, if that’s not bad enough.” Patrick’s father swallowed hard and reached for his drink but it was empty. “I have a dilemma. Okay? That’s why I’m out here trying to figure out what I should do when I should be in my bed sleeping. The stress this man has put on me.”

“What man?”

His father poured whiskey into his glass and stood up. “Forgive me, son. I don’t know what else to say.” He walked past him into the kitchen.

“What man?”

His father kept going. He returned with ice in the glass and sat down again. That’s when he told Patrick about the Reverend, the man he’d trusted for years, to his own detriment, he said. “He got arrested a couple days ago. You wouldn’t have heard. No one ever hears about it when he gets in a bind. But your friend paid me a visit yesterday and gave me some news.”

“What friend?”

“The policeman. Alfonso.”

“Fonso never said anything to me.”

“Why would he? What he had to say doesn’t concern you.”

Patrick stared at his father. “I’m twenty years old, I’m your eldest. I’m part of this family and I’ve worked enough days with you to know your car business. Do I look naïve to you?”

His father sucked down his drink and splashed more whiskey in the glass. He swirled the drink, studying it. “For chrissake, sit down, Patrick.”

Patrick pulled up a dining chair.

His father watched him, screwing the cap on the bottle, searching Patrick’s eyes. “You can guess why the Rev was arrested. I don’t need to go into details. Well, it’s like this… .” He wiped his lips, tried again. “It’s like this. Whenever he’s been in trouble before, the Rev, he and the police superintendent have an arrangement that the Rev pays him a fee for the arrest to disappear.” He stopped abruptly. Exhaled, looked down at his feet.
“Fees vary according to what the charges may be, or how greedy the superintendent is at the time. It’s been going on like this for years and I’ve known about it for years, but this time when he got arrested …” Patrick’s father looked up, shaking his head. “This time the superintendent won’t play the game anymore. He has bigger fish to fry.”

“What do you mean, bigger fish?”

“Me.”

“He wants to come after
you
? Why?”

Ivan Varela dropped his forearms on his thighs, hung his head. A tired man.

Patrick said, “It’s because of the cars? They can’t get you for anything there so they’re coming after you another way?”

His father lifted his drink off the floor and examined it. “According to what Alfonso is saying. They’re not picky anymore. They’re putting pressure on the Rev.” Patrick’s father finished his drink and said, “That son of a bitch, he plans to set me up,” and rose and went to look out the French doors.

Patrick watched him standing there. Reddish daylight breaking on the water. Pelicans on the posts of a distant pier. Patrick got up, stood next to him. “They want to set you up with … young guys? Then that means they can’t, because you’re not gonna do that anymore.” He looked at his father. “Right, Dad? Please tell me yes.” His voice quavering again.

“Helping the Rev pay off the superintendent for years,
years
, and for what? Because he’s my friend? I’ve depended on this man like no other, and that son of a bitch, that slick son of a bitch …”

Patrick hated seeing his father like this, and for the first time
he felt himself hating the Reverend. “So what—what are you going to do?”

His father, gazing out over the yard, said, “I’m just grateful I can talk to you, son.”

Patrick hesitated, put a hand on his father’s shoulder. “Dad? I’ll help you—and anytime you want to talk, okay?”

He heard a door opening behind them. His mother came out of her bedroom closing the front of her housecoat. Patrick had turned around, but his father kept staring outside.

She sat in a chair across the living room, legs slanted to the side, slippers dangling off her toes. She was clutching a wad of tissue. “Have you decided what you’re going to do, Ivan?”

Ivan Varela, staring outside, shook his head.

Patrick’s mother put her chin in her hand and lowered her eyes. “I’ve been thinking, and I’ve come to the conclusion that you’ve got to face the hard truth. No more lying to yourself.”

Patrick looked at his mother, his father. Confused.

She said, “Put that lamp on, will you, Patrick?”

Patrick snapped on a side table lamp. In the light he could see she’d been crying.

Patrick’s father left the door, sat slowly in his chair.

She said to him, “Pour me a drink.”

He looked at her curiously for a second, but he started pouring the scotch into his glass.

“That’s good right there.” She reached out. He had to get up to hand her the drink.

“Patrick,” she said, “have a seat.” She took a neat sip. Drew her legs up under her and regarded the two of them. “I’ve been thinking about this, Ivan, and the solution to this problem lies
in our resolve. Now, if you need resolve, you have only to take a moment and look at all you have here, all that you’ve worked hard for, this grand old house we bought, that gorgeous view out there. We have a son in college, about to earn a degree, and another one getting ready to head off to college. We have money in the bank, an Australian vacation planned, mutual funds, real estate investments. We’re living comfortable and happy lives, aren’t we?”

“Yes …” Ivan Varela cleared his throat. “Yes, we are.”

“Along comes somebody who threatens to topple our cart, drag our names through the mud. Who wants to help put you in jail. What are we supposed to do? Stand back and watch it happen? I won’t. I sacrificed too much in the beginning after we were married, watched and said nothing while you made your deals and stayed out late at night and did god only knows what, and me left to raise our sons all by myself. But it worked out.” She sipped the scotch. “And, you know something? It needs to continue working out. I will not go back to scrounging like we did in our early days. I will not lose my house. You have a problem. You need to get rid of the problem. It’s not that difficult.”

