Burning Moon

by Richard Barre

  “What the hell,” he said, thinking he probably deserved it. “Bring Brandon if that’s it.”

  “That’s not it, and besides, he’s got baseball,” she said, with more emphasis than was called for. “What time?”

  He checked his watch. “An hour. Shouldn’t be too crowded on a week night.”

  “Which means the kid isn’t exactly Willie Nelson yet.”

  “So I’m out to pad the house,” he admitted. “Leese, you’ll like him. Money back if not.”

  In the pause he could hear squawks from Edward, their white cockatoo she’d wound up with. Just as well, Wil had thought in his funk, though he still missed the bird’s affectionate nips, their little exchanges. At length she came up with, “You go, and if I show up, I’m there. It’s the best I can do.”

  He said nothing, to which she finally added, “But I’ll probably make it.”

  ***

  The Santa Barbara Bowl was set into a notch that stepped up into the mountains. Ringed by occupants who either loved, tolerated, fought it, or moved, the Bowl’s location was the subject of no little debate in a town whose preoccupation was debate. Nobody disputed the experience, though: The Bowl was simply a great outdoor venue on a warm evening. Even one touched, as this one was, by the glow of encroaching flames.

  From the night coverage Wil had seen, the Santa Ynez fire was now the kind that had relatives believing the whole state was burning. Arriving early, he’d found a spot five blocks away, walked with the knots of concertgoers to the ticket office. He bought a seat for himself and one for Lisa, scanned a concert poster of Ronnie Pruett as he waited.

  Somebody named Iger had taken a dynamite promo shot for the new album, all light and shadow and young-Dwight smolder from under a Kenworth Diesel cap Wil recognized as Doc Whitney’s, the C-W singer Wil helped clear of murder charges and the kid’s father. He was wondering about Bakersfield and Wyoming, Doc and Jenelle, the circumstances that had brought Matt to him, when he heard, “There you are,” and turned to see her.

  Jeans, white shirt with pearl buttons, latigo boots with stars and moons embossed, a pin in the shape of a lariat.

  The essential Japanese-American cowgirl.

  “What, no hat?” he said. Smiling as he handed her her ticket as they started up the path.

  “Moderation in all things.” Smiling back. “Now about this Ronnie Pruett…”

  Wil went for the version that spotlit the kid’s music, leaving out who died, concluding with, “Remind me to loan you one of Doc’s old CDs. Ronnie’s the image.”

  “Which reminds me,” she said, as they got their tickets torn. “How much do I owe you?”

  “It’s on the stub. Send me a check when you’re—”

  But she had the money out already.

  He said, “Feeling flush is what I was going to say.”

  “A deal’s a deal,” she said. “Your line, if I remember.”

  He was about comment on it, money ever an issue between them; instead he took in the scene. They were at the lip of the amphitheater, seating terracing from the stage like sound waves. Sycamore trees lined the flanks; colored spots crisscrossed the stage and riser, the arriving crowd; balconies, decks, and glowing windows punctuated the hillside. An usher directed them to seats on the right side, stage lights picking up the shine in her hair.

  “There it goes,” she said.

  “What’s that, Leese?”

  “The question I always ask myself: Why don’t I do this more often?”

  “Reading my mind.”

  She said, “So what is it you’re getting away from?”

  He thumbnailed Jimmy-Wen for her the way he used to: dots to form an overview, thinking that was part of the frustration, having no one to talk to right now. Not that she’d welcomed it when they were together. In fact, that had been their own tar pit: what he did, how he did it and for whom.

  “Poor Li Tien,” she said after hearing it. “You think I should call her? Let her know she’s not alone?”

  He considered her offer, failed to see a drawback, but said, “Let me feel it out, Leese. And thanks, that’s—”

  A roar went up as the band hit their marks. Then Ronnie Pruett shouted out a welcome, and they tore into a rockabilly Wil recognized from last year but better arranged. Two more and Ronnie introduced the band, then spun them into the new-album, Wil amazed at the kid’s growth. His old man there, yet getting to it a different way.

  “How old is he?” Lisa asked at one point.

