A Measure of Darkness

by Jonathan Kellerman

  “Yes, I want kids.”

  “Have we talked about this? We should probably talk about this.”

  “I’m waiting for my ring.”

  “You said you wanted to pick it out together.”

  “I do.”

  “Whenever you’re ready,” I said. “Or I can surprise you.”

  She paused her typing. “Please don’t.”

  “What.”

  “I’m asking you to wait for me.”

  “You don’t trust me?”

  “I trust you.”

  “But?”

  “But,” she said, “you are a terrible present buyer.”

  I sat up. “What’s that mean?”

  “It means that you are good at many things. Buying presents is not one of them.”

  “Name one bad present I’ve bought you.”

  “Tch.”

  “I’m asking you to give me an example,” I said.

  “I’m not playing this game.”

  “See?” I said. “You can’t.”

  Silence.

  I said, “How am I supposed to improve without feedback?”

  She sighed, clapped her thighs. “My birthday.”

  “The—? That was an expensive scarf.”

  “I’m sure it was.”

  “It had skulls.”

  “Yes, it did.”

  “Skulls,” I said, “are a thing.”

  “Are they, though?”

  “I thought they’d remind you of me,” I said. “You didn’t like it?”

  She batted her eyes mawkishly. “I love you.”

  “Just to be a hundred percent clear,” I said, “when you say you want kids, you do want them with me, right?”

  Amy laughed.

  The downstairs buzzer sounded.

  “I’m not expecting anyone,” I said.

  “Me neither.” She headed to the front-hall intercom. “Hello?”

  Yo, Amy. It’s Luke. Is Clay around? Can I come up?

  “Are you around?” she called to me. “Can he come up?”

  “What’s he want?”

  “Can he come up or not?”

  “Yeah. Fine.”

  She buzzed him in, leaving the door unlocked.

  Size thirteen feet came bounding up the steps.

  “Hello?” Luke poked his head in. “Hey, dude. You look comfy.”

  He was dressed absurdly. Nylon shorts over black tights, a compression shirt that revealed his knobby contours. Bleach-stained hoodie, bearing the pirate mascot of San Leandro High. It could have been his originally, or it could have been mine.

  I assumed he’d come from playing ball. But Amy said, “Are those weight-lifting shoes?”

  Luke held them out proudly: grim wedgelike soles and Velcro instep straps. “Just finished gettin my swole on.”

  “Where?” I asked.

  “The CrossFit box over on Harrison. Hit a snatch PR.”

  “Since when do you do CrossFit?”

  “Like two three months,” he said. “You ever tried it? It’s awesome. My work capacity has gone up like five thousand percent. Both you guys should check it out. First time’s free. Anyway I was in the neighborhood and I thought I’d swing by and say hi.”

  “Hi,” I said.

  “You want to go hang out?”

  “…now?”

  “If you’re not busy. I’m—a carb up. Can’t remember the last time I had a milkshake.”

  I looked down at myself: cold pack, pajama bottoms. “Uh. I’m kinda—”

  “Yeah,” he said. “It’s cool, we can talk later.”

  He was bouncing from foot to foot.

  “Is everything okay?” Amy asked.

  “Oh yeah. Totally. I just wanted to have a word with Clay.”

  Amy said, “I can step out for a bit.”

  Me: “No.” Luke: “You mind?”

  “It’s no problem,” she said, getting up. “I’ll take a walk. We need eggs.”

  “Thanks,” Luke said.

  I pleaded with her silently not to go. In the thirty seconds it took her to grab her coat and keys, Luke’s attention had shifted to the TV.

  I caught the replay: Steph Curry, hitting from mid-court as the quarter ran down.

  Luke said, “Dude’s a freak.” He lowered himself toward the sofa, his gaze still glued to the screen. I had to slide back so he wouldn’t crush my foot.

  I shut the TV off and set the remote on the carpet. “What’s going on.”

  “Not much.”

  “In the neighborhood.”

  “Yeah.”

  “There isn’t a CrossFit in San Leandro?”

  “I’m trying out a couple different places,” he said. “See which I like the best.”

  “First time’s free,” I said.

  He grinned, not ashamed to be caught. “Yo, their policy, their choice.”

  “How long before you have to start paying?”

  “I think there’s one in SF I haven’t hit yet.”

  “Holy hell you’re cheap.”

  “Support a living wage, man.”

  I laughed. “So what do you want?”

  He looked mildly stung. “I don’t want anything.” He straightened up, smoothing his shirtfront as though preparing to pop the question. “I want you to be my best man.”

  Idiot, I thought. Meaning me. Because I saw him wide-eyed and hopeful, trussed up in spandex, the hair on his temples plastered with dried sweat, and the back of my throat felt thick. Stupid, sentimental idiot.

  He said, “It’s, you know. Theoretical, at the present moment. Till we set a date. Andrea said I might as well ask you now. Life happens. I walk out of here, get hit by a bus…I mean, I don’t need to tell you that.”

  I said, “Thank you. Sure.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. Of course.”

  “Hey,” he said. “Thank you.”

