Eye of the Burning Man: A Mick Callahan Novel (The Mick Callahan Series)

by Harry Shannon

  Finally, I left a message for the publicist. I yawned as the telephone rang and rang. Finally, the answering machine picked up. I made my voice sound exhausted, which wasn't difficult. I told the tape that I'd come down with a touch of food poisoning and wouldn't be able to do the photo shoot. I hung up and went back to the couch to lie down, feeling like a guilty schoolboy.

  * * * * *

  "Shut the fuck up."

  "Don't talk to me that way, goddamn it."

  "I'll talk to you any way I want, bitch."

  They are arguing again. Loco can hear them but he does not know who they are or why they are fighting. He swims in and out of consciousness, vaguely aware of being drugged, not at all sure what is happening. The narcotic soothes him and makes his anxieties seem far away and minor. He keeps his eyes closed as they move him into a new position. He falls asleep.

  SIX

  "You people told me what would happen." The speaker was a young man, disarmingly handsome, with clear blue eyes and a cautious smile. He wore a calm suit and a loud tie and had rolled up to the podium in a state-of-the art wheelchair. At first he had been full of life, telling his drinking story with self-deprecating wit, and the room had been filled with laughter. Now we had fallen silent, sensing what was to come.

  The young man said: "You warned me how it would be if I went out again, if I tried to drink and do drugs one more time. You told me it would only get worse, but I didn't want to believe you. For you people who are new, when it comes to our disease, the people in these rooms will never lie to you."

  Mary was pale, perspiring heavily; sitting stiff in the metal folding chair with a bad case of vibrating knees. She had refused to stand at the beginning of the meeting or to "identify" herself as a recovering alcoholic in her first twenty-four hours of sobriety, but at least she seemed to be listening. She held Peanut's hand. Her lips were thin and her knuckles were white.

  "I toasted the New Year. Hell, I'd been clean for four years, right? What difference could it make if I had a few drinks? And then I got behind the wheel and drove home.

  "I had two friends in the back seat, both of whom trusted me with their lives that night. Their names were Mark and Barbara. I dropped Mark off safely, God only knows how, but I did. I was driving with one eye closed; you know how you do that? Because the white line is suddenly two white lines and you can't stop weaving unless you close one eye?"

  A few small grunts of recognition, then the room grew quiet with anticipation. The speaker began to cry. "Well, when you drink that much, and close one eye, you don't have any depth perception. I ran right through the guardrail and down into Benedict Canyon. Barbara wasn't wearing a seat belt, and she was thrown out." The young man's voice broke with grief.

  "You can see what happened to me. I was paralyzed from the waist down. I threw away a young woman's life and my own legs that night. After I paid my debt to society I started paying my debt to Barbara. Now I talk everywhere I can, in and out of the program, about what happened. I want to tell every newcomer, stay here. Don't go out there and try it again." He raised his head and stared at Mary, before moving on to the next newcomer.

  "Listen, it will only get worse," the speaker said. "And I thank you for letting me be of service. Good night."

  Mary sat quietly with Peanut while the others applauded. We rose to join hands and recite the Lord's Prayer. As the meeting broke up the two women hugged in silence. I walked away to thank the speaker and then stopped to talk to a television actor I'd known for some time. When I returned, I tried to sound upbeat, lighten the mood.

  "Is anyone up for some food on the way home? We could hit that pizza joint up the block."

  "Sure," Peanut said. We left the little church. "I think they have a salad and soup bar. We all ought to eat something."

  "Hell of a meeting," I offered.

  Peanut nodded. "By the way, I love your outfit."

  I'd worn ripped jeans and an old XL Ram's jersey. "What, this old thing? I've had it for years."

  "I believe you, since it says L.A. Rams."

  We crossed the short parking lot in silence. I opened the car door and Peanut slipped into the back. Mary looked at me, a haunted expression on her face. "That guy really got to me."

  "Good," Peanut said from the back seat. "I just hold on to something my sponsor always says. 'I know I have another drunk in me, I'm just not sure I have another recovery.'"

