So she was great with kids. Good for her. With the tip of his toe he tentatively touched the footprints in the dirt, and viciously scraped them with his sole. Erase Shay. Another part of his life over.
He got in the car and fiddled with the keys, and for no reason at all pulled the racket bag into the front seat and opened it. Inside was the racket he'd won his last Open with. He tentatively fingered it, checking the strings, then dug some balls from the athletic bag. In the pale light he walked over to the serving line, and bounced the ball—once, twice, three times, then served it cleanly over the net. Dust kicked up on the other side as the ball carved a groove through the dirt. Ace.
A night watchman came by and stared at him for a while, but he didn't say anything. Kitt grinned. A harmless nut, hitting tennis balls at a warehouse wall at three in the morning. The security guard went on, and Kitt kept hitting balls, harder and harder until a string popped.
When he walked back across the court he heard a car turn the corner, and the Suburban was gone.
In disbelief he stared at the spot where he had left the car. He'd heard nothing, seen nothing—how could anyone have taken the car with him right there? Now what?
The frustration that was never far below the surface now shattered the silence as he bellowed at the emptiness around him. Why again? Is this ever going to stop?
“What's going on here?”
The security guard had pulled up, and stood before him. He threw up his hands.
“My truck was stolen. I was over there hitting a few balls, and someone stole my truck.”
The guard looked around. The only sound penetrating into the warehouse district was the distant hum of traffic on the freeway several blocks away.
“Leave the keys in the car?”
He fumbled in his pocket.
“They're here.”
“So someone walks up behind you, hot-wires your truck, drives off, and you notice nothing?”
“I guess so.”
“What were you doing here?”
“I told you. I was hitting tennis balls.”
“At three in the morning.”
“So?”
“Just a little odd, that's all.”
“There's no law against being odd, is there?”
“Sure isn't. Anything in your vehicle that might have drawn attention?”
“Such as?”
“You tell me.”
“Books. My laptop. Clothes. A sleeping bag. Hiking gear. That sort of stuff.”
“You living in your vehicle?”
“As a matter of fact, I was. No law against that, either, I take it.”
“Well, we'll call it in.”
“I can do that myself. I have my cell phone.”
“You have any ID?”
“I guess that's about all I've got.”
He pulled out his wallet, thankful he hadn't left it in the car.
“You still haven't told me what brought you here at this time of the night.”
”That's right. I haven't.”
“Getting hostile isn't doing you any good, buddy.”
“I got off a late shift and decided to hit some balls. That okay with you?”
“Suit yourself.”
At the police station, he filled out an accident report and answered questions from a bored clerk.
“You have a residential address?”
He held up his cellular.
“This is it.”
The truck wasn't much of a loss as transportation, but it was a place to sleep. The laptop and the books—that was different. His notes gone. How was he going to get through the semester now? Maybe a few clothes left in the storage locker. No winter gear or anything. Find a place to sleep. A way to get to work, to school. Got to finish this semester. What was in the storage locker? Rackets, trophies, a lot of books, some personal stuff. The old computer. Would any of that stuff sell for anything? Call Rick, find out about a match. Had to get some money coming in. Kari couldn't sleep on a park bench.
Where was she sleeping now, any place better?
He walked around for hours, not knowing where to start. It was a truck, for heaven's sakes. A beat-up, used-up, squeaking, rattling gas guzzler that would probably not have lasted another month. A year and a half ago he would have laughed at it. A year and a half ago—that was another lifetime. Single guy, famous athlete, rolling in money. Family doing fine. Nothing worse to worry about than the great questions of life and death. Look at him now. The answer to question number one: Who is Kitt Buchanan without a racket? A loser.
