The Way of All Fish: A Novel (39 page)

If Jackson Sprague had grown any whiter and stiffer, they could have used him for stand-up collars. He was so aghast with disbelief that he was being taken for a trader in illegal fish, and that he was being misidentified as this Miles Mutton, he was, for once in his lawyerly life, speechless.

Boyd Lloyd was not. He demanded that this harassment of his client cease and desist immediately. He was ready to say tons more, except Joe Blythe cut him off with “Okay. He can go.”

This left Boyd with unshared legal arguments that he didn’t know what to do with.

Joe and Arthur helped the two of them by putting a hand under their elbows and lifting them to their feet.

“Just one thing, Mr. Sprague. You will not leave the country.”

Jackson Sprague packed a bag and left the country.

This step was taken against all advice from Boyd Lloyd, who kept insisting that running would only make him appear guilty, and that there was no case against him that made any sense.

“Since when did the law have to make any sense?” After a quick call to Saad bin Saeed, one of the Dubai brothers, Jackson was off through TSA presecurity at JFK and on his Emirates flight to Singapore.

In Dubai, the Good-bye Boys needed someone to handle some off-shore accounts.

Bryce Reams moved into Jackson Sprague’s office the same day Jackson took off for Singapore. Jackson didn’t technically, physically,
leave
Dubai and Dodge, since he hadn’t returned to clear out the office.

Bryce did it for him. One of the first things he did was to put in a call to the Good-bye Boys and, after he’d reached Saad bin Saeed, advised him that D and D drop the Cindy Sella business, as it was a legal quagmire.

Saeed’s only comment was “Okay. Who is Cindy Sella?”

The second thing Bryce did was to make sure the fish were all right after their long and toxic exposure to Jackson Sprague. He had the professionals come in and reposition the aquarium on a wall that caught a little sunlight. He asked Bunny Fogg if they really had that weird disease and was happy when she said no.

The third thing he did was to install a small refrigerator with a little freezer, which he stocked with Eskimo pies.

It took him only half a day to do all of this (including the delivery of the fridge), which everybody agreed was a flat-out, all-time, NASCAR track record for a lawyer to take care of anything.

Everyone was happy, including the fish, whose colors brightened in the new sunlight.

I
n the seat beside Paul on the flight from JFK, Hess spent most of the time complaining. It was odd to Paul that such unscrupulous and unconscionable people could be so boring. One would think their lack of moral purchase might make them in some way fascinating. If Paul had to hear one more outcry from Hess that life was being beastly to him, Paul was willing to have Delta Flight #3701 go down in Graeme’s fiber-optic flames.

The plane landed without incident at Pittsburgh International Airport, and they headed for the Enterprise desk.

“Why don’t we just take a cab?” asked Bass.

“Too undependable. And would you want to stand on a corner hailing a cab after a séance?” Paul gave a dismissive laugh. “I sure wouldn’t. Also, there’s this four-star restaurant about three miles outside of Sewickley that everybody is raving about. Chef used to own Cecilia’s on the Upper East Side. You’ve been there?”

“No.”

Neither had Paul.

“Never heard of it.”

Neither had Cecilia.

They dug around in the Enterprise lot and found the car, a standard Toyota Camry, and melted into the early-afternoon traffic, very light, Paul was pleased to note.

He thought it would be wise to get some food into Hess. As they advanced onto Interstate 376, he said, “Tell you what, I’m hungry as hell. You?” He said this to an unreceptive Hess.

There would be no place along the interstate, so Paul took the Moon
exit. Five minutes later, as if by magic, right up ahead was a diner rising in its own shimmer of silver and heat. Ah! Diner life! Paul loved diners. They were so wonderfully transitory. Here and gone. Paul pulled in and braked.

Inside, it was no disappointment: booths with dark red Naugahyde, chrome and red vinyl counter stools, a Formica counter curving at both ends.

They took a booth, and the waitress, pleasant and run-down-looking, was there tout suite with menus big enough to hold a Dickens novel.

Paul ordered a double cheeseburger and fries, relishing L. Bass’s look of displeasure.

“You’ll drown in carbohydrates.”

Paul added a side of onion rings.

Bass shivered. The menu held at least ten kinds of fish, all of it fried or otherwise cooked unsuitably. “I would like a piece of flounder, broiled.”

The waitress looked squinty. “Boiled?”

“B-R-oiled. If you can’t do that, then poached.”

“Like an egg, you mean?”

Paul enjoyed this exchange.

Bass ordered boiled potatoes and peas to accompany his fish.

Paul wondered why he didn’t carry those foods around with him—a few pounds of flounder, a bag of potatoes, unshucked peas and beans—and hand them over in eateries.

“Are you sure this woman is a bona fide psychic? A responsible medium?”

