The Judas Glass (18 page)

I let the cat nose my cut, and lick the blood, the teasing rasp of her tongue delightful on my finger.

“You want nature to take its course,” said the man. “You don't want to have to put an animal to sleep.”

“It's such a euphemism,” said the woman. “Such a way of not saying what it really is.”

“I suppose you could call it putting her down,” said her companion. “Or destroying her.”

I sensed that it was my presence that made them glow and kept their conversation circling around the subject of mortality. “What do you think?” said the woman, clinging to me, hanging on to me, giving me a look I could not mistake.

“Isn't it a kind of sleep, after all?” I said.

“Yes, of course it is,” said the woman.

Just then there was a cry from out in the darkness, out beyond the edge of the property, beyond the place where any of the party-goers had any business wandering. A cry. And not a cry of delight. And not of pain, either. It was a phrase, repeated.

Someone had found one of Maura's shoes. There was laughter, out by the mossy reaches of the garden. And another shoe. Someone was calling, “I bet she's running around naked out there.” The party was flowing outside, now, into the garden, despite the chilly evening. Who could stay indoors on a night like this?

“Need some help?”

I ignored the querying voice. I held a car key in my hand. The streetlight shined off the row of cars. The emblem on the key ring was hard for me to make out, but I reassured myself that it was just a matter of trying a few locks.

“Sir, can I help you?” The parking attendant, rented for the occasion, wore a blue jacket with the parking company's logo on the pocket. Something about my manner bothered him. I was not hurrying to a car for cigarettes, and I wasn't getting into a car and driving away.

This was one of those pricey, hilly neighborhoods. Cars were parked everywhere, barely leaving room between them for the car that might want to leave. A pinecone lay in the middle of the street. I used to pretend these were hand grenades as a boy. I stooped, bounced the pinecone in my hand once or twice, and then threw it hard, high into the air.

He sounded apologetic now. “Sir, let me get your car.”

I never heard the pinecone hit the ground. Something brushed my pantleg, stroking my ankle. It was the white cat.

The same white cat that had been so emaciated was beautiful, sleek and purring. Wanting to lean against me, wanting to close her eyes and possess me, in that affectionate claim of ownership cats make, insisting that she had found what she wanted, and would keep it. One taste of my blood. Just one taste.

I could imagine what Rebecca would say about all this.
What do you think you're doing, Richard?
I found a car door that the key fit, and opened it.

How long will it be before they find her body?

I had a memory that didn't make perfect sense—the young woman flung high into the sky, cartwheeling, into the trees. I couldn't do that, I told myself with a laugh.

It was impossible.

And what, Rebecca would ask, are you doing now?

26

The steering wheel was very slightly smudged with finger oils. The vinyl seat covering sighed and squeaked under my weight. The glove compartment was crammed with maps of L.A., the Southwest, and assorted gas station receipts. The seat was just about the right distance from the steering wheel, but I made a minor adjustment to convince myself that I knew how to do this.

It took me a long moment to find the ignition. The engine caught, and failed, and caught again. Even then I felt the awkwardness, gear into neutral, parking brake sticking. I fumbled at the dash until the headlights blazed, too bright. I gripped the gear shift. The engine made a chorus of low, vibrant sounds. Some mechanism in the car released. The car charged forward. My feet fumbled. I stood on the brake.

There was a small shelf in the dash, a plastic packet of facial tissues and an oversized plastic paper clip around neatly folded currency. A pair of sunglasses peeked from a flap in the sunvisor. I had an instant of insight into the owner of the car, his name on a parking place. He wanted a boat, a new house, children. He liked to drive. He was good at numbers, hated cats, a natural second-in-command. I had taken the keys from someone at the party, not even deceiving him. He watched me do it, and I told him not to worry, I'd be back in a minute.

I squeezed past the parked cars, clipping a fender on the right, a bumper on the left. I swung from one side of the street to the other. I overcorrected, steered too hard, scraped another parked car, chrome squealing.

