Page 52 of Fade Out
“Thank you.” I started to walk away, but he said, “Oh, and I talked to Sugar. We’re going up to Charlevoix next weekend. And she definitely didn’t pay your bond. But she says if you need anything to just call.”
“Okay, thanks.”
Who did pay my bond then? It was a lot of money and I had very few friends who could have comfortably paid it. If it wasn’t Sugar, then who was it? That left me with an uncomfortable feeling, but I still had to get ready to go out.
“And Joseph came by the hospital,” Brian added.
“He did?”
“He didn’t come home at all on Saturday night.”
“So you told him what was happening with me?”
“I did. He said he’d pray for you.”
“Pray for me? That’s what he said?”
“Yes.”
“Fuck him.”
“Nick.”
“I have to get dressed.”
In the bedroom, I threw on some clothes. I was running late. Ten minutes later I was in a cab on my way to Michigan Avenue. Pray for me? Really? I was in trouble and that’s what he was willing to do for me? If he were in trouble I’d be doing everything—
No, I was wrong. Hewasin trouble and I wasn’t doing anything for him. Sure, that’s what he wanted. He wanted me to leave him alone and for some reason, and I wasn’t entirely sure why, I was doing that.
For a few miles, I thought about how things might be if there hadn’t been a body in box outside my office, if I hadn’t been arrested, if I weren’t facing the prospect of spending my life in prison. What would this week have been? Well, it would have been shitty. I probably would have roused myself and started looking for Joseph. And when I found him, what would have happened? Was he with this Alejandro person now? Or had he gone back to the church?
And could I compete with either of them? Sometimes I felt like a chasm had opened between us and there was no way for me to cross it. Other times I felt like I’d fallen into that same chasm, never to find my way out.
Walton Richards looked like it was doing an imitation of some hoity-toity British tailor and since they’d had Est. 1959 painted on the window in gold leaf they were apparently doing a good job of it. When I opened the front door, I immediately saw Gloria Silver in a puffy peach dress that made her look a bit like a straw shoved into a cupcake. Next to her was a severe looking woman in her mid-fifties with flat black hair cut chin length with bangs. That woman, who was very short, wore a pair of out-of-fashion platform shoes with a lemon-colored gown. The gown was too tight, showing off her lumps, with a frayed and dirty hem that had obviously been stepped on. Around her shoulders was a white fox stole—unnecessary, as it was near eighty degrees and unlikely to plunge into the forties overnight.
“Nick. There you are. Cyril just went to get a couple of tuxes for us to look at. This is Adelaide Summers, fashion editor for theDaily Herald.
“Hello,” I said, thinking this must explain why the woman looked so ridiculous. I smiled at Adelaide. She grimaced back. To Gloria I said, “Cyril? Is that for real?”
“He’s probably Chuck from Cicero, but be nice and call him Cyril.”
“Got it.”
“You aren’t really a private investigator, are you?” Adelaide said. “I thought they disappeared with Studebakers.”
“I guess I’m a Studebaker then.”
One side of Adelaide’s mouth went up and I decided to call it a smile.
“Why does it matter what I look like, anyway?” I asked. “I’m not expecting to stay all night at this thing.”
“You’re going to be standing next to me,” Gloria said. “You need to look good. You may not have a reputation to uphold, but I do.”
Cyril came out from a stock room. He was a dumpy guy in his late fifties with an Irish nose and a permanent blush in his cheeks. He held a pair of tuxedos on hangers. One in each hand.
“Oh, the one on the right,” Adelaide said.
“Yes, absolutely,” Gloria agreed.
