“I drove Sam back to New Paltz and then took the truck-which is my dad’s, technically-to the McDonald’s in Cairo and called a buddy from work to pick me up. I texted my dad that I didn’t want the truck anymore and that he should come get it.”
Ryan stops talking. I haven’t written down anything he said. For a moment, all three of us sit in silence.
“Why didn’t you go to the police?” I ask, finally.
“Because I’ve got a record. They’d think I did it. And I am not going down for them. But now…” He looks at Mellie. “You have to tell her.”
For a moment Mellie acts like she hasn’t heard him. She keeps her eyes on Eva. “Connie and Hank are planning something.”
“Something?” I say.
“Hank’s been all secretive lately. I thought he was fucking around but…” She pauses. “Connie has cancer. Bad cancer. He told us last month and he said the doctors told him he has, like, a couple of months to live. He wouldn’t even know if he hadn’t gone to take Nan to the doctor. Usually I do it but Eva was having a meltdown and he offered. I guess he rolled her into the exam room and the doctor took one look at him and was like, what the fuck? His skin was all yellow. I mean, I’d noticed he looked kind of sickly, but what do I know? Anyway. They did some tests and apparently it’s all up in him. Too late for chemo or whatever else. He’s saying he’ll be dead by the Fourth of July.”
“Which means he has nothing to lose,” says Ryan.
“Right. But Hank does. And so do me and Eva and the new baby. Connie can go out in a blaze of glory but I don’t want Hank involved.”
“A blaze of glory?” I say.
“Look,” she says, leveling her eyes at me, “you didn’t tell me you were a reporter, okay? Which has to be, like, against the law, right? This is Off. The. Record.”
“Jesus, Mellie! If Hank and dad kill a bunch of people you’re going to be in the paper! You’re going to be on CNN getting led into Guantanamo, okay! Stop being so fucking stupid.”
“Kill a bunch of people?” I say. But Mellie and Ryan don’t hear me.
“That’s why I called you! Not the fucking cops or the media. I’m still here, okay? I need your help. Hank is never going to choose me over your dad. He’s too attached. But he’ll listen to you. Your dad is out for blood on you being a fag and he’s got Hank convinced they have to make this stand for the race.”
“That’s so fucking stupid!” shouts Ryan.
The people in the booth on the other end of the diner look back at us. So does the waitress. Somehow, she seems to know not to come over.
“Well, it’s fucking happening,” says Mellie. “So you need to deal with it.”
“What, exactly, is it?” I ask.
“Hank won’t tell me.”
“Do you have any ideas?”
She shrugs.
“Because somebody threw a Molotov cocktail into Aviva’s house in New Paltz this afternoon.”
Ryan’s face goes white. “Was anyone…?” He can’t bring himself to say it.
“The guy who lived there is burned really bad.”
“Isaac?”
I nod. “He’ll make it though. No one else was home.”
Ryan coughs, sucking back the sobs I can practically see filling his chest. “Oh thank God,” he says.
“I don’t think that’s it,” says Mellie. “A Molotov cocktail isn’t, like… that’s not a big enough deal. Who’s gonna remember that?”
“It’s true,” says Ryan. “If Dad could pull off Oklahoma City in Roseville he would.”
I open my mouth but nothing comes out. They seem to be working up to something. The canvas duffel bag with Pessie’s wig inside is beside me. I look over and imagine the secret of her death unzipping the bag and wafting out, creating a vision in fog. A warning. I pull my phone from my coat pocket and with shaking, sweat-slick fingers, text Van: get in here
“Who are you texting?” asks Mellie.
“Nobody,” I say. “When is all this supposed to happen?”
“Hank said it was supposed to be April twentieth.”
“Unbelievable,” says Ryan. “It’s such a cliché. Dad’s gonna kill Jews on Hitler’s birthday.”
“Kill Jews…?”
“Let me finish,” says Mellie. “It was supposed to be April twentieth, but Connie moved it up.”
“To when?” I ask. My eyes are now on the front door. Please let them be close.
“Soon. I guess.”
“Which is why I called you,” says Ryan, leaning toward me. “You’ve got connections. We read your articles about that lady in Brooklyn.”
“I didn’t read your fucking articles,” mutters Mellie.
“Me and Sam did,” says Ryan. “You tell the cops what Mellie said. They’ll believe you.”
And that’s when I see Van’s flashing lights. He pulls in fast, his Roseville police car taking up four parking spots in front of the diner.
Mellie tries to glare at me, but the fight has gone out of her. “Bitch called the cops.”
Ryan looks stricken for a moment, then he nods. “Good,” he says. “Good. This stops now.”
“So much for off the record,” she says.
“Oh my God, Mellie, shut up. What was she gonna do? Not tell the cops that two completely insane people are plotting a terrorist attack!”
“They’re not terrorists! They’re patriots! They’re Christians who hate all the niggers and kikes leaching off white people.”
“Christians who hate…” Ryan shakes his head. “They’ve got you deep, Mellie. You realize that that’s insane, right? You realize all that shit you think is so cute, making your little swastika earrings, that the rest of the world knows you’re crazy? If Dad’s gonna die in a month he is a ticking time bomb. You’re fucking stupider than I thought if you don’t get that.”
“Call me what you want. I don’t talk to cops.”
But she doesn’t have to. When Van and Saul get to our table, Ryan tells them enough to warrant Van calling his friend at the State Police. When he does, he learns that, based on Isaac’s suspicion about who threw the Molotov cocktail, officers have been camped out at the Hall compound since midnight.
“Apparently the only person there right now is an old lady,” says Van after he gets off the phone. “But Ryan, if you’re willing to repeat what you told me, they can probably get a judge to sign off on a warrant to search the place.”
Mellie, who has been slumped low in the booth, expelling her nervous energy by knocking her tongue stud against her teeth, suddenly looks nervous.
“If you know something I highly suggest telling me now,” says Van. “Unless you want to have that baby in prison.”
“I don’t really know anything,” she says softly.
“You don’t really know anything?”
And then, before Mellie can stonewall him some more, my phone rings. Caller ID says: MOM.