My father, who could no more keep his mouth shut than a catfish, must have told him about this, about my visit with a neuropsychologist in Frankfurt. “Pareidolia,” was Doktor Neefe’s conclusion. “A condition,” he explained in accented English, “in which the brain interprets random patterns as recognizable images. We all have it to some extent, ja? When we see faces or animal shapes in clouds or flames, or the Virgin Mary’s face in a piece of bratwurst, or a sex organ in a fig. Or Steckrübe … turnip. Or a rat in toilet bowl stool. Or when we hear hidden messages on a Beatles record played backwards. Many artists have had it—Bosch, Blake, Munch and Magritte come to mind. Munch painted The Cry after watching a sunset whose clouds looked to him like ‘coagulated blood.’ Hamlet and Scrooge had it. Lewis Carroll. Many scientists too, especially Hermann Rorschach. But you, Herr Nightingale, you have a rather interesting form of it. A psychotomimetic form. Your visions would seem to be neurological reverbs, after-sensations, from the barrage of psychedelic chemicals you’ve been subjecting your brain to.” A bit like pro football players, I thought at the time, the shocks and hits that come back to haunt them, debilitate them, years after they’ve retired.
“Hello? Nile? You still there?”
“Meine Halluzinationen betreffen Sie nicht.”
“Whoa. Slow down. What?”
“My visions are neither here nor there.”
“So you took the child a hundred miles away from home without the mother’s permission.”
“Brook phoned me, said she missed me, said her mom gave us the green light, Girl Guide’s honour. She was waiting for me at the end of the driveway.” With a pink plastic suitcase.
“But you never made it to the zoo.”
“No.”
“But you made it to a motel.”
“Was it my fault the car broke down?”
“No, it wasn’t. An antique like that is bound to break down. But it was your fault you ended up in Atlantic City. Which isn’t exactly the closest town to Cape May now, is it.”
How does one say no to a young girl who’s crying? I’ve never been able to. “Brook asked me—pleaded with me—to take her there. Said she’d never been, said she wanted to go on the world’s biggest roller coaster.”
“Don’t say that in court.”
“Because …”
“Because it’s not in Atlantic City.”
“So we found out.”
“And so you took her to a casino instead.”
“Are you serious? How would she get in? She’s got braces, for Christ’s sake.”
“Your ex-wife claims that you applied makeup to her and entered a casino, where she won … let me see. Eighty-nine dollars and fifty cents. She found it in her … pink suitcase.”
“Nonsense. A pathetic lie. About the makeup, I mean. She did win some money.”
“And where did she win the money?”
“At the motel.”
“There was a casino at the motel?”
“No. I taught her how to play poker. After six riveting games of Fish.”
“In your room.”
“Correct.”
“Strip poker?”
Sigh. “No, not strip poker.”
“You were drunk, I presume? Or high?”
“Ish.”
“And was she?”
“High? Yes. Rushing on four Fudgsicles and a mountain of M&Ms.”
“And where did you play poker? On the bed?”
“Yes. A heart-shaped bed, in fact. With a pink chiffon bedspread.”
“Where she won eighty-nine dollars from you.”
“And fifty cents.”
“Be right back, got to piss like a heart attack …”
When Volpe put you on hold, his radio automatically kicked in, loud and clear. He was gone for the duration of “Chapel of Love” by the Dixie Cups. I set the receiver down and paged Céleste on the walkie-talkie, not expecting it to work, not expecting her to be awake. But she replied almost immediately with an all-clear. Smart kid.
“Nile? Nile? There’s another item here … Your wife’s lawyer mentions some morbid act, some sort of satanic ritual that went on. Something involving a dead man’s hand?”
Here I had to laugh. Her lawyer must have minored in comedy writing at law school.
“Glad you think it’s amusing, Nile. But how would you respond to that in a court of law?”
With a wail of laughter. “In our last game I held an Ace of Spades, Ace of Clubs, eight of Spades, eight of Clubs, Jack of Diamonds. It’s called the deadman’s hand.”
