Part 13 (1/2)
”I'm deeply moved,” I said.
”I can see that. But you plan to pursue this?”
”Yep.”
”I'm willing to go to great lengths to protect William Trasker,” he said, looking at the rack of bats.
”I'm moved even more deeply,” I said.
Hoffmann scratched his cheek.
”You are being threatened, Mr. Fonesca,” Hoffmann said. ”I'll be blunt. If I asked him to, Stanley could make you disappear. Is that right, Stanley?”
”That's right,” Stanley said.
I think I smiled, a small smile.
”Are you suicidal, Mr. Fonesca?” Hoffmann said, puzzled.
”Someone asked me that yesterday. I'm not sure about the answer. It's one of my problems,” I said. ”But I'm working on it and I'm not going to take my own life. I've got a good shrink.”
Hoffmann looked genuinely interested.
”You mean what you're saying, don't you?” he said.
”I mean it.”
”Ah, a good Italian Catholic,” Hoffmann said. ”You won't take your own life but if someone else kills you...”
”I'm not a Catholic,” I said. ”None of my family is.”
”What are they?”
”Episcopalians.”
”Then we are at an impa.s.se,” Hoffmann said. ”I think our visit is over. You can follow Stanley to the gate.”
He stood up.
”I've got a present for you,” I said, holding out the gift-wrapped box of chocolates I'd picked up at Walgreen's.
He took it.
”I think you are more than a little bit crazy,” Hoffmann said.
I had shaken him, but not enough. So far I was just a determined little man who couldn't be intimidated.
”Why are you giving me a present?”
”Yesterday would have been your birthday,” I said. ”If you had lived.”
7.
KEVIN HOFFMANN SAID nothing. He tapped his fingers on the wrapped box of chocolates, and I said, ”Don't you want to know what's in it?”
”I'm not dead,” Hoffmann said.
”Then you must not be Kevin Hoffmann,” I said. ”That confuses me. You're using Kevin Hoffmann's name and Social Security number. But the Kevin Hoffmann born with that number died in Modesto, California, twenty years ago yesterday at the age of fifteen, according to a county death certificate which I can have faxed or mailed to me. If you are Kevin Hoffmann, you're thirty-five years old and much too young for senior softball. You're breaking somebody's rules.”
He considered me with eyes holding no fondness for humankind. But I'll give him this: he didn't try to lie.
”I've committed a minor misdemeanor,” he said evenly. ”I've paid my taxes every year and legally took the name of Kevin Hoffmann two decades ago.”
”I don't want to know who you were before that,” I said. ”I don't want to know what you were running from. I want to get Roberta Trasker, come back here with her and a doctor, and see her husband.”
”Now you're threatening me,” he said as if he were enjoying our talk, which might in fact have been the case.
Hoffmann reached over and pushed the phone on the desk toward me.
”You know her number?” he asked.
I started to reach for my notebook but he lifted the receiver and hit seven b.u.t.tons. He handed the phone to me.
”Yes,” Roberta Trasker said.
”Lew Fonesca. Your husband is at Kevin Hoffmann's house. Hoffmann says your husband wants to stay here. According to a Dr. Obermeyer he shouldn't be moved. I think it would be a good idea for you to get over here with a doctor or two of your own.”
”Bill is at Kevin's house?” she repeated.
”Can you come with a doctor?”
”His, our internist is Gerald Kauffman,” she said. ”I'm sure he'll meet me there if he's in town and I tell him it's an emergency. His oncologist is, well, he has several, all in the same practice on Proctor.”
Hoffmann watched as I spoke and then reached for the phone. I handed it to him.
”Roberta,” he said. ”Stanley was supposed to have called you about this. I wondered why you hadn't called back or come over. I'm sorry. If you like, I'll have Stanley come right over and pick you up.”
Hoffmann was smiling at me as he listened to Roberta Trasker. I heard his side of the conversation.
”You don't have to, Roberta...Yes, that's exactly what I'll do...You know I will...Yes...Of course...Yes, you know you can believe me...I'll keep you informed and let you know when Dr. Obermeyer says you can see William. Believe me, he is resting quite comfortably.”
He held the phone out for me. I took it.
”I believe him,” she said, her voice quivering, about to crack.
”You believe him?”