She breaks my heart sometimes. “I won’t,” I assured her.
When I bent down and kissed her brow, she put a hand to my head, holding my face to hers. “Promise me you won’t.”
“I promise, ma’am. I swear to God.”
FORTY-FIVE
WHEN I PARKED IN FRONT OF STORMY’S APARTMENT house, the undercover PD van was no longer across the street.
Obviously, when the police detail had been in place, it hadn’t been providing security for her. As I’d suspected, they had been keeping a watch with the hope that Robertson would come looking for me. When I’d shown up at Chief Porter’s house, after the shooting, they realized that I was no longer with Stormy, and evidently they pulled up stakes.
Robertson was embarked upon an endless sleep, watched over by the ghost of a young prostitute, but his murderer and former kill buddy remained at large. This second psychopath would have no reason to make a special target of Stormy; besides, she had her 9-mm pistol and the hard-nosed will to use it.
Yet into my mind came the image of Robertson’s chest wound, and I could not turn away from it or close my eyes to it as I had done in my bathroom. Worse, my imagination transferred the mortal hole from the dead man’s livid flesh to Stormy, and I thought also of the young woman who saved me from the coyotes, arms crossed modestly over her breasts and wounds.
On the front walkway, I broke into a run. Slammed up the stairs. Crashed across the porch. Threw open the door with the leaded glass.
I fumbled the key, dropped it, bent and snatched it from the air as it bounced off the hardwood floor, and let myself into her apartment.
From the living room, I saw Stormy in the kitchen, and I went to her side.
She stood at the cutting board, beside the sink, using a small grapefruit knife to section the prime Florida fruit. A small pile of extracted seeds glistened on the wood.
“What’re you wired about?” she asked as she finished her task and set aside the knife.
“I thought you were dead.”
“Since I’m not, do you want some breakfast?”
I almost told her that someone had shot the chief.
Instead, I said, “If I did drugs, I’d love an amphetamine omelet with three pots of black coffee. I didn’t get much sleep. I need to stay awake, clarify my thinking.”
“I’ve got chocolate-covered doughnuts.”
“That’s a start.”
We sat at the kitchen table: she with her grapefruit, me with the box of doughnuts and with a Pepsi, full sugar, full caffeine.
“Why did you think I was dead?” she asked.
She was already worried about me. I didn’t want to wind her anxiety spring to the breaking point.
If I told her about the chief, I’d wind up also telling her about Bob Robertson in my bathtub, about how he’d been a dead man already when I’d seen him in the churchyard, about the events at the Church of the Whispering Comet and the satanic meditation card.
She’d want to stay at my side for the duration. Ride shotgun, give me cover. I couldn’t allow her to endanger herself like that.
I sighed and shook my head. “I don’t know. I’m seeing bodachs everywhere. Hordes of them. Whatever’s coming, it’s going to be big. I’m scared.”
Warningly, she pointed her spoon at me. “Don’t tell me to stay home today.”
“I’d like you to stay home today.”
“What’d I just say?”
“What’d I just say.”
Chewing, silenced by grapefruit and by chocolate doughnut, we stared at each other.
“I’ll stay home today,” she said, “if you’ll stay here all day with me.”
“We’ve been through this. I can’t let people die if there’s a way to spare them.”
“And I’m not going to live even one day in a cage just because there’s a loose tiger out there somewhere.”
I chugged Pepsi. I wished that I had some caffeine tablets. I wished that I had smelling salts to clear my head each time a fog of sleep began to creep upon me. I wished that I could be like other people, with no supernatural gift, with no weight to carry except whatever chocolate doughnuts might eventually put on me.
“He’s worse than a tiger,” I told her.
“I don’t care if he’s worse than a Tyrannosaurus rex. I’ve got a life to live—and no time to waste if I’m going to have my own ice-cream shop within four years.”
“Get real. One day off work isn’t going to destroy your chances of fulfilling the dream.”
