There was a laugh, both smoky and grating. My stomach seized up at the sound of it. I remembered seeing her for the first time standing outside The Sunset Bar, wearing black shorts over a black tank-style swimsuit. Standing there and looking like a refugee from crash-diet hell.
‘You mean you had to turn on your tape-recorder,’ she said, and now I remembered how the water had seemed to change color when she nailed me that really good one in the back of the head.
From bright orange to dark scarlet it had gone. And then I’d started drinking the lake. ‘That’s okay.
Tape anything you want.’
John reached out suddenly and ejected the cassette. ‘You don’t need to hear this,’ he said. ‘It’s not substantive. I thought you’d get a kick out of her blather, but . . . man, you look terrible. Do you want me to drive? You’re white as a fucking sheet.’
‘I can drive,’ I said. ‘Go on, play it. Afterward I’ll tell you about a little adventure I had Friday night . . . but you’re going to keep it to yourself. They don’t have to know’ — I jerked my thumb over my shoulder at the Altima — ‘and Mattie doesn’t have to know. Especially Mattie.’
He reached for the tape, then hesitated. ‘You’re sure?’
‘Yeah. It was just hearing her again out of the blue like that. The quality of her voice. Christ, the reproduction is good.’
‘Nothing but the best for Avery, McLain, and Bernstein. We have very strict protocols about what we can tape, by the way. If you were wondering.’
‘I wasn’t. I imagine none of it’s admissible in litigation anyway, is it?’
‘In certain rare cases a judge might let a tape in, but that’s not why we do it. A tape like this saved a man’s life four years ago, right around the time I joined the firm. That guy is now in the Witness Protection Program.’
‘Play it.’
He leaned forward and pushed the button.
John: ‘How is the desert, Ms. Whitmore?’
Whitmore: ‘Hot.’
John: ‘Arrangements progressing nicely? I know how difficult times like this can — ‘
Whitmore: ‘You know very little, counsellor, take it from me. Can we cut the crap?’
John: ‘Consider it cut.’
Whitmore: ‘Have you conveyed the conditions of Mr. Devore’s will to his daughter-in-law?’
John: ‘Yes ma’am.’
Whitmore: ‘Her response?’
John: ‘I have none to give you now. I may have after Mr. Devore’s will has been probated. But surely you know that such codicils are rarely if ever accepted by the courts.’
Whitmore: ‘Well, if that little lady moves out of town, we’ll see, won’t we?’
John: ‘I suppose we will.’
Whitmore: ‘When is the victory party?’
John: ‘Excuse me?’
Whitmore: ‘Oh please. I have sixty different appointments today, plus a boss to bury tomorrow.
You’re going up there to celebrate with her and her daughter, aren’t you? Did you know she’s invited the writer? Her fuck-buddy?’
John turned to me gleefully. ‘Do you hear how pissed she sounds? She’s trying to hide it, but she can’t. It’s eating her up inside!’
I barely heard him. I was in the zone with what she was saying (the writer her fuck-buddy)
and what was under what she was saying. Some quality beneath the words. We just want to see how long you can swim, she had called out to me.
John: ‘I hardly think what I or Mattie’s friends do is any of your business, Ms Whitmore. May I respectfully suggest that you party with your friends and let Mattie Devore party with h —
Whitmore: ‘Give him a message.’
Me. She was talking about me. Then I realized it was even more personal than that — she was talking to me. Her body might be on the other side of the country, but her voice and spiteful spirit were right here in the car with us.
And Max Devore’s will. Not the meaningless shit his lawyers had put down on paper but his will.
The old bastard was as dead as Damocles, but yes, he was definitely still seeking custody.
John: ‘Give who a message, Ms. Whitmore?’
Whitmore: ‘Tell him he never answered Mr. Devore’s question.’
John: ‘What question is that?’
Does her cunt suck?
Whitmore: ‘Ask him. He’ll know.’
John: ‘If you mean Mike Noonan, you can ask him yourself. You’ll see him in Castle County Probate Court this fall.’
