The Hidden Keys. Andre Alexis
The most provocative thing was: all this was so like her father. Robert Azarian had loved to devise the clues – difficult clues – for his children’s treasure hunts. As far as Willow was concerned, her screen – and each of the mementos – was a clue to something. And the work they had to do was in the uncovering of that thing.
Had she told her siblings her thoughts about their mementos?
Yes, she had.
Had she asked if they, too, had found anything ‘playful’ about the mementos their father had left?
Yes, and of her siblings, only Michael would admit his memento (the bottle of aquavit) was ‘suggestive.’ Well, why would their father leave someone who was teetotal – that is, Michael – a full bottle of alcohol? Then again, Michael had added that their father had no doubt been old when he’d chosen (or commissioned) the mementos he’d left them. So, one might have expected these incongruities. The other three – Gretchen, Alton and Simone – would not even admit that much, though their mementos were just as suggestive.
Had she examined their pieces for herself?
No. Willow had seen the other mementos, but none of her siblings would allow her time with their piece. In fact, it was as if they were colluding against her. Just as maddening: each one had privately encouraged her to keep on looking for answers. It was as if, in private, her siblings became reasonable, admitting the obvious, though none would help her.
The situation was bedevilling. It was almost enough to make her go cold turkey so she could think straight for longer stretches. She hadn’t kicked, though. Instead, she lived with two things constantly at the edge of her mind: her father, his mementos.
Her story finished, Willow took a sip of coffee. She’d put a napkin beneath her cup – the mark of those who do a lot of sitting over coffee in restaurants. From her moth-clips purse, she took a chocolate doughnut from a Coffee Time bag and, putting her hand before her mouth, took a bite. Then, as if ashamed, she put the doughnut back in the bag and the bag into her purse.
– What does any of this have to do with me? asked Tancred.
– I want you to steal my father’s mementos for me.
– From your brothers and sisters?
– Yes, from my brothers and sisters. But I don’t want to keep them. I’ll give them back. No one else has the right to have them, but I need to examine them and I know they won’t lend them to me. I’ve asked all of them.
– So, if I’ve got you straight, said Tancred, you think your father left you something but he hid it. How much could this whatever be worth, if it exists?
– I don’t know. I suppose it’s valuable. But this isn’t about money or wealth or anything like that. It’s about finding what my father hid. If I had time with the other mementos, I know I could figure this whole thing out. I was always good at treasure hunts.
Tancred wasn’t sure what to think. It had been impressive to see the fifteen million in her account, but difficult to think of so much as ‘mad money.’
– Listen, he said, I’ll think about it, but first I want to see the screen your father left you.
– Why? asked Willow.
– Put yourself in my place, he answered. You’re an addict, Willow. You don’t always make sense. I’d like to see the screen, just so we’re on the same page.
– That’s fair, said Willow. I’ll see to it.
With that, she got up, pulled on her raincoat and thanked him for listening. She left a twenty on the table.
– I’m sorry, she said. I don’t have anything smaller.
Tancred was about to say
– You don’t have to leave anything
but Willow had turned away and the image that came to Tancred’s mind was of a woman pulling up her skirt as she fords a river.
3 A Visit from Nigger Colby
There were a number of things Tancred found disconcerting about Errol ‘Nigger’ Colby. To begin with, there was his nickname. It was unpleasant for Tancred to hear, as he sat in the Green Dolphin,
– How you doin’, Nigger?
or
– What’s up, Nigger?
Adding to the strangeness was that, although Errol Colby was albino (white hair, white skin), he was of Jamaican descent. He was ‘black under the white,’ as he himself liked to say, so that calling him ‘Nigger’ seemed both offensive and considerate. Colby himself took pride in his nickname. He was more ashamed of being albino than he was of being black. In any case, Tancred refused to call the man Nigger, calling him instead Errol, his given name.
Colby was a drug dealer who seemed not to mind if people knew he dealt. He wasn’t casual about dealing, exactly, but at times it was as if he took pride in his accomplishment. You could see it in the way he treated the junkies who came to him. He was like a vampire who had affection for his prey. Tancred had heard him speaking to junkies pale as death warmed over as if he were their therapist, warning them about the effects of junk, advising them to return to their homes and loved ones.
Tancred assumed most of them took Colby’s advice for yet more humiliation, because his kindly advice in no way stopped Colby from being the usual monster: condescending, gouging, arrogant, refusing to give up a fleck of H or crack without being paid.
It was cruel to lecture junkies before exploiting them. It seemed to Tancred like cleaning the rust off pinching handcuffs while making sure their locks were still good.
Then there was Colby’s friend, Sigismund Luxemberg, whom everyone knew as ‘Freud.’ Luxemberg was another man fond of his own nickname. He hated to be called Sigismund, feeling that it made him sound foreign when he was, in fact, proud of his birthplace: Alexandra Park – the same projects Tancred grew up in, though Freud was of the next generation. He was twenty-two, six foot three, built like a bull, but he had a severely clubbed foot for which he wore a special black shoe, and walked with a limp. Tancred, who liked most people, could not stand Freud. Besides being sullen and prone to violence, Freud always made Tancred feel as if they had – he and Freud – unfinished business from their childhood, though Tancred scarcely remembered the young Freud, remembering, rather, Mrs. Luxemberg, her voice calling ‘Siggy’ home after school, her German accent.
For these reasons and perhaps deeper ones as well, Tancred was not pleased to find Colby waiting for him as he left his apartment. It was an afternoon, a day or two after Willow had asked him to steal her siblings’ mementos. As usual, Colby was wearing the fedora and sunglasses he wore year-round to protect himself from the sun.
– Tancred Palmieri! he said.
– It’s not nice to stalk people, said Tancred.
– I hear you, man. But I wanted to thank you.
Colby, in his early twenties, was a head shorter than Tancred. He was broad-shouldered with the build of a swimmer, his white eyelashes long. You could tell he was black, but his features were all slightly clouded by whiteness.
– You heading to Dufferin? he asked. I’ll walk with you. I want to thank you for buying coffee for Willow. Freud and I try to keep an eye out for her, but Willow’s a little difficult, eh?
Tancred said
– It sounds like you want to talk business, Errol, but we don’t have business together.
– But we’ve got things in common, Tan. That’s kind of like business. Anyway, I just wanted you to know that you don’t have to worry about Willow. I heard you bought her breakfast the other day and I thought, ‘That’s generous.’ But then I thought maybe you think she’s your responsibility