The Miraculous Plot of Leiter & Lott

by Jonathan Lowe

  “Of course. And your point?”

  “I’m not sure. I just know the conversation I had with this man wasn’t anything like that.”

  “Men always talk to women differently, silly. They say what they think we want to hear.”

  “True, but this guy didn’t say what I wanted to hear. And somehow, just sitting here right now, I know he wouldn’t talk any differently to anyone else.”

  “Well, how do you know that?”

  Val looked over at three men several tables away. The tall one facing them stared back. She caught a few words from the man speaking, whose back was to them. Something about a rookie player being traded to Seattle. She said, “I just know, okay?” She looked back at Faye. “Drive to Kitt Peak with me, will you?”

  “Where, did you say?”

  “The observatory. The mountain with all the telescopes. I’d like to show you something.”

  “And what on earth would that be?”

  “Who I could have been. Who I am. The person no one knows.” She paused, getting a look from Faye more suited for an orangutan in the zoo, as though Faye had made a mistake about her identity as well. “I don’t mean to sound cryptic,” Val clarified, “it’s just that I’ve been in this. . . state. It’s why I’m taking the day off. To regroup. I was hoping you could diagnose me, quick. Give me just a handle on what I need. What’s missing. A way back, or forward. Read some tea leaves.”

  Faye patted her hand. “You’re just under stress, honey. We should go shopping together this weekend, what do you say? There’s a sale at Neiman Marcus.”

  “I fairly sure I can’t buy my way out of this, Faye.”

  “Why not? Works for me.”

  “Does it? I mean really?”

  “Well, sure.” Faye smiled brightly as proof. “Absolutely.”

  “But it’s just temporary.”

  “Everything is temporary, when you come down to it.”

  “Yes, but it’s not real. It’s not enough. I need more.”

  “Chocolate’s a good substitute,” Faye next suggested, with a subtle wink.

  Val sighed. “I really don’t want chocolate or ice cream or new clothes or even diamonds! I want to be able to enjoy life. To accept what I have and don’t have. I want to be at peace inside, without reservations. To be happy, in spite of it all.” She paused, wondering how that had sounded. “Are you happy, Faye?”

  “Well,” Faye deliberated, “I guess I. . .”

  “That’s a yes or a no.”

  Her eyes narrowed slightly, suspecting a trick. “You come right out with it, don’t you?”

  “Yup. Answer the question.”

  “Actually, I was just going to say that there’s degrees of happiness.”

  “Even for you, Faye? With everything you have?”

  “For anybody, sure.”

  “But you’re rich. You’ve got a great home, a family, and you look like dynamite. You could have any job you wanted, with your looks. If you ever wanted a job, that is. Or any man, if you lost the great one you’ve got. You have good memories too, I imagine? High hopes?”

  “I guess so.”

  “Great. Now you just guess so? You’re not sure anymore? Okay. Are there frustrations playing over and over in your head, too, so you have to play loud tunes to drown them out?”

  Faye shrugged. “I do like music. So what?”

  “What about silence? What about being alone in the dark, in the silence?”

  “I try to avoid that.”

  “Whatever for, Faye? If you’re truly happy and at peace, you shouldn’t need to be doing things all the time. You wouldn’t need a new car or a new house or even a new wardrobe, either. No more than a drunk needs a bar stool.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with the good life, Val.”

  “True, but is it really life? And is it so good, if you’re not even aware of what’s around you? For instance, do you notice little things, like that vase of flowers by the door where we walked in? Did you see the sadness in the eyes of our waitress?”

  “What do you mean? She was smiling.”

  “She has to smile, Faye.”

  Faye looked down at her unfinished meal. One eyebrow twitched. She appeared uncomfortable and then confused, but said nothing.

  Realizing with some irony that she'd taken on David's role as instructor, Val signaled their waitress, and then ordered another margarita. Still, she couldn't resist asking more questions. "Do you drive fast, too, trying to get around people in front of you? Or when you wait in line, does it really bother you, Faye?”

