The Violet Hour (5 page)

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Authors: Richard Montanari

BOOK: The Violet Hour
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Erique was silent for a moment, the headline evidently forming in his mind. ‘We have dead folks?’ he asked.
Got him, Nicky thought. ‘Yes. A priest and a young woman. Found him in an apartment on Cedar, found her splattered on the sidewalk.’
‘Yeah . . . okay . . . heard something about it.’
‘They also found a heroin packet stamped with a red tiger and a blue monkey. It has to be Chinese dope with marks like that, right?’
‘Probably . . .’
‘Plus, the priest was in my cousin Joseph’s parish. I can get way inside this.’ When Erique had been silent for a full twenty seconds, Nicky continued. ‘Think of it as a community service piece.’
Erique Mars burst into high-pitched laughter. ‘Oh . . . you want to do a public service announcement? Suddenly you’re the Ad Council?’
‘C’mon, Erique.’
‘All right . . . get me something on paper by tomorrow at noon. I’ll see if I can fit you in as a “City Streets” item.’
‘City Streets’ was midbook, a quarter-page feature. No more than three hundred words. No more than two hundred dollars, either. ‘“City Streets”?’ Nicky said. ‘Man, why you insult me, bruh?’
‘Bruh?’ Erique asked.
‘Yeah . . . you know . . .
bruh
.’
‘I went to Cornell, Nicky. I don’t say
bruh
. I’ve never said
bruh
in my life. I played hockey, for God’s sake.’
‘Okay, okay,’ Nicky said. ‘Touché.’
‘Tooshay? That’s mah sistuh. Wutchoo want Tooshay fo?’
‘All right, already. Jesus. You wanna quit with that?’
‘Whatever you say, soul man,’ Erique said, laughing.
Nicky pulled his heaviest weapon. ‘Remember that crack piece I did for
Sunday
?’
‘Who can forget? Don’t you bring it up every time you pitch me a cover?’
‘Well, I’m still tight with the two cops I worked with on that one. I knock, I’m in. Simple as that. I can get under this like nobody you know.’
‘Tell you what. You put seventy-five words together as a cautionary blurb about this red-tiger dope and I’ll stick it in the “Murmurs” section up front. If you can get anywhere near the investigation into the deaths, I’ll give you a cover.’
Yes
.
‘I want to French-kiss you, Erique.’
‘Don’t go
Jungle Fever
on me, Nicholas,’ Erique said. ‘Tomorrow noon on the front of the book piece, right?’
‘Noon,’ Nicky said, thinking that he would hit Erique for the advance when he turned in the ‘Murmurs’ piece. Which he knew he would begin writing around eleven forty-five the next day. ‘Not a minute later.’
5
 
When they opened the side door and edged into the small foyer, they could already see some of the mess in the living room. When they stepped into the kitchen, they saw the extent: an overturned planter, a dumped magazine rack, and a very penitent-looking Molson lying under the dinette table, trying to get small. His tail was on hold for the moment, straining to wag because his family had just returned home, but at the same time, clearly indicating culpability in the living-room caper. He was still too young to know whether the destruction he had wreaked made him a
baddog
or a
reallybaddog
.
Amelia put the groceries on the countertop, exchanged an expectant glance with her daughter, and followed Maddie into the living room. The initial damage report had been accurate. The TV was still intact, as were all the lamps and end tables and Hummels and eight-by-ten pictures. No Buick-sized holes in the drywall, thank God. Amelia looked at Molson and swore that the dog had put on another ten pounds in just the past week.
‘I’ll get the DustBuster,’ Maddie said, already assuming some of the blame for this. It was officially her dog, so it was officially her mess, she supposed.
Later they ate their Healthy Time Shrimp Marias in front of the TV, deciding, by consensus, that Maria could cook for her own family in the future. Maddie offered the rather astute observation that Shrimp Maria tasted like a combination of tuna fish and candy apple.
