Synopsis

Most people don’t open the front door and find a son they didn’t know they had accompanied by a police detective. Dan Trix did. Trix and Elaine’s wedding plans are disrupted when Zook disappears. He feared he would be linked to the man found murdered behind the butcher shop where he worked. Trying to find the killer and trying to redeem Zook become synonymous. When all else fails, Trix and his buddy Lester tromp the broken streets of Buenos Aires. Zook was living there while doing research on corruption in Argentine business and government. Trix and Lester become immersed in the seamy and steamy lives of those who knew a man named Myklos. Then who was Zook? There are violent people with much to protect who don’t want Trix and Lester to know the answer to that question.

Chapter 1.

I get nervous when our doorbell rings at sunset.

The protocol in our community is to call in advance. That is not our preference. It is simply the protocol of an older generation. Black Forest Country Club is primarily inhabited by retirees. They did well in their work life. They believe retirement is the opportunity to be a kid again, only with more money. They golf and play tennis and cruise and have season tickets to the Van Wezel and the symphony and love to offer opinions on the latest hot restaurant. They nap, morning and evening. They wear makeup. They do not want to wake anyone from a nap. They feel uncomfortable if someone answers the door without makeup. Thus an unexpected doorbell creates suspicion.

Elaine got to the door first. She opened it without looking outside. That also makes me nervous. Who knows who’s there? The fact is, she can handle herself. A couple assholes who challenged her are now ashes in jars.

“What a pleasant surprise. Trix, it’s for you,” Elaine said.

It was Detective Clifton Rodriquez of the Sarasota Police Department.

“Detective. Tell me it’s good for me to see you,” I said.

“You can bet big against that,” he said.

I’m not certain there is a record for such a thing, but my guess is that we had spent more time engaged with the police than had most new arrivals in Florida. Although I was for hire as a management consultant, a few unfortunate people involved in my assignments in Sarasota had died. Detective Rodriquez thought that more than a coincidence.

“You have company. Is this young man a junior detective with whistle and a plastic badge shadowing the legend of Crimes Against Persons?” I said. The kid was probably early twenties. He looked at the floor. He reminded me of a cheese that needed mold cut off the edges.

“If you make us stand here, I’m gonna rub my nuts,” the detective said.

“Sounds good. Nothing on TV tonight,” I said.

“Trix. Don’t be a boor. Please, Detective, you know you’re always welcome,” Elaine said.

Over the course of several encounters, Elaine had charmed the detective. That created moments when he was quite tolerable. A good chance he was also a bit smitten.

“Perhaps a glass of wine on the lanai, Detective. We can muse over Rorschachs created by the clouds, reflect on the influence of terroir on the wine, compare prices at Publix and Target,” I said.

“When I rang the doorbell, I was feeling sorry for you. Now I’m feeling sorry for this idiot,” Detective Rodriquez said as he grabbed the young man by the elbow. He jerked his arm and shook off the detective’s hand. We moved to the lanai.

“I know why you feel sorry for me. It’s because I’m me, and to you that’s one damn sorry state of existence. Why are you sorry for this junior detective, undercover I assume,” I said as I tweaked my ear. He had a stud in his.

“Introduce yourself,” Detective Rodriquez said.

The young man said, “Dr. G. Daniel Trix?” He ran a hand over his sandy buzz cut.

“That’s me.”

“Hi, Dad.” If I hadn’t heard petulance before, now I had.

There are different types of silence. There’s the one when you’re lying in the grass listening to crickets in the night. There’s the silence when your honey opens the big box at Christmas to find inside a little box with an unexpected gift. There’s the one after you accidentally brush the Riedel wine glass onto the floor, she thinking you should be more careful, you thinking it shouldn’t have been there in the first place, both thinking one word might pull the finger from the dyke. There’s the silence when the song is so beautiful you’re too choked up to speak. It’s a long list. But somewhere in there is the silence when you’re introduced to a son you didn’t know you had.