He stomped down the railroad tracks toward the river, followed them till he was well out of town, and he could lie down in the tall grass without being seen. Seething, he stared up at the mountains he loved, and gritted his teeth. For a time, he tried to visualize the face of the car thief. The face flitted through his imagination, malicious and mocking, and he jumped up and ran up the riverbank. He picked up a fair-sized boulder and smashed it onto the ground, pulverizing the face that sneered at him through the grass, the underbrush, the trees. With his foot he crushed some driftwood that taunted the imagination with its weird contortions. Smashing and stomping he obliterated the mocking face from every rock and tree stump, but at the next turn of the river it was there and suddenly it was Jeff's face. He aimed a savage kick at it.
I hate you!
Wynne and her treachery, and Laura, and Walter Lloyd-Rutgers, and the smug agent at TEN-PRO, and Rick who could think only in dollar signs, and Dave with his temper tantrums, and Zack with his whining, and the rest of them! The driver of the beat-up truck who had killed Thor and Kaz, and the idiot who'd run him off the road, and the creeps that shot up his home and vandalized his condo. Kari, with her pain, who didn't want his efforts or his love and who had run as far away from him as she could get. Okay. You don't want me for a dad? Fine. Stay away. I'm done trying. Kurt Zeller with his stupid interviews about quitters. The muggers who had smashed up Mateo. The tabloids with their pictures peddling pain. The unhurt driver who had murdered Mom and Dad. Shay, who called him a rapist.
He raged on, sucking vigor after his long, sleepless night from his rampage. Patches of snow dotted the slopes as puffs of cherry pink and white wafted about the lower elevations. Spring had cast a spell of loveliness over the fields and foothills, tender green transparently clothing the framework of branches and twigs against the backdrop of solid dark emerald of evergreens. When he finally sat down on a rocky outcropping, drinking in the panorama of the reborn hillside below, the sounds of new life were everywhere.
Exhausted, he slumped down by a small tributary where a beaver had built a dam. Sticks and twigs spanned the width of the little stream. Underneath he knew was the entrance for the beaver family. They'd patiently stripped the twigs from trees and carried them down, building a stick at a time, and they had a home in an obscure little creek, no better than any other beaver's home. Did someone come and pull out twigs? Did that beaver inside want to sink his powerful teeth into somebody's neck and draw the blood out?
Listen to yourself! A few setbacks and you're a real martyr, right? You going to beat somebody up now? No way to win—pull a Jeff Buchanan. Make someone hurt like he did. Don't worry about questions or answers. Never mind God. Make somebody pay.
What was it Jake used to say? Make your anger work for you. But that was a game. Anger then was a bad line call, a stupid overrule. Anger now was a soul spasm.
I can't tank. I don't want to hurt anybody. They're not breaking me.
He shoved his hands deep inside his pockets and started walking back to town. He wished he could tell Shay the things he was feeling.
Each time he'd been here he'd waited in vain for the feelings to come. Maybe today he could feel what he ought to feel for a brother gone, a life wasted. Perhaps there were answers here, tears. Once he had loved Jeff.
Along the flagstone pathways bordered by crosses and small tombstones, silent markers of lives lived and lost, his footsteps fell in a slow a
nd menacing rhythm like the sound track of a suspense movie. Here and there, a few mourners stood quietly sobbing, tenderly placing flowers beside beloved names carved in imitation marble. Kitt envied them.
He couldn't bring himself to go to Jeff's grave with others nearby weeping, as though the purity of their grief would be desecrated by his cold anger, and he walked away from the western valley where his brother lay buried. He sauntered around for an hour till the visitors were gone, frustrated by the slow pace and the pervasive quiet, craving blizzards and hurricanes to match his mood. Finally he turned and walked back past rows and rows of headstones, uniform as a trailer park, and at the end of a short row he found Jeff's, near a cluster of scraggly birch trees by the fence.
It was a smooth slab. His name, his birth date. The date of his death. An identification number on the back. Row 46, number 17. Nothing more. He'd thought of adding father, brother, but it had seemed almost cynical. Like listing failures and felonies in an obituary. Jeffrey L. Buchanan, rapist, embezzler, traitor. Jeffrey L. Buchanan, screw-up. Jeffrey L. Buchanan, cheat, show-off, liar.
