Authors: T. Jefferson Parker
"Yeah. It raises
"some interesting questions for Corrections and Sacramento and police
science classes."
"And for
politicians," she added.
"Writers."
"Priests and
evangelists."
"I'll say,
Merci."
"I've always
known that. Some guys are just born bad."
"Well. I usually
don't trust things that seem simple, but in this case I just can't help seeing
it that way. It's what I've gathered over the years, is all. You see what you
see."
"Hey, Hess, what
if I came over?"
There was just enough of a
silence to make Merci wonder if she'd done something wrong.
"That would be
great," he said. "Not much in the cupboards, though."
"I'll bring
something to eat."
"There's a
parking space behind the garage."
A quick shower and
clean clothes, plus Merci wanted Hess to know that she liked him now, so she
tossed the old fast food and stopped for some new. She overbought, then
wondered if a guy on chemo and radiation ate much of anything. Fries and
shakes, hamburgers, tacos, onion rings, the works.
She was surprised to find
his apartment neat and clean, the opposite of Mike's place in Anaheim. She
suspected it was a furnished rental unit until Hess told her so and removed all
doubt. They sat in the living room at either end of a blue plastic couch, with
the white bags strewn on the coffee table in front of them. Hess left the TV
on. The windows were open and the shades up and Merci could see a pale prairie
of sand topped by a black ocean topped by a blacker sky alive with stars.
Voices wavered up from the sidewalk, laughter, the hiss of roller skates. Then
the distant thump of waves followed by a sound like a soft drink poured over
ice.
She leaned forward
and ate.
"So, where were
we?" she asked.
"Evil, I
think."
"1 never think about
evil. I just think you should be punished for what you do. Wow, these
hamburgers are good."
She looked across and
saw that Hess was eating, too.
"They really
are."
"Do you eat
healthy?"
"I have since
the operation. Before, anything went."
"How come you aren't
fat? Alcohol is really high in calories, you know."
"Metabolism."
"Yeah, and
thirty years of cigarettes."
"Fifty-five."
"You really are
old."
He chuckled but that
was all.
"I've got a terrible
diet," she confessed. "I actually like cooking, but not for just me.
So it's stuff like this half the time, decent stuff the other half."
"You work it
off, though."
"I'm in the gym all
the time. Damn, don't we sound like a couple of real Californians now, talking
about what we eat and what we do with our muscles? I spend my vacation every
year in Maine. Kittery, Maine. Dad took me out there when I was little so I
still go. Anyway, they don't live like we do back there. You start talking
lifestyle
and they roll their eyes."
"I always hated
that word."
"Me too. And anything
with
cyber
in it I promised myself I'd never use it, now I just
did."
"Same with
virtual."
"Yeah. Virtual sucks. It's all just bullshit to
get you thinking you're missing something new. So you'll go buy things. Makes
me want to puke. Vanilla or chocolate on the shake?"
"Chocolate."
"Good. I got two of them."
"And no vanilla."
"Not a one." Merci heard herself giggle, then giggled at the
sound of it. "I thought that was funny when Izma asked me if I wanted ice
water, then, when I bit, he said he didn't have any ice or any water. That's
one large creepy dude, Hess."
"He was holding a
frozen cat when I busted him. When he opened the door, I mean."
"What did he do
with it?"
"He dropped it.
It sounded like a rock on the floor."
"Damn, what a
hoot."
"I was scared. I
pistol-whipped him real hard to take him down. He hit the floor like a bag of
nails, but after that, he was always real nice to me."
"I noticed you got
his attention. Do you like beating people up? Someone who really deserves
it?"
Hess was nodding.
"When I was young I enjoyed it. Trouble is, it's hardly ever a fair fight,
with batons and sidearms. You know?"
"If you're a woman
it's fair. I mean, if you're up against a guy you need all the help you can
get."
"I doubt you
beat many up for the fun of it."
She looked at him.
"True. You'd think I'd do it a lot, given my bad temper and what a
misanthrope I am."
She thought of Lee
LaLonde. "I actually didn't get that much enjoyment dunking the thief out
in Elsinore. I mean, besides the thrill you get dominating someone physically.
Just to know you can do it. But I got lots of enjoyment out of the results,
though."
"You got
them."
"Do you think I
was wrong?"
"No. You might
have saved lives."
"End justifies
the means?"
"That's another one
of those simple statements that sort of bug me. But with LaLonde you did what
was right."
"How come you got
married so many times? Wasn't it like, three or four?"
He was about to take a
bite of his hamburger. He closed his mouth and stared at her a long beat.
"Three."
"Well, why
three? Wasn't once horrible enough?"
"Stupidity."
"Whose?"
"Mostly
mine."
"You mean you
gave up a good one or two?"
"All three,
really."
"How come you
never had children?"
"Kept waiting. Waited
too long. Some bad luck, too. Back when 1 was in my forties I wanted some.
Never worked out."
Merci thought about
this.
"I don't believe in
luck. I think you're directly responsible for what happens to you."
"I used to think
that."
"How else could
it be?"
"I don't think you
can lay what happened on Ronnie Stevens, for instance. I think she crossed
paths with someone much stronger and more cunning and vicious than she ever
was. Within the limits of what we'd call reasonable, it wasn't her fault."
"That's all this
victimization bullshit you see on TV."
