Bad Love

'Well,' she told me, 'I'd better get into the kitchen. Guess it's too late for you to talk to them, but you can come back tomorrow.'

'Great.'

We walked inside. Chondra and Tiffani were on the sofa in the rear den, watching cartoons on TV. A cat was being cheerfully decapitated. Tiffani held the remote control.

'Bye, girls.'

Glazed eyes.

'Say bye to the doctor.'

The girls looked up. Small waves and smiles.

'I'm leaving now,' I said. 'I'll be coming out here tomorrow- maybe we can get a chance to talk.'

'See you,' said Tiffani. She nudged her sister. Chondra said, 'Bye.'

Evelyn was gone. I found her out in the kitchen, pulling something out of the freezer. Rodriguez was stretched back in the velveteen recliner, eyes closed, a beer in his hand.

'See you tomorrow,' I said.

'One sec.' Evelyn came over. The package in her hand was a diet frozen entree. Enchilada Fiesta. 'Better be the day after- I forgot there's some things I got to do.'

'Okay. Same time?'

'Sure.' She looked at the frozen package and shook her head.

'How 'bout New York steak?' she called out to her husband.

'Yeah,' he said, without opening his eyes.

'He likes his steak,' she said quietly. 'For a fella his size, he's a real meat eater.'

She followed me all the way out to the front lawn. Looked at the TV dinner in her hand. 'No one likes this one. Maybe I'll have it.'

I hit bad traffic on the western end of the 210, and by the time I pulled into the carport, it was after seven. When I got in the house, the dog greeted me, but he had his head down and looked subdued. I smelled the reason first, then saw it, on the service porch floor near the door.

'Oh,' I said.

He drooped lower.

'My mistake for locking you in.' I rubbed his neck, and he gave me a grateful lick, then trotted over to the fridge.

'Let's not push things, bucko.'

I cleaned up the mess, reflecting on the responsibilities of pet foster-parenthood, and phoned in for messages, wondering if anyone had responded to my ad. No one had. Nothing from Shirley Rosenblatt, Ph.D., either. Or Mr. Silk. The operator gave me a few business calls. I decided to put the tape out of my mind, but the child's chant stayed there and I couldn't sit still.

I fed the dog and was contemplating what to do about my own dinner when Milo called at eight-ten.

'No prints on the tape except yours. Any mail problems today?' He sounded tired.

'No, but I did get a call.' I told him about the giggling man.

'Silk, huh? Well, that's a pisser.'

'What is?'

'Sounds like you've got a nutcase on your hands.'

'You don't think it's serious?'

Pause. 'Most of these guys are cowards, like to stay in the background. But to be honest, Alex, who knows?'

I said, 'I think I may have found what 'bad love' means,' and filled him in about the symposium.

'Seventy-nine,' he said. 'Nut with a real long memory.'

'Think that's a bad sign?'

'I- let's put our heads together and hash it out. You eat yet?'

'Nope.'

'I'm over in Palms, got to finish up a few things. I could meet you at that place on Ocean in about half an hour.'

'Don't think I'd better,' I said. 'Left my guest alone too long already.'

'What guest? Oh, him. Why can't you leave him? Is he lonely and depressed?'

'It's more of a gastrointestinal issue,' I said, rubbing the dog behind the ears. 'He just ate and will be needing easy ingress and egress.'

'Ingr- oh… fun. Well, get a dog door, Alex. Then, get a life.'

'A dog door means sawing a hole. He's only a short-term lodger.'

'Suit yourself.'

'Fine,' I said. 'I'll put a door in- Robin wants a dog anyway. How about you bring one over, I'll install it, and then we can go out.'

'Where the hell am I gonna find a dog door at this hour?'

'You're the detective.'

Slam.

He arrived at nine-fifteen, pulling an unmarked Ford into the carport. His tie was loose, he looked wilted, and he carried two bags- one from a pet store, the other from a Chinese restaurant.

The dog came up and nuzzled his cuffs and he gave the animal a grudging pat and said, 'Ingress and egress.'

Removing a metal and plastic contraption from the pet store bag, he handed it to me. 'Seeing as I don't feel like manual labor before dinner and the handy resident of this household is out of town, I figured we'd better do takeout.'

He went over to the fridge, dog following.

Watching his slow trudge, I said, 'You look wiped. New blood buckets?'

He got a Grolsch, opened it, and nodded. 'Armed robbery, what I was working on in Palms. Little mom-and-pop grocery. Pop died a few months ago, mom's eighty, barely hanging on. Two little shits came in this afternoon, flashed knives, and threatened to rape her and cut off her breasts if she didn't hand over the cashbox. Old lady puts them at around thirteen or fourteen. She's too shook to say much else, chest pains, shortness of breath. They admitted her to St. John's for observation.'

'Poor thing. Thirteen or fourteen?'

'Yeah. The timing of the robbery might mean the little assholes waited till after school to do it- how's that for your extracurricular activities? Or maybe they're just your basic truant psychopaths out for a fun day.'

'Urban Huck and Tom,' I said.

'Sure. Smoke a corncob of crack, gangbang Becky Thatcher.'

He sat down at the table and sniffed the top of the beer bottle. The dog had remained at the refrigerator and was looking at him, as if contemplating approach, but Milo's tone and expression stilled him and he came over and settled at my feet.

I said, 'So no one else's prints were on the tape.'

'Not a one.'

'What does that mean? Someone took the trouble to wipe it clean?'

'Or handled it with gloves. Or there were prints and they got smeared when you touched the tape.' He stretched his legs. 'So show me this brochure you found.'

I went to the library, got the conference program, and gave it to him. He scanned it, 'No one named Silk here.'

'Maybe he was in the audience.'

'You look intense,' he said, pointing to my photo. 'That beard- kind of rabbinic.'

'Actually, I was bored.' I told him how I'd become a co-chair.

He put down his bottle. 'Nineteen seventy-nine. Someone carrying around a grudge all this time?'

'Or something happened recently that triggered a recollection from seventy-nine. I tried calling Katarina and Rosenblatt, to see if maybe they'd gotten anything in the mail, but she's closed up shop in Santa Barbara and he's