“Never heard of it.”
“There are lots of things you’ve never heard of,” I almost said, but I almost say things much more often than I say them. “When Wild Bill Hickcock was shot in the back of the head, those were the cards that fell to the floor.”
Silence. “Did anything happen between you two? After the game of poker, on the heart-shaped bed?”
“No.”
“But you slept together.”
“In the literal sense, yes.”
“You got a room with one bed?”
“Two. But Brooklyn ended up on mine. As she often did with me and her mom. Whenever she had nightmares, or couldn’t sleep.” She couldn’t sleep unless the place was lit up like Christmas.
“And when you went into the Jacuzzi with her the next morning, what were each of you wearing?”
“Objection. Leading the witness. It has not been established that Mr. Nightingale ever went into the Jacuzzi with Miss Martin.”
“I’m just preparing you for the hell-roasting you’re going to get from the prosecutor.”
Volpe should know, he used to be one himself. After Fordham Law he began as a defence attorney, but crossed the aisle because he didn’t want to spend the rest of his life being lied to on a daily basis. He then worked for the FBI, according to my father, which had become something of a haven for lawyers trying to avoid military service. Now he’s a corporate lawyer, writing up steel-trap contracts for hedge fund firms owned by New Jersey crime families. So why was I asking him to defend me? A man who hasn’t won a defence case since disco? Because he’s the closest I have to blood: he was my father’s best, most loyal friend since kindergarten. He visited us in Europe, even China. Although he hated everyone else, the lawyer loved the doctor. “Brooklyn used the Jacuzzi, not me. As far as I can recall, she wore a bathing suit. I was in the shower at the time.”
“Naked?”
I paused. Was this a real question? “Yes. A nutty quirk, I admit.”
“Don’t you think it would’ve been wiser had you gotten two rooms?”
“In hindsight, yes. But Brooklyn didn’t want to stay in a room by herself. She was afraid, she said. She was ten at the time—I would’ve been afraid at that age too.”
“Why didn’t you phone her mother?”
“I did, left two messages. Even though Brook said not to bother, that her mom was spending the weekend with her ‘smiley new boyfriend.’”
“And what about the charge of road rage on the way back?”
“What about it?”
“The police report says that you had a drunken argument with another driver on I-9, that you screamed out threats and profanities, cut him off repeatedly, and waved a gun at him through the window.”
Sometimes, after drink, I am prone to spontaneity. “He cut me off first, grinning at me with a sorry-ass moustache. After riding my bumper for twenty miles.”
“But the rest is true? You were a drunk and disorderly rageaholic?”
Alcohol is one of my tripwires, oversensitizing me to the bad behaviour of strangers.
“And exceeding the speed limit,” Volpe continued, “by over forty miles an hour?”
Velocity is the ultimate drug and rockets run on alcohol. “Possibly.”
“And the pistol?”
“Brooklyn’s.”
“Brooklyn carries a piece?”
“A Walther .38. The brand favoured by James Bond.”
“You’ve got to be kidding.”
“An anatomically correct plastic version.”
“The kind that can pass through metal detectors … Oh, for Christ’s sake, Nile, a water pistol? I wonder who gave her that.”
“She asked for one for her birthday. I got her top-of-the-line.”
“Did you know that killers get their early training with water pistols?”
“Oh, please. I must have had a dozen when I was a kid. Didn’t you?” I couldn’t imagine Volpe having a childhood.
“Did you ever once think of the repercussions? On an innocent, impressionable young girl who may never fully recover from this incident? Ever think of that?”
“She was in hysterics the entire time. Egging me on. Not just to catch the guy, to force him over, but to shoot him in the face. Which I did. When the cops pulled me over, she couldn’t answer their questions because of a laughing cramp. And when we arrived at her mother’s, she told me—and I quote—‘That was the best weekend of my whole life, Uncle Nile, can we do it again next weekend?’ Did she mention that to her mother? Perhaps her mother forgot that detail.”
