Chapter 53 / Real News

“Sit in the back,” said Tony, nodding toward the booths farthest from the diner’s windows, and Andrew sat in the back, where he couldn’t watch the street, and the street couldn’t see him. 

The diner was quiet between breakfast and lunch, half-a-dozen men of retirement age sitting over coffee and newspapers. Two of them were together at a booth; the others sat solo at the counter. To a man they glanced at Andrew; three of them exchanged nods with him; all of them recorded mentally his presence, in the back of the diner. They kept their eyes on their papers, waiting to see what Tony would do. 

Three of them were reading the Observer, with its front-page photo of Annie’s car, its rear blackened by fire. Andrew spread out his own copy of the Observer, wise in its tabloid size—not enough news around here for a broadsheet—and stared at the photo. 

He thought about the night they’d been stopped in the dark, the dry cleaner bag hooked to Chloe’s crate, flapping in the breeze created by passing cars, and the cops on the scene, four of them with the chief, half of Schuyler’s police force and how none of them had made real eye contact. Eyes maybe, but not contact. Except for the chief.  

Annie had liked this car, he found her this car and gave it to her and she liked it, even if her favorite part of it was probably the sunroof, he must find her another sunroof, and he thought about her driving around by herself night and day for this stupid newspaper. And that made him think of Ed’s accident, picturing this accident that he’d only been told about, and then to remember how a car had frightened Kathleen on the parkway last fall, and about all the ways you can make a car crash look like an accident. 

They hadn’t done that here. Here they had said, this is not an accident. 

Tony slid into the booth across from him, his back to the restaurant, which meant Andrew had about thirty seconds of his attention. 

Andrew folded the newspaper and put it to one side, so that Tony could see that the table in front of him was empty. “I just need one cop,” he said. 

Tony shook his head. “Not gonna happen.” His dark, curly hair was damp with the exertion of running a restaurant, and it occurred to Andrew they should be talking about that. He made himself stay on topic. 

“They all support the chief?”

“Even if they don’t—“ Tony glanced the newspaper—“they do now.” 

“Who doesn’t.” 

Tony sighed. “You wired?”

Andrew shook his head. “Just talking.”

Tony said two names, one of them female. 

Andrew wrote nothing down. “Six-pack going to be charged?”

Tony nodded. “Then out on bail.” 

“Alone?” 

“’Investigation continuing.’” Tony made tiny quotation marks with his fingers. 

Behind Tony, 50 feet away, the diner door opened, to an older couple. Tony heard it and slid out of the booth. 

“Hey,” said Andrew, “a friend of mine wants to open a restaurant—"

“Where.”

“Five miles east of here. Barbecue. No competition. Can he talk to you?”

“If he wants me to tell him not to do it. The state will kill him with rules and taxes.” Tony headed for the front.

Something to consider, thought Andrew, but in the meantime, if the chief were sitting across from him, what would he say? He thought about this, staring at the point where Tony’s head had been, knowing that anything he said to the chief would be recorded, somewhere, and that you couldn’t make a deal with the devil. 

And he reminded himself, that really, he had done a lot in four months, he had a shitload of corroborated information, and if this took another month, or another four months, it could be worth it. 

In his jacket pocket, his phone rang. Annie. 

“The DA called Tina,” she said in a low voice. “Six-pack will be charged tomorrow morning. She’s sending Catherine for the paper, but I thought you might want to clear your calendar.” 

“Sure do. Arson? Second degree? Did he turn himself in?” 

“They picked him up this morning. He’s getting a lawyer. I don’t know the exact charges.” 

“Thanks, darlin’. How are you?”

“Well, I’ve gone from being Tina’s favorite, which meant that she yelled at me once a day, to being her least favorite, which means once an hour.” 

“You can leave any time, you know.” 

“Gotta go—”

She was gone, and before the phone had settled back into his pocket, it rang again—the reporter from the Times Union that he had worked with last fall, on the story about the state senator, Kathleen’s opponent, El Neanderthal. 

“What’s going on down there?” asked Alex.

“Real news. You had it yesterday.” 

“The wire story. Now I’m working on it.”

“Coming down for court tomorrow?”

“With a photographer. But I want something real for tomorrow’s paper, and I have something to trade for it."

“What?” 

“You’ll help me?” 

“—Background, not for attribution. Other than that, what’s it worth to me?” 

“Our state senator is resigning. His press conference is the same time as your DA’s.”

Copyright © Debby Mayer  

Free! Fun! Interactive!

Chapter 52 / Woodshed

Catherine was covering the newspaper this Sunday. “Hey, Annie, Andrew,” she said in a loud, cheerful voice, taking Chloe’s leash and giving them big, round eyes.   

Ordinarily, the three couples would have met at the conference table in an alcove upstairs, but today the six of them crowded into the office that Wendy and Tina shared, the door closed against Catherine and two others working on the floor below. 

Annie took what was known downstairs as the Electric Chair, next to Tina’s desk. The three men perched on secretarial chairs. 

“We want to be sure that we all share the same information about what happened to Annie’s car Friday night,” said Wendy. “Why don’t you start.” She turned her gaze to Andrew, as if she were giving him a gift.

Andrew looked at Annie, next to him, and she replied. “Thank you, Wendy, that’s what we want too. Does the newspaper support us?”

“—We deplore the crime, of course,” said Tina, her brow creased, as if she might, genuinely, be concerned. “It’s front page for Monday’s paper. But why did they target you?” 

