Chapter 7.

7.

Supercuts closed at nine o’clock and I didn’t make it back to Stroudsburg until ten-fifteen. My gas gauge was well past empty and my engine was running on vapors, but I’d been too scared to stop and fill up. I knew I didn’t have a moment to waste. I pulled into the strip mall parking lot, left my Jeep in a loading zone, and ran past all the skateboarders in front of the Chipotle. There were a half dozen teenagers doing tricks and flips off the wheelchair ramp. The sign in front of Supercuts was flipped to CLOSED but thank God I could see Vicky through the window, pushing around a broom and sweeping up the hair clippings. She’d locked the door, so I rapped my knuckles on the glass to get her attention. Without glancing up she called out, “We’re closed.”

I knocked louder. “Vicky, it’s Frank.”

She paused for just a split second and then continued her sweeping, pretending this meant nothing to her. “You’ll have to come back in the morning. We have stylists on duty starting at seven-thirty.”

“Vicky, please. I need to talk.”

“Well, I can’t imagine why. I’m just the person who cuts your hair.”

“I didn’t mean that. I’m sorry I said it. Can you please unlock this door?”

“And I can’t have customers in the salon after closing. It’s against corporate policy.”

Now she was arranging the fashion magazines on the table in the reception area, carefully fanning the latest issues of Vogue and Elle and InStyle for the next day’s customers. Vicky was dressed in a black sweater with an orange jack-o’-lantern and letters spelling BOO! Her salon was all decked out for Halloween with paper cutouts of skulls and bats and Frankensteins.

“Maggie’s done something terrible, Vicky. I didn’t want to tell you, because I’m ashamed of it. But I didn’t want to lie, so I’ve just been avoiding you. And now I’m really in trouble and I need your help. I can’t even go home right now. I’m not safe there. Can you please, please open this door?”

With all my shouting, I’d attracted the attention of the skateboarders. They’d interrupted their ollies and kickflips to eavesdrop on our conversation. A girl with a metal rod through her nose offered me the use of her phone, suggesting that I might want to call 911. I waved her off with a polite “No, thank you.” I didn’t need the police just yet. I’d already called my sister from the highway, and she assured me that she and Abigail were safe inside a room at the Hampton Inn, waiting to hear from me about next steps.

“Vicky, please.” I held up the hard drive so she could see it. “I want to play something for you, okay? On your computer? And when you hear it, I think you’ll understand why I’ve been so weird lately. It’s going to answer all your questions.”

Now I had her attention. Vicky was a smart, inquisitive person. She’d once told me that all her favorite historical romances involved some kind of secret or mystery. She came over with a massive set of keys, unbolted the door, and opened it just far enough to let me slip inside. Then she locked it, lowered the blinds over the windows, and twisted them closed.

“Our computer’s ten years old,” she warned. “Last week it crashed and we lost all our October appointments, so don’t expect any miracles.”

We moved behind the reception desk where customers checked in and paid for their haircuts. Vicky found a USB cord connected to the back of the computer tower and I plugged it into the hard drive. A little window opened on the monitor, alerting us to the presence of a new device and asking us to wait. A tiny little hourglass spun around and around and around. Vicky was looking me over, and I realized I smelled awful. I was soaked with sweat after driving home in a mad panic, zig-zagging through traffic at eighty miles an hour. I was tired and severely dehydrated, and there were tiny dry bloodstains on my sweater. “Jeez, Frank, what happened to you?”

I realized Vicky was focused on my hair. I told her I’d started going to the other Supercuts, the one in Mount Pocono, and my new barber was a guy named Rooster who learned to cut hair in prison.

“The way he layers, you’re better off cutting it yourself,” she said. “Just put a bowl over your head and snip off the edges.”

At last a file directory opened on the screen and I saw the disk contained some two dozen items. None of them had coherent names—just scrambles of letters, numbers, dates, and times—but Vicky seemed to recognize an order in them.

“Which one are you looking for?”

“I don’t know.”

She double-clicked on the first one, and a little audio player opened on the screen. The file was eight minutes and seven seconds, and as soon as it began to play I recognized the voices in the conversation:

AIDAN: So how long are we thinking?

MAGGIE: Two years.

AIDAN: Two years ?

GERRY: Twelve months should suffice.

AIDAN : That’s still too long.

ERROL: What are you thinking?

AIDAN: Thirty days. Like a Vegas wedding.

MAGGIE: No one’s going to believe thirty days.

AIDAN : Well, I can’t do a full year. I’m sorry. I’d rather go to prison.

GERRY: You won’t be the only one going. Your decision has consequences for a lot of people.

ERROL: Son, this isn’t what you’re thinking. Maggie and I will spend most of the year traveling. Once or twice a month, you’ll make a public appearance together. Otherwise, you’ll be a free man.

AIDAN: Actually, I’ll be a married man. Married to your girlfriend, Dad. Am I the only person who thinks that’s fucked up?

“Wait, wait, hang on.” Vicky reached out and paused the recording. “Who’s marrying Dad’s girlfriend? Is that Aidan?”

“Yes.”

“Then who’s the girlfriend?”

I hesitated just long enough for Vicky to put two and two together and her eyes went wide. Then I clicked open the next file, anxious to hear another conversation.

MAGGIE: … And then I called my father.

ERROL: And?

MAGGIE: It went okay. He was happy to hear from me. And he said he’d come to the wedding.

ERROL: Good. People will expect him to be there.

MAGGIE: But he wants to come to Boston this Friday. Meet his future son-in-law. And Aidan’s being stubborn.

ERROL: Why?

MAGGIE: He says he already has plans.

ERROL: What kind of plans?

MAGGIE: I don’t know. I tried to make it easy for him. I said we’d do it at the apartment and I’d hire Lucia to cook. Two or three hours tops. But he’s giving me shit.

ERROL: Tell him it’s essential.

MAGGIE: He says it’s more than we agreed to.

ERROL : Come here, beautiful. It’s going to be fine. I’ll have Hugo talk to him.

MAGGIE: What’s Hugo going to say?

ERROL: Don’t worry about it. Just go ahead and plan your dinner. I guarantee Aidan will be there.

There was more after that but I lost my focus. I started remembering my first visit to the apartment, remembering Aidan’s late arrival and his general unhappiness at dinner. The way he’d seemed so reluctant to speak with me.

And Maggie warning me not to ask about his bruises.

Vicky hit the space bar on the keyboard to pause the conversation. She’d been keeping silent but she couldn’t hold back anymore. “You gotta help me, Frank. I need some context here. What are these people talking about?”

“I’ll tell you the whole story,” I promised. “But first we need to call your son.”