“Who was that old guy you met here the other day?”
“Carson Mack?”
“What?”
“That’s his name,” I explained as she put the milk jug into the steam, keeping an eye on the thermometer. “He’s a country singer. I’ve just been over there. He’s playing the Tractor on Tuesday.”
I could almost see her eyes glaze over when I mentioned country. She was a rock gal through and through.
“What’s Dustin up to these days?”
I usually came in here with just Ian, but Carla had met Dustin once, at the reception. Married in front of a judge at City Hall, then a cab up to the Two Bells. We’d packed the place, although Dustin’s family - his parents and sisters - had stood uncomfortably apart, not sure what to make of it all.
“He might be changing jobs. Going to work at Elliott Bay.”
“Yeah?” She handed over the cup. I knew better than to try and pay. “Is that good?”
“I think so. He needs a change. And it means he’d be home every night.”
“You’ve got yourself some new wheels, too? Things must be looking up.” She’d seen me pull into the lot.
“I didn’t have much choice.” I didn’t want to give her the full explanation.
“The Horizon died?”
“Pretty much.” It was time to change the subject. “Business good?”
“Not bad. I’m making money at least, and it’ll pick up in the summer.” That was her prime time, with people streaming down to visit Lincoln Park and the beach. “Got my eye on a house.”
“Where?”
“Just up the street. Then I’d be able to walk to work.”
“Handy for Thriftway, too.” I needed to stop there on the way home and pick up a loaf of the good bread they sold.
We talked a while longer. The other customers left, and Carla hung up the ‘Closed’ sign. I finished my coffee, went around the counter and washed my mug before I left.
The grocery store was almost empty, just a scattering of cars in the lot. I zipped in, bought the bread and I was back out in a minute.
Just in time to see him.
I caught a glimpse of something from the corner of my eye, a figure moving quickly, and turned my head. It was Nick, no doubt about it: the dark, greasy and long sallow face. Then he was gone, vanishing behind a wall.
I stood rooted to the spot, pushed and jostled by a shopper as he made his way out of the store behind me. Slowly I walked back to the car, scared of what I’d find. But there was nothing. Everything was as I’d left it, the doors safely locked and the engine started as soon as I turned the key. Maybe he didn’t need to do anything now, only make sure I saw him from time to time to keep me on edge and afraid. I held up a hand and saw it was shaking. Whatever he was trying to do, it was working. Carson had been right. I was vulnerable.
Fifteen
I kept checking the rearview mirror as I drove home, but no car followed me over Morgan. I parked and scuttled indoors, locking the slider behind me.
“What’s wrong?” Dustin closed the refrigerator door and stood up straight. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“I’ve seen Nick.”
He moved toward me, looking out over my shoulder. “Where? Here?”
“At Thriftway.”
“What did he want?” He took me in his arms.
“Nothing. I only saw him for a moment, in the parking lot, then he was gone.”
“You’re sure it was him?” He stared at me.
“Of course I’m fucking sure.” I knew I sounded shrill, so I pulled away and just stared at him.
“You know I believe you.” Dustin kept his voice low and calm.
“I saw Nick, okay?”
“Okay.”
“And, yeah, I’m freaked about it. I think I’m allowed to be, don’t you? He threatened me in the grocery store last week. He messed up my car, then he stole it and set it on fire. He broke a window here yesterday. That’s kind of ruthless behavior, right?” I was on the verge of losing my temper and he knew it.
“Call that detective.”
I shook my head. “Why? They arrested him and let him go, remember? They can’t do jack, and he knows it. Jesus Christ, I don’t even know why he’s harassing me. That’s what I can’t figure out. He doesn’t gain anything from it. It just doesn’t make any sense. You know what Carson said?”
“What?” He poured a cup of coffee and handed it to me.
“Nick’s going after me because I’m vulnerable.”
“I’ve never thought of you that way.”
“Maybe he’s right. I’ve been thinking about it.”
“I don’t see it.”