  Faye looked at her oddly, as though embarrassed for her. “What are you saying--that I’m as miserable as you seem to be?”

  “You tell me.”

  “Well, I’m not, if that’s okay.”

  Val nodded in confirmation, then decided to step back across the line she’d crossed. “Look, I’m sorry,” she said, backpedalling too late. “I’m just tired. Maybe I’m contagious, too. Anyway, you did say I could ask you anything.”

  “Tell me anything,” Faye corrected.

  “Right. Sorry. Anyway, don’t mind me.” You’re the well adjusted one here, now.

  Faye’s gaze dropped again to her purse. Then she withdrew a $50 bill, and slipped it stealthily next to her plate. A long moment of silence followed.

  “So you forgive my third degree?” Val almost pleaded when Faye suddenly scooted her chair back.

  A tense pause, then a half smile. “Sure. Forget about it.”

  Val sighed, heavily. “Thanks, but I wish I could. Wish I could forget about lots of things, actually. Ignorance is bliss, or so they say. Whoever they are.” She tried a laugh that she felt certain sounded hollow to such a privileged and insulated being, poised but unprepared for her late ramblings. “Life is just too complicated,” she tried to explain. “I need to simplify. It’s what the man I met did, somehow. What’s his secret? Even if I knew, unfortunately I'd have to do something about it. And that’s not something you can learn in those self help books at the mall about how to manage your life.”

  Faye glanced conspicuously at her watch, saying nothing.

  “Didn’t mean to go spiritual on you all of a sudden, either. Maybe my death gene has finally kicked in. Got me thinking nature doesn’t care about individuals, just survival of the species stuff. Like once I make babies, I’ll start a quick slide down, and it’s up to me to find my own faith or purpose or meaning. Whatever that is.”

  “Ummm,” said Faye. “I hear you.”

  She wondered if that was true, because Faye rose as Val’s refill came. Even when she smiled, it was a little sadly. “Call me if you change your mind about the weekend,” Faye offered, half heartedly, as a parting remark.

  “Will do.” Val lifted her glass, smiling herself by force of habit. “My best to Mark.”

  Every man in the restaurant watched Faye walk out, then, but Faye herself didn’t seem to notice. Tipsy, Val lifted her glass to them all, but they didn’t notice that either. When Faye’s Porsche SUV finally pulled away outside, then picked up speed, Val wondered if she’d ever see her again, and if so, whether enough time would have passed for the inevitable wrinkles to be evident on her perfect, mannequin face.

  10

  Her apartment wasn’t dirty, but Val cleaned it anyway. She polished the bathroom mirrors and tiles with peculiar intensity, avoiding, as she did so, any direct observation of the familiar image moving apace those shiny, reflective surfaces. Her enthusiasm became listless yearning as her obsessive thoughts failed to produce the face of another friend possessing free time, and she soon imagined begging for the advice of acquaintances in the same way that street people asked for spare change.

  Done with cleaning, she then methodically gathered a surprisingly large collection of junk that she’d accumulated. Things she didn’t need, but had saved for some reason. For a rainy day, she recalled, staring at the pile. Except the idea sounded ludicrous now. It hadn’t rained in months. Arizona was in the middle
of the worst drought on record. Considering this, she decided to lug the stuff to Good Will. To donate, rather than to go the jumbled yard sale route. She imagined finding her new downsizing friend there, too, donating his old Bee Gees albums, perhaps, if not trying on someone else's thermal underwear.

  She found the Goodwill store on Cherrybell Avenue Spartan. No attempt at decoration or pleasing ambiance, here. Bare fluorescent tubes, instead. Long functional metal poles holding up used clothing. Corrugated boxes heaped full of battered plastic toys with missing parts. Moving down the austere aisles, she soon felt as lost as Faye had suspected, despite others there who appeared to be on an archeological dig among the pale slabs of sagging mattresses, or the mountain of obsolete printers and computer monitors, or the snake pit of paisley ties and spandex reversible belts.

