Purgatory Chasm: A Mystery Part 22

"Hmm," she said, maybe looking closer at me. Then she sipped and went quiet and reached a hand down for her dog to lick.

It hadn't taken her long to get to the bottom of a big drink. I needed to get her talking soon, especially if she was planning to build herself another Manhattan. I said, "How'd you end up in New York?"

"In 'fifty-six, when I was fifteen," she said, rising and taking the three steps to the kitchen, "two Jewish boys and a Jewish girl came to school and talked all afternoon about civil rights. They were from Columbia University, and, my G.o.d, they were the wisest, smartest, kindest things I'd ever laid eyes on." She splashed the dregs of her Manhattan into the sink and a.s.sembled ingredients for a fresh one. Her movements were efficient and swift, the way they get when you practice a lot and live by yourself: She knew within a quarter-inch where everything would be.

"You were what, a soph.o.m.ore?" I said. "A junior?"

"I was the teacher!" she said, the word sounding just a little like teashur. "I learned everything I was going to in the colored school here by the time I was thirteen. After that I more or less ran things."

"You went to New York because of the Jewish kids," I said. "You bought what they were selling."

"Yes I did," she said, pouring vermouth. "I was reasonably bright, and I knew if I didn't get out of here soon I'd be stuck running that colored school the rest of my life. I spent two years up in Olanta getting the quickest degree I could, and off I went."

"So you got to New York when?"

"Nineteen fifty-nine," she said, pausing as she held an ice-filled shaker. From the way she smiled I guessed she was remembering the day she stepped off the bus.

"Full of p.i.s.s and vinegar."

"You read my mind," she said, laughing and shaking her drink.

A minute later she was on the sofa, still remembering but not smiling anymore. "It took me two days to learn my first hard lesson," she said, licking her index finger. "All those white boys and girls, the college crowd, were more interested in theoretical Negroes than the genuine item."

"I wouldn't mind a soda or a gla.s.s of water," I said.

"I am so rude!" she said, more or less shrieking it, spilling some Manhattan as she slapped my shoulder. "Help yourself." Heppy shef.

I rose, stepped to the fridge, found a Diet Sprite, sat.

"I looked up the Columbia kids who'd visited Hebron Crossroads," Myna said as I opened my can. "How their faces fell when I told them who I was and why I'd come to the big city! They couldn't hustle me out of there fast enough. They were all in favor of educated, self-confident Negroes, but introduce them to one and they didn't know whether to s.h.i.t or go blind." She giggled, covered her mouth. "Pardon my French."

I needed to push before the second Manhattan wiped her out. "You found work as a receptionist," I said, "and modeled for art cla.s.ses on the side. You met Tander Phigg and started dating."

"How on earth did you learn all this?"

"I spoke with Chas Weinberg."

"Goodness, the King of the Queens. He's still alive?"

"Still runs the gallery on Wooster Street, still owns the building. Sells rusty wheelbarrows for forty-six hundred dollars."

Myna laughed and punched my shoulder. "It was a racket fifty years ago and it's just gotten worse, hasn't it?"

"Did you love Tander?"

That shushed her, straightened her up. She thought and sipped. "I loved the respect he had for me," she said. "I had plenty of offers from young white men, especially when I began working nude, but they were all wink-and-a-nudge offers. They were willing to be seen in a restaurant with me-they all a.s.sumed it was what I wanted-as long as I was willing to go to bed after." She slowly twirled an index finger. "Big d.a.m.n whoopee."

"Tander was different?"

"Oh, yes. He was earnest and stumbling and stiff, just as he would have been with a white girl." She plucked a cherry, popped it in her mouth, and faced me. "Did I love him? No, I did not."

"I think you were the only girl he ever loved," I said. "For what it's worth."

"Really?" Myna touched her hair. "Now why do you say that?"

I told her Trey called his father's time in New York his "five happy years." Told her how Phigg had come home to Fitchburg like a whipped dog, had spent the rest of his life going through the motions.

When I said Phigg's wife had died in childbirth and he'd never remarried, she put her hand over her mouth and nodded fast. "Goodness," she said, "a brand-new baby and he didn't find himself another woman?"

"That's what hit me, too. You'd think a guy like Tander, in 1972, would remarry on the double, find somebody to take care of his only kid."

After a very long pause Myna Roper said, "His only son."

I looked at her, then at the girl in the high-school graduation photo on the opposite wall. "Well I'll be d.a.m.ned," I said.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

We were quiet awhile. Myna finished her Manhattan but was sharp now, focused. I didn't know how long that could last.

"Chas Weinberg still wonders why you and Tander left New York in a hurry," I said. "He talked abortion."

"That was the plan, actually. That's how I broke from him. He kept saying he wanted to 'be there for me,' the fool. I told him he'd do no such thing. I told him I'd get it taken care of, and go back home, and I never wanted to see him again. I was doing my very best-" ver besht, the booze creeping back into her speech-"to be a modern Manhattan missy."

"What happened?"

"It was 1962," she said, jiggling ice, "and I was a Southern Baptist, and I wasn't a modern Manhattan missy. And I couldn't go through with it."

"You came home and had your baby."

Myna half laughed. "There was more to it than that. I came home, latched on to the lightest-skinned Negro bachelor in three counties, and made d.a.m.n sure I had him hooked before I showed."

"Did he know he wasn't the father?"

"Bobby died in 'seventy-nine," she said, avoiding the question, eyes cutting to her empty gla.s.s. "Maybe he wasn't the smartest man, but he was a fine man, a railroad man. And do you know what, Mister Sax? Other than that one thing, I was a good wife to him."

