Good Morning, Darkness

by Ruth Francisco

  She swung her paddle with everything she had, right at Scott’s neck, then slid into the water. Scott fell back howling, blood spurting out of his eye like a harpooned tuna.

  She reached out to the kayak, then twisted around, looking for Scott. She saw him sinking, his arms folding over his head like the petals of a rose at night.

  The waves turned red with his blood.

  * * *

  I’m coming, Laura. It’s Scott. Wait for me. I’m coming.

  A blanket of red petals fluttered over him, softly warming him, embracing him. Here we go, he thought, hold on. Falling in a red hot-air balloon, falling, falling into the sea. He felt happy, so warm, the water reaching out to him, folding him to its heart, carrying him to Laura.

  I did everything for you, Laura.

  I love you, Laura.

  I love you.

  I love you.

  * * *

  By the time Reggie got to Malibu, Mike Morrison was already there. The Coast Guard had a boat out with searchlights, but it was dark, and fog was setting in.

  Connie was wrapped in a pink and white Mexican blanket. On her head sat a sombrero. The Mexican fisherman was standing close by, pouring her coffee from a thermos like a Red Cross nurse. Morrison was taking her statement.

  Peter Flynn sat in a patrol car, shell-shocked, crying. He’d witnessed the whole thing. He couldn’t even talk, but he’d managed to show his license when Morrison asked for ID. As soon as he calmed down, Morrison would take him to the station and get his version of what happened.

  Neighbors stood around watching, asking questions. The traffic on Pacific Coast Highway had slowed to a dirge, even though there was nothing to see.

  When Reggie reported that Scott was Richard Wyman’s stepson, Morrison immediately ordered everyone off the beach except the police. Then he sent a forensics man out to the Coast Guard boat who was instructed to follow strict procedures when they found Scott’s body.

  Reggie observed the two surfers who had called the police on their cell phone when they first saw the fight on the kayak. They stood at the edge of the road, determined to wait till the body was found, jumping foot to foot, bobbing their heads like two agitated roosters.

  There wasn’t much for Reggie to do, but he hung around for a while. It was as if he didn’t want it to be over, his connection with Laura now severed forever.

  When the coroner’s van took away Scott’s body, Reggie climbed in his squad car and headed back to the station.

  * * *

  A week later, when Reggie was going through his mail, he came across a small package wrapped in brown paper, neatly addressed to him in a woman’s script. The postmark was from Andorra. As he ripped off the paper, he recalled that Andorra was a tiny country between Spain and France known as a place where citizenship didn’t require residence; a tax haven, a place of prosperous banks where it was impolite to ask personal questions, particularly about someone’s finances. Inside was a gift-wrapped package the size of a Baby Ben alarm clock. Reggie tore away the paper and pulled open a cardboard box. Nested in tissue paper was a plastic action figure. Bruce Lee.

  Where was she? Living off the millions she’d stolen, on some tropical island? Yet, she wanted Reggie to know she was alive, posting a package to him from Andorra on her way to paradise. Why? To torture him? To tell him she cared? To invite him to search for her?

  Even though Reggie now suspected that Laura had murdered a young woman and set up Scott, that she had intentionally destroyed the life of her boss, and that the millions she’d stolen would be paid for not by her wealthy clients nor by her company, but through higher insurance premiums—by average tax payers, the very people who trusted him to protect their city—he knew he wouldn’t tell the FBI.

  She had awakened his soul, released the tourniquet around his heart. For that he would always be grateful.

  Part of him had a beautiful wife, two sons, and a job that needed to be done.

  Part of him lived out there with her.

  But he no longer felt torn between his loves. The thought that Laura was somewhere in the world, at liberty and lawless, made him happy.

  He picked up the phone and, while dancing Bruce Lee over a stack of unfinished homicide reports, made a reservation to Martha’s Vineyard.

  * * *

  It’s February now. Many months have passed. I still walk past her apartment on the way to the jetty. It’s now rented by a middle-aged woman who doesn’t get up until after it’s light and I’m on my way home with my fish. She doesn’t have time to gaze out the window but runs around like she’s late for work. She’s not there much. Maybe she’s an executive who travels, or maybe she’s got a man friend.

  The lady with the kayak is in the maternity ward at Daniel Freeman Marina Hospital. Around midnight I can’t sleep, so I take the truck to the hospital. The cop is there in the waiting room. The two of us stay up all night. We both wait for the child to be born.

  Around four a.m. a nurse comes and tells us it’s gonna be two or three more hours. We take a break. We get fresh coffee and head down to Marina Point. After we park my truck, I give him a spare fishing rod. I figure we might as well cast a line.

  When we walk by the houses at the end of the peninsula, all the windows are dark. I feel a jolt of sadness when I look at her window. I see the cop look, too.

