It’s very late. Almost midnight.
The coach hands Trevor a beer.
The trunk slams shut. Tires peel out. The older man turns back to the gymnasium door.
Gus shakes his head vigorously, and the vision ceases. He rises from the ground.
He seals this knowledge. He protects even the nuance. He wants to ask, but he can’t. He goes inside. Trevor follows. The food arrives, and they eat in abundant silence. Then Trevor returns to the couch.
Around 10:45 p.m. Gus hears the thud of a car door, then another. Two drum beats of relief.
“He’s sleeping,” Gus tells Alex and Kelly as they cross the threshold.
“Did he get any work done?” Kelly asks.
Gus bobbles his head and says, “I guess so. But he’s been sleeping mostly since we ate.”
“I’ll wake him in a minute,” Alex says. “But first I think you should know you were right about your client. He’s a murderer.”
Gus reaches for the wall to steady himself. “Are you kidding? Why didn’t you call?”
“Because we didn’t want to miss anything,” Alex says. “We couldn’t take our eyes off your client for a second.”
Kelly laughs. So does Alex.
“What the hell?” Gus asks.
“I think we should talk,” Alex tells him.
Gus leads them to his office. They sit on the futon opposite him. “Did you make an arrest?”
First Alex buries his face in his hands, takes a breath, and then looking squarely at Gus, he says, “Your client . . . is a murderer . . . on the stage!”
“What do you mean?”
“He means your client is playing a murderer,” Kelly tells him. “That’s his role in the play.”
“Oh shit,” Gus says, biting his lip, the heat of shame rising to his face.
“Oh yeah,” Alex begins, “there’s a very graphic scene where he kills his mother, then his girlfriend. He goes totally fucking insane, and he murders them both. You had a good vibe about Gary Potter. That is to say his character. The one he’s playing.”
Then Alex laughs again.
“Well, you know,” Gus says, searching the room, his gaze sweeping as if he’s looking for salient clues, “it’s possible that he’s taking his murder cues from the play. Maybe the part he’s playing is the perfect fit.” Gus knows he sounds as if he’s amateurishly building a case, but he keeps climbing, keeps digging his way out. “I mean, maybe he got so immersed in his character that it made him a killer.”
“You’re not serious, are you?” Alex asks. “This is no slight to you, man. You really did see him kill people. But you really saw him do it as an actor. In a play.”
“So that’s it?” Gus asks.
“Well, he left the theater pretty quick after the show was over. I got his license plate. We’ll run it. Give him a basic check. Just to rule it out. And to satisfy your psychic hunches.”
Kelly play punches her husband. “Don’t be an asshole, Alex.” Then to Gus, “We really, really enjoyed the night out. We needed it. We owe you.”
Gus says nothing. Just stares at them.
“Let me go wake Trev,” she says.
“No.” Gus stops her. “No wait.”
Alex raises an eyebrow.
“I need to tell you something,” Gus says. “Tonight was very portentous.”
Alex smiles. “Big word.”
“I had a ton of visions. A ton. There’s going to be another murder real soon. Maybe tonight. Maybe tomorrow. But it’s imminent. I think I should meet with you and Chase in the morning. If we put our heads together I’m almost sure we can catch the guy in the act.”
Kelly sighs.
“Well maybe not in the act,” Gus concedes. “But close to the scene.”
“With all due respect, Gus. I really need Alex to spend some time with Trevor tomorrow,” Kelly tells him. “I want Sundays to be their time.”
Gus hesitates. There is not a sound, save for the low murmur of the manly men of ESPN in the other room. They’re debating an NBA trade with all the gravity of a UN Security Council resolution. Gus shakes his head and notices that Alex notices the awkward silence between them. Kelly interjects with a smile, and, just as she’s about to say something, Gus says, “Yes, and then there’s Trevor.”
Both of them look chilled.
“We tossed a football around earlier,” he tells them.
“He’s good,” Kelly says.
Gus speaks with no inflection. “The marijuana is coming from the school.”
