The little sleep: a novel Read online

  He says, “No one would believe that woman was Jennifer.”

  I shrug. “Sure they would. Presented in the proper light; people want to believe the worst.”

  The DA has his chiseled face in hand, another pose, and says, “I’ll have another talk with her later, but right now I believe her, not you.”

  It’s not a shock, but it stings. To be dismissed so easily. I fire back with a double-barrel dose of healthy paranoia. “That’s fine. I believe me over both of you. Tell me, DA, how do I know that Jennifer was really the person on the other end of that phone call?”

  He rolls his eyes, gets up off the desk, and walks to his office door, holds it open. He says, “Okay, I think our meeting is done. If I hear or see anything more about these photos of yours, don’t be surprised if you find me in your Southie office, warrant in hand.”

  “I guess this means no brunch.” I adjust my hat and slip the envelope inside my coat. “I’m only looking out for your daughter’s best interests because I was hired to.”

  There’s nothing more to be said. We’re all out of words. I walk out of the office. He shuts the door behind me. I tighten my coat, the envelope pressed up against my chest. The secretary has her head down, computer keys clicking.

  The goons aren’t in the waiting room. Maybe they were never here. Maybe, like Jennifer’s mole, they’ve been Photoshopped out. The room is too empty. No chairs are askew, all the magazines are in a pile, nothing out of place, but it’s staged, a crime scene without a body.

  I’m alone again, with a client who denies such status and with photos that aren’t of her. I’m alone again, with nothing, and I just want to sit and think, but my head is a mess, trying to put together a jigsaw puzzle that’s suddenly missing all but a few pieces. I need to call a cab, go back to the office, begin at the beginning, focus on those few pieces I do have, and see if I can’t force them to fit together.

  EIGHT

  After my DA meeting I sat at my office desk and looked at the photos again, searching for clues I might’ve missed. I didn’t see any. In the first photo, the one with the fully clothed Jennifer, there was a bookcase that holds ten books. I couldn’t read any of the slimmer titles, but there was one fat hardcover with LIT written big and white across the bottom of the spine. Library book probably. In the second photo, the camera is angled up, and I see only the ceiling and the wall and the topless Jennifer.

  I locked the photos with the negatives in my office desk and slept the rest of the afternoon away on my apartment couch. I dreamed my usual Dad-in-the-backyard dream. There was still a lot of shit to clean up. No one called and woke me. No one missed my conscious presence. I’m used to it and don’t take it personally anymore.

  Now it’s two o’clock in the morning. I’ve been wandering and haunting my own apartment, a ghost without the clanging chains. I can’t sleep. I already said I was sick of irony, but it’s a narcoleptic’s lot.

  I turn on the VCR and watch two taped American Star episodes, last night’s and tonight’s, the one I slept through. First show has a disco-night theme. Jennifer Times sings “I Will Survive.” She sings well enough, right notes and right key, but she moves stiffly, her hips are rusty hinges and her feet don’t want to stay in one spot, a colt walking in a field full of holes. The judges call her on it. The British guy says she was icy and robotic, a mannequin barely come to life. The people in the audience boo the judge even though he’s correct. Truth is usually greeted with disdain.

  Jennifer doesn’t take the criticism well and fires back at the judges. She whines and is rude and short in dismissing the critiques. She turns and tilts her head, rolls her eyes, hands on her hips, stops just short of stomping a foot on the floor. She leaves the stage with, “I thought I was great and they did too,” pointing to the audience. She gets a lukewarm cheer.

  Jennifer forgot it’s not about the song you sing or the words you have to say; it’s always about the performance, how you present your public self. She could’ve come off as a hero if she argued with the judges correctly, mixing self-deprecation, humility, and humor with confidence and determination. Maybe she should’ve hired me as a coach instead of her PI.

  As the vote-off show queues up next on my tape, I fire up my laptop and check out the Internet message boards and blogosphere reaction. Jennifer was universally ripped and often referred to as a privileged brat. There will be no recovering from that. The show’s voters agreed with the brat tag, and Jennifer is the first finalist knocked out of American Star. A quick THE END to that singing career, I guess. Jennifer doesn’t take the news on the vote-off show well either. Instead of gracious smiles and hand-waving, we get the nationally televised equivalent of a kid storming out of her parents’ room after a scolding. While I think Jennifer handled her fifteen minutes of fame poorly, I do sympathize with her. Sometimes you just can’t win.

