Lullaby Town Part 16

When I got to the Ho Jo it was four minutes after three that afternoon, bright and clear and smelling of autumn. Karen Lloyd and Joe Pike were sitting at a table in the front of the bar. Karen was wearing a maple pants suit and pale red lip gloss and she seemed calm and contained, but it was the kind of calm you feel in a hospital waiting room. This early, they were the only two people in the bar.

Karen said, "Where is he?"

"A few minutes behind me. Did you meet Charlie?"

She gave me annoyed. "No. I said that I wouldn't, didn't I?" She was holding a tall gla.s.s with something clear in it. "I don't want to talk about that. All I can think about is Toby. I'll have to sit down with him tonight. I'll have to tell him about his father. It's all happening so fast." She made a little head shake and had some of the drink.

"You may not want to talk about Charlie, but we need to. He's your more serious problem."

"It doesn't feel that way."

"It will." I told her about Walter Lee Balcom and Angelette Silver. "Did Charlie call to find out why you didn't show up?"

"No."

"Did anyone who looked suspicious come into the bank, or watch you from a car, or follow you?"

"Of course not."

I looked at Pike. He shook his head.

Karen said, "You were watching?"

Pike nodded.

Even more annoyed. "I didn't see you. I didn't know you were spying."

Pike made a little head shrug.

Karen tapped at the table, then took more of the drink. Not a happy lady. Feeling the control slip away, but trying to make the best of it. "All right. But I would think that your going to see Charlie and my standing up to him finally convinced him that I'm serious."

Pike said, "It's not over."

Karen frowned at him. "He can't want to make a stink about this any more than I. If I get in trouble, he gets in trouble. Isn't that right?"

I said, "Guys like Charlie don't let it go."

She made the little head shake again and closed her eyes. "I'm sorry, but I just can't deal with this. I've got Peter to think about. I've got Toby. My G.o.d, how am I going to tell him that yesterday he didn't have a father but today he does?"

Pike leaned forward. "Tell him you've got some good news."

Karen closed her eyes again and said, "Please."

Four minutes later, Peter arrived. At first I thought that maybe Rommel and his Panzers were pouring through the pa.s.s, but then I realized it was Peter. Two black presidential stretch limos followed T.J. riding point on a candy-apple-red Harley-Davidson cop house special, T.J. in a heavy buckskin coat and World War I aviator's goggles, circling the parking lot and revving his engine as the two presidentials skidded in. Peter Alan Nelsen climbed out from behind the wheel of the first limo and the Nickster climbed out of the second. The waitress and the bartender went to the windows to look. Karen looked at them looking and chewed at her lip.

Dani and a couple of scared-looking guys in formal black chauffeur suits got out of the back of the first limo. Everybody could have easily fit into one, but why have one when you can have two?

I watched Karen LloydonceKaren Nelsen watch them and I touched her arm. "It's going to be fine."

"Of course it's going to be fine." She took a sip of her drink.

Peter came in first, with Dani beside him and Nick and T.J. sort of behind. Karen folded her hands neatly on the table in front of her and watched Peter the way you watch someone in the next yard, sort of detached. For a moment they looked at each other across the room, then Peter walked over and stopped at the edge of the table. "Hi, Karen."

"h.e.l.lo, Peter." Her face was without expression and she did not stand up.

I said, "This is Dani. That's Nick and T.J."

Everybody nodded and said howareyas. When Karen looked at Dani, Dani's big thighs jumped.

Peter sat down and Dani pulled up a chair from the next table. Nick and T.J. went to the bar. Peter looked at Joe Pike and said, "Who's this?"

"Joe Pike. He has the agency with me. Remember?"

Peter looked back at Karen. "It's been a long time, Karen. You look great."

Karen nodded politely. "Thank you."

The waitress came out from behind the bar. "What's everybody having?"

Peter said, "I want a Budweiser. The guys at the bar, they're with me so give'm whatever they want." He gestured at Karen's drink. "What's that?"

"Vodka tonic."

"Give her another."

Karen said, "No. Thank you."

Peter said, "You don't want another?"

"No. But thank you." She p.r.o.nounced the words slowly and carefully, as if she and the chair were in balance but the words might upset that balance. "I'd rather do what we have to do, so that I can get back to the bank."

Peter looked confused. "It's over ten years."

Dani said, "I'll have a Perrier, please."

The waitress eyed Peter past her order pad. She hadn't written anything down. "You look like someone."

I said, "Bring the Bud and the Perrier, okay?"

The waitress put her hand on the side of her neck and rolled her eyes in recognition. "You're the guy who makes movies. I saw you on a.r.s.enio a.r.s.enio."

Karen's jaw knotted.

The waitress said, "You're Peter Alan Nelsen!"

Karen's jaw knotted harder and the corners of her mouth pulled down.

Peter nodded, turning on the smile. "That's right. In the living 3-D."