  "Amen to that," I said.

  Mary turned and looked at me and her eyes were red. "Thank you for everything you've done and for keeping your word. I didn't really think you would."

  "You didn't?"

  "No."

  "Mary, I think it's time I called Jerry. He's been looking for you for months."

  She closed her eyes. "Can we wait a little longer?"

  Peanut caught my eye. I nodded. "Okay."

  "Thank you, for that and for being here."

  "You're welcome." Mary took my proffered hand and slid into the front seat. I closed the door and walked around the rear of the car, my eyes searching the parking lot. I still had the nagging sensation I was being watched. Flashback, maybe? Little people in the bushes?

  The Pizza Pan was a small, family-owned restaurant. It squatted at the far end of a strip mall, with a Laundromat, a convenience store with egregious mark-ups on groceries, and a couple of empty store fronts with FOR RENT signs. The long building backed out into a foul-smelling alley. On the other side sat an apartment building packed with immigrants.

  In the restaurant, Peanut filled a plate from the salad bar, sat down for a moment and then left to use the ladies' room.

  "She's really nice," Mary said. "Are you two an item?"

  "No, I've known her since she was a newcomer. I helped her find a sponsor. We're buddies."

  Mary squirmed in her seat. With her plain face stripped of make-up, and dressed in one of my old work shirts, she looked fifteen years old. "I may have trouble with all the God stuff."

  "Everyone does at first. All you need to believe is that it works."

  "I think I'm going to be okay, I really do."

  "That's good."

  Her forehead was damp. She went pale. When she reached for her soft drink her hand was trembling. "There are a couple of warrants out for me, Mick. Did you know that?"

  "No, I didn't. Why?"

  "Some shit I pulled, but one is a felony. Does that mean I am going to have to go to jail?"

  "Don't get ahead of yourself. All that will work out, somehow. The important thing now is to get clean and stay that way, one day at a time."

  "Okay," she said. She held her stomach and bent forward, perspiration running freely down her face.

  "You going to be okay, girl?"

  "Just more withdrawal stuff, but this too shall pass, right? I love all these little AA sayings. I feel like shit. It's kind of like having the flu, you know?"

  "Yes, I do know."

  "That trouble with the law . . ."

  "Like I said, we'll worry about all that later."

  Peanut returned from the restroom, slid into the booth. Mary mirrored the movement a second later. She started towards the restroom.

  "I thought you ladies always went together," I said.

  "We generally do."

  "Peanut, I think she's rehabbing, just talking the talk. She says she'll be fine, now."

  "What do you think?"

  "She's going to rabbit."

  Peanut trotted over to the ladies' room door. It was locked. I heard her call Mary's name. I went out the front door and down the alley. A window in the brick wall was yawning open. Mary had climbed out and fallen into a pile of trash; mostly smashed fruit and cardboard boxes. She got to her feet and tried to run just as I reached her. I grabbed her wrist and pulled her close. She smelled of sweat, garbage, and fear.

  "Easy, let's just go home."

  Mary cawed. "I can't do it, you got to get me something to take the edge off, Mick. I can't do this. I got to score."

  "Wai
t a bit, just a few minutes longer."

  She struggled again. I picked her up and carried her down the alley and over to the car. We got in and slammed the door. Peanut peeked out the front of the pizza joint, signed that she would get the food to go.

  "I'm sorry," Mary said. "I'm sorry."

  "It's okay." I stroked her hair. Suddenly she grabbed my face in both hands and kissed me full on the mouth. At first I froze, then gently pried her lips and fingers away.

  "Not a good idea." I smiled to soften the rejection.

  "Why not?" She was breathing hard.

  I decided not to mention Jerry for the moment. "Because sex can be a drug, too. The brain gets opiates and endorphins and dopamine from attraction and orgasm. If we junkies can't have one kind of drug, we usually go for another."

  She cried again. "You just don't understand."

  "Yes I do, better than you think."

  I held her for a while. Peanut returned with the pizza and some salads in Styrofoam containers. She arched an eyebrow. We rode back to my house in silence. Mary, arms folded over her chest, raced up to the porch, then into the guest bedroom. She slammed the door. Peanut and I exchanged glances.