  Passing dented microwave ovens with fossilized specks of pizza clinging to their smoky glass doors, Val paused beside a pyramid of shoes and boots that were banded together outside a barbed wire holding area. It resembled piles seen in sepia photos taken outside a Nazi concentration camp, and reminded her of what David had said about the dangers of living for the future. Were her own obsessions any less insane than the Third Reich’s, or anyone else's? Probably not, she realized. If only she could burn her future along with her past, and toss the dust of each into the wind, maybe then she wouldn't need Access Hollywood or Entertainment Tonight, either. Maybe then she would emerge intact at the other end of this black hole into which she’d fallen, and in that other universe a new life would be waiting, too, where serenity was more than just a theory.

  She was imagining the menu of the restaurant at the end of the universe when her cell phone rang. It was Greg, with news. A composite had just come in from the sketch artist, and detective Trent wanted to interview her right away. After telling her where to report downtown, Greg left her with another more familiar dose of mundane reality.

  A dropped signal, then nothing at all.

  ~ * ~

  In person, Tucson police detective first grade Martin Trent was a big, imposing man with little time for pleasantries. Instead, he maintained a somber expression while rolling up his sleeves. When he looked at this watch, the large bald spot atop his head was displayed like a crop circle, with only a few flat strands of hair crossing the span of dark gray growth at the periphery. Val sat uncomfortably in the hard wooden chair opposite the detective’s gun metal gray desk.

  “Nice to hear from you again, and so soon, Ms. Lott," Trent said with a just detectable smile. "Now I understand from your boss that you had another unusual encounter, this time with a man at Reid park, just an hour before Melissa Melendez was kidnapped. Correct?"

  "That's what I'm told. About the time."

  "And this man wouldn't tell you his name?"

  "He didn't, no. But I didn't demand it."

  "Can you describe him to me?”

  Val fidgeted, despite herself. “Sure,” she replied, cautiously neutral. “He was in his early forties, around five foot ten, hundred sixty pounds. Shoulder length dark hair, short full beard. Kinda like pictures of Jesus, actually, except he wore dark glasses and carried a cane and backpack.”

  “This. . . Jesus clone. . .what did he say to you?”

  “That our way of looking at time is an illusion.”

  “I'm sorry, how's that?” Trent leaned back, crossing thick, hairy arms.

  Val cleared her throat. “He's a Buddhist, detective, who believes we are more than who we think we are. That we're trapped in the past or the future, and so we miss the present.”

  “Odd way for a homeless man to talk, don't you think?”

  “Yes, but he wasn't homeless, he just looked like he might be. So I can understand why the lady who saw me with him might be suspicious, after the fact.”

  “You say he's not homeless. Do you know where he lives?”

  “I don't, no.”

  “And you know he's not homeless because. . .”

  “I asked him.”

  “Did you also ask him where his family is, where he went to school, that kind of thing?”

  “Actually, he preferred to talk philosophy.”

  Trent nodded, glancing up for a moment, but only to roll his eyes to one side, as if following the path of a rat behind the wall. “How did you meet him, exactly?”

  “I was in the park looking to talk to a ball player at Spring training for a possible interview on Tucson This Week, and he sat next to me while I waited.”

  “Were you suspicious of him in any way?”

  Val shrugged. “Only from the way he looked, before we really talked. Then he seemed gentle and unassuming.”

  “Did he know who you were?”

  “No, he didn't.”

  Trent nodded. “So you felt comfortable during your conversation.”

  “Absolutely. Because, I mean, I think I would have picked up on anything hostile or threatening. But he seemed totally at peace with himself. So much so that I thought of interviewing him, instead.”

  “But he refused?”

  “Refused? No, that’s too strong a word. He told me he favored talking one on one. Also that he helps homeless people acquire dogs as companions.”

  “How does he do that, Ms. Lott?”

  “Like I told my boss, I'm not sure. But he did talk briefly with a homeless man who had a dog. The dog seemed to know him, too.”

  “What did he say to this other man?”