Roger was supposed to make a pit stop today, a brief appearance with his family between flights. Amelia glanced at the day’s mail on the hall table and surmised that Roger hadn’t yet been home. There was a time, and not too long ago, that her husband would leave her love notes and tea roses on his stops, but there wasn’t a whole lotta love to make note of around Casa de St John these days, Amelia thought sadly.
Was there something wrong with her? There had to be. Why else, after nine years of marriage, does a man stray?
After dinner, Maddie changed clothes and asked if she could run over to Polly MacGregor’s for what she promised would be no more than a half hour. Although the St John house stood alone at the end of Wyckamore Lane, the MacGregor house was a mere two hundred or so feet away, toward Falls Road, and Maddie had no major highways to cross to get there.
‘Wear a jacket,’ Amelia yelled as Maddie walked toward the front door.
‘Okay,’ Maddie answered.
A few moments later, the front door closed, and the house was silenced.
Amelia dialed Paige’s number.
‘Well, I’ve done it,’ Paige said. ‘For the first time in my adult life I’ve actually gone twenty-four hours without food. The very first time. Does this make me, like, anorexic or something?’
Amelia said, ‘I don’t think that it—’
‘Am I bulimic now? Jesus Christ, I’m nervous.’
As a thirty-three-year-old working woman, Paige didn’t get to see too much of the Lifetime Channel, so her catalog of women’s afflictions was a bit backlisted. Still, it didn’t prevent her from coming down with every single one of them – sometimes three or four at a time.
Paige was taller than Amelia by an inch or so at five six. Where Amelia’s shoulder-length hair was a woefully lifeless auburn, Paige had thick, wheat-colored hair that argued its way to the middle of her back, and conversation-halting aquamarine eyes. She was a little bustier than Amelia (then again, Amelia thought, who wasn’t?), but she foolishly considered herself plagued by that little bit of tummy that simply refused to go away.
Yet, when you cleaned her up and put her in a little black sheath and heels, Paige was a knockout. Amelia had caught an inebriated Roger St John gawking at Paige at many a friend’s wedding. ‘It doesn’t make you bulimic,’ Amelia said. ‘And – no offense, I say this because I love you dearly – it’s not like you’re up for the Feed the Children poster-girl spot. Maybe it’ll be good for you. Cleanse the system.’
‘But what if I pass out tomorrow? What if I’m talking to someone and I just faint, or fall into a book display? What if I swoon?’
At that moment Molson decided to break his self-imposed exile under the dinette table. He clicked across the kitchen and parked himself at Amelia’s feet, then raised a paw, à la the closing credits on Lassie. Amelia shook it, wondering exactly what sort of cryptic canine message was being relayed here. Perhaps it was a peace offering for dumping over the ficus plant.
‘You’re going to be there tomorrow, right?’ Paige asked.
‘Of course,’ Amelia said. ‘Will you relax already?’
‘Relax. Right. I need a drink. I need to get laid.’
‘Eloquent as always. Can’t imagine why they’re not kicking your door down.’
‘I’m serious,’ Paige said. ‘I seem to remember having sex a lot in my twenties. What the hell is going on here?’
‘You were married for most of your twenties.’
‘Okay, then maybe it was my teens. I just know that I had a lot of sex during one of these decades, and it sure as hell isn’t my thirties.’
‘Yeah, well, things will pick up. Don’t worry.’
‘Speaking of picking up,’ Paige began, and Amelia immediately sensed that the conversation was shifting to the St John soap opera. And that meant they would shift to their much-practiced verbal shorthand. ‘Is Roger—’
‘I don’t think so. Of course, I’m the one who was completely clueless the first time he cheated on me. Big, stupid lap dog. Who’s to say?’
‘Have you guys—’
‘Nope.’
‘Wow. How long has it—’
‘Too long,’ Amelia said. ‘Long enough for me to think about it every time I pick up a gourmet cucumber at Food Fair.’
‘Hmmm. A
gourmet
cucumber.’
