'Lady,' a young woman said, a perfectly beautiful young woman with flawless chocolaty skin. She had a stocking cap tugged down over most of her face. 'Lady,' she said, 'you in the wrong damn place.'
APRIL 2, 1996
Seth
So this is how it happens, Seth thinks. You hassle the guy inside your head for twenty-five years and then you walk up to his door on a Tuesday morning and knock and here he is, holding his half-frame glasses and today's newspaper. Eddgar is stock-still behind the screen door.
'Is this about Nile?' he finally asks. 'Is he in more trouble?'
‘I hope not'
Eddgar undertakes another instant of visible deliberation, his face obscured in the deep shadows of early morning. Seth waits on the tongue-and-groove porch that wraps around the front of the old frame house.
‘I was about to make a cup of tea,' Eddgar finally offers and nudges the door open a few inches. The interior architecture is baffling. The corridor goes on forever, and the air is heavy with the scent of frying oil and gathered human smells, a little like a
barracks. 'Have you heard from him?' Eddgar asks when they reach the small kitchen.
Seth removes the paper Hobie gave him last night, the microfiche from the delivery company showing Michael's address. Eddgar puts the kettle on to boil and replaces his glasses before taking up the record.
'Am I being threatened?' he asks then.
'I'm trying to put some things together, Eddgar. It's not a threat.'
'Quite certain? Not planning any reunions with the FBI? No confessional in your column? You see, I want to be sure we aren't going to have another act in that morality play in the courtroom. The Revenger's Tragedy? Isn't there a drama of that name? I believe June studied it.' Eddgar coughs at that moment, a rattling attack on his lungs. He holds a fist before his mouth. 'But I suppose your impulse for vengeance is well satisfied at this point.' Eddgar smiles solely for his own benefit. 'What is it you want to know, Seth?'
'The truth? There was a lot of lying in that courtroom.'
'Surely not by me,' says Eddgar. 'It was your friend Tuttle who distorted the facts.' He stands somewhat stiffly and returns to the whistling kettle, casting about the kitchen to find a second cup. When he opens the refrigerator for milk, it is largely bare, holding only a dairy carton, a gallon jug of water, and a single green olive and a red pimento, separated and floating in half a jar of greenish juice. 'Is he crazy or melodramatic?' Eddgar asks.
'Hobie? More a performance artist. That's how I think of him. The word as gesture.'
'He's a treacherous person.' Eddgar shakes his head at the thought and places both cups, curling steam, on the table. 'I'm sure you had a good time watching Hobie play with my life. I assume you felt it was appropriate. Because you think I played with yours.'
'Didn't you?'
Eddgar takes his time with that. Across the table, he folds his hands carefully.
'I took advantage of a circumstance, Seth. There were careful plans and they went awry. Someone was arrested, quite accidentally. He started blabbing. So I seized an opportunity, yes I did. Unkind? Probably. Yet I was confident - and correct as it turned out - it would work out for all of us.'
'The greatest good for the greatest number, Eddgar? Including number one?'
'It was a long time ago, Seth.'
'Are you invoking the statute of limitations? I thought there wasn't one on murder.' Eddgar's eyes squeeze shut then and Seth eases forward in the beaten old kitchen chair. The maple table between them is small, stained with berry juice in one place, a relic of many decades' use in Eddgar's household. 'I want you to understand something, Eddgar. I'm as old now as you were then. Older, I guess. And I blame myself. First and foremost. The things I did, I did. Not you. But if I was czar of the universe, or the Lord High Executioner, you'd be punished. You escaped. And it bothers me, man, it kills me. How come everyone suffered but you, Eddgar? Don't you ask yourself? Do you think about them, Eddgar? The lives you took? The ones you ruined?' Seth stabs a finger down on the paper he brought. 'How do you sleep at night, for Godsake?'
Eddgar takes the question with a taut, slightly whimsical expression. Well, he doesn't sleep at night. Seth can read that thought. There is a small window at Eddgar's back and in the early morning light his face is haggard. A day's growth clings to his cheeks, like a sugared topping.
