Silence on the other end; rare silence, in Dave’s case.
“Even a ballpark guess would be helpful,” I say. “I’m just curious, Dave. You can understand.”
“Certainly. Him being your natural father and all. It’s just… ”
“What?”
He manufactures a cough. I wish I could say I felt lousy for putting him on the spot, but I don’t. Dave sold Amway for a living so it’s just about impossible to throw him off stride.
“When your mother and me got married,” he says, “we made a pact between ourselves. An unwritten contract, if you will.”
“Go on.”
“We agreed not to talk about our past… what’s the word—involvements. Not ever. That includes ex-boyfriends, ex-husbands, ex-girlfriends, ex-wives… ex-anybodys. We felt it was water under the bridge that ought to stay over the darn.”
“I see.”
“We weren’t exactly kids when we met, your mom and me. We’d both been around the block a few times. Chased a few rainbows.”
“Of course, Dave.”
“No good ever comes from dredging up the past,” he adds sagely.
“Then the answer would be no, is that right? She never mentioned my father’s death. Never once.”
“Not to me, Jack. A pact is a pact,” he says. “Shall I tell her you called?”
Carla Candilla gets a regular five o’clock break from the photo counter at the drugstore. We meet at a yogurt shop in the same strip mall. Heads turn at the sight of her Vesuvius-inspired dye job, or perhaps it’s my fat purple nose. In a low voice I describe the scene on Cleo Rio’s balcony. Carla begs in vain for more details, and is slightly disappointed that the object of the widow’s affections wasn’t Russell Crowe, Leonardo DiCaprio or one of the Backstreet Boys, none of whom matches my description of the coppery-haired felatee. Carla promises to snoop around the circuit and report all rumors. She says Cleo’s favorite local hangout is a club called Jizz; down on South Beach, it’s Tetra.
“It’s very important,” I tell Carla, “for me to get the boy toy’s name.”
“Give me the weekend,” she says confidently. Then, fishing into her handbag: “Wanna see something wild?”
“Don’t tell me.” Previous lectures on the subject of privacy obviously have made no impression.
“Oh, come on, Jack.” Carla mischievously fans out the photographs like a deck of cards. One glance is more than enough.
“You can get fired for this,” I point out, halfheartedly.
Carla and her minimum-wage cohorts at the drugstore keep watch for raunchy amateur snapshots coming out of the automated developing machine. If the photographs are exceptional, duplicates are surreptitiously made and passed around. Today’s glossy sequence features a nude, well-fed couple, a tenor saxophone and a Jack Russell terrier in a porkpie hat. My disapproving grimace impels Carla to say: “Look, if they didn’t want anyone to see ’em, why’d they bring the film to the store? Whoever they are, I think they’re really diggin’ it. I think they’re counting on us to peek.”
Pushing away the stack of pictures, I promise not to tell Carla’s mother.
“Oh come off it, Blackjack. This stuff is real life. Doesn’t it make you wonder about the human race?”
“Actually, it makes me depressed. These freaks are having lots more fun than I am.”
“Even the dog looks happy,” Carla remarks, thumbing through the photos. “By the way, who punched you in the snoot? I’m guessing it was a chick.”
“Yup. My boss.”
She tosses her head and laughs. “You’re the best, Jack.”
“Tell me who your mom went to England with.”
She says, not too brutally, “You know better than to stagger down that road.”
“I’m afraid I don’t. That’s a gruesome fact.”
“Fine, then.” Carla returns the purloined terrier portfolio to her purse. “You want the truth or a lie? First, tell me what you can stand.”
“A doctor, lawyer, college professor—as long as it’s an unpublished college professor.”
“Meaning anybody except a writer.”
“Basically, yeah,” I say.
Carla looks at me compassionately; Anne’s eyes again.
She says, “Then I’ll have to lie, Jack.”
“You’re kidding. She went to London with a goddamned writer?”
Carla nods.
“Newspaper guy?” I ask, with a shudder.
“Nope.”
“Poet? Novelist? Playwright?”