Clean Slate

Chapter 5

Engines rumbled as the sundry McGladreys departed the Buckingham Court house, precisely at three, as usual, weekly family duty done. Mac, shadowed by Suzanne – for, after the meal, she'd hovered relentlessly at his elbow – ambled down the driveway toward the street in the brilliant afternoon sunshine, wondering how difficult his wife was going to make this. "We need to talk," she said as they reached the sidewalk.

Mac stopped and faced her. "Sure."

She looked up at him, round face resolute. "No no, not here. Back at the house. I kept the whole afternoon free."

"'Fraid not," Mac said quietly.

"Mac," she said, voice soft but intense, "we have to talk."

"We can do that. Just not there."

"Why not? It's our home."

"Your home, maybe. Not mine. I can't be in that house ever again, Suzanne." She went blank, which Mac knew meant she was falling back, re-calculating. "I figured that out overseas."

Her eyes flashed. "Oh? And just when were you planning to go ahead and share this decision with me?"

Conscious of the street, and of the proximity to his parents' house, Mac said, "Come on." He led her to the side of the house, through a wood shadowbox gate, and into the back. Over the years the rear yard had been carved up into landscape islands of various sizes and shapes, spotted with his father's prized fruit trees and divided by meticulously trimmed waist high hedges. In the center, by a small reflecting pool, sat a pair of white wrought iron benches. Back there they were within sight of Mac's parents' house, but out of earshot to all but the most determinedly nosy. "Sit down," Mac said.

Suzanne did so, tucking her legs back. Fiddling idly with her blond hair, she looked bemused, and Mac realized why just as the words emerged from her mouth: "This is where you proposed to me. Remember?"

"I do." Mac instantly regretted the two-edged words. He sat at the opposite end of the bench, at the very edge, and bent, resting forearms on his knees. "Sorry to just drop the Montcalm house deal on you." There's certain things, he thought, there's no right way to say.

She reached a cool hand to his bare arm, and withdrew it. "That's all right. I didn't mean to over-react. It's actually a good thing you're staying down there. I'm not ready for you to come home yet. There's been too much damage." She took a breath. "You really hurt me badly, Mac."

"Well," he said uncomfortably, "it's been a hard time for --"

"First you moved out, and you did all you could to avoid me. You never called me to see how I was. You didn't come over. You didn't stop by my work. You didn't ask me out. Just for a word with you, I had to barge in at Fannie Annie. Or track you down here. Or trail you all the way out to that shit-hole you're living in. You forced me to become a stalker, Mac. How could you humiliate me that way. I'm your wife."

"I know you are," he said, looking away.

"And then last June, suddenly you were. . .just. . .gone. Farm was locked up tight. Your boss wouldn't say where you went. Flip, Howdie, – even Scott – fogged me off. Finally Julie told me you'd run away to France." Suzanne scowled, her green eyes taking on that pinpoint icy fury that Mac remembered so well. "It took her a week to get around to telling me. She was paying me back – she never thought I was good enough for her ‘gweat big bwother.'She's an ice-cold bitch, Mac. I'll never forgive her."

"Well," Mac said evenly, "it took her a week to tell you because it took me a week to get word to her. I wanted off the radar screen. I know it was scary for you, and nasty of me, and I apologize."

"Fuck you, sticking up for her," Suzanne retorted, with a single convinced toss of her head. "You just refuse to admit what's right in front of your face. And so then," she charged on, shifting on the seat, "weeks and months go by, and I hear nothing from you. After a while I'm all just – my friends, every single one, said I should go ahead and sue you. File for divorce. My lawyer said I could strip you bare, walk away with everything you've got. Marnie, at my work – she's been through two divorces, she knows the ropes – and Dr. Elliott, and Chazz Martinez down at the U, and Judge Wildern's wife, and even your chum Clare Epple – they all said you were a total asshole. But I stuck up for you," she said, jabbing her finger in Mac's direction. "I said you'd be back soon, that I knew you loved me, that we'd put it all back together. I kept our marriage alive, Mac. No help from you."

"Sent money," Mac shrugged. "Didn't have to do that."

"After 15 years together, 12 of them married, that's the least you could do. The very least." Mac chose not to call her on her imprecision with the dates and the differential in their incomes, just as he'd chosen not to call her on some of her more outrageous spins on their history. Suzanne believed what she believed; he'd learned that long ago. And he found it interesting that through her entire disquisition, which sounded well-rehearsed, she had never once mentioned Nicholas.

Presently she sighed. "But I'm not angry. It's such a destructive emotion, and it's never been in me ever to be angry with you, Mac. I love you so much. And the future is ahead of us. I'm committed to working toward that future, going forward – with you." She put her hand on his arm again. "Please?"

