The Zen Man (31 page)

“What makes you think that?”

“Dirt—a dirt clod—was on the floor, passenger side. I’m no neatnik.” She glanced over her shoulder at me. “I still don’t know what those silly wire hangers are for.”

I’d always teased her about her clothes lying all over the bed, floor, dresser, everywhere but her bedroom closet, and didn’t she know those wire contraptions were for more than dangling empty in her closet?

She looked back out the window, her drink in one hand, fiddling with the sash on her robe with the other. “But I know that dirt hadn’t been on the Jeep floor earlier ‘cause I’d had to fumble under the seat looking for Rose’s Shrek doll. There were no dirt clods then.”

“Got ’em on your slippers.”

She looked down, shrugged. “I helped a neighbor look for her cat the other night. Stepped in some mud. Guess I didn’t get it all off. But the dirt in my car wasn’t from my slippers. I
never
wear these to drive.”

“Don’t you lock your car?”

“Since the other night, yes.”

“Maybe somebody wanted to steal the Jeep?”

She was silent for a few moments. “If somebody had wanted to steal it, they could’ve jimmied the ignition. No, somebody wanted something else. Maybe a more convenient place from which to watch my house.”

Pivoting, she paced to the hallway, stood there listening to the muted sounds of Shrek. Satisfied the little girl was occupied, she returned to the couch and sat down, so close our knees almost touched. Taking another sip, she looked at me over the top of the class. I could see flecks of gold in her russet eyes.

Lowering the glass, she continued, “That peeping tom…I think he came back, didn’t want to chance being seen by my neighbor again, so he slid into the car for a vantage surveillance point. Maybe he was there a short while, maybe until dawn.”

“And maybe you’re getting carried away with maybes.”

She gestured toward a box on top of the bookcase. “I keep Joe’s gun in there. Just in case.”

“Is it loaded?”

“Yes.”

I looked up at the box, glad it was out of reach of Rose, but that didn’t mean I liked it in the house. The time it takes to load a gun gives a person time to reflect, not act rashly, but a loaded gun? Open invitation to stupidity.

I watched her down another mouthful. “Making this a mid-day habit?”

She wiped the corner of her mouth, flashed me a spare-me-the-sermon look. “It’s almost five. Official cocktail hour.”

“Bad idea to be boozing at home with your little girl.”

“I’m not boozing. I’m
coping
. Never more than two drinks a day, Girl Scout’s honor.” When she gestured to her cell, I noticed her chewed nails. “So whose numbers were you lookin’ for?”

“Walt Dixon. Brody Scarpello.”

She frowned. “Those are the names you asked me about the other day, right? Are they suspects in the murder?”

“Yes. Feds are involved now, too.”

She made a small o with her lips. “Who called in the big boys?”

“The big boys. They’re working another case, which appears to overlap mine. Laura and I have met with them.” I felt that dull throb in my gut again, thinking about Laura’s upcoming meeting with Brody.

Brianna shifted, and I caught the soft curve of her ample breast underneath the pink robe. Old memories surfaced…the silkiness of her skin, how she felt like liquid heat, the scent of baby powder after her baths. The long nights in her bed, the two of us on fire, uncontainable. Booze and drugs had fueled our greed for each other, but I’d taken the partying to the next step where it’d fueled my every waking moment. Sitting here now, I knew it’d been smart of her to cut me loose—smart and sane—and maybe one day I’d be man enough to admit it to her face.

Time seemed to slow as I watched her hand—thin, trembling—reach over and touch mine.

“Rick,” she whispered.

A traitorous heat spiked through me. I liked to think I was stronger with my sobriety, but at this moment, I felt weak. Wanted an escape from my problems, my life. How easy it’d be to lean over, lower her head back onto the couch, fit my lips to hers, taste her…

With great effort, I eased my hand from hers and stood, jammed my paws into my pockets.

“Time to go,” I rasped. I turned, headed to the front door.

“Wait.”

I halted, my back to her.

“I still love you.” In the following beats of silence, I knew she wanted to hear me say the same. There was a part of me that wanted to acknowledge that I still cared, maybe even loved, but I knew better than to go there. Instead we listened to the ticking of the clock, a child’s distant laughter.

“I’m trying to save you,” she continued in a trembling voice, “not only because I believe you’re innocent, but because we—you, me, Rose—we could be a family.” Her voice broke on family. She started crying softly, the sound pummeling my heart. “Just like we’d always dreamed, remember?”

