The Silent Hour

I pulled my hand free and stepped forward, out of my doorway and into the daylight.

“I’m sorry you made the trip,” I said. “It was entirely unnecessary, Mr. Sanabria.”

“You don’t even know the purpose of my trip.”

“I know the source of it, though.”

“Do you?”

“A lawyer named Child probably gave you a call. Or somebody in the Medina County Recorder’s Office, though that seems unlikely. Either way, somebody told you I was inquiring about your sister’s home. That information is no longer correct.”

“Is it not?”

I shook my head. “I’ve learned the house is not on the market and will not be on the market, and I’ve passed that information along to my client. We’re done with it now.”

He reached up and ran a hand over his mouth, as if drying his lips, and then he spoke without looking at me. “Let’s go upstairs and talk—and I’d ask you not to continue lying to me. It’s not something I appreciate.”

He walked past me and headed up the stairs without another word, and I turned and hesitated and then followed, swinging the door shut and closing out the daylight behind us.

When I got to the top of the stairs he was already in my living room, standing in front of the bookshelf. He slid a Michael Connelly novel out with his index finger and studied the cover.

“I had a brother-in-law who was a big reader,” he said. “Not these sort of books, though. Not fiction. He was an anthropologist. Studied people. Studied the, what’s the word, indigenous types.”

He pushed the book back into place and turned to face me.

“He didn’t study me. Did not have the slightest desire to study me, or my people. Wanted very little to do with us. Oh, he was polite, you know, a hell of a nice guy, but he definitely wanted to know as little as possible about me and my associates and what it was that we did. I always liked that about him.”

I didn’t answer, didn’t say a word as he crossed to an armchair and sat carefully on the edge of it. Dominic Sanabria was in my apartment. It was not yet nine in the morning, and Dominic Sanabria was sitting in my living room discussing dead men. I wasn’t going to require coffee to get my nervous system energized today.

“My sister is a very special girl,” he said, crossing his legs in a manner that would have looked effete from anyone but him. “A woman, of course, but I can’t help but think of her as a girl. She’s nine years younger than me, you know. By the time she was growing up, there was some awkwardness around my family. Some legal troubles that you might recall, or might not. You’re pretty young. Anyhow, my father, who was not without his faults but always loved his children dearly, he thought it would be best to send Alexandra away to school.”

I hadn’t taken a seat, hadn’t moved from the top of the stairs, because I thought it was better to simply stand there and listen. There are guys who bring out the smart-ass in me, the desire to throw some jabs back at them, show them the tough-guy bullshit isn’t as intimidating as they’d like it to be. Dominic Sanabria was not one of those guys. All I wanted to do was listen and get him the hell out of my home. Even while that desire occupied my thoughts, though, I hadn’t missed the tense shift. He’d referred to Joshua Cantrell in the past, and well he should— Joshua was past tense for this world, no doubt. Alexandra had received present tense. My sister is a very special girl . . .

“They found a school out east, somewhere in the Adirondacks, cost a friggin’ fortune,” he said, “but it was worth it, you know? It was worth it. Because Alexandra, she was always a special kid, but after being out there, being around those sort of teachers and those sort of . . . I dunno, experiences, I guess, it made a difference. She was a kind of, you know, a deeper spirit when she came home. A very compassionate person. She was not as close to the family as the rest of us were, but that was good. It was good for her to be around other people. Other influences. Every family has their darling, and she is ours.”

He did that thing with his hand again, running it over his mouth, the way you might if your lips were chapped and bothering you.

“When she got married, the guy was, well, a different sort from the type we know. Probably from the type you know. Quiet guy, real studious, shit like that. Nose in a book, right? All the time with that. I liked him. He wasn’t real comfortable around me, maybe, but he was good to my sister. They matched up where it counts.” He touched his head with two fingers, then his heart. “Where it counts.”

Out on the street a truck’s gears hissed and someone blew a horn while Dominic Sanabria sat and stared at me.

“I liked Joshua,” he said. “Used to call him Josh, and he never bitched about that, but then Alexandra said he didn’t like it. Joshua, she said. I liked him. Because I love my sister, and he made her happy.”

He sighed and kneaded the back of his neck with his hand and looked at the floor.

“They found his bones a few months ago, and I cannot tell you how unhappy that makes me, because I know how unhappy that makes my sister. I feel that pain in my heart, you know? I feel it for her. There are people out there, somewhere in the world, who know some things that I will need to know.”

“I’m not one of them.” It was the first time I’d spoken since he entered my apartment.

“Probably not,” he said, “but you may be working for one. I believe you probably are. I’d like to speak with that person.”

Give him up! my brain screamed. Give him up! A quieter voice, the soft whisper of instinct, offered dissent.

“Mr. Sanabria,” I said, “I run a business that would not exist without confidentiality. It would disappear if I did not maintain that, and I’d be out on the streets looking for work. I respect you, though, and I respect your interest in this, and here’s what I will tell you: My relationship with this client is done. That’s a promise, that’s a guarantee. I ended it yesterday, and I will not resume it at any time, ever. I don’t know anything— anything—that can help you. I assume Mr. Child communicated that idea to you. I was utterly clueless when I went into his office, and I remain that way now. Nor do I have any desire to learn more.”

“Who hired you?”

I shook my head.

“You’ve been around,” he said. “You understand that people can eventually be convinced to share information.”

“I’ve also seen how stupid and wasteful all that convincing becomes when it doesn’t produce any information of value. I’ve seen the problems that can arise as a result of the effort.”

“You were a cop.”

“I was.”

“Cops tend to feel safe. Off-limits, protected. That sort of thing.”

“I’ve been to a few police funerals. Enough to know better.”

“Still you refuse me.”

“The name can’t help you, Mr. Sanabria. My client is a nobody. Was a nobody.”

“Maybe you like me,” he said. “Maybe you like having me around, want me to drop in again. That must be it, because here you have a chance to send me away for good, and you’re refusing that.”

“I like you fine. You’re terrific, trust me. Even so, I sure as shit don’t want you around.”

“You sound a little uneasy there.”

“I am.”

“You sound, maybe, even afraid,” he said, and there was a bite in his voice, a taunt.

“I’m afraid of my own stupidity,” I answered. “There are people I’d rather not be involved with, at any level, at any time. You are one of those people.”

“That could be viewed an insult.”

“It should be viewed as a statement of fact. I don’t want anything to do with you, and I don’t know anything that can help you. Where we go from here, I guess you will decide and I’ll deal with.”

He nodded his head very slowly. “Yes. Yes, I guess I will decide.”

Another pause, and then he got to his feet and walked toward me. Slowed just a touch when he reached me, then turned and went down the steps and opened the door and walked outside. He left the door open. I waited for a few seconds, and then I went down and closed it and turned the lock and sat on the steps. I sat there for a long