Staring at the letters carved black into the white stone, he could find no tears, no good thoughts, no grief. What are you doing here, you hypocrite? If he weren't dead already you'd want to kill him right now.
Shoving his fists deep into his pockets, he tried to think of the good times, desperately listing them in his mind. The time Jeff had sent him a watch for Christmas when he was nine. Jeff's excitement when he won his first major. He couldn't think of anything else.
If it had been Mateo! Memories of wandering around the great cities of Europe, discovering history. Exploring ideas so far he was almost scared to pursue them any further, wondering if he could hold on to the marvelous and fragile discoveries of the thoughts they had shared. Not being able to find the exact words and yet certain that his friend knew exactly what he was saying. Watching Mateo coo to his newborn son.
The only clean thing I can remember about you is a watch.
Abruptly he turned and broke into a run.
Under the overhanging cliff that sheltered Thor and Kaz's joint grave he picked up the half-chewed rawhide bone he'd brought some time before. He stared at it for a long time. Stupid, as though he's going to chew on it now.
Viciously he flung the bone across the ravine, and it struck a boulder on the far slope, bouncing down and out of sight, and he shouted out his anger.
You're dead! Why! Why!
He climbed up the cliff and onto the craggy, barren outcropping beneath which Thor lay buried, then up the rough rock wall just under the crest of the mountain. He scraped his hands and knees and tore several fingernails as he clawed his way up, bruising his knees and shins. After a few minutes he lost his footing and slid down a few yards, slamming the side of his face against a protruding rock. Warm drops of blood trickled down his neck. For a moment he contemplated going back, but he was too angry and wanted the pain of going on.
When he reached the top he crouched down on his hands and knees, his anger momentarily depleted by exhaustion as he breathed deeply before he was able to get to his feet. Around him an endless, echoing ring of mountains, rising far higher than the one on which he stood. Grim cliffs and barren rock were flecked with patches of all-season snow and ice, blending into the moss and wind-whipped grasses below, the bushes and evergreens, the birches and meadows of the lower regions.
Thor! I loved you, dammit!
The cold seemed to seep into the marrow of his bones. For a while he sat by the mound of rocks under the overhanging cliffs, eyes closed, his face in his hands. Perhaps, if he sat like this for a while, listening to the wind, smelling the scents of the mountain, he could pretend Thor was just up the trail, begging for a race. Soon he'd feel the dog nuzzling him and hear the happy little whimpers that came from his throat.
Thor, Thor!
Sadly, he patted the rocky mound. Was it crazy to grieve so for an animal? Thor had been a great dog, the greatest. There'd never be another like him. But still, a dog. And Kaz—the little thing had got right under his skin. It was okay to love them and grieve for them. But like this? Like his pain was etched in acid?
After a while he got up and started running down the trail. What's wrong with you? You slobber all over a dog, and haven't found a tear for your brother.
On the other side of the valley, a stray beam of sunlight connected briefly with the ground and threw a sharp, clear outline around a solitary tree. He suddenly stood stock-still.
Oh yes, you have.
The hours pushed by and he trekked up and down the trails, oblivious of the grandeur he'd so often come here for. Around every bend in the trail was Jeff, waiting, and behind every tree his brother. He saw Jeff's face in the blue haze across the ravines, and in the still water of tiny mountain ponds, heard his voice in the rush of water down a cliff and in the crunch of leaves under his feet. How could I be so stupid, Jeff? On he went, climbing over rocks and jumping small streams, sliding down a muddy slope and running up the foothills till he reached a small, secluded valley of luscious green. The valley was tucked between imposing rock walls rising nearly straight up, one end sloping down to yet another valley, and another, a terraced descent affording an ever widening view till it finally ended near a dirt road that led to the highway. He'd been here many times and had always marveled at the panorama as it changed with the seasons.
I cried for you every time I cried for Thor.
