“Don’t,” she said.
“I’m not doing anything.”
“You’re pulling away from me again.”
Hardy, trapped in the booth, said, “Maybe I am.”
Jane again reached for his hand, putting it, as she had the other night, in her lap. She kneaded it slowly with both of hers. “Because what’s the point now? Is all this just social talking, catching up on each other?”
“All what?”
“Dinner. Clever repartee.”
“Come on, Jane.”
“You come on,” but gently. “Knowing what somebody’s doing isn’t knowing them.”
“Maybe it’s enough.”
“Well, then I wish you hadn’t called me.” She let go of Hardy’s hand with one of hers and quickly, with her index finger, wiped a tear from each eye, one after the other. “It wasn’t your fault, you know.”
Hardy was a block of carved wood, unyielding, inert.
“Have you ever talked about it?” She held his hand in hers again. A couple of tears had overflowed onto her cheeks, but she wasn’t sobbing. “Do you ever think about it even?”
“I never don’t think about it.” But then, as quickly as it had come, it was gone. “It doesn’t matter,” he said, “I’m sorry I yelled at you.”
“It doesn’t matter?” she asked quietly. “You think yelling at me is the problem? I’d rather have you yell at me any day than just disappear.”
He barely trusted himself to breathe. “It won’t bring him back.” Hardy finally looked at her. Seeing the tears, he brushed Jane’s cheeks, turning on the bench to face her. “You didn’t kill him, Jane. I did.”
“You didn’t. He’d never stood up before. How could you have known?”
“I should have known.”
Michael, the seven-month-old son, had stood up for the very first time in his crib. Dismas had put him down for the night with the sides lowered. The baby got to his feet, leaned over, and fell to the floor, head first. He had died by noon of the next day.
“I should have known,” he repeated.
“Dismas,” she said, “you didn’t know. That’s over. It’s long over. How long are you going to suffer for it? It was an accident. Accidents happen. It just wasn’t anybody’s fault.”
He picked up his coffee cup, staring across the enclosed space, and put it to his mouth, tasting nothing.
“Every time I looked at you I blamed myself again. What I put you through. Me and you.”
“You didn’t put me through it. You didn’t cause it. Look at me now,” she said.
She was beautiful to him. Her cheeks glistened with her tears. “I’m telling you I never thought it was you. It might as easily have been me. I should have known, too. All the books said he was getting ready to stand up, and I never thought of it.” She brought his hand to her lips and kissed it. “The worst was losing you both.”
“I couldn’t face you.”
“I know.”
“And everything else just seemed, still seems”-he shook his head-“I don’t know… it stopped meaning anything.”
“Me, too?”
He closed his eyes, perhaps visualizing something, perhaps remembering. “No, you meant something. You’ve always meant something.” He hesitated. “All the other stuff… I couldn’t work up any interest.”
They sat facing each other, turned together on the bench in the Cajun restaurant. They held each other’s hands, both of them, between themselves.
“When you called me from in the bar, on the phone,” Jane began, “you said you weren’t running anymore.”
He nodded.
“You want to think about that?”
He nodded again.
There wasn’t anything else to say. He let go of her hands and pushed the button at the side of the booth, signaling the waiter to come and give them the check.
Glitsky’s voice had said to call no matter what time Hardy got home.
After leaving Jane, his mind a jumble, he had driven back down to China Basin to view the Cruz parking lot another time. He walked to the hole in the fence, now inexpertly patched with baling wire. The cyclone fence hadn’t been pulled away by kids. It had been cleanly cut top to bottom.
He’d called Pico from a pay phone to see how Orville was doing. The machine answered from Pico’s office. Hardy tried his friend at home and learned that the shark hadn’t made it.
“I should have warned you about my luck lately,” Hardy had said, and told him about the baseball game. But then he had remembered that Steven Cochran hadn’t died yesterday. Maybe his luck was changing.
Pico sounded depressed, and Hardy had asked if he wanted some company. Pico had said okay, and they’d sat up around the kitchen table, playing Pictionary with Angela and the two older kids for a couple of hours.
So it was late when Hardy got home. He called Glitsky immediately. The sergeant wasn’t in high spirits, just asked Hardy if he could come see him first thing in the morning about the Cochran investigation.
“Sure,” Hardy said. “Something happen?”
“Yeah. Somebody else died, and it definitely wasn’t a suicide.”
Glitsky hung up.
Chapter Twenty
EMPTY. EMPTY empty.
The word kept replaying like a looping tape in Sam Polk’s head ever since he’d pulled his car into the driveway. Empty. The house, Nika gone now, completely empty.
He had called her to tell her after the cops had been at the shop for a couple of hours. She’d expressed sympathy over Linda’s death, but by her voice, he could tell she wouldn’t be there when he got back home.
Oddly, her absence was all right, preferable in some way. The note on the table in the hallway had read: “Sammy, I’m sorry, but I just can’t handle two funerals in one week. All this is getting so heavy, I thought you wouldn’t mind if I went to Janey’s (you know, in Cupertino) for a couple of days and try to get my head straight about all this. You can call if you want (the number’s in our book). Sorry about Linda.”
