Mr. Cassandra drank only on special occasions. But using both his prolific memory and his imagination, he could think of special occasions at the drop of a hat: Presidents’ birthdays, the ends of wars, the completion of dams, bridges and tall buildings, the first Mardi Gras, the invention of the wheel, the Bill of Rights and Fridays, all of these deserved to be celebrated, and were.
The clientele of the bar was mixed, but they all had one thing in common: None of them could shut Mr. Cassandra up.
“Many, many times throughout my life I could have made me a fortune. And every time I blew it. I blew it again this week. I had something valuable to sell and instead of selling it I gave it away. And what is this something? you ask.”
“I didn’t ask,” said the man sitting beside him. “Nobody asked. Nobody wants to—”
“A name. Simply a name, that’s all. Randy. Know whose name that is? A chicken’s.”
“Where the hell you coming from, man? You ain’t got no chickens. The hotel don’t allow pets.”
Mr. Cassandra continued, unruffled. “At a certain time on a certain day this man Cunningham was at a certain place calling for Randy. He told the police he was calling his cat. Cat, my ass. He was calling one of his chickens who’d flown the coop. What I should have done is gone to Cunningham and told him I was willing to forget the whole incident in return for a nice sum of money. And why didn’t I? you ask.”
“I didn’t ask. I don’t give a shit.”
“Because I’m an honest man, that’s why. Honesty is the family curse. I had an uncle who forgot to pay his income taxes for a few years and when the IRS caught up with him they asked him point-blank if he’d paid his taxes during that time and he said no. They sent him to the slammer for two years.”
“Man, he must of got up front of some mean dude of a judge.”
“He should have pleaded not guilty but the family curse was on him. A lie would have caught in his throat like a fishbone, would have clutched his stomach like an iron claw.”
“Then how come he cheat on his taxes?”
“He didn’t cheat. It was an honest mistake.”
Such honesty deserved to be commemorated. A round of drinks was paid for by Mr. Cassandra who suddenly remembered that that very day was the anniversary of his uncle’s release from the slammer.
The curiosity of the young bartender, ordinarily dulled by fatigue, was roused at the idea of a chicken called Randy who was worth a fortune.
“He had no feathers,” Mr. Cassandra explained.
“I got a friend who owned a real old canary that hardly had any feathers left. No feathers, couldn’t sing, couldn’t fly… If this guy Cunningham is so rich, how come he keeps chickens?”
“To keep the kind of chickens he keeps and stay clear of the police, you have to be rich. Real rich.”
“How’d he get that rich?”
“He had a mother,” Mr. Cassandra said.
As soon as she opened the door Michael recognized her as the overweight overdressed woman he’d noticed at Annamay’s funeral services. She had sat in the back row between Ben York and a handsome middle-aged man with bronze skin and silvery hair. The strangers were later identified to him as Mrs. Cunningham and her son, Peter.
She wore the same kind of costume she’d worn at the funeral services, layers of a gauzy material that drew attention to her weight instead of camouflaging it, just as the heavy makeup drew attention to her wrinkles instead of hiding them. She was, Michael guessed, about seventy. In the police file Cunningham was listed as fifty-one. His mother had not revealed her age.
Michael said, “Mrs. Cunningham?”
“Yes.” She peered up at him, blinking her eyes rapidly to clarify his image and her memory. “Do I know you?”
“We haven’t met formally. I’m Michael Dunlop.”
“Oh dear me. The minister?”
“Yes.”
“How odd.” She leaned heavily against one side of the doorframe as if she needed help in supporting the weight of heaven as well as her own. “Unless of course you’re collecting for something?”
“No. At least not money. Let’s consider this a social call.”
“I can’t imagine why a minister would pay a social call on me. Unless Peter put you up to it. He has quite a nasty sense of humor like his father.”
“I’m not acquainted with your son.”
“Oh.”
“May I come in?”
“I suppose. If you’re quite sure you’re not an impostor.”
“I’m quite sure.” Not entirely, he thought, and wondered if Mrs. Cunningham was especially perceptive or a good guesser.
Everything in the massive old house seemed to be made of wood, paneled walls, beamed ceiling, parquet floor. In the living room where she led him, the most imposing piece of furniture was a concert-sized grand piano made of rosewood which was no longer used for pianos, and bearing the name of a manufacturer who had gone out of business years ago. The lid was open and the keyboard exposed as if someone might have been interrupted while playing it. But the bench and keys were dusty and there was no music in sight.
She saw him looking at the piano and said with a sigh, “My son, Peter, is the musician of the family. Not a very good one, I’m afraid. He plays extra loudly to cover his mistakes but somehow one hears them anyway. The house is what Peter’s friends call live.”
“Because of all the wood.”
“Yes. Sounds travel to every nook and cranny. There’s no escaping Peter’s mistakes.” She let out a small snort of amusement but suppressed it so quickly Michael wasn’t positive he’d heard it. “When Peter played Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavichord my late husband used to call it the Ill-Tempered Clavichord… Will you sit down?”
“Thanks.”
“Now what’s the protocol? Do I offer you a drink or something like that?”
“It’s not necessary.”
“I intend to have a drop or two myself so perhaps you will join me.”
She produced a bottle of cheap scotch and a yellow plastic tumbler from behind a boxed set of Shakespeare’s comedies. The set still wore the publisher’s transparent wrapping but the bottle was more than half empty.
“There’s only one glass so we shall have to take turns. Peter keeps all the good booze and crystal locked up when he’s away.”
Half a dozen questions rose to the surface of Michael’s mind: How far away is he? Out of town? Out of state? When did he leave? When will he be back? Who is Randy? But he said only, “Taking turns will be fine.”
“I could ring for another glass but the maid is watching television while she irons and even if she heard the bell she’d be terribly annoyed and pretend she doesn’t speak English. According to Peter, I don’t know how to handle the Mexican servants. His method is to use nouns and act out the verbs. What method do you use?”
“I speak Spanish.” It beats acting out the verbs. “I had a parish in East L.A. for a while. It’s now part of a shopping mall.”
“I have no trouble communicating with our houseboy. He’s an Indian, the kind from India who meditates. His English is perfect. He’s on vacation right now.” She poured a liberal amount of scotch into the plastic tumbler and handed it to him. “Here. You first.”
The liquid had the smell and sting of carbolic acid and the first mouthful was hard to swallow. The second was only a little easier.
Her snort this time was unmistakable. “Not very good, is it? But then one doesn’t drink the stuff for taste. One drinks it for anxiety, insomnia, high blood pressure, fibrillation, despair. Do you have any of those?”
“Not regularly.”
“But sometimes?”
“Yes.”
“Which one? I mean, which one do you have the often-est?”