56
A Song Across the Ocean
I drove down to Pilsen the day after my show at the Golden Glow. Cristina, in her own way, had been tough and cold. Or at least bitter and hostile. She didn’t want to thank me for clearing up the search for Nadia’s killer or even for focusing a public spotlight on Tintrey for their treatment of Alexandra.
Instead, Cristina blamed me for her husband’s behavior—the police were circling around Lazar Guaman as a “person of interest” in Rainier Cowles’s shooting. I suggested to her that the Guamans hire a criminal defense lawyer, to be on the safe side, and she threw up her hands. “Why not say he is guilty and run an ad in the paper? Having a lawyer makes him look like he has something to hide.”
“Having a lawyer means he won’t get tricked into saying something that can be used against him in a trial. I know a first-class criminal defense lawyer. She just joined my own lawyer’s practice, and I’ll be glad—”
“No more favors, por favor ! Haven’t you done enough harm to us already? Did you think we were a house full of puppets, that you could just pull our strings and make us dance? My two daughters lie dead. And now what will become of us without the money we were getting from Alexandra’s company?”
“Ma!” Clara was red with embarrassment. “How can you say that? Prince Rainier killed Nadia! His bosses murdered Allie! We were like—like slaves, bowing down to them. We’re better off without their money. Nadia was right—it was blood money!”
“Of course you’d take this detective’s side over your own mother’s,” Cristina said. “You ran off to her. You left your own family to run off to this woman. And now your papi could be in jail for murder. What good have you done, the two of you?”
The world was a weight on her head—I could understand that, with the wrecked remains of her family around her. “But Clara deserves all our best efforts to have the bright future Alexandra wanted for her,” I said. “And it will be easier for her to go to school now that this heavy load of secrets has been taken from her shoulders.”
“She’s right, Ma, and when I finish college, I’ll get a good job and look after you and Ernie, and even Papi, if they don’t send him to prison. And maybe they won’t. By the time everyone hears what Prince Rainier and his pals did to Allie and Nadia, they’ll give Papi a medal, you’ll see. Stop trying to make Vic and me feel guilty for stepping forward.”
I grinned at Clara and hugged her, but her mother’s words haunted me as I tried to clean up the residue of the case. I hung out some with Sal, and the two vets came around to check on me once or twice.
The three of us went to visit Chad in the rehab hospital where he’d been transferred. It was a relief when he instantly recognized his friends: I’d been afraid that he’d be like Ernie, with lasting brain damage. The three men greeted each other awkwardly. It’s so much easier for women to hug and show emotion.
“I hear you guys saved my ass,” Chad said.
“This lady here is the one you need to thank,” Marty said.
After a few more awkward exchanges, I left them to catch up and took a cab home. I felt like an invalid myself these days, like someone who needed a lot of tender care, so I was treating myself to things like cab rides. I cut back on my hours and lounged around with the dogs. I missed Jake and his music more than I had expected. The dogs were physically taxing but emotionally rewarding, what I needed these days.
I was a bit gimpy on my cut foot, but as the days grew longer and the temperatures rose to the freezing level for the first time in five weeks, my solace was in the parks along the lakefront. The dogs and I went south to the wilderness preserve near the University of Chicago, where Mitch chased a coyote for half a mile. Peppy followed as fast as she could, while I limped along in her wake.
Petra helped me get my correspondence back in order. At the end of the week, though, she came to me, very solemn, and announced her resignation.
“I don’t want to leave you in the lurch or anything, but, Vic, I don’t think I’m cut out for detective work. People getting shot or cut to bits, I hate it. I was so scared last Sunday. And then I saw how tough and cool you were, and, don’t take this the wrong way, I don’t want to be like you when I’m your age. Like, living alone, and being so hard that violence doesn’t seem to bother you.”
“How could I possibly take that the wrong way?” I said in my hard fashion. “You going back to Kansas City?”
“No. The company where Tim works, they’re looking for a publicity person, and it seems like a good job for me. And, well, Tim and me, we really hit it off. So that’ll be fun.”
I wrote out a check for the hours she’d worked. “Just don’t blow hot and cold on me, Petra. You came to me for help, and I helped you. Now you’re leaving me high and dry. Maybe you don’t want to become tougher. But you do need to become more thoughtful, more responsible.”
