Fickle Read online

  Me: (It clicks in my head that I should give up on explaining my presence and instead get whatever I can out of her. I’m not sure I consider this an honest thing to do, but even as I feel my way through that thought I find myself nodding like I agree with her about the tricky matter of juggling real estate and tax issues.) The police are letting you clean it out, then?

  X: (She pauses to light a fresh cigarette.) I suppose that’s how it is, now you put it to me that way. The police are “letting me” into my husband’s place. I must say, it took them more time to come to terms with the fact that Stephen’s widow is from the reservation (she uses the term with jocular disdain) than it took them to accept the rest of it.

  Me: (I should pursue the issue of whether the police have concluded that Stephen committed suicide and not let me in on it, but I can’t help allowing the other reason I’m there—the need to know Stephen and why he did what he did in front of me—take over.) What’s “the rest of it?”

  X: (smoking) I suppose “the rest of it” is the fact that Stephen and I would stay together, stay married, continuing to work as business partners, and, yes, I’m going to say remain friends, too, while he was doing his thing. (She pauses and I catch her humorless chuckle.) But I guess a lot of cops have gone through a “midlife awakening,” as the men seem to like to call them. Seein’ some big-ass black lady from Nowhere, Nevada, hooked up with a well-to-do white fella for nigh on fifteen years—now there’s something they don’t have to wrap their brains around every day. Yes, indeedy, I dare say that was a new one for most of your Boston police folk.

  Me: Do you think Stephen’s death had something to do with his midlife crisis?

  X: (her tone a tad sharp) I don’t recall saying Stephen was having a crisis. I just think that the young man got used to Stephen—the lifestyle, this place, all if it—and didn’t want to allow that it was temporary. Imagine not realizing that Stephen would eventually get back with his wife, though? That’s the part I can’t understand. (She tilts her head as if contemplating me.) But now I see a lot better why things might get nasty, if Stephen wasn’t quite ready to return to his real life, but instead started up with another…pretty little thing.

  Me: (I stand, cross to her, and crouch in front of her. When I talk my voice has an insistent tone.) You must understand, Mrs. Pearle. Stephen was a total stranger to me until the moment he died in the train station. I never saw him before he threw himself over the edge.

  She sits, her toffee-colored eyes on mine, her hand frozen between her mouth and the ashtray, and for a moment I believe that she’s finally getting that I was no one to Stephen. First I think it might give her some relief to realize that her husband was in fact not moving from some sort of gay experiment into an affair with a white woman about a quarter century her junior. That hopeful thought lasts a nanosecond because even in the dim light I see her face set. It occurs to me that she’s about to kick my ass out of there for the rubbernecker that I am. But when she answers I realize I’ve hit a different note entirely.

  X: Are you—are you trying to imply that Stephen killed hisself? (I recognize the mix of indignation and assertiveness in her voice—it’s a tone I hear in my own voice when I’m trying to contain myself while still making clear that I am prepared to let go both barrels on further provocation. She hitches forward in her chair and I find myself only just catching the edge of the coffee table to keep from toppling backward.)

  Me: I’m so sorry. What do you think—(I stop, then get my head straight enough to say) How did he end up dead, Mrs. Pearle, if it wasn’t suicide?

  X: (The bullish quality to her jaw remains unblunted by my quailing.) Stephen was pushed. Someone pushed my husband in front of a train. Whether it was because of who he was or whether it was just because he was there—that I can’t tell you. But my husband was murdered. And there ain’t no two ways about it. Do you understand, or would you like I should repeat myself?

  Me: (I’m nodding like crazy and realize that I’m about to get the boot regardless of what I say, so I go ahead.) But I was there on the platform. I saw him. (I falter, anticipating her anger.)

  X: (Her tone is calm, almost singsong, as if she’s been through this particular conversation before.) Tell me, child, where was you looking when Stephen went in front of that train?

  Me: What do you mean?

  X: (patient) Well, did you watch him as he fell down into those tracks, or did you turn around to see what was going on behind yourself at that moment?

  Me: (I clear my throat.) I watched. Of course.