Wendy pursed her lips. They must have already gone off course. 

“Off the record and not for attribution” said Annie, resisting a grin. “If you report anything we say in this meeting, we will deny it.” 

“Think of it as an executive session,” said Wendy.

“They’re trying to scare us,” said Annie. 

“Who? Who’s trying to scare you?”

Annie looked at Andrew. “Schuyler’s little drug cabal,” he said. “I’ve been researching them for—months.” 

“They’re trying to scare all of us,” said Wendy. 

“Are you scared?” Andrew asked.

“They did a violent act against us, by way of Annie,” said Tina, again looking as if she cared. “We don’t want that to happen again, to any of us.” 

“You’re a newspaper, Tina,” said Andrew. “You founded and you run a successful newspaper. Sometimes, this kind of shit goes with the territory. The car was in a parking lot at three o’clock in the morning. Empty.”

“We founded a community newspaper,” said Wendy. “And a business. We founded and we run a successful, community, business.” 

This silence lasted two seconds. “Go on,” said Annie, trying to sound encouraging.

“If I could say a couple of things here,” said Lewis, Tina’s husband, in such a way that you knew he would. 

All four of them, the women in their bright winter cashmeres, the men just a shade quieter in tweed, looked amazingly healthy for January, thought Annie, after week golfing in Hilton Head. And each of them was used to being boss. So far, she and Andrew had not been flattened by the Witches. But she wished she could hold his hand.

Lewis was talking. “Annie, every article you write for the paper is a pleasure to read.”

“Thank you,” she said, taken by surprise. She had had two conversations with Lewis in her life, at staff holiday parties, both about music. 

 “Andrew, I admire your work,” Lewis continued. “I’ve read your book, and I think I’ve read every article you’ve ever written. I know there’ve been some questions, in the past, about your coverage of Cuscatlán. But I—and many others—consider you one of the best journalists working today.” 

“Thank you,” said Andrew, waiting for the “but.”  

“But,” said Lewis, “this—the Hudson County Observer—is a small—a very small—enterprise. We don’t have the financial, and other, backing of the Times or Rolling Stone, or even Pacifica. We have only us. The four of us have put everything—everything that we have—into this. To the world, we’re tiny, but to us, it’s enormous. Either way, it’s easy to bring down.”

“We told Annie when we first met her that we have nothing in our lives but this newspaper,” said Wendy.

“You didn’t say financially,” said Annie.

“Well, that’s part of it,” said Wendy.

“You could have opened a restaurant,” said Andrew. “Or a dry cleaner. You didn’t. You opened a newspaper.”

“A community newspaper.”

“I haven’t offered you this story,” said Andrew. “I can take it elsewhere, as I did last fall, with the political story.”

“But through your private life—which is yours—you have entangled us in the story,” said Lewis.

“Who called you?” asked Andrew. 

“No one,” said Wendy. “It’s not a matter of overt threats.” 

“They firebombed our reporter’s car!” Tina burst out. “She had nothing to do with this except she slept with you!”

“—You have a way of putting things Tina,” said Andrew. “Now Monday’s paper goes out with a firebombing on the front page. The papers fly off the shelves—every single distributor sells out, and you tell me your advertisers don’t want that?”

“No comment,” said Wendy.

“The chief would cut off your advertising?” said Andrew. “Who? The car dealerships? The hospital?” 

In the case with his laptop Andrew always carried a small black notebook. What a jerk he was, he should have taken it out as soon as he sat down. His hands itched for it now; he clenched his fists, took a breath, opened his hands again.  

“That is such a great story,” he said. 

“We are not the story!” snapped Wendy. 

“You are the story,” said Andrew. Now he was gritting his teeth. He took another breath. “Let me look into it.” 

“No! I have not given you permission to research that!” Wendy even shook a finger at Andrew, then lowered it. “And you’re going to do it anyway, aren’t you? That’s your problem, Andrew, you’re a rogue reporter, operating with your own agenda. That’s why the Times fired you, why Pacifica let you go—“

“I’m on leave from Pacifica,” said Andrew, “and you need an investigative reporter. Otherwise you just feed the public what’s fed to you. Sorry, Annie.” 

Annie waved a hand, fascinated. 

“Everything I have is corroborated, at least once,” said Andrew. “I need one more interview, and I’m going to get it.” 

“Do you know who set Annie’s car on fire?” asked Don, Wendy’s husband. He’s a lawyer, Annie had told Andrew, but really, he’s a banker.

“I have a name,” said Andrew. “Do you know?”

“Our information is that someone will be charged this week,” said Don. 

“Will he bring down everybody? Or take the hit.”

The room was silent. 

“I can find out,” said Andrew. “Or, the other thing I can do is train someone here to be an investigative reporter.” 

*    *    *    *

“Not much of a salesman, am I.” 

They had pulled into the parking lot of East Wynham’s diner, around the corner from the office, so that Andrew could have a cigarette and Chloe could take a walk around the car.

“Don’t fish for compliments,” Annie took his arm. “You didn’t go ballistic on them, and you’ve sold yourself to just about everyone else in Hudson County.” 

“But not those four.”

“They’re bastards. Even Lewis.”

“But he’s read my book,” said Andrew, unable to resist a tiny smile. “That makes two of you.” 

“Twelve of us. Word on the street is that he’s former Maoist. I know he worked with Doctors without Borders.” 