“He’s got me terrified and he knows it.”
“Remember, I’m here with you.”
Dustin meant well. I knew that. And he’d do whatever it took. I knew that, too. But this was between me and Nick. He was messing with my head and I was the only one who could stop him. Somehow, I had to kick him out of my brain and not let it get to me. I didn’t know how I’d manage that, but he wasn’t going to win.
“Laura.”
“What?”
“I love you. I just want to…look after things.”
“Keep me safe?”
He merely nodded.
“I…” I was about to say that no man could keep me safe. It wasn’t his job; it was mine. And Nick was just another man abusing women. I could feel my temper starting to rise. Don’t, I told myself. Dustin means well. He just can’t understand, that’s all.
Ian must have heard everything, and I was just glad he couldn’t understand the meaning. If I had anything to do with it, he’d grow up without all the usual assumptions of his sex. But inside I knew that wasn’t going to happen. However hard I tried, I couldn’t fight all the other things he’d learn, things that would color his life.
I held him up and sniffed. Yes, time for a diaper change.
“How was Carson’s music?” Dustin asked, as I passed him in the kitchen.
“Good,” I said, then changed my mind. “No, pretty great, really. His grandson’s going to sit in with him. I think you’ll like it.”
There was nothing like a poopy diaper to put everything into perspective. As I cleaned him up on the changing table, and dressed him again, Ian smiled and my heart melted for the millionth time. I even liked the shit jobs that were necessary with him. I kissed his nose and watched him giggle.
Monday brought me a pair of checks from magazines, both very welcome. I packed Ian into the car, drove down to Westwood Village and deposited them at the bank. There was nothing else we needed to do, nowhere we needed to be.
I headed down Delridge, cut through by the steel mill and ended up on Harbor Avenue, looking across the water at the downtown skyline.
“That’s yours,” I told my boy, although he was already asleep, lulled by the movement of the car. “All of it.”
The morning was grey, the usual Seattle springtime that would hold until the middle of July, when summer would erupt. I parked close to Alki Beach and pulled the stroller out of the trunk. Ian woke as I picked him up, looking around in confusion before his eyes settled on the waves lapping against the sand.
Alki bakery was warm, with a good view of people as they jogged and rollerbladed past. They made me feel old and lumpy as I ate a blueberry muffin and sipped a latte. But I had no desire to join them. There was nothing wrong with being healthy but the constant pursuit of the perfect body seemed pointless. I was happy with the way I looked. And I managed it without wearing Lycra or sweating. The weather was good enough to walk down to the lighthouse and back. Maybe we’d go in the other direction then, all the way to where Luna Park and its amusements had once been. It had been long since vanished when my dad was a boy, but I remembered him telling me how his father had gone, awed by the roller coaster and the biggest bar in the entire Northwest. Now there was nothing beyond a name and a memory that would disappear soon enough. Who cared about Seattle’s his
tory, apart from the few of us that had grown up here?
In the end, the walk to the lighthouse was enough. Glancing back and seeing so many of the old houses torn down, and the line of anonymous condos in their place, depressed me. Seattle seemed to live in a state of flux these days. All cities changed, I knew. But another few years and this could be Anytown, USA - Miami Beach or San Francisco. Progress had leeched all the character from the place. It was great for us to be known, the place where everyone wanted to live, especially after a lifetime of being that town on the far edge of the map. But the price we were paying was more than I’d imagined. I didn’t care if the big designers were opening stores here. Seattle had its own magic and I didn’t want to lose it all. God, I was sounding crotchety, like an old woman. But I wasn’t going to mellow. Not when it came to my city.
My mood lightened as I drove home. Getting away from Alki we were safe here in West Seattle. We were the poor cousins that stayed forgotten. Much of the time, driving along California Avenue could seem like going back in time to the Fifties or Sixties. It was like a hidden treasure that didn’t have any interest for the trendy. By the time we pulled up at our house I felt as if all hope hadn’t vanished yet. Pieces of the real Seattle might still be around when Ian was a teenager.
