by David Wiltse
He became so agitated while contemplating his shortcomings that he barely spoke to the blonde girl at the checkout. When he reached his car he realized that he had been thinking so much about himself that he had forgotten to buy bread. He returned to the store and selected a loaf of country oat after tantalizing himself with a box of glazed doughnuts that rested within arm’s reach of the bread. Sugar was a problem for Dyce. He tried to avoid it because he overindulged once he got started.
It was unlike him to be rude, so he made a point of getting on the blonde girl’s line again, but as he arrived, she was transferring her cash tray and handing the register over to an acned boy. Dyce watched her go. She did not look his way and seemed preoccupied with her own sorrows. Her eyes looked as if she had been crying again. Dyce wanted to tell her he was sorry for not having spoken to her earlier. It was not the kind of gesture he would make, although he often had the impulse.
When he reached his car, the girl was fumbling with her keys, trying to get into the car next to his. She dropped the keys and left them there, leaning her head on her arm atop the car, as if dropping them was the final straw.
Dyce picked them up but when he said, “Here, Miss…” she did not take them.
He read the name stitched into her uniform. Helen. What an old-fashioned name, he thought with approval. Dyce had no patience with the fashionable Michelles and Heathers, or the handrolled Lareenas and Berthines. She seemed a decent, old-fashioned friendly girl, and he was glad she had a name to match.
“You dropped your keys, Helen.”
She turned at the sound of her name and stared at him for a moment. Tears were rolling down her cheeks. Dyce noted that there was no mascara. He didn’t like mascara on the living.
“Oh, Mr. Dyce,” she cried and suddenly lowered her head to his shoulder.
She told him through her sobs that she hadn’t realized it was him. Dyce patted her back gently and looked around the parking lot to see if he was being observed. He rather wished that someone was watching. Clearly here was a girl, a woman really, who didn’t think he couldn’t understand emotion. Here was somebody who didn’t regard Dyce as a robot or number-chasing nerd. He hoped someone would be a witness.
She pulled away, wiping at her face with her hand, then the back of her arm. “I’m sorry,” she said, sniffing loudly.
“No,” he said. “No, no.”
“I just… I have no right, I just…”
“No, no. No.”
“You always seem so kind,” she said. She sniffed again, then laughed at herself “Listen to me snorting away.”
“No, I’m glad… Can I help?”
She tried to smile but her tears welled up again and the smile bent downward.
“I’ve had a death,” she said. She shook her head, paused, shook it again and tried once more to unlock her car.
Dyce steadied her hand with his own, surprised at his boldness.
“Listen,” he said. “Listen…”
“I can’t… You’re so kind…”
“Listen. Let me buy you a cup of coffee.”
Helen dropped the keys into her purse. Dyce found his arm across her shoulders as they walked across the parking lot to a coffee shop.
They slid into a booth that had just been vacated by a police officer. Helen nodded as if she knew the man.
“My mother,” Helen said. She started crying again, but softly now that they were in public. When she was finished, she blew her nose in a paper napkin.
“I know,” said Dyce sympathetically.
“I can’t seem to get used to it. It wasn’t a surprise. I mean, I knew she was going to die, she’d been sick for so long, but somehow you’re just never ready.”
“I know. I know.”
“It’s been a week, but I just can’t get used to the idea that she’s not here anymore. I dream about her, I see her. I mean, people-women-will come into the store and just for a second I’m positive it’s her. And then I’ll go along for a while and be fine, I’ll actually think I’m fine. Then all of a sudden, for no special reason, I’ll just burst into tears, just like now.”
“I know,” said Dyce. “I know.”
“Mr. Dyce… I was lucky it was you there in the parking lot. I mean, when I get like this, I don’t know if I’m coming or going. If a stranger had picked up my keys-well, I mean, we don’t know each other very well, but somehow I feel I know you, you know? You’re always so friendly, you take time to say a word, you always seem to have a comment about something, the weather or something, you know? Some people will not give you the time of day in those circumstances. They just want me to bag them up and take their money and run and…”
“Did you see her?”
“Pardon me?”
“Did you see your mother after-at the funeral. Was it open casket?”
“Oh. Yes, I saw her. Of course. I think an open casket is important, don’t you? People want to say good-bye.”
“Wasn’t she beautiful?”
“Why yes, yes, she was. She looked so natural, and so peaceful.”
“I know.”
“She wore this lovely soft white silk blouse with a lacey collar she liked so much. She looked so…”
“I know. Beautiful.”
“Mr. Dyce, you are so sympathetic.”
“I lost my father,” he said. Helen touched his hand. “I’m so sorry,” she said. Dyce wished there was a witness to this. A young woman was holding his hand in public. “I was just a child.”
“Oh, you poor man.”
“He was very young, about the age I am now.”
“It must have been awful for you. It’s bad enough to lose a parent, but for a little boy…”
“We had the casket in the living room.”
“In your house?”
“In my grandfather’s house.”
“I didn’t know that was… can you do that?”
“We kept him for three days. My grandfather thought he would rise.”
“Rise. Rise?”
“I was very small and couldn’t see up into the casket, so my grandfather would lift me and hold me over my father. So I could see.”
