Purgatory Chasm: A Mystery Part 14

He said they experimented with plastics and sealing techniques until their system was foolproof. Then Montreal invested in a better cla.s.s of mules: mostly whites, a few Asians, no criminal records. Sometimes they registered for business conferences. Sometimes they brought their kids, made a family vacation out of it.

"Nice touch," I said.

"It worked," Ollie said. "Next exit."

We took a state road east through pretty hill country. Soon we hit Enosburg Falls, which looked like little Vermont towns are supposed to look. Ollie told me where to turn. We soon cleared the downtown, such as it was, and pulled into a country-road driveway. I looked at a small white clapboard house. It had a stone foundation, a deep porch, window boxes everywhere. The lower four feet of the shingled roof was covered with stamped aluminum to prevent ice dams.

I killed the truck.

"Mom's house," Ollie said, flushing.

We all felt as stiff as Ollie's leg. Josh and I stretched, worked Ollie out of the truck and helped him up the steps. Mom wasn't home. Ollie had Josh reach under a flowerpot for the spare key.

Inside we took turns p.i.s.sing, then helped Ollie to the front-room sofa. I looked through a picture window that faced front. "What mountain is that?"

Ollie laughed. "That's no mountain at all," he said. "That's a hill."

I said I was leaving. Ollie seemed surprised. He asked if I wanted to hear why things went bad between him and Montreal. I said it wasn't my fault he couldn't spit out the story in four hours, then opened the door to leave.

I wanted to hear the story, but I didn't want to get stuck here overnight; there was too much going on at home. I told Ollie he could fill me in later. I hopped in my truck, found a gas station, filled up, grabbed a coffee, headed south.

Thought about Ollie, a guy I liked, a grease monkey like me.

A guy who helped smuggle heroin and didn't seem bothered by it. A guy who maybe killed Tander Phigg. Who had a perfect little helper in Josh, who seemed ready to do whatever the h.e.l.l Ollie told him to.

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

Charlene was gone when I woke up the next morning. I had barreled down from Enosburg Falls, had gotten a snuggle and an "Mmm" when I climbed in bed beside her. She'd left a note on my bedside table: Office-GD paperwork! Special BB meeting tonite, Tander memorial.

I thought about the memorial while I drove to Framingham. These days, it seems a half dozen Barnburners die every year. The old joke: Dying sober is the only prize you get out of AA, and then you're not around to enjoy it.

I stepped into my family room. Kieu and Tuan were watching a kids' show. I pidgin-asked where Trey was. Kieu smiled and pointed past the living room. On TV, something green rode a unicycle. Tuan giggled and clapped.

I stepped through the living room into the narrow area-call it sixteen feet by six-that used to be a front porch. Some long-ago owner had slammed clapboards across it and turned it into a room, but the conversion was a hack job; the insulation was useless or nonexistent, the windows were cheap, and there was one measly electrical outlet. Freeze in the winter, bake in the summer, electrocute yourself year-round.

I'd decided to strip it to the studs, bring the electrical up to code, insulate the h.e.l.l out of it, and install decent windows. Randall and I had done most of the work and were ready to hang Sheetrock. That's what I'd hoped to do today, but Randall still wasn't answering his phone.

When I walked in Trey was squatting, taping craft paper to the floor. He looked up and said, "Does this look right?"

"What are you doing?"

"Randall called and got me started. He said you and I would be putting up walls today."

"How come he's calling you but not me?"

"He said he met someone."

Huh. "You know how to hang Sheetrock?"

Trey rose. "I'm stronger than I look, I'm good at taking orders, and I won't speak unless spoken to."

"Perfect."

"That's what Randall said you'd say."

"When does the not speaking start?"

He smiled.

As I turned to fetch Sheetrock and screws, motioning "follow me" over my shoulder, I might have smiled, too.

An hour and a half later, Trey sank the last drywall screw. I looked at my watch and said, "Not bad."

"There wasn't much to hang, when you got down to it."

"But lots of tr.i.m.m.i.n.g and finessing," I said. "That's the hard part. Thanks."

He ran his hand along a wall. "I would think making all these screws and seams disappear is actually the hard part. I'll help with that, too."

"I went to New York City," I said. "Learned something about your father's five happy years."

His mouth made a soft O. After maybe ten seconds he said, "You did?"

"Let's take a break before we mud these joints," I said. "Walk down to Dunkin' Donuts?"

"My curiosity is beyond piqued."

"Let's take a walk."

When Trey told Kieu where we were headed, she had quite a bit to say. He said something back. She set hands on hips, pointed at Tuan in front of the TV, and made an even longer speech.

Trey turned to me. "She wants to know if they can come."

"Sure."

"They've been ... we agreed they should stay inside as much as possible," he said. "This neighborhood." He half bowed as he spoke.

"It's a s.h.i.tty neighborhood and getting worse," I said. "Don't be embarra.s.sed to tell me that. Not exactly breaking news. Tell them 'Let's go.'"

He did. Big smiles all around. As Kieu wriggled Tuan's feet into tiny sneakers, Trey said, "I didn't want to insult you or your home, which incidentally-"

"It's not my home."

"Pardon me?"

"It belonged to a friend of mine," I said. "He left it to me in his will."

"I a.s.sumed from the thoughtful way you're revamping it-"

"I'm not revamping it. I'm bringing it up to code so I can get the h.e.l.l rid of it."

I ignored his puzzled look and led everybody outside.

