The Extinction Event (6 page)

“That's a long list, Mama Lucky,” Jack said. “Frank had a lot of friends.”

“Then,” Mama Lucky said, “I don't care
how
he died. He was a lucky man!”

On her massive bed, Mama Lucky leaned forward and said, “You unwax your ears, Jack Slidell. About that bouquet. Go listen to Lafayette King, Gainsvoort Gardens.” To Caroline, Mama Lucky said, “That's what they call an old folks' home. Where I should be. A better waiting room for heaven than this dump.”

Jack stood.

Relieved, so did Caroline.

“Nothing happens around here that you don't know, Mama Lucky,” Jack said, leaning over and kissing her on the cheek.

“You get your paw out of the snare, now, Jack Slidell,” Mama Lucky said. “Then, keep your pants with a crease and your collar turned down, you hear.” To Caroline, she said, “Trouble with that boy, he wanted to get rich. And, in this world, there's only two ways to make a fortune: Be born rich or be born brutal. Jack Slidell was neither. Never will be.”

CHAPTER NINE

1

As Jack and Caroline walked away from the red light district, Caroline glanced at Jack, looking at him in a new way.

“How come the police couldn't get the information?” she asked. “If you know who to ask, why don't they?”

“They know who,” Jack said. “But not how.”

“Mama Lucky reminds me of Santa Claus,” Caroline said.

“Yeah,” Jack said, “if Santa came down the chimney carrying a chain saw.”

A weathered blue-and-white historical marker at the beginning of the long drive up to Gainsvoort Gardens declared that Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands had once stayed there. Not, presumably, as a patient. Or resident, as the facility called its clients. In the distance, they heard a low roll of thunder.

The main house was a thirty-six-room castle with turrets, many chimneys, and a wraparound porch that gave it the look of an ocean liner aground on a rise, like a Catskill Noah's Ark. The house had been built in the 1880s by Wallace Beach, a tin magnate, for his daughter and her new husband, an English lord who thought he was broke and found out six months after the wedding that he'd inherited a fortune from some collateral relative. Everyone assumed he'd married for money and, newly rich, would vanish. He had married for money, but discovered he enjoyed his pug-nosed bride's sense of humor. They went off together to live on some property in Scotland, and Beach's castle was closed up for ten years before it was sold to the first of a series of not-rich-enough owners, all of whom unloaded the pile after a couple of winters. Expensive to heat, more expensive to keep up the grounds. In the 1930s, the place was boarded up. Shingles flaked from the roof. Windows cracked. Mice nested in mattresses. Bats hung from the ceiling of the baronial dining room. Pipes burst and water cascaded down the grand staircase. For generations, in winter, the steep, sloping lawn in front of the abandoned house became a favorite spot for sledding. As night fell, the packed snow went from blue to purple to black. The moon reflecting on the icy surface gave the estate a fairy-tale look. Lights sometimes flickered from the broken windows as teenagers wandered through the echoing rooms, their flashlights searching out corners in which to make out.

In the late-1960s, Billy Livingston, a descendent of one of the oldest and richest Hudson River families, bought the Beach Castle, cleaned and repaired half a dozen rooms, and used it as a commune until a girl on LSD took a wedge of pizza from the cardboard box in which it had been delivered and, convinced an ever-thinning thread of cheese connected her slice to the box no matter how far away she walked, wandered up stairs and down corridors until in an attic room she stepped on a rotten floor board and plunged into a third-floor bathroom, breaking her neck.

Livingston abandoned the commune and the castle, which six years later was bought by some Boston investors who gutted and renovated the place and turned it into Gainsvoort Gardens, a very expensive
retirement facility
. They kept the high ceilings, the half-dozen unbroken Tiffany glass runners in the living room windows, and the massive fireplaces, big enough to stand in. But building fires in the fireplaces was forbidden.

A nurse in a crisp white uniform padded down a hall, leading Jack and Caroline past half-open doors, behind which ancient men and women lay in beds with half-opened mouths, dying fish.

