Bruner sat up straight in his chair. “The Mercy Home?” he said.
“I work there,” Minnie said. “A volunteer.”
“How do you know who runs the home?” I asked.
“What do you think?” Minnie said. “I looked through the records.”
Bruner relit his cigar. “It’s illegal to look through private records.”
“So?” Minnie shrugged. “Send me to jail.”
The wind rapped against the bay windows, sea gulls circled the wide, sloping lawn.
“Do you intend to make your knowledge public?” the congressman asked.
“Not necessarily,” Minnie said.
“All right,” Bruner sighed. “I’ll see what I can do.”
While Bruner reached for his phone and dialed the Fishers Cove station house, I watched Minnie; she was just like the woman I remembered, the one walking through all of my summers with giant steps. And no one who saw her, sitting on the white velvet couch, patting stray strands of hair back into place, would have guessed how strong she was.
Bruner hung up the phone and turned to Minnie. “Beaumont isn’t the bomber.”
“We know that,” Minnie said.
“The police plan to send him back to the Veterans’ Hospital, but if you’re willing to take him on, fine. Naturally he no longer has his job at the power plant; he’s too unstable to be a night watchman.”
“Good,” Minnie nodded. “That was no job for him anyway.”
“Well, then, ladies,” Bruner spread out his hands and smiled, “I believe our business is finished.”
“No,” Minnie said, settling back on the couch, “it isn’t.”
“Please, Mrs. Lansky,” Bruner said, “my daughter and her family are driving out from Manhattan for dinner.”
“Lobster?” Minnie said. “Because if it’s lobster from our harbor, it’s been crawling around in polluted waters.”
“Steak,” Bruner said grimly.
“Filled with DES hormones,” Minnie said. “Do you really want your grandchildren to eat that?”
“Mrs. Lansky,” Bruner sighed.
“A little favor,” Minnie said. “In return for not spilling the beans.”
“Spilling the beans?” Bruner said.
“That an unqualified person like your brother-in-law was made board chairman of the Mercy Home.”
“Let’s not talk about my brother-in-law,” Bruner said. “All right?”
“If there were improvements at Mercy, I would never mention him again,” Minnie said. “Better food and clothing and a recreation staff. I think it can be done by the end of the week.”
“Mrs. Lansky,” Bruner said, “these things take time.”
“He’s right,” I said. “And the congressman might not even have the power to do what you’re asking.”
“My niece,” Minnie said to the congressman. “Don’t listen to her. What does she know? I know. You have more power than anyone else in the country.”
The congressman looked at my aunt, pleased. “I wouldn’t say that,” he said.
“I would,” Minnie insisted.
“All right,” Congressman Bruner nodded. “I’ll see what I can do. I’m not promising anything.”
“Fine,” Minnie said. “I have faith in you,” she told Bruner. “I’m sure you can manage something.”
“I should have been in politics,” Minnie said when we followed the congressman’s housekeeper to the door. “I’m hot stuff,” she whispered.
Once we were out of the house I said, “You just blackmailed a congressman.”
Minnie shook her head and opened the door of the Mustang. “Plea bargaining,” she said. “Lawyers do it all the time.”
“You’re not a lawyer, Minnie,” I said, but she had already closed her door and turned on the engine. When we drove back down the driveway, past the wrought-iron fence, I was envious because Minnie had managed to spring Beaumont from jail while I couldn’t even manage a visit to Michael Finn. I wanted to bake Finn a rich chocolate cake with concealed hope and a file, but I was helpless, able only to ride shotgun with an old woman who seemed strong enough to bend metal bars.
Minnie was so thrilled with her own success that she insisted on treating us both to dinner before she continued on to the station house where Beaumont was being held. We stopped at a small Szechuan restaurant on Route 18, just outside town.
“Chinese food,” Minnie told me, “because they wouldn’t be caught dead using chemicals. Order something with bamboo shoots—they’re great for anxiety.”