I fed him lunch and made coffee for myself, picking up the phone as it rang.
“Hey girl, it’s Tonia.”
“Hi.”
“You busy?”
“What…now?”
“Yeah. That Irish guy - interview in an hour if you can do it. The publicist just called. I’m sorry, I know it’s short notice.”
“I guess.” I could put Ian down early for his nap. I probably knew enough about the man to make it work.
“Great.” I could hear the relief in her voice. “The publicist will call you and put you through to him.” She paused for a moment. “He’s sitting in his favorite bar in London.”
“What? You’re joking, aren’t you?”
“Serious as a heart attack, babe.” She didn’t need to apologize again, I could hear it right there in her tone.
I’d interviewed musicians in bars before. I’d interviewed them in most places and I’d done plenty of phoners. But never a phoner with someone in a bar. I sighed.
“Okay,” I agreed.
“I owe you,” Tonia said.
“Big time.” The pity was, Tonia would be gone before I could collect on it.
Ian was fast asleep before two. I had the phone in the office hooked up to the tape recorder and everything ready to roll. The time came…and went. I waited five minutes, then ten and fifteen. I poured another cup of coffee. I carried the handset out to the deck and had a smoke, my eyes constantly watching for Nick. Finally, forty-five minutes late, the phone rang and the publicist connected me to a pub in Camden, London.
It wasn’t much of a conversation, taking no more than fifteen minutes. No matter what questions I tried, the answers were no more than a couple of words. A whole sentence, when it occurred, seemed like a breakthrough, but it didn’t happen again. I could hear the laughter and noise of the pub in the background as I tried to tease him out, to engage him, but it didn’t work. Every passing minute seemed like an exercise in frustration. He wasn’t curious. There seemed to be no life about him. Eventually I thanked him and hung up.
Maybe he wasn’t naturally voluble. Maybe he was drunk. Maybe he was feeling sick. Maybe if I’d persisted…or maybe not. Whatever the reason, I didn’t have enough for a feature, so I called Tonia.
“Houston, we got a problem,” I said when she came on the line.
“It didn’t happen?”
“The call went through, but I have nothing. He hardly said a word.”
“Shit.” She paused, thinking fast. “Do you think you can do anything with it? Anything at all?”
I gave it a few seconds’ thought.
“I can try but it’ll be padded more than a bra on prom night,” I warned.
“That’s okay.” She was so quick to agree that I knew the decision must have hurt. “Just so long as it’s there. The record company’s been hassling me for months to get him some coverage.”
“I can’t guarantee how good it’ll be.”
“As long as you can get it to me by next Monday I don’t care if it’s in Russian.”
I tried to lighten the mood. “You’ll have to make do with English.”
“If you come through, you can have my firstborn. If I ever have one.”
“I’m fine with what I already have, thanks.” At least she’d made me smile.
Transcription was easy. I had that completed before Ian woke. The musician had spoken a total of eighty-seven words. That meant I only had another eleven hundred to find. Doing it was going to be the tricky part. How the hell did I even begin to make a silk purse from a sow’s ear? But, once Ian began crying, I was able to put off finding out the answer – for now, anyway.
I sat on the chair in his room and pulled him onto my lap to nurse for a while. What did he find so wonderful in being asleep that waking made him scream and yell, I wondered?
We’d gone through The Very Hungry Caterpillar twice by the time the phone rang. I left Ian to play with the book, watching as he pushed his tiny fingers into the holes.
“Hi,” I said.
“It’s Carson.” There was an edge to his voice that I couldn’t immediately identify.
“Hey, what’s up?”
“Can you come over?” More than worry, I thought. It was anger. Desperation.
“Now?”
“Yeah. I called Jim but he’s not around. The police are already here.”
“Police? What’s happened? Are you okay?”
“Somebody shot up my truck.”
“What?” I heard myself shouting the word.