Responsible medium. Hell, anyone who could see those words in sequence could see the Red Sea parting along the ticker tape in Times Square.

“You bet she is,” said Paul. He had already talked about the several times that he himself had made use of this psychic. How, at a séance two years before, he got the entire idea for his novel
Don’t Go There.
This was a lie. Paul never got his ideas from anywhere but his own head.

When he told Hess once again what the venue was, the man once again was baffled. “Why would you hold a séance in the Andy Warhol Museum?”

“I wouldn’t. She would.”

With true diner speed, the waitress brought their orders. The fish had been broiled, and rather nicely.

“Look,” said Paul, “you don’t have to do this if it makes you uncomfortable.”

Quickly, Bass changed his tune. “No, no. I do want to. You’ve made it sound very compelling.”

No, he hadn’t, thought Paul as he dug in to his big cheeseburger. He had gotten L. Bass to go along on this harebrained little journey in the same way one often gets people to go along—by telling him he couldn’t.

“Sorry, Bass,” he had said, “but these séances are limited to the few people who regularly attend them.”

“Paul, you could talk her into accepting one more for just a single sitting. With
your
reputation? You must have influence.”

“Anyway, you don’t want to go to Pittsburgh—”

“For this I would. If this medium is as good as you say she is.”

Paul shook his head. After a little more pleading and cajoling, he gave in gracefully.

Now, sitting in the diner, Paul said, “The reason for the Warhol Museum is that this medium, Madame de Museé, she’s a huge believer in the power of Warhol to channel, you know, spirits. They channel.”

Bass put down his fork full of peas. “They channel? What channels?” He looked full of disbelief.

“The paintings. Madame de Museé’s connection to the other world—the spirit world—is channeled through Warhol’s paintings. Especially
Double Elvis
. The
Double Elvis
, that’s the real game changer.” Paul shrugged. “But that’s in MoMA. Now, the
Eleven Elvises
is in the Warhol, but for some reason she doesn’t find that as, uh, big a draw for the spirits.” He could have put it better, but never mind.

Bass flattened his palm against air like a crossing guard, as if rechanneling the two Elvises to another street corner. “You mean to say she holds all of her séances in the Warhol Museum?”

Paul dipped a fry in ketchup. “More or less.”

“How in God’s name did she get permission?” Bass moved his plate, and the peas rolled around.

Whoever asked for permission? “The museum had an extremely valuable painting stolen years ago. I can’t think of the name. Or the painter.
Anyway, it was gone for two years. She found it.” Paul chomped down on an onion ring and wished he had a few more artery-hardening dishes to choose from. He was planning on apple pie à la mode for dessert.

Lena bint Musah had found it extremely funny and agreed to play the part. “A masterly stroke,” she said, and drank her espresso.

Said Candy, who knew Paul better, “It ain’t masterly, Lena. It’s motherfuckingly.”

They had gathered in Lena’s place a few hours after Paul’s return from his initial Pittsburgh trip. They were smoking her brown cigarettes and drinking her coffee, which was so strong it could have bowled them down at the end of an alley.

“It means,” said Paul, “that we can’t do the ectoplasm thing; the girl guards would look on strange rising mists as suspicious. We won’t be able to manifest in any way.” He took a drag of his cigarette.

Karl left off smoking long enough to object. “Manifest? Manifest what in shit? You don’t know what you’re talking about, Paulie.”

Lena smiled. “Oh, I think he does.”

Paul grinned. He hardly ever knew what he was talking about. Maybe that was why his books were popular. There was always that element of surprise.

“I still don’t see why you got a fuckin’ art gallery,” said Candy woozily.

“Because I couldn’t get PNC Field. The Pirates have a home game.”

The three of them laughed. “So when do we leave?” said Lena.

“Tomorrow,” said Paul. “I go with Hess. You go on another flight.”

So tomorrow was today.

For the second time, Paul checked in to the Renaissance Hotel. Bass could not stay at what he called the old manse, his childhood home, as it hadn’t been lived in for years except by a couple of families who had rented it. He said to Paul it was probably nothing but broken beams and cobwebs. Paul wished he had known before; he bet he could have turned the old manse into a playground for L. Bass’s already weakened mental state.

There was a bar on the other side of the lobby, and they headed for it.

It was dry-drunk Hess who did the heading. Paul followed happily along. He would have thought Bass to be just short of a teetotaler, given that the only thing he’d ever seen him drink was the cognac after the burning-bush incident and, yes, the chardonnay at the Gramercy Tavern. Paul was glad to see a limpness in the old Hess collar, but he needed to avoid a complete wilt-down, or even half a one. Paul didn’t want L. Bass blaming what was to come on booze, as in: “Oh, no wonder I thought I saw . . . !”