“Has anyone ever written about him?”

“Ask him. You’ve got the contact now.”

Copyright © Debby Mayer

Chapter 51 / Perspective

“Hey—”

Chloe’s feet were on his chest. She was wearing her Christmas cool-dog jacket, from New York City, black Gortex with a sheepskin lining. She seemed happy to see him. 

Annie stood next to the bed in the red wool coat he had given her for Christmas, which looked so good with her blond hair and still kept her warm, if she wore enough layers underneath it. She smelled of fresh air and the newsprint in her canvas bag and, possibly, coffee. 

Annie regarded him, concerned, and sat down on the bed, so they were all there together, and Andrew could feel his stomach unclench for the first time since he had woken up last night. 

“Did you have a hard night?” she asked. 

“I had a lousy night. But now you’re here, right? This is real?” He took off her multicolored mittens; her fingertips were cold from outdoors, so he gathered her hands in his. 

“Did I call you at six o’clock?” he asked.

“No . . .” 

“Hm. What day is it?”

“Sunday. You and Chloe are going to hang out while I go to church. I’ve got coffee here, and home-baked bread from Kathleen, and all the newspapers you could need to entertain yourself for two hours   . . . did you take your meds yesterday?”

“I did. Last night all my little containers were empty . . .” Andrew sat up. “Speaking of which . . .” 

When he came out of the bathroom, Annie had set the table in the middle room with coffee cups, bread, peanut butter, oranges and hard-boiled eggs. He stared at it, from the white of the cups to the blast of the orange with all the shades of eggshell and bread in between, at once normal and miraculous. 

He sipped his coffee. He should tell her. “I dreamed you died.” 

“Yikes . . . wish fulfillment?” 

“It’s not a joke.” 

“I’m not joking. I wonder sometimes if it’s boring for you to be with someone . . . so ferociously normal.” 

“You’re not normal. Remember, we talked about this. I told you, you were the craziest girlfriend I ever had, and you agreed.” Andrew smiled, despite himself, at the way this was going. 

“Anyway,” he said, “no. Classic anxiety. I was terrified.” 

“—How did I die?”

“—I don’t know.” He described the dream, leaving out her strange puffiness. 

“Ugh.” 

“You’ll keep Chloe in your sight?” Annie asked when she left for church. 

“Of course.” 

“When you take a shower, she’ll sit in the bathroom with you.” 

“We’ll take care of each other.” 

Annie walked the four blocks to church, and with careful timing, Andrew and Chloe drove to the diner half an hour early, so he could jockey for a parking place, then tip Tony, the owner, to hold a window table for him when it came available. 

“Keeping an eye on the car, huh,” said Tony.  

“Know anything?”

“—Come by tomorrow.”

“I need a cop.” 

Tony nodded once, then turned back to the cash register and the next customer: “Everything taste good this mornin’?”

*   *   *   *

“How was church?”

They were seated at their window table, the car parked in front of the diner.

“Good.” Annie shrugged. “It gives me perspective. Of the eighty people there, forty of them had no idea my car had been set on fire. Until the other forty told them. Even when people are gunning for you, there is a bigger picture.” 

“Theresa and Glaron stay away from the news. I had to tell them. But I thought you meant heaven.”

“—I used to believe that we would be reunited with people we loved. And dogs. But now I think, what if we don’t want to see them? Like Ed.” 

“What if we dread seeing them. Like Polly.” 

“—We’ll ask Paul. He’ll have an answer . . . Tony’s trying goat cheese?” Annie stared at the menu insert. 

“He thinks the neighborhood’s changing.” 

“It’s really good,” said Claudia, putting the coffee pot on the trivet, nodding with a smile as she pocketed Andrew’s $5. “Have you had it before? I tried it this morning, who knew those little goats could do that.”

“Two specials?” said Annie. Andrew nodded, and Claudia left them, pleased. 

“Did you say anything to Paul about talking to us?” asked Andrew.

“No. He knew about the car, so we got through that. I’ll call him this week.” 

“You still want to do it—talk to him, about us.” 

“Yes. I think it would be a good idea.” 

“A good idea.” 

“Perspective. I mean, should we get new IDs, move to another state?”

She was changing the subject, but he couldn’t blame her, so he followed it. “Let me talk to Tony first. That’s tomorrow.” 

“That leaves us talking to the Witches today. I was hoping we’d head for San Diego after breakfast.”

Claudia brought their chèvre omelets. “I just want to say,” she said quickly, her voice low, placing their plates carefully, “I’m real sorry about your car. Awful. I hope they get the guy.” 

“What guy,” said Andrew.

“Look, your water glasses are empty, let me get you a pitcher!”

She returned with a clear plastic pitcher of water. “Ask Tony. Everybody knows.”

“You should know,” Andrew said as Annie drove them east, and he spoke to her high cheekbone, her slightly upturned nose “ . . . I may say things to Wendy and Tina that sound like I don’t care. About you. I do care. The only way they—the cops—can put me off this story is by threatening you. 

“You should know, I’m reconsidering it. But I don’t want to tell Wendy and Tina that.” 

“You’d give up? After five months of work?”

“The work remains. It’s not going anywhere. And remember—when I go to New York on Thursdays I copy everything onto Rosendo’s computer. In case mine gets stolen. Or I have to throw it in the river.” 

They pulled into the Observer’s parking lot. 

