“I’ve been thinking about you,” she told him. “I’ve been wondering how you’ve been.”
“I’ve got a dog now,” Bergen told her. His voice was raspy, his throat was dry, and he discovered that he suddenly felt like crying. “Bobby,” he said. “The truth is—he’s not like other dogs.”
“Good for you,” Teresa said. “It’s just what you needed. You should see Atlas—he’s like an old man—he limps. When I take him for a walk I’ve got to wait for him to catch up.”
“Are you all right?” Bergen asked tentatively.
“Of course I’m all right,” Teresa told him.
Bergen reached for a throat lozenge from the box in his coat pocket; Teresa could hear him cough and then swallow.
“Silver’s been calling here at least once a week looking for you,” the detective now told her.
There was no door to the telephone booth outside the general store, and the wind rising off the river made it difficult to hear, but Teresa had heard Bergen—she just didn’t answer.
“Don’t hang up,” Bergen said.
“I won’t,” Teresa said. “I’m still here.”
“He acts like it’s a goddamn emergency,” Bergen went on. “He acts like he’s going to drop dead if he doesn’t talk to you pronto. I figured you didn’t want to see him—I thought maybe you finally took my advice.” Teresa didn’t answer, but Bergen could still hear the hum of their connection. “You’re not living in an apartment down by the marina, are you?” he asked her.
“No,” Teresa said. “Why would you think that?”
“I thought you might have an apartment down there,” Bergen said wistfully. “One of those places with a redwood deck.”
“I’m getting married,” Teresa said suddenly.
“Wonderful!” Bergen said. “Will I get to kiss the bride?”
It was getting dark in Villa Lobo and less than half a mile away Joey was waiting for her in the trailer; all at once Teresa found herself growing afraid of the walk home alone.
“Why does he want to see me?” Teresa asked. Some of the hope she had given up when she decided to marry Joey was resurfacing.
“I couldn’t tell you,” Bergen said. “I haven’t quite figured out how the mind of a lunatic works.”
“Have you missed me?” Teresa asked now.
“What do you think?” Bergen said. “Of course I have.”
“What about Silver,” Teresa said nonchalantly. “Has he missed me, too?”
“I couldn’t tell you,” Bergen said. “That you’ll have to ask him yourself.”
But the thought of reaching out toward Silver and then facing another disappointment was more than Teresa could stand, though when she hung up the phone she could think of nothing but Silver, and already she found herself forgiving him for that last night in San Francisco.
When Silver phoned, the following day, Bergen was glad that Teresa hadn’t told him where she was.
“You mean to tell me you talked to her and you didn’t get her address?” Silver fumed.
“That’s right,” Bergen said happily. “But don’t worry about her. She’s just fine.”
“The next time she calls you’d better get an address,” Silver warned.
“Are you threatening me?” Bergen asked. “Maybe I’d better remind you that you don’t scare me.”
“Don’t make me come over there and teach you a lesson,” Silver said.
“Come right over,” Bergen said, “but I think you should know that I’ve got an attack dog here.” He looked over at the couch where Bobby was sleeping. “He’ll rip you to pieces on a voice command.”
“Don’t fool around with me, old man,” Silver told Bergen before he hung up the phone. “Just do what I tell you. Find out where she is.”
Silver didn’t have time to argue with the old man; he had a plan now, and although it was simple, a plan he had used before, all of his energy now went into making certain that Gregory was sent back to Vacaville Prison. It was on a cold March night that Silver began the first steps of his plan—he went to Vallais and bought several ounces of heroin and cocaine. Gregory’s Ford Falcon followed him to Russian Hill and then back to the Mission, and once he was back home Silver made certain that the Ford was still parked outside, and then he turned off all the lights in the apartment, just as if he was going to sleep. But he didn’t sleep that night; he sat peering through the windows of the dark living room, certain that sooner or later Gregory had to leave his post outside the apartment, he had to go somewhere and sleep. And when he did, Silver followed him; he sneaked out the front door sometime near dawn, as soon as he saw the Falcon pulled away from the curb. He followed on foot, running as fast as he could, staying at least a block behind Gregory.
