Suitcase City (10 page)

“Dad, what are you
doing
?”

Teach lifted the bleeding foot and examined it. Dean tried to pull it away. He held it, his head bent, hearing the fork settle to the plate. “Dad?”

Teach didn’t answer, couldn’t speak now. Not yet. In a minute. He put the bowl under her foot and began to lift warm soapy water to it. He wanted Dean back. Back from that place where adolescent girls went for a while to get away from their parents. He couldn’t look up at his daughter now, couldn’t show her his red eyes, couldn’t say any of the necessary things he carried with him for her and for her lost mother. Well, he would say them later. To say them was the thing he wanted most. Now he would wash this poor bruised foot.

Dean did not resist his hands, but he knew that if he looked up he would see her blushing face, a daughter’s eyes darting around in the improbable fear that someone was watching this. He said, “Deanie, I wish you could dance without hurting yourself so much. Look, this is infected. After I wash it, I’ll have to put iodine on it.”

Dean said, “DADDY, get up, will you? I don’t know what you’re doing down there.” But Teach could hear it, her voice softening. The years slipping away. When she said, “You know, that feels kind of good, actually,” he finally looked up at her.

He wished his eyes were not what they were, red and swollen, but there was nothing he could do about that.

“What’s wrong, Dad?”

“Nothing, honey.” Teach dried her foot and began to wash the other one. It wasn’t bleeding, but it was covered with horned callouses and raw scrapes.
The cruelty
, he thought,
of the things we love.

“Dad, are you okay? Did something happen last night?” Her voice was slow and warm now like the water that dripped from Teach’s hands. The child was little again, putting her world in order. Sighting bodies in the firmament of home
. Daddy, are you okay?

It was easy for Teach to say, “I’m okay, Deanie. Nothing happened.” Drying his daughter’s beautiful, skillful, wounded foot, he thought,
And I want us both to be okay. This Saturday morning is what I want.
He rose and took the bowl of soapy water to the kitchen and said, “Now don’t you move. I’ll be right back with the iodine.”

ELEVEN

Teach sat in the Grille Room at the Terra Ceia Country Club sipping his second beer. He had purchased a pitcher. He felt rank and grubby and knew he looked it. He hoped the members who glanced at him as they passed through would conclude that his greasy hair and thirty hours of beard were simply the Saturday-morning rebellion of a successful man who’d already played a relaxing nine. The eleven o’clock beer would just have to puzzle them.

After breakfast, Dean had gone up to her room for the friend phoning that was her Saturday-morning ritual. Teach had gone out to the garage and slipped on the polo shirt he kept in the LeSabre’s trunk for the times when he stopped at the driving range after work. In the club parking lot, he’d put on his golf shoes and a white visor, and walked to the Grille Room to order the beer and wait for attorney Walter Demarest.

Walter teed off at seven o’ clock Saturday mornings, sun or rain, no matter what the condition of the Great Republic or the needs of his well-heeled clients. Teach knew Walter’s patterns, knew he would pass through the Grille Room on his way home. He trusted Walter as much as he trusted anyone on the narrow social shelf that housed Paige’s friends. Walter played good golf, didn’t cheat, and had never said a word to Teach about any of his clients.

When Walter Demarest walked in, Teach was on his third beer and believed he might be looking exactly like a guy who’d played a pleasant early round. Walter went to the bar for his usual Amstel Light. With the bottle in his hand, he turned and surveyed the room. Teach waved. “Walt, join me, why don’t you?”

Walter Demarest glanced around the Grille Room as though he might get a better offer, saw nothing, smiled, and ambled over to Teach’s table. He was tall, round at the middle, and as pale as the belly of a catfish. He had coffee-black hair and the sort of chinless, hook-nosed look that reminded Teach of the British royal family. He had been president of his chapter of Alpha Tau Omega at Florida, and Teach had known him in one way or another for a long time.

Walter looked Teach over, sighting down the brown barrel of the Amstel bottle. “So, Teach old buddy, you get around already? How’d it go out there? I didn’t think you were an early bird.” Walter lowered the bottle from a mouth that was small and too crowded with chalky-looking teeth.
Inbreeding
, Teach thought, not for the first time.