  “I didn't hear because I used the restroom then, and only noticed the other man when I came out. You know, from a distance.”

  Trent nodded again. “What did this other man look like?”

  “Kind of grungy, Caucasian, average height. Maybe the same age, but I really didn't pay that much attention.”

  “Did he also have a beard or long hair?”

  “I believe he did, yes.”

  “Would talking to our sketch artist help you remember more?”

  “No, not really. I didn't see his face. Sorry.”

  Trent scratched briefly at his jaw, then opened a folder and slid over the sketch of what looked like a homeless man, looking for reaction. Val stared down at the image. “And how surprised were you to hear that a homeless man in the park was suspected of kidnapping a little girl around the same time as your encounter there?”

  “I was shocked, obviously.”

  “Are you still shocked?”

  Val tapped at the image, then ran her finger along the outline of the man in the sketch. “There's not much facial detail here," she said. “This could be anybody.”

  Even David?

  “That's why you and Mr. Lomax hope to appeal to the man you met, to come into the station and clear all this up?”

  “I don’t know what Greg is planning, but I've never met anyone less influenced by pop culture, so I doubt he watches television. Although he did mention occasionally listening to the news on the radio.”

  “Be honest with me here, Ms. Lott. Could you have been duped by this guy?”

  “No, not at all. Like I said, he never told me he was blind or homeless, that was something I assumed.”

  “Although he wouldn't tell you his name or his history.”

  “I did call him David pretty early in the conversation.”

  “And why is that?”

  “It's my ex boyfriend's name. We'd just broken up.”

  “Are you suggesting to me that you developed feelings for a stranger, there in the park?”

  “No, I'm not suggesting anything, except that he really is innocent. I know it. I just do. It's hard to explain.”

  “Can you try? You're a reporter, after all.”

  “Okay, then, let me ask you. Do you judge people by how much money they have, or how popular you think they are? Because this man is not seeking anything like that. Not like someone on the City Council, or someone who thinks happiness is about owning the most fabulous house in the neighborhood, with a Lexus for their trips to the jewelry store. Such a man wouldn't kidnap a child, in
any case, detective. Why would he? His values are different.”

  “That's assuming you're seeing it the way it is, of course.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Our kidnapper didn't have a dog, Ms. Lott, but he did have a beard.”

  “What does that prove?”

  Trent’s eyes narrowed for a moment. His lips pursed. He cleared his throat. “You implying here that he converted you? Opened your eyes to some kinda. . . new age truth?”

  “Open your own eyes, detective. Ask yourself why Sarah Collins is not in the news. Or are you going to tell me that you're seeking her killer with just as much vigor?"

  "That case is still open, I can tell you that. If you have any more to say about it, I'm all ears." Trent paused. The trace of a smile that played on his lips was an evanescent smirk, there and gone. Then he continued, "Now, say that you had to describe the philosophy and values you mentioned this man having in a nutshell, Ms. Lott. Could you do that?"

  Val nodded. "Of course. It's really no different than when an astronomer captures images in his telescope. Did you know each tiny spiral or smudge of light you see on those photographs is an island universe in itself?”

  “I'll take your word for it.”

  “You will? So you believe specks of light are entire universes, but you don't believe what I'm saying about a man I met in the park?"

  "Do you?" They had a little blinking contest, which Trent ultimately won. "I didn't say I believe you, Ms. Lott, but for the sake of discussion I'm willing to assume it's true."

  "Thanks a whole bunch." She smiled curtly. "Okay, then. Just like we know about other galaxies, we also know there's something at the center of ourselves, working at a similar scale. An infinite scale. Something we can't explain. Our soul, if you will. I assume, for the sake of discussion, that you have one too?" She paused significantly, then added in a somewhat condescending tone, "It's something we feel, detective, but it's also something we know, even if we can't really comprehend it. To avoid thinking about it much, we join country clubs, listen to iPods, watch cop shows, go bowling. Whatever. Anything to avoid facing our own reality.”