came with Burton?”
Before I could answer, she answered it herself. “It wouldn’t be Charlie, would it?”
CHAPTER 31
On the boat, Koko said, “I wonder what she really knows.”
“She’s clever. She wants you to wonder that. She wants us to come back and she timed her bombshell so we wouldn’t have even a minute to get into it.”
“Right now I don’t need clever. I just wish people would say what they mean.” A moment later she said, “Anyway, you were right, I was wrong.”
“Coulda just as easy been the other way.”
“Thanks, but I don’t think so.”
We were sitting on the enclosed lower deck, out of a wind that had turned the harbor into a basin of choppy water. Koko sat near the glass, staring out at the whitecaps.
“I’ve been an old bear lately. Just want you to know I know that and I’m sorry.”
“You’ve had a lot to think about. I didn’t just lose my house.”
She changed the subject. “What a strange day this is. Goes from rainy to sunny and back to rainy again. God can’t get anything right.”
“He’s got a lot on his mind. It’s got to be tough being God sometimes.”
“What’s that from? I used to know it.”
“
She smiled but it was a sad smile.
“Hey,” I said, leaning over to look at her face. “What can I do?”
“Nothing. Go away. Jesus, I hate self-pity.”
“They’ll build you a new house, Koko.”
“What good is that if I can’t go back and live there?”
“I think you’ll be able to go back.”
“How?”
“We’ll work on it.”
She didn’t look convinced. “It’s not the house anyway, it’s what I lost inside the house.”
“I know it’s tough,” I said, and felt stupid saying it. She confirmed my stupidity with a frigid look. “You don’t know anything,” she said, carving me into a Mount Rushmore of dunces. “What do you know about my life?”
“Nothing. You’re right, I don’t know anything.”
“Take a guess. Wildest guess you can think of.”
“Jeez, Koko, I don’t know.”
“Old-maid librarian is what you’re thinking.”
“I never said that.”
“But if someone asked you, that’s what you’d think. Well, I had a husband once. We had two beautiful children. My son would be just about your age now. I was young and happy and not at all bad-looking. I had a very different life then. My husband was an engineer, I was working on a master’s degree in literature, and I played the violin well enough to try out for our symphony orchestra. We had everything then, the whole world ahead of us, and in one crazy minute a drunk driver took it all away.”
“Oh, Koko…”
“No, don’t say anything.” She turned her face to the glass and spoke to my reflection. “I’m not looking for pity. But don’t tell me you know what I lost, because you don’t know. The only pictures I had of my babies were in that house. I had film of their first steps and tape recordings of their voices. It’s like he killed them all over again.”
What can you say at a moment like that? I left her alone, but I thought of Dante and I felt a shimmering wave of real forty-karat hate. Another reason for us to meet again.
Late that afternoon I got in my rental and drove to a place I had looked up last night in the telephone book. It took me less than an hour to buy a good little gun and fire it on their range till it felt natural in my hand. I bought a snug holster for it, slipped it far back under my coat, and left hot but armed and dangerous, fully dressed for the first time in many days.
CHAPTER 32
That night I got them together for the first time. Koko tried to resist, pleading a headache, but I reserved a table at one of the classiest new restaurants in town and threatened to lay siege to her room until she came out. “Want to drive or walk?” I asked. “It’s an easy walk from here.”
“Let’s walk, then. Looks like that silly old guy, God, blew the clouds away again.”
