Something that moved, kicked… struggled.
Tamara blinked, squinting. Eyes playing tricks. No, there it was again, the kicking, the struggling, while the man hauled the hatch down and slammed it shut. He hugged whatever was in the blanket closer to his chest, using both hands and arms now. Stood for a few seconds, looking around, looking straight at the Ford for a heartbeat- gave her a chill even though she knew he couldn’t see her in the dark-then he half ran across a patchy lawn and up onto the porch. More struggles while he was getting the door unlocked. Then he was gone inside with whatever it was in the blanket.
Dog, Tamara thought. Sure. Sick dog, picked it up late at the vet’s. No big deal.
A light went on in the front room over there, punching a couple of saffron squares in the darkness. Both windows had shades pulled all the way down. She sat up, fidgeting, replaying in her mind what she’d just seen.
Hadn’t kicked like a dog. Or any other kind of animal.
Kicked like… what? A kid?
Come on, Tamara. Why would he have a kid all wrapped up like that? Punishment of some kind? Bad boy, bad girl, wrap your sorry little ass in a blanket?
Lord. A kid could smother, all trussed up in the back of an SUV like a piece of baggage. Lot of bastard parents in this world, abuse their kids in all sorts of ways…
No. It hadn’t been a kid.
Had it?
Too much imagination, girl. Got to be some simple explanation, nothing weird at all except inside your own head.
Still.
The way the guy had thrown looks around after he shut the SUV’s hatch, sort of furtive, like he was worried somebody might see him. She hadn’t imagined that. Or the way he’d half run for the house, humped over, as if he were trying to shield the bundle with his body.
Just didn’t seem natural, none of it.
Well, okay, then. What’re you gonna do about it?
She sat chewing her lower lip. Call the cops? Oh, yeah, right. Go over to the house, ring the bell, ask the man if everything was cool? He’d say it was even if it wasn’t. And it’d piss him off either way, maybe get her in the kind of trouble she wasn’t equipped to handle.
Forget about it then. None of her business. Her business was George DeBrissac and 1122 across the street. Plus her full-up bladder. If she didn’t get to a bathroom pretty quick…
She reached for the ignition key, then pulled her hand back and lifted it instead to click off the dome light. Then she was out of the car, creaking a little from all the sitting, drawing her thighs together against the pressure in her bladder. Always walk in a strange neighborhood as if you belong there, don’t do anything to call attention to yourself. Right. Up onto the sidewalk, amble slow past the house. Glance at it, don’t stare at it. Lights still on in the front room, shades still drawn tight. Just enough shine from the one nearest the door so that she could make out brass numbers on the brick wall between them. 1109. Pretty sure that was it.
On her way past the driveway, she risked a longer look at the SUV. Big, black-Chevy Suburban? The front license plate was shadowed. 1MO Something 6 Something Something.
Tamara kept on going, forcing herself not to hurry. At the far corner she paused for a few seconds, then turned and came back at the same measured pace. Nothing had changed at the house. She squinted harder when she reached the driveway, still couldn’t quite make out the license number. Caution told her to give it up, go straight to the Toyota; curiosity sent her a quick half-dozen steps up the drive, bent low, until she could read the plate clearly.
1MQD689.
She retreated to the sidewalk, her heart hammering. Got away with it. Nobody came out of the house, nobody chased her, nothing happened. A minute later she had the Toyota’s engine rumbling and she was on her way.
Took her five minutes to find a service station on San Pablo Avenue. Good thing it didn’t take six or more; as it was, she just made the rest room in time.
7
Kerry said, “Remember D-Day? Amazing grace?”
“That’s what he said. Mean anything to you?”
“No.”
D-Day. June 6, 1944, the day the Allied forces invaded Europe, the beginning of the end of World War II. “Cybil and Dancer were both living in New York in the summer of ‘forty-four, weren’t they? And the Pulpeteers were active then.”
“So?”
“Just thinking it could have something to do with the group.” The Pulpeteers had been a loose-knit writers’ club of a dozen or so Manhattan-based professionals, Cybil and Ivan and Dancer among them, and a moderately wild bunch according to what Kerry had told me once-club-hopping, all-night parties, crazy practical jokes. “One of their pranks or escapades, maybe.”
“That he’d want her to remember after fifty years? I don’t think so.”
“I guess not.”
“Amazing grace,” Kerry said. “Well, he couldn’t have meant the hymn, that’s for sure. Not Russ Dancer.”
“I asked him about that and he said no.”
“This package,” she said. It was on the table between our chairs, where I’d put it when I arrived home a few minutes ago. She’d already fingered it twice; I watched her make it three times. “Paper, a lot of it. It feels like a manuscript.”
“You said that before.”
“Why would he give her a manuscript?”
“Oh, hell,” I said, “all we’re doing is asking each other rhetorical questions. Cybil will give us the answers if she wants us to know.”
“Why wouldn’t she want us to know?”
“I’m not saying she wouldn’t. But whatever’s in the envelope is obviously private, at least from Dancer’s point of view. For her eyes only.”
“I wasn’t thinking of opening it, for heaven’s sake.”
“I know that.”
Kerry kept staring at the envelope. “One of us should call her.”
“What, you mean tonight?”
“Right now. It’s only a little after nine. She’ll still be up.”
“Why should we?”
“To let her know about Dancer and the envelope.”
“I told you, he doesn’t want her to know he’s dying. Doesn’t want her to see him all wasted.”
“She won’t want to go down there.”
“Probably not, but-”
“She can’t stand him, you know that. All the crap he used to give her, coming on to her all the time… he could be a real bastard.”
“No argument there.”
“I can’t stand him myself. I never could.”
“Kerry, he’s dying.”
“That doesn’t change how you’ve felt about somebody all your life.”
“Granted. But it’s also no reason not to respect his dying wishes. He doesn’t want Cybil to open the package