Volpe heaved another sigh, long and loud. “Do they have Internet up there? Up in … central Quebec?”
“How’d you know …” I stopped because I knew. “No, they don’t have Internet up here, not yet. Or colour TV.”
“They don’t?”
Who was putting on who? “No, it’s prehistoric up here. You’ve never been? The Flintstones was shot up here.”
“What are you doing there anyway, smart-ass?”
Three things—nervousness, alcohol and Volpe—could turn me into a smart-ass. “Not a lot.”
“Why does that not surprise me? Why does that not surprise me one iota? You remember, Count Slackoff, what your father used to say about you?”
Let’s see, what would the old man have said about me? That I was an arrested adolescent who’d end up arrested? That all my classmates had passed through the gates of adulthood except me? “No. Refresh my memory.”
“‘He wants to have his bread and loaf too.’”
“Very amusing, that. Thanks for reminding me.”
“And that ‘childlessness will condemn you to—’”
“‘Childishness.’”
“Exactly. God, what a wit that man had. I could never keep up with him. Must have been lots of fun being around him.”
I nodded. “A riotocracy of merriment.”
“He had the energy of six men.”
And I the energy of a sloth.
“And you the energy of a sloth.”
“Once again, Mr. Volpe, thanks for reminding me.”
“One of the seven deadly sins, that.”
“So I’ve heard.”
“Did you ever forgive him?”
“For …?”
“For what he did to you in Paris.”
“Yes, of course.”
Awkward silence as we both listened to his AM radio: “Trouble in Paradise” by the Crests. “Did you get your shots before you left?”
“For …?”
“I don’t know, whatever they have up there. Mad cow? Hoof and mouth? Swine flu?”
“They don’t breed animals up here. They’re cannibals.”
“Always the wiseass. Listen, whatever you do, don’t speed, don’t drink, don’t get stopped by the cops. You get stopped, you’re in a shitpot of trouble. There’s an all-points out.”
“Which means …”
“Which means that if you’re stopped for a DUI or traffic violation and the uniform radios in the information, the bulletin sends up a flag.”
“Does this … extend to Quebec?”
“Does a bear shit in the woods?”
“I believe so.”
“Does a wooden horse have a hickory dick? Yes, nimrod, it extends to Quebec.”
“I won’t get stopped.” I’ve been getting stopped all my life, I thought as the words left my lips.
“You’ve been getting stopped all your life.”
“So I’ve heard. Listen, has the story, you know, made any of the papers?”
“Yeah, it’s made all the papers. Headlines in The New York Times: ‘Stamp Collector on the Lam.’ Of course it hasn’t made the goddamn papers.” I could see him frowning, like one of my high-school principals. “I’ll see what I can do, Nile, for the sake of your father. But I’ll be straight with you—you could end up sleeping on a stainless-steel shelf attached to a wall.”
VI
After several misfires starting up the van, I sat silently behind the wheel, thinking of questions I should have asked my lawyer: How much does my ex want? What portion of my father’s estate would help her maintain the chemical life to which she’s grown accustomed? And fielding questions from my father’s ghost: Have you learned anything from this, Nile? It’s never a loss if you’ve learned something. Have you? Yes, father, I have. After living with a beautiful woman, I learned the irrelevance of beauty.
The ignition finally caught and I was halfway down the lane when I saw her. The white cat with the red collar. By the side of the road, calm as can be, as if waiting for her limo. I hit the brakes, opened the door and she leapt in like a dog, up onto my lap. And then onto the passenger seat, staring straight ahead, like a dowager being driven to the opera.
But we weren’t heading for the opera, unfortunately; we were heading for a kind of hall of mirrors, a gallery of characters of increasing bentness who took me back in time, to my institutional days. Unless they were all ghosts, the coinage of my brain.
The RE/MAX in Ste-Madeleine, the agency that handled my cabin rental, was open but empty. I could hear myself nervously whistling, which is not something I do often or well. « Il y a quelqu’un? » I inquired.