She nodded solemnly but didn’t even bother to answer me. I went home that night close to tears. Not because Petra was quitting—she was too impulsive to be an asset to my business—but I couldn’t help feeling demoralized by her take on my personality.
When I reached my building, I thought I really might break down. Clara Guaman was sitting on the single front step with her brother Ernie. On this cold February night, after hearing my cousin’s take on my character, I didn’t think I could cope with any more Guaman crises, but I held the lobby door open for Clara and Ernie and forced myself to smile.
“How are things?” My voice must have been harsher than I’d intended because Clara cast me a nervous glance.
“This isn’t a good time, is it?” she said.
“No, no, it’s fine. I’m just tired . . . Your dad okay? Have they arrested him?”
“He’s a wreck, he wants to confess. Ma wants him to run away—to Cuba, even. And everybody’s fighting—it’s like it was when Nadia and Ma were fighting all the time. I thought it would all be better now, but it’s not. And tonight, Papi said if he had to hear Ernie’s laugh one more time he wouldn’t be responsible for what he did next. I didn’t know what else to do. I couldn’t take Ernie to any of my girlfriends, so I brought him here.”
The dogs heard us and began barking and whining. Mr. Contreras opened his door, and Mitch and Peppy bounced into the hallway.
“Peppy!” Clara’s face lit up. “I hoped she’d be here.”
“Well, Clara, look at you. That black eye all gone, you’re pretty as a picture. Ain’t she?” Mr. Contreras beamed at her, and she blushed.
I worried what would happen when Ernie encountered the dogs—if he tried to hug or squeeze Mitch, it could end in disaster. However, the animals seemed to understand his disability. While Clara knelt and crooned over Peppy, Mitch jumped, paws on Ernie’s shoulders, and licked his face.
“She likes me, she likes me! Did you see, Clara? She kissed me. The Allie dog kissed me.”
Ernie’s shrieks of delight echoed up and down the stairwell. I didn’t try to tell him that Mitch was a male.
I took all five of them, young people, old man, dogs, upstairs with me while I changed from corporate to exercise clothes. I showed Ernie how to hold Mitch’s leash when we went back outside for a run. He needed reminding at each intersection that we stopped at, the dogs sat down, and they waited for the command to heel before moving again. But, in the park, I let Ernie tear up and down the lake path until he and Mitch were both exhausted. Clara played more quietly with Peppy. Both Guamans came back to the house happier than when we’d left.
I had bought a salmon fillet to share with Mr. Contreras for dinner. We stretched it into a meal for four by adding pasta and a head of broccoli, but Ernie was too excited to eat much.
“My Allie dog, my Allie dog,” he kept crying, jumping out of his chair to hug Mitch.
“Ernie should get a dog,” Clara said. “He hasn’t been this together since before his motorcycle wreck.”
I nodded. “I know someone who trains dogs for hospital visits. We’ll go see her on Monday and get her help in finding the right dog and the right training for Ernie. I’m also going to give you Deb Steppe’s contact information. She’s a crackerjack defense lawyer. We’ll call her, you and I; I think if you can bring your father in to see her, he’ll feel better, and then things will calm down at home.”
Clara played with the feathers in Peppy’s tail. “Did my dad—did he really shoot Prince Rainier?”
“Sweetie, I can’t answer that. I didn’t see him fire the gun, and if I say more than that, you may be forced to repeat it under oath.”
“But—half of me wishes he did, to avenge Allie and Nadia. Half of me wishes he didn’t, because it’s terrifying to think my own father could shoot someone.”
I took her hand. “What you and your family endured for the last three years, no one should have to live through. There are so many casualties of war, and many are far from the battlefield. If your father did shoot Rainier Cowles, you should think of it as post-traumatic stress, the same way poor Chad Vishneski suffered from it. I don’t think your dad will go around attacking other people. Once he talks to the lawyer, things will settle in his mind about what the right course of action is for him and for what remains of his family.”