'Do you know people who fought wars, Seth? I fought a war. Yes, there were casualties, and I rue them, I mourn for them. But I certainly didn't turn my back on Michael. That should be obvious.' His face dips toward the paper on the table. ‘I gave him every kind of support imaginable. For years. My wife - and my son - essentially abandoned me to see after him. With my consent.
Yet it wasn't in repentance. Because I don't repent.' Eddgar's face is raised at that characteristic angle of willful invulnerability. But this much no doubt is true. Seth thought about it all night and realized it wasn't charity or grief that motivated Eddgar to care for Michael from this distance all this time. No. Michael was the man Eddgar could not be: to June a lover, to Nile a gentle guiding hand. He was Eddgar's own lost fragment. He could no more let go of Michael than himself. But Eddgar doesn't see that part. His justification, as ever, lies in history.
'I had something to fight against,' says Eddgar, 'and I fought. And the war I fought still makes more sense to me than many of the wars waged in this country: the Indian Wars. The Spanish-American War. The Mexican-American War. Vietnam. I believe - as I believed even then and was afraid to say to myself - I believe I shall be judged. And I don't fear it. But don't you dare think I did not suffer. Then or now. Because I have, I have. I have paid prices you cannot imagine.' Red creeps up to Eddgar's scalp, and he winds himself away in a momentary effort to contain his anguish. 'And don't think I'm speaking about what you and your friend did to me in that courtroom. I care much less than you might suppose for my reputation.'
That wasn't what he thought. June, is what Seth guesses. June was Eddgar's anguish, a whirlwind of torment right up to the terrible end.
'What did we do to you in the courtroom?' Seth asks. 'Oh, please, Seth. I'm old, I'm not addled. You had to have been part of that.' 'Of what?'
'You know this story. You must.' And Eddgar begins to serve out the details as a challenge. You must know, he says. About the dope. The jail. About Nile and Hardcore. 'You must know,' he repeats.
No, Seth says. His reaction - the pallor, the faltering - brings Eddgar up short, and he responds more sparingly as Seth begins to question him. But he answers. The story is told - about sending
the DFU money to Michael, about this young girl, Lovinia, and, most despairingly, about Eddgar's confrontations with Hardcore. Only at the end does Eddgar permit his full glance to fall again on Seth. Even in age, his eyes have remained remarkable. Seth does not remember where he developed the impression that wolves have eyes this color, glacial blue, an outward aspect of beauty and tranquility concealing a teeming, unmanaged spirit.
'This was all unknown to you?' Eddgar asks again.
'Unknown,' says Seth.
Still in doubt, Eddgar stands arthritically for a second cup of tea and speaks as he's standing at the stove, describing the game of prisoner's dilemma that Core and whoever advised him played. They were mutual hostages - Nile and Hardcore. When June was killed, Eddgar understood at once that it was not an accident. But what was he to say? The truth would put Nile in the penitentiary. He remained silent, never guessing that the police would be able to build a case on Hardcore, or what Ordell would do as a result. But there was not a lawyer Eddgar spoke to after Core had implicated Nile who did not say the same thing: Nile would do less time for a crime of family passion than for distributing pounds of narcotics in the course of abusing a public trust. Not to mention that Nile stood a chance at trial this way. They were trapped.
'And I've thought about this, naturally,' says Eddgar, 'I've thought at great length about what Hardcore did, and I doubt his motive was to punish Nile - I doub
t that entered his mind - or only to minimize his position in a very bad situation. What he wanted, also, was to make a point to me. To let me know I was not the only shrewd operator, that for all my grand proclamations, all my ill-considered threats, I still couldn't protect Nile.' Eddgar glances briefly, balefully toward Seth, before staring down again into his teacup, which bears the blue seal of some state agency. 'Somehow, I had made myself the one true enemy.
'Which is why I told Hobie from the start: Blame me. I actually said that to him. "Blame me." And not as an act of misplaced valor. You know, I see that look in your eye -1 saw it in court -I think you've regarded me for decades as a monster. People - way back when, back in California - people believed I was not self-aware. Perhaps I wasn't. Not sufficiently. But I think, I believe, I see some of myself. And I mean that when I say I am to blame, I am. For thinking I could control what I couldn't control. For bearding Hardcore. For not accepting my child's limitations. For pushing my own wants on him. I saw that. I'd seen that. People, some people, do see these things. Insight isn't everything, you know. You make mistakes anyway.