Whitmore: ‘I hardly think so. Mr. Devore’s will was made and witnessed out here.’
John: ‘Nevertheless, it will be probated in Maine, where he died. My heart is set on it. And when you leave Castle County the next time, Rogette, you will do so with your education in matters of the law considerably broadened.’
For the first time she sounded angry, her voice rising to a reedy caw.
Whitmore: ‘If you think — ‘
John: ‘I don’t think. I know. Goodbye, Ms. Whitmore.’
Whitmore: ‘You might do well to stay away from — ‘
There was a click, the hum of an open line, then a robot voice saying ‘Nine-forty A.M. . . . Eastern Daylight . . . July . . . twentieth.’ John punched EJECT, collected his tape, and stored it back in his briefcase.
‘I hung up on her.’ He sounded like a man telling you about his first skydive. ‘I actually did. She was mad, wasn’t she? Wouldn’t you say she was seriously pissed?’
‘Yeah.’ It was what he wanted to hear but not what I really believed. Pissed, yes. Seriously pissed? Maybe not. Because Mattie’s location and state of mind hadn’t been her concern; Rogette had called to talk to me. To tell me she was thinking of me. To bring back memories of how it felt to tread water with the back of your head gushing blood. To freak me out. And she had succeeded.
‘What was the question you didn’t answer?’ John asked me.
‘I don’t know what she meant by that,’ I said, ‘but I can tell you why hearing her turned me a little white in the gills. If you can be discreet, and if you want to hear.’
‘We’ve got eighteen miles to cover; lay it on me.’
I told him about Friday night. I didn’t clutter my version with visions or psychic phenomena; there was just Michael Noonan out for a sunset walk along The Street. I’d been standing by a birch tree which hung over the lake, watching the sun drop toward the mountains, when they came up behind me. From the point where Devore charged me with his wheelchair to the point where I finally got back onto solid ground, I stuck pretty much to the truth.
When I finished, John was at first utterly silent. It was a measure of how thrown for a loop he was; under normal circumstances he was every bit the chatterbox Ki was.
‘Well?’ I asked. ‘Comments? Questions?’
‘Lift your hair so I can see behind your ear.’
I did as he asked, revealing a big Band-Aid and a large area of swelling. John leaned forward to study it like a little kid observing his best friend’s battle-scar during recess. ‘Holy shit,’ he said at last.
It was my turn to say nothing.
‘Those two old fucks tried to drown you.’
I said nothing.
‘They tried to drown you for helping Mattie.’
Now I really said nothing.
‘And you never reported it?’
‘I started to,’ I said, ‘then realized I’d make myself look like a whiny little asshole. And a liar, most likely.’
‘How much do you think Osgood might know?’
‘About them trying to drown me? Nothing. He’s just a messenger boy.’
A little more of that unusual quiet from John. After a few seconds of it he reached out and touched the lump on the back of my head.
‘Ow!’
‘Sorry.’ A pause. ‘Jesus. Then he went back to Warrington’s and pulled the pin. Jesus. Michael, I never would have played that tape if I’d known — ‘
‘It’s all right. But don’t even think of telling Mattie. I’m wearing my hair over my ear like that for a reason.’
‘Will you ever tell her, do you think?’
‘I might. Some day when he’s been dead long enough so we can laugh about me swimming with my clothes on.’
‘That might be awhile,’ he said.
‘Yeah. It might.’
We drove in silence for a bit. I could sense John groping for a way to bring the day back to jubilation, and loved him for it. He leaned forward, turned on the radio, and found something loud and nasty by Guns ‘n Roses — welcome to the jungle, baby, we got fun and games.
‘Party ’til we puke,’ he said. ‘Right?’
I grinned. It wasn’t easy with the sound of the old woman’s voice still clinging to me like light slime, but I managed. ‘If you insist,’ I said.
‘I do,’ he said. ‘Most certainly.’
‘John, you’re a good guy for a lawyer.’