“Every day I work toward it is the dream. The process, not the final achievement, is what it’s all about.”
“Why do I even try to reason with you? I always lose.”
“You’re a fabulous man of action, sweetie. You don’t need to be a good debater, too.”
“I’m a fabulous man of action and a terrific short-order cook.”
“The ideal husband.”
“I’m going to have a second doughnut.”
With full knowledge that she was offering a concession that I could not accept, she smiled and said, “Tell you what—I’ll take a day off work and go with you, right at your side, everywhere you go.”
Where I hoped to go, by the grace of psychic magnetism, was to the unknown man who’d killed Robertson and who might now be preparing himself to carry out the atrocity that they had planned together. Stormy wouldn’t be safe at my side.
“No,” I said. “You get on with your dream. Pack those cones, mix those milkshakes, and be the best damn purveyor of ice cream that you can be. Even little dreams can’t come true unless you persevere.”
“Did you think that up, odd one, or are you quoting?”
“Don’t you recognize it? I’m quoting you.”
She smiled affectionately. “You’re smarter than you look.”
“I’d have to be. Where are you going on your lunch break?”
“You know me—I pack my lunch. It’s cheaper, and I can stay at work, on top of things.”
“Don’t change your mind. Don’t go near a bowling alley, near a movie theater, near anything.”
“Can I go near a golf course?”
“No.”
“A miniature-golf course?”
“I’m serious about this.”
“Can I go near a game arcade?”
“Remember that old movie, Public Enemy?” I asked.
“Can I go near an amusement park?”
“James Cagney’s this gangster having breakfast with his moll—”
“I’m nobody’s moll.”
“—and when she irritates him, he shoves half a grapefruit in her face.”
“And what does she do—castrate him? That’s what I’d do, with my grapefruit knife.”
“Public Enemy was made in 1931. You couldn’t show castration on the screen back then.”
“What an immature art form it was in those days. So enlightened now. You want half my grapefruit and I’ll get my knife?”
“I’m just saying I love you and I’m worried about you.”
“I love you, too, sweetie. So I’ll promise not to eat lunch on a miniature-golf course. I’ll have it right at Burke Bailey’s. If I spill salt, I’ll immediately throw a pinch over my shoulder. Hell, I’ll throw the entire shaker.”
“Thanks. But I’m still considering the grapefruit-face smash.”
FORTY-SIX
AT THE TAKUDA HOUSE ON HAMPTON WAY, NO bodachs were in sight. The previous night, they had been swarming over the residence.
As I parked in front of the place, the garage door rolled up. Ken Takuda backed out in his Lincoln Navigator.
When I walked to the driveway, he stopped the SUV and put down his window. “Good morning, Mr. Thomas.”
He’s the only person I know who addresses me so formally.
“Good morning, sir. It’s a beautiful morning, isn’t it?”
“A glorious morning,” he declared. “A momentous day, like every day, full of possibilities.”
Dr. Takuda is on the faculty of California State University at Pico Mundo. He teaches twentieth-century American literature.
Considering that the modern and contemporary literature taught in most universities is largely bleak, cynical, morbid, pessimistic, misanthropic dogmatism, often written by suicidal types who sooner or later kill themselves with alcohol or drugs, or shotguns, Professor Takuda was a remarkably cheerful man.
“I need some advice about my future,” I lied. “I’m thinking of going to college, after all, eventually getting a doctorate, building an academic career, like you.”
When his lustrous Asian complexion paled, he acquired a taupe tint. “Well, Mr. Thomas, while I’m in favor of education, I couldn’t in good conscience recommend a university career in anything but the hard sciences. As a working environment, the rest of academia is a sewer of irrationality, hatemongering, envy, and self-interest. I’m getting out the moment I earn my twenty-five-year pension package, and then I’m going to write novels like Ozzie Boone.”
“But, sir, you always seem so happy.”