"Wow."

Karen said, "Oh, for Christ's sake," and glared at the waitress. "We're trying to have a discussion here, and you're not part of it."

"You don't have to get snippy."

"And you don't have to act like some sort of idiotic teeny-bopper. Just bring the drinks."

The waitress gave Karen the ice treatment and went over to Nick and T.J.

Peter said, "Jesus Christ, she probably just wanted an autograph or something."

"She can get it later. I'm the vice-president and manager of the bank here, and I am a mother. I have responsibilities. I can't waste my time."

Peter looked like a little kid who'd just been told to go to bed and didn't like it.

Karen said, "I know you want to see Toby, but I'd rather you wait. He doesn't know that you're here and he doesn't know who you are or anything about you. Give me this evening to talk to him and then you can see him tomorrow."

Peter liked that even less.

Karen said, "If you come out now, you'll just scare him."

Peter shook his head. "h.e.l.l, what's he got to be scared of?"

I said, "Any child would be scared, Peter. One day he's comfortable with his life, the next a strange man walks up to him and says, hi, I'm your old man. Everything he knows changes, and everything becomes an unknown. Do you see?"

Peter frowned and sort of pooched out his lips. "Whose side are you on?"

"The kid's. I'm also on yours and Karen's."

Dani said, "You've seen this kind of thing a lot, haven't you?"

I nodded. "A couple of hundred times."

Peter made a big deal out of sighing. Disappointed that he wasn't going to see his kid. "s.h.i.t."

Karen said, "I'll tell him this evening, Peter, and that way he has the night to get used to the idea and maybe even excited about meeting you. Then you can meet him tomorrow. You can come to the house. If it goes well, the two of you might go to dinner. You could take him to Dasher's in Brunly. It's his favorite."

"All right. Sure." Peter was starting to nod, thinking that it sounded pretty good.

Karen said, "One thing."

"What?"

She looked at Dani, then at Nick and T.J. "It would be less threatening if it were just the two of you."

"Me and Dani?"

"You and Toby."

Dani shifted uncomfortably in her chair. Peter leaned back and looked uncertain. "I never go anywhere without the guys. What if I get mobbed?"

Karen flattened her hands on the table. "You're not going to get mobbed in my home, believe me."

Peter looked at me, even more uncertain. I nodded. He made a little shrug and then he looked back at Karen. "Okay. That sounds fine. That sounds like you've got it all figured out."

She gave him the flat, cool, vee-pee eyes. "I do. I've been figuring it out for the past ten years, so I'm good at it."

Peter nodded again. "Okay. If that's the way you want to play it. We can check in here. It'll be fine." This wasn't Peter Alan Nelsen. The real Peter Alan Nelsen had stayed in the city and this was Mr. Reasonable, Peter Alan Nelsen's alter ego. Sure. That was it.

The waitress went through a little swinging door they have behind the bar and came back with a fat guy and a skinny black guy with a marcel. She pointed at Peter. Karen watched them for a moment, then said something under her breath and stood. She looked tired again, the way she had the night before when we were going through the bank records and Toby had come out. She said, "Thank you for meeting me here instead of coming to the bank, Peter. And thanks for waiting to see Toby. If we continue to cooperate, I know this all will work out to the good."

Peter looked surprised when she stood, and he took her forearm. "Hey, where you going?"

Karen stiffened as if someone had thrown a switch and she didn't look tired anymore. She looked hard and bright and she stared at his hand without moving.

Peter said, "What?"

Karen's eyes flicked up from the hand to Peter's left eye and held there. Locked on.

Peter gave embarra.s.sed and let go her forearm. "Sorry."

Karen nodded once, giving him okay, then gathered her purse. "I have work."

"That's it? We don't see each other for ten years, and you have work? I've got a lot to tell you. I'll bet you've got questions."

Karen shook her head and smiled at me. "Do you see?"

Peter said, "What's the smile?"

Karen held her purse with both hands and let out a deep breath and looked at him. She said, "Peter, I'm not the same person you knew. I'm not a little bubblehead who wants to be an actress and is impressed when you talk about image density and emotional composition. I'm also not impressed by your success. I don't want your money."

"Hey, who said you did?" Defensive.

"Because I'm not the same, I won't respond to you the way I used to. If I had never seen you again, it would've been fine. But you're Toby's father, and Toby has a right to meet you and know you and judge for himself. I'll work to that end, but don't expect anything more."

Peter made a big deal out of spreading his hands. "I don't understand this hostility."

"Think about it."

He said, "Hey, I'm not looking to get you into the sack. We were married, for Christ's sake. That should mean something. We have a son."

She stared down at him, her face without thought or consideration. "No, we don't," she said. "I do."

She brushed past me and walked across the bar and out the door.

Peter stared after her, his face sort of pinched and confused, and then he shook his head. "I can't believe it. She didn't look happy to see me."

"She wasn't."