Teach considered lying about a golf game. Why bother? Walter would question him about his deportment on the evil twelfth hole, a par five that required a drive and a long iron over water to a narrow landing, and he would have to invent golf shots and be questioned with legal precision about the lie of his ball and his choice of clubs. “Actually, Walter, I didn’t play this morning. I’ve been sitting here waiting for you. I need to talk to you about something important.”

Walter put the Amstel bottle on the table and shrugged on the mantle of his profession. Clearly, he did not want to wear it: not here, not now. He examined Teach carefully, noting in his mental ledger Teach’s greasy hair, the clean golf shirt, the haggard, unshaven face. His eyes lingered on the half-empty beer pitcher, then met Teach’s frankly. “Rough night?”

Teach nodded, drained his glass, and poured another. “Rougher than most. In fact, the roughest I’ve had in a long time.” He told the story, starting with the bar and Tyrone Battles and moving on to the crushing coincidence of the cop being the boy’s uncle. Walter winced at that particular detail. Teach finished with his getting out of Malone’s with his ass and a few tatters of his dignity intact, taking his bloody sleeve to the women’s club for Dean’s recital (Walter: “I saw you there. You did look a little, well, rattled, come to think of it. But Dean was wonderful as always.”), and, finally, the waking up to Marlie Turkel, the woman with hot sex in her voice and a Pulitzer Prize in her icy heart.

When Teach finished, Walter whistled low and slow. “Jesus, poor old Teach.”

Teach nodded, sighed, drank. He looked into Walter’s clear, cool, light-green eyes. “Walt, am I well and truly fucked?”

Walter pushed back in his chair, glanced around the still mostly vacant Grille Room, raised his empty bottle, and set it down again. Teach leaned over and poured beer into Walter’s bottle. Walter tasted the Budweiser and made a sour face. “You actually drink this stuff?”

Teach wanted to say that he had drunk a lot worse and liked it better, thank you very much, but he was after Walter’s legal opinion.

“Well,” Walter sighed, “there is of course a lot of terrain between well and truly fucked and just, say, fucked without a kiss, but I would say you are in some trouble.”

“What can the kid do, Walter?”

“Well, assuming there are no criminal charges—I mean assuming the cop, the uncle, decides to leave the matter where it lies—there’s still civil court. And believe me, my friend, anybody can sue anybody for anything in civil court, and the burden of proof is much less severe. It’s not proof beyond a reasonable doubt; it’s proof by the preponderance of the evidence. Lots of difference there, old buddy.”

“What about this guy, Thurman Battles, the kid’s other uncle? What’s he like?”

“Oh my Christ,” muttered Walter Demarest, drinking the Budweiser from his Amstel bottle. “Oh my sweet, suffering Savior, Thurman Battles is a bear. A veritable grizzly.”

Walter had said,
Bay-ah
, and Teach didn’t like it, but you couldn’t have every good thing with a friend, and Walter was a friend. Walter was, in fact, a lifeline thrown across the wild, heaving seas of this table to the leaky rowboat of Teach’s life. Teach drank the last of his beer and said, “You mean I couldn’t go talk to the guy. He wouldn’t listen to reason?”

Walter Demarest looked at him and slowly shook his head. Teach couldn’t tell if the man was weighing the stupidity of the question or was simply at a loss for words. Finally, Walter said, “Thurman Battles is reasonable as Thurman Battles sees reason. He’s reasonable as it suits him and his client. He’s reasonable when his reasoning is better than yours, and the judge and the jury know it. The rest of the time he’s Vlad the Impaler in an Armani suit.”

Teach had saved the best and the worst for last. The thing he had come here for. “Look, Walter,” he said, trying to get the man’s small, clear, green eyes to meet his, remembering all the times when the two of them had played golf with a pint of Wild Turkey in the cart, “I was wondering if you’d consider representing me if this thing gets out of hand. I mean, if this kid does file a civil action.”

Teach waited. Walter’s eyes brightened. He put down the beer Teach had given him and pushed back in his chair. “Uh, Jim . . .” His voice was measured and a little remote, the voice he used when telling Teach to put the five iron back into the bag and go with the six because, after all, there was a breeze behind them and Teach was hitting to a sloping green. And Teach noticed, vaguely, from the thickening haze of morning beer, that
old buddy
had gone away. Teach was Jim now. “Uh, Jim, I hate to say this, but you couldn’t afford me. Not for half as long as a thing like this could take if it goes the way Thurman Battles might want to take it.”