‘Hey,’ Amelia replied, trying to make light of a feeling that had churned the acid in her stomach for the past two weeks, constantly, an emotion blender set on low. ‘That’s my cheating husband you’re speculating about.’
Paige laughed. ‘You know, if you need any—’
‘I know. Thanks,’ Amelia replied, recalling Paige’s appropriately hued pink vinyl gym bag full of adult sex toys. Roger St John, one of the three lovers in Amelia Randolph’s entire sexual repertory company, had been the one to open her up sexually, the one who had first brought her to orgasm, the one with whom she dared to be free. They had even done a few kinky things over the nine years, had even braved a few public places with their amorous adventures. It was just one of the thousand reasons she was so saddened and outraged at Roger’s indiscretion.
How could he
?
Paige, having made the offer, returned to her own woes. ‘Be there for me, Sparky,’ she said.
Sparky. It was a goofy term of endearment they had foisted upon each other ever since they had met at junior college fifteen years earlier. Pre-Roger. Pre-Maddie. Pre-Suburbia. Pre – Roger’s – Midlife – Crisis – Affair – with – the – Blond-Paralegal.
Pre-Everything.
‘Just try and keep me away,’ Amelia said, transferring over to the cordless phone, knowing Paige’s moods about as well as she knew her own.
This was going to be a long one, she thought.
Might as well get some dishes done.
It was nearly an hour later when Amelia got her software loaded, slowly and scrupulously following the manual’s instructions like a cake recipe for an Easy Bake Oven. She was certain she had done something wrong when that little progress bar seemed to take forever moving left to right. But in the end she got a cheerful and satisfying little window that said ‘Installation successful!’
Maddie, having dutifully held her nose and swallowed a dose of children’s cough syrup, was watching TV. Amelia could hear the sounds of SpongeBob SquarePants drifting down the hall.
So, as she stood in front of her small desk in the downstairs bedroom, with her steaming mug of Celestial Seasonings Lemon Zinger tea at her side, Amelia took a deep breath, closed her eyes for a moment, opened them, sat down, arranged her weight on the navy blue swivel office chair, and typed:
This Slow-Gathering Storm
by Amelia Randolph St John
She looked up and placed her hand over her mouth, as if she had violated some ancient literary law, titling something before it was written. But it was a start.
Now she could begin.
With Andress already dead and the others looking for her, Vesta knew she had no choice. She cocked the pistol and waited for Gaspar to mount the stairs; the sound of his big boots, once so enticing, once a sound that kept pace with her accelerating pulse, would now be the knell that brought him death.
Her breathing became more labored with each moment that passed, the voice of Gaspar Sencio’s child within her, begging her, imploring her not to pull the trigger, not to take the life of his father, not to—
‘How’s it going?’
Roger St John was a man of just over forty years, just over six feet, trim and athletic, collegiately handsome. A perfect salesman specimen, Amelia had thought when they met at a party at Case Western Reserve University so many years ago. But if Roger St John had anything, he had grace. A track star in high school, Roger St John could sneak up on a mongoose.
‘Let’s see . . .’ Amelia began, ‘except for needing my Huggies changed, I’m okay.’
‘Did I scare you?’ he asked, for the three thousandth time since they were married.
She had caught him in The Big Lie two weeks earlier, a lie that had led to a wine-soaked confessional, a tearful gusher of a Saturday night that had Roger ultimately owning up to a brief, dispassionate, midlife-crisis affair with Michelle Roth, the Fashion Bug bimbo from his office who represented everything Amelia hoped her daughter would not become – loud, garish, always playing stupid and helpless for the boys. Shelley Roth was a pox on womanhood, a viper in cheap shoes.
But Shelley Roth had fucked her husband, and for that she wanted to gut the little bitch with a rusty Ginsu knife.
Her initial reaction had been to grab the first bag boy who smiled at her at the Food Fair, taking him back to his parents’ house and banging his brains out for revenge. It was her second and third reaction, too, although she hadn’t acted upon the impulse. Neither had she ruled out the possibility of her own adult indiscretion. Why not? It would be a freebie.

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