Actually, it did make sense. Dianne was suddenly concerned. Two boys see the same event. One goes into shock. It’s reasonable to believe the other would be affected. She hadn’t thought of this. She leaned down next to him. “Mark, are you all right?”
He knew he had her. “I think so,” he said with a frown, as if a migraine were upon him.
“What have you remembered?” she asked cautiously.
He took a deep breath. “Well, I remember—”
Greenway cleared his throat and appeared from nowhere. Mark whirled around. “I need to be going,” Greenway said, almost as an apology. “I’ll check back in a couple of hours.”
Dianne nodded but said nothing.
Mark decided to get it over with. “Look, Doctor, I was just telling Mom that I’m remembering things now for the first time.”
“About the suicide?”
“Yes sir. All day long I’ve been seeing flashes and recalling details. I think some of it might be important.”
Greenway looked at Dianne. “Let’s go back to the room and talk,” he said.
They walked to the room, closed the door behind them, and listened as Mark tried to fill in the gaps. It was a relief to unload this baggage, though he did most of the talking in the direction of the floor. It was an act, this painful pulling of scenes from a shocked and badly scarred mind, and he carried it off with finesse. He paused quite often, long pauses in which he searched for words to describe what was already firmly etched in his memory. He glanced at Greenway occasionally, and the doctor’s expression never changed. He glanced at his mother from time to time, and she didn’t appear to be disappointed. She maintained a look of motherly concern.
But when he got to the part about Clifford grabbing him, he could see them fidget. He kept his troubled eyes on the floor. Dianne sighed when he talked about the gun. Greenway shook his head when he told of the gunshot through the window. At times, he thought they were about to yell at him for lying last night, but he plowed ahead, obviously disturbed and deep in thought.
He carefully replayed every single event that Ricky could have seen and heard. The only details he kept to himself were Clifford’s confessions. He vividly recalled the crazy stuff: la-la land and floating off to see the wizard.
When he finished, Dianne was sitting on the foldaway bed rubbing her head, talking about Valium. Greenway sat in a chair, hanging on every word. “Is this all of it, Mark?”
“I don’t know. It’s all I can remember right now,” he mumbled, as if he had a toothache.
“You were actually in the car?” Dianne said without opening her eyes.
He pointed to his slightly swollen left eye. “You see this. This is where he slapped me when I tried to get out of the car. I was dizzy for a long time. Maybe I was unconscious, I don’t know.”
“You told me you were in a fight at school.”
“I don’t remember telling you that, Mom, and if I did, well, maybe I was in shock or something.” Dammit. Trapped by another lie.
Greenway stroked his beard. “Ricky saw you get grabbed, thrown in the car, the gunshot. Wow.”
“Yeah. It’s coming back to me, real clear. I’m sorry I didn’t remember it sooner, but my mind just went blank. Sort of like Ricky here.”
Another long pause.
“Frankly, Mark, I find it hard to believe you couldn’t remember some of this last night,” Greenway said.
“Gimme a break, would you? Look at Ricky here. He saw what happened to me, and it drove him to the ozone. Did we talk last night?”
“Come on, Mark,” Dianne said.
“Of course we talked,” Greenway said with at least four new wrinkles across his forehead.
“Yeah, I guess we did. Don’t remember much of it though.”
Greenway frowned at Dianne and their eyes locked. Mark walked into the bathroom and drank water out of a paper cup.
“It’s okay,” Dianne said. “Have you told the police this?”
“No. I just remembered it. Remember?”
Dianne nodded slowly and managed a very slight grin at Mark. Her eyes were narrow, and his suddenly found the floor. She believed all of his story about the suicide, but this sudden surge of clear memory did not fool her. She would deal with him later.
Greenway had his doubts too, but he was more concerned with treating his patient than reprimanding Mark. He gently stroked his beard and studied the wall. There was a long pause.
“I’m hungry,” Mark finally said.
Reggie arrived an hour late with apologies. Greenway had left for the day. Mark stumbled through the introductions. She smiled warmly at Dianne as they shook hands, then sat beside her on the bed. She asked her a dozen questions about Ricky. She was an immediate friend of the family, anxious and properly concerned about everything. What about her job? School? Money? Clothes?
Dianne was tired and vulnerable, and it was nice to talk to a woman. She opened up, and they went on for a while about Greenway saying this and that, about everything unrelated to Mark and his story and the FBI, the only reason for Reggie’s being there.
Reggie had a sack of deli sandwiches and chips, and Mark spread them on a crowded table by Ricky’s bed. He left the room to get drinks. They hardly noticed.
He bought two Dr Peppers in the waiting area and returned to the room without being stopped by cops, reporters, or Mafia gunmen. The women were deep into a conversation about McThune and Trumann trying to interrogate Mark. Reggie was telling the story in such a manner that Dianne had no choice but to mistrust the FBI. They were both shocked. Dianne was alive and animated for the first time in many hours.
Jack Nance and Associates was a quiet firm that advertised itself as security specialists, but was in fact nothing more than a couple of private investigators. Its ad in the Yellow Pages was one of the smallest in town. It did not want the run-of-the-mill divorce cases in which one spouse was sleeping around and the other wanted photos. It did not own a polygraph. It did not snatch children. It did not track down thieving employees.
Jack Nance himself was an ex-con with an impressive record who’d managed to avoid trouble for ten years. His associate was Cal Sisson, also a convicted felon who’d run a terrific scam with a bogus roofing company. Together they scratched out a nice living doing dirty work for rich people. They had once broken both hands of the teenaged boyfriend of a rich client’s daughter after the kid slapped her. They had once deprogrammed a couple of Moonies, the children of another rich client. They were not afraid of violence. More than once, they had beaten a business rival who’d taken money from a client. They had once burned the downtown love nest of a client’s wife and her lover.
There was a market for their brand of investigative work, and they were known in small circles as two very nasty and efficient men who would take your cash, do your dirty work, and leave no trail. They achieved amazing results. Every client came by referral.
Jack Nance was in his cluttered office after dark when someone knocked on the door. The secretary had left for the day. Cal Sisson was stalking a crack dealer who’d hooked the son of a client. Nance was around forty, not a big man, but compact and extremely agile. He walked through the secretary’s office and opened the front door. The face was a strange one.
“Looking for Jack Nance,” the man said.
“That’s me.”
The man stretched out his hand, and they shook. “My name’s Paul Gronke. Can I come in?”
Nance opened the door wider and motioned for Gronke to enter. They stood in front of the secretary’s desk. Gronke looked around the cramped and messy room.
“It’s late,” Nance said. “What do you want?”
“I need some fast work.”
“Who referred you?”
“I’ve heard of you. Word gets around.”