Something broke off a sports car and fell, glittering in the rear-view. I picked up a little speed. A mailbox sprang up ahead of me, and I careened over it, the post snapping and scraping the bottom of the car. I was grinding across someone's front garden, a bed of daisies ahead.

They floundered, a small hill of flowers going under, the car rocking gently. Weeds leaped ahead of me, green oats, foxtails. I steered down a vacant lot, plowing through the tall grass of a hillside. I felt a sense of dislocation rather than panic. The vehicle rocked, suspended. The car teetered off an embankment, a small avalanche cascading.

The four wheels landed heavily. The car swung, and came to a stop. Gently, the car began to roll forward again. I steered the car down the correct side of the street, a boy taking a driving test and failing it. This was an orchestration of heavy steel, and the tires turned with a dozen concurrent whispers over the reflectors on the roadway and the fine, random spots of oil.

I should be perspiring, I thought, that cold, novice-driver's sweat. But I wasn't. The palms of my hands were dry, my heartbeat steady. I didn't feel anything like normal anxiety.

But I wasn't exactly pleased. The freeway was a mistake. As soon as I took the onramp I wanted to slam on the brakes. Lights flared everywhere, and the car made insane noises. Every car was a box and in the box was a human head, or maybe two, faces staring straight ahead, lips moving.

The toll plaza. The Bay Bridge. I tried to remember what to do next, but the car would not obey. Someone leaned on their horn, a brassy noise that made me cringe. I killed the engine, and restarted laboriously. I slipped a bill from the money clip.

A toll taker's hand accepted it, a new bill, barely creased, but already scented with finger oils. I did not make contact with his hand, but I could sense it, calloused, hot. I didn't know if he would offer me change. I left the toll gate before I could find out.

The bridge traffic was aglow, brake lights seeming to pull me unward, entranced. I still had trouble reading words. The markings on the green-and-white traffic signs looked only vaguely like language, and the words on the various dashboard instruments, which I knew told me how to turn on the heater or squirt the windshield, were meaningless hieroglyphics.

The weight of the car was disturbing, directing a chassis of so much mass by turning a wheel. Aiming the car down the stuttering stripes of traffic lanes was enough to make me hang on to the steering mechanism with desperation, gripping it with both hands, like an overcareful drunk, steadying himself to a constant speed, weaving all the while.

Each car in the rearview mirror skulked behind me like a Highway Patrol unit. I was like someone performing a familiar task backward. When I followed the traffic into the tunnel through Treasure Island I was sure I would never reach the end of the light, the shaft of echoes.

I approached each stop sign with painstaking respect. I braked, came to a complete stop, and then gradually depressed the accelerator. I parked badly, tires squealing against the curb.

I got out of the car, locked it, and pocketed the keys. I kept everything step by step, a driver's education manual. The air tasted salty, with an undertone of moist earth, mulch, and lawn clippings.

There was a moss-furred quality to the seams in the curb. The world was green, potted plants waiting to be put into the ground. Each knot of leaves had a plastic stick bearing the name of its variety and a few words, how to keep the plant alive.

I had expected it to be difficult. It was not. I was up the trellis, and on the roof of Stella Cameron's house, aware of every sound in the neighborhood.

Stella would be startled, but I would calm her. After all, we had legal business to discuss. How much did the water district offer, I would ask her. And don't tell me Steve Fayette decided to put you on retainer. I wanted to ask if she would help me sort out the insurance, and have a nice, discreet chat about Connie.

I knelt beside the chimney. The warmth within the dwelling rose up, invisibly, through the roof. I moved silently. I had never been acrobatic, but I found it easy to hang before one window, and then another, listening, my head upside down, ear pressed to the glass. The shingles were redwood, fine splinters breaking off as I shifted.

Someone was awake in the house, a soft tread and a creak as a door opened. I listened as the steps returned to another part of the house, and a body let itself fall into a chair. Tiny, persistent, a new continuous sound broke the silence—a television, volume turned down.

Did I hear a quiet, animal gurgle somewhere near me? I did not move, listening. Then I dug my fingers into the sill, working my fingernails into the window frame.

