Chapter 25

"Sit down," Hank said to Sue. "There on the loveseat."

"Why?" she said.

"Because I have bad news, and I want you sitting when I tell you about it."

Sue looked alarmed, but she didn't argue. She sat on the loveseat.

Hank kneeled in front of her and took her hands in his. "There's no easy way to say this, so I'll just say it. Debra is dead. While she was..."

Sue jerked her hands from his and jumped to her feet, nearly knocking Hank over with her sudden move. "No!" she screamed, her arms stiff and by her side, her fists clenched. "No!"

Hank moved upright and took her in his arms. She remained stiff. "While she was shopping on Rodeo Drive in Los Angeles, lightning struck her again. This time she didn't make it."

As suddenly as Sue had moved off the loveseat she collapsed. With his arms around her, Hank caught her and set her on the sofa. He sat beside her. The tears came then, followed by gut-wrenching sobs. He held her through the release of her emotions.

When she could finally speak, Sue said, "I loved her. I loved Debra but I was afraid of her."

"I know," Hank said.

"No, you don't know, Dad," Sue said. "I..." She swallowed another sob. "I pushed her away from me, not because she'd killed that man, but because I didn't feel worthy of her. She was a genius, Dad. She was a better architect than Angela, a better salesman and marketer than Stan, a better poker player than world champion poker players on TV. She was better than anyone at everything she did. It was freakish. She was a freak of nature! Five months ago, she had the intellect of a six-year-old, and then lightning struck her and made her a genius. Her freakishness frightened me. Oh, that she could kill and did kill pushed me away, too, but she was just protecting me, saving my life. I could have..." She sobbed again, but quickly regained control. "I could have handled her violence; I figured she'd be violent only when she had to to protect herself or someone she cared about. Hell, Dad, that's normal, one of the only normal things about her. That she could stop that man, a large man with a knife, that wasn't normal." She buried her face in her father's chest. "Now you know. I wasn't worthy of her, but I loved her. I loved her."

Sherry held Angela in her arms. Angela was asleep. She'd cried herself to sleep. Sherry had cried with her. They'd just lost a cherished friend, but Angela had lost more than a friend, she'd lost her mentor.

"I could have learned so much from her, Sherry," Angela had said. "I was learning so much. Now..." She broke down in tears again. "I loved her, Sherry, I loved her, not like I love you, but I loved her. She was so unselfish, so giving."

"Yes she was," Sherry said. "Debra Oakman will be remembered. Some will remember her as a freak of nature. What she did, what she could do wasn't possible, but she did them. But I, for one, won't remember her for doing the impossible. I'll remember her for what she did for others, especially for what she did for you, Angela."

"I wish I'd had more time with her, a few more projects, and that's selfish. I feel so selfish, Sherry."

"I'm angry. I'm mad at her. That's as irrational as you feeling selfish because you wanted more time with her. I'm angry because she swooped into our lives like a tornado, lifted us up to heights neither of us had ever reached and then suddenly plunged us back to earth again. I want to curse her for abandoning us, but I won't. You were closer to her than I. I won't grieve as deeply, but I'll grieve, and I'll support your grief, Angela. I love you so much."

"I love you, too, Sherry," Angela said.

"I know," Sherry said.

"I'm so sleepy; suddenly I feel so sleepy I can hardly hold up my head."

"Sleep then," Sherry said. "Go to sleep in my arms."

Home was a double-wide trailer in a trailer park. It took my new father and me a while, but we finally found Eric's drug stash and flushed it down the john. Besides meth crystals, the stash included marijuana, some pills, and some drug paraphernalia. The paraphernalia went in the trash.

"Can you cook?" I asked my father.

"Some," he said.

"Can I cook?" I asked.

"Some," he said.

"Let's cook," I said and opened the refrigerator door. Some milk, six bottles of beer, and a bottle of grape juice were the liquid offerings. Lettuce, a green pepper, a bunch of celery, two tomatoes, and a cucumber were in the crisper. Another drawer in the refrigerator produced cheese—two kinds, sharp cheddar and pepper cheese—a package of flour tortillas, and a tub of crated parmesan cheese. The meat drawer held bacon and sausage, and a package of biscuit dough, the kind that pops when it's opened. There were the usual things in the refrigerator door, including butter and eight eggs. I found a package of frozen chicken tenders in the freezer, some hamburger patties, a London-broil steak, a package of uncooked shrimp, a quart of coffee ice cream, and some ice cream sandwiches.