  He put out his hand, and I took it, and for a few seconds we held on to each other.

  He let go. “How’s the knee?”

  “Not bad. Brace comes off next week. Then I start PT.”

  “How soon can I get a rematch?”

  “That could be a while.”

  “Cool, cool. Hey, listen, can I ask you about something else?”

  Without waiting for an answer, he started talking. At first I failed to follow him. I was still choked up. I couldn’t shift gears fast enough. But then the gist began to come through.

  An opportunity had come his way. An amazing opportunity. The laws had changed, the culture was changing. It didn’t take a genius to see, people were going to get rich. No question about that. The question was: who. Remember Scott, from high school? Not Scott Kern. The other Scott, Silber. Good guy. Smart guy. He had a business degree from Stanford. When it came to this space, man, he was way ahead of the curve.

  “Time out,” I said. “You want—am I hearing you right? You want to open a dispensary?”

  “No no no. You gotta think bigger than that. We’re talking the whole supply chain: strain development, grow, brand, retail. Full vertical integration.”

  “Luke—”

  “Let’s, for a sec, let’s examine this in terms of the market. They did a survey.”

  “Who did.”

  “Scott’s people. That’s what I’m telling you. This is not his first trip to the store, bro. How much are you willing to spend per week for organic, locally grown, top-quality cannabis? You know the average number they got? Sixty. Dollars. A week. East Bay alone, multiply that times a hundred thousand. That’s how much is sitting on the table any given moment. Someone’s gonna take it. It’s either Big Tobacco comes in and bulldozes everyone—and that’s what happens, guaranteed, unless the l
ittle guy gets there first.”

  “I take it you’re the little guy in this scenario.”

  “Grassroots. People like Scott, or me, or you—”

  “Me.”

  “Yeah you. Why shouldn’t you get what’s coming to you?”

  “Have you forgotten,” I said, “that I’m a cop?”

  “Read the news. Same as cigarettes.”

  “Not federally.”

  “Five years, tops.”

  “Luke,” I said. “You have a drug problem.”

  “It’s not—” He broke off, frustrated. “You need to lose the nineteen fifty-five mentality. This is about helping people in need. It’s mission-driven. Scott has three full-time PhDs on staff. The stuff they’re looking at, you have no idea. Anxiety, depression, pain, cancer. Anyway I’m not out in the fields doing quality-control testing. It’s passive income.”

  I said nothing.

  “I didn’t have to go to you,” he said. “There’s lots of people I could’ve gone to. I’m coming to you as a favor.”

  “Thanks, but I’ll pass.”

  “Come on, dude. Don’t be like that. Look. This industry, it’s true, you do get some shady characters.”

  “No shit.”

  “The investors Scott’s talking to, it’s a whole different class of people. These are major names. Top-shelf Silicon Valley. It’s important to them everything is on the up-and-up. My history, he’s out on a limb for me, okay? Ordinarily he won’t take less than a hundred K, but in this case he’s willing to go twenty-five, because of the prior relationship.”

  “You’re free to do whatever you want. I’m not interested.”

  “I’m not asking for money,” he said. “I’m saying I, me, I go twenty-five. Of that, two and a half percent to you. All you gotta do is sign.”

  I stared at him. “You want me to be your front man.”

  “Course, you want in yourself, we can talk about that.”

  “I don’t even—Christ alive, Luke. Where’d you get twenty-five grand?”

  “Andrea.”

  “Where’d she get it?”

  “Rainy-day fund. She’s been saving up since she was like nineteen.”

  “And you think she’s gonna hand it over to you? Are you insane?”

  “What can I say? Girl’s got vision.”

  “Have her sign.”

  His gaze floated away and back. “I mean, I could. If you stop and think about it, though, it’s not the best idea.”

  “The whole thing is a fucking horrible idea.”

  “It’s a gray area, legally. Lot of shit remains to be figured out. Say the tide shifts, enforcement-wise? Sooner or later we’re married. Now we’re one entity. This is our future we’re talking about. You don’t leave it to chance.”

  “One second ago it’s ‘five years tops.’ Now the tide’s shifting.”

  “You gotta take risks if you want to get anywhere,” he said.

  “You just said—” I shut my eyes, bore down. “You know what, I’m super tired. Can we not discuss this any further, right now, please? Not right now.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Okay.”

  I felt him get up off the couch.

  “Call me when you’ve had a chance to think it over,” he said.

  I nodded, my eyes still shut. I opened them hoping he’d be gone.

  He was standing over me, studying me with concern. “You need more ice?”

  “I just want to stretch out.”

  “Cool. We’ll talk. I’ll circle back to you.”

  “Fine.”

  “Discuss it with Amy. I feel like this is the kind of thing she’d go for.”

  “Mm.”

  “Whatever you decide,” he said, “you’re still my best man.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Cool.” He pressed his palms together, namaste, and was gone.

  I sank into the cushion, too beat to reach for the remote.

  Stupid, sentimental, gullible idiot.

  A little while later, the front door opened, and Amy came in, swinging a plastic bag adorned with a piss-yellow smiley face.

  She said, “What’d I miss?”

