“Didn’t have dinner yet,” she said.
“Better than dinner,” he responded, working the top scoop in his waffle cone with a spoon.
“Yeah.” They shared a smile, the first one in a while.
“You look beautiful,” he said, and she did. Despite a slight shadow across her eyes, her skin shined, and he thought she looked like she’d been bathed in milk.
“Thanks,” she said, though simple compliments weren’t going to do it for her. She ate more of her custard, the plastic spoon scraping softly against the side of the container. “Have you been working Aurelio?”
He nodded. “And another thing.”
“You making any progress?” she asked. He grimaced and left his spoon in his mouth for a long time after a bite, unwilling to speak, and she figured the rest. “But you got this working it?” She ran the back of her finger over the purple and swollen bridge of his nose. He just shrugged. “Oh, Frank.” It seemed part of her wanted to reach out for him, another part of her wanted him to reach for her, and something else in her wanted to get far, far away to where she’d be free and easy. She stayed though. She sat there on that bench next to him and ate her ice cream.
“It’s nothing,” he finally said. “What about you? How you feeling? You all right at work… considering?”
“Yeah. Just a little tired.”
“You want another custard?”
“Nah, this one’s making me nauseous as it is.”
“Something else then? A proper meal.”
She couldn’t stand the concern oozing out of him. It made her feel silly. “It’s just because it’s so sweet. Forget it.”
“Okay,” he said.
She wished things were normal between them, so they could just talk, and after another moment, that’s what she went ahead and did. “Frank, I’m sorry, and don’t take this wrong… but how good a friend was he?”
Behr didn’t answer for a long while. He looked into her eyes and saw she wasn’t trying to insult him or diminish Aurelio. She was trying to give him perspective, which was what he needed. She was wondering when she would have him back. He thought about her question. How could he answer it? What constituted a friend? Aurelio wasn’t his oldest friend, or his closest or best. That would’ve made things clear. They hadn’t gone to school together, or been on the force together. He had none of the usual markers, just a feeling. He saw other questions behind her first one: Could he walk away from it? Could he leave it to others? To no one? But something about Aurelio’s death had pierced him. The man was no saint, he wasn’t saving orphans, he was just a regular guy who’d earned a living the way he saw fit. But in another way he was a pilgrim for strength and good, a missionary spreading his art. And someone had chosen to take his existence from him.
“It just seems like there’s a line that needs to be held,” Behr said.
She nodded, and neither of them spoke for a moment.
“Can we talk about us for a second?” Susan said.
“Sure,” Behr said, then her faced pinched as if her custard had gone off. “Uch, listen to me, I sound like one of those annoying ladies on Oprah.”
“No you don’t,” Behr told her.
“Things feel bad,” she said, her voice flat and grim.
“Yeah,” he agreed.
“We’ve got some decisions to make. I shouldn’t have run out of the car like that, but we’ve got to deal with this thing.”
He nodded.
“When I’d just graduated college and was dating some meaningless guys, my mother used to say to me, ‘You’ll never be younger or prettier or more wanted than you are right now.’”
“Sounds more like a madam than a mother.”
“Don’t talk that way about her, Frank,” she said, without anger.
“Sorry,” he said.
“She was trying to steer me to the ‘eligible’ guys. But you’re right, it never meant much to me. I was looking for what I wanted, not for what someone else wanted for me. And then, later, I wanted you.” She stopped for a moment, and put down her spoon before continuing. “But I’ve gotta know if this is how it’s going to be.”
“You know I don’t make a big living, Suze,” he said.
She shook it off with a toss of her head. “We both do okay. Better together,” she said. “But that’s not what I meant. I’ll admit I found it romantic or exciting, in the beginning, when we first met and you were fifty feet deep on that thing. But I mean, now, is this how it’s going to be when you’re on a case?”
He blew out a lungful of air. “If I’m doing background checks and asset searches, and crap like that, no. But if it’s something real… this is how it gets. How I get.”
She nodded, and stood. “Then I guess you’ve got to ask yourself… is life something you’ve got to face essentially alone, or can you share it? Really share it? ’Cause I won’t do it like this.” She tossed her ice cream container into the gaping mouth of a trash can.
TWENTY-SIX
Agargoyle. That’s what Susan had called him coming back from the lake, and she was right. He’d apparently turned to stone and lost his ability to speak-or to speak about things of importance anyhow. The rest of the conversation at Ritter’s hadn’t gone very far or well. Susan had said her piece, and he had found himself looking down at his feet, trying to answer but doing a poor job of it. Resolution was a long way off as they separated. They had mumbled a pledge to speak again soon, but there was neither force nor commitment coming from either side, and he had driven off toward Lafayette Street.
Behr parked under the illuminated sign that read: “Don’s Guns-I don’t make the rules, I just follow them.” He reached the door just as the clerk, a fortyish man with a salt and pepper mustache and a similarly colored buzz cut, was locking up. He wore a stainless. 357 on his hip.
“Just want to pick up some shells,” Behr said, showing his three-quarter tin. This time it actually had some effect. The clerk waved him in and followed him toward the ammunition shelves, spinning his key ring on his finger, past the sign bearing Don’s well-worn motto: “I don’t want to make money, I just want to sell some guns.”
“What you need?” the clerk asked.
“Forty-four special,” Behr said. The clerk gave a nod that was not quite devoid of interest and pointed to the small area stocked with the slightly unusual caliber. Behr grabbed ten boxes of wad-cutters for the range, where he pledged to put in some time since he hadn’t for a long while, and one box of Winchester Special Super X 200-grain Silvertip hollow points for carry. He followed the clerk to the register.
“Which will make it easier for you, cash or credit?” Behr asked.
“I closed out the drawer already, so credit,” the man said, and took Behr’s charge card.
Dropping the heavy plastic bag in the trunk and getting in his car, Behr wasn’t sure exactly for what or whom he needed the shells, he just knew he did. He felt like he was entering the dark tunnel of the flume ride at Kings Island-things were dark and all he could expect was a big drop and a splash. Then his phone rang.
The Ritter’s tore it. Sucking down a container full of creamy milk fat alongside her misery was no answer. She’d gone straight home to get her suit and goggles and had called Lynn Budusky, a friend whom she used to swim against in college, to meet at the IU Natatorium, where they had privileges and there were open lanes for free swim. Now she stood on the edge, bathed in blue fluorescent lights and the familiar chlorine smell, the long pool stretching out before her in perfectly organized geometric lines. She tucked her hair up under her cap as Lynn hit the water in the lane next to her with a hard splash and started eating up meters with her powerful chopping stroke. Lynn’s nickname had been “Mule” back in college, because she could pull like one in distance races, and the intervening years hadn’t changed that. Her shoulders and glutes were still thick and powerful. She’d been swimming a lot more than Susan lately, that much was clear. Susan launched herself into the water, slick as a dolphin, the one aspect of her swim game that she never lost, no matter how long a layoff she took. She started with a thousand meters freestyle, feeling her shoulders getting loose and finding more travel in their sockets.
