Part 14 (1/2)
”Were gonna lose it!”
”Fine then, thirty-five dollars.”
”Log me in,” the old man commanded. ”The log-in name is g-r-o-v-e-r-w-h-a-l-e-n. Uh-huh. And then two. Uh-huh. No, the number two, dont spell it out. Jesus on a skateboard! Whered you learn to type? Okay, okay. The pa.s.sword is Ziggs.”
”What the h.e.l.l kind of log-in is that?” Billy asked as he typed a bid of thirty-five dollars and clicked to confirm. ”Okay, youre the high bidder.”
The old man relaxed. He wiped his palms on his long flannel nights.h.i.+rt and explained, ”I named myself for Grover Whalen. He was the New York City police commissioner who said, 'Theres plenty of law at the end of a nightstick. Heh-heh. They dont talk like that today. Then he was president of the worlds fair of thirty-nine. Im saluting him for what he did for the fair. Dont you understand how these auction places work? n.o.body uses their real name. Its like a nickname. Christ, I shouldnt have to explain this ... aint you younger than me?”
”Not feeling that way right now,” Billy said. He refreshed the Web page. ”Hey, you won. Congratulations on your new piece of paper.”
The old man smiled. His wrinkles looked like contour lines for a very b.u.mpy life. Then suddenly he wheezed and grimaced in pain and Billy instinctively reached for him. The old man waved him back, banged a fist on his own chest, coughed three times, sputtered weakly as if he were about to die in the chair. Then he pulled himself clear of the cough and took a loud, deep breath. He moaned, grumbled about the indignities of old age, spat into his hand, inspected the clear foam, and then wiped the mess on the tail of his nights.h.i.+rt.
”Copy down the sellers address,” the old man commanded, sounding hoa.r.s.e. ”So I can send him a money order.”
Billy wrote down the address. ”Why do you buy all this c.r.a.p?” he asked.
”Im leaving it to Bo,” the old man said.
”Youre leaving the kid this invitation? And the ashtrays, and the dinner plates you wont let anybody use, and the salt and pepper shakers-”
”Those shakers are in the original box,” the old man interrupted. ”And theyre only going up in value. The giant worlds fair mechanical pencil writes perfectly fine, and the jackknife has a mother-of-pearl handle.”
”Whats the kid supposed to do with this junk?”
The old man paused. ”Bos going to remember me,” he said. He frowned and looked away, then sc.r.a.ped a fingernail over some crusty stain on the arm of his wheelchair. ”The more stuff I have to give him, the more h.e.l.l have to remind him. I dont believe in h.e.l.l, and if theres a heaven I cant be sure Im going. But Ill have my immortality through that kid. He knows me through the worlds fair, see? Its my only hobby, the only pa.s.sion I got left, and the only thing I know more about than his father, okay?”
Billy confirmed gently, ”Youre the encyclopedia of this fair, Pa.”
”Youre G.o.dd.a.m.ned right I am. Did you know that the centerpiece of the fair, the Trylon and the Perisphere exhibits, inspired the magic castle in Disneyland? See, someday when Bo takes your grandkids to Disney, no matter how old hes gonna be, h.e.l.l think of the fair, and h.e.l.l think of me. Might even tell his kids a story or two they can pa.s.s along to their kids.” He looked at Billy. ”This invitation is the last piece of the collection. We end with the beginning ... . You wanna have that discussion about my treatment now?”
A python flexed around Billys throat. He gestured vaguely to the spread of pictures and notes on the table. ”Pa, I gotta work ... . This case Im on is, ah, a real b.i.t.c.h.”
The old man slowly spun 180 degrees in the chair. As he rolled out, he warned without looking back, ”Dont put me off till its too late. Never think of the future-it comes soon enough.”
Billy gave him a double take.
The old man read his mind. He shook the doll and said, ”Yeah, Im quotin Einstein.”
”Missed it by THAT much!”
Billy woke with a start and lifted his head from the table.
Im half blind!