  CHAPTER 22

  Sunday, February 10

  2:51 p.m.

  “Coroner’s Bureau.”

  “Is Clay—Edison there?”

  The connection was poor, the words halting through the speaker.

  “This is Deputy Edison.”

  “My name’s Dylan Gomez. I’m calling about my brother. Kevin Gomez.”

  I snatched up the receiver. “Mr. Gomez?”

  “Yeah, hi.”

  “Would you mind telling me your brother’s date of birth?”

  “April nineteenth.”

  “Year?”

  “I…” The line crackled as he did the math. “I was born in ninety-two. So ninety-five. Am I talking to the right person?”

  “I’m the one handling the case, yes. My condolences. How can I help you?”

  “Tell you the truth I don’t know,” he said. “I got this email from my dad that has me pretty worried. I guess you guys went over there and—something happened?”

  I gave him an edited version of what had occurred to the pair of LA coroners on their notification call to Philip Gomez.

  Dylan Gomez exhaled. “Shit.”

  He spoke again, but it was lost to static.

  “Sorry, I missed that,” I said. “One more time?”

  “It’s this fuckin—pardon my French—this line I’m on, it sucks.”

  “You want to call me back?”

  “No point. It’s always like this. I said I don’t even know how he died.”

  Male pronoun: I decided to follow his lead. “He was struck by a car.”

  “Shit. Did he—was it quick?”

  “Very.”

  “That’s good, I guess.”

  He had the analytical cadence of one accustomed to death, who has seen enough deaths, of enough variety, to assemble his own private taxonomy.

  He sounded, in fact, a lot like a coroner.

  I said, “I was hoping to speak to your father about making funeral arrangements. I’m having trouble getting in touch.”

  “Yeah, no shit. He’s in a bad place, you know? It messed him up pretty bad, what they told him.”

  “I apologize for the way he found out.”

  “Whatever,” Dylan said. “It’s not like he didn’t already know what Kevin was like. He wants to throw a tantrum, that’s on him. So what do I need to do?”

  “Who else besides him might step up? Your mother?”

  “I haven’t seen her since I was like five. She left my dad and went back to El Salvador. She could be dead, all I know.”

  “Do you have other siblings?”

  “Just us.”

  “Okay. Then I’m going to suggest that you go ahead and contact a mortuary. I can provide a list of local ones. Unless you wanted to hold the funeral in Los Angeles?”

  “You don’t understand,” he said. “I’m not—I can’t be there, to do this, myself.”

  “Where are you?”

  “I can’t tell you that,” he said.

  I remembered the young man in a khaki uniform; heard the sizzle and zap of the phone line, and I pictured a cartoon arrow spanning the globe, like in an old black-and-white newsreel. Hurtling into space, ricocheting off satellites, funneling through fiber-optic cable.

  Landing on the map in a big, blank, hostile spot.

  I said, “Is it morning where you are?”

  Three beats. “You could say that.”

  “Gotcha. And you’re not getting back to California in the near future.”

  “That’
s not up to me,” Dylan Gomez said. “But, no. I wouldn’t count on it.”

  “We’ll hang on as long as we can,” I said.

  “And then?”

  “Well, at some point, when we run out of space, it’s our policy to proceed with a cremation.”

  Dylan Gomez said, “No. No. I don’t want that. I mean, the thought of him, all burnt up…There’s gotta be another way.”

  It’s rare you can’t find a family member willing to cover costs. Aunt, grandparent, a warmhearted cousin. I put these possibilities to him but he cut me off: “I’ll pay for it. I’ll find the money. I don’t give a shit.”

  “Then…?”

  “For one thing, I’m not in a position to start making a hundred phone calls. I’m up to my eyeballs in all kinds of shit you don’t want to know. It’s not like I can hop on a bus. I mean, fuck. What’s that look like? They’re throwing him in a hole in the ground and no one’s around to witness it? You don’t think that’s kind of fucked up? Pardon my French.”

  “Here’s a thought,” I said. “I’ve spoken to several of Kevin’s friends. I’d bet they’re eager to help. I’d have to ask, of course.”

  There was no reply.

  “I’m not sure if you feel that solves the problem for you,” I said. “But at least you’ll know that he won’t be alone.”

  Again, silence. I wondered if I’d lost him. “Hello?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “What kind of friends are we talking about?”

  I said, “They cared about him a great deal.”

  “About him?” he said.

  I said, “About her.”

  My line beeped with call waiting. I glanced at the display.

  Nwodo.

  It took a great deal of restraint not to hammer down the hook-flash.

  Dylan Gomez said, “I’d like to talk to them first.”

  I didn’t want to imagine how that conversation might go. If he used the wrong pronoun? Greer Unger, with her anti-cop posters—what kind of earful would she have for an active-duty Marine? Didi Flynn seemed a better bet, but barely. She didn’t give the overwhelming impression of someone who had her act together. Could I involve one and not the other without provoking a territorial throwdown?

  I said, “I’ll see what I can do.”

  He gave me his email address, with the caveat that internet access was spotty, at best.

  I thanked him and switched to the other line.