Jeff. Dead and disgraced in an inconspicuous grave at the far end of the cemetery where the cheaper lots were, in death lonelier than he had ever been in life. No one to mourn him, because the friends he'd carefully cultivated had stopped caring when his fortunes changed, and his family he had erased.
I can't hate you.
Afterward, he hiked back to the cemetery. In the gathering dusk he walked again down the paths to the west valley near the fence, and stared down at his brother's grave.
I laid all the questions and the doubts on you. They weren't Jeff's questions and they weren't his doubts. He didn't have the answers. He didn't even understand the questions. You were my brother and my manager and I wanted you to be the keeper of my soul. Who'd been there for Jeff when he hurt? Not Laura with her expectations. Not those buddies of his who didn't know him when he messed up. Who was there when his dreams crashed? Not even his brother. Over and over, he laid it all out in his head, what he knew about Jeff. The expectations, the illusions, the emptiness.
You couldn't be a dad to a little girl, and I wanted you to be a father to me. I threw questions at you, questions of right and wrong and God. Questions about who I am, and you didn't even know who you were. Questions you didn't ask and answers you didn't want to know. I despised you for worshiping money, but wealth was what made you feel like a man. Why didn't I understand that you needed money to build yourself up?
Okay, so Jeff's materialism hadn't been endearing. But the greater issue was how he'd felt about himself. Jeff wasn't a thinker, an idealist. He'd been a blip on the screen and he'd wanted so desperately to be the homepage of success. Things that didn't matter to me, but they did to you. Why didn't I get it?
He paced endlessly back and forth.
Everything fell apart and you, of all people, were alone—life of the party. I wanted from you what you didn't have. I was waiting for you to be what I needed you to be, just as I tried to be what you wanted. But I am still Kitt, and all you could be was Jeff.
And now?
If only it had been just the money—
He felt exhausted. Letting go was a staggering thing.
The anger that's with me day and night—about Kari, what it was like for her. About what you became. It's poison. The judgment, the self-righteousness. The rage. I am giving it all away.
Maybe there was a God after all, though he couldn't say why. It wasn't that the answers were now clear and definite. Just every once in a while, a tiny bit of pure light. Kind of like the rays that speared through the clouds and picked out a
tiny spot on the opposite slope, highlighting just that speck of eternity he could see and touch and that he could do business with. Maybe that was all it could be for now. Maybe that was what knowing God was like. Most of the time you didn't get anywhere, and you just muddled along the best you could. Then suddenly there'd be that little piece of him that you could grasp.
He threw back his head and stared at the darkening skies.
You don't have to find God for me. I'll find him myself. Let there be something after all this—something good. Don't fail him like I did. Forgive me, please forgive me.
He sighed deeply. He was limp and drained. Hours of stampeding emotions had left him strangely peaceful. Tears burned behind his closed eyelids.
Goodbye, Jeff.
With a final look at the grave, he turned to go. But before he'd gone two steps, he whirled, and the quick intake of his breath sounded like a sob in his throat. A small bunch of golden-hearted daisies was stuck into the muddy snow in a pointed metal vase beside the tombstone.
Shay's eyes widened in surprise when she saw him at her door. It had been almost a month.
“Can I talk to you?”
She made a gesture with her hand.
“You want to come in?”
He had never been in her apartment, and felt strange. The room she ushered him into was not large, but it had a huge window that looked out over the roofs across the street and in the distance he could see the mountains. Bookshelves lined the walls. A large desk in the corner, a couch and a couple of chairs made up the room's decor.
“I went to look for you, to apologize,” she said hesitantly. “But the car wash was closed and I didn't know where you lived.”
He said nothing and she looked almost resentful, as if he was making this hard on purpose.
“No need. I shouldn't have run out.”
“I'm sorry, Kitt—I virtually accused you.”
“It's a sore subject,” he explained. “I've hated my brother for it. When I thought—well, anyway, every guy probably says he didn't do it. So how could you know?”
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