He blinked his eyes. No, he wasnt blind-he had fallen asleep on his notes, and a photograph had stuck to his face. He peeled it off, then winced at the pain in his back, which sizzled down his hamstrings.
The photograph reminded him of his minor breakthrough in identifying Adam Rackerss tattoo: dismas23.
Not that the discovery had helped at all.
He tapped the computers s.p.a.ce bar and dispelled the screen saver. Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, he read the clock in the bottom corner of the display.
Oh, s.h.i.+t, 6:33 a.m. He had slept the night at the kitchen table. No wonder his back hurt.
The Web page he had studied a few hours before was still on the screen. The page listed Catholic saints throughout history. It was there Billy had found Saint Dismas. He was the ”good thief,” who had asked for a blessing while being crucified next to Christ. Dismas was the patron saint of criminals. Billy had never known criminals had their own saint. The numeral 23 he had not been able to decipher for sure. Maybe it had to do with the mention of the good thief in chapter 23 of the Gospel According to Luke, or maybe that was a coincidence.
He clicked the e-mail message that had woken him. It was for his father: Dear groverwhalen2, Congratulations on winning the bid for the Worlds Fair Opening Ceremonies invitation. I promise to s.h.i.+p the item within 24 hours of receiving payment.
Best- cancanman036 What the h.e.l.l was a cancanman036? Who would do business under a nickname like that? His father planned to send money to this unseen person on the West Coast. Who knew where cancanman036 even got this thirty-five-dollar invitation? He could have stolen it from a geriatric invalid at the nursing home next door.
Billy pushed himself from the chair, and gasped as his body tightened like a clamp. He heard his fathers voice in his mind, Welcome to my world. Feel good? Clutching the back of his chair, he rolled his shoulders and gently forced his back to straighten. ”Oh! Oh!” he cried quietly, in surprise. The pain was like having the nerves yanked from his legs, the way an electrician pulls wires through a pipe. He grew lightheaded and feared he might pa.s.s out, until the muscles loosened and the pain slowly diluted through his body. He found aspirin in the cabinet and chewed five tablets with no water. He kept the aspirin paste under his tongue for a minute before he swallowed, because he had heard it got into the bloodstream faster that way.
”Aint you the picture of health,” said the old man. ”Who did this to you? I thought you were paid up with the bookmakers.”
Billy turned to face him, felt a twinge in his lower lumbar, and froze. ”Didnt hear you come in.” He rolled his upper body around his hips. ”Hey, Pa, did I hear you talking to yourself again this morning?”
The old man bristled. ”So what if you did? This apartment is in America, aint it? I got my free speech rights, even in this second-story gulag with no elevator.”
Billy turned his hands up in surrender. ”I bow to the First Amendment. Talk all you want.”
”Im skipping treatment today,” the old man declared.
Oh, f.u.c.k, not now.
”We never had our discussion,” Billy said, not daring to look at him.
”Thats your fault. I dont have forever to wait.”
Billy turned to his father. The old man wore a short housecoat over threadbare cotton pajamas. His knees were parted. His legs were so G.o.dd.a.m.n thin, just sticks and angles, like a gra.s.shoppers legs. ”Pop-”
”Any news on my worlds fair item?”
Billy licked his lips and accepted the old mans detour around the discussion of his slow suicide. He said, ”Just got an e-mail from someone named cancanman-zero-three-six-”
Billy stopped, struck by a thought.
The anonymity of the Internet ...
”Well, what did he say?” the old man demanded. ”He better not be backing out of this auction. I won-fair and rectangular.”
”Pop, can we look people up by their nicknames? At this auction site?”
”Yeah, nicknames and home cities. But you cant see their real names unless they want you to. Am I not getting my worlds fair invitation?”
Billy shuffled to the chair and plopped down. His hands trembled as he tapped the address for the auction site. ”Show me how.”
Together, the two Povich men-one of whom was still mystified that a microwave can make a frozen sausage so hot it explodes, yet somehow knows not to set paper plates on fire-navigated the sites various search features until they found a place to type a nickname to locate any member.
”Who you looking for?” the old man asked.