  X: So if someone had pushed him, maybe someone standing behind the two of you?

  Me: (confused) But no one…I mean, I would have…I mean, wouldn’t I have…?

  X: (She makes a “hmmm” noise that means she’ll leave me to think about this. I make an apologetic gesture and go to leave. When I reach the door she speaks.) Voulez-vous votre affiche de Greta Garbo?

  Me: (shaking my head) It’s been several years since I’ve used French. Could you say that again?

  X: My mistake. Make sure the door shuts all the way, will you?

  I race down the five flights. I’m sure she can hear my frenzied escape. Hope she got a chuckle out of it. So I run a couple of blocks to get away from how spooked I am and there’s this freezing drizzle coming down, so after I slip badly and almost do a gutter flop I look up there’s this neon blue tubing: ALL NIGHT. The diner.

  I get there and push my way in. The heat’s steamy and the smell is grease. I don’t glance around, but just take the stool closest to the door. The sizzle of hash and the filthy cat staring at me from the counter make it seem as if the place has sat untouched, a movie set waiting for another take, since I was there a week earlier.

  I pull some napkins out of the dispenser and use them to blot my cheeks and forehead. The counterman taps two fingers heavily in front of me and I raise my face, blinking the wet out of my lashes. He is, of course, the same old geezer as last time, his gaze as unanimated through his half-glasses as it was then. I ask for coffee and he shakes his head. Not getting it, I ask if he’s about to close.

  Grill Geezer: I closed for you. All a time. You go somewhere else.

  Me: (feeling myself color) I don’t understand.

  Grill Geezer: You get nothing here, no coffee. You understand now?

  Me: (somewhat stunned at his righteousness toward me. I race through my memory of our last encounter and can only conclude that he’s decided that it was a betrayal of some sort for him to have mentioned Stephen Pearle’s name to me.) I don’t understand, actually. (I’m pretty amazed at my own verve, but something about his audacity—something about everyone’s audacity toward me lately—makes me want to give a little back.) Why don’t you explain yourself?

  Grill Geezer: (shrugs, unimpressed) This my place, I serves who I wants. Simple. You go. (He turns away to scuff around angrily at his hash.)

  Me: Was it the police? Did a Sergeant Malloy come to see you, a tall red-haired detective, or another detective, a Latino? Did they object to my asking about Stephen Pearle? Did they…hint that I might have had something to do with his death? Is that what happened?

  Grill Geezer raises his spatula in a shooing motion, his gesture making me aware that we’re being observed. I sense movement down the counter, some man standing from his stool. Something familiar, even out of the corner of my eye…

  Me: (raising my voice as I stand) This isn’t a police state, regardless of what the Boston Police Department might have you believe. If they’ve intimidated you, that’s your constitutional rights they’re stepping on as much as mine.

  The Grill Geezer pays no attention. I feel for the door handle behind me, angry and confused and not yet quite free of the weird scene with X. Then the man from down the counter walks right into me, sliding an arm round my shoulder. I look, surprised, and it’s the Mysterious Hottie, which startles me almost beyond thinking. Fact is, I don’t know whether to be relieved or terrified silly.

  Me: Wha
t are you doing here?

  M.H.: Waiting for you. Let’s get. (He hustles me outside.)

  Me: (stopping on the street, partly to breathe the cold air gratefully and partly to separate myself from M.H.) Look, if you think I’m going another step with you…

  M.H. turns to meet my eye. He seems to consider whether to address me, his stance cool, hands loose in his coat pockets. Then he shrugs and walks off. I watch him receding down the rain-washed street, its puddles splashed with the moon’s vague gleam. I wait until he’s well down the block, then make my way to the T station. I can’t begin to describe how foolish I feel, and how annoyed and, well, kind of hurt that he didn’t even try to call my bluff. Am I going cuckoo?