Ivan Varela sat up straight, clearing his throat. “What are you saying, Liza? Talk straight.”

She let loose a bark of laughter that alarmed Patrick. She said, “The man who has led a clandestine life for all of his marriage now wants clarity. How ironic, Ivan.”

“Liza, listen—”

“No,” raising a palm. “
You
listen. You yourself have said he’s been cheating you for years but at least you know how much he’s skimming, you said. Now he’s devising your downfall, and you
intend to do nothing? He’s a problem that needs to be eliminated once and for all.”

She turned to Patrick. “You look uncomfortable. Don’t be. You’re old enough now, as you always like reminding me. You’ve enjoyed the benefits of being in this family, now it’s time to accept the burdens.”

She said to her husband, “It would be best if as few people as possible know about this. We need to act fast, and I have no worry that you will. Resolve, Ivan. That’s what’s required.”

She tossed back the drink, banged the glass on the table, and dropped her feet to the floor. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, it’s Sunday, and Sunday is my tennis day. If you make omelets, Ivan, don’t forget I like green peppers in mine. And Swiss, I don’t like that provolone you use.”

Ivan Varela sat frowning at the empty glass of scotch his wife had just downed at six in the morning. With his two-day beard, he looked shipwrecked.

Patrick’s eyes followed his mother until she disappeared into her room. He sat there, stunned. Neither of them spoke. A clock ticked loudly in the kitchen. He was trying to come to terms with what he’d just heard.

It would take him several years.

L
EO SAW THE MESSAGE LIGHT BLINKING when he got out of the shower, a towel around his waist. He hit the button. The robotic voice droned: Message, received, at, two, thirty, nine, P.M. “Leo, it’s me, Patrick. Call me back. This is urgent.”

Leo muttered, “What now?” and dialed Patrick’s number. He took the phone into the bathroom and came out combing his hair saying, “Well, they haven’t called me yet. But if they call and tell me it’s tonight, what then?”

“Stall,” Patrick said, “stall.”

“For how long?”

“Until I tell you otherwise.”

“I hope you know what you’re doing.”

There was a silence. “Don’t you worry about me, Leo.”

Leo wanted to say, It’s not you I’m worried about.

He drove to work that night tempted to light up a joint, bliss away all the Massani worries. Instead he followed the path of reason. Maybe on his break he’d indulge.

The swirl of work distracted him: two admissions, paperwork to prepare for one patient’s CT scan, another’s ECT. Then he had to order two patients out of the TV room, lock the door, and direct them to bed. One of the patients was Reynaldo Rivera, the spitter. He was freshly shaved and cleaned up now, smiling at Leo as he walked to his room. Leo also locked the linen closet
because the other new patient had already shown an affinity for curling up on the shelf under fresh sheets.

Leo did rounds at 11:45, closing doors, flicking off lights. Massani had been released from seclusion and was asleep in 308, a private room. Under Dr. Burton’s orders, the evening-shift nurses had dosed the old man with heavy sedatives. So it was twenty patients and all quiet on the psych ward.

Leo hung the clipboard in the nurses’ station and tried to ignore how close to each other Martin and Rose were sitting, conversing as softly as lovers. Maybe they had hooked up already? Could be … but who cares? Leo had too much on his mind to bother about them.

The phone rang and Rose answered, then turned to Leo. “For you.”

He took the phone. “Hello?”

“Listen up, ’cause this’ll be quick,” Freddy said. “You listening?”

“Yeah, go ahead.”

“We’ll do this thing tonight.”

“Tonight?” Leo glanced sideways at Rose and Martin, walked out of the nurses’ station, stretching the phone cord as far as it would go around the corner. “You need to give me better warning, man. How am I supposed to—”

“You’re not fucking listening. You’re talking shit. Finding excuses, I ain’t even trying to hear that. What time’s the other tech on break?”

Leo took a deep breath. “He’s got first break. So that’s midnight.”

“Naw, that’s not good. How about the head nurse?”

“Last break, four o’clock.”

“Perfect. Then that’s the time. Here’s what’s gonna happen. When she goes on break, you place a call to this number, write it down.”

“Hold on.” Leo went back inside for a pen and sheet of paper, playing along. “Go ahead.” He scribbled fast, went back outside. “Then what?”

“You call me so I know it’s all cool. Five minutes later, I’ll call your nurses’ station there. What’s the name of the other tech? Martin?”

“Yes.”

“Good. If he don’t answer, I’ll ask to speak to him. I’ll be a family member of a patient there or something. Give me the name of a black patient, quick.”

“Dolores Washburn.”

“All right, Dolores Washburn. So now, while I’m talking to Martin, here’s what you do. You go get Mr. Massani and escort him off the floor and down the back stairwell. Don’t worry, I know where it is, and I know you don’t need to walk by no nurses’ station to get to it. You take him to where it leads out to the doors by that lobby with the pharmacy there. You walk him straight out that door. A car’ll be waiting at the curb. You leave him, turn around, get your ass back upstairs. The rest will be taken care of, no more concern of yours. You understand everything?”