“I suppose you’re psychic.”
“No. It’s just that I recognize pain when I see it.”
“Oh, you do? Now you’re going to tell me you’ve been hurt, too.”
“Yes. I have.”
“How?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“You look perfectly healthy to me.”
“It had nothing to do with my health.”
“Somebody else’s?”
“My wife’s.” He had no intention of saying the words, but they came out anyway. Like something solid tearing at his throat. “She died.”
Bryn Darby stood quiet for several seconds. The cold wind tore at the silence between them, made her shiver; she crossed her arms tight across her breasts. “When?” she said.
“Nearly two years ago. Ovarian cancer.”
“I’m sorry.”
“So am I.”
More silence. He wanted to leave, but his body wouldn’t let him. His bad leg and sore knee began to ache.
Abruptly she said, “You’re lonely.”
He didn’t respond.
“That’s it, isn’t it? The reason you’re here. You’re lonely.”
“No,” he said.
“Yes, you are. I can see it in your face.”
He didn’t deny it this time.
“And you think I’m lonely. Kindred spirits.”
He hadn’t thought that. He hadn’t let himself think it.
“It wouldn’t work,” she said.
“What wouldn’t?”
“You, me, a couple of damaged strangers crying on each other’s shoulders. It wouldn’t work.”
He heard himself say, “I just thought… Talk a little, that’s all.”
“No,” she said.
“Public place. Over coffee or a meal.”
“I’m sorry, no. It wouldn’t do either of us any good. And I don’t want anyone in my life right now, not old friends and certainly not a new one like you. You understand?”
“Yes,” he said.
“You’d better go.” She hugged herself tighter. “It’s cold out here.”
“I won’t bother you again, Mrs. Darby.”
“I’m not Mrs. Darby. Not anymore, thank God.” She turned and went back up the stairs. He was moving away when she called after him, “I hope you find someone else.”
He didn’t want anyone else, he wanted Colleen. You’re lonely. And you think I’m lonely. Kindred spirits. All right. He was lonely, there was no denying it. Companionship, love? All the things he’d had from and with Colleen? Not that, either. You can’t replace the love of your life, the center of your universe. Maybe you could move on to someone else after a while, on a limited basis-and maybe you’re just not made that way, no matter how much you hurt and how much you need. He wasn’t, and it seemed Bryn Darby wasn’t. Kindred spirits in that way, too.
So now he fully understood why he’d come here. Looking for something unattainable; looking for humiliation to purge himself of the idea. But he didn’t feel humiliated; even the momentary shame was gone. All he felt now, limping through the cold night to his car, was empty-as if the hole inside him had been scooped out even wider.
T hat night, Colleen came to him in a dream.
She walked into the bedroom and leaned over the bed. When he opened his eyes and saw her, he made a joyful sound and reached out for her. She stepped back, avoiding his embrace. “Don’t do this,” she said.
She was vivid to him in every detail; her whole body shimmered and glowed as if she were encased in a kind of haloed bubble. He sat up and reached for her again, whispering her name. And again she backed away.
“Don’t do this,” she said.
“I won’t,” he said. “No one else. Just you.”
“Please don’t do this.”
“You’re the only woman I’ll ever love.”
“No more,” she said, “no more.”
“I don’t need anybody but you.”
“Don’t keep doing this to yourself, Jake. Promise me-please!”
He said, “I don’t know if I can,” and as soon as the words were out the shimmery glow began to fade, she began to fade until he couldn’t see her clearly any longer. He jumped out of the dream bed, his arms clutching emptiness. By then she was gone.
He woke up shaking. All the bedclothes were on the floor and the room was like a cavern of ice. He got the blankets up and over him and lay there afraid to close his eyes again, because when he did he knew he would see her in the same soft, fading focus as before.
“I don’t need anybody but you,” he said aloud. “I don’t need anybody.”
Lies.
Don’t keep doing this to yourself, Jake. No more, no more.
21
JAKE RUNYON
In the morning he had himself under control again. Emotions in check, his professionalism hard-wired back into place. The fever of last night, the past week, had burned itself out; the disturbing sense that he might be cracking up was gone. There wouldn’t be any more episodes, he’d see to that. He’d keep on functioning as he had been for nearly two years now, doing the job he’d been trained to do, existing in the moment. There was no other way. Opening himself up the way he had last night was like opening a vein and watching himself bleed to death.
The order of business today was the Youngblood pro bono case. He hadn’t been paying enough attention to it. Focus on it, get it wrapped up, move on to the next. Youngblood’s mother, sitting alone in that empty house of hers after her work, worrying, waiting for word-he owed her a quick resolution.
On the way up Nineteenth Avenue and through the park, he thought about what Bill had told him yesterdy. Youngblood’s ten-thousand-dollar borrow from Nick Kinsella, and the eighty-five hundred he’d laid on Kinsella three days ago to cover two-thirds of what he owed. Where’d it come from? Not from another loan shark; Bill was right about that. A friend? None of Youngblood’s friends seemed to have that kind of money lying around. His mother? Same thing. Brandy?
Find out more about Brandy. He should’ve done that by now. Drag it out of Youngblood, if he couldn’t get the information anywhere else.
First things first: Verna Washington.
The Lake Street apartment building where she lived was old San Francisco-cornices, bay windows, ornate stucco facade painted a pale salmon color. Three stories, four apartments each on the first two floors, two big flats on the top floor. Verna Washington lived in one of the apartments, second floor rear. When he rang the bell this time, he got an intercom response.
She was willing to talk to him. Buzzed him in, looked at his license through the peephole in her door, took the chain off, and let him inside. The apartment was cluttered, the furniture a weird mixture of old wood, fifties tubular chrome, and sixties bean-bag. One wall was painted black; the others were different shades of blue. Posters hung