Gregory parked and went into an apartment building not more than four blocks away from Silver’s own. Silver stood in the shadows and watched; upstairs on the second floor a light was turned on, and then Silver smiled and breathed in cold morning air, and he knew it was time for him to get Gregory, he was sure that a plan that had worked once could work a second time, and that in only a few days he would be free again, he would find Teresa and he would be free.
The following evening Silver waited again by the window, but this time he put all the lights on, he turned on the radio to top volume, he made certain that Gregory was stationed outside the front door. Then he dressed in jeans and a black T-shirt; he jumped out the bathroom window, then edged across the backyard. He climbed over the tall wooden fence that separated the yard from the street and dropped to the cement in silence. He had to run the long way around to get to Gregory’s apartment without passing the Falcon; still, he reached the place in less than fifteen minutes. He climbed up the fire escape and went in through the window of Gregory’s kitchen, stepping carefully into the sink before he eased down to the floor. The apartment was dark, but a flash of red neon from a bar across the street ricocheted off the far wall every few seconds with bands of light. In the living room Silver carefully arranged the heroin and cocaine out in plain sight. He was ahead of schedule, he was grinning from ear to ear; but when he turned, ready to leave, his pulse quickened, and for a moment he almost lost his nerve: there, in Gregory’s living room, Silver had stumbled over a pair of his own boots, boots he had thrown out in the trash months ago.
In spite of himself, he reached for the light cord that dangled from the ceiling; once the electricity was turned on he was shocked to see an old dresser of Jackie’s he had thrown out, and on the dresser was a row of photographs. There was one of Silver getting into the Camaro, one of Teresa sitting on the back porch, dressed all in white, a third of Lee and Jackie walking in the front door with bundles of groceries, several of Silver standing in front of his own living-room window, staring out at the street. In a panic, Silver reached up and switched off the light. He blinked as if he’d seen a ghost. After his eyes had readjusted to the intervals of darkness and neon, Silver quickly gathered the photographs together. He tucked them into the waistband of his jeans and then reached for the old pair of boots. Later, when he called the police to inform on Gregory, he didn’t want his belongings in the place: a boot could easily be a clue, one photograph could point the blame straight at him. And so when he left the apartment he carried the boots in his left hand. He felt more like a victim than a thief as he closed the window tightly behind him, and as he climbed back down the fire escape he had the oddest sense that he had just been robbed.
He ran all the way home, returning the same secret way he had come. Once he was back in his own living room he went to the window to make certain that Gregory was still outside. As soon as he saw his enemy behind the wheel of the parked Falcon, Silver went to the telephone and called the police. He gave Gregory’s address and name; he identified himself as a concerned citizen who was beginning his own neighborhood campaign against drugs. After that Silver wrapped the old pair of boots in newspaper and threw them into a garbage can in the kitchen, then he combed his hair, changed into a
clean white shirt, and picked up his car keys. He was ready to lead Gregory on a chase through the city to make certain he wouldn’t return to his apartment before the police had made their search. When he walked out to the Camaro and the air was pleasantly fresh, he got in and looked in his rearview mirror and saw Gregory’s Ford, then turned the key in the ignition. He thought he might lead Gregory over the Bay Bridge, to Oakland and back; he would turn the radio on and open all the windows in the Camaro and look back at the city in the moonlight.
When Silver put the Camaro into gear and stepped on the gas he was sure that Gregory was doing the same; he had been followed for so long that he thought he knew exactly what to expect from Gregory. But on this night the moon was a chameleon moving in and out of the clouds, and Silver couldn’t really see far enough; even if he had been more careful he might not have realized that there was no driver behind the wheel of the Ford Falcon, he might not have realized that he wasn’t the only man who had plans, who had staked his claim on what would happen next. When he pulled out onto the street, Silver couldn’t have known that he was driving into the moment that Gregory had thought about all these years; a moment when time was thick enough, a second long enough, for Gregory to jump right in front of the Camaro.
