The Forgers Page 16

  Instead, I dropped into a charming little boutique of handmade women’s clothing where Meghan often stopped us to window shop whenever we happened by, and bought her two beautiful scarves—wool for winter soon upon us, silk for spring to come—intending to give them to her for Christmas. As the shop girl began to wrap them, though, I changed my mind and asked her not to use the holiday gift paper but just some plain silver foil they had.

  “It’s for a birthday, not Christmas,” I needlessly added.

  Walking more briskly now, because I was running late and also the wind had picked up, I decided that tonight would be a surprise second birthday party, one that would make up for Saturday’s debacle and the crazy-making nocturnal disturbances that followed. So much of what stability and happiness I possessed came directly from my devotion to Meghan, and hers to me. Hairline cracks in the usual fortress-strong wall of her affections for me seemed to have widened a little recently, or so I had perceived them. To say the least, this worried me. No, I needed to admit it terrified me. Without her I would be lost, bereft, and I knew it. Not that I could bandage those ostensible cracks with a couple of scarves no matter how pretty they were. Still, I felt I had to do something to smooth things over.

  She was standing, arms crossed, on the front porch of the bookshop, which was in a house set back from one of the main roads in town.

  “You have a girlfriend or something, mister?” she asked, not entirely joking.

  “What?” was all I could manage.

  “Well, you weren’t at work during lunch break when I came by. They said you had to go home to fetch your wallet, which I know you had on you this morning because you gave me money when we got to the village. Now you’re late to pick me up and you’re never late. Seems like you have some explaining to do.”

  Relieved, I laughed, handing her the shopping bag from the boutique. “I’m late because I made a quick stop at Eileen’s to get you another birthday present, which, if you’ll allow me, I’d love for you to open at the restaurant of your choice tonight. And it’s true, I lied to Eccles about my wallet because I wanted to go home and phone Atticus about that Winding Stair. As for a girlfriend, I already have one and that would be you. Do I hear an apology?”

  Meghan’s face changed, its hard edges softened, the tightness around her lips relaxed. It was as if subtle light, like that of a waxing moon, suddenly illuminated her from within. She thanked me for the present, assured me it was entirely unnecessary, and apologized more earnestly than her harmless accusation warranted.

  We were fortunate to get a table near the open fire in our favorite pub—well, we had several by this time—the rain having started coming down in steady gusts before we arrived. Nothing fancy like Kinsale, here we dined happily on clam chowder and fish pies. Meghan’s mood had, it seemed, returned to normal, and when she asked me what Atticus had said about the Yeats book, I truthfully told her he knew nothing about it—knew nothing because I hadn’t mentioned it, yes, but my answer was honest enough. After a second pint, I entered a pocket of time in which life seemed good, secure, not threatened by the past or “things to come.” I knew I had been living on a kind of sine curve, a rolling wave of ups and downs, now hopeful now doomed, now asleep now insomniac, now cocksure now deeply uncertain. If such a roller coaster of moods and dispositions had taken its toll on me, I thought, imagine what it must have been like for Meghan in recent months.

  When my wife excused herself to go to the ladies room, I found myself staring at the prancing citron and orange flames in the fireplace and made a decision I truly aspired to hold myself to fulfilling. If—when—Slader approached me for another round of hush money, other than kill him, which I had no intention of doing, what could I do but somehow pay it without complaint and expeditiously as possible? It occurred to me that I could transfer all further income from Atticus Moore’s sales of my father’s books—only about half of which had sold, and many of those purchased on time payments stretching out for as many as a few years—to an account I could open without Meghan’s knowledge, one from which I could in turn pay Slader. That would be a goodly sum, enough for him to buy himself other obsessions besides me. I could also promise Slader I would never cross him again, although I doubted my word would carry weight. Twice burned and all.

  Mesmerizing as the lively fire was and calming as was the stout, I understood this might not be sufficient to rid myself of the man. But at least, I thought as Meghan returned and took her seat, I had my response in place when he came calling. Over coffee, Meg finally opened her presents, which she loved so much she wore them both home that night wrapped around her graceful shoulders and neck.

