Gateways. Part 7

"So do I. Come over after you've settled in. We'll knock back a few and I'll give you your first mahjongg lesson."

"I don't know..."

"You have to give it a try. And once you learn, it'll give you and your father something to do together."

When there's frost on h.e.l.l's pumpkins, Jack thought.

"Anyway," Anya said, pointing to the house on the right, "this one's your father's. Look around. I'll be back in a minute."

She headed toward the house on the left with Oyv trotting behind. Her place was painted...what would they call that color? He'd never heard of white zinfandel pink as a paint shade, but if there were such a thing, that would be the color of Anya's house. Dad's was a more masculine sky blue.

Jack realized he was facing the rear of the house. He tried the door to the jalousied back porch but it was locked. It would have taken all of twenty seconds for him to open it but why bother if Anya had a key.

He strolled the slate walk between the houses. The gra.s.s around the stones was as dead and brown as the rest of Gateways South; the foundation plantings along the base of the smooth stucco exterior of his father's place looked thirsty but not as wilted as what he'd seen along the way. Jack suspected him of sneaking them a little water during the night.

Then again, maybe not. His father was such a stickler for rules that he just might watch all his plants die before breaking one.

Jack tried to peek through the windows but the shades were drawn. As he backed away from a window he glanced over at Anya's and stopped dead in his tracks.

Her place looked like a rain forest. Lush greens and reds and yellows of every imaginable tropical plant concealed most of the side of her house, not merely surviving, but thriving. A grapefruit tree, heavy with fruit, stood at a corner. And her gra.s.s...a rich, thick, pool-table green.

A little surrept.i.tious sprinkling was one thing, but Anya seemed to be thumbing her nose at the water restrictions.

He noticed a small forest of ornaments dotting her lawn: the usual elves and pink flamingos and pinwheels of various models, but in among them were strange little things that looked homemade, like painted tin cans and bits of cloth on slim tree branches that had been stuck into the ground.

He spotted a name plaque on the side of the house. He stepped closer until he could read it. MUNDY.

He walked on to the front of his father's place. The front yards of the two bungalows sloped down to a pond, roughly round, maybe fifty feet in diameter. As he approached for a look he heard a number of splashes as frogs leaped off the bank for the safety of the water. A black bird stood on the far bank, its chevroned wings spread and held toward the sun as if storing up solar power. The pond stood full and clear, its perimeter rimmed with healthy looking gra.s.s and reeds. Beyond it lay a gra.s.sy marsh that seemed to stretch forever north and south, but ended at a stand of tall cypresses about a mile due west. Jack knew it was west because the sun was dipping behind the treetops.

He turned and checked out the front of his dad's place. A front porch, covered but open, held a small round table and a pair of chairs, all white. Some sort of flowering vine was trying to crawl up the supporting columns. The floor of the front porch was bluestone slate. A picture window dominated the wall to the left of the door, but vertical blinds hid the interior. He pulled open the screen and tried the front door. Locked, just like the rear.

"Here's the key," Anya said.

Jack turned to find her bustling from her green lawn across his father's brown one, a key held up in her left hand, a cigarette in her right. Oyv paced her.

"Your last name's Mundy?" Jack said. "Any relation to Talbot?"

"The author? Possibly."

"King of the Khyber Rifles was one of my favorite books as a kid." was one of my favorite books as a kid."

"Never read it. Here's the key." She pressed it into his palm.

He waved his arm at the vista. "Looks like you two landed prime locations."

"Yes, quite a view. Of course, I was one of the earliest residents so I had my pick. I'm such a part of the scenery they hire me for temp work when they need help. Mostly it's just stuffing envelopes or applying address stickers to advertising brochures. At minimum wage, I won't get rich, but it gets me out of the house. It lets me pull a few strings, too. I helped Tom get this place when it went up for sale."

"Really?" He wanted to ask her why she'd do that for a stranger but didn't know quite how to put it. "I guess he owes you for that."

"He owes me more than he knows." She pointed to the jeweled watch on her wrist. "Don't forget, hon: drinks at my place in an hour."

"I'll have to take a rain check on that," Jack said.

"So, you don't want to drink with an old lady? I understand."

"Hey, come on. That's not it at all. I just want to check with the police on my dad's accident. You know, find out how it happened, if it was his fault, that sort of thing."

She frowned. "Why?"

"Because I want to know."

"Go tomorrow."

He shook his head. "I want to know now."

"Why?"

"Because that's the way I am."

She shrugged and began to turn away. "Suit yourself."

"Can I ask you a question?" Jack said. "Two questions, actually."

"Ask away, hon. Doesn't mean I'll answer."

"Okay. First thing is, how come that pond's full and all the rest are empty?"

"That one's fed by an underground channel from the Everglades."

"The Everglades?"

She gestured to the gra.s.sy marsh and the distant cypresses. "There it is. Thomas's place and mine are just about as close as you can legally build to the Everglades. Next question? I don't mean to hurry you, hon, but there's a bottle of wine chilling on my kitchen counter and it's calling my name."

"Sorry. I just want to know how you keep your gra.s.s so green in this drought."

"Just a knack, I guess. You could say I've got what they call a green thumb."

"Sure it's not just a wet thumb?"

She frowned and jabbed an index finger at him. "And if I do, so what?"

"Nothing, nothing." Jack held up his hands in a defensive gesture. "I just don't want to see a good friend of my dad's getting in trouble."

She relaxed and puffed her cigarette. "Well, okay. I guess it's natural to think I'm watering. I'm not, but no one'll believe me. Would you believe a couple of members of the board came by and threatened to turn me in if I didn't stop watering."

"What did you tell them?"

"Honey, I said if they catch me with a hose in my hand, they can slap the cuffs on. But until then, they can kiss my wrinkled tuchus tuchus!"

