There was a band shell, and Louise and I walked around it; I slipped my hand in hers. If her father saw that, it might irritate him — the man he hired getting fresh with his daughter and so on. But she needed the support, and I gave it to her. Petersen was nothing to me except a thousand bucks, and a guy who used to beat his little girl.
We were a little early. I bought some popcorn from an old man at a stand; we shared a bag, she and I, sitting on benches before the band shell, an audience of two, as if waiting for some show to start. You could hear the kids splashing, yelling, in the pool, though we were well away from it. Over at the left, under a tree, a young mother sat on the grass reading a romance magazine and keeping one eye on her little boy who was tossing a stick for his little terrier to retrieve.
Louise said, “I hope I can make things right with my daddy, I’d like that. But I can tell you right now I want to go back to the city with you. I hope to make peace with my daddy — but I want you, Jim.”
I smiled at her. “I’m not Jim, remember.”
She smiled back. “You’re no gentleman, either.”
It was the closest I ever heard her come to making a joke.
Then she said, “You’ll always be Jim to me.”
We sat on the bench, not holding hands now, but sitting close enough to touch, just barely, enjoying the sounds of the kids splashing and families picnicking and a dog barking and I was just checking my watch when a voice from behind us said, “Louise! Louise.”
I glanced back and Petersen was standing there, in the grassy aisle, in the midst of all those empty benches; his eyes were sunken in his weathered face, red, from crying, and crazed, from... craziness?
“Jesus,” I said.
He was standing there in those same Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes he’d worn to my office, dark brown suit, light brown bow tie, shiny brown shoes, hands behind his back, leaning forward like a man about to fall on his face; the benches were on a gentle slope down to the band shell, which added to the effect. He had a whisper of a smile on his face. It made Karpis’ smile seem like the Mona Lisa.
And Louise was screaming.
Just like that night she woke up and saw me in bed next to her and screamed. Exactly like that.
I tried to touch her shoulder, to calm her, but she slid off the bench, cutting her scream short, and stepped out in the aisle and faced him. They were maybe ten feet apart, and she pointed up at him, as if pointing at an animal in a cage, and said, “What are you doing here? You stay away from me...”
“You shouldn’t have run off, Louise.” His voice as dry and cracked as parched earth.
I got up and stood in the aisle next to her. “Mr. Petersen, you promised me...”
She looked at me with her eyes so wide I could see the red lining them. “What did you call him?”
“Mr. Petersen. Louise, your father’s obviously upset, so maybe we should just—”
“My father! This isn’t my father!”
Petersen’s smile was a wound in his face that wouldn’t heal. “I love you, Louise. I still love you.”
“He’s my husband! That’s Seth!”
He said, “But you shouldn’t have been bad.”
“He lied to you! He knew I’d never come back if I knew it was him who hired you!”
“I’m getting you out of here,” I said, and took her by the hand, as Seth said, “I’ll always love you, Louise,” and a big black pistol came out from behind his back and blew a hole through her.
She swung in my arm like a rag doll, flung back by the impact. It pulled me down with her, my ears ringing from the gunshot; hit my head on the edge of a bench.
I wasn’t out long but when I looked up Seth hovered over me, and her; I didn’t have my gun, but I’m not sure I’d have had the presence of mind to use it if I had.
No matter. I looked up and Seth receded above me, his legs miles long, his head a tiny thing he was pointing the gun at, an old Army .45 revolver it must’ve been, and the muzzle flashed orange and my ears rang and his tiny head came apart in a red burst; then he fell like a tree, away from us, leaving a scarlet mist in the air where he’d stood.
I heard screaming. Not Louise’s. She had a blossom of red below the white collar of her new yellow dress, and lay silent, staring. It was the mother under the nearby tree doing the screaming, on her feet now, holding her little boy to her, shielding her little boy from the sight, but not able to keep her own eyes off it. The terrier was yapping.
I was just sitting there, spattered with their blood, the dead girl’s hand in mine.
Just sitting right there beside her for a long time, looking at her. Her eyes staring up at the sky. Her eyes. As big and brown as ever; so wide-set you almost had to look at them one at a time. But they weren’t beautiful anymore. I didn’t want to dive in there anymore. She was no longer in them.
So I closed them for her.
3
Where the Bodies Are Buried
September 9, 1934
42
When I got to her suite, she was standing in the doorway, leaning against the jamb in white lounging pajamas, a cigarette in one too-casual hand. Her light brown hair was marcelled, her mouth startlingly red, her eyes startlingly blue under those long, long lashes.
“Hi, stranger,” Sally said.
“Hello, Helen,” I said sheepishly.
“I was beginning to think you’d never call.”
“I wasn’t sure you’d want me to.”
She unstruck her pose and gestured with a red-nailed hand. “Come in and set a spell.”
“Thanks.” I took off my hat and went in, still feeling sheepish somehow. She closed the door behind me.
We sat on the sofa in her white living room; she kept her distance, but reached over and put her hand on my hand. I sat there looking ahead blankly. I couldn’t remember how to talk to her. I couldn’t remember how to talk to anybody.
“You look lousy,” she said.
“I feel lousy.”
“There could be a connection.”
I tried to smile; my lips couldn’t quite make it.
She said, “When’s the last time you slept?”
“I been sleeping a lot, really.”
“You mean you been passing out a lot.”
I swallowed. My mouth was dry, my tongue thick and furry. “You been talking to Barney?”
She nodded. “He’s got a fight to train for. You shouldn’t be distracting him like this.”
“Nobody asked him to.”
“To what? Sit with you while you drink yourself into a stupor? Carry you up the stairs and toss you in bed? Why’d you call me, Nate?”
Now I could find the smile; just barely, but it was there. “Barney talked me into it.”
She shook her head, smiled wryly. “You don’t deserve friends like us.”
“I know I don’t,” I said, and started to weep.