“Yes, yeah. Sorry. Just let me know if you find any damage, okay?”
“Will do.”
Mack knocked on a few more doors, but no one was around. He knew the couple on the far opposite side of the street were lawyers too, and were hardly ever home. He had caught only glimpses of their children; most of the kids in Bratenahl he had only seen staring out at him from the back seats of giant Escalades, like miniature presidents being driven by motorcade from one activity to the next. The guy in the middle house was a snowbird and probably in Florida, and the Sinclairs would be golfing or tennis-ing or bridge-ing... Even though the houses were close together, Magpie Court always felt empty; it was what he hated most about the place. He checked his watch and made his way home. He ditched his shoes, now pretty much ruined by the mud, and polished off a stale bag of pretzels and half a tub of Häagen-Dazs. Then he went down to his office and called his mom.
“There he is,” said Tilda, after the usual shuffling of the camera. She was having Chick-fil-A. Mack’s mother was in the yellow robe again, and, like always, Mack could see the Florida sunshine streaming in through the window in her room. Thank God he had at least gotten her through the end of the year.
(Or Hailey had.)
“Hey, Mom. Hi, Tilda.”
“How are all your girls, Mackie? They good?”
“We’re fine. Everything’s fine.”
“Good. I said to Irene this week, I said they’ll have such a nice time decorating their big new house for Christmas. You started yet?”
It occurred to Mack then that Tilda’s bragging about him might have been what led Irene Weigand to pull the plug on their arrangement. “Nah. It’s notthatbig of a house, you know, Tilda. Don’t forget I’m on a teacher’s salary.”Or I was, thought Mack gloomily. At least his mother would never have to hear the name Mackenzie Ewing or read about her son the drug-dealing booze hound. Every cloud and all that.
“So Irene’s still coming to visit her?” Mack asked Tilda.
“Of course. Ten a.m. on Tuesdays, same as always.”
“Right.” He knew it was irrational, he knew it was unfair, but Mack hated that Irene Weigand was still showing up there. His mom needed Irene’s money, not her time. What use did his mother have for friends now?
“She was asking me about your book. How’s the writing going?”
“It’s going great.” Mack watched as his mom shifted a little in her bed. He knew better than to think she’d understood him.
“Irene was really sorry not to meet Hailey,” Tilda went on. “I told her how nice and down-to-earth she is, even though she’s a hotshot lawyer and all. Course, Irene’s heard so much about her over the years. Where you’re living, what you’re doing.” The nurse laughed. “Ah, there’s nothing like us old ladies gossiping.”
Jesus Christ. Tilda had probably single-handedly caused the greatest financial crisis of Mack’s life. Wasn’t there some sort of patient confidentiality nurses were supposed to abide by?
“Irene said she’s real proud of you, too. For stepping up.”
“What?Stepping up?What does that mean?”
“Oh now, I didn’t mean to speak out of turn. Watch me put my foot in it. She’s just glad you can be there for your mother now, that’s all.”
Irene was just an old woman gossiping, Mack reminded himself. A lonely old lady who had paid out hundreds of thousands of dollars for his mother. He had to let her commentary go.
“How’s Mom been this week? You been playing her some good tunes?”
“Oh yes! We’ve had some Everly Brothers and—”
“I’d ask Tilda for some Hendrix, if I were you, Mom,” Mack said. “I know you used to love him.”
“I’ll do that for her, Mackie.” Tilda looked at her watch. “It’s rounds time, so we’ve got to keep it short today. You have a great weekend, okay?”
After he’d clicked off the call, Mack stared up through his tiny window. There was a recess there to increase the light, and he could see the chunk of brick that Simeon had knocked from the house; part of it had turned to powder when it hit the mud. Mack thought of concrete, and then of his father’s crumbling towers down in the Florida Keys.
Forty-seven thousand dollars. From Liberia.
Did the Mafia operate in Liberia? These days they probably did.
Mack clicked around on his laptop until he found a website for the Florida Department of Health. For $8, he ordered a copy of the death certificate for Warner Thomas Evers. What exactly that would prove, he didn’t know, but there was nothing else to reach for. Only the barest traces of his father existed online; there was no one left to ask about him except for rickety, judgy Irene Weigand, so what could Mack do? Drive down thereagain, interview some coroner from seven years ago? Start digging into the records of those shitty towers he’d built?
Mack grabbed the last Dr Pepper from his fridge. Even if his fatherwasalive, even if hewastheir sunny benefactor—and way deep down, Mack still thought he probably was—why on earth would he ask Mack to burn down an old shed?