Mac took a deep breath and looked at her. Behind the emotions her words had triggered, was – he knew it – love. Love for Suzanne. Always there, even at the worst times. Sure, it had eased in intensity during the years since the summer day he sat on this spot and, heart in both hands, asked her to marry him. Back then he had been mad / crazy / insanely in love with her, utterly blind to the reality that many who loved him saw so clearly: that Mac and Suzanne were a pretty glaring mismatch.

"I'm willing to work on it," he told her.

From the set of her head, the pose of her lips, he could tell she expected a kiss. But that he could not do. The pause quickly got tense. Suzanne eased back, took a deep breath, locked her fingers together. "Then first I need to go ahead and own up to something. Come clean with you. In the interest of full disclosure." Mac felt his heart race. Could it be? Is this possible? Has she finally decided to –

But no.

"I've been seeing someone," she murmured. She paused expectantly, did not look at him. Mac drew a long breath, leaned back in the chair, watching the reflecting pool. "It's no one you know," she assured him. "I have to say, it's gotten pretty serious. With him it has. I've held back. I told him, my marriage to you comes first."

Sitting there, it surprised Mac to feel how unsurprised he was. "I see."

"And now," she said briskly, "I'm going to tell him it's over. Today. Since you and I are going to work on us."

"Okay."

She seemed to brighten. "So," she said briskly, tapping his arm, "your turn."

"For what?"

"Confession time," she said, with a small, slightly racy smile.

"'Fraid I can't help you."

"Come on, Mac. It's been a whole year. You're not telling me --"

"Exactly."

Her eyebrows rushed together. "You? No sex for over a year? You think I'm a complete moron?"

"I'm not calling you anything. I'm just saying your assumptions are not always --"

"Assumptions? Mac, please! I know how you are about that thing down there! You can't go two days, let alone --"

"That's how it is," Mac said simply, shaking his head.

The scowl was back. So were the pinprick eyes. That cauldron of rage, always a-boil, just sometimes well undercover, glared redly again. "If you can't be honest with me, Mister McGladrey, then I think we'll just have to rethink a few of our assumptions!"

Whose assumptions? "Hey," he said easily, "your recitation of my faults and offenses, I own up to what's rightfully mine. And I'll make whatever amends I can. But honest I've been, all the way along the line."

She eyed him, gnawing her lip. "As opposed to me, you're saying?"

Mac shrugged.

"But I told you about --"

"He's not what I'm not talking about. And you know it."

Her mouth was trembling. "Then what are you --"

"You know very well," he said. "But I'll repeat the question anyway." He shifted right to face her squarely, keeping his hands on his knees. His heart was racing, and he felt nauseous, as he always did in these ugly confrontations with her. "That day, up in Detroit, 15 months ago, a year ago March," he said with great precision. "I need you to tell me where you went that day."

She blinked, and now, honest to God, there were tears, a sheen of them, not enough to run. "I was at the conference. I told you that a thousand times."

Mac's heart sank. "You were not, Suzanne. And you know it. You gotta tell me. Just spill it out. Because I can tell you, there's no ‘us' to work on till you get out in front on this thing."

She was blinking fast now, casting about, as if looking for something to hit him with. "You son of a bitch," she shouted. "You're never going to let up. You need a villain for what happened to Nicholas, and you've picked me. Well, you can just go fuck yourself."

And off she stomped, across the lawn, around his parents' house, out of sight.

---

Earl Bucaro carefully eased his red Corvette into a no-parking zone at the curb about three doors up from Clarisa's brownstone. Before getting out, he flipped down the sun visor, to which was clipped, so that it showed the windshield, a handwritten sign that said COUNTY OFFICIAL. This stretch of Central Avenue was lined with the three story hulks, edge to edge, each with its own small stoop and black wrought iron railing, and more wrought iron around the ground floor windows. Some were decorated with window boxes bursting with multi-colored flowers; others with overstuffed garbage cans. Earl had heard that this neighborhood was starting to become gentrified, but there were no signs of that here. This block, at least, was still a haven for a substrata of citizenry, people with lousy credit, little education, lengthy criminal records, and lots of secrets. Losers.

Earl walked lightly up the stone steps to Clarisa's stoop and tapped her door. On this Sunday afternoon, the street teemed with folks at leisure, most with skins darker than Earl's, enjoying the sunshine and companionship and influence of fluids surreptitiously sipped from bagged bottles. Earl's practiced eye noticed the lively subterranean commerce conducted behind open car doors and in the black mouths of alleys. A copper on the make could reap quite a harvest of collars down here, Earl thought. Petty stuff, to be sure, but ample probable cause for searches that would no doubt turn up firearms, drugs, who knew what. No deputies were in evidence, though. Earl knew full well the unwritten rule of law enforcement: in the neighborhoods occupied by quality people -- those who paid taxes, and had status and access -- you're strict and tough. Places like this zone here, well. . .these jerk-offs needed their crimes. If they want to rip each other off, kill each other even, let them. As long as they keep it here.