“Shit,” said Annie, “the husbands are here too. Those are their cars, the Beemers. Are you sure you don’t want to head west?”

Copyright © Debby Mayer

Chapter 50 / Wired

A three o’clock Andrew leaned against the stone post on one side of the staircase leading into the historic courthouse, hands in his pockets. He would give Bryan the length of one smoke before going to look for him.  

Andrew liked the view here, which included an alley on either side of the courthouse square; he made a bet with himself, and won, that in one cigarette, he would see two drug handoffs. At this rate, the meth labs would go out of business, there would be no need for them; Schuyler would be a city where everyone made a living selling dope—grass, crack, and now heroin was moving north—to everyone else. 

Andrew sighed. Despite the view, he hated this. He wasn’t an undercover cop, and the closed diner on Route 23 was the perfect site for a barbecue chow house. He should be sitting with Glaron and Theresa in their toasty kitchen, eating barbecue and typing up a business plan. 

But he wanted this story. He tossed his cigarette butt and headed for Brian’s apartment, in a row of historic, decrepit buildings just blocks from the courthouse. 

The street door wasn’t locked, and up two flights of stairs the door was ajar to the apartment that Bryan had sublet from the sublettor. Andrew pushed it and stayed at the threshold. Inside, the room was empty, except for Steve, as tidy as ever, in a black watch cap and Navy pea coat, leaning against the ledge of the one window. 

“He took your advice,” said Steve. “I put him on a plane to Florida this morning.” 

“Florida’s good for business. You alone?” 

Their breaths rose in puffs of steam as they talked.

Steve nodded. Andrew walked around the empty apartment, poking his head into the windowless bedroom. 

“You wired?”

“No.” Steve shook his head.

“Show me.” Andrew stood in front of Steve.

Steve unbuttoned his jacket and the top two buttons of his shirt. 

“You?” he asked.

Andrew unzipped his jacket and dropped it to the floor. He pulled his boiled-wool sweater over his head and onto the jacket. He unbuttoned his flannel shirt and pulled it open. 

“Impressive,” said Steve, his eyes drawn to the twisted, layered scar tissue over Andrew’s heart, healed but still simmering like a dormant volcano. “Who won?” 

“I did that to myself,” said Andrew, buttoning his shirt again. 

“Because I’m crazy.” He pulled on his sweater. “Anything I do to anybody else won’t hurt me at all.”  

“You are crazy,” Steve said mildly. “You get the best girlfriend in town, and you—treat your luck like shit. Both of you. She with you on this?”

“Yes.” 

“Her paper wants to bring down the chief?”

Andrew regarded Steve as he zipped up his jacket and everything clicked into place. 

“Chief thinks I’m working for her?”

“You’re no high school dropout.”

“Everything I put on that form of yours is true. And more. I’m a dumb cluck who served his time for—killing his wife, and now I can’t do anything but move apples.”  

“Do this,” said Steve. “Listen to me. Tell them they can’t unseat the chief. Tell them to forget it. He’s smart, much smarter than they think. 

“The chief goes when he’s ready to go,” Steve said, standing. 

“That’s why this place is the way it is.” 

“Sounds like you can get me a meeting with the chief.” 

“He has a telephone. Call him up.”

*   *   *   *

So damned dark here in January. Next year, dammit, they would go someplace warm during the winter. Even if they had to take the dog. 

Andrew turned the car onto Annie’s road gingerly and then started up the hill toward her house, relieved to find the pavement dry. So damned cold, slush couldn’t survive. 

At Annie’s driveway, he was surprised to find the house dark. The clock in the car glowed . . . nine o’clock. Her car in the garage. She must have been tired, gone to bed early, but usually she would leave a light on for him.  

He used his key in the front door and strode through the living room to the bedroom. Hey, Annie, he said gently, I’m here. 

No sound.

He turned on a light by the bed. Annie lay on her side, her back toward the door, on top of the bed, uncovered, curled around Chloe, a comma around a Cheerio. Even the dog didn’t move—  

Annie . . . he knelt by the bed. She didn’t respond, her face oddly puffy, round, her high cheekbones hidden by flesh . . . he reached out for her arm, bare below short sleeves . . . 

Oh! Andrew sat up, gasping. A shout had woken him; it must have been him. His bedroom, Schuyler. Alone. “Shit!” He tried to swallow, and reached for the water bottle by the bed.  

“Damn!” He got up and walked around, barefoot, cold with sweat under his sweat clothes, trying to get his breath. He turned on the light by the bed and sat down. Three a.m. To call her now would frighten her. He had to ride this out by himself. 

Warren, Rosendo, there was no calling anyone at 3 a.m. You couldn’t buy a stick of gum in this burg at 3 a.m., probably just as well, the bars had been closed for an hour. Nothing on TV. He could take a walk, but it was cold and dark and people were watching him. 

He walked back and forth in this house where he lived on one floor. Eventually his breathing was regular, and he remembered he should write this down. 

He rustled through some papers on the shelves by the bed and found a notebook. He sat on the bed and wrote out the dream, while he could still call up how he felt driving through the dark and what was that car? And make himself remember—he drank more water—her cold flesh, the odd polka-dot shirt, were there tracks on her cold arm or polka dots, or were the polka dots tracks . . . 