“Uh-huh.”
“So I could see how beautiful he was.”
“That must have been… you must have loved him very much.”
“He was my grandfather.”
“I meant-well, of course you loved them both. How did he die so young?”
Dyce removed his hand from Helen’s grasp. He folded his hands in his lap,
“You knew my name from my checks,” he said.
Helen was startled by the abrupt change in Dyce’s attitude.
“Have I said something? I didn’t mean to press you about your father…”
“There’s no other way you could know my name. You never asked me. No one else in the store knows me.”
“I suppose I must have seen it on your check. I don’t remember. I’ve known it for a long time; I was interested, you were always so nice-I hope I haven’t done anything wrong.”
“It’s all right. I was just curious how you knew. Of course it’s on my checks.”
“Mr. Dyce, you’ve been so kind, I wouldn’t do anything to upset you for the world. It’s not often you meet someone who’s kind. Most people only have time for themselves. You wouldn’t know that because you’re not that way, but most people couldn’t care less about somebody else’s troubles. And I have certainly had my share of troubles. Even the girls I work with, they’re not bad people, but I can see them rolling their eyes whenever I feel sad now. It’s only been a week, but I can see them thinking, why doesn’t she get over it already? Well, I’m sorry, it’s just not that fast.”
“You never get over a death,” said Dyce, loosening again. “If they expect you to get over it, then that person didn’t mean anything to you. And if that person didn’t mean anything to you, there’s no reason to mourn in the first place, is there?”
Helen noted his renewed animation with relief. F
or a moment she feared that she had lost him, that she had said too much, or the wrong thing, or the wrong way. She realized that her desperation drove them off-calm and an emotional distance would work better. Men were lured to the elusive ones. They seemed to want what didn’t want them, but if she possessed either calm or emotional control, she wouldn’t be alone and lonely to begin with. It wasn’t her looks that caused the problems. There were women at the store so ugly they shouldn’t be let out of the basement who had husbands, boyfriends, lovers. Melva, who had warts and an odd upper lip, had gone through at least three men in the past six months that Helen knew of Helen wasn’t beautiful, but she looked all right. Given time and the right accessories, she thought she made quite a nice appearance. It wasn’t her looks; it was her horrible need that repulsed them. Even now she knew it was not her red eyes or runny nose that had driven him into that frightening moment of resistance; she had tripped over something, some subtlety of discretion that other women stepped around with the surety of tightrope walkers.
“You wouldn’t mourn a stranger, would you?” Dyce demanded.
Helen was not sure of the implications of the questions. She shook her head slightly, which she hoped indicated encouragement as much as an opinion.
“Why would you?”
“I wouldn’t.”
“Of course not. If a stranger dies, it’s nothing more than flesh. I don’t mean to sound indifferent, Helen, but really, who could care? We all must die, some earlier than others, but that doesn’t matter. But if it’s a loved one. If you lose someone you love…”
The sound of her name thrilled her. He had not glanced at her name tag; he had simply said “Helen”as if the word were always in his mind. She wondered if he had been fantasizing about her as she had about him. There was a need in Mr. Dyce, she could sense it. Perhaps a need to match her own.
“You are very sensitive,” she said. It was hard to hold his eyes. They kept moving around the room, but they would light on her sometimes, and when they did, Helen gave him her most sympathetic smile.
“I respond to that,” she said. “I mean, that is something we have in common. I’m sensitive, too. Most men are afraid to be sensitive.”
Dyce sipped his coffee and when he returned the cup to the saucer she had moved her hand so that it was impossible to avoid touching it again. Tentatively, startling himself, he brushed it with his fingers. Her hand turned over immediately and clutched his with a palm that was warm and moist.
“Can I tell you something? I think you’ll understand. My mother has really been gone a month. I told you a week because I thought it would sound silly for me to be acting this way after a month, but now I think you would understand.”
“Yes,” said Dyce.
“I knew you would understand. I’m not a liar, though. I don’t tell lies. This was just-you know.”
“Yes.”
“What you said about love. I agree with that, I believe that, but can I ask you a question?”
Dyce nodded. Her hand was soft and fleshy, like her face, but her touch was no longer just sympathetic. Somehow her fingers had become entwined with his own. As the waitress passed, Dyce thought she must see them as lovers. He wondered if Helen understood the implications of holding his hand in this way. She seemed so naive and trusting.
“Do you think it’s possible to love someone too much? Because that’s how I love. Completely. I give myself completely. Is that wrong?”
“No,” said Dyce. “Love is forever.”
She squeezed his hand so hard it hurt.
Chapter 4
“ So it started when, exactly?”
Becker stopped pacing and looked out the window. He had to part the vertical blinds to see the building opposite his, where the blinds were discreetly closed. If he looked far enough to the side he could just glimpse a sorry-looking acacia sapling bound in a cement pot the size of an oil drum. Beautification was not the highest priority in the Bureau complex. The window covering was a muted purple, just about right for a remembered dream and thus appropriate for a shrink’s office, even if out of place in an FBI office. This, however, was both.
“It started with my mother. At least that’s standard theory, isn’t it? She weaned me too early, and I shall never forgive her for it.”
