rampage in Las Piernas? Could Sammy’s routine about paganism versus Satanism have been a cover-up of some kind? She had been afraid of the man in the goat’s mask. Wasn’t that connected to Satanism? What did Sammy really know?
I saw the reflection of the blue-and-red lights of police cars on the walls, soon followed by the crackle of radios. I looked out and saw Lieutenant Carlson pull up. I sat back down, sad and suddenly weary, but not feeling as if I could sleep.
To my surprise, about half an hour later, Frank came back home. I got up to greet him, but something in his walk warned me to keep my distance. When he was close enough for me to see his face, the coldness there came at me like a blow.
“What’s wrong?”
He walked past me and over to his liquor cabinet. He poured himself a large scotch and downed it quickly.
“What’s wrong?” I asked again.
“Carlson won’t let me work on it. He basically ordered me to leave.”
“Why?”
He shrugged his shoulders, poured himself another scotch, and downed it as easily as the first. I was wondering if he was going to stay up all night drinking, but he put the bottle away and said, “I’m going to bed.”
I followed him into the bedroom and we got undressed in silence, Frank keeping his eyes averted from me. We got into bed, and he turned away from me. I reached to rub his shoulders, but he pulled away, moving his large frame to the edge of the bed. You don’t have to call Western Union for me. I got the message.
I rolled over so that we were lying back-to-back, and turned out the light. The room was bathed in pulsing lights from the police cars next door. Doors opened and closed, voices carried on the night air. My muscles ached with tension.
“Irene?”
I turned back, thinking maybe he wanted to talk after all. There was a long silence.
“What, Frank?”
Still more silence. I was about to give up when he said, “I think we should take a few days off from each other.”
I didn’t answer because I couldn’t answer. My throat was constricted and I could feel tears welling up. I rolled away on the off chance he would turn and look at me. I lay there for a long time before I was able to breathe normally.
Before we started sleeping together in that bed, I had spent a number of years living alone. My friends and family always worried that I was lonely then. But in all those years, I was never as lonely as I was that night, lying less than three feet away from Frank Harriman.
7
BETWEEN MY EMOTIONAL STATE and the noise next door, I didn’t sleep at all that night. The two triple-sized scotches had apparently done the trick for the bastard next to me, although I noticed he was extremely restless even as he snored away.
I went from feeling extremely sorry for myself to being extremely angry with Frank. I was pissed at myself as well, for not having a car to make an escape in. I considered calling a cab. Maybe because it was a Holy Day of Obligation, I prayed for strength.
At dawn, watching Frank and wondering if I would ever watch him sleep again, something like sympathy found its way past my anger. I remembered how upset he had been earlier, how close he had been to Mrs. Fremont. I thought of the helplessness he must have felt when Carlson took him off the case. I didn’t like the idea that withdrawing from me might be his way of dealing with his own emotions, but I concluded that like it or not, I was going to have to give him the time alone he wanted. I reminded myself that he had said “a few days,” not “I never want to see you again.”
I’d been around too long to feel much comfort in this last thought. I hated being in the position of waiting to see if he still wanted me.
I decided the answer to my problems was to busy myself with the election and to do what I could to find out about occult groups in Las Piernas. If the paper raised a stink about it, I figured I could argue reasonably that I wasn’t working on a crime story — after all, I had already been contacted by someone who had indicated a connection would be made between Satanism and the D.A.’s race. Besides, who knew how much longer I’d be bedding a cop? It might only be a few more minutes.
Sometimes my own sense of humor backfires on me.
I decided that the odds of Frank waking up and taking me into his arms and murmuring, “Darling, how could I have been so wrong! I can’t live without you…” were slim to none. So I carefully slid out of bed and went down the hall to the bathroom and took a shower. Okay, so what if we usually took one together? That was just water conservation, right?
I was in a really foul mood by the time I dried off. Frank wasn’t awake yet. I carried my clothes into the bathroom and got dressed there. I was too restless to stay in the house, so I went out onto the patio. That wasn’t such a great idea. It made me think of standing in the backyard of Casa de Esperanza, hearing Mrs. Fremont tell me Frank was a keeper. Well, I apparently hadn’t set the hook properly — he was wriggling away.
I heard him moving around inside the house; heard the shower and later, kitchen noises. My own appetite was running around somewhere with my ability to sleep. I couldn’t take looking at the garden anymore, caught between the loss of Mrs. Fremont and the distance from Frank, so I left the yard through the gate. I walked past Mrs. Fremont’s house without more than a glance at the yellow police barricade tape that sealed it, and headed for the beach. It was only a short walk from the house.
I stood at the edge of a walkway that led down to the beach. The Pacific stretched out in dark gray, the autumn sky cloudy to match. As I stood there, it worked its magic, the rhythm of the waves breaking on the shore easing away my tension.
By the time I walked back to Frank’s house, I was calm. I had decided not to push him, and not to make too much of what he had said in bed. I had plenty to do between now and whenever he wanted to see me again.