Elaine went for wine glasses. The detective, the young man and I sat on the lanai. I nodded them into chairs that looked across the blue-lit pool to the lazy reeds surrounding the quiet pond, over verdant moguls on the sixth hole on the golf course to the moss-laden trees beyond. It was a splendid view. I hoped they would subliminally associate me with the view, a splendid guy.

The kid and I glanced at one another. He tapped his fingers on the armrests. I tried to tongue that non-existent peanut speck out of my teeth. The detective enjoyed the view.

Elaine returned first with four glasses, then with some slices of gruyere and thin crackers. She poured the sassy Malbec.

She raised her glass. “Gentlemen, this is one toast I think we’ll all remember. This morning we were just a household. Tonight we’re a family. I am certainly eager to hear how that happened. To family, Trix.” Evidently petulance was contagious.

Elaine, the detective and I held our glasses forward to toast. The young man sat there and shook his head.

“I’m a bit curious myself,” said the detective as he straightened his black tie. He was always a study in black, his slick-backed hair included. Sometimes in more frivolous moods, maybe charcoal.

“I been waitin’ to hear this,” the young man said. He had a sturdy chin and a gold stud in one ear. It wasn’t obvious whether you should trust the clear blue eyes or the scar outside his left eye socket.

“What’s your name?” I asked.

“Zook Haber,” he said.

“Zook?” I said.

“You live with Trix. I can sure as hell live with Zook,” he said.

“How do I know who you really are?” I said.

Zook snorted. “That’s good. Are there so fuckin’ many you don’t know which one I am?”

“I’d be happy to throw your ass in my jail. Any more of that language and I will, I fuckin’ shit you not,” the detective said.

“California doesn’t have open adoption records. But they do on a county-by-county basis. I was born in a county with open records. I got your name. The rest was easy,” he said, then drank half his glass. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, then wiped his hand on loose fitting polo shirt with no logo. He wore rimless glasses. His jeans were clean and snug. He was maybe a half size smaller than me, which put him at close to 6 feet, a solid 185 pounds.

“I’ll tell this as best I can. I was a graduate teaching assistant. Your birthmother was one of my students. The rules on teachers fraternizing with students were different in those days and certainly different for teaching assistants. She was bright, curious, pretty. She asked questions in class. She asked questions after class. We chatted a few times over cheap beer in a loud bar. Then one night, well, it was just the one time. I wasn’t looking for a future and neither was she. Then came the end of the semester. She had a summer job as a camp counselor. I stayed in town to work on my dissertation. Early fall she came to my office, announced she was pregnant. I was stunned. She was calm. She’d already decided. No abortion. She was Catholic. She couldn’t keep the child and she didn’t have any illusion that we would marry and be a happy family. The remaining option was a cousin in California with whom she could live till you were born, then adoption. I didn’t know if you were a boy or a girl. She refused to tell me. I don’t know why. That’s what happened,” I said.

“Did you ever see her again, talk to her?” Zook asked.

“I never saw her. After your birth she stayed in California for a few months to regain her emotional balance. When she returned the next fall, I was gone. We did talk on the phone a few times both while she was pregnant and after your birth. She thought logic would make the situation tolerable. It was the rational thing to do. She wasn’t prepared for the maternal instinct that overwhelmed reason. Holding you after your birth was the warmest, most joyful thing she had ever experienced. When they took you away, she dissolved into a suffocating deep purple funk. It took months for her to resurrect herself. I don’t know if she ever really did. After that, she was somebody different, at least she seemed different on the phone. Have you met her, spoken with her?” I said.

“That would be kinda hard. She’s dead,” he said.

“Ah hell. What happened?”

“She died. When that happens you’re dead,” he said.

“When I put my heel in your mouth you lose teeth, that’s what happens. Answer the damn question,” Detective Rodriquez said.

“I called. They said it was cancer. If she were alive, I would have talked with her. But since she was dead, I didn’t give a shit about her life. She didn’t care about me. I sure as hell wasn’t going to care about her,” he said.