"Is there a pantry?" I asked.

"No, we store dry food in the cupboards," he said, pointing. I rummaged through the pantry. We had the makings for at least six dinners for two, maybe seven or eight. Breakfasts wouldn't stretch that far, and lunches would be mostly Campbell's soups and different kinds of sandwiches. Snack foods were abundant. I'd want more spices; I like spicy food, but the cupboard wasn't bare like the cupboard I walked into in John Windom's house.

"Do you plan meals?" I asked.

"No," he said.

There was a microwave oven on one of the kitchen counters.

"How about a baked potato, some breaded and fried chicken tenders, canned corn, and a salad for dinner?" I said. With my thin body, fried foods weren't a problem, and as Debra Oakman, I'd missed fried chicken.

He gave me a curious look, but said, "Fine by me. I'll do the potatoes."

I laughed. "In the microwave, right?"

"Is there any other way?" he said.

"Okay, but let me unthaw the chicken tenders first."

Twenty minutes later we sat down to dinner.

Dad sliced off some fried chicken, put it in his mouth and chewed. "Very good, Eric. Now, tell me where you learned to fry chicken like this?"

I swallowed the chicken in my mouth and said, "Can't. No memories, remember?"

"Your mother didn't know how to fry chicken like this. I don't know how to fry chicken like this. And as far as I know, you've never fried chicken, period. When I said you cooked some, I lied. If any meals were cooked in this house, I did the cooking."

I shrugged. "It's weird, Dad, but I think I can do a lot of things I couldn't do before lighting flashed out of the sky and put me in a coma. That's why I was asking about a computer. I think I'm pretty handy with a computer. I'm not a hacker, but ... I don't know. It's difficult to explain." I scrunched my brow purposefully. "Could I draw before? You know, like an artist?"

"Draw flies, maybe, but not like an artist," he said.

"After dinner, let's test one of the feelings I have. Let's find a piece of paper and a pencil and I'll draw."

"We'll do that." He grinned malevolently. "One thing you could do and do well before was the dishes."

"Yeah, sure, Dad. If I believed that, someone could also sell me the Brooklyn Bridge."

"I've got a quitclaim deed handy for that bridge, too," he said and chortled.

We cleaned up the dinner mess together, evidently another first for Eric Kleiner.

The paper was a standard 8 ½" by 11" piece of paper; the pencil was dull. I sharpened it with a kitchen knife.

"What do you want to draw?" Dad said.

"How about you?" I said. I'd made my spending money in college drawing caricatures in a number of sports bars around Phoenix. "Sit on that chair. I'll draw on the table. How about a caricature?"

"Whatever blows your whistle," he said.

I drew him with an oversized head, a tiny but long, thin body, pushing a wheelbarrow. The wheelbarrow contained a bush that would be planted. It took me ten minutes. I didn't sign the drawing. I didn't know how to spell my last name. So I wrote "Stick" under the drawing and handed it to him.

"I'll be go to hell!" he exclaimed. He looked up at me with a stunned look on his face. "You can draw! This is professional, Eric!"

"Not really," I said. "I don't know why, but I believe I can do professional work, though."

"Okay, now tell me why the questions about a bank account and a computer," he said. "I won't think you're nuts."

"We can't afford an attorney, right?"

"Yes, mostly. I have a little money put aside, but you didn't care what happened to you. Still what I've put aside isn't much. I don't think it's enough for attorney fees."

"How much do you have?"

"$750," he said.

"No, that won't do it. This money you've put aside, is it in a checking account with a bank?" When he nodded, I looked at my left wrist to see what time it was. I wasn't wearing a wristwatch. Did I own one? "What time is it?"

"7:30," he said.

"What time does the library close?"

"I don't know. Why?"

"Libraries have computers with internet connections," I said. "Do you have a library card?"

"Yes," he said. "So do you."

"We'll use yours because we'll be transferring money out of your checking account to a web site."

"Why?"

"So we can turn $500 of the $750 into $4,500. Then we'll use $1,000 of the $4,500 to turn it into $9,000, which will turn the $750 you've put aside into $13,750, including the $750."

"Will you be breaking any laws?" he said.