Sorry about Linda. That was all. Sorry about Linda. The empty house seemed to echo more in the darkness. No point in turning on any more lights-the one in the kitchen above the stove was enough. All he had to see was the bottle.
So this is where it all-all the work, all the planning and sweating and saving and effort-this was where it had gotten him. To a kitchen table at an empty hour in an empty house, drinking alone at midnight.
He wondered why it was he really didn’t drink so often-now it was the only thing he wanted to do. First it had hurt his stomach, but after a while that had stopped. He poured another splash into the glass, got up, stumbled a little, and grabbed a handful of ice from the automatic ice maker.
Back at the table, he flipped the picture album open again, the one he hadn’t been able to find for nearly a half hour. Nika had put it in one of the drawers underneath the bookshelves, not even out in plain sight.
There was Linda. He forced himself to look. She hadn’t been beautiful, but there was something about her, a willingness to please. People liked her. He hadn’t thought enough lately about how much he had liked her. Not that they’d talked all that much the last few years, but some people didn’t communicate that way. Especially since she’d grown up and started doing some of her own things-the drugs, guys and so on.
But what could he have done about that? It wasn’t his business, really, after she got out of high school. He told himself she had been an adult.
He poured again, clinking the bottle loudly. Why did Linda think he had become interested in his love life again anyway, gone looking for someone else to put in his life? Linda had made it clear that she had her own life. Okay, then, he’d go and have his. God knew, he’d earned it, raising a daughter alone and running a business by himself. She had had no right to begrudge him what he found with Nika.
The telephone rang in the empty house and he felt his stomach tightening, cramping again. Even if it was Nika, he didn’t want to talk. He let it
ring eleven times, then it stopped. He went upstairs to his bedroom, carrying the glass with him, his heart pumping now with fear. He realized who had been on the phone, probably, and it wasn’t Nika.
But that was stupid. How could anybody know yet? Tomorrow, maybe-no, definitely-they would know, but not yet. He sat on the bed. He’d forgotten all about that. Or not forgotten, but put aside. He couldn’t afford to keep doing that, not for long.
He was in trouble. How could it have gotten this complicated so fast? Just two weeks ago he’d had a simple problem with money, and a simple solution, and now he had nothing going on less.
Naked, he walked downstairs again, his glass empty. He had to hold the banister, and even then the steps seemed to fall unevenly.
Well, so what. He was alone and could do as he damned pleased, and if he was tired and drunk because his little girl had been killed, then he was, and fuck anybody who didn’t like it.
But then another thing intruded. God, there was so much it didn’t seem possible it all fit together. But this was important. This was more important, even, than Linda-no, he didn’t think that.
But it was crucial. He’d told the police there wasn’t any money. But what if they found Alphonse and he had the money? That meant it wasn’t his-Sam’s-money. And of course Alphonse would have the money.
But, on the other hand, once he said it was his money…
Shit, there ain’t no one on earth forgets a hundred and twenty thousand dollars, even if his daughter just died. At least it would be there in the back of your mind.
So what could he tell the cops? They’d seen it, all of it, the excuses and the bullshit, and they would smell this one all the way to Sacramento.
If he’d told them right away about the money, then it might’ve been all right, because, goddamn, seeing Linda lying there had gotten to him, and they would have asked him some questions and anything would have worked.
… a lopsided smile and admitting that he played stakes poker.
… a slush fund for the good workers, tax-free, until the troubles with Cruz had been resolved.
Goddamn. Something.
But now he had trouble seeing it. They wouldn’t buy it, and Sam couldn’t blame them. He wouldn’t buy it himself.
“You mean, Mr. Polk, that you had one hundred twenty thousand dollars in that safe this morning and you forgot it for how long… six hours? Mr. Polk, how old you think I am?”
The bottle of Jack Daniel’s was empty. Empty. Like the safe, like himself. He went to the cabinet and grabbed another bottle, this time some French brandy that Nika liked.
Okay, so he was in trouble but the thing was not to lose the money. Once he had that back he could think of something. It didn’t matter what the police might think of him. He hadn’t done anything illegal yet, and if he could just remember that he’d be okay.
He walked outside. Up in the city it had been cool, but the weather still held here only a dozen miles south. He smelled the first gardenias, maybe a touch of jasmine. He breathed in again. Small white lights led out through the manicured garden to the hot tub. He looked at them in a kind of awe. He owned this. This was where he’d arrived at. It wasn’t just a crummy kitchen drinking alone, it was a goddamn Hillsborough estate with grounds and landscaping and a hot tub, thank you.
He tripped on the first flagstone step, but didn’t go down. Out at the hot tub he lifted the thermometer and saw it was 104 degrees.
If he just got loose and thought, he’d come up with something.
The water stung, but only for a second. He sat on the first step, looking down at his balls, and thought it was still a little too cold, and he could also use the jets.
There, now, that was better. A bottle of some French shit at my elbow, a glass in my hand, and some jets blasting away all the tension and worries. People had worked hard their whole lives and gotten to worse places.
He closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the bricks lining the tub. And had another sip of brandy.
