Mr. Sinatra wasn’t evil. He was frustrated by his circumstances and, for whatever reason, fearful about leaving this world—though he would never admit to the fear. As one who had not found organized religion highly credible until later in life, he was now confused about his place in the vertical of sacred order.
The biographies had not ricocheted from wall to wall with violent force, but had instead circled the room like the horses on a carousel. Every time I tried to pluck one of those books from the air, it had eluded me.
“Mr. Mitchum said you’d keep getting up and coming back until one of you was dead,” I repeated. “But in this fight, sir, one of us is already dead.”
His sunny smile grew wintry for a moment, but then thawed away. As dark as his bad moods could be, they were always short seasons.
“There’s no point in you resisting me. No point. All I want to do is help you.”
As was often the case, I could not read those extraordinary blue eyes, but at least they were not bright with hostility.
After a moment, he affectionately pinched my cheek.
He went to the nearest window and turned his back to me, a genuine spirit watching the fog haunt the night with its legions of false ghosts.
I recalled “It Was a Very Good Year,” a song that could be read as the sentimental and boastful recollections of an irredeemable Casanova. The poignant melancholy of his interpretation had elevated those words and that music to art.
For him, the good and the bad years were gone, and what remained was merely forever. Maybe he resisted eternity out of fear based in remorse, though maybe not.
The next life promised to be without struggle, but everything I had learned about him suggested that he had thrived on struggle. Perhaps he could not imagine an interesting life without it.
I can imagine it easily enough. After death, whatever I might have to face, I will not linger on this side of the door. In fact, I might cross the threshold at a run.
ELEVEN
I DID NOT WANT TO LEAVE THE HOUSE BY THE front door. The way my luck was running, I would find the barbarian horde on the porch, about to pay a visit.
In my dictionary, three bad guys who between them have at least one chin beard, one set of rotten teeth, and three guns qualify as a horde.
Leaving by the back of the house meant I had to pass the parlor, where Hutch brooded about the wife and son he’d never had and about how lonely and vulnerable he was after losing them.
I did not mind if he called me an ungrateful little shit again; that was merely rehearsal for a possible visit from a representative of the horde. The quick shower, the change of clothes, and the chat in the kitchen with Hutch had cost me twenty minutes, however, and I was anxious to locate Annamaria.
“Odd,” he said as I tried to move past the open parlor doors with the stealth of a Special Forces op in camouflage and sound-suppressing footgear.
“Oh, hi.”
Roosting in his armchair with a chenille throw across his lap, as if keeping eggs warm in a bird’s nest, he said, “In the kitchen a little while ago, when we were talking about what a useful bit of wardrobe a cardigan can be…”
“A tattered cardigan,” I qualified.
“This may seem a peculiar question….”
“Not to me, sir. Nothing seems peculiar to me anymore.”
“Were you wearing pants?”
“Pants?”
“Later, I had the strangest impression that you hadn’t been wearing any pants.”
“Well, sir, I never wear pants.”
“Of course you wear pants. You’re wearing them now.”
“No, these are jeans. I only have jeans—and one pair of chinos. I don’t consider them pants. Pants are dressier.”
“You were wearing jeans in the kitchen?”
As I stood in the parlor doorway, holding a bag of ice to the lump on the side of my head, I said, “Well, I wasn’t wearing chinos, sir.”
“How very peculiar.”
“That I wasn’t wearing chinos?”
“No. That I can’t remember them.”
“If I wasn’t wearing chinos, you wouldn’t remember them.”
He thought about what I had said. “That’s true enough.”
“Just enough, sir,” I agreed, and changed the subject. “I’m going to leave you a note about the dinner casserole.”
Putting aside the novel he had been reading, he said, “Aren’t you cooking dinner?”
“I’ve already made it. Chicken enchiladas in tomatillo sauce.”
“I love your tomatillo enchiladas.”
“And a rice and green-bean salad.”
“Does the rice have green sauce, too?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Oh, good. Do I heat them in the microwave?”
“That’s right. I’ll leave a note about time and power.”
“Could you put Post-its on the dishes?”
“Take the Post-its off before you put the dishes in the oven.”
“Of course. I wouldn’t make that mistake. Again. Going out?”
“Just for a little while.”
“You aren’t leaving for good, are you?”
“No, sir. And I didn’t steal Corrina’s jewelry, either.”
“I was a diamond merchant once,” Hutch said. “My wife conspired to have me killed.”
“Not Corrina.”
“Barbara Stanwyck. She was having an affair with Bogart, and they were going to run off to Rio with the diamonds. But, of course, something went very wrong for them.”
“Was it a tsunami?”
“You have a sly sense of humor, son.”
“Sorry, sir.”
“No, no. I like it. I believe my career would have been much bigger if I’d been able to get roles in a few comedies. I can be quite funny in my own way.”
“I’m well aware.”
“Barbara Stanwyck was consumed by flesh-eating bacteria, and Bogart was hit by an asteroid.”
“I’ll bet the audience didn’t see that coming.”
Picking up the book again, Hutch said, “Do you enjoy the fog so much that you want to take a second walk in it, or is there something else I should know?”
“There’s nothing else you should know, sir.”
“Then I will wait for the doorbell and denounce you as a fiend to anyone who asks.”
“Thank you.”
In the kitchen, I emptied the ice-filled OneZip bag into the sink and tossed it in the trash.
The lump on my head remained the size of half a plum, but it no longer throbbed.
On two yellow Post-its, with a blue pen, I wrote directions for heating the enchiladas and the rice salad. With a red pen, I printed REMOVE THIS TAG BEFORE PUTTING IN OVEN.