Oyv yipped in seeming agreement as Anya turned and marched off.

My kind of gal, Jack thought as he watched her go.

13.

Jack unlocked his father's front door and stepped into the cool, dark interior. The shades were pulled, probably to keep it cooler during the day and cut down on the electric bill. His father had never been cheap, but he hated waste.

He closed the door behind him and stood in the darkness, listening, feeling the house. Somewhere ahead and to the left a refrigerator kicked on. He sniffed. Onions...a hint of sauteed onions lingered in the air. Dad's doing? He'd always been something of a chef, probably more so out of necessity after Mom's death, and had this thing for onions; liked them on just about everything. Jack remembered one Sunday morning as a kid when he'd sauteed a bunch and put them on pancakes. Everyone had started out complaining but they turned out to taste pretty good.

Jack stepped over to the picture window and pulled the blinds, letting in the fading sunlight. Dust motes gleamed in the air. He pulled up the rest of the shades and started exploring.

The front area was a large multipurpose living room/dining room angling into a small kitchen. That was what Jack wanted. He opened the fridge and found a six-pack and a half of Havana Red Ale. He checked the label: brewed in Key West. Another local brand. Why not? He popped the top and took a pull. A little bitter, not as good as Ybor Gold, but it would do.

He spotted a bottle of Rose's lime juice on a door shelf. On a hunch he opened the freezer and there it was: a frosty bottle of Bombay Sapphire. Looked like Dad still liked a gimlet now and then.

He wandered through the front room and recognized some of the paintings from the family home in Jersey. He noticed a trophy shelf on the south wall and moved in for a closer look. First place in the men's doubles in tennis-no surprise there-but what was this? A plaque for second place in the men's bocce tournament?

My father, the bocce champ. Jeez.

He called Gia to give her the medical report on his father. She said how sorry she was that the news wasn't better. Jack said h.e.l.lo to Vicks, then told them he'd call back later.

After he hung up he stepped into one of the bedrooms. This looked like a guest room/office: a bed, a dresser, and a desk with a computer and a printer. Jack saw a list of buy-sell confirmations in the printer tray. Looked like Dad was still day trading. He'd started it way before it became the rage in the nineties and had made enough to retire on. He'd tried to get Jack into it once, saying that if you were vigilant and knew the ropes, it didn't matter if the market was up or down, you could make money every day.

Not if you don't have a real Social Security Number, Dad.

He moved on to the other bedroom, more cluttered and obviously Dad's. He stopped in the doorway, taken aback by the photos filling the walls. Mostly Mom, Tom, and Kate at various ages, salted with a few of Jack as a kid. Here were the five of them as they embarked on their one and only family camp-out...what a disaster that had been.

Memories flooded back, especially of Kate-as his teenaged big sister, looking out for him...as an adult, dying in front of him.

He quickly turned away and checked the closet. There they were: Dad's ugly Hawaiian shirts. He pulled one out and looked at it: huge bulge-eyed goldfish swimming in a green fluid that could only be bile. Jack tried to imagine himself wearing this and failed. People would...notice him.

As he replaced the shirt he noticed a gray metal box on the shelf above the rod. He reached for it, hesitated, then took it down. He thumbed the latch but it was locked. He shook it. Papers and other things shuffled and rattled inside.

Locked...that piqued his curiosity. But this was his father's, not his, and probably locked for a good reason. He should put it back, he knew he should, but...

What would his father keep locked up when he was the only one in the house?

Jack looked at the little keyhole. Eminently pickable. All it would take was- No. Mind your own business.

He put it back on the shelf and returned to the main room. He repressed a shudder. Time to visit the cops.

Jack found the phone book and looked up the address of the local police station. He'd planned to call them for directions, but why not see if he could learn what he wanted over the phone. Anything to avoid setting foot in a police station.

He dialed the number and was shuffled around until he wound up with Anita Nesbitt, a pleasant-sounding secretary who said she'd see what she could do for him.

"I'm a.s.suming I'll need a copy of the accident report for the insurance," he told her. "You know, to get the car fixed."

"Okay. Here it is. I'll put a copy aside and you can pick it up."

"Any way you can mail it?"

"I suppose. We have his address on the report. How is your father, by the way? I heard he was pretty banged up."

"Still in a coma." A thought struck him. "Was anyone else injured?"

"Not that we know of," she said. "It was. .h.i.t and run."

Jack swallowed. Those last three words sent a wave of unease through his gut.

"Hit and run?"

"Yes. It's under investigation."

"Save your stamp and envelope," Jack told her. "I'm coming down to pick up that report."

14.

Dusk had arrived and the air was cooling enough to bring out the mosquitoes as Jack reached the mustard-yellow building with a two-story center flanked by single-story wings that served as Novaton City Hall. A skeletal clock tower, too modern for the rest of the building, loomed over the high-columned entrance. A green roof, front portico, and awnings completed the picture. A sign said the police station was toward the rear on the left side.

Steeling himself, he stepped inside and asked for Ms. Nesbitt. The desk sergeant directed him to her office. Walking down the hall, pa.s.sing cops moving this way and that, he felt like Pee Wee Herman at a Klan rally. If anyone peeked under the sheet...

He hoped no one asked for ID to prove his relationship. His father's last name was not Tyleski.

Ms. Nesbitt turned out to be a plump and pleasant little woman with glossy black skin, short curly hair tight against her scalp, and a radiant smile.

"Here's the accident report," she said, handing him a sheet of paper.

Jack took a quick look at it; he meant to read it later but his eyes were drawn to the diagram of the accident site.

"Where's this intersection?" he said, pointing to the sheet. "Pemberton Road and South Road?"

She frowned. "They cross in the swamps on the fringe of the Everglades, way out in the middle of nowhere."