Page 9 of The Bad Weather Friend

“Piano hands. I can move you to a tug cart if that’s safer.”

Tyler shrugged. “Nothing’s safe. I just have to make the music career work sooner than later. What do you think of the name Tyler Pinkflower? As a performer’s name.”

Henry ran his hand through his hair. He looked a little like Art Garfunkel. “Jesus, I don’t know. Don’t put your career in myhands. What do I know from music? Find out what Felix was scoping.”

“I’ll ask around,” Tyler said.

“And, hey, be cautious with it when you find it. Maybe the consignment had something to do with whatever happened to Felix.”

A BENEFACTOR

Benny took the FedEx box into his kitchen and put it on the island and went to the Keurig brewer to make a single serving of coffee. He wasn’t accustomed to having beer in the morning; though the two Coronas had been accompanied by a hearty breakfast, he didn’t feel grounded. Maybe his vague sense of unsteadiness had nothing to do with alcohol. Maybe it was related to being without a job. He was self-aware enough to know that he was largely defined by work. Nevertheless, a weight of caffeine might anchor him.

As the coffee drizzled from the brewer into the mug and that comforting aroma filled the room, he looked around, trying to decide whether or not the kitchen might be too white. The ceiling was “eggshell white,” the cabinetry “glossy snow white.” The countertops were white quartzite with minimal gold veining. The bleached-white sycamore breakfast-nook table was surrounded by a U-shaped booth upholstered in white leather. The edges of everything were rounded. All the appliances and drawer pulls were stainless steel. He liked a style that looked not just modern but sort of ... science-fictional.

He had no interest in the past, either his personal history or the history of the world. He was focused on the future. The past had not been good to him. He’d survived it both mentally and physically, but he had nothing about which to wax nostalgic. Besides, he liked things not only tobeclean but also tolookclean, to present an antiseptic impression. He supposed he was only two steps removed from being obsessive about cleanliness, but he could live with that. If sometimes the kitchen looked like a hospital surgery, better that than like Satan’s scullery.

He sat on a white stool at the island and blew on the coffee and sipped it and studied the FedEx box with suspicion. A day that began like this one seemed unlikely to bring him good news of any kind from a stranger. Talmadge Clerkenwell. The name sounded like a man out of the long-gone South, so long gone that alligators had not yet found Florida.

With thumb and forefinger, he pulled the tab, and the cardboard zipper stuttered open across the end of the box. He extracted an object coddled in Bubble Wrap.

The thing appeared to be a hardcover book without the jacket, maybe eight inches tall and eleven inches wide, half an inch thick. It bore no title on the front board or spine. When Benny opened it, he found it was a video presentation of a kind occasionally used to market a high-end house. The screen at once brightened to soft blue.

A recorded image appeared: a man standing alone under a silvery fall of light, with darkness gathered all around. He was tall, old, and well tanned. White hair, mustache, and goatee. His shoes, suit, shirt, and string tie were white. His teeth, when he smiled, seemed irradiated. He had a theatrical air, as if he might be the iconic spokesperson for a brand of milk or ice cream, as if he had played an angel in a very old movie when they still regularly made movies that portrayed angels with affection.

“Hello, Benjamin,” the old man said. “If your day has been as unsettling as I suspect it has, don’t fret. Though worse will surely happen, all will be well in time. No guarantees, of course. But very likely, all will be well.” He smiled. “I’m pretty darn sure.” His mellifluous voice was that of a younger man than he appeared to be. “My name is Talmadge Clerkenwell. People call me ‘Colonel,’ though I am not and never have been one. It is, I suppose, anold-fashioned honorific once bestowed upon me out of gratitude, and it stuck. I am your great-uncle, related to you through your maternal grandmother, Cosima Springbok, with whom you once lived for a time.”

“She was a batshit crazy witch,” Benny blurted at the screen.

“I suspect,” Talmadge Clerkenwell continued, “that you have no fond memories of her. She was an unspeakably vile person. After a year of marriage, her first husband, Norbert Banford, committed suicide.”

“Cosima probably murdered him,” Benny said, as though he and the colonel were engaged in a conversation.

“She probably murdered him,” Clerkenwell said, “but that could not be proved. Her second husband was the finest man I ever knew, Beaumont Springbok, your maternal grandfather. After two tumultuous years of marriage, during which your mother, Naomi, was conceived, Beau died at three o’clock in the morning when his car stopped on a railroad track and was struck by an express train.”

“Cosima probably murdered him,” Benny said.

The colonel said, “Poor Beau’s remains were in such deplorable condition and so inextricably entwined with the twisted remains of his vehicle that the coroner found it quite difficult to complete as thorough an autopsy as he preferred. Several empty beer cans and a shattered bottle of Jack Daniel’s, recovered from the wreckage, along with certain tissue samples, resulted in the conclusion that he was profoundly inebriated. They decided he parked on the tracks, unaware of doing so, and took a nap from which he woke perhaps an instant before the impact killed him. This seemed an unlikely explanation, considering that Beau had abstained from alcohol his entire life.”

Although Benny had thought that, in self-defense, he should have no interest in the past, this family history was intriguing.

The colonel said, “Cosima’s maiden name was Clerkenwell. She is my half sister, three years older than me, and throughout my childhood, she terrified me. Although I never wished her dead, I would have smiled through her funeral.”

“Amen,” Benny said. He’d not had contact with his grandmother since he was nine.

“Recently,” the colonel said, “it has been given to me to know the details of your childhood and adolescence.”

The words“given to me to know”seemed an odd construction, but Benny attributed it to the fact that Clerkenwell was old enough to have come from an American culture more decorous than the pajamas-as-formal-wear culture of the moment.

“I was not surprised that, while our experiences were unique to each of us, our suffering was comparable throughout the first two decades of our lives. That is of course why it has been made clear to me that my most valuable possession must now be passed on to you. You will be receiving it by airfreight. Please be assured that this inheritance requires no legal transfer and involves absolutely no tax liability.” The colonel raised his right hand, thrusting his index finger at the camera to emphasize what he said next: “Indeed, you must keep it a secret from everyone!Everyone except the person whose heart you trust no less than you trust your own.”

Startled by the new intensity with which the colonel spoke, Benny unconsciously leaned back on his stool, away from the screen.

The old man’s heretofore gentle voice abruptly roared with threat. “IF YOU CAN’T KEEP THE SECRET, THEN YOUWILL TURN TO DUST AND BE BLOWN AWAY ON THE WIND!”

Having been captivated by the colonel’s presentation and even cautiously fascinated by the prospect of an inheritance, Benny felt his spirits sag as his reputed uncle morphed into hiscrazyuncle.

“DUST ON THE WIND! DUST ON THE WIND!”

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