“This late, visits are against the rules,” said the nurse, one of Jack's old high school friends. “But these old ones, they don't sleep much. It'll help him pass the time.”

As she moved, the starched cloth of her uniform made a sound like ripping paper.

At a door, she stopped.

“He's in here,” she said.

Jack and Caroline went into the small room. In the hospital bed, a wizened man was propped on pillows, wide awake. Lafayette King.

“Mr. King?” Jack said.

King blinked at Jack.

“My name's Jack Slidell,” Jack said.

“I'm ninety-six years old,” King said. “July 6th.”

King's voice was strong. Melodic. Humorous.

“Congratulations,” Jack said.

“Why?” King said. “Life's not an endurance contest. Or is it? I don't care. I'm not going for any record. You Billy Slidell's boy?”

“My people,” Jack said, “you wouldn't know them.”

“Billy Slidell was the best tennis player I ever met,” King said. “Tried to teach me the backhand. I played tennis for seventy-five years and never did learn a decent backhand.” To Caroline, he said, “Young lady, when I was a boy in school I once knew a girl as beautiful as you are.”

“Thank you,” Caroline said. And introduced herself, “Caroline Wonder.”

“I knew a Caroline Wonder,” King said. “A long time ago. Colonel Wonder's daughter.”

“That was my grandmother,” Caroline said.

“I think she would have married me,” King said. “But I was too shy to ask her. In this life, by the time you're not too shy, you're too old. To what do I owe the pleasure of your company?”

Caroline glanced at Jack, who nodded for her to go ahead. Columbiaville was his world. This was hers.

“We heard a rumor,” Caroline started.

“You look
bien elevee
,” King said. “You should know better than to trust rumors.”

Again, Caroline glanced at Jack, who gave her his poker face.

“You're right,” Caroline said. “I once heard a rumor at work. One I shouldn't have trusted.”

“Rumors are like cut flowers,” King said. “Dead things people use to brighten up drab lives.”

“This one, though, is important to Mr. Slidell,” Caroline said. “Important to both of us. Someone said you know about a bouquet sent to a girl in a hospital.”

King looked benignantly on Caroline, saying nothing.

“Please, Mr. King,” Caroline said.

King sighed.

“I'm a gentleman,” he said. “Another gentleman came to me to ask a favor. Could I have one of the boys here buy a bouquet, something special, and deliver it to a hospital.”

“Who asked for the favor?” Jack asked.

“He didn't want anyone to know,” King said. “That's why he asked me.”

“Mr. King,” Jack said.

“I gave my word, Mr.—”

“Slidell.”

“That's right. Mr. Slidell.”

“Two people have died.…”

“Look around you, Mr. Slidell. This place is filled with death. Do you think death matters that much?”

“Yes,” Jack said.

“To me, honor, my word, matters more,” King said. “You said I wouldn't know your people. Maybe that's the difference between your people and mine.”

2

Another gentleman came to me to ask a favor. Could I have one of the boys here buy a bouquet, something special, and deliver it to a hospital
.

“All we have to do,” Jack said, “is figure out who that other gentleman is.”

“That should be easy,” Caroline said. “There aren't a lot of gentlemen left in the world.”

Jack and Caroline walked down the long, sloping drive from Gainsvoort Gardens to the parking lot off Route 203.

Caroline said, “A dead end.”

Jack shook his head
no
and said, “We've been stirring up trouble.”

“I thought,” Caroline said, “we were trying to get
out
of trouble.”

“If you expected a cotillion,” Jack said, “you should have stayed in the ballroom.”

“Given the results, I don't see it would've made any difference.”

“I'm the one in the jackpot, not you, Five Spot. You want to sit this one out, it's okay with me.”

“Five Spot. Why do you call me that?”

“In fifth grade,” Jack explained, “I hung out in a store, the Acre General Store out on Route 66. It had a pinball machine called
Five Spot
. Cost a nickel to play. I used to save up. On the display, there was a picture of a woman I fell in love with.”

“You fell in love with a picture?”