I didn't see any Kleenex, so I stepped to the counter, tore a paper towel from a roll, and handed it to her as I sat. "Now Diana," she said, nodding at the photo and blotting tears, "she figured things out."

"How'd she manage that?"

"Smart and nosy," she said, pushing off. It took her two tries to stand, and she fought for balance before starting toward her Manhattan-building area.

The dog whined just a little-he'd seen this routine, probably saw it every night. "You want me to let your dog out?" I said.

"How sweet. Sometimes I forget."

I bet she did. I let the dog out, looked closely at the dual photos. "You said her name was Diana?"

"Diana Patience," Myna said, taking small, precise steps to the sofa, fresh drink in hand.

"Smart as a whip, huh? I can see it in her eyes."

"Yes, sir, she was," Myna said. Her new drink was two-thirds as tall as the others. Moderation. "She got a partial academic scholarship to Clemson. Studied journalism and communications."

"Those smarts made her wonder if your husband was really her father."

Myna set slippered feet on the small oak coffee table and closed her eyes and said nothing for a while. Just when I figured she'd pa.s.sed out, she smiled, eyes still closed. "Both of them wondered. She was born in a little house down the road, not in a hospital, and the midwife fudged the birth date a few months." She opened her eyes. "I told Bobby it was so my family wouldn't know she was conceived early, and I suppose that was partly true. But he knew something wasn't right."

"And went along with it?"

She nodded. "Bobby Marx wasn't complicated and he wasn't demanding. He knew something wasn't right, but he behaved as if Diana was his to the day he died."

Holy s.h.i.t. Now I froze up. Finally I said, "Bobby Marx?" I rose to take a close look at the twin photos.

"Robert No Middle Name Marx," Myna said, eyes closed.

Holy s.h.i.t. Now I saw her in the high school graduation photo: Diana Patience Marx, aka Patty Marx.

"You say Diana was curious?" I said it loud to keep her awake. Myna's drink had listed, her breaths had lengthened.

"Curious, yes." Curioush, yesh. "Once she hit fourteen, that was her hobbyhorse. Oh, we had knock-down-drag-outs when Bobby was at work! She was persistent to a fault. 'Show me this.' 'How about this?' 'And then there's this.'" Myna laughed, slopping some Manhattan onto her lap. "I finally told her the summer before she went off to college that Bobby wasn't her father. She cut me dead, said I was eight years too late. And I still wouldn't say who was her father, and that just turned her persistent again. I think she studied journalism mostly so she could dig around and find her daddy."

"Did she ever figure it out?"

"Course she did." Courshedid. Myna raised an index finger. "Mister ... sir, would you be a dear and bring over my trash can?"

As I stepped to the kitchen and grabbed a pale yellow plastic can with a white liner, I said, "What's Diana doing now?"

But Myna left the index finger in the air, gesturing wait a sec. She nodded thanks for the trash can, pulled her feet from the coffee table, set the can on the floor in front of her, leaned forward, and vomited once into the trash. I turned my head.

When she was finished Myna took one more dainty sip of her drink, set it down, rose. "And with that," she said, "it's off to bed." Anwishatishoftabed.

I said, "Are you all right?"

"Oh, yes. Toodle-oo, sir."

"Miz Roper," I said. "Where is your daughter now?"

She opened her bedroom door, swayed, waved a vague hand. "Up north somewhere," she said. "Doesn't come around much anymore, d.a.m.n her."

Her door clicked shut.

When I stepped from the trailer, the little dog was sitting not three feet away. I held the door open. He hesitated, then made a wide arc around me and went inside. As he pa.s.sed I said, "Take good care of her, pal." It seemed he wagged his tail, but I may have imagined that.

"How's Ollie's knee?"

"Coming along," Josh said.

"Let me talk to him."

"Nah, he's upstairs."

"So run the cell up to him."

"Nah, he's talking with his mom. You know how it goes."

I was in the rented Focus, heading to the Charlotte airport. I'd spent the night in the Motel 6 near Hebron Crossroads. Got up at four, was making the long drive to Charlotte for the morning flight. The night before, I'd texted Randall and Trey that I had big news. Hadn't wanted to say more in a text-the Patty Marx bombsh.e.l.l was too important.

I'd considered driving back to Myna Roper's house this morning, catching her sober, and talking again. I wanted to know more about Diana-slash-Patty.

But that, plus a later flight, would have eaten up most of the day, and Charlene would be stuck babysitting Fred.

So northbound it was. I'd waited until six to call Josh and Ollie.

Josh was holding back. I didn't like it. "I b.u.mped into Ollie's Montreal guy," I said.

It grabbed him. "When? Where?"

"I'll tell Ollie."

"f.u.c.k Ollie! Tell me!" Long pause. "I'm sorry. Cabin fever. Cooped up."

I said nothing.

"It's just that ... Montreal is bad news," Josh said. "It'd sure be nice to know what kind of threat he poses. Ollie's mom is in the phone book, you know? I worry he'll find us here."

"I think I've got a plan for Montreal," I said.

"What is it?"

"Have Ollie call," I said. "Happy to share. With him."

"Is it my imagination," I said, "or did he gain ten pounds in a day?"

"Cereal, cold cuts, and cream soda," Charlene said. "I had to run to Stop and Shop twice."

Lunchtime, Shrewsbury. We stood on the deck watching Fred push Sophie on a creaky old swing set that should've been hauled away five years ago. Sophie was too big for the set, and Fred was pushing her past horizontal, saying things that made them both laugh.