  Finally, Peanut shrugged. "So go to work."

  She knocked softly and went into the bedroom. I heard them talking. I tossed the worn Ram's jersey on a chair, showered and changed clothes for work. When I went to get my briefcase, I stopped near the doorway, uncertain whether or not to knock and say goodbye.

  "It's who he is," Peanut was saying. "It's not personal."

  Mary, crying again: "He makes me feel ugly."

  "That's not because of him. I felt the same way."

  Mary stopped, startled. "You did?"

  This is pretty low, Callahan. Move out. But I stayed anyway, and eavesdropped.

  "He's strange that way," Peanut said.

  "He's gay?" Mary asked, incredulously. "I don't believe it."

  Peanut laughed. "He is most definitely not gay, but he is kind of old fashioned. Maybe that's why he used to get drunk. It let him fool around a bit."

  "I don't understand."

  "Girlfriend, you don't have to understand. Just count yourself lucky. He won't hit on you because that's all anybody else has ever done."

  "I still don't get it."

  "He doesn't either, but I do," Peanut said. "He's a one-man rescue operation for damaged females. My guess is that's because he can't remember his mom. She died when he was little."

  I blushed, listening in the hallway. Pretty right on. It stings, so it's probably true. I tiptoed backwards, made loud footsteps approaching the door and knocked.

  "I'm out of here."

  "Okay," they said, in perfect unison. They dissolved into giggles as I walked away. One of the truly scary things about women is that seem to understand each other so completely.

  I locked the front door, threw the briefcase in the car, and drove away. As I got on the freeway I turned on KZLA and listened to Dolly Parton sing about growing up in Appalachia.

  I had felt something for Mary when she kissed me, a rush of emotion I found hard to define; something strong and vibrant, yet not of this time and place. It wasn't exactly lust, although somewhat erotic. It was a sensation I'd felt before, with other women I'd known, but seldom with one who'd become a lover. Perhaps it was pity, mixed with some kind of urge to protect, just as Peanut had suggested. It also felt quaint and not a little grandiose.

  Peanut is right, of course. I've spent my adulthood symbolically trying to save my dead mother's life. And my reoccurring struggle with violence was probably an attempt to construct positive meaning from having been physically abused by my stepfather.

  Maybe I'm the one who needs some lessons on the nature of love, I thought. Like Buddha says, the student becomes the teacher. The two women staying in my home seemed to have an enviable way of communicating. They listened. To my eternal embarrassment, I am far better lecturing than listening.

  Moments later I was on the air again, holding forth like someone with something to say. The first two hours of the shift flew by, and the phones blinked like homes dressed for Christmas. I was comfortable and in my element, anchoring the debates and cracking wise.

  "Okay, okay. Let's just say, for the sake of discussion, that you're right. Let's say a womanizer like you is promiscuous because he truly loves women."

  "Damn straight," the caller said.

  For the hell of it, I left the "damn" alone. I was pacing again, working myself up. "Just loves women to death. Hey, in fact you can't keep your mind or your hands off them, right?"

  "No matter how hard I try," the man bragged.

  "I see." You're a smug prick. I think you're covering up for something. Like maybe a really tiny dick or some Homo-erotic fantasies you can't allow to surface. I figured this call was more about the dude blowing his own horn than anything else, so he was fair game. I bored in.

  "Okay. What about all the hurt feelings from betrayals and lies? How do you account for emotional fallout? Would you call that part of it loving, too?"

  "I can't be responsible for everyone else's reaction."

  I pounced. "The best definition of integrity I ever heard is from a guy named John Kabat Zinn. He calls it 'obedience to the unenforceable.' Integrity means being a man, instead of a lying piece of dog crap who can't be trusted to go to the corner grocery store without trying to hump something."

  "Hey, wait a second . . ."

  "Thanks for calling." I dropped back into my chair. "But if that's all you have to offer don't bother to again." I cut him off and let a dial tone hang for dramatic effect.