  “Don’t ask: twenty-one.”

  The kid cooled the band for one about his Okie-migrant granddad and a couple others. Two-and-a-half hours and two encores in, he signed off with Kern River Girl. Wil stood to take Lisa around to meet him.

  “You go. I’ll take a raincheck,” she said.

  He took her hand, noted how cold it was, how washed out she looked under the lights.

  “You all right?” he asked.

  “Nothing a trip to the ladies room won’t help.” Lisa starting to move with urgency now, Wil thinking of the lines. People who’d sat on it, not wanting to leave the music.

  She made it as far as a trash can, the filers-out giving her a wide berth as she lost it. Several times more until they sat catching her breath, roadies packing up and some STAFF-shirted kids patrolling for discards.

  “Wil, is it cold, or is it me?”

  “It’s cool.” Benefit of the doubt, his feeling her forehead as they stood to go. “You have anything to eat before you came?”

  “Late client lunch.”

  “Anything to make you feel like that?”

  “Like what?”

  Meaning, of course, End of subject.

  Over her protestations, he followed her home and into her drive, realizing as he saw her to the door that he’d never actually been inside the restored bungalow she’d purchased. Spanish influence in the arched front window and rounded stucco surfaces, the curving tile roof.

  “Nice,” he said, as she unlocked the door and turned toward him.

  “I’d ask you in, but—”

  “Another time, I know. There anything I can get you at the store? Mylanta?”

  “Nothing I don’t have.”

  “Meaning you’ve had this awhile,” he said.

  “Meaning—” the look coming over her face again. “Shit—” Turning from him to bolt down the hall

  Wil let himself in, heard a door slam, the muted sound of heaving. Moving to the living room, he scanned for things he recognized, found more he didn’t: photos, sketches, Japanese calligraphy in a red bamboo frame. Berber carpet, teak dining set, FM station playing background DeBussy: the working woman’s security system. He was on the couch, thumbing through a copy of Islands, when she appeared in her bathrobe, face the color of bone.

  “Thanks for seeing me home,” she said.

  “What can I do, Leese?”

  “Nothing. I can take it from here.” Eyes like coals in a snowman.

  “Looks being deceiving and all.”

  “Please, Wil. I’m asking.”

  “What is it, Leese? The unabridged version.”

  She let a moment pass, brushed her hair back. Then, “I told you, it’s nothing I can’t handle.”

  He said, “You asked earlier, and now I’m asking. What were you getting away from tonight?” Kicking himself for not having reciprocated, too caught up in the fun she seemed to be having.

  “Who said I was getting away from anything?”

  “This is me, remember?”

  “Life as a game of Clue, how could I forget?” she said. “No, that’s not fair.”

  “It’s a simple question, Leese.”

  “No it’s not.”

  More silence, then, “Look, you want me to go, I’m gone.” Hand on the latch, levering it, when she said something he couldn’t make out.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you.”

  “I said, it’s not that hard to figure out. If you try.”

  “No more beatin
g around, Leese. I’m tired, too.”

  She shook her head as if it was an effort. “Why does it always come to this with us? When did it start?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, ache spreading from the bruise that was the truth of it. “But thanks for coming. At least it was what I needed.”

  He had the door open, palm against the screen when she finally came to it, the words almost lost in a Bach fugue on the stereo.

  “Wil, I’m pregnant and I’m scared.”

  35

  “Wil, I’m pregnant and I’m scared.”

  Like a raw wind blowing through a window left open by mistake, sleeting the room and dousing its fire, leaving only a cold vaccuum.

  She said, “Don’t make it worse. It was only a matter of time before you found out.”

  “How?” he said, incredulous. “I thought the doctors had ruled out…I mean, you—”

  “How do I know?” she said. Deep breath: “Do you think I asked for this? That Brandon’s who I—”

  But Wil was holding her now, feeling her shake, how thin she felt despite her robe. And for his part: numbness—reverb from a six-year-old incoming, doctors declaring her unable to conceive after the beating she’d taken for him. For him, their catalyst: Richter-scale 8 in a marriage already crumbling like schist under pressure.