A toilet flushed, a door latch clicked, and a gaunt woman with thick grey hair and a cigarette butt emerged from a door marked Femmes. I stated my business and she pointed with her cigarette. « Jusqu’au bout, à gauche. »
I followed her instructions, pausing at the threshold of a surprisingly dim office. The agent’s face looked ghoulish in the glow of his computer screen, his tongue protruding as he frowned in concentration. I cleared my throat to pull his attention away from what turned out not to be real estate files or the Internet but a video game.
« You’re interested in that property? » the agent asked in French, his eyes still trained on his screen. He had yellowish hair like unravelled shredded wheat that hung over his forehead and eyes, and his face was pocked with acne. He looked less like a realtor than a bag boy at the supermarket. « That mudhole? » Like a child protecting a test paper from a cheating neighbour, he put his left arm around a manila folder beside his laptop. He looked coked to the gills. And I should know. « There’s talk, eh? »
« Talk? »
« Of rituals and shit. Weird shit. Bad things that happened way back when. You’d be better off with a condo. Or even one of them flooded trailers from New Orleans. »
With his right hand he punched in numbers on a cell, turning his head away and speaking in a low voice. He folded up his phone and began tapping his index finger between the bottom and top rows of his teeth. It was not a sound I needed to hear.
« Okay, let’s go, » he said after slipping his folder in a desk drawer and standing. He seemed to rise indefinitely; like the snowplower, he was tall, very tall, practically a furlong. Something in the water up here? « To the bank. We can jeep it or walk it. » He inserted earphones into his ears before I could express a preference, and fiddled with his iPod.
« Jeep? I thought we’d take your skateboard. »
He pulled out his right bud. « Come again? »
« We’ll take my van. »
The Banque Laurentienne, the agent explained as we drove four and a half blocks, owned the church. « The bank impounded it and shit, eh? »
« Foreclosed. »
« What I said. »
I looked in my rear-view, trying to locate the cat. Put my hand und
er the seat and felt fur.
« Never been in one of these before, » said the agent, looking up, down, around. « Pretty beat up, eh? »
I nodded. Like its owner, falling apart and hard to start. « It runs. »
« A shag wagon from the eighties, am I right? »
« You are. So the foreclosure— »
« You wouldn’t want to a move up a notch, would you? Or two. I can sell you a Ford Bronco, full-size, mint, ten thousand klicks, ten thousand bucks. »
« No thanks. »
He looked at me through the overhanging hairs of the brow, as do some breeds of dog. « But … I mean, if you can afford the church, why are you drivin’ this shitheap? »
A good question, that. Which might need Freud to answer it. Sentimental reasons was the short answer. I went out on my first date in a van like this. But I’d driven wrecks my entire life, maybe because I felt sorry for them, maybe to confuse and confound my father. « So the foreclosure was one of those subprime loans? »
« Nah. The guy who bought it ended up in Ste-Anne-des-Plaines. »
I turned, gave my passenger a quizzical look.
« Penitentiary, » he explained.
We passed by an Esso sign, which I hadn’t seen in the States for thirty years. And two Catholic churches, both boarded up. « Lots of boarded-up churches in this province, » I remarked as we drove into the bank parking lot.
« You been to Montreal? It’s worse there, eh? »
A chance to display my knowledge of Quebec, a morsel gained from the Internet. « Mark Twain said Montreal was the first city he’d been to where you couldn’t throw a brick without hitting a church window. »
The agent paused, scratched his head. « You couldn’t take a dump without hitting a church window? »
Something lost in translation. Before I could clarify, the agent was shouting a greeting to someone outside the bank: a panhandling punkette sitting on the pavement with a geriatric dog shivering in a blanket at her feet. As we approached I saw that she wasn’t a panhandler; she was a native Indian vendor whose wares were spread out on one side of the entrance. On the other side was a male, her companion presumably, asleep in a coffin of cardboard.
“The Quebec government is illegitimate,” she said softly to me in English as I examined the items for sale. “As long as there are whites living on Native lands.”