"Yes and no. What we'll be doing will be done in your name, so what we'll do will be legal. The thing is I'll be doing it, not you, and at my age, it's illegal for me to gamble. We're going to play Texas hold 'em poker on the internet, Dad. I've got this feeling that I'm really good at the game. The feeling is just like the feeling I got that I could draw. Are you willing to risk $500 of your $750 so we can make enough to pay an attorney to help me at my trial?"

He sat gazing off into the distance about a thousand yards, his lips pursed, his thin shoulders hunched over. Finally, he nodded and said, "Let's do it, Son. You're going to need a lawyer."

"Grab your checkbook. We'll need the routing number on a check, and hurry. As it is, if the library closes at nine o'clock, we'll be lucky if we have enough time for one tournament tonight. We'll have to play the larger buy-in tournament tomorrow."

We hurried. I won the $500 buy-in tournament at the moment the lights started to flash on and off to announce that the library was closing. I left $1,000 on the site for the next tournament and transferred $3,500 to Dad's bank account. "Check tomorrow to make sure that money hits your account," I said to my astonished father.

"I will," he said.

On the drive home, I said, "Do you work tomorrow?"

"Yes."

"Do I have a bicycle?"

"Yes, but the tires are flat. You haven't ridden it for a year. Why?"

"I thought I'd ride to the library and play that other tournament. If I win, I'll keep playing until I lose a tournament. Then I'll quit for the day."

"Oh," he said.

"Do I have a suit?"

"A suit?"

"Yes, I can't go into court dressed in clothes like I'm wearing."

"Oh. No, you don't have a suit."

"I figure we'll need $10,000 for the attorney. $500 for clothes for me. Do you have a suit?"

"No."

"Plus $500 for clothes for you. And I don't want to continue going to the library to play hold 'em, so I'll need a computer, a laptop with all the bells and whistles, say another $1,500. Plus, we'll need a high-speed connection to the internet at the house. Do we have cable TV?"

"Yes, just the basic package, though."

"Does the cable company offer an internet connection?"

"I don't know."

"I'll check." When asked, he told me the name of the cable company. "With the internet connection fee, our clothes, my laptop computer and the attorney, we'll need about $13,000. But that's not all. I'll need a job. If I can get a job before Tuesday next week, that'll show the judge that I'm serious about rehabilitating myself. To work, I'll need a car. A used car will be fine to start with, say another $10,000. And you'll have to pay taxes on the money I win for us. To net $23,000, I'll need to win about $30,000, depending on your tax bracket. Damn, I wish that court date was two weeks away instead of less than a week." I sighed. "We'll just have to do the best we can."

"I'll take off work for an hour and drive you to the library in the morning when it opens and pick you up when I get off work," Dad said.

"That'll work. Tomorrow evening, plan on shopping for clothes, a computer, and a car. And cell phones. I forgot about cell phones. We'll both need cell phones. We'll eat fast food for dinner while we're out. I'll start looking for a job while I'm at the library tomorrow. The classifieds for newspapers are on the internet. What's the name of the local newspaper?"

"Santa Fe New Mexican," he said.

"The job will be a crap job, Dad, not one to be proud of, and as soon as I can, I'll quit the job."

"With the way you play poker, I don't blame you," he said.

"Poker will not be my life's work, Dad. I don't know what it will be, but it won't be poker. I'll use poker to amass investment money, not as a vocation."

"Oh." After a short pause, he said, "I understand. I like it that poker won't be your life's work. Maybe you can be a professional artist?"

"Maybe. We'll see."

I played and won four tournaments the next day and transferred $30,000 to my father's checking account. That evening, I bought a used Honda Civic sedan, a laptop computer and color printer, and two cell phones. The stores closed before we could shop for clothes.

"We'll shop for your suit tomorrow night, Dad, and I looked in my closet this morning. I need more than a suit. My wardrobe sucks. I'll spend part of the day tomorrow putting together a new wardrobe."

He laughed and said, "Another difference between now and then. I hated the way you dressed, but..." He stopped talking and looked upward, as if in prayer. "What kind of music do you like now?"

"I don't know. I'll listen to the radio on the drive home and tell you when I get there." We had two vehicles: the Honda and Dad's pickup truck. "No, I'll call you with my new cell phone and tell you on the drive home."

Ten minutes later without turning on the radio, I called him using speed-dial number one. When he answered the call, I said, "Country music. I like country music."