Alex opens his hands and says, “We kind of figured that considering what Trevor has admitted so far.”
“I mean it’s coming from somebody at the school. Not another student,” Gus explains. “I think Trevor may be getting it from his coach.”
Kelly gulps. The sound is a cross between a laugh and that first heave of vomit.
“Gus, really,” Alex says. “That’s a bit of a leap.”
Gus describes his vision. He describes the image of the coach.
They listen intently, their eyes like bulbs of surprise.
Trevor shuffles into the room. “Mom? Dad? When did you get back?”
“Just a few minutes ago, honey,” Kelly tells her son. “You go wait for us in the other room. We’ll be ready in a minute. Get your stuff together.”
He yawns, shrugs, and retreats to the living room.
“I don’t know what to say,” Alex says. “I want to take you seriously, dude. But you did just mix up an actor and a murderer. Not very psychic.”
Gus winces and says, “Thanks a lot.”
“I’m sorry,” Alex says. “That came out wrong.”
Gus doesn’t respond.
“But thanks for sharing that,” Alex tells him. “Of course, it’s worth investigating. Of course it is.” He then turns to his wife. “It’s not out of the realm.”
“No,” she says. “It’s not.”
“But I can’t be the one to investigate. Nor would I be,” Alex says. “Drennon in Narcotics has always been a close friend. I’ll go to him.”
Gus watches as Alex rises, extends his hand to his wife, and leads her from the room. He doesn’t move. He listens as they gather their son, the sound of a family configuring itself. He hears them approach the front door. Alex ducks his head in the office door and says, “Thanks, Gus.”
The night is so quiet after the family departs, just still and muted. He sits there for a moment pondering the silence, then pondering himself, which breaks the silence with loathing and doubt. How had he been so wrong about Gary Potter? How had he so monumentally fucked up? His embarrassment onstage for all the world to see. That’s right, Gus, go for your own jugular, your own catastrophe. Pile it on. You do this so well. He curls up on the futon and lets himself be eaten alive, cannibalized by failure. Overinflated as it might be, the failure consumes him, digit by digit, first his fingers, then his toes, then his ears, then his chin. Then it smacks him in the face. But that’s it. He’ll just stop. He’ll turn it off and turn away. He’ll never do this again. He’ll ignore the intuition. He’ll take drugs to make the visions go away. He’ll do whatever it takes to see only what he sees and nothing beyond what he sees. That can’t be too much to ask. Then he hears a woman singing, somewhere in the distance. Outside, in the night? In his house? In his dreams? She’s singing out there about her own angst as if to say, I get you, Gus, but he’s done searching for the unexplained. Is she real? Is she a vision? He doesn’t give a shit. He drags himself off the futon and stumbles to his bedroom.
23
He doesn’t hear from Alex Mills at all on Sunday. Just like that. Alex has gone dark. Gus wonders if he is recanting their partnership, what with the Gary Potter screwup; he’s not sure, doesn’t want to speculate, but he’s anxious because he suspects something is going down today and he’s being shut out. He’s slept off his self-indulgent madness, as he always does, though he’s aware that this time the wipeout was more profound than usual.
H
e takes Ivy for a very long walk. “Thanks for the exercise,” he tells his dog. As usual after a psychic meltdown, he’s reconciled himself to himself. Maybe it was that woman singing, maybe it was sleep, maybe it was the kale and pineapple yogurt smoothie he made this morning and gulped down like a champion, but it’s just a different freaking day, and that’s enough for now. As if to reaffirm and reconnect, he’s carrying with him the lightning bolt. He has the leash clutched in one hand, the pendant in the other. If anything, he feels a vibration from the dog, not the bolt. This animal is a smart animal, and this animal is connected to the inner Gus, to that extra realm that sees things no one else can see. It’s like Ivy is saying, Don’t worry, buddy, I get it, you’re not alone. Gus smiles and laughs to himself. This is what it has come to. My easiest communication is with my dog.
Then he hears, “Daddy, daddy, daddy!” And it’s not the Golden Retriever.