  Maybe this means she’ll return my calls when she gets back to Boston. Maybe she’ll apologize for lying to her father, for making my public self appear to be a lunatic. My performance in her daddy’s office needed her help, and she threw me tomatoes instead of roses. Or maybe she won’t call me and the case is dead, now that she’s off the show.

  I shut off the VCR and laptop and wander back to bed. Insomnia is there waiting for me. The sheets and comforter feel all wrong, full of points and angles somehow. The pillow is not soft enough; it’s too hard. I’m Goldilocks in my own house.

  The awake me can’t help but rerun everything in my mashed-up head. Yeah, I’m stubborn, but I have to try and see Jennifer one more time, somehow straighten out all that’s been bent out of shape and put the case to bed, so to speak.

  NINE

  The phone rings; it sounds far away, in the next universe. I lift my head off my desk, an incredible feat of strength, and wipe my face. Leftover fried rice trapped in my beard and mustache fall onto the Styrofoam plate that had been my pillow. The rice bounces off and onto the desktop and on my lap. I need to make a note to vacuum later.

  It has been two days since my meeting with the DA. My office phone has rung only once. It was NANNING WOK double-checking my order because the woman wasn’t sure if I’d said General Gao or Kung Pao. The General, of course, as if there was any question.

  I spent those two days getting nowhere with Jennifer’s case. Her agency doesn’t return my calls, and I don’t know when her next public appearance is. I haven’t looked at the photos since locking them in my desk. I wanted them to find their own way out, somehow, before I thought about them again. Doing nothing with them couldn’t be any worse than my previous attempts at doing something.

  The phone is still ringing. Someone insisting that we talk. Fine. Be that way. I pick it up.

  I say, “Mark Genevich,” my name bubbling up from the depths, sounding worse for the trip.

  “Have you found it yet?” A male voice. He sounds older. His voice is deep, heavy with time, like mine.

  I’m disappointed. I was really hoping it’d be Jennifer. Instead, it’s a client that I’ve been shirking. I have two abandoned property searches that I’ve put on hold since the Times case came walking in my door.

  I say, “No, I haven’t found anything yet. Need more time.” I should just hang up and put my face back into the leftover fried rice.

  “I don’t think we have more time, kid. There’s a red car driving around my house. It’s been by four times this afternoon already. Fuck!”

  Maybe I’m dreaming and I’ll wake up on my couch or reawake with my face in Chinese food to start it all over again. Maybe this is my old buddy Juan-Miguel putting me on, playing a joke. When we lived together he’d call in shit like this. I decide to play along with the caller a bit longer, gather more information before I make a hasty conclusion; it’s how I have to live my everyday life. That said, this guy’s voice has a kernel of sincerity that’s undeniable.

  I say, “Relax. Calm down. Red cars won’t bother you if you don’t bother them.”

  “There’re two people in that
red car. They know. They know about the pictures somehow. Shit! They’re driving by again, and they slow down in front of my house every time. You didn’t show anyone those pictures yet, did you? You can’t until you find—”

  I drop the phone, of course. It slides out of my greasy hands and bounces off my foot. Goddamn it! At least I know I’m awake. I’m awake because I’m usually competent in my dreams and hallucinations.

  I pick up the phone. “Sorry, dropped you for a second. I’m still here.” I stand up, walk across the room, and shut the door to my office. No one’s in the hallway, of course, but Ellen could walk in unannounced at any time. “No. I didn’t show anyone anything.” It’s easier to lie because I don’t know who I’m talking to.

  He says, “I shouldn’t have given you those pictures. I don’t know what I think I was doing, who I’d be helping. It was dumb. Now we’re both fucked. Should’ve just kept sitting on it like the old hen that I am. This is so screwed up. Shouldn’t have done anything… .” His words fall into odd rhythms, stops and starts mixed with letters that he holds too long. He slurs his s’s. He’s been drinking. It’s not helping his paranoia—or mine. His voice fades out as he’s talking to either himself or someone else in the room with him; the phone must be dropping away from his mouth. I’m losing him. I have to keep him talking, even if it isn’t to me.

