No Regrets, Coyote Read online

  “Supposed to?”

  “Some people look in the mirror and see a thinner person. I look in the mirror and see a man with no right leg.”

  “And the real you is the man in the mirror?”

  “Reversed.” Dermid rubbed his forehead and pressed his lips. “I want my left leg removed above the knee.”

  “And are you hoping to understand that desire, that obsession?”

  “I do understand it. I don’t expect you to rid me of my desire. I want you to listen.” Dermid took a long, deep breath, filled his cheeks, and blew it out. “I want you to help me remove the leg. Think of this as radical plastic surgery. Limb reduction.”

  “If you don’t mind my asking, Dermid, why would you want to disable yourself?”

  He sat forward, rubbed his hands together, and that’s when I noticed the lopped pinky finger on the left hand. “I’ll be whole without the extra limb.” He told me he rehearsed being an amputee at home by binding his leg behind him. “Every morning,” he said, “I wake up in the wrong body, and it’s agonizing.”

  “Your leg is perfectly healthy?”

  “Perfectly redundant.” He asked me if I was a religious man.

  I said, “I believe in the saints but not in God.”

  He quoted Mark: “‘And if thy foot offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter halt into life, than having two feet to be cast into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched.’”

  Dermid told me that for years he thought he must be insane and did so right up until he met Patience, who helped him see that he was not abnormal. He was simply trapped in the wrong body. And now he wanted the palliative surgery that would make the correction. He told me he could do the surgery himself, but there were so many obvious risks involved. “But I will,” he said, “if I have to. I want peace. I want this compulsion exorcised. I want to wake up in the morning and smile.”

  What Dermid wanted from me was to listen to him tell his story, and if I was convinced of his desperate need, his life-threatening requisite, and convinced that he suffered from Amputee Identity Disorder, then I would refer him to a surgeon who would perform, he hoped, the transfigurative operation.

  I said I would listen. I asked him to be open as well—maybe the story would lead us to a different resolution. He said he would.

  “Your finger,” I said.

  “Building up the courage.”

  It can prove difficult to reason with desire.

  I was driving to Arby’s when Bay called on my cell phone to tell me a BOLO had been posted for me on the police union’s Web page. My name was there, and so were my address, my date of birth, height, weight, eye and hair color, my driver’s license number, the year, make, and model of my car, my tag number, and my unflattering driver’s license photo. Bay read me what else it said. “This man will be getting you on tape and will try to set you up and aggravate you so you will make a mistake.”

  “Public enemy number one.”

  “This isn’t funny, Wylie. They’re going to war with you. You don’t want that. As far as they’re concerned, you’re a criminal.”

  “Maybe I should get a lawyer.”

  “Get one who’ll take a bullet for you.”

  Bay told me that his ex-partner, Ed, the guy who’d stiffed him in the Ecstasy deal, was dead. His naked body was found in a field swaddled in Saran Wrap, head to toe, except for a small hole for his dick to peek through.

  I said, “What the fuck!”

  “Apparently a bondage session gone bad. On purpose, I’d guess.”

  At Arby’s I parked beside a Colorusso Landscaping Company step van whose logo was an abundance of plump and colorful fruits and vegetables tumbling from a wicker basket, and beneath this cornucopia, the words WEED ’EM AND REAP! Querida had modified her red Arby’s polo shirt so that it showed off her attractive midriff. She had a tattoo of a hummingbird feeding at the unfurled flower of her navel. She took my order without looking at me. I took my Santa Fe salad and Diet Pepsi to a booth and opened Kelly’s diary. On November 3, Kelly wrote, Today I thought about Bobby Carrigan (we called him Carrots) who was my boyfriend in seventh and half of eightht eighth grade, remember? I wonder where he is right now and what is he doing? I tried to look him up on the computer at the library but there are too many Bobby Bob Robbie Rob Robert Carrigans in the country and none of them live in Belle Glade.

