by S. J. Rozan
It was harder, without the trees and brush. Each step had to be sure. The ground still sloped uphill and the wind was hard. But the light was closer now, I could tell that. It was golden and square and must come from windows. from someplace warm, a house, someone’s home. It had to.
And then it was gone. I blinked, stared, tried to bore through the darkness with my eyes. Maybe I was wrong about the trees. Maybe something was standing between me and the light, something I could go around.
I took some more steps; my knees became rubbery. There were no trees. There was nothing there, nothing hiding the light. It was gone.
Like a puppet whose string had been cut, I sank slowly to the ground. The water rushed past me, splattered over me, pushed by a screaming wind. As I was swallowed by darkness and cold, I was sorry that I hadn’t reached the glowing house, because I’d wanted to hear the music.
13
SILENCE. WARMTH. A pale, gray light. Softness against my skin when I moved; but pain then, too.
Later, the gray light again, and less pain, pain that had shrunk, settled behind my left ear and in my left shoulder. There was softness everywhere, around me and under me, and warmth, and quiet.
In the gray light things came slowly into focus, soft-edged and gentle. A table; a cedar chest; a woodstove set into a fireplace between two uncurtained windows. Through the windows, rolling clouds and the blowing tops of trees.
I was lying on my right side. Heavy wool blankets wrapped me closely. A pillow was under my head, with a smooth, cool cover. I tried to stretch my stiff legs and found I couldn’t: there was something in the way.
In a minute, I thought, I’d look and see what.
My mouth was cottony. My bare skin was sticky and tight with dried sweat. I could smell coffee, and the dry sting of woodsmoke in the still air.
I pushed back the blankets some, tried my legs again. They still wouldn’t stretch, so I pushed back the blankets some more and tried something else: sitting up.
It was easy, if you didn’t count the stiffness and the dizziness. The stiffness stayed with me, but the dizziness passed.
I looked around from my new perspective. I saw my boots, on spread newspapers by the woodstove. I was sitting on an ivory-colored couch not as long as I was tall. I knew this couch; I knew this place. Eve Colgate’s house, her living room.
On the easy chair was a pile of clothes, my jeans, my shirt, my underwear, all folded and stacked as if they’d just come back from the laundry. On the cedar chest, in a big wooden bowl, some other things: my wallet, keys, cigarettes, junk from my pockets. My gun, the holster coiled beside it.
The story behind this, I told myself, has got to be good. I couldn’t wait to hear it.
I stood, creaking like a rusty hinge. I made my way to the pile of clothes on the chair, pulled on my shorts. Minimally decent, I kept going, to the small bathroom under the stairs.
I took a piss it felt like I’d been waiting a week to take. Then I turned on the water in the sink. The rush of it, loud in the silence, made me vaguely uneasy. I filled the bathroom tumbler, drained it three times. The water was sharp and sweet.
The face in the mirror looked worse than it had last time I’d seen it: pale, stubble-covered, and old.
I soaked a hand towel in hot water, used it to wash everywhere I could reach. I took a look at my shoulder. A messy-looking bruise was coming up inboard of the shoulder blade, more or less in line with the aching place behind my ear.
Something, or someone, had hit me pretty hard.
I wandered back out to the living room, pulled on my jeans. They were as stiff as I was. I maneuvered my undershirt on with as little use of my left shoulder as I could manage, which was not little enough.
Then I had done enough hard work for a while. I reached into the wooden bowl for the unopened pack of Kents that lay there, then went to the woodstove for a kitchen match.
I dropped back down onto the couch, rested my elbows on my knees. I drew smoke in, streamed it out, probed the blank space in my memory for a way in. The cigarette was almost gone when I heard the front door open.
I grabbed my gun from the bowl, held it out of sight. I didn’t stand; I was steadier seated. The door closed; there were sounds in the vestibule. The inner door opened and Leo trotted through.