We called Deb Steppe. She listened to me and then spoke privately with Clara. The conversation seemed to help Clara feel ready to go home again, although she and Ernie stayed until after eleven. It was hard to dislodge Ernie from Mitch—without Mr. Contreras’s help, I’m not sure we could have—but the promise of more time with Mitch and the promise of finding him his own true Allie dog very soon, finally got through to him, and I was able to drive the two Guamans home.
When I got back to my own place, my melancholy mood settled on me again, and I found myself writing a long e-mail to Jake. He had finished his tour with the contemporary group, playing Berio’s Sequenze in Berlin, and was heading to London with his early-music group, High Plainsong. The Raving Raven had flown over on Wednesday to join them with her historically correct, unamplified period instruments.
I’d written Jake once, briefly, to tell him the highlights of Sunday’s show, trying to make it humorous. Tonight I wrote more honestly. Or maybe with more self-pity. Hard to tell, sometimes.
The fact that the Guaman kids turned to me in a time of trouble should make me feel better, but the truth is, I don’t know if I do more harm than good. Cristina Guaman said I treated her family like a stage full of puppets, and maybe I’ve done that again, finding a lawyer for them, promising to get Ernie his own dog.
Sometimes I think the fact that I’m so willing to act is a danger to the world around me. Like Sal’s criticism a few weeks ago that I seem to put myself on a plane above everyone else. It’s not that. I don’t. I think I’m driven more by despair, even, than confidence, especially the despair of seeing so much misery around me. And then I leap into action and make it worse. But at least Ernie will get his dog. Surely that will be better, but the law of unintended consequences, that’s what seems to bite me time and again.
I wish you were here or I was there. I wish that my life had followed a calmer path.
I hoped to hear back from Jake the next day, although between the time difference and his work schedule I knew he might not even be looking at his mail. I went to the gym and took part in a pickup basketball game. I went to my office but decided I was sick of work. I went to a spa in my neighborhood, got a massage, lounged in the pool.
When I got home, I found a message on my machine from Lotty.
“Max and I are coming over for breakfast tomorrow. Be up by a quarter of seven.”
When I called her back, she only laughed and told me to be up and have my computer turned on. Before I could beg or wheedle any other information out of her, she hung up.
Sunday morning, I was so curious I got up early enough to run the dogs. When we returned, Max was just pulling up across the street from my building. He and Lotty followed me up the stairs, exchanging reminiscences about wartime concerts in London, a night at Wigmore Hall when they’d held candles for their performing friends because the power had gone out.
While I made coffee, Lotty unpacked a hamper with fruit and rolls, and Max fiddled with the Internet on my laptop. A jangling Prokofiev concerto was coming to an end, and then an announcer stated the time, just after one o’clock, and the station, BBC Radio 3. He read the news, and then said he was turning us over to the Early Music Show.
The presenter’s rich contralto filled the kitchen. “Today we’re delighted to have the American group, High Plainsong, in the studio with us.”
I felt myself grinning in surprise. “You knew! How did you know?” “Jake called Max when he knew they were going to do it and asked us to surprise you.” Lotty smiled at me.
The presenter introduced the members of the group. They discussed their instruments—Jake played a bass viol for High Plainsong—and the special repertoire they’d prepared for the trip. Trish Walsh, the Renaissance Raven, sang and played an ancient lute, one that didn’t have a power cord stuck into it. It was odd to hear her speaking in her “highculture” voice after listening to her heavy metal performance at the Golden Glow on Sunday.
“We’re going to start with works by some of the trobairitz, the women troubadours of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries,” Trish said. “There were several dozen of them, but very little of their work survives, and out of that whole group we have music for only one poem. However, we’ve taken some of the surviving poems and set them to the music of the period.”
“I chose the first song Trish is going to sing,” Jake said. “The words are by Maria de Ventadorn. I’ve always loved the poem itself—a dialogue Maria wrote with a poet named Guy d’Ussel. She tells him that a lover should respond to a lady ‘as toward a friend’ and ‘she should honor him the way she would a friend, but never as a lord.’
“I put together the music as a salute to a lady of my acquaintance. Like the trobairitz, she’s a woman of high courage. She just saved a girl and rescued a soldier, and did so with all her usual spirit and guile. V. I. Warshawski, I hope you’re listening.”