“Nothing, nothing, nothing.” The vision of Brad had vanished in the throng.
“I wish you’d spoken today,” Sparacino whispered. “You were Brad’s best friend. I understand about poor Diana, but…”
Sparacino liked to refer to Brad’s widow as “poor Diana.” Luckily for her new husband, Diana was far from poor. She had inherited a load from her rich family, and Brad’s fortune had passed to her, also. Now it was Stagg’s.
Stagg thanked the chairman for his concern. “This is a rough day for her,” he said in a low voice she couldn’t hear. “All the memories rushing back—it’s hard to handle.”
When Brad chose Stagg to run, Sparacino had objected, saying, “Stagg’s fat, he’s bald, he’s ugly. The only reason to vote for him is he’s your gofer.” Since Brad’s death, Sparacino had changed his mind and come to value Stagg’s brains. As he should, having none himself.
At long, painful last, the ceremony ended. The dignitaries stood up to greet, gab and guffaw. Smiling is to politics what dribbling is to basketball. But Stagg wasn’t in the mood to play the game today. He took Diana’s arm and led her out.
He passed the U.S. Attorney, Javers, who was flanked by his young Dobermans in their Brooks Brothers suits. They regarded Stagg hungrily. “We’ll see you tomorrow morning at nine, Freeholder Stagg,” Javers said from somewhere above his bow tie. “Sharp.”
Stagg couldn’t meet the man’s eyes and instead looked to the side, toward the crowd. “Talk to my lawyer, Mr. Javers, not me.”
As they reached the crowded door, Diana said, in her nursery school cadences, “What did that mean-looking man in the bow tie want?”
“Some nonsense Justice Department fishing expedition about the widening of Salem Turnpike in Lindenwold. I pushed it through the board.” Stagg didn’t mention to her that the road project benefited a monster shopping mall that went in a year later. Or let on who owned the mall.
Diana walked like her old regal self. Perfect posture, proud stride. Too bad she didn’t talk like her old self. “The ceremony was stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid.”
“Whatever you say, Diana.” In fact, this was Diana’s only sensible utterance in a long time. “I know this was difficult for you.”
“It’s stupid because Brad is alive.”
“Alive?”
Her laugh was one he’d never heard before, almost like a crow’s cawing. “He was here today. I talked to him. Why have a memorial ceremony when he’s alive?”
Stagg grimaced. “You’re mistaken, Diana. I myself saw someone in the crowd who looked a lot like Brad. But Brad is dead. We’re all on edge today.”
As they reached Stagg’s Volvo, parked in his designated spot, his cell phone rang. The display read Homey the Clown. He groaned and flipped it open. “Freeholder Stagg,” he said, full of entitlement and self-assurance.
“Brad’s come back for me,” Diana said, getting into the car.
A Barry White–deep voice came on the line. “Hello, neighbor.” The gangster got a kick out of his recent move to a Haddonfield mansion from his old Camden row house. “Are we good for tomorrow? Or are we bad?”
The confidence in Stagg’s voice faltered. “The U.S. Attorney has nothing to link you and me and Salem Turnpike. This is a crock. Javers can’t—”
“Enough, neighbor,” Mister Man said. “I be checking, is all.”
“While you’re at it, check where my money is. My banker in Luxembourg says not one red cent has arrived this month from you.”
Like Brad, Mister Man was ruffled by nothing and no one. “Always with you and the money. Brad Acton never mentioned the money. He had class up the ass. Neighbor, you not just a freeholder. You a freeloader.”
“Well said. Brad the classy guy. What an original viewpoint. Now if that will be all, I need to take my wife…”
“I got me another reason to call. We got us a problem.”
“Where’s Brad?” Diana called from the passenger seat.
Stagg sagged. “Oh, no. Now what?”
“That crazy-mother white-trash boy of yours, the one with the no-show job on the county road crew.” The drug lord sounded angry. “That drunken hunk of human garbage named Joe Dogan. He be in one of my bars in H Town today, Skanky’s, pointing his piece at my peeps like he the Frito Bandito. Customers and bartender went running. Then he aimed the gun at two little kids. Can you believe that?”
“Oh, Lord. Not Dogan.” Stagg shook his head. “Fine. I’ll give him hell. Again.”
“I know Dogan took care of our problem with Brad Acton, neighbor. But I am sick of his presence on this earth. I’m not gonna give him hell, I’m gonna send him to hell. I mean, little kids?”
“Do what you want with him. I’m tired of Dogan, too.”
When Stagg settled his copious behind into the driver’s seat, he saw that Diana was smiling and humming.
“I’m glad you’re back in a good mood, Diana.”
“He said he’d come to the house tonight.” Diana’s strange grin widened. “He looks wonderful. Brad is back. I am very, very happy.”
The moon was a tight, white fist overhead. By nightfall, Joe Dogan was getting very frustrated, not to mention very drunk. He sat on a bench in a deserted park by the Cooper River. A full six-pack of beer was beside him, sweating, still cold. The other six-pack was almost gone. Only one can remained in its plastic yoke.
Cursing, he fished his phone out of his pocket, and for the umpteenth time, stabbed redial. He got Stagg’s cell-phone voice mail, as usual. “Call me back, you fat sack of crap,” Dogan snarled. He’d left the identical message the time before, and the time before that.
Stagg had told Dogan never to contact him unless there was an emergency, like the cops asking about Brad Acton’s death, or if Dogan got into a jam that would interest the law. And Dogan was never to go to where Stagg lived. A year ago, that had been in a garden apartment in Cherry Hill. Now, Dogan knew from the scuttlebutt, Stagg lived in Acton’s palatial house and was married to the widow. What a babe like Diana Acton saw in a piglet like Robert Stagg was beyond Dogan.
“Must have a wart on the end of it,” Dogan muttered as he popped open the last brewski in his first six-pack.
Wait. In his wallet. He had a scrap of paper with Brad Acton’s home phone number. It was unlisted. Stagg had given him the number a year ago, so he could call and be sure Acton was home.
Dinner was a horror show. The latest cook refused to set a place for Brad. When Diana screamed at her—for not whipping up Brad’s favorite dessert, peach cobbler—the woman stormed out.
Stagg tried to settle Diana down in front of the TV in the cinema-large entertainment center. A Discovery Channel show on hunting was playing; a deer fled through the woods with baying hounds in pursuit. But she wouldn’t stop chattering about Brad’s miraculous return to life.
Stagg tried to watch the show. But her comments grew more and more irritating. “Brad was the loveliest man” and “you have no money, really.”
“I make plenty of money.”
“How? All you ever did was puppy-dog behind Brad.” She gave a brittle laugh. “Oh, I know. You are taking bribes. From that gangster who moved to Haddonfield. That’s why the mean man in the bow tie wants to put you in prison.”
Slumping even deeper into the huge, overstuffed chair, Stagg said, “Diana, maybe you should go to bed. Have you taken your meds?”
This behavior was new. She’d been mostly lethargic in recent months. The doctor said to be careful if she became delusional. The risk of suicide was small, but couldn’t be shrugged off. Stagg kept the kitchen knives locked up. Ditto the German Luger, which Brad’s father had brought back from World War II.
“Since Brad is back, we should get our marriage annulled. I can’t be married to you. You aren’t Brad. I only married you because I needed someone to take care of me. But you are nothing.”
“How thoughtful of you to say. I’m going outside.”