  “Does Brandon know?” he finally asked.

  “He knows.”

  Wil led her to the couch, frames of Devin flashing as in a photo album: how old he’d have been this year, what he’d be like at eighteen. “Brandon has his life,” she said. “Is that absolutely clear?”

  “What do you think?”

  “Wil, I’m telling you, I prefer it this way. Brandon has no idea what to do. It’s not in him. And it’s not your place to judge.”

  “No? Whose, then?”

  “Mine, if anyone’s, and I’m through with that.” Arms to her chest like a raised shield. “All he ever knew was what I told him, that there was no chance.”

  “But it turns out there was,” he said, hating the way he said it.

  “And who knew, Wil, you?” she fired back. “I think you’d better go now.”

  “Going to tough it out, huh?”

  “It’s all any of us does.”

  “So what does your doctor say? That this is normal?”

  “That’s between us, thank you.”

  “And Brandon?” he said. “You don’t think he’s earned a share?”

  “When you see him weighing in with something, let me know.”

  They’d gravitated to opposite ends of the couch, walled-off body language and breech-proof expressions; Lisa’s color somewhat restored by the heat they’d generated, but still looking drained.

  “So what are you going to do?” he asked.

  “I don’t know yet, but it’s my problem, and I’ll handle it.”

  “Not something you’ll regret, I hope.”

  She looked at him. “You’d even say that? To me?”

  “Forget it, Leese” he said. “That’s the day talking.”

  “Goddamnit, listen to me. I have regrets in places I didn’t know I had. But they’re my regrets, my consequences. Do you get that?” Standing now, starting down the hall before she turned back.

  “I appreciate your concern, Wil, but it no longer tips the scales.”

  “At least let me—”

  “Good luck with your case,” she said. “Check the latch on your way out, will you? Sometimes it doesn’t lock without slamming.”

  ***

  I’m pregnant and I’m scared…

  Unable to process anything else, Wil took Matt out for a midnight walk on the beach. Offshore, the oil rigs glittered like cheap baubles, La Conchita and the freeway less so with the late hour. Smoke turning it orange made the moon seem as if it were on fire, while a slack tide gave the appearance of a lake, though its smell was of salt and kelp, of something dead not far off.

  Brandon has his life…

  The sand was as cold underfoot as the night air against his face. Matt was thrilled to be out after an evening inside, checking out everything from wood to a washed-up sneaker. Strolling up now and then to see how his slower charge was faring before romping after a night bird or scuttler, the shadows cast by a passing car.

  I’ll handle it…

  It was as if a cosmic joke were at work, one everyone got but Wil Hardesty. Married, a terrific kid one second, something he could only shake his head at the next. That was the worst, the feeling of powerlessness: no say, no plan, no action step, no chance for two-out-of-three. Only of the wheel spun to House Wins, and who’s up for double-downs?

  Wil realized the sand had run out and he was staring at the water, Matt beside him. He knelt, stroked cool muzzle and cool fur, thinking that not everything lately had been a loss. But the thoughts were hollow, without legs, and he sat heavily, his strength gone. Not even fighting it, he wept for himself and Lisa, for his lost son, his lost life.

  For what might have been and sure as hell wasn’t anymore.

  36

  Next morning he got up late, zombied around reinforcing last night’s downer, tempted to call Lisa for purposes he had to admit were absurdly self-serving. The old standby: fix it and be done with it, charge right in there, Hardesty rides again. Then the lapsang kicked in and Wil showered, dressed, and drove to Santa Barbara to brief Vinh and Li Tien on where things stood.

  Brief is right, he thought, laying it out for them at one of the food-service tables. Deliberately leaving out mention of Lorenz and Maccafee, of Mia being out at Luc’s, let alone where they might intersect. Even deciding to wait until he had a more complete grasp of Jimmy’s informant role to spring that bit of news.

  Which left not a lot.

  For a moment after he’d finished, they just sat.

  “What does it mean?” Vinh asked finally.

  Good question; you want to take that one? “Only that we haven’t found the key,” he said. “Sooner or later one will surface. Then it’s like an ice floe breaking up.”