  As we head down the jetty, we hear dolphins blowing air in the channel and see their bodies arc and dive in the moonlight. We climb out onto the rocks at the very end. It’s cold and damp and very dark. We are both hungry.

  We cast our lines and talk. We talk about our wives and kids and wait for the sun to come up.

  In Spanish, to give birth is ‘dar a luz,’ to ‘give to the light.’ It’s funny how you can say a phrase all your life, then one day you get it.

  My grandma once told me that Maya priests believed that if they didn’t pray every day for the sun to rise it wouldn’t. I wonder if it isn’t the Maya in me that makes me come here, doing my part, praying for a new day. Waiting for the light makes me love it more. While the rest of the city sleeps, I keep vigil, in silence, waiting for the dawn to bring life, and when it comes, it fills me with joy.

  The sun climbs up to the edge of the sea, and a lip of pink peaks over the horizon. For a moment I think I see Laura’s smile. The cop sees it, too, but we don’t say anything.

  Slowly, the sun rises. Racing sculls row quietly on the channel. As the purple mist lifts, and the pink dawn reflects in the windows of the million-dollar homes, and the great blue herons stand poised on the rocks, one leg up, and the pelicans plunge into the surf like meteors, a fish tugs at my line, struggling to be free.

  EPILOGUE

  Lorenzo Berti wasn’t going to let the argument he’d had with his brother this morning upset him. They had almost come to blows. Alfredo wanted to sell the family palazzo, which had been in the family since 1560, when Cosimo de’ Medici sold it to Umberto Berti. So what if it was going to cost them a billion lire to keep it from falling into the street. Sell the family history? Imagine!

  It was too beautiful a day to worry about incipient family feuds. It was spring in Tuscany. Here Lorenzo was, sitting in a café in Piazza della Signoria, sipping an afternoon espresso, the scent of almond blossoms drifting down from the hills of Fiesole. He breathed deeply, savoring the smells of his beloved Florence—roasted coffee, chestnuts, and leather. The weather was slightly cool. Delightful.

  In front of Palazzo Vecchio, he watched two Japanese youths feed bread to the pigeons between a copy of Michelangelo’s David and the writhing Hercules and Cacus. Today, even the tourists didn’t bother him. He realized that even though he saw these sculptures every day, he hardly ever looked at them. He let his eyes drift under the arches of the Loggia dei Lanzi to Perseus holding up the dripping head of Medusa, Hercules, battling with Nessus the centaur, Ajax supporting the corpse of Patroclus, the rape of the Sabine Women, Judith displaying the head of Holofernes. For the first time, he saw how violent
these beautiful sculptures were. Three corpses, two without heads.

  He dismissed the unpleasant thought, and it flew up and spiraled away from the piazza on the wings of a bird.

  The café was beginning to fill with people trying to wake up from their midday meals. He sipped his espresso, closing his eyes as he let the bitter coffee slide down his tongue. He exhaled a satisfied sigh. Sometimes there was nothing better in the world than to be a young Italian male without so very much to do.

  When he opened his eyes, he noticed a woman take a seat three tables away. He caught his breath. She was tall and slim, with long dark hair and blue eyes. She wore a white chiffon dress that moved gently in the breeze. She looked like she had just stepped out of a Botticelli painting. What a vision! He was enchanted by her every gesture, so graceful, so poignant. What a goddess!

  Lorenzo’s eyes kept drifting back to her. He quickly signaled over the waiter.

  “Giancarlo, do you know who that woman is?”

  The waiter clucked his tongue. “They call her La Contessa. She’s American. She bought the old Bracassi villa on Viale Michelangelo.”

  “The one that looks over the city?”

  “Si, certo. She’s very wealthy, they say. She teaches ballet to little girls in a studio over by Piazza Santa Croce. My niece studies with her.”

  “What’s her real name?”

  “They only call her Signora Laura or La Contessa.

  “She’s married, then?” Lorenzo said, disappointed.

  Giancarlo laughed. “No, no. She’s not married, but I don’t think she has much need for men.”

  “Ch’e cos’ è? What do you mean?”

  The waiter shrugged.

  Lorenzo glanced over at her once more. “Such a beautiful woman shouldn’t have to sit alone.”

  “You’d better come up with a better line than that if you go over there.”

  “You think I have a shot?”

  “No. But you’ll try. Good luck, Signor.”

  Lorenzo imagined it in a flash, their life together, she dressed in white chiffon, standing with their children, a boy and a girl, waving from the balcony of Villa Bracassi over a garden of topiary and potted lemon trees, smiling at him as if he made the sun rise. She was the woman of his dreams.

  She’s Venus. I would do anything for a woman like her.

  And with that thought, Lorenzo Berti tucked in his shirt, and, like many a brave man before him, boldly walked toward his fate.