When he saw me he scrabbled over to the couch, wagging everything from his neck back. He put his front paws on my knee and stuck his face up near mine, licked my chin. I scratched his ears with my left hand, which was holding the cigarette. I figured that was better than my right one, where the gun was.
“Leo!” Eve said, coming through the inner door. “Get down!”
He did, sitting in front of me, lifting a paw excitedly, scratching at my knee.
I put the gun down as Eve walked around the cedar chest, came to stand in front of me.
“How do you feel?” she asked.
“Tired.” A half dozen other words came to mind, but that one got there first.
She nodded. “You had a bad night. You ran a fever. I don’t think you really slept until almost dawn.”
“What happened?” I asked her.
She frowned. “I was waiting for you to wake up so you could tell me that.”
I made no answer.
Eve moved around the couch to the kitchen. “Do you think you could handle a cup of coffee?”
“God, yes.”
She brought me one, and one for herself. The coffee was rich and fragrant and hot. I gulped at it.
She moved what was left of the laundry pile onto the cedar chest, settled herself in the chair.
“I found you,” she said. “About an hour after you left here last night, just down the hill.” She gestured toward the slope outside the windows, where the scrub trees began about ten yards from the house.
“Found me,” I repeated stupidly. I wasn’t sure I was following her.
“Well, Leo did. Something strange happened. Something . . . frightening.”
“Tell me.”
She sipped at her coffee. “I got a phone call, maybe forty-five minutes after you left. A man’s voice, I think, but whispering, so I really don’t know. ‘Your friend Smith,’ it said. ‘He’s down the hill from your place. It’s a bad night to be out.’”
I sipped my coffee, tried to understand this. She went on, “He hung up. I didn’t know what he meant, down the hill, but I took Leo and went out. Leo found you, lying just where the trees start, only half-conscious.” She stopped, studied me. “You don’t remember? You were soaking wet; you were freezing.”
I shook my head. “No. How did I get here?”
“Back to the house? You walked.” She smiled her small smile. “You didn’t want to. You kept telling me to leave you alone. I began to get desperate. It’s a way of conserving heat, that refusal to move, but it really would have killed you. Alcohol’s not the best thing for someone whose body temperature’s dropped as low as yours had, but it feels good, and you needed motivation. I came back for the brandy.” Her smile faded. “You don’t remember any of this?”
I shook my head. Leo, who had climbed onto the pile of blankets beside me, rearranged himself with a happy sigh.
“Actually,” Eve said, “I think Leo saved your life.”
I raised my eyebrows, looked at the dog.
“Besides finding you, I mean. When I ran back here for the brandy, I covered you with my slicker and told him to get under it and stay with you until I came back. I think his being there kept you just warm enough to stay conscious. Then I gave you brandy and told you you’d die if you didn’t get up and come with me.” She smiled again. “And you told me to go to hell.
“But you got up. It took a couple of tries. I was afraid that you couldn’t. It was obvious you were hurt. I was trying to think what to do if you really couldn’t walk, but you did get up, and you leaned on me and we came here.”
She made that last part sound easy.
When she’d come through the door her cheeks had been glo
wing from the wind, but as we’d talked the color had faded, and I saw now that her eyes were dark-ringed and her skin was patchy and dull.
“You haven’t slept,” I said.
She shrugged, finished her coffee. Over her shoulder, framed in the squares of the window, leafless branches danced in a gusting wind.
“Thanks,” I said. It was dust when it should have been diamonds, but when I said it she lifted her eyes to mine and smiled.
She stood, got the coffeepot from the stove, refilled our mugs. Small, everyday blessings. I drank.
“Why were you there?” she asked. “Why did you come back? Who called me?”
I passed my hand over my eyes. Something was in the back of my brain, but it was darkness and noise. “I don’t know.”
I drank more coffee. “I remember leaving after dinner, driving away. No, wait—” The coffee was nudging something forward, like an indulgent aunt with a shy child whose turn it was to recite. “Light. I wanted to reach the light.” That seemed right, but I didn’t know what it meant.
“Where?”