  "Listen people, there are all kinds of excuses for having affairs, and both men and women do it. But the bottom line is you're lying, and you're betraying your own honor. And dishonestly is most definitely not love. End of lecture. This is Mick Callahan, and I'll be back with you in a few minutes after these brief words from the good folks who pay my meager salary."

  I started a station ID linked to four minutes of commercials, leaned back to stretch. My beeper went off. Puzzled, I checked the digits and saw it was my own number. I dialed with one eye on the clock.

  "Peanut?"

  "I think someone is in the back yard."

  "Tell me about it."

  She was tense, speaking in a whisper. "I heard something moving around out there, something big."

  "Are you sure it wasn't Murphy?"

  "This was bigger than a cat. At first I thought maybe a dog had gotten into the yard, you know? But when I peeked out the side window I saw that the gate is closed."

  "Could Mary have gotten outside?"

  "She's asleep in her bed. Mick, I'm really scared. What should I do, call the police?"

  The commercial was running down. God damn it, Mary has felony warrants. "No, don't call the police yet. Hang on just a second."

  I went live. "I'm in the mood for a little music. I'm going to play one of my favorite songs while I pick the next topic." I started a song that turned out to be an old Nat King Cole. "Peanut, you there?"

  "I'm in the kitchen now, sitting on the floor. I haven't heard anything. What if it's that pimp, come for Mary?"

  "How would he know where I live?" But I knew the answer. He had someone follow me home from Pomona. "There is a number on the fridge, a cop named Larry Donato. He's off duty tonight, so see if he can come over. I am going to call you right back."

  "Okay."

  She severed the connection. I programmed the computer to play some extra music, broke in on the Nat Cole song as I stuffed things into my briefcase. "This is Mick Callahan, and I have to stop a little early for personal reasons, but I'll see you again tomorrow. Until then, here's some cool jazz."

  I burned rubber out of the parking lot, hit the freeway onramp and dialed my home number. There was no answer. Frustrated, I changed lanes like a madman, but for no apparent reason the freeway was a parking lot.

  I left the highway and roared down Victory, even clipped a parked car wh
ile beating a red light. Eventually I screeched to a halt in front of my home. The lights were on and the front door was standing open. I slipped around to the trunk, opened it, and reached inside for the .357.

  "You know that's against the law?"

  I spun around. A tall man, about my own size and build, stepped out of the shadows. He wore nothing but a pair of dark Bermuda shorts and tennis shoes with no socks. I went for the gun.

  Officer Larry Donato laughed. "Whoa! I'm one of the good guys, remember?"

  "Jesus, you scared me. Are they okay?"

  "They're okay," Donato said. "No maniacs in sight. Quite a harem you have in there; which one's yours?"

  I grunted. "Neither, pal. The tall one's a good friend, and the other girl is somebody we're trying to help."

  Donato smiled. "I am really glad to hear that, because I just asked Suzanne for her phone number."

  "Damn, you work fast." I felt a small twinge of jealousy that caught me off guard. Wow, that's mature, Callahan. "You treat her right, or you and me will be dancing some night."

  Donato grinned, a bit wickedly. "Big brother?"

  "Absolutely, I have a proprietary interest in that woman's happiness and safety. Speaking of which, how the hell did you get here so fast?"

  "I live two off ramps away. I was watching the game. I just threw on some shorts and I brought these." He reached down and produced his badge, a long flashlight, and his snub-nosed .38. "Just to be on the safe side."

  "Thanks. Seems like I'm going to owe you quite a few favors."

  "No shit. A lot of trouble to go through for one damned autograph."

  "Yeah, but you got Suzanne's phone number."

  "There's that."

  We started towards the house. Donato said: "Hey, do you want to maybe tell me what the hell is going on?"

  "Actually, it's probably no big deal."

  "And you have some swamp land you want to sell me."

  "I'd tell you if I could, and I really am grateful."

  "My cousin Darlene? The vice cop who busted you and cut you loose that time? She said you were trouble. I should have listened."

  "Maybe you should have."