“I heard it happening up on the road and wondered what the hell was going on. With this leg it took me forever to climb up there. By the time I arrived, all the neighbors were gathered around and there were three bullet holes in the El Camino. Someone had already called the cops. They showed up, and I told them about Nick.”
“I saw him again yesterday. In the parking lot at Thriftway.”
“Man,” he spat out the word, “what’s with this guy?”
“I don’t know. Did anyone see anything going on with your truck?”
“Nope. You know what it’s like around here. You can’t see shit, the way all the houses are set back from the street and there are so many damn trees.”
“How’s the vehicle?”
“One shot through the side of the bed, two in the driver’s door. They got people digging out the bullets now. It’ll still drive just fine.” He paused. “I’m sorry for bugging you. I just wanted to talk to someone.”
“Don’t worry about it. As long as you’re okay, it’s fine.”
“Made me wonder if he’s the same bastard who shot me up in Everett.”
“I think it probably was. And very likely the same gun that killed Kyle and Rick.” Whatever he’d done, he just seemed to skate on it.
“Yeah,” Carson agreed. “There’s not exactly a whole bunch of people who have the urge to mess up my life. Maybe I should have just given him the grand. He’d have faded away then.”
“He’d have been back for more, and you know that.”
He snorted. “I’d have been better off just shooting him when he showed his face here. No one would have missed him. And there are plenty of places to hide a body round these parts.”
I wanted Nick gone but not that way. “I’m glad you didn’t.”
“He’s dangerous, Laura. You get a mad dog, you put him down. That’s what my daddy always said.”
There was some truth in that, and that left me even more worried. Just then, Ian appeared at the entrance to the kitchen, crawling in and grinning up at me.
“Listen,” I said, “I got to go.”
“Sure. I’ll see you tomorrow at the show.”
I hung up and grabbed Ian’s h
ands, dancing with him and singing “Ring Around The Rosy,” although he didn’t seem to want to fall down at the end. After a while he figured it out, so we had to spend the next fifteen minutes doing it again and again, while he laughed so loud that snot flew out of his nose.
“See if you can get your daddy to do that. Then you guys can clean each other up.” In truth, Dustin would probably think it was hilarious.
While Ian watched TV cartoons I made a start on dinner, mixing up the ingredients for meatloaf and putting it in the oven with some carrots. It was something my mom used to cook, long ago, comfort food that stuck to the ribs. Who cared about nouvelle cuisine, anyway? I peeled potatoes and put them in a pan of cold water, ready to cook closer to dinner time. Then I kept glancing into the living room, keeping an eye on Ian. Indulging in quick little games of peek-a-boo so he didn’t feel ignored.
All the time the incident with Carson had stayed at the front of my mind. I’d look out the window now and then, just checking. Just wanting to be sure. Whatever was going on, it wasn’t about to stop until Nick was off the streets. And the cops didn’t seem to be doing much of a job of it. Somehow, he had to go. Gone from my life but not dead. There was no need to go that far.
Dinner was ready at six, not long after Dustin arrived home.
“Everything okay?” That was the first thing he asked.
“One stupid interview and pretty quiet apart from that,” I told him as he kissed me. “Get yourself ready to eat.”
The meal was hearty. It took me back to a time when things were straightforward. For a moment I imagined I could hear my dad’s voice asking me to pass the gravy. It felt like a small oasis of contentment in a time that was quickly spinning out of my control.
After Ian was settled for the night, we wrapped the presents we’d bought for his birthday. He was a whole year old tomorrow. That just didn’t seem possible. Three hundred and sixty-five days with him already? He’d changed my life and I loved him for it. We’d spent too much, of course: big trucks and cars with doors that opened and loads that tipped out. The kind of things he loved. Dustin’s parents had sent a package containing four wrapped items and the biggest birthday card I’d ever seen. I put everything in the middle of the floor for him to discover in the morning. A year. A whole year.
West Seattle Blues Page 17