  In an entry written only a week before she was abducted, Kelly wrote, I have met someone. Very cute but you might not think so. I do! He has a job and a house he rents and he bought me a Snickers, which I am saving, at the 7-eleven. He told me his name is Dutch. How cool is that? And two days later: I washed my hair & set it. I wore the shorts and painted my nails Strawberry Margarita. I waited outside the 7-eleven. He must like me else why the Snickers? I made a note to let Carlos know about Dutch, but realized Carlos must have read the diary before he gave it to me. But just in case. I invited Querida to come here after work to see my place & just gab or she could totally sleep over if she wanted to but she was busy with her boyfriend Hector who is a player & so not good for her. I went to the launder laun-dro-mat laundramat.

  I could see the Laundromat, Tiny Bubbles, from my seat at Arby’s. Several years ago I was walking home one night, and I saw a movie crew filming a scene in Tiny Bubbles with Demi Moore, who was playing a stripper, I think. Phoebe and I were once in the Margaret Truman Laundromat in Key West drying our sleeping bags when a young woman who had been staring at us over her paperback novel said, “You two look so beautiful together.”

  The longest entry was dated October 9:

  I was on the bus to New River & I was staring at the ladybug crawling along the woman’s poufy hair in front of me & we were past the airport & I caught something out of the corner of my eye & it was the clown that had scared me when I was 5 at the fair in Pahokee & so I turned to look but it was just a guy in a red wool hat working at the car wash. But I couldn’t get the nasty clown out of my head. I was holding Mom’s hand in the midway & she was smoking a Pall Mall (Pell Mell was how she said it) & we’re standing in mud & my hand is sticky from the funnel cake & the clown bends down & squeezes my nose & it honks & the lights of the ferris wheel look like a halo behind his enormous head & his teeth are yellow & his breath stank of fish & I cried & wanted to go home & the clown slapped my mom’s butt when he walked away honking & Mom smiled before she shook me quiet.

  I was sitting in the doctor’s office with my father at the Gulfstream Beach Geriatric Clinic, and I was trying to imagine what my life would have been like if Phoebe and I had not split up way back when, if we had married and settled down together. I realized that this quixotic exercise was not unlike watching a chop-socky on the big screen or reading a cozy—a simple diversion from the current unpleasantness in the doctor’s office and the general aggravations of my life. Dr. Hamburger helped Dad down from his desk and led him over to the examining table. He said, “I need your cooperation, Myles. Myles! Look at my eyes, Myles, and listen to my words.” Dad peeked over Dr. Hamburger’s shoulder and winked at me. Dr. Hamburger said, “Who’s the President of the United States?”

  Dad said, “I can see his face, but I can’t remember his name.”

  Dr. Hamburger asked Dad to take off his shirt—easier said than done. Before I knew what I was doing, I was counting things. Dr. Hamburger had seventeen promotional ballpoint pens advertising prescription drugs in an Australian Pines Golf Club coffee mug. There were three silk philodendrons on a windowsill and thirty-six books on the bookshelf. I don’t know why I count. To keep myself from thinking, maybe. There were two photographs of grandsons in soccer uniforms on the desk. I once counted the number of different cheeses in the refrigerated case at Central Market in Austin. There were 486. I was in Texas to deliver a paper called “Coming to Know What We Know” at a therapists’ conference, but I got the dates wrong and scheduled my flight home two days after the conference ended. I was the only therapist left at the Days Inn, and I felt
abandoned. I bought a bus pass and toured the city.

  Dr. Hamburger was trying to unknot Dad’s T-shirt from around Dad’s neck. I intervened. The doctor sat in his Posture Tech office chair, leaned back, cast me a glance, raised his articulate brow, and lifted his upper eyelids. Lid-lifters tend to be a tad melodramatic. I took Dad’s prescription slips. Dad put the doctor’s Lexapro calculator into his pocket. Dr. Hamburger handed Dad a plastic cup and told him to pee into it. “You know the drill, Myles.” Dad unzipped his fly. I stood and took his arm. I walked him to the hall and pointed to the toilet. Carlos called on my cell. He said he’d seen the BOLO and was working to get it taken down. “I told you not to fuck around. Didn’t I?”

  “You act like this is my fault.”

  “We found the other missing girl’s remains.”