  They looked at each other. Li Tien said, “Our daughter tells us that you met with her.”

  Wil spun his coffee mug slowly. “Yes. We didn’t get too far.”

  “Mia is willful, you saw that,” Li said. “Outside of the family, she lets few people in. That is, when she lets us in.”

  Vinh cleared his throat. “By now you must be aware that she blames us—me, that is—for Jimmy.”

  “She’s hurting,” Wil told him. “You’re a ready target.”

  “Life spares no one,” Vinh said. “We all are hurting.”

  As if a storm had rolled in, Li Tien welled up, left them at the table. Vinh followed her with his eyes. He said, “If anyone, this has been hardest on my wife.”

  Wil said, “This may be presumptuous, but my wife—ex-wife, I mean—has offered should Li wish to speak with someone who has been there.”

  At length, Vinh Tien nodded. “Thank her for us, I will ask. Mia, of course, is another matter.”

  “So I guessed.”

  “No.” Fingers to his temples. “If we are to continue, you need to know the reason my wife left the table.”

  Vinh Tien’s eyes were those of captured enemy soldiers Wil had seen waiting for interrogation, shutterless windows into war-torn rooms. He waited.

  “In her wisdom,” Vinh began, “our daughter decided she would be better off with my brother. We checked her room this morning and found things gone, a note regarding her decision.”

  He left, came out with a quartered piece of college-rule he unfolded on the table. Black ink, small neat penmanship: Gone to live at Luc’s. Don’t try following me, M. Wil thinking that she might as well have twisted the dagger in him for the way the subtext bled through: To do what you couldn’t, old man.

  “You see, Mr. Hardesty, I’ve been waiting for you. Li made me promise…on my life.”

  “Promise what?”

  The eyes had assumed another look now, that of the interrogator
.

  “That I would not go there without you. That I would not kill my brother with these hands. Have you any idea how hard that has been?”

  ***

  As they approached the house, the Yukons Wil had seen last time were pulling out, heading down Mountain Drive. Through the smoked glass he could make out shapes, if unidentifiable ones, no accurate head count as he and Vinh pulled up in the Bonneville.

  He approached the intercom, said into it, “Hardesty and Vinh Tien to see Luc. He’ll know why.” Wondering if they were on Lorenz and Maccafee’s monitors as well.

  He was aware of men lounging under green awnings along the far walls. Beyond the spine of ridgeline, smoke still boiled and spread.

  “Mr. Tien’s not here,” the intercom responded. Tinny and hollow: Robb, most likely.

  “He’s here,” Vinh said from the car. “I can feel him.”

  “It’s important,” Wil told the intercom.

  “Mr. Tien beside you has the phone number,” the intercom said back. “Have him make an appointment.”

  “Thanks. He’s tried that.”

  “Which might tell him something. You, too, you had half a brain.”

  Wil was about to say something when Vinh put a hand on his arm. He got out of the car and walked to the gate, stood directly in front of it. Ramrod straight, fists clenched, looking directly into the camera, the yellow-brown sun. Ash drifting down from the fire they couldn’t see.

  “Try again,” Wil told the intercom. “You never can tell.”

  “Hit the road, Jack.”

  “Ask yourself, Robb. You see short-term here?”

  “Your problem, friend.” Signing off.

  After thirty minutes, the perspiration that had mottled Vinh’s polo shirt formed a solid wedge. Fifteen more and the shirt was soaked and clinging to his stocky frame; sweat ran from his hair, glistened on his neck and arms. And still he hadn’t moved.

  Suddenly, with no indication from the intercom, no Robb in the golf cart, no sign from the house, the gate swung open. As if in tribute it stood that way, sun flaring off the tri-colored rock, the garage, the hunkering walls. Wil pressed a water bottle into Vinh Tien’s hand; after he’d downed it, they walked the drive, past the gate house to where Sonny leaned against a support post. Same shorts, polo, and lug-soled Caterpillars. With a long look at Wil, he led them through the tiled breezeway that ran along the south wing.