I’d be lying if I said some part of me didn’t still want that life. That’s the southern pull on a soul, luring you back to memories of long-ago still summer evenings. Of a home where I’d watch my little girl grow up, smell the scents of peach pie, hear
Terrapin Station
playing in the background. Nights filled with long kisses and scents of baby power.

“Scarlet Begonia,” I murmured, “I had to learn the hard way to let you go.”

I crossed to the bookcase, lifted the box, and nestled it under my arm.

“What’re you doin’?”

“I’m watching out for my little girl.”

She may have said more, but I wasn’t listening. I knew I had to make it to that front door, open it, and close it forever on old dreams. The past was in the past, and I needed,
wanted
, to stay grounded in the present.

On the way home, I called a sergeant I used to know at the Denver PD, explained about the recent peeping tom, asked if he could set up some drive-bys on Brianna’s place. He owed me a favor, although we didn’t refer to it. He said it’d be set up starting tonight.

I didn’t turn on the radio. Wasn’t in the mood to hear another lovesick country song. Instead, I watched the afternoon turn to dusk, my thoughts deepening with the encroaching night. I thought about the day my dad was walking to a studio session in L.A., carrying his trumpet, and just like that—dropped dead of a heart attack. We all thought he’d live to be a hundred—he was so full of life with so many plans for his future, but nobody knows what’s really in store.

Me, I maybe had only a few weeks of freedom left. The preliminary hearing would decide that. Or maybe I’d be found not guilty, and have years, decades, of freedom ahead. Or, like dad, life was a lot briefer than I hoped.

However short or long, I didn’t want to be my old impulsive self, grasping at dreams on a whim. Leave that to the drunks and junkies. I wanted to be conscious, aware, real.

I wanted to go home, hold Laura.

“Zen martini: A martini with no vermouth at all. And no gin, either.”
—P.J. O’Rourke

A
s Laura and I walked into Hazin, an older dude sitting at the bar, his face as cracked and worn as his leather jacket, raised his beer bottle in a toast.

“My people,” he called out, “happy new—”
Year
came out as a loud, resonating belch.

“Uber romantic,” muttered Laura, picking her way around the scattered round tables in the center of the room.

“Want to go home?” Which was where we’d been headed after being turned away by three restaurants full of revelers who’d had the wherewithal to make advance New Year’s Eve reservations. Then we’d passed Hazin with two cycles and a Volkswagen painted in psychedelic colors, macramé curtains in its windows, and the words “Impeach Nixon” scrawled on its side. We figured there was room at the bar if we didn’t mind ringing in the new year with a few bikers and a tribe of hippies mind-stuck in the Watergate era.

“No way,” answered Laura, “we need to get out, have a date.” Taking my hand, she continued maneuvering her way around the tables.

I looked back at the belching guy, who looked oddly familiar. When I spied his rats’-ass gray ponytail, I remembered he’d taken a swing at Lou.

“Let’s sit as far away as possible from the personal greeter,” I murmured.

She headed toward a smaller back room, its walls plastered with posters of chicks in bikinis straddling bikes or each other. In one corner, a flickering beer sign emitted a static buzz. In a corner booth sat a group who looked like an ad for senior citizens on acid—tie-dyed shirts stretched over swollen guts, beaded head-bands around graying hair. One old dude was staring into a lighted candle, his lips moving as though communing with the flickering flame.

“Oh yes,” muttered Laura, stopping to take in the ambiance, “
much
cozier back here.”

“We don’t have to stay.”

“No, I like the feeling of stepping through a time warp and landing in the seventies. Reminds me a bit of our CrimDef retreat, although hopefully nobody’s getting murdered this evening.”

Tonight she wore an off-the-shoulder black sweater, tight jeans with little glittery fleur-de-lis on each cheek, and black stiletto heels with tiny chains around the ankles that clinked softly as she walked. I’d seen each of these items on her before, but never all at the same time. Watching the sputtering red and blue lights from the beer sign pulse around her form, she looked like a fantasy bad-girl biker chick who’d stepped out of one of these posters.

With little time lately to take care of things like laundry, I’d been seriously clothes-challenged for tonight’s date. I wore a pair of old jeans, a wrinkled pin-striped shirt, and a cardigan that conveniently covered a burn spot—or maybe it was a taco stain—on the front of the shirt.