All of 3:30 now. Also in the pile by the bed was Strip Tease by Carl Hiaasen, which Annie had left him. “This is funny,” she said, “you’ll like it.” He put the book next to him on the bed, lay down with both pillows under his head and pulled the covers to his chin. At six he could call her. Until then he would think. 

Copyright © Debby Mayer

Chapter 49 / Six-pack

Annie opened her eyes. First light, and Andrew was awake, she could tell, lying on his back; he was always awake now, whenever she woke up.  

“Andrew . . .” 

“I’m here.” 

“I dreamed I couldn’t find my house. I was driving around, and it just wasn’t there.” 

He turned and pulled her close. “Try not to worry. They did what was easy. And I’ll find out who did it.”  

At the police station, Annie found her senses heightened; if she ever got home, she must try to sleep. In the meantime she was struck by the shabbiness of the lobby, the dirt in its corners, the stale air in a room with no windows, the dispatcher a bulldog behind a scratched bulletproof screen. 

The dispatcher frowned. “We tried to call you.”

“If I’d been home, this wouldn’t have happened,” said Annie. “Right?”

The bulldog turned away.

The police report signed and filed, they returned to Andrew’s house. Annie left a message for her insurance agent, and Andrew called Claude, his favorite taxi driver.

“No dogs in the car,” Claude said wearily. Now they were being driven by a walrus: a bald man with a handlebar mustache who sat like a pyramid at the wheel, knowing he was out-maneuvered. 

“Sorry,” said Andrew, sliding into the passenger seat and slipping a folded twenty into Claude’s logbook. “We don’t have a car, and the dog has to stay with us.” 

“I’m putting this towel on the back seat,” said Annie, spreading out Chloe’s black bath towel. 

After that, the men breathed back and forth at each other. Not even whispers, just breathing. Nothing separated driver and passenger in these cabs, and Annie tilted her head toward the breathing, listening with her left ear, her telephone ear. 

“Serious . . . ” breathed Claude.

“Who?”

“Six-pack.” One breath. 

“Thought you were on the wagon.” Andrew was audible now. 

“Ten years. Almost. Six-pack’s the one who did it.” 

“There’s a guy who lets people call him Six-pack?” 

Claude kept his eyes on the bridge across the river. “I’m not his mama.”

“A guy named Six-pack doesn’t do this on his own.” Andrew slipped another folded twenty into Claude’s logbook, and they began to breathe again. 

“Chief.” 

Andrew blinked yes.

“Crack houses . . . his.” 

Having worked their way through the bureaucratic maze of two unmarried people renting a car together, Annie dropped Andrew off at his house. They were putting Chloe’s crate into a gray Chevy that should have made anyone invisible when Annie remembered: 

“We’re supposed to take Theresa and Glaron out to the empty restaurant on 23 today.” 

“I’ll do it. They can drive. I just have to be back here by three.”

“When the police station is firebombed.” 

“Don’t tempt me.” 

At home, Chloe drank a pint of water and stretched out on the bed. Annie turned up the heat and resisted joining her. She had more phone messages here, in addition to the ones she had ignored on her cell phone. From the newspaper, Tina said that she and Wendy wanted to meet with Annie and Andrew tomorrow, Sunday, at two. It was not posed as a request. Kathleen and Jaime were genuinely concerned. Annie started with them. 

“Let’s have a conference call,” said Kathleen. “I learned how to do this when I was running for office.” 

“We were on a party line until two years ago,” said Annie. 

“Hang on, I’m patching in Jaime.”

In seconds, Annie heard Jaime’s voice too: “What the fuck is going on?”

“It was a warning,” said Annie. 

“OK!” said Kathleen. “Be. Warned.” 

They decided on lunch at Annie’s, Jaime with soup, Kathleen bread. Annie did want to see them, and if they all took Chloe for a walk, together, then she would be less afraid of someone leaping out of the woods at her, which was preposterous, she knew, but still, a fear that had to be addressed, as Kathleen would say. 

And it occurred to Annie that Andrew didn’t have friends like these, not here, not now, and she could think of only one friend of Ed’s. Should she wonder about why she connected with solitary men? 

And even if you had friends, you couldn’t sit down with them and hash out the pros and cons of marriage to a solitary guy with arsonist enemies and then take a vote—maybe some people did, but it didn’t seem fair. But she did want to talk about this with someone. Andrew would talk to Warren, and she—she would talk to Father Paul, at church. If he married them, he would want to meet with them first in any case. 

Annie was so happy with this idea, she called Andrew.  

“Hey,” he said, “I was about to call you. We’re at the diner. It’s perfect. You’re brilliant.” 

“Good! Um—can they hear you?” 

“I’ll move over here . . . what’s up?”

“Andrew, if we get married, I’d like to be married at church.” 

“Of course. It’s customary. You get married in the woman’s church.” 

“—You don’t have to be on automatic. We could get married—at that diner, if we wanted.”

“—Let’s get married at your church. What else?”

“—If we do, Father Paul will want to meet with us first. More than once.” 

“Goes with the territory.” 

“Can you show any enthusiasm about it?”

“Darlin’, I’m enthusiastic about the whole thing.” 

“You get such a shit-eating grin when you talk to that lady,” said Glaron. 

“Best luck I ever had,” said Andrew. 

Copyright © Debby Mayer

Chapter 48 / Sign Language

When she heard the shower start, Annie went into the bathroom and sat on the cover of the toilet seat, holding a clean bath towel for Andrew. 

