'I started hearing stories about you the day I first hit the streets.'
'And I remember the first time I looked in a car's rearview mirror and saw the legend 'Objects May Be Closer Than They Appear.''
'What the fuck's that mean?'
'That you can't trust stories.'
'Yeah, but how many of us ever get to have stories told about us?' She drained her beer. 'You notice how these bottles keep getting smaller?'
From the breast pocket of her blazer she took a narrow reporter's notebook. Found a free page, scribbled addresses and phone numbers, tore the page off and passed it me.
'Consider it part of your orientation package.'
'You memorized all this?'
'Some people have trick joints, like their thumbs bend back to their forearms? I have a trick memory. I hear something, see something, I've got it forever.'
'Buy you another beer before the bottles get too small? Alcohol kills brain cells, you know-could help wean you off that memory thing.'
'Worth a try.'
I got the waiter's attention, ordered another beer for Tracy, bourbon straight up for myself. He brought them and began clearing plates.
'Speaking of stories, I remember one I read years ago,' Tracy said. 'I was into science fiction then, and new to reading. Every book I opened was a marvel. One of the older writers-Kuttner, Kornbluth, those guys. People lived almost forever. But every hundred years or so they had to come back to this center where they'd plunge into this pool and swim across it. To rejuvenate them, I'm sure the story pointed out. Symbol of rebirth. But what I got from it was how the water of that miraculous pool would take away their memories, wipe them clean, let them go on.'
I took a fond, measured sip of my bourbon. There was a time in my life when measured sips hadn't been called for. That whole measurement thing creeps up on us. Start off counting hairs in the bathtub drain, before we know it we're telling people we're only allowed a cup and a half of coffee a day, reading labels for saturated-fat content, trying to portion out our losses, like a double-entry accountant, to history and failing memory.
'I'm not sure I know how to respond,' I told Tracy.
'Yeah. Me either. Exactly what I mean. Four hundred killed when the roof of a substandard apartment building collapses in Pakistan. A fifteen-year-old goes into his high school with an assault weapon and kills three teachers, the principal, twelve fellow students. Half the citizens of some country you never heard of go after the other half, kill or butcher them and bulldoze them into mass graves. There's a proper response to something like that? You get to wishing you could go for a swim, wipe it all away. But you can't.'
We tossed off the remainder of our drinks in silence and called it a night. Enough of the world's eternal problems and our own.
'Check in tomorrow?' Tracy said.
'First thing.'
'Where are you staying?'
Since I was here on my own dime, I'd taken the cheapest room I could find, at Nu-Way Motel on the city's outer rings. Each unit was painted a different pastel shade, mine what I could only think of as Pepto-Bismol pink. A stack of fifties magazines inside would not have surprised.
Walking Tracy Caulding to her blue Honda Civic, I gave her my location, room and phone number. 'No need to write them down for you's my guess,' I said, getting another glimpse of the smile that had lit up Sam's office back at the station. From habit I looked in to clear the car, saw a ziggurat of textbooks on the back seat.
'What's this? Not a dedicated law officer?'
She held up her hands, palm out, in mock surrender. 'Got me dead to rights.'
'Graduate school, from the look of it.'
'I confess. M.A. in social work, six credits to go.'
She leaned back against the rear door, tugging at the silver-cuffed ear.
'Cop was the last thing I thought I'd be. From the time I was eleven, twelve years old, I was going to be a teacher. Nose forever in a book and all that. But I grew up in a trailer park, no way my parents could afford even local colleges. I had grand ambitions, though, applied all over the mid-South, even places like Tulane and Duke. Memphis State came through with a full scholarship. I had a job teaching sixth grade promised before I'd even graduated. Five weeks in, I walked away from it.'
She put her hand on my arm.
'Everything I'd taken for granted all those years was gone. I had no idea who I was, what I could do, and I had to work. Of a Sunday morning I was reading want ads when one at the very corner of the page caught my eye. Police badge to the left. Have a degree? it said. Want to make a difference?-or something equally lame. Another of the department's periodic thrusts to improve its image. Wanted people with degrees, offered an accelerated training program for those who qualified. So here I am. Telling you way more than you wanted to know. Sorry.'
'Don't be.'
She was in the car now, looking out.
'We should talk about counseling and social work sometime,' I said.
'Did a bit of it yourself, from what I hear.'
'More like I muddied the water.'
'So we should. Just don't tell me I'm wrong, okay?' Hauling her seat belt across. 'See you tomorrow, Turner.' Face in the rearview mirror as she drove away. Objects may be closer than they appear.
Back at the motel I punched my way through a thicket of numbers, 9 for an outside line, 1 for long distance, area code, credit-card number, personal code. Quite the modern lawman.
'Sheriffs office.'
'Who's speaking?'
'Rob Olson.'
'Trooper?'
'You bet. Who's this?'
'Turner, up in Memphis.'
'The deputy, right?'
'Right. Don't guess Lonnie'd be around this late, would he?' 'He's always around. Though it might be best if you didn't tell him I said that.' Miles and miles away, coffee got slurped. 'Be here right this minute save he's out to an accident. Told him I'd go but he wouldn't hear of it. You hold a minute, Turner? Got someone on the other line.'
Then he was back.
'That's Bates on line two. He's at the hospital with an accident victim, wants to speak with you. Hold on, I'll try to transfer you.'
Some time went by.
'Turner. You there? I can't get this damn thing to work. And I think I just hung up on the sheriff. He's still over to the hospital. You wanta call him there?'
He gave me the number, and I did.
'Those boys at the barracks are the best you'll see at paperwork,' Lonnie said when I told him what happened. 'Other things…'
Someone was there by him, complaining. I'd probably called in to the ER nurse's station, which might be the only line functioning this time of night. The local hospital wasn't a hell of a lot larger or more complicated than our office.
'Official police work,' he said. 'Chill, Gladys.' Then to me: 'So you're still in Memphis. Any action?'
I filled him in on my visit. Connecting with Sam Hamill, meeting Tracy. Think I may have found out where to go to get what I'm looking for, I told him.
'That's good. Quick.'
'I followed your advice.'