"The TV's all
the extremes."
"Then why does
everybody watch?"
"It comforts
them to think everything's out of control."
"Bunch of
goddamned whiners, if you ask me."
Hess studied her. He had a
way of looking disapproving and tolerant at the same time. Maybe she was making
it up.
"Power," she
said. "Everything comes from the power you have inside yourself. Your
will."
That look again.
"You've got this
look, like you think two things at once."
"I guess I
do."
"Well, what are
they?"
More of the same look.
"Can I just say that I admire you a lot? Your youth and everything it
implies. I like the way you wear it, what you're doing with it."
"Even when I
screw up?"
"Yeah."
She considered.
"You're still thinking two things about me at the same time—things that
don't go together except that you're making them."
"I'm wondering how
you can be so bright and so dull at the same time. How you'll either do really
well for yourself or you'll fail big. Just notions."
"Hey, I'm your
commanding officer."
"You
asked."
"I'm happy with this.
This burger is great and it's nice to just sit here and talk about being a cop
and a human being. Mike talked a lot but I don't think he listened to my side
very much. Then it was either TV or bed."
Hess said nothing.
"Can you still,
Hess?"
"Still
what?"
"You know.
It.
Make love."
His face went red and he
looked at her again with that double-thoughts kind of expression.
"I mean, when
you're close to seventy, can you?"
"Of course you
can."
A slight edge to his voice
as he looked at the TV and the light from the screen played off his face. She
couldn't tell if it was still red or not.
"I wonder if my mom
and dad still do it. They're your age."
"You could ask
them."
"They're kind of
sensitive."
She was truly surprised to
see him laugh. She realized she'd never seen him do that before and it changed
everything about his face: lines backing into shape over his eyes and around
his mouth, actual dimples on his cheeks. A happy light.
Kind of amazing, really,
how laughter could change a man. She realized she was looking at him with a
kind of dumb astonishment.
He really let go, then.
Eyes wet, big chest and shoulders moving and the goofiest look on a face that
had held no goofiness she'd ever imagined until now.
"Goodness, young
lady. You're funny."
She wasn't sure how
to feel about this. "Well... really?"
"Really."
She felt confusion about
what she'd said, and some embarrassment along with it, and some shame, too. She
wasn't a
zoo
chimp who'd done something cute. She thought of how heavy
and tired he'd felt when she helped him out of the chair on Friday evening and
thought he owed her more for that than just this sudden amusement.
"Merci, I'm
sorry. It's just that I haven't laughed in so damned long. I was not trying to
make you feel bad."
"Not at
all," she said.
"Really."
"I know. Did you know
we both use blue notebooks?' Anything to dampen the comedy.
"Yeah, I did notice
that. Hey, would you like to take a walk?"
"Why?"
"Well, it's a warm
summer night and the ocean's right there and you can digest your meal and feed
your soul."
"Yeah,
okay."
Something had gone out of
her—the lightness, she thought, the freedom to say what you want to say. She
felt tired and miles from home. She tried to think of something to cheer
herself up.
"Hess, don't you wish
it was raining and we had one of those upside-down umbrellas to collect the
rainwater?"
"Damn, those
were great."
"I would have bought
one, but I was too busy being a hardass."
"You ate him
alive, Merci."
"Sure did, didn't I?"
• • •
They took the boardwalk
north toward the pier, staying to the pedestrian side while skaters and bikers
whizzed by them. Merci looked out to the water and watched the waves crashing
in. She thought of Hess actually out riding those monsters at the Wedge. She'd
gone down there with Mike once to see the bodysurfers and couldn't believe that
they'd take such chances. For what? She'd dreamed about big waves in a black
ocean since she was small. She'd never questioned where the dream came from
because its message was so clear: stay out of the water and save yourself. Easy
enough. You didn't have to be Old Testament to interpret that one.
The pier was hopping on
this summer Sunday—lovers and skateboarders, white punks and gangster-style
Mexicans, college kids and bikers, bums and cops and glum Asian fishermen with
their lines in the water and an occasional mackerel flap-flapping on the wet
cement.
Merci walked just a half
step behind Hess and watched him more than occasionally. She was waiting for
something from him but she didn't know what. She thought it might come from his
face rather than his mouth, plus, she just liked the way his head looked,
battered but still noble, like a horse that had done great things. She wondered
if that was where they got the term
war'horse.
She had this oddball
desire to see what his hair felt like—that straight-up, almost jarhead, white
wave in the front cut that made him look like a general from some war that was
filmed in black and white.
He may think I've got the
manners of a zoo monkey, she thought: but I know enough to keep my hands to
myself. But if I could
distract
him for a second ...
They had a drink at the
Beach Ball and another at Scotty's and another at the Rex. These were her idea.
It seemed to Merci that you got closer to people when you were high on alcohol,
so long as they were high, too. Like taking a little trip together. She had
never considered herself a drinker, but here she was two nights of the weekend,
knocking back some pretty stiff stuff. You couldn't even tell with Hess. He was
the same whether he had none or three. It surprised her he could drink his way
through chemotherapy and radiation. Maybe it helped. For herself, the drinks
made her feel hazy and warm and a little passive, which was good because she
usually felt sharp and cool and prepared to kick serious butt. It was nice to
get a glow you knew would be gone in a few hours, in the company of somebody
you like. Temporary insanity.