As she found herself starting to curl over the towel, she sat up straight. She reminded herself that while it had been a good car, with an adorable sunroof, it lacked a certain personality. She reminded herself that Chloe’s crate had not been inside, or Chloe, or herself, or Andrew. 

She had asked Andrew about this immediately, about the crate and the dog and themselves, and he had said, “Somebody chose a freezing night, three o’clock in the morning, in a parking lot. Somebody's a cowardly shit.” 

And she thought, but did not say, that even a cowardly shit could complicate your life by preventing you from ever leaving your dog alone in a car.  

When Andrew got out of the shower Annie wrapped him in the towel, then watched while he patted himself dry, noting the bruise growing over a kidney, another one under his ribs, his scraped knuckles. 

“Andrew, what did you do?”

He was silent, rubbing his hair. 

“Andrew. You’re supposed to say ‘nothing.’ You’re supposed to say, ‘he started it.’”

This drew a tiny smile. “Let’s lie down again.”

Andrew lay on his un-bruised side, and Annie tucked herself in against him. 

“We can’t even rent a car in this burg, can we,” he said.

“No, we have to go across the river. And it’s not in the budget.” 

“We use a credit card.” 

“Poor people don’t have credit cards, but when are you going to tell me what’s going on?”

“Now.”

*    *    *    *    *    * 

He had run, under the sound of the sirens and fire trucks, OK, he had jogged, two blocks to the parking lot, aware of Annie’s scent still on him, it was like carrying her, weightless, her scent enveloping him against the cold, he should have worn gloves, and should they just get out of here, go back to New York, but he couldn't give up his article—which was becoming a book—and he knew what he would see—her car in flames. 

They had torched it in the rear, so that the gas tank would burn, flames shooting up toward the streetlight that hadn’t saved the car.  Sparks flew, metal crumpled and now the smell was oil.  

Fire police were setting up aluminum horses to control the onlookers. Andrew said “shit” once, then panned the two-dozen people that had shown up so far, looking for who was enjoying this.  

He recognized Bryan, even inside his hooded jacket—the upturned nose, the full lips—one instant before Bryan saw him and strode away, his back to Andrew, who followed him. 

The boy might be able to outrun him, so Andrew took a chance, jogged down an alley for two blocks, then turned back toward the street. Moving alongside a building, out of the streetlight, he saw Bryan at the crossing. 

He let the boy go by, then ran silently, not even breathing, until he could grab Bryan from the rear.

“Ow!” 

Andrew clapped his hand over Bryan’s mouth. “Shut up. This is between us.” 

He pulled Bryan in between two houses, jammed him up against a brick wall, and the damned kid fought him. His knee had to be twisted away before it hit Andrew’s balls; doing that, Andrew lost his grip, but Bryan didn’t flee, he slugged Andrew in the gut. Like Andrew, he was gloveless and kept his punches and kicks between neck and knees; no face work.

A man—dark face inside hooded jacket—passed by on the street, glancing at them and going on without breaking stride. 

Andrew was operating on adrenalin, he had to get control of this boy. Bryan turned to run and Andrew stuck his foot out. With the boy on his knees in the snow, Andrew grabbed his arms and held them tight behind him. He yanked him up, pushed him chest first into the brick and stood behind him. 

“Who did this,” hissed Andrew. “What’s going on?”

“I don’t know! I—”

“Whisper!”

“I heard the sirens and came out.” 

“You don’t live in Schuyler.” 

“I moved.”

“To be closer to the cops.” 

“No, you’ve got me all wrong, I don’t have anything to do with them.” 

“But you know what’s going on.” 

“I don’t.” 

“Well, find out. My assignment is to find out where you live, which I can do in about twenty minutes. Your assignment is to be able to tell me, in 12 hours, who did this. And then we’re going to tell them, you and I, to leave her alone. We’re going to tell them that anything happens to her—she stubs her fucking toe—I hold you responsible and I take you out.

“OK, Bryan? If you’re not against me, then we’re a team. We meet at that park over there, by the courthouse, at three o’clock tomorrow afternoon. You’re not there, I go to your house. You’re not there, it’s because you’ve left the state.”

Bryan was silent. Then, “I need money to get out of here.”

“You little turd. I’ll kill you before I pay you a dime.”

*    *    *    *    *

To Annie, he said, “Bryan was watching the fire. The kid from work. We had a chat.”

“Sign language,” said Annie. “On each other’s ribs and kidneys.” 

“It was a frank discussion. We agreed to continue it at three o’clock this afternoon. In the square. Wearing mittens.”

“You trust him?”

“Just checking all the avenues. I gave him an assignment. With an incentive.” 

"You’re paying him?”

“Never. It’s more of a negative incentive.”

They lay quiet, exhausted; last night's barbecue dinner seemed a year ago.  

“One question from me," said Andrew. “OK?"

"OK."

"Are you still thinking about my proposal?”

“Yes,” she said, because she was.

Copyright © Debby Mayer

Chapter 47 / Barbeque II

“Yes,” said Andrew, “you can think about it, if you’ll tell me what you’re thinking. Right now, tomorrow, next week, any time you have a thought.” 

He sighed. “There’s no need to look like a trapped animal, dear. Like, right now—are you really surprised?” 

“—I thought we were happy. As we were. Are. I thought, this is getting good. But nothing lasts forever.”

