"For all you know, that's what I do for a living," Marrity said.
The old man frowned in evident puzzlement. "I suppose that's true. I've got some errands to run, but I'd like to take the two of you to lunch." He dropped the burnt match into the ashtray. "On me!" he added.
"We've got a lunch date already," Marrity said.
His father nodded, as if he'd expected the answer. "Uh— tomorrow?"
"I'll be working," said Marrity. Reluctantly he added, "Maybe dinner tomorrow? "
"Dinner's good. Seven?"
"'Kay. Have you got a phone number?"
"Not, not right at the moment. You're listed — I'll call you at six, to make sure we're still on. Let's make it Italian — so don't have Italian today, okay?"
"Okay."
"Promise?" The old man seemed anxious.
"Yes, I promise." Marrity stood up. "Well, it's been — distressing." He didn't hold out his hand.
"Bound to be, just at first," the old man said, pushing back his chair. "Probably we'll get more friendly. I truly hope so. Daphne, a — pleasure to meet you. I wish you well."
"Thanks," said Daphne, staring down at the table.
"No Italian today, remember," said Marrity's father as he got laboriously to his feet. "Tomorrow night we'll do it all — lasagna, pizza — antipasto—"
As Marrity and his father walked out the kitchen door, Marrity stood between the old man and the wrecked VCR, and when his father had hobbled away down the driveway, he bent down to pick it up.
"Daph," he called into the kitchen, "would you get the gas can for the lawn mower? I'm going to just plain incinerate this thing."
And, he thought, I believe I'll keep those letters of Grammar's with me, in my briefcase.
"The old guy's walking out," said Golze as he drove by the Marrity house for the fourth time, in a white Toyota now; "limping, to be more precise. The guy who was fixing his car on the other side of the street is gone."
"Our man didn't answer his phone," said Rascasse's voice from the radio clipped to the dashboard. "He let the machine take it. Charlotte, did you get anything? You never give me your money," he added.
Golze reached out and clicked the radio's channel selector to the next frequency in their agreed-on sequence — they were using titles from the Beatles' Abbey Road album as cues.
"That house is set awful far back from the road," Charlotte said. "I was able to see through a child, a bit — must have been the little girl. Two men at a kitchen table, one clearly her father: thirty-five, dark haired, six foot, thin; the other was this old guy who just got into the — oh! darling." After Golze had switched channels again, she went on, "just got into the green Rambler. They're clearly related, the two men, strong resemblance. Old guy was smoking a cigarette, and drinking whiskey or brandy, brown stuff. That's all."
Golze made a slow right turn, eyeing his mirrors. The yards around here all seemed to be scattered with wrecked trucks or live goats.
"No help with the floor plan?" asked Rascasse's voice from the radio.
"Not much. The kitchen is about ten by twenty, narrow ends at north and south; doorway at the north end of the east wall, a step up to a landing, I don't know what's past it."
"Okay. You didn't see — mean Mr. Mustard." Again Golze reached out and clicked the channel selector, "—see a videocassette, or some round, flat film cans—"
"No, but aside from the kitchen, all I saw was the bottom half of the driveway." So, thought Charlotte, the dead old woman's magical device was a movie?
She suppressed a nervous smile — she'd been imagining something more like a candelabra made from a mummified hand, at least.
"Charlotte," said the voice from the speaker, "I may want you to approach the girl's father, Maxwell's silver hammer." Click, "—assuming we get a chance to get into his house and work up a profile. Preliminary, just establish a relationship, no questions yet. Come together." Click. "Very accidental meeting, you know, the sort of thing that even in retrospect he won't think could have been planned. Be charming. Right?"
"Right," she said.
Since first hearing of him last night, the Vespers had found out that Francis Thomas Marrity was a widower with one twelve-year-old daughter, Daphne; his wife, Lucy, had died in '85 of pancreatic cancer, when the child was ten. Marrity was a college literature professor, with a thirty-thousand-dollar mortgage, life insurance through the Automobile Club, and no criminal record at all.
She wasn't going to mention it to Rascasse or Golze, but while she'd briefly been looking through the little girl's eyes, she had momentarily got a flicker image of the little girl herself, though there hadn't been a mirror nearby — it was as if the girl had for an instant been sharing the perspective of one of the men on the other side of the table. She was a pretty little thing, apparently, with big eyes and brown bangs.
Charlotte had decided way back in her missile-silo days that there was no gain in mentioning details that might complicate settled arrangements. Do what's best for little Charlotte, she thought.
Through Golze's eyes now Charlotte saw a woman pause from hanging T-shirts and jeans in a fenced-in yard to glance at the white Toyota, and for a moment Charlotte shifted her viewpoint to the woman; and she eyed her own silhouette critically as the car drove past. Still cheerleader pretty, as always, she thought. And ideally I won't need it much longer.
"Opus is always looking for his mother," said Daphne, sitting at the kitchen table. She was belatedly reading the comics, and clearly had got to the Bloom County strip. "I suppose she's a penguin too."
"I suppose," agreed Marrity, standing at the sink.
Daphne pushed the newspaper away. "It must be weird," she said, "to suddenly have a real father, sitting in your kitchen smoking a cigarette."
"It is," said Marrity. He was washing his hands with dishwashing detergent. "He's got a good explanation, hasn't he?" He dried his hands on a paper towel and smelled them — the gasoline reek was hardly detectable. My life stinks of gasoline lately, he thought.
"Did he mean he's gay?" asked Daphne.
"Um, yes."
"He's not gay," she said.
Marrity walked back to the table and sat down. "How do you know?" he asked her.
"Paul and Webster, at your college, they're gay. And some of Uncle Bennett's friends. They're — it's not like they're always joking, or always sad, but — they're not like your father."
"Well, that's a small sample, and this father guy wasn't anything like relaxed."
She shrugged, clearly not conceding the point. "We can't go to Alfredo's?"
"Sure we can."
"You promised not to."
"Actually I'd—" Marrity paused, then laughed uncertainly. "I think I'd like a chance to break a promise to him. He deserves a lot of broken promises." He shrugged. "We can tell him we had Mexican."
"Okay. And can we fix up my room this morning? Can I paint the walls?"
"Sure, if you don't mind that Swiss Coffee color we used in the hall. In fact, I should paint over the smoke marks on the hall ceiling." Marrity picked up the glass his father had used and swirled the diminished ice cubes in it. "What do you think of him? Short acquaintance, I admit."
"He wants something. From us."
"That video?"
"I think so! But even with it gone, something." She pushed her cold bowl of oatmeal away. "What do you think of him?"
"I'm embarrassed by him. I feel sorry for him. I think he's an alcoholic. And just telling me why he abandoned Moira and me and our mother doesn't change the math." He shook his head. "I don't think he'll… ever be more than a stranger to me."