I pulled out another cigarette, dropped the pack back in the bowl. I lit another match. With the flare came a sudden burst of memory. “Your studio. In your studio. There were lights down there as I came around the curve, so I parked the car and went down to look.”
“Lights in my studio? Last night? What—who was there?”
I reached, but there was nothing. “I don’t know. I came close, but I don’t think I got there.” A dark figure, a shadow in the shadows. “Someone was waiting. He hit me from behind. I didn’t see him.”
“Someone was waiting for you? Someone wanted to kill you?” Her voice might have cracked, but if it did she got it back under control fast.
“No. They couldn’t have known I’d come, couldn’t have even known I’d see the light. And I would’ve been easy to kill, once I was down. I was even carrying a gun, if he didn’t want to use his own.”
“But you could have died. But they didn’t want you to, or they wouldn’t have called here. I don’t understand. Why do that to you, and then call me?”
I thought about that. “Something was going on that someone didn’t want me to know about, or screw up. But there’s been one death already; maybe they thought another would call down more heat than they were ready to take. I suppose they could have ditched my body where it wouldn’t be found”—Eve cradled her coffee as though her hands were suddenly cold—“but I’m too high-profile right now to just disappear. Brinkman would love nothing better than for me to just turn around and go back to the city, but he knows I won’t, so if I disappeared he and MacGregor would know something was up. No, as long as they make sure I don’t know what the hell’s going on, I must be less trouble alive than dead. So they got me out of the way, got their business done, and called you.”
“Got their business done. In my studio.” Eve’s mouth was drawn into a thin line.
I picked up the gun again and did what I hadn’t done before: broke it open, emptied it, tested the action. It worked. It always worked, rain, snow, sleet, or gloom of night. The mail used to be like that, too.
I reloaded the gun, put it down, went and got my socks and boots. The boots were tight and not quite dry, the laces squeaking a little through the eyeletted holes.
“What are you going to do?” Eve asked me.
“I’m going to have a look around, see if I can figure out what it is I’m not supposed to know.”
“Are you sure you’re all right?”
“I’m fine.” I buttoned my shirt. I slipped my holster on, moved the strap around on my left shoulder searching for a comfortable, or at least bearable, way to wear it. There wasn’t one. I took it off.
Leo had jumped off the couch as soon as I stood; now he was sitting by the door, brushing the floor with his tail. Suddenly his back bristled. He spun to face the door, started to bark.
“Someone’s coming,” Eve said.
She opened the inner door, stepped through the vestibule, Leo barking furiously beside her. I followed her out onto the porch, in time to see the sheriff’s car roll to a stop in the driveway in front of the house.
Brinkman unfolded his long, booted legs from the car’s passenger-side door. The heavy deputy got out the other side. Eve told Leo to stay on the porch with us and he did, growling deep in his throat.
Brinkman’s face was unreadable as he stood at the bottom of the porch steps looking up. “Well,” he finally said. “You sure do turn up in the strangest places, city boy.”
“Is there a problem, Sheriff?” Eve asked.
“Well, ma’am, maybe not,” Brinkman drawled. “I just came by to ask what you know about a car parked a half mile west of here, along Ten. An Acura.” He looked at me. “Six, seven years old. Gray.” Back to her: “Before I get it towed.”
“Oh, Christ, Brinkman,” I said wearily. “You know it’s mine.” Even on the protected porch the wind was cold. I suppressed a shiver.
He nodded unhurriedly. “What’s it doing there?”
“I had trouble.”
“When?”
“Last night.”
“In the storm?”
“Before that.”
“So you came here and bothered the lady?”
“Thank you for your concern, Sheriff,” Eve said. “But Mr. Smith is a friend of mine.”
“Well, that’s fine. I worry about you, is all, Miss Colgate. All alone out here like you are.”
Eve smiled. “I’ve managed over the years, thank you.”
“Yes, ma’am, you have. Though you might want to be a little careful how you choose your friends.”
“I am,” Eve said. “Very careful.”
