Floating Staircase(82)

“I can’t believe it worked,” I said, hefting the weight of the envelope. It had been a long shot; I hadn’t expected it to actually amount to anything.

“I told them I was with the union, that we needed the paperwork for an impending audit. Just like you said to.” The old man grinned like someone who’d just figured out a secret. Had he been just a bit younger, I had no doubt he would have been bouncing on the balls of his feet. “They bought it.”

“Hook, line, and sinker,” I said. “Listen, I know you’re a reporter. Without insulting you, is there any possible way I can—”

He cut me off. “I won’t print a word of this before I hear back from you.”

“Thank you.” I was looking very hard at the envelope he’d given me.

“You know what this means,” Earl said evenly.

“Of course,” I said. We both knew what it meant. “Of course.”

Now I crossed the sawdust floor of Tequila Mockingbird and sat at an empty table toward the rear of the room. My chair faced the door. The jukebox was rolling through a sad country number, visibly making the shoulders of the few assorted patrons at the bar slump. Rain hammered the tin roof and sluiced down the windowpanes. The whole place felt hollowed and bleak, like a grave site that had been violated by vandals. I checked my watch.

Wiping a glass with a dishrag, Tooey Jones approached the table. “One of the few lost souls who dare to brave the rain,” he commented. “What’ll it be?”

I ordered a glass of water, which I gulped down the moment it arrived, as well as a gin and tonic (so that I wouldn’t arouse suspicion), which remained untouched on the table beside the envelope I’d gotten from Earl. On the juke, the sad country song segued into some old but upbeat Charlie Rich tune. Across the room, the framed panels from Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience were like startling and irrational anomalies that somehow made their way into an otherwise mundane dream. My gaze lingered on the reproductions of “The Little Boy Lost” and “The Little Boy Found.”

When Adam arrived, his hair was matted to his head with rainwater, and he was blowing into his hands for warmth. He ordered a beer at the bar, then came over and sat opposite me at the table. He was in plain-clothes—khaki slacks, an outdated American Eagle sweater, canvas peacoat with corduroy cuffs and collar—and he looked exhausted from a long day.

Smiling at him, I tried my best to look casual.

Under the pretense of brotherly companionship, I’d phoned Adam this morning and asked him to meet me for a few beers down at the ‘Bird when he got off work. I had said nothing about Earl’s envelope (which was now tucked beneath the table in my lap) or the contents therein. I would sit here and engage my brother in idle small talk and wait to see if the rest of my plan fell into place.

Just as Jodie and I had overcome my little episode—the “incident,” as I thought of it—following my breakdown on the floating staircase, my brother and I had seemingly bridged our differences as well. Whether it was genuine or only the illusion of authenticity, we became brothers again. (Suffice it to say, I knew my intentions on this evening—as well as the envelope in my lap—risked destroying all that we had rebuilt, although I hoped it wouldn’t. Had I possessed any doubt about the contents of the envelope, I would have set it afire in the hearth back at the house and never brought up the Dentmans to my brother again.)

“You’re looking better,” Adam said over the rim of his pint glass. “How’re you feeling?”

The flu had passed for both of us—following me out onto the floating staircase that afternoon, Adam had gotten sick, too—and I’d shaved and had my hair cut.

“Better,” I told him. “Stronger.” For a second, I wondered if he could sense the nervousness just below the surface of my voice.

Five minutes later—right on time—the pub’s door banged open. David Dentman’s broad-shouldered outline was framed against the stormy, gunmetal sky. Dripping rainwater on the floor, Dentman pushed through the doorway, his considerable bulk exaggerated by the heavy corduroy coat he wore. Behind him, the pub’s door slammed shut on its frame. Aside from my brother and me, no one looked at him.

Adam did not say anything at first. He didn’t even glance at me. Not that I was prepared to look at him; my stare was locked on Dentman.

When Dentman noticed me from across the room, it was like being spotted in the beam of a prison yard’s searchlight. His expression was the same one he’d had that day when he came home and found me in his house with his sister—like a pot graduating to a slow boil on the stove.

“Travis,” Adam said, his voice small. He was still looking over his shoulder.

“He’s going to want to hit me,” I said quickly as Dentman approached our table.

The big man stood before the last empty chair at the table. If he recognized my brother, and I was pretty sure that he did, he didn’t acknowledge him. Glaring at me, Dentman squeezed a folded slip of paper in one fist.

I didn’t need to examine it to know it was the letter I’d printed on my word processor and stuffed into a plain white business envelope. I’d driven to the Dentmans’ house in West Cumberland yesterday evening and fed the letter through the mail slot in the door. Then I’d knocked and quickly climbed back into my car and pulled backward down the drive. Until now, I’d had strong doubts that Dentman would even show up. Despite what I’d written on that letter . . .