Duma Key(79)

I don't think that endless, looping coverage and near-constant repetition of The Picture accounts for everything that followed, but did it play a part? Yeah.

Sure it did.

viii

It was past dark when I finally drove out of the parking garage and turned south on the Trail, headed back toward Duma. At first I hardly thought about Wireman; I was totally absorbed in my driving, somehow positive this time my luck would run out and we would have an accident. Once we got past the Siesta Key turnoffs and the traffic thinned a little, I started to relax. When we got to the Crossroads Mall, Wireman said: "Pull in."

"Need something at The Gap? Joe Boxers? Couple of tee-shirts with pockets?"

"Don't be a smartass, just pull in. Park under a light."

I parked under one of the lights and turned off the engine. I found it moderately creepy there, even though the lot was well over half full and I knew that Candy Brown had taken Tina Garibaldi on the other side, the loading dock side.

"I guess I can tell this once," Wireman said. "And you deserve to hear. Because you've been good to me. And you've been good for me."

"Right back atcha on that, Wireman."

His hands were resting on a slim gray folder he had carried out of the hospital with him. His name was on the tab. He raised one finger off it to still me without looking at me he was looking straight ahead, at the Bealls Department Store anchoring this end of the mall. "I want to do this all at once. That work for you?"

"Sure."

"My story is like..." He turned to me, suddenly animated. His left eye was bright red and weeping steadily, but at least now it was pointing at me along with the other one. " Muchacho, have you ever seen one of those happynews stories about a guy winning two or three hundred million bucks on the Powerball?"

"Everyone has."

"They get him up on stage, they give him a great big fake cardboard check, and he says something which is almost always inarticulate, but that's good, in a situation like that inarticulate is the point, because picking all those numbers is f**king outrageous. Absurd. In a situation like that the best you can do is 'I'm going to f**king Disney World.' Are you with me so far?"

"So far, yeah."

Wireman went back to studying the people going in and out of Bealls, behind which Tina Garibaldi had met Candy Brown to her pain and sorrow.

"I won la loter a, too. Only not in a good way. In fact, I'd say it was just about the world's worst way. The lawyering I did in my other life was in Omaha. I worked for a firm called Fineham, Dooling, and Allen. Wits of which I considered myself one sometimes called it Findum, Fuckum, and Forgettum. It was actually a great firm, honest as the day. We did good business, and I was well positioned there. I was a bachelor, and by that time I was thirty-seven I thought that was probably my lot in life. Then the circus came to town, Edgar. I mean an actual circus, one with big cats and aerialists. Most of the performers were of other nationalities, as is often the case. The aerialist troupe and their families were from Mexico. One of the circus accountants, Julia Taveres, was also from Mexico. As well as keeping the books, she functioned as translator for the fliers."

He gave her name the Spanish pronunciation Hulia.

"I did not go to the circus. Wireman does the occasional rock-show; he doesn't do circuses. But here's the lottery again. Every few days, the circus's clerical staff would draw slips from a hat to see who'd go shopping for the office snacks chips, dips, coffee, soda. One day in Omaha, Julia drew the marked slip. While coming back across the supermarket parking lot to the van, a produce truck entering the lot at a high rate of speed struck a line of shopping carts you know how they stack them up?"

"Yes."

"Okay. Bang! The carts roll thirty feet, strike Julia, break her leg. She was blindsided, had no chance to get out of the way. There happened to be a cop parked nearby, and he heard her screaming. He called an ambulance. He also Breathalyzed the produce truck driver. He blew a one-seven."

"Is that bad?"

"Yes, muchacho. In Nebraska, a one-seven means do not collect two hundred dollars, go directly to drunk. Julia, on the advice of the doctor who saw her in the Emergency Room, came to us. There were thirty-five lawyers in Findum, Fuckum, and Forgettum back then, and Julia's personal-injury case could have ended up with any one of fifteen. I got it. Do you see the numbers starting to roll into place?"

"Yes."

"I did more than represent her; I married her. She wins the suit and a large chunk of change. The circus rolls out of town, as circuses have a way of doing, only minus one accountant. Shall I tell you we were very much in love?"

"No," I said. "I hear it every time you say her name."

"Thank you, Edgar. Thanks." He sat there with his head bowed and his hands on his folder. Then he dragged a battered, bulging wallet from his hip pocket. I had no idea how he could bear to sit on such a rock. He flipped through the little windows meant for photographs and important documents, then stopped and slid out a photograph of a dark-haired, dark-eyed woman in a white sleeveless blouse. She looked about thirty. She was a heart-stopper.

" Mi Julia, " he said. I started to hand the picture back and he shook his head. He was choosing another photo. I dreaded to see it. I took it, though, when he handed it over.

It was Julia Wireman in miniature. That same dark hair, framing a pale, perfect face. Those same dark solemn eyes.