Andrew winced, recovered. “Glaron and Theresa. Kathleen and Doug. Jaime and George. Nick and Liza. Rosendo and Caroline.” 

Annie nodded. “There’s a divorce in about half those pictures.” 

“Right. And we’ve done that. We’re both widowed, divorced, whatever we are. The youth crap is over.

“Annie, Annie . . . ” He laced his fingers in hers. “I love you. Do you love me a little?”

“I love you, Andrew. It’s just . . . I thought we were happy.” 

“We are . . .” Andrew took a breath. “Come sit here with me.” 

“Will that chair hold us both?” 

“Yes. Stop worrying about everything. I bought the damned chair so that we could both sit in it.”

They kept their hands connected as Annie moved to sit on Andrew’s lap, her right arm around his shoulders. 

“Give me a kiss,” he said, “to celebrate that we got this far . . .  

“Now, let me tell you how it is. People don’t ask people to marry them because they find the person, or the situation, inadequate. 

They ask . . . they decide together, to get married, because  . . . they have something good, and they want to formalize it."

“Thank you for not saying, ‘they want to take it to the next level.’”

“You’re welcome. What are you afraid of? The first thing that comes to mind."

“That you will leave.” 

“I won’t leave. If I do leave, you get everything. If I die, you get everything. And you choose where to bury me. Stuart will set it up.”

“Stuart won’t do that for some nobody from Upstate New York.” 

“Yes he will. He’ll want to meet you, and he’ll be so happy that someone beautiful, intelligent, hardworking, sensible, and loveable wants to marry me that he’ll set it up in a minute.” 

“I don’t cook.” 

“Neither do I.” 

“We have to eat something!”

“We’ve been managing to eat for a year.”

“—True,” she said. “This is your second January here, you know. Your first full-time, but you were here last year too. That’s how we test people, Jaime and I. Whether they can survive winter.” 

“And I passed?”

“Yes.” 

“Well. Is there anything else you like about me?”

“. . . I love to hear you play the piano at my house. It cheers up me, and the whole house.

“Tomorrow we’ll go to your house, and I’ll play the piano for you all day.”

“Thank you. We can talk about this more tomorrow? It’s amazing to think that neither of us has to go to work for two days.” 

“Of course. I didn’t mean we’d get married tomorrow. Unless you wanted to. I was thinking we’d get engaged, talk to your priest, do the whole thing, however you want.” 

“You did that once. It didn’t work.” 

“I was drunk then. I’m not now. I’ve been sober for . . . two years. And two months! Almost.”  

“It’s a selling point.” 

“Really?”

“Really . . . But we have the same name.” 

“I’ll change my fucking name.” 

“And children. You want children.” 

“I don’t. I’ve left that.” 

“Six children at Glaron and Theresa’s for Thanksgiving dessert, and you became an uncle to them all, in six minutes.” 

“Right. Plenty of children I can be uncle to.” Andrew rubbed his cheek along Annie’s. “Were your parents that bad?”

Annie returned the rub of his cheek. “Bad enough so that I don’t want to repeat the experience.”

“Your brother did." 

"Yes. Without children . . . being proposed to is exhausting. Can we lie down?”

*   *   *   * 

They lay entwined in Andrew’s bed. She was still awake, he could tell, but not for long. 

“Just one more thing," he said, "before we go to sleep?”

“Yes?”

“Do you still like me, now that I’ve asked you to marry me?”

“Yes.”

She sounded definite, so he decided to try to relax and get some sleep. 

But Annie had woken up. “There is a difference, isn’t there.” 

“Yes.”

“What do you like about me?”

Andrew turned onto his back, stretched the full length of Annie, her arm entwined in both of his. 

“Let’s see, I love it that you love sex, I love to hear you play the piano,  . . . but like, like—you don’t ask me if you look fat.”

“—Why would I do that?”

“I rest my case. You have to marry me.” 

*   *   *   *

Andrew opened his eyes in the dark and tried to identify the sound that had woken him. He was curled on his side around Annie, who lay tucked in against him. If he got up he would wake her, and that would wake Chloe. He lay still until he heard the fire sirens, and then he began to gently disentangle himself. 

Annie turned to find him in jacket and sweatpants. “Where are you going?”

“I just want to see what’s burning. Stay here. Turn on your phone. Don’t leave the house.”

“Chloe will want to pee.” 

“Put down newspapers in the kitchen. Keep the lights off. I’ll be back.”

In her crate, Chloe shook herself. Annie put on the dog’s lead and unlocked the back door into the yard. She sat on the steps in the dark while Chloe peed. Chloe joined her on the stairs, ready for a biscuit, but Annie took another moment to sniff the air, to notice that the odor almost immediately gave her a headache. She relocked the back door carefully. 

Andrew had been gone for five minutes. How long did it take to look at a fire? He didn’t want Chloe in the bed with them, which was fine with Annie—dogs in the bed had been Ed’s idea—but Andrew wasn’t here, so she and Chloe stretched out under the comforter. 

“What do you think, Chloe? Should we become a team of three?” 

Certainly life with Andrew was interesting. On the other hand, while the risk of arrest might be exciting, actual jail time would be terrifying. She must make sure he understood this, and thinking of which, where would they live? Her house had been hers and Ed’s, but she hadn’t moved up here to live in a dump like Schuyler.  