Brinkman smiled pleasantly, nodded. “Your power and phone back on yet?”
“Yes,” she answered. “Since about nine.”
“Good. Then Smith can get a tow truck for that car. Save the county money.” His grin turned nasty. “Why don’t you call Obermeyer’s? I hear they got a kid there real good with Jap cars.”
“I hear he hasn’t been in much lately,” I said.
“That so? You suppose he’s on vacation?”
I shrugged. “Florida’s popular this time of year.”
“Yeah, but it’s no fun alone. You know a girl name of Alice Brown?”
“I met her yesterday.”
“You were looking for Jimmy Antonelli, she says.”
“That’s true.”
“You find him?”
“She said she didn’t know where he was.”
“She told me that, too. You believe her?”
“Most women don’t lie to me until they know me better.”
“I got the pretty boys from the state to put a tail on her.”
“Good luck.”
“She’s too high class for that punk, anyhow.”
“I liked her, too.”
“But what I hear,” he said, lifting his hat, scratching his high, domed forehead, “what I hear, he had a new sweetie anyway. Mark Sanderson’s little girl. Sweet, blond, and fifteen. And guess what?”
“Tell me.”
“Her daddy hasn’t seen her for days.” He settled his hat. “God, I hope you’re right about Florida, Smith. Lot of state lines between here and there.” He shook his head, chuckling to himself. “Hey, he’s not at your place, is he, Smith?”
“No.”
“Well, you’re right. We looked.”
“You searched my place?”
He made an innocent face. “We had a warrant. Nice place, too. Nice piano. Course, alls I can play is ‘Chopsticks,’ none of that culture stuff you city folks go in for. But it sounded pretty good. Didn’t it, Art?” Behind his sunglasses the deputy nodded.
The thought of Brinkman’s long, mean fingers banging on my piano brought hot blood to my face. “Brinkman—” I started, stopped as Eve’s hand closed on my arm.
Brinkman smiled, walked back around the cruiser, pulled the door open. “Get that car taken care
of, Smith,” he said. “That’s a bad stretch, and I don’t want no more trouble on that damn road.”
“No more than what?”
He leaned on the top of the car. “You folks had better things to do last night than listen to the radio, huh?
“Well, seems someone else had a problem, too. Someone in a blue Chevy truck. Ran off the road down there in the valley, flipped into the gorge. We’re pulling it out now. Made a helluva mess.” He grinned a grin that showed me all his teeth.
My heart jolted. “Who?” I asked. He didn’t answer. “Goddammit, Brinkman, who was in the truck?”
“What the hell you getting so excited about? Who’re you expecting was in the truck?”
I started to move down the steps toward him, but Eve held my arm.
“Sheriff, who was it?” she asked.
“Well, ma’am,” Brinkman drawled, “well, that’s the strange thing.” He adjusted his hat again. “Doesn’t seem to have been anyone in it.”
“What the hell is this, Brinkman?”
“You tell me, city boy. Why would someone send a new Chevy four-by-four into the ravine, just to stand there and watch it fall?”
“How do you know no one was in it?”
“Shape that truck was in, if anyone’d been in it we’d be scraping ’em off the insides now.”
“Maybe the driver was thrown.”
“Well, now, we thought of that, too. Checked the area, but damned if we didn’t come up empty.” He started to get into the car, paused as if struck by a sudden thought. “Now, no one being in that truck doesn’t mean it wasn’t interesting.”
“In what way?” I asked. My hands were clenching and unclenching themselves.
“Two ways. One, seems to be a little blood smeared on the seat. Not a lot, just a little. And the other, there’s this nine-millimeter automatic we pulled from the cab.” He grinned a final grin, said, “See you around, Smith. Miss Colgate, you take care of yourself.”
He and the deputy climbed back in the car. They U-turned in the driveway, drifted slowly under the bare chestnuts back to the road.
“Why does he dislike you so?” Eve asked as we headed down the hill behind the house, Leo charging back and forth beside us.