  “Where?”

  “In the mangroves by the barge canal. Cut up and stuffed in a plastic tub.”

  “Similarities?”

  “Too decomposed for me to know just now. We’ve got a head and a torso.”

  “Have you checked the 7-Eleven near the Circle?”

  “I did. The night clerk told me he saw Kelly with a guy at the store. I asked him to describe the guy, and he said, ‘White.’ I said, ‘Anything else?’ He said, ‘Blond hair, black shirt, khaki chinos, white, this tall.’ I say, ‘What kind of guy was he?’ ‘Asshole guy,’ he says. I say I want to see the security videos. He says the camera hasn’t been working. ‘Why?’ ‘Sunspots,’ he says. And then he says his boss, Mr. Goodgame, is too cheap to fix the camera.”

  “I’ve got to go. I’m with Myles.”

  “How is he?”

  “He’s not himself.”

  I told Dr. Hamburger that Dad had stolen his calculator.

  “I’ve got a dozen more.”

  “That’s not the point.”

  “I’ll be right back.” He got up to check on how things were going with Dad.

  I looked at the dusty philodendron simulacra and felt a wave of despair. What’s the use? I thought. What’s the difference? Why the effort? There are no miracles. Dad will not recover. There is nothing to be done. There was no deliverance for Cameron when he sold everything I owned and stole meds from old ladies on oxygen because the brief rush of inhaling Spiriva was better than nothing at all. There was nothing to be done for him when he’d declare his sobriety as he was failing yet another drug test, and he’d cry and tell me he’d get better despite my mistrust of him, and when he was clean, I would regret I ever betrayed him with cynicism and a lack of faith. Cam did not survive his hunger. Mom did not survive her guilt. Dad will not survive his dementia.

  I stood and shook my arms and my legs and drew a long, slow breath, and held it. I decided that Dad needed a break from his routine, or I from mine, and he would stay with me tonight. I called Almost Home and told them where he’d be. The receptionist seemed unduly pleased.

  Red had an easel set up beside the cooler, and he was sitting down, painting a watercolor of my house, only he made the pale house orangey. I introduced him to Dad. Red talked about opacity and hue. Dad sat in Red’s other lawn chair and shut his eyes. Red told me that a green apple contains every wavelength except green, and I took his word for it. He said that the little black smudge in the window was Django. Phoebe arrived unexpectedly, parked behind my car, and joined us on the lawn. At first Dad didn’t recognize her. It had been twenty or so years since he’d last seen her. But then he smiled, shook his finger at her, and recited a verse:

  Now Phoebe may

  by night or day

  enjoy her book along the way.

  Electric light

  dispels the night

  Upon the Road of Anthracite.

  Phoebe looked at me. “We need to talk.”

  I could tell she was angry by the set of her jaw, which jutted out a bit in what she must have considered a gesture of casual indifference or chilly condescension. The jaw and the lifted brow suggested, however, a rather vehement indignation. Red said he’d entertain Dad while we went in the house for our chat. “Use your inside voices,” he said.

  We sat at the kitchen table. I said, “You’re angry at me because you’re moving away?”

  “You knew the end was coming. You have to move on.”

  Django walked across the kitchen with one of my socks in his mouth trailing between his legs.

  Phoebe said, “You’ve got a date tomorrow with Heather Price at the King’s Arms Pub.”

  “I’m not going.”

  “She’ll meet you on the patio at eight. Here’s her photo. She’s a teacher, no kids. She’s into classic rock, Caribbean cruises, and the Food Channel.”

  “Do you love Kai?”

  She nodded. She brought her fist to her mouth and said, “I do.”

  12

  Oliver called and said he had the information I had requested on “Mal” and “Hal.” He was dying for kefta, so we met at the Falafel House. I ordered tabbouleh. There were four small tables with blue tablecloths. A boom box behind the counter played Algerian raï. The only other diner inside wore a black nylon tracksuit, the jacket unzippered to his protruding stomach. He sucked on a kalamata olive and spoke very loudly in Russian on his cell phone while he scratched—make that massaged—his balls. Some of what Oliver told me about Malacoda I already knew—the bogus nonprofits, the GOP fund-raising, the Beltway connections, the lobbying, the casino boats, of course, and the dubious philanthropies. I learned that he owned a popular D.C. restaurant, Dante’s, where he exchanged food for favors.