We ordered black mushrooms and rice, and a dish called Three Vegetable Delight; though none of the ingredients looked familiar to me, Minnie insisted bamboo shoots were included. During dinner my mood grew worse; over and over again I thought of how Finn had walked out of my door.
“Tea,” Minnie prescribed when she noticed I was sad.
But I drank only a sip; I played with the fortune cookies the waiter had set down before us, afraid to read any of the slips of paper inside.
“You should be happy,” Minnie said. “We’ve had a victory.”
“You’ve had a victory,” I told my aunt. “You’ll have Beaumont out of jail tonight, and I can’t even go down to the station house.”
“Why can’t you?” Minnie asked.
“I’m supposed to be an objective witness for Finn,” I said. “I can’t go and visit him as if I were anything more.”
“Of course you can,” Minnie said. “You’re the man’s social worker, you’re entitled to see him.”
“He may not want me,” I said. “There’s nothing between us, you know,” I informed my aunt.
“Oh, please,” Minnie said. “Not that again.”
“Ask him if you don’t believe me,” I said. “Ask him.”
“Listen to me,” Minnie said, reaching across the table to hold my hand, “there’s nothing wrong in making certain he’s all right.”
“I’ve never been inside one of these places,” I told Minnie as we walked up the stairs of the station house.
“The first time I was here was in nineteen-fifty-one to report a missing person,” my aunt said. “Alex went for a walk one day and he didn’t come back. I knew he didn’t have a girlfriend, he wasn’t the type; so where could he be? I came here and reported him. They found him all right, asleep in the library; he had gotten locked in. What a night for a poet like Alex! Sleeping surrounded by all those books.” Minnie pinched my cheek as we walked inside. “There’s nothing to it,” she whispered. “Just walk right in and act like you belong.”
While Minnie signed for Beaumont’s release, I went up to the desk lieutenant and asked to see Finn.
“Who are you?” the lieutenant asked. “A reporter?”
When I said I was Finn’s social worker, the lieutenant grudgingly agreed to let me into the detention cells for a few minutes. I followed a young officer to the row of cells where prisoners were held before going on to the county jail, or to an upstate prison, or in a few cases, back to the street, released by a miracle or bail. The iron door slammed shut behind us; inside, the walls of the corridors had been painted green, an imitation of spring. When we walked by the first cell I saw that Beaumont was there; he sat on the metal rim of his cot and stared mournfully at the ceiling.
“Do you mind stopping?” I asked the officer who led me to Finn. “Beaumont,” I called through the bars. “Get ready to go. Minnie’s signing for your release.”
Beaumont was startled to see me; he straightened his rumpled shirt. “I can’t go,” he said shyly. “I did it. The explosion was my fault.”
“He’s been saying that all day,” the young officer shrugged.
“Beaumont, you’re not responsible,” I said.
“Sure I am,” Beaumont said. “And I’m sorry. I really am.”
“You placed a bomb in the second unit of the power plant?” I asked.
“No,” the old boarder said.
“A lunatic,” the officer behind me whispered
. “We get them all the time.”
“Did you tamper with any of the machinery?” I now asked. “Have you ever been inside one of the buildings?”
“No.”
“Then why do you keep confessing?” I asked.
“He’s crazy, that’s why,” the officer explained.
“I was the night guard,” Beaumont told me. “If I had done my job, the explosion never would have happened.”
“The explosion happened before five in the afternoon,” I said. “Whoever is the day watchman is responsible. Not you.”
“Not me?” Beaumont tilted his head like an old dog.
“It was the day man’s responsibility,” I said. “You’re the night man. You’re innocent.”
“I’m innocent.” Beaumont smiled. “I’m the night man, and I didn’t do it.”
“That’s what we’ve been telling you all day,” the officer sighed.
“Minnie will be here soon,” I told Beaumont as I followed the officer farther down the corridor. The metal bars of empty cells shimmered, the odor of stale cigarettes stung. When we were nearly to the end of the row I finally saw Finn; he stood with his back to the wall. Pretending to be quiet, he almost looked calm, but he pounded his fist against his thigh, as if he hoped eventually to break through to the bones and the blood. The officer rapped on the metal bars.