  HIS LETTER ARRIVED at the post office the next day, as punctual as if it were scheduled on some malign calendar. Oblivious to the cheerless damp morning weather, to the leaden sky stretched low and claustrophobic overhead, I sat down on a public bench in the village square and read it on the spot. Its lack of greeting or signature at the end were all too familiar to me by now, and that it was scribed in W. B. Yeats’s hand rather than that of Henry James or Arthur Conan Doyle was equally routine. None of it nearly as disquieting as Slader’s earlier letters had been back in the day when I had no idea who I was dealing with. These expected details aside, the letter offered nothing by way of comfort, nor was it so intended.

  What is a dead poet to do with you? You have created with your greed and craziness a problem that requires resolution. This is your own doing. You had your chance to leave us squared away. But you do not seem to appreciate the honor of surrendered defeat. In my kindness, I can try to spare you and your family one last time. My instructions will arrive soon. Follow them to the letter unless you want your baby to be raised in an asylum for foundlings.

  No Yeats, but the man did have his way with words—although, rather than wince at that final antiquated image, I sneered at its self-importance. Most aggravating was that his instructions would “arrive soon.” Why not now, why dally? Was Slader merely a sadist or had he not yet figured out what he wanted from me? These questions were as baffling as they were frustrating, yet I clung to my earlier pact with myself to remain as calm as I could under the circumstances and react only when the situation presented itself.

  That afternoon when the stationer’s closed, I went home rather than wait the hour or so for the bookshop to close. Meghan told me she wanted to walk, get some exercise for herself and the unborn. “Too much yummy fattening pub food,” she joked that morning at the breakfast table. I told her I would see her at home, that I had some straightening around the cottage I wanted to do, maybe read a bit.

  As I pulled into the drive, I thought I saw that black-and-brown mongrel out at the edge of the field, a yard or two in from the tree line. Son of a bitch, I thought, and considered grabbing a rock, nonchalantly strolling out there, and, when I was close enough, hurling it right at his insouciant head. Put him out of his misery and mine, too. But I thought the better of it, turned the engine off, and withdrew inside, carrying a paper bag with the can of solvent I had borrowed from work, locking the front door behind me. I shuffled out of my trench coat, knocked off my muddy shoes in the foyer, and went straight downstairs to rummage out those gloves. After carefully pulling away the burlap that concealed the plastic bags in which I’d hidden them, I was dismayed to find that the bittersweet, acrid odor of death, however faint, lay in the still mildewed air. Taking the bags over to the slop sink, I set to scrubbing out the caked red-brown blood staining the calfskin. I never intended to use them, of course, but when I threw them away in a public receptacle, as I planned to, I wanted them to be as cleansed of telltale blood as possible. Not, of course, that this particular blood had a tale to tell that anybody besides Slader and I, unwilling and loath conspirators, might ever decipher.

  They cleaned up better than I’d anticipated, and more quickly, as did the plastic bags, although they now smelled of solvent, which, after running them under a stream of alternating cold and hot water, also dissipated. I dried of
f my hands after wiping down the metal sink and headed back upstairs. Another plastic bag from the kitchen, a furtive scan out the back window to see if that mangy mutt still skulked around—seemed to have disappeared, good—and soon enough I was back in the car, this time driving across Cromwell’s Bridge away from town, to a small marina on a fjord-like lake whose water glistened like India ink. Meg and I had come here once on a ravishing midsummer day to watch the windsurfers in their gaudy-bright wetsuits tacking surreally back and forth. That day the dock was crowded, the parking lot by the shoreline full. This evening, no one was about and I made my rather innocent deposit in the nearest covered trash bin. Before driving back to the cottage, even though time was tight and Meghan would be home soon, I took a moment to breathe the sweet, mist-rinsed County Kerry air deep into my lungs, inhaling with the lusty urgency of a terminally ill patient. I breathed in and out, assuring myself as I did that things would work out, life would settle into a routine of domesticity and parenthood and calm. Then, a bit lightheaded but sharp enough to drive, I made my way along the winding, tree-canopied road back home.