He listens intently. But he hears nothing more. He smells smoke.
He surveys the neighborhood, scanning for signs of life. A dad, maybe, working a grill with his son, steaming hot dogs or grilling burgers. He spies into backyards. Nothing. No father. No child.
Across town a father is tossing a football with his son.
“That arm of yours is getting too strong, if that’s possible.”
Trevor doesn’t respond. He just smirks.
“I’m almost worn out, Trev.”
“C’mon, Dad, we’ve only been out here for twenty minutes.”
Mills wipes his brow and squints into the sun. “Damn. I’m really out of shape.”
He runs and leaps for the ball. Snags it. Dear Lord, my kid is going to kill me.
“Hey, throw it real long, Dad.”
Mills pulls back the ball, feels the shoulder and elbow flex, and flings the ball past his son. Trevor runs. Trevor leaps. Mills is on him as the ball snaps against the kid’s chest. They tussle. They throw their weight. They both tumble to the ground.
“That would’ve been a foul, Dad,” his son says, catching his breath.
“Tell it to the coach,” Mills replies.
“Get off me.”
“All right, already.”
“Jesus, Dad. This is a friendly game.”
Mills rolls over on his back, looks up to the sky, and takes in the expanse of Arizona blue. Screaming, perfect daylight. As if to taunt him, it’s a perfect day for everything that isn’t. Sure, he’s come out to play, but the two of them, father and son, are tossing back frustration and anger, resentment and rancor, and nothing seems to be mitigating that, no joy of game, no zesty endorphins as they reach, toss, rush, as they crash to the ground. There’s no relief.
Trevor begins to rise.
“Wait,” Mills tells his son. “If this is a friendly game, let me talk to you as a friend.”
The kid snorts.
“I’m serious, Trevor. I want you to know that whatever is going on with those drugs, the truth will come out. I’d rather hear it from you, but if we have to wait for investigators to uncover the truth, that’s fine because this whole dirty business is going down. You understand me?”
“Doesn’t sound like a friend to me,” Trevor hisses.
“That’s because it’s hard for a dad to shut off the dad speech. But objectively speaking, Trevor, you’re just the tip of the iceberg. You’re not some hotshot football player living a double life. That’s something you see on HBO. You’re in this at the bottom. There’s no cartel here. No glory. And it doesn’t make you more interesting.”
Mills is still looking at the sky, worshipping something about infinity and scale.
“So now you’re a psychologist?” his son says with a smirk.
Mills rolls to his side and pulls Trevor by the collar of his T-shirt. Now their faces are inches apart. “Let me tell you something, Trevor, the truth is going to come out before this case makes it to trial. We will never let this thing go to trial. So if you’re planning some kind of reality TV moment, forget about it. You’re forgetting what I do for a living.”
“I know what you do for a living.”
Mills gets up. “I know, I know, Trevor. You’re rebelling because your life has been so fucking hard having a cop for a father. Look at you, the poor kid who can never fuck up. Can’t act like the others, has to live to a higher standard. Trust me, I know what it’s like. But I respected my father for everything he did.”
A teenage sigh. “Why do you still have a problem with me, Dad? They dropped most of the charges.”
“I still have a problem with you because most isn’t enough. If you tell the whole story, Trevor, they’ll take it in exchange for immunity.”
“Maybe I don’t know the whole story,” he says, his tone mimicking.
They’re still inches apart, and now Mills grabs his kid by the chin. “You’re smart, you’re talented, you could go to any college on a scholarship,” he tells his son. “Probably a football scholarship. Why would you throw all that away? No one will touch you, Trevor. No one will ever take a chance on you if this thing goes to trial.”
“I think you’re more worried about your reputation than mine.”
“Really? Is that the kind of man you think I am? The kind of father who raised you?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
Trevor says nothing.
“Jesus Christ, Trevor. I will only ever want the best for you even if you have no idea what the best for you means.”
Trevor looks away and says, “Just so you know, I do respect you, Dad.”
