The Big Seven Read online

  He hurried back to his hotel and made the call. She seemed a great deal shrewder than he expected.

  “Is he in trouble?” Any mother’s question.

  “Possibly. Or slightly. I need to cover some details with you. Anything you say will be confidential and not used in a court of law. We think some bad people might be after him.” He was putting up the tease of blackmail and kidnap. “It’s important that he not go to Mexico.”

  “The group is headed for Europe tomorrow,” she said.

  “Avoid Italy,” he huffed.

  “I’m not in charge.”

  “Everyone knows your son is. It would be smart if the trip was delayed for a day.”

  “That’s not up to me, sir. I’m booked tomorrow. I could see you at seven a.m. breakfast in the main dining room.”

  “Fine by me,” Sunderson said reluctantly, having planned a leisurely pub crawl of the neighborhood but now faced being out of his room at dawn. He hung up. Back home in Marquette he had had to forgo public drinking having convinced Diane that he was close to quitting. Now he couldn’t gamble on drinking very much if he wanted to wake up in time for the meeting. With age the vaunted inner clock he had always depended on had begun to fail him. Just the other day while camping near the Driggs River he had expected to wake at first light, about 5:30 a.m., but with extra sips of his flask by the campfire his eyes had popped open at a shameful 8:00 a.m., thus missing the best hours for fishing in the early morning. He was despondent all day. What happened to the man who could drink most of the night and fish all of the daylight hours? His capabilities were disappearing. He used to set up camp and rig the fishing gear in less than a half hour. He was not so much despairing about natural aging but missing the pleasures of the old disorderly life. Everyone knows the old saying that pigs love their own shit but Sunderson’s problems were a bit more radical. All of his routines tended to be self-destructive except fishing and his thoroughly unchallenging walking. He had often reflected that habits were easy to begin but brutally difficult to deal with. He had wept a number of times in the process of quitting smoking and always started again. After the divorce he discovered he no longer liked it as much as he used to. The final straw had anyway been when you no longer could smoke in your office at the state police post. He would still have a cigarette, but no longer the pack a day he used to. Drinking was more problematical. Without question there were times that he desperately needed a drink though never when fishing for some reason he couldn’t parse.

  He and Diane managed to adopt Mona together, but he had the gravest doubts that Diane would ever move back in with him. She had inherited a lovely home on the death of her second husband, a local doctor, and their only genuine contact was Mona’s well-being. Up until dropping out Mona had been doing very well at the University of Michigan.

  Promptly at midnight there was a soft rap at the door. Through the tiny peephole he could see an enormous black man and mumbled, “May I help you?”

  “I got your money.”

  Sunderson opened the door cautiously. The man shoved a cloth bag at him. “Count it.”

  Sunderson began to shut the door on him.

  “I said count it. I can’t be accused of skimming.”

  Sunderson dumped the money on the bed thinking that $50,000 looked very large even in tightly wrapped packets of C-notes. He quickly drank the shooter from the night table, offering the man one.

  “I don’t drink. It causes problems.”

  “Certainly does,” Sunderson agreed. He flipped through the money carelessly and ballparked about fifty.

  “I should squeeze your head and take the money,” the man laughed.

  “You should have done so ten minutes ago. Right now I got a nine-millimeter Glock aimed at your dick, a friend you don’t want to lose.” Sunderson’s right hand was in a side pocket though in fact his pistol was in his shoulder holster.

  “Relax.” The man left hastily, slamming the door for emphasis.

  The problem, of course, was what he could do with the money. He had seen a dollar store down the street and arrived at the idea of buying a fanny pack and keeping it with him. He slid five of the C-notes in the front pocket in case he wanted to buy something. For a change he wouldn’t have to think about whether he could afford it. He impulsively called the girl from the coffee shop who had helped him with her computer.

  “Yes.”

  “Would you like a drink?”

  “I’m in bed. I have to get up at five a.m. for work.”

  “How about dinner next door at six?”

  “Fine. I’ll stop at the hotel for you.”

  He ended up buying a Peanuts fanny pack. Sunderson thought he might buy some fancy clothes after having the early breakfast with the mother. He poured a big drink in order to go to sleep early and watched the local NYC news which was problematical as he had no frame of reference. He found a sex channel and quickly turned it off for fear it would keep him awake after viewing a line of lovely butts.

  He was awake at 5:00 a.m. and toying with the room coffeemaker which was complicated, something Diane always took care of when they traveled. He called his best friend Marion although it was 4:00 a.m. there knowing that Marion, an insomniac, wouldn’t mind. Marion’s immediate bright idea was to forget the whole thing, bring the money home, and buy a little cabin over west toward Iron Mountain.

  “But what about Mona?” he whispered.

  “She knows what she’s doing. She’s way ahead of you. The best you can do is get her to call Diane.”

  Sunderson slumped at the table thinking that the pile of money had an oddly fresh odor. He had packed it neatly in the fanny pack thinking that in no year of his life had he made this much.