  Oliver opened his manila folder and slid several photographs of Malacoda toward me. The Russian said, “Khorosho, khorosho.” The cook turned up the music. There were pictures of Malacoda in silky T-shirts, in polo shirts, in dark suits and blue shirts with white collars, and in one photo he wears an improbable black, double-breasted, belted raincoat with epaulettes and an awkward black fedora. Not only was he never smiling, he seemed to have swallowed his lips.

  Oliver said, “Little Jack was born with a silver spoon up his ass. Daddy owned a very prosperous luxury car dealership. Jack went to Oberlin undergrad and on to Georgetown Law. He was a wrestler in college, president of the Young Republicans, glee club, debate team, fraternity, all that Jimmy Stewart sort of thing. He’s the kind of guy who’d cross the street to be unpleasant to you.”

  Oliver finished his kefta. He reached across the table and helped himself to my tabbouleh.

  I said, “How did you burn yourself?” He had a nasty wound just above his wrist.

  “On the stove. I wanted to see how the shea butter worked on wounds.”

  “You did this on purpose?”

  “In the name of science. You should have seen what it looked like yesterday.” He took another forkful from my plate. “Jack Malacoda lobbied for several dozen Indian tribes who got casinos and for a few that did not because he took their millions and sold them out.”

  I pushed my plate across to Oliver. “I’m stuffed.” I noticed for the first time that Stavros Kanaracus was in the corner, sitting at a table for one and fiddling with his cell phone—reading his e-mail or taking our picture, you couldn’t tell.

  “He’s got a partner in the boat business.”

  “Park McArthur.”

  “That’s him. Jack sent Park an e-mail about his Indian clients calling them chimps and morons.”

  “You tapped his e-mail? You’re good.”

  “I’m no Romanian teenager, but I know my way around the Internet.”

  “Did Malacoda work for the Tequestas?”

  “Briefly.”

  “So you know, of course, that Halliday sold the boats to Malacoda and McArthur.”

  “And I know they reneged on the payments, claiming Halliday misrepresented the actual value of the business.”

  “Really?”

  “I know what you’re thinking—that Malacoda put Halliday on ice—”

  “Halliday on ice?”

  “The cops don’t think so. Doesn’
t make sense. He didn’t need to.”

  “Did you come across someone named Pino?”

  “Some old dude’s staring at us.”

  “I know.”

  “Want me to tell him to stop?”

  “You don’t want to do that. He owns the place.”

  “He’s being rude.” Oliver turned toward Stavros. “What are you looking at?”

  Stavros smiled.

  I touched Oliver’s wrist, leaned toward him, and whispered, “He’s a bad man.”

  “So am I.”

  “No, you’re not,” I said. “Pino?”

  “Pino Basilio.”

  “What about him?”

  “Halliday’s associate. Not much on him. He maybe had an interest in the boats and the restaurant. I’ll keep looking.”

  The Russian walked to the doorway and stood there staring at a man talking to his reflection in the window of the antiques shop across the street. The Russian picked at his teeth with a key and sucked up what he’d dislodged. The man across the street waved his arms in disgust and walked away from his reflection. Oliver told me that the local attorney who handled the boat transaction was a fellow named Mickey Pfeiffer. I knew the name from somewhere. Maybe the papers. “Mickey Pfeiffer,” I said.

  “Pfeiffer, Kline, and Lukeman. Downtown New River.”

  I paid our bill. I swung by the house to check on Django. I found him sleeping in the bathroom sink. Red was off somewhere. I called Patience and asked her what she knew about Sedona. She told me it was about her favorite place in the universe. Red rock canyons, serenity, hummingbirds, wildflowers, healers, and visionaries under every stone. I told her to put the Alaska tickets on hold for now.

  She said, “You know, Wylie, we don’t all crave to be symmetrical.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Dermid. Matching body parts.”