I was close to falling headfirst from the roof, and even when I began to slip I did not release my grip, digging my fingers harder into the frame, through the widening gap between frame and sill. The catch broke, and the window opened easily, all the way.

I was quiet, tumbling gracefully to the hardwood floor. How was it possible that I could be so skilled at this? There was a smell in the air, talcum, plastic, and warm flesh.

I crept to the crib, and leaned over the slumbering infant, the warmth from the baby's body rising up from where it lay, a palpable glow. A cloth frog, a beanbag, stood guard in one corner of the crib.

The infant made an almost inaudible sucking sound, the lips pursed to draw milk, dreaming that primal reverie, the dream of nourishment.

The infant's pulse was not located merely in its neck and its wrists. This small human's heartbeat was visible throughout its body, in the dome of its skull, in the wrinkles of its eyelids.

I wanted to kiss the infant. That was all I wanted to do. I was awed by its perfect, undefended sleep, and I wanted to express my love for it, my love for each child, my affection for the living. I reached down, and the heat made me flinch.

I straightened for a moment, and then resolved to try again, and this time I gathered the infant in my hands. The baby arched its back. Its feet kicked within the bed clothes, a sleeping bag with legs. The baby opened its mouth, a gray crescent of gums. It made one, single bleat. I cupped my hand over its skull.

The hair was fine, thick. I brushed the baby's forehead with my lips. Surely the baby must have a fever, I thought. It was so warm! It was why I was here. I had brought it a gift, not of gold or frankincense. A gift of myself, my smile, my tongue.

The baby took a breath. It boxed the air with its fists.
Hush
I commanded, sending the message with my touch. Be still. There is nothing wrong. I lifted the infant to my lips.

And paused. Downstairs a door opened. She was listening. She was listening, and she could hear me. I don't know how, but she knew her baby was not alone.

She ran up the stairs, and I barely made it to the window before she burst into the room, turning on the light.

27

The sky was beginning to color to the east.

This had happened rarely in my life—staying up all night, long enough to see dawn. And it had sometimes given me a sense of wonder, and of personal accomplishment—I had been enjoying myself so much that I had forgotten the time. It had also given me the sense of certainty that jet travel can sometimes give, the ability to acknowledge by my own experience that the earth turns.

This growing light gave me no joy. I parked not far from where I had taken the car. I left the key in the ignition, feeling a mix of regret and insouciance. There were no police cars, no emergency vehicles. The street was empty now, the party long over. I hurried through the silent streets, and ran easily through the young orchard, leaves stirring as I passed.

I wiped my shoes carefully, and tiptoed into the house. The sight of my footprints on the kitchen floor startled me, and I squeezed out a sponge from under the sink, wiped the floor, and cleaned my handprint from the wall.

I called his name and heard no answer, and I felt a stab of anxiety. His chair in the library was empty, the old leather impressed with the shape of his head, the weight of his body.

The white plastic cap to a vial of medicine lay like a poker chip on the carpet. A book on blood chemistry, complete with diagrammatic depiction of molecules, hexagons linked to hexagons, was open on the desk. The crust of a sandwich oozed jelly beside an empty coffee cup.

I could create a narrative from what I saw, an order of events. I saw him waking, making himself a sandwich, coffee. I saw him reading, studying, intent. I saw him going down to the cellar, making sure I was still there. I saw him leaving the house in a panic.

He was talking to someone. I was no longer a secret.

I found myself in the cellar. It was no surprise when I found the spade lying on the asphalt tiles. He had prodded my burrow, done a little digging, and discovered my absence.

He had swept the floor at some point, scraps of tile and fragments of broken glass in a neat pile. The glass was reflecting the hint of sunlight, each transparent fragment. I had to leave this place. I couldn't stay here.

But I had no time.

“I was about to call the police,” said Dr. Opal, startling me. His eyes were bloodshot. He walked slowly down the cellar stairs and leaned against the washing machine in the cellar, his arms folded, a man waiting, in no particular hurry. “When I realized you were gone.”