  I’m thinking this stuff as I stand in the Park Street station, waiting for my train. For anyone who has never been, Park Street is one of those multitrack, multilevel stations with all sorts of platform configurations. I’m standing on a middle island where trains go by on both sides, and I’m just leaning out to see whether the familiar thunder is coming from my track when he saunters out from behind a post. The Mysterious Hottie. He’s across the track from me. The train that’s coming in is his and not mine, and he’s looking at it. Spontaneously, I call his name (no, not “Mysterious Hottie”—I manage “Ferguson”) and he jerks his head in my direction. My hand raises itself without my asking it to. He doesn’t react and his train rushes in and steams to a halt, then takes off, leaving an empty platform. I am relieved, I tell myself. I turn my back on the silence to see him coming down the stairs on my side. Very light on his feet. I feel another surge of relief, this one stronger. He walks up.

  M.H.: (responding to my quick smile with one of his own. Then he stops a few feet off from me, a question on his face.)

  Me: I still don’t know what I think of you.

  M.H.: Just looking to not get pepper sprayed.

  Me: (nodding my “touché” and half turning to glance down the track. This time the distant rumble is, in fact, my train. It gives me confidence.) This afternoon you said that we were both after the same thing and maybe we should tell one another what we know.

  M.H.: Maybe we should.

  Me: Okay. Tell me why you were at that diner tonight.

  M.H.: (seems about to comply, then stops) You first, this time.

  Me: (fixing him with a look that doesn’t seem to faze him in the least.) Tonight I went to see Stephen Pearle’s widow. He had a loft near the diner. I met her there. After I left, I went to the diner because it was raining. Also, I’d had a conversation with the grill man the first time I went there, and hoped to find out more. I have no idea why he blew me off this time.

  M.H.: (something passes over his face that he submerges behind a nod) Got it.

  Me: So?

  M.H.: After you and I met this afternoon, I was curious about what was going on in the investigation. I called up a friend in the department, my brother’s old partner, and asked.

  Me: Who is he—your brother’s old partner? (I have this weird premonition that it will turn out to be Burly-Bear.)

  M.H.: She. Name of Cheryl Archer. Detective first class.

  Me: (relieved to have been wrong) Was she there on the night your brother died?

  M.H.: (reluctantly) No, at that point she was a different kind of partner.

  Me: Oh. What did she tell you?

  M.H.: Said someone had mentioned in her presence a desire to talk to me again about what I’d seen that night in the T station, so I should be ready for a call. Anyone talk to you?

  Me: (working to keep from coloring) I’ve been in touch with one of the cops.

  M.H.: (seems to be studying me but I can’t tell for sure as I’m purposely looking down the tracks. My train’s headlight glimmers like a ogre’s eye. The silence means it’s hovering at Boylston.) One of the guys you mentioned back at the diner? Malloy?

  Me: So how did this conversation with Cheryl the screwable cop get you to the All Night in time to see me tossed?

  M.H.: (I’m not sure he likes my characterization of his brother’s old bedmate, but he lets it go.) She asked me if I’d been over to the South Station area lately. When I said that I hadn’t, it seemed like that was the answer she wanted to hear.

  Me: So you decided to head over immediately?

  M.H.: More or less. And there’s nothing going on around the wharf except a couple of gay bars and the All Night. So I figured what the hell and went for a cup of coffee.

  Me: (admitting to myself that this rings true) With what in mind?

  M.H.: Nothing. Well, actually, I showed the guy this. (He pulls a piece of paper out of his pocket and unfolds it. It’s the sketch he did of me.)

  Me: Ah. So what did you tell him that got him all worked up about me?

  M.H.: I just said I was a police sketch artist and asked if he’d seen you. He was impatient, said he’d already talked to the cops about you.

  Me: (a little too amazed to be annoyed) Did you get anything else? The name of the cops or the reason they gave the man to make him hostile toward me?

  M.H.: No one would have to give this guy a reason. Someone comes in and says he’s a cop and not to talk to some girl? The cops can make trouble; the girl can’t. Best to blow her off.

  Me: But who would have known I’d been there? Who would care?

  M.H.: Don’t know. (Then he draws his head back.) You’re worried about this.

  Me: I just don’t like being treated like a pariah.

  M.H: No, not about the old boy at the diner. You’re worried about the cops, what they’re thinking.

  Me: (defensively) Well, so is Stephen Pearle’s widow, if you must know.