“I think it would be nice to pause for a moment,” Elaine said. “It’s not important how we got here, now, together. The fact is we are. Beginnings can start anywhere. It’s a myth they have to start at the beginning. Time isn’t segmented. It’s a continuum. We can label where we are on the continuum any way we see fit. I see fit to call this a beginning. Beginnings are fresh and new and not soured by the past. We can make it that way if we want to. All we need is the will to do that.”

“I haven’t heard that kind of happy horseshit since the last time I was in church. You a preacher?” Zook said.

The detective slapped him on the side of the head. He barely flinched.

“Don’t say it. Don’t even fuckin’ think it,” the detective said.

“No, Zook, I am not a preacher. Do you know who I am?” Elaine asked.

“Not a clue,” he said.

“I am Elaine Newman. I am Dan’s fiancée. And I am absolutely thrilled to meet you. You are welcome both into our home and into our lives. Please stand up,” she said.

He did.

She gave him a hug and a kiss on the cheek.

When he sat, his cold blue eyes were a little less cold. The warmth of one human for another can change the world. There was a possibility it might even change Zook.

“The cheese, the wine. Please gentlemen,” she said.

We nibbled and sipped and glanced at the view and realized there are a lot worse situations in the world than this one. At least I did.

“This is what polite, civilized people do. They eat cheese. They’re polite,” Detective Rodriquez said.

“I’m happy to sit here and be part of whatever we are. We don’t have to talk. But if you’d like to tell us about yourself, Zook, we’ll be attentive,” Elaine said.

“They eat cheese. They’re polite,” the detective said as he stared at Zook.

“I was adopted by a young couple who had no business getting married let alone adopting a kid. My dad was a Swiss immigrant who died young. Bad heart. He said I always ran around the house like a runaway train. They started calling me Zug, German for train. It became Zook. Mom was an administrative secretary for a company that made gauges for the oil business. Her boss was a real …”

He paused.

“The guy was an Alpha Hotel. How’s that?” he said to the detective.

“An asshole,” Elaine said.

“The company kept getting bought out. The new owners would move her boss around. He took Mom with him, and therefore me. She was professionally great. But the reason he kept her was so he could have sex with her whenever he couldn’t find it anyplace else. She didn’t ever tell me that but a blind man could see that was the deal. She gets to keep her responsible, well-paid job if she …”

He paused again.

“You’re learning,” the detective said.

“We were in Boulder my senior year of high school. I applied to the U. of Colorado so I could live at home, save on expenses. The Alpha Hotel didn’t like me anymore than I liked him. He decided to pay my rent on an apartment to get me out of the house, told Mom it would be a better collegiate experience for me, force me to socialize more with my peers. He just wanted his nooky available whenever he was in the mood,” Zook said.

“Are you still in college?” Elaine asked.

He shrugged.

“You don’t know if you’re still in college?” Detective Rodriquez said.

“You don’t know any way to act except pissy?” he replied.

“Timeout,” Elaine said.

“Cheese. Polite,” I said.

“Maybe you could clarify that for us, Zook,” Elaine said. She had her brown hair in a ponytail that bobbed up and down encouraging his agreement. The cinnamon scrunchie that held her hair matched a linen blouse that clung more like spandex than linen. It was enough to make me agree to anything.

“My senior year I got tired of college, tired of the classroom. The business finally realized the Alpha Hotel was an Alpha Hotel. He got fired. The company kept Mom but moved her to another job. I didn’t want to move back home but I couldn’t afford the apartment. I was ready to say to hell with it and quit. My advisor recommended working with him on a project. He had money from a grant. It was practical research, fieldwork. Why not? I’d get credit for the work and get some experience,” he said.

“Where did you go? What did you do?” Elaine said.

“Spent the better part of a year in Argentina. Did the research. Sent in the report. Most of it. Decided I’d stop here for a while. Look you in the eye,” he said to me.

“Don’t forget the punch line,” the detective said.

“What would that be, Zook?” Elaine said.

Again he shrugged his shoulders.

“He started dealing drugs,” the detective said.

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