Once Silver looked into Gregory’s eyes he couldn’t look away, he was blinded by another man’s eyes, and his foot on the accelerator and the car itself seemed to be moving at different speeds. The car moved ridiculously fast, because Silver was sure that they were staring at each other for hours, hours with Silver behind the wheel and Gregory stepping right in front of the Camaro’s tires. Gregory was dressed in Silver’s black suit; his face was as calm as a swimmer’s and when the Camaro hit him the sound was more like a sigh than it was like thunder. It was then that time began to move more normally, Silver jammed down so hard on the brakes that his head hit against the rearview mirror. The glass shattered and cut through the flesh on his cheek. Silver ignored the blood on his face, he jumped out and ran to Gregory, but by then Gregory was lying in the street, and when Silver lifted his head up his eyes were as dull as stones. Silver crouched down next to him; the night was dark, the street empty, and Silver’s mouth was dry. Blood dripped down his cheek and fell in drops on Angel Gregory’s forehead.
“Get up,” Silver whispered to Gregory. He put his mouth close to Gregory’s car. “Get up, goddamn it,” he told him. “If I wanted to kill you, I’d do it. And it wouldn’t be any kind of hit-and-run, I’d do it right. So come on,” Silver urged the other man. “Let’s get out of here.” Silver lifted Gregory’s head and shoulders off the ground, but he was talking to a dead man and as soon as Silver realized this he carefully lowered Gregory’s head so that it rested along the curb where some girl had written the name of the boy she loved next to her own in blue chalk, surrounded by a heart pierced by arrows.
Silver got out of there as fast as he could, but it took him an hour to stop shaking, and even then the cut on his face still continued to bleed, no matter how many times he wiped his face with the cuff of his white shirt. Even then he saw Gregory’s eyes in every stoplight, every inch of asphalt and cement seemed snaky with life. So Silver stayed in his car, he kept driving; he was afraid that when the Camaro stopped his heart would stop as well. He panicked at the thought that some evidence would point to him, and he knew, right away, that what had happened hadn’t been an accident; Gregory had been terribly careful, he had made sure that Silver would be followed forever—if not by the police, at least by the silence of a dead man’s eyes.
Silver didn’t dare go back to his apartment; he imagined that an ambulance and several patrol cars had already parked right outside his house. He didn’t dare go to an emergency room or doctor’s office and have his face stitched up; a warrant might be out for his arrest, someone might have written down his license number, a nurse might see the panic that traveled up and down his skin. So he drove. He circled the city, he tried to be calm and plan what he would do next. Late that night he pawned the watch he wore, and he ripped the stereo out of the Camaro and sold that, too, and then he drove to a diner on the outskirts of the city where no one knew his face or his name. At dawn he sat at the counter and ordered coffee and didn’t bother to answer the waitress when she asked him where he’d been all her life. He went into the men’s room and washed his face, and he tried to clean the bits of glass out of the cut on his cheek with a paper towel. And when the sun had risen, and Gregory had been carted off the street, Silver paid for his coffee without bothering to leave a tip, and he got back into his car and then he headed for Bergen’s apartment on Dolores Street.
Teresa and Joey went out to have hamburgers after they bought the wedding dress and the new shirt and tie. They sat in a red leatherette booth at a place called Judy’s Cottage, and in front of them were huge platters of food.
“I don’t think I can eat,” Teresa admitted. “I’m nervous.”
“There’s nothing to be nervous about,” Joey told her. “Hundreds of people get married every day of the week. Do you think they would all do it if it was so terrible?”
Teresa signaled Judy over and ordered black coffee.
“That stuff will rot your guts,” Joey warned her. “It’ll give you cancer of the pancreas.”
Teresa sat back in the booth as if she’d been stung. “You sound like my father,” she said, and from where she sat she could see out the Cottage’s window to the street where King Connors had once parked while she ran across the street to buy a Coke.
“Then he must have been one smart guy.” Joey winked, and while he took his new tie out of the shopping bag to study it in the light, Teresa found herself thinking of King, wondering if she would have liked the sort of wedding where he walked her down the aisle. They would be arm in arm, and King Connors would be the tallest man in the room. He’d wear cowboy boots and a new blue suit, and after the ceremony he’d make certain champagne was served alongside a fruit salad filled with orange slices and the best strawberries. More likely, Teresa thought, he’d arrive in a worn gray suit, hours late, after the ceremony had already begun, and then he’d leave before sandwiches were served; his pickup truck would be idling right outside the door, a woman would be waiting in the passenger seat and checking her makeup in the rearview mirror. But the truth was, if she could find him to send him an invitation, he simply wouldn’t come at all.