Gold drew a line down the margin of his notepad. “Is it me you dislike, or this process?”
“Aren’t you part of the process? Don’t I transfer my love and hostilities to you and allow you to soak them up like a saintly sponge?”
“In your case we can skip the transference if you like.” Gold drew a serpentine curve the length of the first line, intersecting it at regular intervals. “I’d rather not be the object of either your affections or your hostilities. Besides, this isn’t Freudian analysis. It isn’t primal scream therapy, either. For that matter, I’m not terribly interested in your relationship with your mother.”
“What are you interested in?” Becker asked.
“We just want to know why you felt you had to quit.”
“We?”
“They want to know. I’m supposed to find out. You’re supposed to tell me. It’s a team thing.”
“Why do they care?”
“Naivete doesn’t suit you, Mr. Becker. You’re too valuable for them to give up without an effort.”
Gold began to fill in the parabolas created by the intersecting lines.
“I retired because it was time.” Becker was pacing again.
“You’re still a relatively young man. You were in your prime, you were in heavy demand.”
“It was time for me.”
“But why?”
“You ever been shot at, Gold?”
“No.”
“Stabbed? Or even threatened? Ever have a terrorist point a gun at you, wave a grenade in your face, threaten to kill you and a hundred other people?”
“You know I haven’t. Is that supposed to justify you or put me in my puny civilian wimpish place?”
Becker felt suddenly weary and ashamed. He sat heavily on the sofa.
“I’m sorry, Gold. I didn’t mean to be attacking you personally. I’ve got nothing against you. I know you didn’t ask for this job.”
“As a matter of fact, I did.”
“You did? Why?”
“I thought you’d be interesting. You’re something of a legend in certain circles, you know.” Gold tapped his pen on a folder on his desk. “Your history is fascinating.”
“Glad to ease the boredom of your days.”
“Did you think therapists don’t have favorites? I haven’t been shot at, thank God, but I have sat through some of the dreariest, mind-numbing sessions that would have killed a lesser man. Your colleagues are a pretty humdrum lot, Becker.”
“What makes you think I’m not?”
“Are you fishing? I don’t know if you are or not since you won’t talk to me, but my instinct tells me you are. It also tells me that you quit because you’re suffering from a very rare disease in this day and age.”
“I’m supposed to ask what.”
“II would help the flow.”
“What does your instinct tell you I’m suffering from?”
“A conscience. I think you quit your particular brand of work because you had a crisis of conscience.”
Becker laughed. Gold thought it was not a pleasant sound.
“Well, thank God,” said Becker. “I was afraid you were some sort of genius who could cut right to the heart of it and find out what I was really like. But I guess we have to do it the hard way after all.”
“What’s the hard way?”
“With me stalling and covering up and misleading you every step of the way.”
“That sounds about right,” said Gold. “So why not tell me how it started?”
“That should be in my fascinating file.”
“It would be revealing if you told me when it started.”
“When I think it started. The final decision will be yours, of course.”
“Who knows you better than I?”
Becker laughed again. “Nobody.”
Gold waited, drawing horizontal bars where the serpentine line met the vertical.
“I’d been in the Bureau for about eight years,” Becker said. “Routine work for the most part, nothing to set the world on fire. I don’t think I had any particular desire to set the world on fire, for that matter. I was basically just learning the job and I don’t know that I’d shown any greater aptitude for it than anyone else. My job evaluations should be on your desk, so in this case you know more about me than I do. Have you looked at them?”
“Of course.”
“And?”
“Average, I’d say. Some of them thought you were a bit brighter than average-which your test scores confirm, by the way-but no flashes of brilliance in the beginning. Just another agent.”
“That’s fair… So. I was assigned to New York, working a counterfeit case, when a hostage situation developed in a bank robbery. Very bizarre situation. The cops had caught these two guys in the act, but the guys had the bank employees as hostages and they were demanding a plane to Libya. The television people found out about it and there was this freak-show atmosphere with the negotiations being held on camera and the media putting in calls to the clowns in the bank. A very wend situation. I was sent over to help Terry Dwyer who had taken over the negotiations from the local cop who had been giving away the store. This had been going on for hours, so we had time to prepare the limo that was supposed to take them to the airport. I wasn’t the only agent there, of course. There must have been a dozen of us, some of us with our badges showing, some dressed as cops, a couple in paramedics uniforms.
“The plan was to have Harper drive them since he was experienced at this, but all of us had been briefed just in case. One of the two clowns, the one who did all the talking, came out into the street and inspected the limo-this whole crowd of spectators standing behind the barricades and cheering for him like he was a hero of some kind. I think they thought he was Jesse James and not some doped-up moron who got caught with his dick in his hand. He was eating it up, of course, and playing to the crowd, so we knew he was going to make a mistake. We weren’t really worried about-Tony, his name was. It was his partner, Sal, who had us scared. A silent partner. The guy never said a word, but you could tell by his eyes he was dangerous. Stupid and scared silly, but God, was he paying attention. Tony was distracted, but Sal knew exactly where everyone was and what they were doing even if he wasn’t smart enough to know what was really going on.