“Someone’s here to see you,” he told Finn.
When Finn looked up and saw me, his expression didn’t alter; he looked right through me.
“Can you unlock the door?” I asked the officer.
“Sorry, no,” the officer told me. “This one’s the real bomber.” But he did walk back down the corridor to smoke a cigarette and give us some privacy.
“It’s perfectly normal for me to visit you,” I said to Finn.
“Yeah?” Finn said.
“It is,” I said. “It’s perfectly normal.”
“Why?” Finn asked.
“I had to make certain you were all right,” I said.
“Well, here I am. I’m not going anywhere.”
“Carter’s probably raising bail right now,” I said.
Finn’s lips moved but I couldn’t hear him; the iron bars caught every word. “Come closer,” I said.
“I can’t,” Finn said. “I can’t move.”
He stood against the wall, rigid as wire. If he moved an inch he might not be able to stop, he might climb right over the bars; if he opened his mouth too wide he risked a shriek or a sigh.
“I want to help you,” I said.
“You can’t.”
“Please,” I said. I had moved so close to the bars that I could feel the metal and rust in the back of my throat. “Just talk to me.”
The officer who had led me to Finn now tossed his cigarette on the floor and crushed it beneath his heel. “Time’s up,” he called to me. “He really shouldn’t have any visitors at all.”
Minnie had followed the desk lieutenant into the holding center to retrieve Beaumont.
I turned to that last cell. “Michael,” I said, “just come closer.” But Finn refused to answer me; he leaned his head against the wall and closed his eyes.
When the officer wouldn’t wait any longer, I followed him back down the corridor. Beaumont was stepping out from his cell. “Thank you,” the old man said when I reached him.
“It was nothing,” I said. “Just a mistake.”
“You saved me,” Beaumont said, looking from Minnie to me. “You rescued me.”
“From now on you’ll have to be more careful,” Minnie said sharply. “We can’t go running after you, we can’t keep rescuing you.”
Beaumont hung his head. “It was a mistake,” he said.
“That’s right,” Minnie said, linking her arm through his. “That’s all it was.”
The desk lieutenant opened the door back into the station house and Minnie and Beaumont stepped through. But before I left the rows of detention cells, I looked back. Through the bars I could see that Finn had finally moved. His face was hidden, he was too far away for me to look into his eyes, but before I stepped through the doorway, I saw that he had wound his fingers around the bars, and he held on tight, as if there were enough power in his hands to lift him right up through the roof, straight into the starless night.
TWO
ON THE MORNING WHEN I was to meet with Outreach’s board of directors, Beaumont presented Minnie and me with a gift; breakfast was ready and waiting on the table. Minnie frowned at the oatmeal, she scowled at the glasses of prune juice and tapped the steaming mugs of peppermint tea suspiciously.
“Who asked Beaumont to do this?” Minnie said. “Who needs him messing around in my kitchen?” My aunt picked up a glass and studied the juice. “And what does he mean by this? Why is he feeding us prunes?”
“I think it was lovely,” I said. I tasted the oatmeal, then pushed the bowl away, and got up to make coffee. “It was a very nice gesture,” I insisted, though the oatmeal was horrid, and my stomach was too jumpy for juice.
Minnie tasted a spoonful of cereal. “Not too bad,” she shrugged.
“A gift of love,” I said as I measured out coffee.
“Now that he doesn’t have a job, all Beaumont can give is love,” Minnie said. “Unless he has a new job. Unless someone hires him.”
“Who would hire him?” I laughed.
“Me,” Minnie answered. “That’s who. I’ve got to spruce this place up, and I could use some help.”
“This place looks fine,” I said, settling for goat’s milk to pour into my coffee.
“Not fine enough if I want to fill the house with boarders.”
