“Yes.”
“Crazy! Hard to believe he’d leave it behind! That was his trademark!”
“May I show you a picture? You’ll have seen it before—it’s hanging in the Bowlaroo.” She calls it up on her iPad. Clippard bends over it.
“Winter Championship, right,” he says. “Those were the days! Haven’t won it since, but last year we came close.”
“Can you identify the men in the picture? And do you by any chance have their addresses? And phone numbers?”
“Memory challenge!” Clippard cries. “Let’s see if I’m up to it!”
“May I record on my phone?”
“Knock yourself out! This is me, of course, and this is Roddy Harris, also known as Small Ball and Mr. Meat. He and his wife live on Victorian Row. Ridge Road, you know. Roddy was Life Sciences, and his wife, don’t recall her name, was in the English Department.” He moves his finger to the next man. “Ben Richardson is dead, heart attack two years ago.”
“Was he married? Wife still in town?”
He gives her an odd look. “Ben was divorced when he started rolling with us. Long divorced. Ms. Gibney, do you think one of our guys had anything to do with Cary’s disappearance?”
“No, no, nothing like that,” Holly assures him. “I’m just hoping one of them might be able to tell me where Cary went.”
“Got it, got it! Moving right along! This baldy with the big shoulders is Avram Welch. He’s in one of those Lakeside condos. Wife died some years back, if you’re wondering. Still bowls.” He moves to another baldy. “Jim Hicks. We called him Hot Licks! Ha! He and his wife moved to Racine. How’m I doing?”
“Terrific!” Holly exclaims. It seems to be catching.
Midge wanders in. “Having fun, kids?”
“You betchum bobcats!” Clippard cries, either not catching the faint note of sarcasm in his wife’s voice or choosing to ignore it. She pours herself a glass of iced tea, then stands on tiptoe to get a bottle of brown liquor from a cabinet where other bottles stand shoulder to shoulder. She pours a dollop into her glass, then holds the bottle out to them, one eyebrow raised.
“Why not?” Clippard nearly shouts. “God hates a coward!”
She pours a shot into his glass. It goes swirling down.
“What about you, Ms. Gibley? A little Wild Turkey will get that iced tea right up on its feet.”
“No thank you,” Holly says. “I’m driving.”
“Very law-abiding of you,” Midge says. “Ta-ta, kids.”
Out she goes. Clippard gives her a look that might or might not be mild distaste, then returns his attention to Holly. “Do you bowl yourself, Ms. Gibney?” He gives her name a slight emphasis, as if to correct his wife in absentia.
“I don’t,” Holly admits.
“Well, league teams are usually just four players, and that’s how we play it in the tourney finals, but during the regular season we sometimes bowled with five or even six guys, assuming the other team rolled with the same number. Because in the Over Sixty-Fives, someone is almost always on the DL. Sometimes two or three. By DL I mean—”
“The Disabled List,” Holly says, and doesn’t bother telling him it’s now called the Injured List. She’s all at once wanting to get out of here. There’s something almost frantic about Hugh Clippard. She doesn’t think he’s coked up, but it’s like that. The sixpack… the tight little buns in the red swimsuit… the tan… and the encroaching wrinkles…
“Who’s this one?”
“Ernie Coggins. Lives in Upriver with his wife. He still bowls with us on Monday nights, if her caregiver can come in. Advanced degenerative disc disease, poor woman. Wheelchair-bound. But Ernie’s in great shape. Takes care of himself.”
Now Holly understands what’s bothering her, because it’s bothering him. Most of the men in the photo are falling apart, and if eighty is their median age, why would they not be? The equipment wears out, which seems to be something Hugh Clippard doesn’t want to admit. He is, as they say, sitting in the denial aisle.
“Desmond Clark isn’t in the picture—guess he wasn’t there when it was taken. Des and his wife are dead, too. They were in a light plane crash down in Florida. Boca Raton. Des was piloting. Damn fool tried to land in heavy fog. Missed the runway.” Nothing exclamatory about this; Clippard speaks in what’s almost a monotone. He takes a big slug of his spiked iced tea and says, “I’m thinking of quitting.”
For a moment she believes he’s talking about booze, then decides that’s not it. “Quitting the Golden Oldies?”
“Yes. I used to like that name, but these days it kind of grates on me. The only ones in this picture I still roll with are Avram and Ernie Cog. Small Ball comes, but just to watch. It’s not like it used to be.”
“Nothing is,” Holly says gently.
“No? No. But it should be. And could be, if people would only take care of themselves.” He’s staring at the picture. Holly is looking at him and realizes that even the sixpack is starting to show wrinkles.
“Who is this last one?”
“That’s Vic Anderson. Slick Vic, we used to call him. He had a stroke. He’s in some care home upstate.”
“Not Rolling Hills, by any chance?”
“Yes, that’s the name.”
The fact that one of the old bowlers is in the same care home as Uncle Henry feels like a coincidence. Holly finds that a relief, because seeing a picture of Barbara Robinson in the Strike Em Out foyer felt more like… well… fate.
“His wife moved up there so she could visit him more often. Sure you don’t want a little pick-me-up, Ms. Gibney? I won’t tell if you won’t.”
“I’m fine. Really.” Holly stops recording. “Thank you so much, Mr. Clippard.”
He’s still looking at her iPad. He seems almost hypnotized. “I really didn’t realize how few of us are left.”
She swipes away the picture and he looks up, as if not entirely sure where he is.
“Thank you for your time.”
“Very welcome. If you locate Cary, ask him to drop by sometime, will you? At least give him my email address. I’ll write it down for you.”
“And the numbers of the ones that are still around?”
“You bet.”
He tears a sheet from a pad that’s headed JUST A NOTE FROM MIDGE’S KITCHEN, grabs a pen from a cup full of them, and jots, consulting the contacts on his phone as he does. Holly notes that the numbers and the e-address show the slightest tremble of the hand writing them. She folds the sheet and puts it in her pocket. She thinks again, time the avenger. Holly doesn’t mind old people; it’s something about the way Clippard is handling his old age that makes her uneasy.
She basically can’t wait to get the frack out.
There’s only one (and oh-so-tony) shopping center in Sugar Heights. Holly parks there, lights a cigarette, and smokes with the door open, elbows on her thighs and feet on the pavement. Her car is starting to stink of cigarettes, and not even the can of air freshener she keeps in the center console completely kills the odor. What a nasty habit it is, and yet how necessary.
Just for now, she thinks, and then thinks again of Saint Augustine praying that God should make him chaste… but not yet.
Holly checks her phone to see if Barbara has answered her message with the attached photo of Cary Dressler and the Golden Oldies. She hasn’t. Holly looks at her watch and sees it’s only quarter past two. There’s plenty of day left in the day, and she has no intention of wasting it, so what next?