Motherless Brooklyn

“You and Tony compared more than notes, Julia.” I regretted it the minute I said it.

She looked at me with pity now.

“So I fucked him.” She took out a cigarette and lighter from her purse. “I fucked a lot of guys, Lionel. I fucked Tony and Danny, even Gilbert once. Everyone except you. It’s no big deal.” She put the cigarette in her lips and cupped her hands against the wind.

“Maybe it was to Tony,” I said, and regretted it even worse.

She only shrugged, worked the lighter uselessly again and again. Cars whirred past on the highway below, but nobody stopped at the lighthouse. We were alone in our torment and shame, and useless to each other.

It might not have been a big deal to Julia that she fucked the Minna Men, the Minna Boys, really, and maybe it was no big deal to Tony either-but I doubted it. You were the original woman, I wanted to tell her. When Minna brought you home to us we tried to learn what it meant for Frank to marry, we studied you to understand what a Minna Woman might be, and saw only rage-rage I now understood had concealed disappointment and fear, oceans of fear. We had watched women and letters soar past before, but you were the first that was addressed to us, and we tried to understand you. And we loved you.

I needed to rescue Julia now, retrieve her from this lighthouse and the bareness of her story against the Maine sky. I needed her to see that we were the same, disappointed lovers of Frank Minna, abandoned children.

“We’re almost the same age, Julia,” I said lamely. “I mean, you and me, we were teenagers at pretty much the same time.” She looked at me blankly.

“I met a woman, Julia. Because of this case. She’s like you in certain ways. She studies Zen, just like you did when you met Frank.”

“No woman will ever want you, Lionel.”

“WantmeBailey!”

It was a classic tic, honest and clean. Nothing about Maine or Julia Minna or my profound exhaustion could get in the way of a good, clean, throat-wrenching tic. My maker in his infinite wisdom had provided me with that.

I tried not to listen to what Julia was saying, to focus on the far-off squalling of gulls and splash of surf instead.

“That’s not really true,” she went on. “They might want you. I’ve wanted you a little bit myself. But they’ll never be fair to you, Lionel. Because you’re such a freak.”

“This person is different,” I said. “She’s different from anyone I’ve ever met.” But now I was losing my point. If I made the distinction between Julia and Kimmery plain to Julia, to myself-she’s not as mean as you, could never be so mean-I would only be sorry I’d spoken at all.

“Well, I bet you’re different for her, too. I’m sure you’ll be very happy together.” In her mouth the words happy together came out twisted and harsh.

Crappy however.

Slappy forget her.

I wanted to call Kimmery now, wanted to so badly my fingers located the cell phone in my jacket pocket and began to fondle it.

“Why was Tony coming to Maine?” I asked, running for cover back to the plot we’d begun spinning together, which suddenly seemed to have little or nothing to do with our miserable fates, our miserable lives exposed out here in the wind. “Why didn’t you just get away from here? You knew Gerard might kill you.”

“I heard Fujisaki was flying up here today.” Again she struck with the lighter against her cigarette, as if it were going to ignite like a flint against a rock. It wasn’t just the wind she was fighting now. Her hands trembled, and the cigarette trembled where she held it in her lips. “Tony and I were going to tell them about Gerard. He was going to bring some proof. Then you got in the way.”

“It wasn’t me that stopped Tony from keeping the date.” I was distracted by the phone in my pocket, the prospect of Kimmery’s soothing voice, even if it were only the outgoing message on her machine. “Gerard sent his giant after Tony,” I went on. “He followed Tony up here, maybe figuring to take out two birds with one flick of his big finger.”

“Gerard didn’t want me killed,” she said quietly. Her hands had fallen to her sides. “He wanted me back.” She was trying to make it so by saying it, but the words themselves were nearly lost in the wind. Julia threatened to recede into the distance again, and this time I knew I wouldn’t bother trying to bring her back.

“Is that why he had his brother killed? Jealousy?”

“Does it have to be one thing? He probably figured it was him or Frank.” The cigarette still dangled in her mouth. “Fujisaki required a sacrifice. They’re great believers in that.”

“Did you talk to Fujisaki just now?”

“Men like that don’t cut deals with waitresses, Lionel.”

“It’s rotten for Tony the killer found him before he found Fujisaki,” I said. “But it won’t save Gerard. I made sure of that.” I didn’t want to elaborate.

“So you say.” She paced away from the railing, gripping the lighter so tightly I expected her to crush it. “What’s that supposed to mean?”