“Oh, really?” I said. “And just who do you expect to get?”
“Old people,” Minnie said.
“Minnie,” I shook my head. “You don’t have the facilities for old people here.”
“What am I?” Minnie cried. “Am I old? Do I live here without any facilities? There are plenty of people at Mercy who would love to live here. Good food, natural food, privacy and company both; and their Social Security would cover all the expenses and give me something on the side.”
I sipped my coffee. “It will never work.”
“I’ll give you odds,” Minnie said.
We cleared the table. Minnie undoubtedly thought about filling every room in the house with new boarders as she slammed plates into the sink, while I imagined the board of directors waiting for me dressed in black suits, filling Claude Wilder’s office with judgment. When we had finished cleaning up, Beaumont appeared in the doorway, dressed in his uniform.
“You didn’t like the breakfast I made,” he said, when he saw Minnie pouring her juice down the drain.
“It was wonderful,” I said, though I had scraped my oatmeal into the bucket of biodegradable trash.
“Not too bad,” Minnie commented. “But as far as I’m concerned, none of us should ever need prune juice if our diet is right. I hope you’re eating enough fresh fruits and vegetables, Beaumont.”
“You know,” Beaumont told us shyly, “I’m not the bomber.”
“Of course you’re not,” Minnie said, nodding. “You never were. But now that you’ve been fired from the power plant, you’ll need another job.”
“My raft,” Beaumont said. “I plan to retire to Florida as soon as my raft is ready to go.” The old man had been tinkering, working for years on a raft I was certain existed only in his imagination.
“Your raft,” Minnie’s voice rose impatiently. “You’ll still have plenty of time for that. But I’d like to hire you. Free rent if you agree to work for me. Floors, windows, a lot of hard work.”
“Minnie,” I said as I reached for my coat, “don’t you think you’re rushing things?”
Minnie ignored me. “Bring the floor waxer up from the basement,” she told Beaumont. “If it’s not too heavy for you.”
“Too heavy?” the boarder smiled. “For me?”
“Is he your indentured servant now?” I asked.
/> “This is none of your business,” my aunt told me. “Beaumont is only too happy to have something useful to do.”
Beaumont nodded. “But I’ll have to work at night.”
“Night, day, what’s the difference?” Minnie said. “As long as we get this house into tiptop shape.”
When I left for work, Minnie was leading Beaumont down the stairs in search of the floor waxer, which had long ago been stored behind the washing machine and the old Hoover freezer. As I walked to Outreach, I worried about Minnie. She had been young when she had called all the Lanskys together to flock to her house in summer like crazy Russian birds. Her heart had been strong then; she could have carried the floor waxer up to the third floor without any help. Now she was old; a woman her age should not be planning a boarding-house renaissance, a woman her age should not depend on a thing as fragile as hope. As the last Lansky left with her, I would have to deal with Minnie’s despair if her plans fell through and no boarders checked in. I might even find Minnie’s feet dangling over the edge of her bed if, in some hazy depression, she decided to slip a bit of natural poison into a glass of raw apple juice. And then, what of Beaumont? Without Minnie he would wind up back at the V.A. Hospital, returned to the wide porch lined with rocking chairs, with no hope of ever seeing either his raft or the Florida waters he yearned for. My concern for Minnie and her old boarder overwhelmed me, and when I got to Outreach I sat on the couch in the waiting room like a tired client.
“They’re all in there,” Emily whispered to me from her desk. “They’re waiting.”
I rose with a sigh, and walked into Claude’s office with my coat still buttoned. Inside, Claude was circled by the three Outreach directors: a physician named Johnson, who had first sponsored Outreach for county funding; Gerkin, our fund raiser, who attended dinners and lectures all through the state; and Sally Wallace, who had donated fifty thousand dollars of her own in the memory of her late son, Gideon, a boy Mrs. Wallace thought might have survived his heroin addiction had Outreach existed before his death.
“Here she is,” Claude said when I entered the room. “Right on time.”