She dozed off making a mental list, and woke to the smell of him, she and Chloe struggling to sit up under the covers, Andrew kneeling by the edge of the bed, saying gently, "Annie, I'm back," smelling like gasoline and metal, sweat and blood; this was no campfire— 

Chloe growled. “Hush, Chloe,” Annie said. He had been gone for twenty minutes.   

“What was burning?”

“Your car.”

Copyright © Debby Mayer

Chapter 46 / Barbeque I

“OK, the holidays are over. Glaron and Theresa have invited us for barbeque.” 

With the apple-processing plant closed for the winter, Andrew was either at home writing, or on the road researching, his drug-connections article. At midday he would call Annie to make sure she stopped working for ten minutes. Today his call found Annie and Chloe in their jackets, walking around the parking lot of the newspaper office in the few minutes they had before another snowstorm began. 

“Cool,” she said. “Give me their number, I’ll call her and see what we can bring.” 

“—I don’t think we can bring anything. It’s their classic barbeque dinner.”

“I’m from the country. I bring something.” 

*   *   *   *

“Thank you, honey, but remember not to bring flowers to a barbeque restaurant.” 

“This isn’t a restaurant, Theresa, it’s your home, and thank you for letting me bring Chloe.”

“She’s gonna stay in that cage?”

“Yes. I’ll walk her around your apartment, so she knows where she is, and then she pops into her cratie, out of the way.” 

“All right then. Once I get the sauce made, I work the front of the house, greeting people, seating them. Glaron’s slicing meat, in charge of the kitchen.” 

“Just the two of you?” asked Andrew.

“No, we got help. At least one in the kitchen, and a waitress. Depends on how big the place is.”

*   *   *   *   *

“What are they talking about?” 

Andrew and Glaron had gone out on the back porch after dinner for a cigarette, and finished minutes ago. Now they leaned against the porch railing in the dark, kitty-corner to each other, in jackets and hats. Their breath rose like steam, in the light cast from the kitchen. 

“Business. You liked the dinner?” Theresa asked again. 

“I loved it. But Theresa . . . I’m not a food critic. I eat anything. So does Andrew.”

Theresa chuckled. “You’re funny. Well, we want to be known for a good feed, not fine dining.” 

“Do you have a place in mind?”

A pot of coffee and a plate of sweet potato pie on the table, Theresa sat again, across from Annie. “No. Can’t decide if we should fight off the drug crap here in Schuyler, or try to find someplace else. Got any ideas?”

“—There’s a place I pass when I drive from Schuyler to East Wyndham. It used to be a restaurant, but it’s closed now. One-story with lots of parking—"

“Stop.” Theresa held up her hand. “Tell them too.” She went to the back door. “Pie’s ready. And Annie’s found a place for the restaurant.”

*   *   *   *

The routine for staying in Schuyler now was to drop off things—tonight it was Chloe’s crate and two packed barbecue dinners—inside Andrew’s front door and then park the car at a well-lit city lot one avenue over. Schuyler fascinated Chloe, who snuffled along the shoveled snow, investigating what it had turned up. Andrew and Annie walked arm in arm against the cold. 

“What were you and Glaron talking about? It seemed like some big secret.” 

“The restaurant. What did you think about the barbecue—really. Tell me.” 

“I thought it was delicious. I love barbecue. But I’m not a fussy eater.” 

“Good point. We’re both easy to please. Gustatorily.” He squeezed her arm.

“Theresa said she knew how much work it would be. But the hospital kitchen is different.” 

“Another good point. You’ll be in on the next meeting.”

“The next meeting?”

“They see me as an investor. That’s what Glaron and I talked about.”

Annie absorbed all the ramifications of this until they were inside Andrew’s house. 

“So your cover means nothing to them,” she said, giving Chloe her evening biscuit. The dog trotted off to the bedroom and hopped onto the bed to eat it.

“No. As Glaron said, he’s been around the block. And to the library. He said he’d keep a tight trap.” 

“Is he blackmailing you?” Annie sat down with this thought, at Andrew’s one table.

“No, no, he’s not that kind of guy.” Andrew sat across from her. “He figures that as a former murderer, like him, I have trouble getting a job, just as he does.” 

“What do you think? About the investment.”

“I’m interested. I have to talk to Stuart, of course. For that, they’ll need a business plan. I can help them write it.” 

Money appeared in Andrew’s checking account every month because of Stuart. Stuart’s accounting division paid Andrew’s bills, and Stuart invested Andrew’s family money. 

“It’s a great idea,” said Annie. “And unique. But they’re not young. Why don’t they bottle it and sell it? They could get a distributor, go national.”

“They want to invite people in. Feed them. Be the hosts. I like that idea. This place does need more restaurants, and this is a restaurant that could sell.”  

“Did you ever work in a restaurant? I did. It was horrible. You’re not making any money unless you’re run ragged.” 

“We’re not going to work there, Annie. We’re just the money.” 

“—We?”  

Andrew stopped, thinking.  

“It’s true, you know. I think of my money as our money.” He tapped his finger on the table. “Damn . . . do you want a glass of water? That’s all I have.” 

“OK . . .” 

Andrew brought them each a glass of water. He turned off lights until all they had was the warm glow of the lamp at the table.  

“Give me your hand.” They held left hands, across the table.

“This isn’t how I wanted to do this,” he said. “I was going to make it nice. But, since I think of you as my partner—my love, my spouse, my life—will you marry me?”

“—I just fainted . . .”

Copyright © Debby Mayer