Not surprisingly, my curiosity won out. I didn’t really understand why, but over the years curiosity had become a kind of life raft for me. Vampires often perish from the inability to give their activities a guiding context. They lose the ability to make efficacious practical judgments. For me, a certain fascination for the complexities of chance, awe before the world’s infinite contingency, was probably as close as I ever got to finding a guiding context for myself. Pleasure in my own curiosity was as close as I got to feeling at home in the world.
This may not have been any more than a story I told myself, but it was a useful story. If I were human, the world of social relations would provide a context to find meaning in my activities. But I was on my own. On the one hand, free to have my own reasons for doing what I chose to do. But at the same time, condemned to finding those reasons for myself.
When Saturday rolled around, I called Karla as I had said I would. She had picked up the car and bought the computer. She was as excited about the MacBook as she was about the car. We exchanged email addresses. I told her I wouldn’t use email very often, and then only for general matters without urgency, but asked her to check her mail once a day, or so, just in case. I also gave her instructions to pick me up the following evening at 11:00 p.m. by the footbridge on University Avenue. I had decided to have a talk with Richardson on money matters, and I would play the Arnaud factor by ear.
The next evening, I arrived at the footbridge a few minutes early. The night was clear and cool, with a light breeze. The moon was just a sliver, low on the horizon. A beautiful dark night. Karla was already there, parked directly across the street from the bridge. I went around the car and got in on the passenger side. She was wearing a stocking cap pulled down tight on her skull and a black leather jacket. She looked like she was on her way to unload a truck.
“Nice hat,” I said. “Been waiting long?”
She ignored the remark about the hat. “Not long. Five minutes, maybe. Where to?”
Richardson had a piece of prime riverfront property out on the Garden Highway, not far from San Juan Road. “Take Howe down to El Camino and turn left,” I said. “Then go all the way to the end where El Camino hits El Centro Road.”
She thought about it for few seconds. “It would be faster to take 50 to I-5.”
“We’re not in a hurry. Let’s go the slow way. How do you like the car?”
“It’s a nice car. What’s with Tony the mechanic?”
“What do you mean?” I asked, anticipating what was to come.
“He’s a little scary, don’t you think? He’s like, bigger than my refrigerator. He looks like he could throw a car at you if he got mad enough. I mean, big guys don’t usually bother me. But he’s freaky big. I don’t mean he’s like a freak, or anything. Actually, his body is kind of amazing. It’s like, perfectly proportioned, but huge.”
As humans go, Tony was a little scary. He was Navaho, and big even by their standards. Six foot five, with the barrel-chested, narrow-hipped build not uncommon among his people. Tony had a slight scowl that made strangers think he was angry, but he wasn’t. His face was just put together that way. He was a very friendly, gentle man.
“Tony’s all right. Did he give you a hard time about the car?”
“Not at all. He seemed kind of short tempered until I told him why I was there. Then he started falling all over himself, being like, super-polite.”
“Did you ask him about Linda?”
“Yeah. He said she was doing fine and she got accepted at UC Davis.”
“That’s good.”
“He also asked how Mio was. Is that your wife?”
Tony was one of the few people who had some kind of established relationship with both Mio and me. For me, he was a mechanic and he supplied a car. For Mio, Tony occasionally provided a different kind of service. But I wasn’t ready to discuss any of this with Karla.
“I think it was Montaigne,” I said, shifting the conversation away from Mio, “who said that curiosity was a scourge of the soul.”
“I’m not sure what ‘scourge’ means,” Karla said.
Most people will try to hide their ignorance, even when it means preserving it. I was beginning to think Karla might be OK. “Originally,” I explained, “a scourge was a whip used to dispense punishment.”
“So does that mean if I ask too many questions you’ll whip me?”
She seemed about half serious.
“Think of it as my taking an interest in your soul,” I said.
She looked at me like I’d said something bordering on repulsive. “You’re not going to start getting religious, are you?”
“Karla,” I said, chuckling, “you can ask questions. Just don’t get miffed if I choose not to answer.”
Our eyes met briefly, then Karla returned to her driving. When we got to the end of El Camino, I had her turn right, then left on San Juan Road. San Juan terminated at the Garden Highway, a levee road running along the Sacramento River. Between the river and the levee there was a narrow strip of land decorated with the mansions of some of Sacramento’s more moneyed residents.
I directed her to pull over just before the stop sign. Karla pulled the car onto the shoulder and stopped.
“I’ll get out here,” I said, opening the door.
“Am I supposed to wait for you?” she asked.
“I’m not sure how long I’ll be. Maybe an hour. Maybe two or three. I’ll call you on your cell when I’m ready to be picked up.”
Karla glanced