  He got the uptown express subway at 14th Street and got off at 86th. He was quite early so he wandered around near the Carlyle hotel. No one was up on the streets except service employees filtering to work. He thought with pleasure of having his own little log cabin near good brook trout fishing. He might even get Diane to visit. There was no window shopping near the hotel of much interest except a bookstore called Books and Company but he wasn’t in a mental mood and settled for a splendid butcher shop called Lobel’s. He had never seen such an array of expensive prime meat which cruelly reminded him of his lack of breakfast. He pondered eating it raw with salt and pepper. Diane had bought such meat for his stag retirement party of fellow police officers, plus a case of fine French wine. They all agreed it was the best meat they’d ever had but his friends were mystified by the wine knowing it was costly but preferring beer. If only he hadn’t made love to one of the hired dancing girls bent over the woodpile out back. The gossip even reached his cranky mother retired down in Arizona. She lived down the street from his eldest sister married to a muttonhead who ran RV parks for the millions of winter visitors.

  The main dining room of the Carlyle was glistening and intimidating. In fact he had never felt so intimidated. Everyone looked like a millionaire but that was likely on the low side. He felt grungy and croaked out the mother Felice’s name to the waiting headwaiter. He wondered why she lived there rather than in an apartment. She was hiding behind her New York Times in the corner and rose to greet him. For an awkward moment she looked familiar.

  “Were you ever at Michigan State?”

  “I went to Smith but visited State a few times to see my brother who was on the gymnastics team.”

  “That’s where I saw you. I had a girlfriend on the girls’ team. You are impossible to forget.”

  “Thank you if that’s a compliment. My brother ended up dying of a drug overdose in LA just like our father. That’s why I keep a sharp eye on my son.”

  “It happened to my brother in Detroit. He was into music. Once they get started it’s a runaway train.” Nothing made Sunderson angrier than heroin.

  “So they say.” Her eyes moistened as did his. She nibbl
ed on a large plate of bacon which she pushed toward him. “They have the best bacon in the world here. Bad for you but then I’m a skinny little thing.”

  “You’re awfully attractive,” Sunderson interjected. She was light rather than skinny. He would love to squeeze her.

  “What’s my son done this time that cost fifty thousand dollars?”

  He told her. She sighed and rolled her eyes at the ceiling as if the answer were there. “How did you get involved with something in California?”

  “My daughter ran away with him after he played a concert in Ann Arbor where she is supposed to be in school.”

  “Mona is your daughter? She’s upstairs.”

  “I’m pleased to have located her.”

  “She doesn’t want to see you. She wants to lead her own life. She’s grateful but needs some breathing room. I almost called the police when you blackmailed me.”

  “You’d have spent a lot more if the girl testified.” For a moment Sunderson almost forgot there was no girl, at least none he had actually talked to.

  “Maybe not. Maybe I should let him go to prison.”

  “Prison would be tough for a cutie like him.”

  “As tough as it was for the young girl from Santa Monica?” Sunderson had never said anything about Santa Monica. Maybe there really was a girl.

  “I suppose so. Unless she was an exception. It mystifies me why girls want to fuck musicians.”

  “Only God knows,” she said as Mona came through the main door and spotted them. She looked shocked but composed herself and came toward them.

  “Dad, I wanted to be free for a while. I’ve never been free.”

  “I’m asking you to call your mother,” Sunderson said.

  “She’s not my real mother.”

  “Yes she is. And you know it. Call her. She’s heartbroken.”

  “No, I couldn’t bear it.”

  “Neither can she.”

  Mona sobbed and fled. Sunderson said goodbye and walked out.

  On the subway car home he thought he saw the black man from the night before in the car ahead through the crowd. Was he being tailed? He squeezed his Peanuts bag of money and felt for his revolver for security. He could shout if he had to. He stopped at the office on the business card the coffee shop girl had given him and saw on the desk her name, Sonia. Her office was in an elegant brownstone on Washington Square.

  “Sonia, nice name,” he said.

  “I actually loathe it.”

  They decided to change dinner to an early lunch and then she agreed to a little walk. Outside he saw the black man across the street behind a tree and waved. The chump couldn’t actually believe he could tail Sunderson. Sunderson insisted they head to the bar, ignoring the tail. It would be one of the biggest mistakes of his life but he felt he needed what is called “a pick-me-up,” a big shot of booze with a beer chaser. He wasn’t adjusted to New York City.

  “Why do you carry a Peanuts bag?” Sonia laughed.

  “It’s full of all the money I have on earth.”

  “Put it in a bank you dipshit.”

  “I don’t know how. My wife did the banking.”

  “I’ll help you. You’re a strange man indeed.” It turned out Sonia was from Michigan too but seemed much more with it than him.

  The top-heavy lout was drunk at the bar and wasn’t happy to see them. Sunderson guessed he knew about the blackmail. He ordered a Manhattan and quickly called Diane which he had forgotten. He saw Ben leave the bar out of the corner of his eye.

  He said he had seen Mona who wanted freedom. Diane said she had also heard from her with the same response. “She’s going to Paris with her boyfriend. I guess that’s it.” He chugged his drink while Sonia sipped a white wine. In his peripheral vision he caught movement in the back hallway of the bar.