Then, with a hesitant nod, Mills turns and walks into the house.
After a nap, Gus heads over to Paradise Valley to have dinner with Beatrice. She opens the door, and he can immediately envision a hearty dinner; the house is steaming with flavor.
“What are you cooking?”
“Vegetarian lasagna. Nothing special.”
“It smells very special.”
She smiles. “I’m trying out some new spices. I’m also making my own dressing for the salad. You like cactus?”
“Surprise me.”
Over dinner he tells her more about the gold lightning bolt.
“That vision of fire has been consistent,” she says.
“And the kid screaming. . . .”
She piles more lasagna on his plate. “Delicious,” he whispers.
“Do you have the pendant with you?” she asks.
Gus nods.
After dinner, while Gus cleans up and stacks the dishes, Beatrice leans against the counter with the bolt in her hand and closes her eyes.
“You slept with that guy from Safeway. Didn’t you?” he asks.
“Yes. I did. Now shush. I’m concentrating.”
“And I think there’s a murder this weekend.”
“Silence!”
Gus goes quiet. He suds up the silverware and listens to it squeak between his fingers. Off in the distance a hawk calls out to the valley. It’s a lone call of authority, like a father or a coach.
“I don’t hear a child,” she says, her voice cooing like a songbird.
Gus watches her intently.
“But I do see smoke.”
“Where there’s smoke . . .” he says.
She shakes her head. He shuts up.
Then she opens her eyes. “You’re losing confidence, Gus,” she tells him.
“Huh?”
“I guess the biggest sign I get from this lightning bolt is about you.”
“Oh?”
“Gus Parker, you really need to believe.”
He laughs bitterly. “Believe? In what? I’m not feeling very task oriented.”
She gives him a look, like a teacher on the receiving end of bullshit. “What does that mean?”
“It means I don’t feel close to a suspect in these murders. It’s been days and days, Beatrice, and all I’m getting are vague nuances. I don’t think I’m misfiring. I just don’t think I’m firing enough.”
“We all get into
slumps.”
“I’m not in a slump.”
“What does the suspect look like?”
“That’s the thing. I don’t know. I don’t have a face. I should have a face by now. I should have the kind of face that I would identify lingering around a crime scene. I think this guy is watching. I know he’s watching.”
“You think he’s coming to the crime scenes and observing police work?”
Gus stuffs his hands in his pockets. “Yeah, I do. But that’s not psychic. That’s just basic criminology.”
“Not necessarily,” she says. “Come sit.”
He follows her to the big living room, the cube of glass that looks to the neck of Camelback. She drops to a sleek leather chaise and tucks her feet beneath her. Gus pulls an ottoman close and sits.
“You’re just not really listening to yourself,” she tells him. “If you feel this guy is at the murder scenes, you need to focus there. But you’re not. You are looking too far afield. You’re looking for his history, but his history doesn’t mean anything unless you indulge that physical vibe about him. You have to concentrate on his presence. Let the detectives tell you about his history.”
He nods and says, “I guess that means you’re not interested in the history of the petroglyphs or the research we were going to do tonight.”
She sits up. “Oh, no. That’s not what I said.”
Now they’re sitting at her computer. Gus is Googling A History of Symbols and Theodore Smith.
With speed that defies logic but defines the Google generation, 283,000 results appear in .26 seconds.
There are, apparently, quite a few Theodore Smiths in the world.
But only one who has written A History of Symbols.
Beatrice scans the page of blue links. They read like headlines. For the most part they’re articles about Smith’s book.
“Self-published,” Beatrice reads. “In 1973.”
“He got a lot of press for someone who couldn’t find a publisher.”
“He was a known artist,” she says. “Apparently.”
They click on several articles. The actual headlines are not kind.
“Look at this,” Beatrice says. “‘Local Artist Writes Fantasy as Facts,’ ‘Author Invents His Way through Symbolism,’ ‘His Story of Symbolism Symbolizes Nothing.’”
Desert Remains Page 23