  Like some family pet, the mongrel was sitting on the top step of the front porch when I swung back into the drive. My headlights caught his eyes which, startlingly, shone silvery white, or like mercury, eyes that were empty holes. More defiant than fearful—he had never come after me, only shuffled away when I’d shouted—I got out and slammed the car door shut, assuming that would frighten him off. Oddly, it didn’t. As I walked toward the porch, I realized that any ire I felt toward this dog was misplaced. He held his ground until I was close enough to either pet or else kick him, and finally snarled at me, warning that I do neither. When I saw he was lording over a slab of fresh meat that was set before him, circumstances became clearer. Dumb pawn, I thought, and looked behind me, scanning the gloaming fields and back up the driveway.

  A figure was walking my way, I saw, a hundred yards off on the dirt road that led to the drive.

  “Meghan?” I shouted, hopefully. Seeing that she seemed not to have heard, I turned back to the dog and said, quietly, “What can I do for you?”

  Almost as if he understood or made his move on cue, the beast snatched up his hunk of beef or lamb or whatever it was and walked, then loped, then sprinted silently across the lawn, disappearing into the forest.

  I turned once more to glance down toward the still indistinct figure coming closer, and called out again, “Meghan?”

  “Hey,” she cried back, her voice a more welcome sound than I might care to admit.

  Stepping across the porch, I unlocked the door and switched on the light. In my peripheral vision I noticed that just next to where the dog had been sitting lay an unmarked envelope which, in a single motion, I stooped down, picked up, and slipped in my coat pocket, all the while praying Meghan hadn’t noticed. The crunch of her footfalls on the peastone gravel sounded like an old man rhythmically rasping, maybe coughing out his death rattle or else softly chuckling.

  “What are you doing out here in your coat?” she asked with a smile as she climbed the couple of porch steps and gave me a kiss.

  “Me? Oh, that dog was back here barking and I came out to shoo him off.”

  “Well, he’s becoming a nuisance,” she said, as she stepped inside and removed her mackintosh. “Maybe we ought to ask around, see if any of the neighbors knows his owner. We certainly don’t want him prowling around here when the baby comes.”

  I remained on the porch for a moment, gazing at the fully darkened scape outside, whose shapes and borders were now dulled by nightfall.

  “You coming inside? You’re letting in all the cold.”

  “Sure, sorry,” I said, before backing inside and bolting the door. I agreed with her about the dog, and promised I would make some enquiries the next day.

  SOMETIMES I WONDERED why Slader didn’t simply go to the police or, even worse, to Meghan directly, make his bold accusations, and be done with it. This was my nightmare scenario, naturally, and, as such, one I pictured the man would find most appealing. But the only profit from that course of action was revenge, not money, and Slader, for all the complexities of the relationship I sensed he had with Adam Diehl, was motivated principally by filthy lucre, the god-almighty buck. It was a pretty conventional shortcoming, I understood, for such an otherwise twisted psyche.

  His letter, which I read downstairs after Meghan had gone to bed, proposed—well, truth to tell, demanded—a meeting. All rather civilized, he wanted to have a late lunch at the hotel restaurant where he had been staying, coincidentally on Henry Street right near the center of the village. The letter, this time dispensing with Yeats’s holograph and written in the block letters of any schoolboy, went on to say,

  This shouldn’t present too much of a difficulty for you, I wouldn’t think, as it is just across the street from your place of employment. Yes, I chose it for just that reason. I must tell you how much I admire your punctuality coming to and going from work. The underlying responsibility inherent in showing up on time gives me hope that you and I will be able to find a solution to our problems and stick to that solution as if it was law. Because it must be, you know.

  For all that he was a raving psycho, I couldn’t help but respect his persistence and audacity. And, bizarre as it may sound, I climbed upstairs to join my wife in bed with a weight lifted off my shoulders. Settling my head on the pillow, I was grateful that some end was possibly in sight, and that despite Slader’s verbal swagger and menacing stunts with the poor half-wit dog it seemed possible he wanted to strike a civilized business deal with me. Why meet in an elegant old hotel restaurant if he had another script in mind? Dark alleys, fog-festooned graveyards, dingy dripping grottoes—these were the standard locales for violent encounters, gothic sites that mirrored the gloomy minds of those who haunted them. Not a pretty wallpapered room with silver cutlery clinking against china plates and smiling servers ticking off the daily specials. What was more, having already guessed what he was likely to propose, or at least some semblance of it given what he asked for last time, and figured what my counterproposal might be, I slept well that night, no bad dreams, and woke up more refreshed than I had been in months.