  The black man charged out of the hall catching Sunderson with a terrible whack in the middle of his spine and another on the shoulders with a ball bat. Sunderson dropped to his knees, breathless, and crumpled, and slid to the floor with his face on the fetid tiles. He glared up to see that Sonia had sunk her teeth into the black man’s hand and he was howling. Now blood was spurting upward and he stumbled dropping the ball bat. Sonia was on him like a cat and swinging the bat at his head. He dropped with a resounding crack, saying goodbye to the world with a thunk. Sunderson glanced up and now the bartender came around the corner of the bar with a pistol. Sunderson was lying on his own, his body crippled. He reached out and tripped the bartender with an arm, painfully wrenching his broken shoulder and back. Sonia was on the bartender thumping him with the ball bat and kicking the pistol across the floor. The bartender rolled over fruitlessly trying to protect his face from the bat. He groaned and slipped into unconsciousness.

  Sonia knelt beside Sunderson. He sensed he was badly injured and managed to call Diane on his cell. Several people had tried to enter the bar and fled from the carnage. Diane was immediately alert and was reminded of the man they had met at a convention in Chicago who managed a big hospital in New York City. Despite himself Sunderson had liked the guy, a poor kid from Brooklyn who had done well. Diane whistled when she heard his symptoms, saying, “My God, darling.” She said someone would come quickly.

  Two parodies of New York policemen had arrived and were trying to look bored and efficient. One stooped by the black man.

  “This piece of shit is dead. Head injuries.”

  “This one is still alive. I know him. He’s a crook. He’s pretty beaten up. He’s slipping out of consciousness.” He moved over to the prone Sunderson who said, “Sergeant Sunderson, detective, Michigan State Police, Marquette, Michigan.”

  “You have no jurisdiction in New York City,” the cop said.

  “I wasn’t on a case. I stopped for a drink and was attacked. It was a setup.”

  The cops sat down at a table with Sonia who slowly and deliberately told them what had happened.

  “You’ll be charged with murder. It’s a formality because it was clearly self-defense. You’re lucky not to be dead. I’m not even going to book you right now, but don’t leave the area for a while.”

  Two paramedics rushed in and knelt by Sunderson. They examined him. “Broken back. He’ll likely need surgery.”

  Sonia rode to the hospital with them holding Sunderson’s hand. He groaned mightily.

  At the hospital they figured it was safe to give him a shot of morphine which was a tremendous relief.

  By the time he emerged from surgery the next morning Diane was there. He had always feared hospitals since he was twelve and had broken his pelvis in a tumble down a rocky hillside. The ambulance crew that retrieved him had fallen and he was further injured rolling downhill over the rocks. He had been put in a children’s ward next to a badly burned little poor girl, a victim of a house trailer fire. He heard talk that they were going to move her to the hospital in Marquette but then figured it wasn’t worth it. When she died the second day he was there and was overwhelmed. She had talked incessantly of her dog and how he needed her. Her face was bandaged but her voice was delightful. Her mother wept by her bedside in an old tattered dress.

  When he got out Sunderson would take food to the dog, a burly mutt who slept out in the grass out of loneliness. One day the dog was gone and her mother came explaining that the cops had “put the dog down” for biting the mailman. It was a cruel lesson for Sunderson. Girl and her dog both dead. He put wildflowers on the grave of the dog in their yard and sat there until twilight when the mother told him to go home, that his mother must be worried. Another day the little girl’s father took him to the cemetery so he could put flowers on her grave and then a brisk walk over to the lake to divert him but he couldn’t stop weeping. Her father said, “These things happen to people.” He never stopped thinking of the little girl’s voice or her brave dog.

  Both Diane and Sonia tried to calm
him when he emerged from surgery in the semidelirium often experienced by alcoholics after anesthesia. He sharply imagined his own funeral attended by none because he had no children, then he imagined the missing children, a daughter plump and homely but lovable with the same name as his older sister Berenice and a son Robert like his brother. Then he was at a river, Robert was way downstream from him, and he called out to warn him of a small waterfall and rapids but his voice was thin and weak. He could never save him, just like his brother. Then he and his friend Marion were fishing in the Arctic. They were in a deep river under the ice threatened by enormous polar bears. They sang “Row, row, row your boat” to the bear who sat down and smiled. The bear nosed a freshly killed seal toward them and they ate some raw which pleased the bear. It was bitterly cold so they cuddled up along the bear’s tummy and Marion spread his sleeping bag over them and they were warm from the bear’s heat.

  Chapter 2

  When he fully awoke to Diane and Sonia sitting beside him he wept a little thinking that they were his wives gradually realizing no such luck. They wiped his tears and spoke to him softly. He was brooding as the surgeon told him that he had both a fractured back and shoulder and convalescence would be lengthy. He was thinking how he’d miss the rest of brook trout season back home all because he had been stupid enough to stop for a drink. What a costly drink! Sonia had a small extra bedroom in her apartment she offered up to save him money but Diane had already secured a professional place. To Sunderson the idea of such rehab was unbearable but she promised to fly him home as soon as possible. Meanwhile under the lid of narcotics his trunk hummed with dullish pain.