Teresa and Joey had gotten their marriage license, and Joey had made an appointment at the courthouse in Santa Rosa. Now he folded his new tie away and poured ketchup over his french fries. “We should think about a honeymoon,” he told Teresa. “We could drive up to Eureka and stay in a motel if there’s not a whole lot of flooding on the roads.”
“I think I’d like somebody to be there,” Teresa said.
“Not on our honeymoon.” Joey smiled. “It’s just going to be me and you.”
“I want somebody to give me away,” Teresa insisted.
“If you don’t know how to reach your father, how about one of your brothers?” Joey asked. He’d been feeling generous ever since Teresa had agreed to marry him; if she wanted family around on their wedding day Joey would agree to it, even if he didn’t like sharing her, not even for a few hours.
“I don’t know where they are either,” Teresa said, and her eyes filled with tears, right there in the booth at Judy’s.
Joey reached across the table and took her hand in his. “Isn’t there anybody?” he asked.
Teresa shook her head no; Joey reached for a french fry and chewed it thoughtfully.
“Not a soul?” he asked.
“Just Bergen,” Teresa shrugged.
“Well, hell,” Joey said enthusiastically. “Call Bergen. Call whoever you want.”
“He was my mother’s friend,” Teresa said.
“Your mother’s friend?” Joey said. “That’s almost a relative. Go on. Let him give you away.”
By the time Teresa called Bergen, Silver had been holed up in the detective’s apartment for m
ore than a week. Bergen had tried everything he could think of to get rid of Silver: he had gone to the bank, withdrawn eight thousand dollars from the sale of the house on Divisadero Street and given it to him. He offered to go to the airport to pay for a ticket to South America or Canada, if whatever trouble Silver was in was serious enough for him to want to leave the country. Or a lawyer—Bergen offered him the names of a dozen lawyers, experienced in drug cases, willing to pay off an occasional witness or a judge. But all Silver wanted was iodine and bandages for the scar on his face, he wanted hamburgers and coffee, and someone to bring him the daily paper so that he could see if Gregory’s death had made the news, and most of all he wanted Teresa. He stared at the phone, he slept right next to it on the couch, covered by a wool blanket that had once belonged to Dina.
“She’s going to call any day,” he told Bergen. “Then I’ll be out of here so fast you won’t even remember me.”
“What if she doesn’t call for a month?” Bergen said. “What then?”
Silver grinned and called Bobby up on the couch with him. “I could be comfortable here for a month,” he told Bergen, simply because he knew it would make the old man tear out his hair.
“We’re not even related,” Bergen said. “Don’t you have anyplace else you can go?”
“Do it for my mother’s sake,” Silver said. He reached for the six-pack Bergen had bought at the supermarket that morning, took a can of beer, then raised it in the air in a toast. “She would have loved it if you thought of me as a son.”
Bergen winced when Silver mentioned Dina; if not for Dina, the detective would have phoned the police the minute Silver was out of earshot. Whenever Silver watched TV or slept sprawled out on the couch, Bergen studied him, searching for some resemblance to Dina, unable to find the slightest feature that showed he was her son.
That night when the phone finally rang, Bergen was in the kitchen, boiling eggs for dinner, and Silver was asleep on the couch. The detective tried to get to the phone first; he still wasn’t quite sure why he wanted to keep them apart, he was certain only that Silver was dangerous, that he had a talent for making any woman whose heart wasn’t ice believe that he didn’t know the meaning of selfishness, or of lies. But Silver reached for the phone first; his hands were sweating when he picked up the receiver—he had been dreaming about the desert all night, there had been a sun as hot as fire, and a posse on horseback followed him without mercy. When he heard Teresa’s voice he instantly felt as though he were swimming in cool water.
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