Teach felt his anger rise out of the beery mist. What the hell, how did Walter Demarest know what he could afford? And just as quickly as it blossomed, Teach’s anger wilted. Walter had been to Teach’s house, had seen him wearing the Brooks Brothers suits he bought once a year at the Christmas sale at the Old Hyde Park store. Walter had ridden in Teach’s two-year-old LeSabre once when his own Lexus was being serviced. Walter knew what he knew. Maybe this was a kindness.

“Listen, Jim,” Walter said, rising and leaning forward, putting his pale, manicured hands on the table, “call my office on Monday and I’ll give you the name of a young guy I know who’s just getting started. He’s good, and he won’t charge you an arm and a leg, and I’m sure he’ll do as good a job with this thing as I could. Hell,” he added, “maybe better.”

Walter pushed off from the table and crossed to the bar where he signed his check and left his empty bottle. As he headed for the door, Teach called out, “See you out on the course, old buddy.”

Walter didn’t turn or speak, just raised his left hand, giving Teach the back of it in a jaunty wave.

Teach finished the beer, feeling like a very old buddy. He got up a little unsteadily, carried the pitcher and his glass to the bar, and signed the chit. Trevor, the weekend bartender, retrieved the pen from him, did not look at the tip, and said, “Going to hit some now, Mr. Teach? It’s a gorgeous day out there.”

Teach smiled. “Maybe I will get a bucket.”

In the parking lot, he was stowing his golf shoes in the trunk of the Buick when he saw Bama Boyd walking from the pro shop to her old Alfa Romeo.
Jesus
. Teach had completely forgotten. He was supposed to play this morning with Bama and two guys from the St. Pete club where Bama was an assistant pro.

Hiding behind the raised trunk, Teach glanced at his watch, tried to remember when they’d agreed to meet. It was eleven twenty now. His memory wouldn’t give up the needed detail. Tall, willowy, grave in the way that all great golfers are, and, yes, masculine, Bama put her golf bag into the trunk of the ancient Alfa and quietly closed it. He watched her look back at the pro shop, her still-beautiful face a little leathery from years on golf courses. She looked like a tall house about to fall down. She opened the car door with a hand Teach knew well, because he had held it, kissed it in their long-ago youth. She got into the car without even removing her golf shoes.

Teach imagined the scene inside the pro shop. Bama and her two friends presenting themselves at the counter. The assistant pro, an arrogant kid named Neally, explaining to them that they could only play as guests
with
a member. Bama asking, one professional to another, for an exception. After all, Mr. Teach had meant to be here, would probably arrive a little after their tee time. Would probably catch up with them on the third or fourth hole. Bama using that Alabama charm, and maybe a little of the reputation she’d had as a college golfer, to get the kid to bend the rules. But Teach knew the kid wouldn’t bend. He imagined Bama, the all-American, the college girl he had dated ardently and publicly, standing there pissed and belittled in front of two guys from her club. How could he have forgotten this date with her? Christ, who would have remembered anything after Marlie Turkel?

Teach peeked over the lid of the trunk. The two guys were nowhere in sight. Probably already gone after a long drive from St. Pete and an ego-spanking from a twenty-three-year-old assistant pro with a scratch handicap and an attitude. A guy too young, maybe, to remember the golden exploits of Bama Boyd. Teach saw the dark blue smoke blow from Bama’s exhaust pipe, knew he should come out of hiding and hurry down the parking lot, stop her. Apologize. At least invite her in for a beer. But he couldn’t. Not now. Not this morning. This morning too many things had happened and there was more to come. So much to come that he could not summon even common decency. Teach hid, hoping Bama would take the far exit, would not drive past the spot where he crouched over an open trunk.

They hadn’t seen each other for a long time. This morning was to have been a reunion. The excuses and last-minute cancellations had all been Teach’s. There was the long drive across the bay, Bama’s perpetual marginal employment, the way it got difficult for him to answer her questions about his own success, the way the old stories got harder to tell about how Bama had been the Lady Gator long-drive queen, the next Nancy Lopez to his king of Gator football. The world had belonged to them for a while, and for a while it looked as though they would make a life together. And then one night in the backseat of Teach’s car, Bama had confessed her secret. She liked women. She loved them, in fact. And Teach was, she had explained to him, a beard.