The Bazaar of Bad Dreams

Smoking was supposedly verboten in Lakeview, but Olga and a few other diehards were allowed to slip through the kitchen to the loading dock, where there was a butt can. She rose, tottered, cursed in either Russian or Polish, caught her balance, and shuffled away. Then she stopped and looked back at Dave, eyebrows drawn together. ‘Leave some for me, Bob. Do you promise?’

He raised his hand, palm out. ‘So help me God.’

Satisfied, she shuffled on, digging in the pocket of her shapeless day dress for her butts and her Bic.

Ollie raised his own eyebrows. ‘Since when are you Bob?’

‘He was her husband. You remember. Came here with her, died two years ago.’

‘Ah. Right. And now she’s losing it. That’s too bad.’

Dave shrugged. ‘She’ll be ninety in the fall, if she makes it. She’s entitled to a few slipped cogs. And look at this.’ He gestured at the puzzle, which filled an entire card table. ‘She did most of it herself. I’m just her assistant.’

Ollie, who had been a graphic designer in what he called his real life, looked at the nearly completed puzzle gloomily. ‘La Tour Eiffel. Did you know there was an artists’ protest when it was under construction?’

‘No, but I’m not surprised. The French.’

‘The novelist Léon Bloy called it a truly tragic streetlamp.’

Calhoun looked at the puzzle, saw what Bloy had meant, and laughed. It did look like a streetlamp. Sort of.

‘Some other artist or writer – I can’t remember who – claimed that the best view of Paris was from the Eiffel Tower, because it was the only view of Paris without the Eiffel Tower in it.’ Ollie bent closer, one hand gripping his cane, the other pressed against the small of his back, as if to hold it together. His eyes moved from the puzzle to the scatter of remaining pieces, perhaps a hundred in all, then back to the puzzle. ‘Houston, you may have a problem here.’

Dave had already begun to suspect this. ‘If you’re right, it’s going to ruin Olga’s day.’

‘She should have expected it. How many times do you think this version of the Eiffel has been assembled, and then taken apart again? Old people are as careless as teenagers.’ He straightened up. ‘Would you walk outside in the garden with me? I have something to give you. Also something to tell you.’

Dave studied Ollie. ‘You okay?’

The other chose not to answer this. ‘Come outside. It’s a beautiful morning. Warming up nicely.’

Ollie led the way toward the patio, his cane tapping out that familiar one-two-three rhythm, tossing a good-morning wave to someone as he passed the coffee-drinking coterie of TV watchers. Dave followed willingly enough, but slightly mystified.

II

Lakeview was built in a U shape, with the common room between two extending arms that comprised the ‘assisted living suites,’ each suite consisting of a sitting room, a bedroom, and the sort of bathroom that came equipped with handrails and a shower chair. These suites were not cheap. Although many of the residents were no longer strictly continent (Dave had begun suffering his own nighttime accidents not long after turning eighty-three, and now kept boxes of PM Pull-Ups on a high shelf in his closet), it was not the sort of place that smelled of piss and Lysol. The rooms also came with satellite TV, there was a snack buffet in each wing, and twice a month there were wine-tasting parties. All things considered, Dave thought, it was a pretty good place to run out the string.

The garden between the residence wings was lush – almost orgasmic – with early summer. Paths wandered and a central fountain splashed. The flowers rioted, but in a genteel, well-barbered way. Here and there were house telephones where a walker suddenly afflicted with shortness of breath or spreading numbness in the legs could call for assistance. There would be plenty of walkers later on, when those not yet arisen (or when those in the common room got their fill of Fox News) came out to enjoy the day before it heated up, but for the time being, Dave and Ollie had it to themselves.

Once they were through the double doors and down the steps from the wide flagstoned patio (both of them descending with care), Ollie stopped and began fumbling in the pocket of the baggy houndstooth check sportcoat he was wearing. He brought out a silver pocket watch on a heavy silver chain. He held it out to Dave.

‘I want you to have this. It was my great-grandfather’s. Judging by the engraving inside the cover, he either bought it or had it given to him in eighteen ninety.’

Dave gazed at the watch, swinging on its chain from Ollie Franklin’s slightly palsied hand like a hypnotist’s amulet, with amusement and horror. ‘I can’t take that.’

Patiently, as if instructing a child, Ollie said, ‘You can if I give it to you. And I’ve seen you admire it many and many a time.’

‘It’s a family heirloom!’

‘Yes indeed, and my brother will take it if it’s in my effects when I die. Which I’m going to do, and soon. Perhaps tonight. Certainly in the next few days.’

Dave didn’t know what to say.