with the tinted windows swerved back toward the sidewalk. I stood on the white line. The right fender of the car coming toward me grazed the right fender of the car behind me, which was back on the sidewalk. I heard a headlight pop.
I made it across the street and looked back over my shoulder. The car with the tinted windows that had tried to run me down was skidding across the street and into the northbound lane. It roared on, glass from the broken headlight tinkling behind. The other car that had come out of the DQ lot was turning down the narrow street just past Gwen’s.
People were streaming out of Gwen’s, including Gwen, who shouted across the street, “Lew, you all right?”
I nodded.
“Damnedest thing I ever saw,” said a black guy with a sandwich in his hand. “Looked like they were trying to squash you right between them.”
“Melanie’s calling the cops,” Gwen said. “You better come back in and wait.”
I shook my head no, crossed the street and moved toward the DQ. I couldn’t talk. Not fear. Memories.
When I got inside my office, I went to the desk, sat with a reminder of the taste of recent meat loaf. My knee was throbbing slightly. My shoulder ached. My hands were trembling.
My phone started to ring. I stared at it for five rings and picked it up, expecting Taurus the Philosopher.
“Yes,” I said.
“Not here,” said Ames.
“What’s not where?”
“Parking lot at the college,” he said. “Seven Tauruses. None with fender damage.”
“I know,” I said.
“You know?”
“He just tried to kill me,” I said.
“You’d best call the police,” said Ames. “I’ll be right there.”
“I don’t think I have to call them. They’ll be here in a few minutes.”
And they were, less than twenty minutes after Ames hung up.
When the knock came at the door, I was staring at the painting on my wall of the dark jungle. I was having trouble seeing the spot of color. I counted on that one small spot. I hoped it hadn’t vanished.
“Come in,” I called.
Etienne Viviase entered, back in detective garb, sport jacket, loose tie. He didn’t say anything, just sat in the chair on the other side of the desk and shook his head. I watched him fold his arms and turn his eyes toward me.
Finally, with a sigh and a blowing out of air, he said, “Well?”
“Not very,” I answered.
“Well, what happened?”
“Someone tried to kill me,” I said. “Maybe it was an accident. A drunken driver.”
“Came right up on the sidewalk and didn’t stop?” he said. “Witnesses say whoever it was would have rolled right over you if another car hadn’t sideswiped him.”
“If they say so,” I said. “I was busy.”
“Didn’t catch a license number? Part of one?”
I shook my head no.
“I don’t want to be here,” he said.
I knew how that felt.
“For some reason, the department has decided that you and I have a relationship. Your name comes up, it lands on my desk.”
In a way, we did have a relationship.
“My day is not brightened and my burden not lightened by my encounters with you,” he said.
“I’m sorry.”
“Your apology will be taken into consideration. About a week ago a kid gets run down and killed. You start looking for the driver. About half an hour ago someone tries to run you down. It does not strike me as a coincidence. Enlighten me, Fonesca.”
“I’ll have some information for you soon,” I said.
“If you’re alive to give it to me.”
“Did you ever have one of those feelings that you knew something, heard something, saw something that would clear up a crime, but you can’t quite remember what it is?”
“I’ve been a cop for a quarter of a century,” he said. “I have the feeling at least twice a week.”
“I need a little more time,” I said. “If-”
The phone was ringing.
“Why don’t you get an answering machine?” Viviase asked.
“Had one for a while,” I said. “Didn’t like it.”
The truth was that I dreaded seeing that light blinking, knowing there were one, two, three, five messages waiting for me, telling me something I didn’t want to hear, asking me to do something I didn’t want to do, like calling back. It was easier to just pick up the ringing phone, not have time to think about who or what it might be.
I picked up the ringing phone.
“Will you stop now?” the man on the other end said, his voice quivering.
“No,” I said. “But we can talk.”
Viviase looked at me.
“You owe me,” the man said.
“You tried to kill me,” I said.
“You don’t understand. I saved your life.”
“Who is that?” Viviase said, standing.
I put the phone against my chest and said, “The man who killed Kyle McClory.”
Viviase started to reach out for the phone, changed his mind and nodded for me to go on. I put the phone to my ear and said, “You saved my life?”
“I was in the parking lot outside your office waiting for you,” the man said. “I think I was going to talk to you. I saw you coming, saw the car behind you bump up on the sidewalk. I cut him off.”
“Why?”
“I can’t explain,” he said. “I mean, I can explain but if I do… I saved your life. Doesn’t that mean anything?”
“I didn’t ask you to save my life,” I said.
“It doesn’t mean anything that I saved you?”
“It means something,” I said. “I just don’t know what it means.”
I looked at Viviase, who wanted to know what was going on.
“Santayana was wrong,” the man on the phone said softly.
“At the Alamo?”
Viviase was more than puzzled now.
“George Santayana,” the man said. “To knock a thing down, especially if it is cocked at an arrogant angle, is a deep delight to the blood.”
“He was wrong?”
“The blood forgets but the soul remembers.”
He hung up.
“What the hell was that?”
“He’s sorry he killed Kyle McClory,” I said.
“I’m glad to hear that,” Viviase said. “Who is he?”
“Not sure,” I said, “but he wants to be found. He didn’t try to kill me a little while ago. He saved my life.”
“He wants to kill you, but he saved your life?”