We settled into a booth near the flickering beer sign. When we reached across the table to hold hands, our fingers touched something sticky.

“Probably root beer,” I said.

“We can only hope.”

The bartender trundled up to our table, wearing a “Fat Bikers Bounce Better” black T that complemented the silver skull-and-bones belt buckle on his belt.

“Happy New Year, folks. Name your poison.”

Laura smiled up at him. “First, a wet cloth to wipe off the sticky residue?”

“I’ll get Jeeves right on it. What else?”

“Burger, fries, three shots of vodka.” Laura looked at me, shrugged. “A martini minus the stemware.”

“I’ll, uh, have the same, but make it root beer instead of vodka. In a regular glass.”

As he ambled over to the geriatric-hippie love-in, I stroked the back of her hand with my thumb. “It’s great to be out with you.”

“Right, just you and me, a Woodstock reunion, and…” She heaved a small sigh. “Our government-issued chaperone.”

Quinn, dressed in pressed slacks and a corduroy jacket, settled at a nearby two-top underneath a poster of a biker chick leaning across a Harley, the words “Hike the Bike” stamped across her exposed, ample rear-end. He didn’t seem to notice.

“Baby makes three,” I murmured to Laura.

Baby
. Regretted saying it the moment it left my lips. Had been trying not to think about Rose, but it’d be easier for me to stop breathing. I’d come clean with Laura about my other secrets—the confrontation with Brianna in the Jeep, why I’d stolen her cell, my visit to her house yesterday. Gosh, I was such a great guy, telling my lady everything…except the news that I’d fathered a child.

I had plenty of excuses why, most of them circling the notion that only a DNA test sealed the deal, but the truth was, Rose deserve better. For all the years I’d told myself my biggest regret was not having kids, at this point in my goin-down-the-road-feelin-bad life, I’d be a lousy daddy.

It was a moot issue anyway. I’d walked out on Brianna yesterday, walked out on my chance to be a parent to my little girl. Considering I could be railroaded into prison, it was just as well.

Laura tilted her head, gave me a look. “Thought we said our problems were off limits tonight.”

I put on my best who-me? smile. “Worries all gone.”

Grunting something about can’t-fool-a-fooler, she glanced at Quinn giving his order to the Fat Bikers Bounce Better dude. “Well, mine aren’t. I’m nervous about tomorrow.”

I nodded. “I’ll be nearby.”

She lowered her voice. “But Quinn said—”

“Fuck ‘im. Nobody’s gonna notice me.”

“They’re the
feds
, Rick,” she whispered. “They’ll be everywhere…parking lot, My Brother’s Bar, neighboring buildings…everywhere. They’ll notice you.”

It had been my idea for Laura to suggest meeting Brody at My Brother’s Bar. For Brody, it was a hop down highway I25. For the feds, it had ample surveillance possibilities. Had done a few there myself in my Pontiac, digital camera and a wide-mouthed cup—sticks and stones compared to the snazzy new-age equipment G-boys and girls used.

There used to be a “Broken-Down Beat Tour” that drove past My Brother’s Bar—some long-haired stoner in a rickety school bus telling stories about Kerouac, Cassady, Ginsberg hanging there, back when it was called Paul’s Place. A letter written by Cassady, confessing he’d skipped out on his last tab, is now proudly printed on cocktail napkins at My Brother’s Bar, a place still lonesome for its heroes.

“The feds are well-trained investigators,” I admitted, “but a lot of those guys went to law school, so their IQs can’t be
that
high. Besides, I’m already staring down life in prison, so what’re they gonna do? Hit me with a misdemeanor for interference with a federal officer?”

“I can’t talk about the possibility of prison,” she said quietly. “Not tonight.”

“Sorry.”

“So where will you be?”

“Somewhere off the kitchen—kinda remember there’s a back room with a window view of the parking lot.” I answered her questioning look. “I was at an after-hour party there years ago, lots of booze and fuzzy details.”

“They’ll let you back there?”

“Sure.” Actually, I hadn’t yet figured how I’d pull that off. “Gotta keep an eye on my girl.”

She leaned forward, her lips parting in a slow, lazy smile, that slouchy sweater dark and ragged against the creamy white of her shoulder. I couldn’t stop staring at her shoulder, wanting it and everything attached to it.