Tuan was all over the place as we headed west toward Union Avenue, the main drag. He juked like a puppy in a new park, right down to the sniffing, as his mother tried to herd him in the right direction. I looked at the houses, hundred-year-old Victorians mostly, and daydreamed of rehabbing them all-junking vinyl siding, replacing rotted trim, painting them in their funky old colors.

Framingham's a funny city. Its northern end is a solid suburb. Decent schools, lots of commuters to Boston and office parks. Splitting the town is Route 9, one of the original strip-mall roads. Fast food, car dealerships, furniture stores, traffic lights. Like that.

Down here, south of Route 9, it's a ground-down city. Former mills, former factories, train tracks that screw up traffic all day long. Methadone clinics, halfway houses, a hospital with a busy ER. Lots of illegals, lots of old folks who can't afford to leave. Most of the businesses in the downtown blocks have Brazilian flags or Falamos Portugues! signs.

Trey said, "How in G.o.d's name did you learn anything about my father?"

I told it, starting with the address book. The two-one-two number, Chas Weinberg, SoHo. It was a lot to dump on Trey, who'd obviously had problems with his old man. I wondered if it was too much at once. But he listened like h.e.l.l.

We scuttled across Union Avenue and into Dunkin' Donuts. Tuan was overwhelmed by the noise, the choices, the tall people. Kieu picked him up, settled him, and started pointing at the shelves.

Three minutes later we were outside, Tuan holding a chocolate-chip m.u.f.fin about as big as his head. We sat on a bench in front of a dentist's building. It had enough gra.s.s for the kid to run around on, and it was the closest thing to a park we were going to find in this neighborhood.

Medium regular for me, large black for Trey. We sipped, watched traffic bunch and ease. After a while I said, "The name Myna Roper mean anything to you?"

He shook his head.

"Your father and Myna Roper were an item in New York," I said. "Made a big splash on the artsy-fartsy scene around 1960."

Trey smiled and toasted. "That's gratifying," he said. "It's hard to picture my dad making a big splash in any way, shape, or form." He put his Styrofoam cup to his lips.

I said, "Myna Roper was black."

He jerked and spit hot coffee, which hit the side of my face, missing my eye only through dumb luck. I sleeve-wiped my face and turned. Trey was staring at me, coffee dribbling down his unwiped chin.

"You are s.h.i.tting me," he said after apologizing for the spit-take. "My father? Are you sure?" He barked Vietnamese. Kieu hustled over, plucked a Dunkin' Donuts napkin from her sleeve, and handed it to me. It took maybe ten seconds, but that was long enough for Tuan to get close to the street. Kieu intercepted him and herded him toward gra.s.s.

I told more. I watched Trey's body soften as he learned about his father's New York years. I watched his head tilt, then watched him smile and weep at the same time. When I was done I let him cry. He wasn't embarra.s.sed about it; he just sat sipping coffee and crying, wiping his eyes once in a while.

Finally he said, "I'm so proud of him."

I said nothing.

"I wish I'd known that before," Trey said. "I wish ... I wish he'd been that man while I was growing up."

"What man was he?"

Long pause. "My mother died in childbirth," he finally said, "but she was a ghost even before that."

"Your mother died in childbirth?" I said. "Same way your father's mother died?"

"She did." He looked like he wasn't sure what he wanted to say next.

Trey watched Tuan wobble past, Kieu hot on his trail. He smiled, sipped. "Every other generation gets stuck in between, you know?"

"No."

"The lucky ones got the Summer of Love, Chicago 'sixty-eight, Woodstock. The ones born five years down the road got stagflation and the Ford Pinto. h.e.l.l, they got two versions of 'Muskrat Love.'"

I kind of liked that song. Didn't say so.

"Sorry to get on my hobby horse," Trey said. "The point is, my father got stuck in one of those tweener generations. At least I thought he did until two minutes ago. If he'd been born five years earlier he would've been a World War Two guy. Instead, he was a Korean War guy. And his dad made d.a.m.n sure he stayed in college so he could give Korea a wide berth."

"Sounds like you're calling the World War Two guys lucky," I said. "The ones got killed might not agree."

"Touche." He toasted me. "But the ones who didn't get killed became the 'greatest generation,' as the book says."

I wondered what the h.e.l.l book he was talking about. He read my face. "Here's where I'm going with all this," he said. "I always felt bad for my father. He was a little too young to be a World War Two guy and a little too old to be a sixties guy. He always seemed bitter about it."

"Now you're thinking maybe he was bitter about something else," I said, nodding. "About Myna."

"It looks as if he carved out something very nice for himself, then had it ripped away."

We were quiet awhile.

Finally I said, "What year did your mother die?"

"I was born in 'seventy-two."

"Your dad never remarried?"

He shook his head. "Another parallel between him and my grandfather, I realize."

I nodded. "Your dad was in his thirties, had plenty of money and a brand-new kid. Most guys in that position in 1972 would give it six months or a year, then snap up another wife. If only to clean the house and keep you fed."

From the sounds behind me, it seemed Tuan was about done having a good time. He bickered at his mom, and she scolded back. I rose, stretched, killed my coffee, took a few steps to toss the cup in a sidewalk garbage barrel. When I turned back, Trey was staring at nothing, tapping his lip with his near-empty cup.

I said, "Head back and mud that room?"

He stood. "You're a strange cat. You know a thing or two about the human animal, don't you?"

I said nothing.

"You're saying this Myna Roper was the love of my father's life. It's why he never remarried."