He heard the peephole click open. He did not bother to look at it, or say anything. He was staring across the street, thinking about Ruth and how unlikely it would be to find her in a zone like this. He thought also about the challenge she had presented him, about the "hooker's black book," and the way he'd have to play things, tomorrow with the Judge. He could play Wildern – anyone with a bit of brains and insight could – but the Judge was in fact no dummy. And even though the Judge, with Bucaro's deft guidance, would be acting in his own interest, to protect himself, Earl could never let on that he knew the Judge's secret. Earl wondered how Ruth had found out. And why she cared. And if he should inquire.

Tricky stuff.

The door opened and Clarisa Navacarrada peered out. She looked harried, bedraggled, and, now, even less than happy. "Mr. Bucaro," she sputtered, dark eyes blinking. "I wasn't – I --"

"May I come in?" Earl asked genially. Such a courtly guy I am, he thought, smiling inwardly. Unfailingly polite. Welcome everywhere I go, with open arms, and, sometimes, open legs too.

With a deep breath Clarisa stood back. Earl came in and shut the door behind him. The tiny apartment was a disaster area of clutter, mostly toys, a few bags of groceries, overloaded ashtrays. The air hung thick with mixed scents of food and humanity. Clarisa's two toddlers, dark-haired, genderless, with luminous brown eyes and dressed only in diapers, sat on the hardwood floor, idly playing with toys, as some sort of cartoon blared from the small TV in the corner. Clarisa said, in her stilted English, "My boyfriend is home soon."

"Oh, I don't think so," Earl said easily. "Sunday night he closes. We've got lots of time."

"They send him early," she said, gesturing, "when business slow."

"Not tonight."

The young woman stared at him silently, dark eyes scared. She had just turned 20, Earl knew. She was a tiny thing, with olive skin in a face shaped like a delicate teardrop, and jet black shiny hair down to her shoulders. She was barefoot and wore cutoffs and some sort of denim halter top in deference to the heat in the stuffy apartment. Her dark skin gleamed with sweat, and her nipples protruded darkly against her denim top. "Not today," she said, finally. "Please. I got my kids here."

"Oh, Clarisa," Earl said, like a kindly uncle. "Do you really want to go that way? Because you know what could happen, Clarisa? And it would be hard for me to stop it. Just talking out loud here. What could happen is, suddenly you're not showing up for work program, and Judge Evans violates you."

"But I do show up!" she cried, eyes scared. "Every week I'm there."

Earl lazily shrugged his large shoulders. "Paperwork gets lost. And if Judge Evans violates you, you go out to the Stockade. Maybe for weeks. It all depends. And then who takes care of your kids?"

Her chin quivered. Her hands were locked together so tight her knuckles were white. "Please. Mr. Bucaro. Don't do this to me."

"Aw, come on," he answered, voice low. "You know you like it." He gestured toward the bedroom. "After you."

Head down, she walked to the bedroom door and then in. It was a dark space, the only light from cracked blinds over the unmade double bed. To Earl it smelled of use, and he thought of Clarisa and her boyfriend in here, and the vision excited him. Evidently wishing to get this over with, Clarisa was slinking the halter top off, freeing her ample breasts. Earl, in no such hurry, seated himself comfortably on the bed to watch. "Leave the door ajar," he suggested. "So you can hear your kids if they need you."

---

Later, Earl emerged from the townhouse to see a white tow-truck from the City Parking Enforcement Bureau backing up to the front of his 'Vette, diesel at high idle. He could hardly believe what he was seeing: down here, and on Sunday yet! In his younger days, Earl would have flown into the jerk-off's face. Not now; with 50 comes wisdom. Taking out his cell phone, he punched a number, whispered a few words, hung up, and then leaned against the wrought iron rail of Clarisa's stoop, watching. The driver positioned the wrecker in front of the Corvette and then, getting out, went to the hydraulic controls behind the cab, and started reeling out the hook. As Earl idly observed, a static-filled squawky voice blared from within the tow-truck cab. The driver went to the driver door and leaned in, paused, came back out to the hydraulic controls, wound the hook back in, and secured it. As he went back to the cab, Earl sauntered down the stairs and over to the driver door of his 'Vette. He unlocked the door, with great deliberation, opened it, then straightened and gave the tow-truck driver, who was back behind the wheel, a long penetrating look. Under the searchlight stare, but averting his eyes, the driver punched the truck into gear and pulled away quickly, gears clashing, diesel grinding.