“Old family recipe,” she told him, “from the Corsican side of the family.”
“I thought you were Native American.”
“Dad’s Cherokee,” said Sam. “Mag’s mom’s father came from Corsica.” Sam was the only person in the room who was actually drinking the Cabernet. “Dad left her when Mags was ten and he moved across town. Six months after that, I was born. Mom and Dad got married when the divorce came through and I think they tried to make it work for a while, and when I was ten he went away. I think he has a ten-year attention span.”
“Well, he’s been out in Oklahoma for ten years,” said Marguerite.
“Now, my mom’s family were European Jewish,” continued Sam, “from one of those places that used to be communist and now are just chaos. I think she liked the idea of being married to a Cherokee. Fry bread and chopped liver.” Sam took another sip of the red wine.
“Her mom’s a wild woman,” said Marguerite, semi-approvingly.
“You know where she is now?” asked Sam. Shadow shook his head. “She’s in Australia. She met a guy on the Internet, who lived in Hobart. When they met in the flesh she decided he was actually kind of icky. But she really liked Tasmania. So she’s living down there, with a woman’s group, teaching them to batik cloth and things like that. Isn’t that cool? At her age?”
Shadow agreed that it was, and helped himself to more meatballs. Sam told them how all the aboriginal natives of Tasmania had been wiped out by the British, and about the human chain they made across the island to catch them which trapped only an old man and a sick boy. She told him how the Tasmanian tigers, the thylacines, had been killed by farmers, scared for their sheep, how the politicians in the 1930s noticed that the thylacines should be protected only after the last of them was dead. She finished her second glass of wine, poured her third.
“So, Mike,” said Sam, suddenly, her cheeks reddening, “tell us about your family. What are the Ainsels like?” She was smiling, and there was mischief in that smile.
“We’re real dull,” said Shadow. “None of us ever got as far as Tasmania. So you’re at school in Madison. What’s that like?”
“You know,” she said. “I’m studying art history, women’s studies, and casting my own bronzes.”
“When I grow up,” said Leon, “I’m going to do magic. Poof. Will you teach me, Mike Ainsel?”
“Sure,” said Shadow. “If your mom doesn’t mind.”
Marguerite shrugged.
Sam said, “After we’ve eaten, while you’re putting Leon to bed, Mags, I think I’m going to get Mike to take me to the Buck Stops Here for an hour or so.”
Marguerite did not shrug. Her head moved, an eyebrow raised slightly.
“I think he’s interesting,” said Sam. “And we have lots to talk about.”
Marguerite looked at Shadow, who busied himself in dabbing an imaginary blob of red sauce from his chin with a paper napkin. “Well, you’re grown-ups,” she said, in a tone of voice that did its best to imply that they weren’t, and that even if they were they shouldn’t be.
After dinner Shadow helped Sam with the washing up—he dried—and then he did a trick for Leon, counting pennies into Leon’s palm: each time Leon opened his hand and counted them there was one less coin than he had counted in. And as for the final penny—“Are you squeezing it? Tightly?”—when Leon opened his hand, he found it had transformed into a dime. Leon’s plaintive cries of “How’d you do that? Momma, how’d he do that?” followed him out into the hall.
Sam handed him his coat. “Come on,” she said. Her cheeks were flushed from the wine.
Outside it was cold.
Shadow stopped in his apartment, tossed the Minutes of the Lakeside City Council into a plastic grocery bag and brought it along. Hinzelmann might be down at the Buck, and he wanted to show him the mention of his grandfather.
They walked down the drive side by side.
He opened the garage door, and she started to laugh. “Omigod,” she said, when she saw the 4Runner. “Paul Gunther’s car. You bought Paul Gunther’s car. Omigod.”
Shadow opened the door for her. Then he went around and got in. “You know the car?”
“When I came up here two or three years ago to stay with Mags. It was me that persuaded him to paint it purple.”
“Oh,” said Shadow. “It’s good to have someone to blame.”
He drove the car out onto the street. Got out and closed the garage door. Got back into the car. Sam was looking at him oddly as he got in, as if the confidence had begun to leak out of her. He put on his seatbelt, and she said, “I’m scared. This was a stupid thing to do, wasn’t it? Getting into a car with a psycho-killer.”
“I got you safe home last time,” said Shadow.
“You killed two men,” she said. “You’re wanted by the Feds. And now I find out you’re living under an assumed name next door to my sister. Unless Mike Ainsel is your real name?”
“No,” said Shadow, and he sighed. “It’s not.” He hated saying it. It was if he was letting go of something important, abandoning Mike Ainsel by denying him, as if he were taking his leave of a friend.
“Did you kill those men?”
“No.”
“They came to my house, and said we’d been seen together. And this guy showed me photographs of you. What was his name—Mister Hat? No. Mister Town. That was him. It was like The Fugitive. But I said I hadn’t seen you.”
“Thank you.”
“So,” she said. “Tell me what’s going on. I’ll keep your secrets if you keep mine.”
“I don’t know any of yours,” said Shadow.
“Well, you know that it was my idea to paint this thing purple, thus forcing Paul Gunther to become such an object of scorn and derision for several counties around that he was forced to leave town entirely. We were kind of stoned,” she admitted.
“I doubt that bit of it’s much of a secret,” said Shadow. “Everyone in Lakeside must have known. It’s a stoner sort of purple.”
And then she said, very quiet, very fast, “If you’re going to kill me please don’t hurt me. I shouldn’t have come here with you. I am so dumb. I am so fucking fucking dumb. I should have run away or called the cops when I first saw you. I can identify you. Jesus. I am so dumb.”
Shadow sighed. “I’ve never killed anybody. Really. Now I’m going to take you to the Buck,” he said. “Or if you give the word, I’ll turn this car around and take you home. I’ll buy you a drink, if you’re actually old enough to drink, and I’ll buy you a soda if you’re not. Then I’ll take you back to Marguerite, deliver you safe and sound, and hope you aren’t going to call the cops.”
There was silence as they crossed the bridge.
“Who did kill those men?” she asked.
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“I would.” She sounded angry now. He wondered if bringing the wine to the dinner had been a wise idea. Life was certainly not a Cabernet right now.