from which I got my birth date is gone, its little plot of ground now busy pushing up barley or oat stalks. It’s a wonderful place to be from, since nobody can ever say for sure that you’re not.
A really persistent researcher might conclude that between Manley and St. Paul are just too many blank pages to be believed. Awkward, but hardly damning. And even with the research capacity of the federal government, it would be awfully hard for somebody to find a link back to Detroit and a bonding agency abandoned when its principal was implicated in a murder (innocent, I swear) and an insurance fraud (that’s another matter altogether.)
Hard, but not impossible. And somebody who knew exactly what to look for might even find a cold case file in Detroit that points to an even colder case file in Toronto that actually contains my fingerprints, the only place on earth that does, other than St. Paul.
The links are all very convoluted, their discovery highly unlikely. And that’s good, because bringing them to light could very well spell the end of life as I know it. Against that eventuality, I keep an escape kit in a locker at the Amtrak depot, plus extra cash in two locations out state. If I ever have to use them, I can never, ever come back.
And if I am too slow in making that decision, I will lose the chance forever. I’m not ashamed to say that scares the hell out of me.
Agnes is the only person who knows anything about any of this, apart from my Uncle Fred, the career bookie who is currently doing hard time in the Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and can be trusted to be at least as discreet as any other con. Even Agnes doesn’t know all the particulars, though she does know that she may someday have to do a rearguard stalling action while I make myself nonexistent. She gets all teary when we talk about it, so I seldom do.
“What about that other thing, Herman? Are we holding anything for Charlie Victor?”
“Nothing that they would really care about.”
“Then what’s the big deal? Let’s give them his files and wave goodbye as they leave.”
“It’s a matter of principle, Ag. Never give bullies what they want.”
“Even when they have the authority to demand it?”
“Especially then.”
Chapter 6
Massé and Fugue
Athletes like to talk about muscle memory. You make the perfect free throw or the ace tennis serve or the flawless triple axel, the theory goes, and you should immediately do twenty or a hundred more. Then when crunch time comes, even if your mind has degenerated into a useless collage of past disasters, your body remembers how to make the moves.
That’s what they say.
I had no idea what I was going to do about my cash flow problems or the pinstriped mobster or the feds whom I had deliberately pissed off or the flames I had seen from Railroad Island or even about Charlie Victor’s cigar box, which I had told nobody about, not even Agnes. So I decided to work on the problem that I at least knew how to approach. If the athletes are right, that is.
I left the office and headed back to Lefty’s, to practice the pool shot that sooner or later I would have to perform for Wilkie, or else give him his twenty bucks as a forfeit. I can do things like take unscheduled time off, because I own the business. Hard working, sweet-hearted Agnes can’t, because she doesn’t. Life is not fair.
I gave Lefty back his .38 and got an arched eyebrow and a pointed look at his watch in return. Then I got a large mug of beer, a bowl of salted-in-the-shell peanuts, and a rack of balls, and I rented a table that was as far from Lefty’s perch at the bar as I could get. I told him I wanted to be left alone to practice. What I really meant was that I didn’t want him noticing me practicing a shot that is famous for turning a cue ball into a deadly airborne missile and also for ripping up the felt on the table. In fact, a lot of pool halls have signs on the wall prohibiting massé shots.
“What are you
A really persistent researcher might conclude that between Manley and St. Paul are just too many blank pages to be believed. Awkward, but hardly damning. And even with the research capacity of the federal government, it would be awfully hard for somebody to find a link back to Detroit and a bonding agency abandoned when its principal was implicated in a murder (innocent, I swear) and an insurance fraud (that’s another matter altogether.)
Hard, but not impossible. And somebody who knew exactly what to look for might even find a cold case file in Detroit that points to an even colder case file in Toronto that actually contains my fingerprints, the only place on earth that does, other than St. Paul.
The links are all very convoluted, their discovery highly unlikely. And that’s good, because bringing them to light could very well spell the end of life as I know it. Against that eventuality, I keep an escape kit in a locker at the Amtrak depot, plus extra cash in two locations out state. If I ever have to use them, I can never, ever come back.
And if I am too slow in making that decision, I will lose the chance forever. I’m not ashamed to say that scares the hell out of me.
Agnes is the only person who knows anything about any of this, apart from my Uncle Fred, the career bookie who is currently doing hard time in the Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and can be trusted to be at least as discreet as any other con. Even Agnes doesn’t know all the particulars, though she does know that she may someday have to do a rearguard stalling action while I make myself nonexistent. She gets all teary when we talk about it, so I seldom do.
“What about that other thing, Herman? Are we holding anything for Charlie Victor?”
“Nothing that they would really care about.”
“Then what’s the big deal? Let’s give them his files and wave goodbye as they leave.”
“It’s a matter of principle, Ag. Never give bullies what they want.”
“Even when they have the authority to demand it?”
“Especially then.”
Chapter 6
Massé and Fugue
Athletes like to talk about muscle memory. You make the perfect free throw or the ace tennis serve or the flawless triple axel, the theory goes, and you should immediately do twenty or a hundred more. Then when crunch time comes, even if your mind has degenerated into a useless collage of past disasters, your body remembers how to make the moves.
That’s what they say.
I had no idea what I was going to do about my cash flow problems or the pinstriped mobster or the feds whom I had deliberately pissed off or the flames I had seen from Railroad Island or even about Charlie Victor’s cigar box, which I had told nobody about, not even Agnes. So I decided to work on the problem that I at least knew how to approach. If the athletes are right, that is.
I left the office and headed back to Lefty’s, to practice the pool shot that sooner or later I would have to perform for Wilkie, or else give him his twenty bucks as a forfeit. I can do things like take unscheduled time off, because I own the business. Hard working, sweet-hearted Agnes can’t, because she doesn’t. Life is not fair.
I gave Lefty back his .38 and got an arched eyebrow and a pointed look at his watch in return. Then I got a large mug of beer, a bowl of salted-in-the-shell peanuts, and a rack of balls, and I rented a table that was as far from Lefty’s perch at the bar as I could get. I told him I wanted to be left alone to practice. What I really meant was that I didn’t want him noticing me practicing a shot that is famous for turning a cue ball into a deadly airborne missile and also for ripping up the felt on the table. In fact, a lot of pool halls have signs on the wall prohibiting massé shots.
“What are you
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