I was lifted up, not by God’s right hand, but by MacClough’s.
“Asshole!” He shook me. “You’re not paying attention.”
“I am now.”
We hugged. He pushed me back to arm’s length and stared through me. I could tell he didn’t like the view.
“What’s the matter with you?”
“Oh nothing, John.” I pulled out of his grasp. “My Dad just died. My nephew’s missing. I crapped out in Hollywood. I’ve managed to get pepper-sprayed, arrested, and get somebody killed. And last night, because I was too busy beating the shit out of myself to notice what I might be doing to anyone else, I ruined the most exciting relationship I’ve probably ever had. So no, John, nothing’s wrong.”
He lifted his pants leg and holstered his.38. “Stop feeling sorry for yourself or just go home. You’re not gonna do anybody any good if you’re gonna live inside your head. I can’t watch your back and mine at the same time.”
“Why not, you got eye troubles?” I wondered.
“My eyes are fine. It’s just that there seems to be a lot of people interested in your flat Jewish ass. I don’t know if I can keep track. Maybe we should just give out numbers like the deli counter at Waldbaums.”
“I was followed?”
“You were,” he confirmed. “The first guy looked like a surfer in a ski suit. You know the type, sunbleached blond, funky sunglasses, muscles from here to there. Didn’t you spot him?”
“Half the population of Riversborough looks like that. The other half looks like the smartest kid in your third grade class, only bigger and with bad skin.”
“The other guy was a Fed. I worked on task forces with a hundred guys just like him. From the way he dressed, he might as well have had FBI, ATF, or DEA printed on the back of his suit. The problem with those guys is, even though they’re trained not to advertise who they are, they can’t stand for the whole world not to know. One time I was on a surveillance and it was really late and we’d been in the car for hours. We’d told every joke, every bar story, every sex story we could think of. Finally, I turned to one of these FBI guys and ask him why he became a Fed. You know what he said to me?” MacClough started laughing.
“No.”
“He says becoming a Special Agent is as close to being a superhero as he could get. What a fuckin’ idiot, huh?”
“Good thing he liked Superman cartoons better than the Roadrunner.”
We both laughed at that. Then it got very quiet.
“I love you, man.” He hugged me again, but very tight, almost desperately. “I just want you to know that.”
“I know that, John. I know.”
“Good.” He let me go. “Let’s take a look inside the mini-bar. We got a lot to talk about before our trip tomorrow.”
“Where’re we going?”
“To jail.”
“Been there. Done that.”
“Not this jail,” he said. “And don’t worry, we’re not staying. We’re just visiting.”
“One of your relatives?” I teased.
“No, shithead, Valencia Jones.”
“How did-”
“Don’t ask,” MacClough ordered. “Don’t ask.”
And I didn’t. John was halfway to the minibar when someone knocked on the door. It was Kira. My heart was in my throat. MacClough whispered for me to get rid of her. I got rid of him instead, sort of. He fit nicely into the closet.
When she stepped in, tears were running down her cheeks. I opened my mouth. Nothing came out. There are certain hurts for which an apology is an insult. I dropped to my knees and pressed the side of my face to her belly. She ran her fingers through what was left of my gray hair. She kissed the top of my head before dropping down to her knees. Once we kissed, we could not stop. And not for a sec ond did I think of John Francis MacClough hiding there in my closet.
The Baby Jesus at Christmastime
She wouldn’t let me explain about the night before. Kira understood about demons. Most of the time, she said, we speak for them. Sometimes they speak for us. And when she swore she didn’t hate me, I nearly believed her.
She got curious about my leaving town for the day, but I deflected her questions. If MacClough hadn’t been in the closet, I might have told Kira about our day trip to meet with Valencia Jones. But MacClough could be a security freak. As he didn’t want me to tell my own brother details of what we were doing, I didn’t figure he’d be happy with me telling Kira. I held her for a moment and sent her on her way.
Closing one door, I opened another.
“I admire you, John. It takes balls to come out of the closet so late in life.”
“Start running!” He took out his.38. “I’ll give you a five minute head start. It’ll take me that long to get the feeling back in my legs.”
“Stop complaining. I’m going to take a shower.”
“The only thing I’m complaining about is that I couldn’t watch. Next time,” he winked, “I’m hiding behind the curtains. She sounds unbelievable, but you disappointed me, Klein. You didn’t beg once or squeal like a pig.”
“Fuck you.”
“So,” he wondered, putting away his pistol, “what was that all about?”
I handed MacClough the newspaper article about Steven Markum’s death. I stood by for a second as he read through it.
“Mr. Vodka and I took it out on her. We didn’t quite tear her heart out, but it wasn’t for lack of effort.” I stepped into the bathroom.
“Jews can’t drink,” he shouted through the door. “Don’t you know that yet?”
“Try explaining that to my Uncle Saul.”
“Coffee and sponge cake, that’s how your people punish themselves. Besides, you didn’t get this kid killed.”
I turned the water on full blast to drown out MacClough’s voice. I wasn’t ready to hear his “It wasn’t your fault” lecture. Not yet.
I rolled over and looked at the clock. I cursed MacClough’s birth and answered the phone. It was one of those automated voices reminding me it was time to get up. I told the voice to stick something up its mechanical ass, but it insisted upon repeating itself.
“Room 8, in accordance with your request, this is your 4:45 AM wake-up call. It has been our pleasure to serve you. Press the pound sign if you wish this call to be repeated in ten minutes. Room 8, in accordance…”
It might have been my request, but it was MacClough’s idea. My only consolation was that John himself was already up, out, and on the road. I emptied my bladder, brushed my teeth, and struggled to get dressed. I threw on MacClough’s ancient peacoat and a ski cap and left the Old Watermill via a side exit. I found his rented car parked at the curb. There was a road map on the front passenger seat. MacClough had marked in red a rest stop along the interstate. I checked my watch. I had an hour and a half to get there.
I was on my second cup of coffee when he walked up to my table.
“You look better in that coat than I do,” I said. “Wanna trade?”
I had asked him that question in one form or another at least once a winter for the last ten years. He always said no. He had kept his peacoat for over three decades, since his dis charge from the Navy. And like my motorcycle jacket, his peacoat represented something to him that wasn’t easily explained. It was more than nostalgia or aesthetics. It was as if part of his being was stored in the coat itself. I don’t know, it was sort of like how a kid feels about a baby blanket.
“Keep it,” he answered. “Come on, we gotta go.”
I nearly spit coffee through my nose.
The trial was being held in Mohawkskill, NewYork, a funky little town just across Lake Champlain from Burlington, Vermont. Mohawkskill, NewYork resembled the part of the state I grew up in about as much as Bobo Dioulasso resembled Beijing. One thing I noticed right away, there weren’t many Mohawks in Mohawkskill. There weren’t many Blacks or Asians or Latinos either. And for some odd reason, I got the feeling that there wasn’t much of a push to place a menorah on the village green next to the baby Jesus at Christmastime. Go ahead, call me a cynic, but I was having some difficulty believing that a young African American woman, the daughter of a murdered drug kingpin, apprehended with a large quantity of hallucinogenic chemicals in her BMW, was going to find a jury of peers, let alone a sympathetic ear, in Mohawkskill.