'And I made those mistakes, and a dozen more. I was pleased that Sonny was the judge. I suppose that was where it really started. Well, this will fit, I thought. I saw the opportunity immediately. I told Turtle that. The first time we spoke. "She never liked me. Blame me. Contrive some other reason Core on his own would want to kill me. She'll believe it." I started this. I know. And Hobie twisted it, of course. He took advantage of me. He said, "Will you say yes if I ask the questions the right way?" I told him, "I won't lie. I just can't. I can't swear an oath to God and lie." But the right questions, the right way - I could say yes. And he told me before it started, he said very little to me, just "Listen to my questions, very carefully, because I'm going to be doing something. You don't have to lie, just be careful," and I agreed to that in advance. I knew he'd use that money, the $10,000 from the DFU, and make it look like that was the money Nile had given Ordell. Because after all, that was the plan. And yes, Nile had cashed the check. And no one had any reason to know where the money actually had gone. And, of course, of course, Hardcore was lying, there never was a $10,000 payment. So what Hobie was doing - it was a lie to combat a lie, and not my lie. And, naturally, I agreed. He's very shrewd about people, your friend Turtle, isn't he?'
'Very shrewd.'
'Yes,' says Eddgar. His feet - in his old penny loafers - are tapping on the floor now, but thought has otherwise stilled him.
He is somewhat nattily dressed, in a stylish plaid shirt, and he pulls momentarily at the collar. He thought he was being noble, he says, not merely toward Nile, but toward the party people, Galiakos and his crowd. They were after him from the minute Nile was arrested, and Eddgar had promised he'd do everything in his power to keep that $10,000 out of the case, out of the news. They were terrified, understandably. Imagine what it's like, Eddgar says, trying to convince people to make contributions when they've read on the front page of the Tribune about party money going to a street gang. He was willing to take the blame for all of it. For the money. For Nile.
' "Blame me," I said. And Hobie pulled the rug out, turned the tables. Made day night, night day. Now, - I who loved June Eddgar better and longer than any soul on earth - now I was her murderer. And this is where you come into it, Seth, or where I've always imagined you came into it. Because I could see you having the last laugh. Both of you. As I was sitting there, I understood. I could see the parallels. I had agreed to something, to be used in something, a deception for the benefit of someone I cared about - as you agreed many years ago, Seth, and then were changed up, misled. Tit for tat. I understood. This strange theatrical revenge. You said it before: You regard me as a man who got away with murder. So why not let me take the blame in public for one I did not commit? I was quite sure you two believed it was entirely appropriate.'
'It's entirely appropriate,' Seth answers. 'But he never told me.'
'No?' Eddgar again considers Seth askance. 'Well, it was a gleeful experience for him. I'll say that. Because he had me. I could see in the courtroom, Hobie was laughing at me in a thousand different ways, most of all because he was saying,' 'What for your child? This much? More? How about this much? How much, you bastard? How much?" And he relished it. It was sadistic'
'No,' says Seth. 'He's not a sadist.'
'It surely appeared that way.'
'No,' says Seth again. He ponders the curve of events. The vast imponderable enigma of Hobie T. Turtle looms here - like the Buddha emerging from the mists. Impetuous, yes. Complex. Brilliant. But Hobie would never have permitted such a twisted sport for his own sake. He'd have laughed to think of it; the notion would have kept him up all night chuckling. But he carried through only for one reason.
'He did it for me, Eddgar,' Seth says, 'not with me. He did it because he's my friend. And was Cleveland's friend. In his heart of hearts, he was taking our revenge. As well as helping Nile, of course. I'm sure he meant to do that, too.'
Eddgar holds the thought, then lets his head bow with the weight of that possibility. Out on the gravel drive, Seth hears the crunching of someone's approach. It's Nile, Seth thinks. It's Michael. That would be perfect. They'll shuffle in, unshaven, weary from the road. But when Eddgar returns from the front door he's merely holding an overnight delivery envelope, papers parceled off from the state capitol for the senator's inspection.
