'You know what it'll take, right? Some young sport's gonna come in here once I'm gone. Wear a tie to work every day, have nice letterhead, maybe an MBA. That's the new thing.'
'Yeah. Yeah, we got them coming up that way through the force now too. Straight off the streets and into offices with espresso machines.'
'Reports are gonna get slower and slower. They'll also get increasingly woilhless as the M-B-Assholes worry about covering their own butts above all, to hell with evidence, fact, inference, extrapolation.'
Dr. Bijur dosed herself with Atrovent, inhaling the puff and holding it like a hit of marijuana, talking around it.
'We been. At this. A while now. Haven't we?'
'We have indeed, Sonja.'
Another long exhalation.
'Bumpy road. Lots of lows. A few highs.'
'Few enough.'
'Truly sony about this one, Walsh.'
Our shadows leapt on the walls again.
'Never had a family myself. Doesn't mean I don't know what it's like.'
'Yeah.'
'You're a better cop than you ever were a father.'
'Being a cop's easy.'
'Yeah. I guess.' Words came in a rush, breathless, high in her chest, barely heard the last few. 'You-'
Her mouth went on moving but no words came forth. Her face turned Jark.
'Sonja? You okay? Want me to call the paramedics?'
'No… no. I'm, okay. Give me. A minute.'
It took more than a minute, but gradually her breathing eased, her color improved.
By then her technicians had finished and came to tell her so.
She looked at Don.
'Guess we're packing it up. Both have to get back to work now, huh? The real work.'
'Looks like it.'
'No more time for flirting.'
'Flirting. Now, there's a word I haven't heard in a while. My God, are we really that old, Sonja?'
'How'd it happen, huh? I know. I wonder myself. Things goon, years pile up. All the lists get longer.'
He stood watching her go.
'Lew,' Don said.
'Yeah.'
'Okay if I stay with you tonight?'
'Absolutely.'
26
'Damn. Another mouth to feed,' Zeke said. He'd passed by Don, asleep on the couch, on his way into the kitchen where I sat drinking coffee, wondering how early I could start making calls: Sam Delany to tell him I'd found his brother, Keith LeRoy to thank him for his help, Deborah.
Zeke poured himself a cup and sat down across from me. Sniffed at it and held on with both hands, huddling over it the way cons do.
'I was worried about you,' I told him. 'Haven't seen you in a few days.'
'Well, I been working on something, just steady chippin' away at it. You know how that is.'
'Getting anywhere?'
Zeke shrugged. 'Hard to say. We can talk about it later. Meantime, that cop draped all over your couch out there's gotta be your friend Walsh.' He'd know instantly, of course, that Don was a cop. No surprise there. 'What's up?'
I told him about Danny. Zeke's eyes narrowed when I described the bathroom scene, but he said nothing.
Afterwards he shook his head and poured us each another cup.
'Guess I'd best be puttin' together some breakfast.'
'Thanks, Zeke. We could probably all use it.'
'The two of you could for sure. I 'Ve got to scoot on out of here.' At my glance he held up an admonitory hand. 'Told you. Talk about it later.'
He carried his coffee to the counter, began pulling out eggs, bread, onions, a potato.
'Fifteen minutes,' he said. 'Meanwhile, you go start excavating the pharaoh. Oh, and Lewis?'
'Yeah.'
'You might want to give some thought to checking your messages ever' week or so. Last I counted, there were a stone dozen of them out there on the machine. How long they had those things out, anyway?' Chopping onions, he shook his head. 'What else they goan come up with?'
Don proved a most reluctantpharaoh, starting up instantly, wild-eyed, when Ifirst approached, settling back at once into shadowy, encumbered sleep. I poked at him, shouted, passed steaming coffee under his nose. Finally levered him up and out to the kitchen, where Zeke had filled the table with food. Don ate, drank most of a pot of coffee and shambled back to the couch. Zeke left to be about his business. I did dishes and sat staring at the blinking light on the phone machine.
This is one of the ways our past finds us. Dots we connect to make a shape on the white page.
First was Deborah: 'Hey, big boy. Remember me?'
Two and three were from the university. Please call.
Four was Sam Delany.
The next couple, I don't know what they were. People didn't seem to have much idea who they were calling but left rambling, incomprehensible messages nonetheless.
Seven was Deborah again: 'Guess not.'
Then another from Dean Treadwell's office, someone offering me a bank card, an old client from my PI days wondering if I'd be able to help him again, my agent saying there'd been a Hollywood nibble on one of my books and how was I these days, a couple more junk calls.
I dialed the flower shop.
'Rumors of my death, and all that,' I said when Deborah answered.
'Lew! Everything okay?'
I told her aboutfinding Shon Delany, then about Don's son.
'I'm so sony, Lew. How's Don?'
'Tough, as always.'
'Sounds like you've had a couple of tough days yourself.'
'I distinctlyremember easier ones.'
'Don't we all. When can I see you?'
'This point, I don't have a clue what the day's likely to turn into. Not another grade-A mess like yesterday is what I hope. Okay if I call you later?'
'Sure it is. Or just come by.'
'Right.'
I took the last of the coffee out back, sat on the wooden bench layered with bird droppings under the tree out there. The bench's underside was a thicket of cnmibling leaves and spiderwebs. Been years since I last did this. LaVeme and I spent a lot of time on that bench. Go out there late at night, take glasses of wine out while dinner simmered on the stove, coffee first thing in the morning.
I'd sat out here like this the morning I learned of David's disappearance. Later I'd written that a toad had jumped into my face, but the toad was becoming only history, and bearable.