Maybe I don’t think enough, she said to herself. Maybe I’ve been on automatic too long.
There was only the one light on in the trophy room, as they called it, down the hall from Steven’s. The one with all the pictures. She’d been gravitating to it a lot lately.
Big Ed’s snoring was audible from time to time in the next room, but it didn’t bother her. Really-it was funny-not much of what Ed did bothered her. Cigars, maybe, once in a while, but she had her vices that he tolerated, too-not being home enough, for example, running around helping everybody who asked, being unable to say no.
She looked at the wall with its pictures. She and Ed had talked about taking down the ones of Eddie, but then she realized that there would be no reason for it. It wouldn’t lessen the pain. It was just another of the idiotic ideas she’d entertained in the last week.
Now she ran a finger across the bottom of the frame of the one where he was down at the merry-go-round at the old Playland at the Beach. He’d been seven or so when the picture was taken.
The little boy-mounted on the horse, mane splayed out in the wind-smiled out at her like his face would break. Erin remembered the day too perfectly. She saw the smear of mustard still on his cheek from what had been his first corn dog. Somebody’s hand was just visible at the bottom of the picture. That had been Mick, reaching up to ride double.
She let her eyes go around the other pictures. It was true, there weren’t many of Steven, and none in the past two years. There was Mick, playing ball, graduating, diving from the pier at the place they’d rented the past few summers at Bass Lake. Jodie was accepting her debating award last year, biting her tongue in the front of her mouth in concentration over her cooking at the Girl Scout camp, in her first formal dress for the frosh hop at Mercy.
Stepping back, she tried to find the most recent picture of Steven. There was one of him with Eddie at the wedding two years ago, before he’d done that ridiculous thing with his hair that Big Ed had wanted to scalp him for. Another one, the year before that, was really just a snapshot of him and his dad and Eddie when they had come home with their limits of salmon.
That was it for the latest ones of Steven. The most recent after those was Steven at about eight, with Jim, Steven forcing a smile from the front seat of that Corvette Jim had loved so much. Before that was his First Communion, with the white pants and jacket.
How could she and Big Ed have missed what this wall proclaimed so clearly? There wasn’t one shot of Steven all alone, by himself, the star of the show, for at least the past six years.
Last night, after everyone else had gone to sleep, she and Ed had sat in this room, wondering if they could have done things differently. And even then, with all these pictures staring down at them, they hadn’t seen it. It was the same as always, she thought. They just took for granted that Steven was up there on the wall with his brothers and sister, a good well-adjusted kid like the others. They’d raised them all the same-same environment, same values. Of course they’d all turn out okay.
After agonizing over every parental decision with Eddie, then Mick, then of course Jodie because she was the first girl and there were lots of things that hadn’t come up with Eddie or Mick, by the time Steven had come along they’d done it all before, right? So raising Steven would be the same as it had been with Eddie or Mick.
And finally she had been able to start taking the time she’d craved for herself, to somewhat offset the nagging guilt that she wasn’t accomplishing much in her life except raising kids. Not that that wasn’t important, but she had more to offer.
And Big Ed, too. He’d finally found the time for the fishing trips he couldn’t ever take when the kids had been little. And for the poker once a month. And, mostly, just for the solitude- reading in the room out behind the garage, or walking down to the beach.
Neither of them had meant to be neglectful of Steven. Maybe, she reflected again, maybe it had just gotten too hard to think about. Forget what the evidence of their own eyes
was telling them-that Steven was getting away from them, that he was nothing like the other kids. No, that didn’t fit in with the leisure they thought they’d earned, so ignore it. It would probably work out.
And now the boy lay broken and bandaged down the hall, and Erin had no inclination to blame anybody but herself.
“Thank you, God, he’s still alive,” she whispered, a real prayer, just talking to God. She hadn’t done that since she’d gotten the news about Eddie, and she didn’t really think about it now. Just thank God Steven wasn’t gone, too.
She walked down the hallway. The house felt empty. Because Frannie had gone back home today? No, probably just a reflection of how she felt-empty.
Ed snored once again. She heard him turn over in bed. Steven lay on his back, breathing evenly. She leaned over and held her face above his, taking in the sweet-smelling air he exhaled. It was still not adult’s breath, but that wonderful stuff that came out of kids’ mouths. The air in heaven, she thought, must smell like a baby’s breath.
She touched the good side of his face, but so lightly he didn’t move. Moving up a chair next to the bed, she sat and forced herself to keep thinking about the things she was going to change in her life. She really had stopped thinking enough the past few years. You could be endlessly busy and still not be doing enough of the right things. Maybe she and Ed had gotten lazy that way, morally lazy, selfish.
She put her head down on the blanket, up against his hip. She didn’t know how long she’d been dozing when he moved, moaning. She reached up and caressed the side of his face.
“Mom?” he asked.
“I’m here, Steven,” she said, “I’m right here.”
Chapter Twenty-one
ALPHONSE PAGE?” Hardy said, somewhat surprised to hear a name he had never come across.
Glitsky, out in the Avenues on another homicide, stopped by Hardy’s as promised. It made three days in a row that Hardy had been awakened before seven A.M.
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