  I say, “Hey, pull it together. It’ll be all right once I find”—yeah, find what?—“it.” So I’m not so smooth on my end. I pace around my office and look for something that’ll help me. Nothing’s here. Hopefully he doesn’t process my hesitation.

  He says, “You need to hurry up. I don’t want to say anything more. If they’re driving around my house, it probably means they’re listening in too, the fuckers.”

  He and I have seen too many of the same movies. I’m ready to agree with him. I have so many questions to ask this guy, starting with the introductory-level Who are you? but I have to pretend I know what’s going on.

  I say, “All right, all right. But before you hang up, I think we need to talk again. Face-to-face. It’ll help us sort all this out, trust me. We’ll both feel better about it.”

  “Not your office. I can’t come to Southie again. I’m not going anywhere, not right now. I’m staying here, with my doors locked.”

  An espresso-like jolt rushes through my system. He’s been here before. I say, “Okay, I’ll come to you. Give me your address.”

  He does, but he doesn’t give me his name. No matter. Address only. I write it down. Goddamn, he lives on the Cape, in Osterville, not far from where Ellen lives and where my childhood homestead still stands. Now pieces are fitting together where they shouldn’t, square pegs in round holes.

  I tell him I’ll be there tomorrow. He hangs up, and that’s it. The office and phone are quiet again. More old fried rice, looking like mouse turds, is on the desk and on the floor. I’m breathing heavy. I pull out a cigarette and start a fire.

  I unlock my drawer and take out the photos. I try on a new set of eyes and look at the girl in the photos. Maybe she’s not Times. And the photos: the matte and shading is faded and yellowing in spots. The photos are old, but how old?

  Okay, slow down. I know now that Jennifer was never in my office. Even her presence was part and parcel of the whole hypnogogic hallucination. But why would I dream her into my office while asleep during phone guy’s little visit? Did I conjure her solely because of the resemblance in the photos? Did her name come up in our initial meeting? Is he just some crazed fan of American Star? Maybe he’s a would-be blackmailer, but that doesn’t feel right. Is he telling the truth about being watched?

  He didn’t want me to show the pictures to anyone until I found something, and I already showed them to the DA. Oops. Why did phone guy, presumably from Osterville, choose me? Does he know me or Ellen? What am I supposed to find? My note about South Shore Plaza. Red car, Osterville, and a drunk on the Cape.

  I think I’ve falsely harassed Jennifer Times and her DA father. I really don’t know anything about this case, and there’s still rice in my beard, but at least I have a client now. Yeah, tomorrow I’ll make the little road trip to the Cape and then a house call, but I’m not getting paid enough for this.

  TEN

  I’m in Ellen’s little green car. It’s fifteen years old. The passenger seat is no longer conducive to my very particular posture, which is somewhere between question mark and Quasimodo. Lower back and legs report extreme discomfort. It’s enough to keep me awake, which is miserable because I keep nodding off but not staying asleep.

  We’re cruising down Route 3 south, headed toward the Cape. It’s off-season and the traffic isn’t bad, but Ellen maintains a running monologue about how awful the traffic always is and how nobody knows how to drive. Meanwhile, she’s tailgating the car in front of us and we’re close enough that I can see what radio station he’s tuned to.

  I still have a driver’s license but no car. Renewing the license isn’t an issue for me. Driving is. I haven’t driven in six years.

  Last night I told Ellen that I needed to go to the Osterville library to help with a genealogical search and was pressed for time. She didn’t ask for further details. She knew I wouldn’t give any. When she picked me up this morning, she didn’t ask questions about why all the toilet paper was unrolled and wrapped around my kitchen table—King Tut’s table now—and why the apartment door was unlocked but my bedroom door was locked. She knew the narcoleptic me went for an evening stroll with the apartment to himself.

  My eyes are closed; we’re somewhere between Norwell and Marshfield, I think.

  Ellen says, “Are you awake?”