  Typical of his methods, he hadn’t provided me with instructions how I might go about agreeing to the meeting, which he had called for the next afternoon. I took it upon myself to leave a note for him at the front desk of the hotel, stating that I would be there at three as proposed. It was a late hour for lunch, but I assumed he wanted to get together at a time when the dining room would be more or less vacant, a quiet public place to have a quiet private talk. Although there was no Henry Slader registered at the hotel, I described him to the manager who said, “Oh, yes, Mr. Henry Doyle, I believe you mean,” to which I smiled a little and handed him the envelope, saying, “That’s him. Could you make sure he gets this?” I walked across the street and down the few doors to Eccles’s shop, convinced that Slader-Doyle’s eyes were on my back. Fortunately, I didn’t give in to my sarcastic juvenile temptation to turn around and wave at the upper windows of the hotel. My self-conscious gait, its strides too long and confident for the short distance, and the unhappy butterflies fluttering in my gut, must have been a sight. I couldn’t open and shut the front door of the shop quickly enough.

  Work was slow. Tourist season was over as the cold had really begun to settle over Kenmare. The hours dragged. Eccles had no jobs for me on the press, so I did some inventorying, moved our selection of Christmas cards to the front racks, and helped with getting holiday decorations arranged in the shop windows, the usual pine boughs and strings of white electric lights. This was the time, I was told, when we mostly sold stocking stuffers, diaries for people to write their most secret thoughts in, funny pencils and leprechaun gag erasers, yes, not to mention decorative paper and ribbons of all colors to wrap them in. I kept glancing out the window into the street involuntarily, thinking I might see Slader there, but as the daylight faded early—we were nearing the firs
t day of winter—faces became obscured, even though the windows of shops, pubs, and other businesses up and down the street were cheerfully aglow.

  Off and on throughout the afternoon and into the drear evening—Meghan was feeling a little under the weather, so I made us a simple dinner of broth and an omelette—I found myself going over the events that had shaped and reshaped my life these past years. At the forefront of my mind was Henry Slader. In particular I found myself wondering why he had developed an animus toward me that truly felt like visceral hatred. Of course, we had tangled, albeit unintentionally to some degree, on crossed business matters. Two forgers interested in the same authors, furtively competing in the same small market, and forced by specialization to share some of the same contacts, were never destined to become fast friends. Be that as it may, I found it inexplicable why Slader would spend such time and effort, not to mention money—The Winding Stair was not a cheap book; flights to Ireland weren’t free—in an attempt to frighten me, bully me, threaten me. The punishment did not seem to fit the crime.

  While absentmindedly clearing the table, Meghan having gone to the living room to read and rest, I found myself wondering whether there wasn’t even more to Henry Slader’s connection with Adam than I had previously imagined. Had Adam been a source of far more money for Slader than I’d imagined, the police would have had reason to question him twice, would they not? That might at least begin to explain his current behavior. And if the invoice I discovered in Montauk was only the tip of the proverbial, now melting iceberg, then he would be right to believe—since he seemed convinced I had killed Adam—that I had stolen more from him than just the Baskerville forgery. Small comfort that I was reminded of the nineteenth-century debates in British Parliament about whether forgery itself could be defined as theft and therefore the appropriateness, or not, of the death penalty as punishment. Today I found myself siding with Charles Bowdler, who argued in 1818 that “men may as well employ themselves in pelting the sun with snow-balls, as in raising arguments to defend the taking of life for the offence of Forgery.” I had to wonder where Slader, who, unlike me, had probably never read Bowdler’s treatise On the Punishment of Death, in the Case of Forgery, would stand on the matter. If he considered me not just a murderer but, in some ways worse by his lights, a thief, a larcenist unwittingly bent on putting him the poorhouse, what then?