  M.H.: (willing to be deflected) So what’s her angle?

  Me: She thinks…(I purse my lips, knowing that I shouldn’t tell, but at the same time sensing that he’s my only hope.) She insists her husband was pushed.

  M.H.: (I watch his face go from mild surprise to puzzlement. Then the penny drops and he focuses on me.) She thinks you shoved him?

  Me: She’s not completely deranged. She thinks someone did it from behind me and that I didn’t look back at the pusher because I was looking at her husband go over the edge.

  M.H.: Well, could it have been possible that someone shoved the guy past you and you didn’t pick up on it?

  Me: (The sound of the train fills the station. It rushes in behind me in all its Sturm und Drang. I feel my hair rise like Gorgon snakes. I mouth the words “no idea.” The train doors spew their steam, then roll back indifferently.)

  M.H. glances past me into the train car and gets that faraway look in his eye that guys get when they’re thinking about getting laid. I glance behind me. There are just a few people on the train—a black kid in a bunch of layered coats and earbuds, an obese white guy dressed for kitchen work, sleeping with his eyes rolled back in his head, a grizzled wreck in the corner, nursing a brown bag. No women or girls.

  M.H.: It’s late. I’ll ride the train with you, see you home. I feel like we have a lot more to talk about. I think you feel like that too.

  Me: No. (I say it decisively, but not as a synonym for never.) But give me your email.

  M.H.: Don’t do email.

  Me: (I blink unbelievingly.)

  M.H.: I’m an artist, I need to be left alone.

  Me: I’m going over to The Blue Pearl at around 4:45 tomorrow. Can you meet me? (I’ve stepped back into the train by now, and the doors close.)

  M.H.: (smiles and raises his chin as goodbye. I have no idea whether he even heard me.)

  GIVE IT TO ME STRAIGHT

  36-D @ February 2 12:13 am

  You are, like, totally totally screwed up. STOP pursuing this. You are MAKING them think that you were INVOLVED with Mr. Suicide. Don’t you SEE THAT?

  marleybones @ February 2 12:18 am

  Wait. Before we berate fickel, I’d like to congratulate her, because I believe that she’s uncovered a big lie told to her by that supposedly lovable teddy bear of a cop. Burly-Bear told fickel th
at some unidentified “witness” claimed that Mr. Suicide was arguing with a woman on the platform just before he fell.

  roadrage @ February 2 12:23 am

  Uh, grasping fruitlessly at why that makes him a liar?

  marleybones @ February 2 12:25 am

  I’d prefer to let someone else finish the thought. That way I know I’m not alone in my suspicions.

  i.went.to.harvard @ February 2 12:32 am

  Okay, I’ll bite. If there was such a witness, why haven’t we heard more about that person now that fickel’s had contact with another witness (the Mysterious Hottie)?

  webmaggot @ February 2 12:35 am

  Do you one better: If there really was such a witness, wouldn’t X have gotten wind of that fact as she urged the cops to investigate her husband’s death as a murder rather than a suicide?

  36-D @ February 2 12:36 am

  But how do we know that X didn’t know about the witness?

  webmaggot @ February 2 12:37 am

  marleybones?

  marleybones @ February 2 12:38 am

  Go for it, maggot.

  webmaggot @ February 2 12:40 am

  X couldn’t know about some witness having seen her husband fighting with a girl before getting pushed into the track because if she’d known about it she would have thought fickel was that girl!

  chinkigirl @ February 2 12:43 am

  I’m very impressed. You should show your deductive side more often.

  marleybones @ February 2 12:46 am

  Absolutely. And unless the cops actually suspect X herself of being the pusher, I can’t imagine why they’d keep that information from her.

  i.went.to.harvard @ February 2 12:50 am

  Sooooooo, Burly-Bear lied about the witness?

  marleybones @ February 2 12:51 am

  …which I find interesting.

  i.went.to.harvard @ February 2 01:03 am

  Another interesting tidbit that may implicate Burly-Bear, of course, is to wonder who warned Grill Geezer not to talk to fickel? I mean, what is that all about?