  I just want to sit and sleep, or think about what I’m going to say to the mystery client in Osterville. The names associated with the address are Brendan and Janice Sullivan. I was able to ferret out that much online.

  I say, “No. I’m asleep and dreaming that you’re wearing the clown pants again.”

  “Stop it. I just didn’t want to stuff them into my night bag and get them all wrinkly. Those wrinkles don’t come out. You’d think that wouldn’t happen with polyester. Anyway, they’re comfy driving pants.”

  I say, “I guess I’m awake then.”

  She says, “Good. You’ll never guess who called me last night.”

  “You’re right.”

  “Guess.”

  I pull my fedora farther over my eyes and grind around in my seat, trying to find an impossible position of comfort. I say, “A state lottery commission agent. You’ve been winning too much on scratch tickets.”

  “Hardly,” she says, and slaps my thigh. “Your new pal Billy Times called.”

  She might as well have hit me in the groin instead of my thigh. I sit up and crush my fedora between forehead and car ceiling. I resettle and try to play off my fish-caught-on-a-line spasm as a posture adjustment. I say, “Never heard of him.”

  “Come on, Mark. I know you visited him earlier in the week. He told me.”

  “Since I’m awake-awake, I might as well be smoking. Mind?”

  “Yes. I try not to smoke in the car.”

  “Good.” I light up.

  She sighs and opens her window a crack. “I’m a little impressed you went all the way in town to the DA’s office.” She says it like it was so far away I needed a passport. A condescending cheap shot, but I probably deserve it.

  I say, “I had to hire a Sherpa, but I managed.”

  “I didn’t think you were serious the other day with the whole DA-as-family-friend talk.” She stops, waiting for me to fill in the blanks. I can’t fill those blanks in, not even for myself. She thinks I have something going on. I do, but I’m not going to tell her about it. She wouldn’t like it. She certainly wouldn’t be transporting me down to the Cape to chat with Sullivan.

  I say, “I’m always serious, Ellen.” All right, I need to know it all. I need to know why the DA called my mommy. It’ll hang over me the whole time I’m in Osterville if I don’t ask. “So
why’d he call you?”

  “Actually, he invited me to one of his Sunday brunches. Isn’t that neat?”

  “How nice. I’m sure your friends will be excited to hear you’ve become a socialite. You’ll be the talk of Thursday night bingo at the Lithuanian Club.” Ellen doesn’t say anything, so I add, “Come on, Ellen, you’re as bad a liar as I am. What did he want?”

  “I’m not lying.”

  “Ellen. Your clown pants puff out bigger when you’re lying. Come on, spill it.”

  She hits me again. “He did invite me. And, he asked questions about you. Asked if you were okay. He said your meeting was very odd and he got the sense you were struggling.”

  “Struggling? More proof politicians have no sense.”

  “Yes, struggling. That’s the exact word he used.”

  “So what’d you tell him?”

  Ellen sighs and moves her hands around while talking. Someone should be driving. “I told him you were fine, but I mentioned the accident and how you had narcolepsy now. I stressed that you’re doing fine, though.” She lilts with each biographical phrase, singing the song of me. It’s a dirge she’s sung many times before. She performs it well.

  “Jesus, Ellen. Thanks a lot. Did you tell him I don’t like pickles or ketchup, I pick my nose, and I wet the bed as a kid?”

  She says, “What’s wrong with you? He was just concerned, that’s all. Did you want me to lie or make something up?”

  “No. Telling him I was fine would’ve been enough. He doesn’t need to hear my sob story.”

  “I don’t understand why this upsets you.”

  “If I ever need him for a case, he’ll never take me seriously now.”

  “Of course he will. No one holds narcolepsy against you.”

  “Come on, Ellen. Everyone does. No one really believes I have anything medically wrong with me. They think I’m lazy or just odd, like the DA said.” I stop talking but I could go on: most people think I really could keep from falling asleep if I wanted to, if I just focused, like narcolepsy is some algebraic equation I could solve if I worked at it hard enough, did all the homework. I’m a bad joke. A punch line. I’m Beetle Bailey, a cartoon character falling asleep at the switch for laughs. I might as well be wearing her goddamn clown pants.