'Have you talked to Nile?' Seth asks.
Eddgar, sadly, futilely, flexes his hands. 'No way to reach him. I know they're together, Michael and he. You realized that much, I take it?' says Eddgar, and again casts a glance at the paper Hobie gave Seth last night. 'I heard from Michael once. In the immediate aftermath. A day or two later. Sounded like he was at a pay phone by a highway. I was quite relieved. I have every confidence that Michael won't let Nile come to grief. They're very capable together. What's the word? "Syntonic." I suppose, they always have been. They'll look after one another. And I'm certain that in a desperate case Michael could get word to me.
'You should understand,' says Eddgar. 'I could find them. They have to be within a day's drive. Michael wouldn't have much appetite for change. He's not good with it. He's still probably going by the same name, the same social-security number we dug up for him when he gave his to you. I have no doubt they're settled in another little town.'
Sipping the tea, Seth takes an instant to imagine Nile and Michael together as Eddgar described them. Probably living on some rented farmette with a tiny frame house which the wind blows through in winter. Working day jobs in town, clerks or something, tilling the earth as weekends and summer light allow. They probably speak little. Michael these days surfs the Internet, instead of the shortwave bands. Nile watches TV. But they make allowances for each other. And to the world they are father and son, one of those odd pairs families often create, attuned to each other and hardly anybody else. Nile has become the man he always wanted to be: Michael, another erratic fugitive, the best example he had.
'I could find them,' Eddgar repeats. 'But I'm not going to trail Nile as if I were a bounty hunter. When he wants to see me, he will. I understand how it is. He's likely to keep running, isn't he? If I pursue him?'
‘I think that's right.'
‘I think it's shame,' says Eddgar. 'His reason for fleeing? That's more or less how I explain it to myself.' 'Sounds more like anger to me.'
'Anger?' asks Eddgar. He shows the first open surprise since the moment he saw Seth on his porch this morning.
'I bet the sight of you on the witness stand lying your ass off to save him - playing along with Hobie, whatever you want to call it - was probably more than he could stomach. I take it neither one of you bothered to fill in Nile in advance.' They're both too high-handed to have troubled with that, Seth knows. Eddgar was right before, he thinks. Insight isn't everything. Because it's seldom complete. Eddgar might see himself as meddlesome, overly protective, but he'll never recognize the message he delivered to Nile on every possible
occasion, that his son would always be beholden, incapable, incomplete.
'But isn't it puzzling?' Eddgar asks. ‘I think about it every day. For hours. And I'm baffled. Perhaps he was angry, as you say, at the end of the trial. I surely meant well. But we could have misunderstood one another. That's an old story. But what could he have been thinking to start? Getting mixed up that way? With Core? In that kind of business? What did he want?'
Seth takes his time, although he's known the answer from the moment Eddgar told him the story.
'I imagine he wanted to be one of the people you cared about, Eddgar.' This observation, leveled with no more mercy than a hammer blow, provokes little visible reaction at first. Eddgar brings his hand to his mouth momentarily. On the wall, there's a large white clock. It buzzes faintly, clicking slightly whenever the second hand moves. Ten after eight. He may miss his plane, Seth thinks. But he has no desire to go.
'It's so complex,' Eddgar says finally. He circles a finger through a little puddle of gathered moisture left on the table by the bottom of his cup. 'I'm not one to dwell on the past, Seth. But whenever I think back, what seems bleakest and most confused to me is Nile. I loved him so truly, so deeply. I still think of his birth as a moment like no other. I can describe the hospital waiting room - it was the days when men were not involved.' He permits himself the wee, reflective smile Seth recollects, as if neither of them should make much of the oddity that Eddgar, the great suspect of institutional power, lost his radar at a moment so essential. ‘I recall the other fathers sitting around, a sandwich one of these men was eating. It was peanut butter and bacon, which he'd brought from home in used-looking silver foil. I can remember everything. I can smell the smoke from everybody's cigarettes.