“I figured someday I'd meet someone who looked like her.” Jack smiled.

“I look like a pinball bimbo?” Caroline asked.

“That tickles you?”

“You have no idea.”

“When I got supplies the other day, when I moved into the shack down by the boat basin, I stopped in the store. The machine's still there.”

“Five Spot, huh?” Caroline said.

3

The woman on the pinball display was dressed in a harem costume, beaded and fringed top covering nose-cone breasts, a voluptuous belly with a green jewel in her navel, and translucent pantaloons covering a skimpy bikini bottom. Her arms were raised to her right, hands palms out, obviously in the middle of a belly dance.

“Still costs a nickel,” Caroline said.

“The good things never change,” Jack said.

Caroline stood at the old pinball machine, her hands on the flipper buttons. Jack stood behind her, his hands over hers.

“This is the way you used to do it?” Caroline asked.

“Not quite,” Jack said as Caroline moved her body back against Jacks. Bells rang and lights flashed. On the machine.

“Do you always hit the target?” Caroline asked.

“Every time,” Jack said.

At the shack, Jack parked, got out of his car, and started for the door. Standing first on one leg and then on the other, Caroline paused to take off her shoes—to save them from the muddy path. She was looking down when she heard the noise, a thud, like a bat against a softball.

Jack was falling as a man, face hidden in the dark, raised the two-by-four he had used to crack Jack's head.

“Jack,” Caroline cried, running half on, half off the planks toward where the stranger was beating Jack with the two-by-four.

The stranger gave Jack one last thwak in the ribs before running to a pickup truck and roaring off.

Kneeling in the mud, Caroline cradled Jack, half conscious from the beating, in her arms.

CHAPTER TEN

1

Kerosene light flickered on Jack's bruised face. One eye was swollen half closed. His upper lip crusted with dried blood. His shirt was off. Tigerlike welts striped his side, ribs. Caroline was sponging the wounds on his chest. Open beside her on the side table was her car emergency Red Cross kit.

“You've got great bedside manner,” Jack said.

“This isn't exactly how I imagined we'd end up in bed,” Caroline said.

She touched a raw spot. Jack winced.

“Sorry,” Caroline said.

Caroline wrapped gauze around Jack's chest.

“Is all that necessary?”

“Think of it as a fashion statement.”

Caroline touched a cut on Jack's lip.

“This might need special treatment,” she said.

She ran her fingers over Jack's mouth. Closed her eyes and leaned forward to kiss Jack, who, taking a deep breath, pulled back.

“You're a good nurse,” he said.

“Doctor,” she said.

“You practice a lot?”

“I don't have a lot of patience.”

“Which kind?” Jack asked.

Caroline kissed Jack again.

“I can tell you don't have a lot of patience,” Jack said. “Did I tell you I can read minds?”

“Yeah?”

“You're going to say,
I'm not going to help you get killed
.”

“And you're going to say,
If they wanted to kill me, you'd be in mourning by now
.”

“And you're going to say,
Let's leave all this to the cops.
”

“And you're going to say,
Go back into Frank's files, everything from the past six months, everything.
”

“We know each other so well,” Jack said, “maybe someday we ought to go on a date.”

“I don't date corpses,” Caroline said.

“Why not?” Jack said. “You know what they say about necrophilia?
At least, you don't have to worry about hurting your partner's feelings
.”

Caroline closed the first aid kid. Angrily.

“I thought you wanted me to find out what happened to Frank.”

“That was before this.”

“They stole my job—” Jack began.

“They?” Caroline asked.

“I worked hard to get where I am,” Jack said.

“Where are you, Jack?” Caroline asked.

“Back where I began,” Jack said. “That's what I mean. If it hadn't been for Frank's murder—”

“You don't know he was murdered,” Caroline said. “As for screwing up your life—if it hadn't been Frank's death, it would have been something else.”

“My fate, huh?”

“Your character. They pulled you in for obstructing justice. Resisting arrest. It's amazing you weren't disbarred years ago.”