“The kid that drooled,” he said, nodding.
“Cal Shepard did not drool. He was a popular jock. That was Jon Spisiak.”
“A kid that drools in high school,” he mused, shaking his head. He stood at the open refrigerator looking in. It was almost empty. “You don’t have bottled water?”
“And I wouldn’t even say Jon drooled per se,” she said, and gestured at a white watercooler in the corner. “It was more like he had extra saliva. Oh. So Sal’s coming over, by the way.”
“The new boyfriend from group? This is great. I can submit him to the rigorous screening process.”
“He’ll fail. I have to warn you.”
“Of course. They always do.”
“But more than usual. Trust me.”
“What. Is he a protester? A militia member?”
“He used to be a cop. Now he wears fatigues and sometimes a balaclava.”
“Guy wears a balaclava in L.A.?”
“He took me up to Tahoe once. He wore it then. A black one. He looked like a paraplegic ninja.”
He was following her into the living room, where a leather couch and chairs surrounded a low glass table.
“What, he wants to keep his face hidden?”
“I dunno, Dad. Ask him yourself.”
“I can’t ask him about the balaclava if he’s not wearing it.”
“OK. I’m like officially tired of this subject.”
“Touchy!”
She spun her chair slowly and stopped, picked her mug out of the cup holder. He sat down opposite.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“Anyway. I look forward to meeting him.”
“So T. still hasn’t been heard from.”
“No. And I think it’s time your mother moved on.”
Casey blew across the surface of her tea.
“I realize she’s loyal,” he went on. “But who knows what’s happening with him. You know? It could be anything. Maybe he had legal trouble she never knew about and a secret account in the Caymans. Right? Change will be good for her. Something new.”
Casey nodded and sipped.
“It’ll be hard,” he went on, and drank his water, “for her to know how long to wait before she makes key decisions, lets people go. There’s that young guy that works there, that she hired a while back. And then the financial situation. I say find a good lawyer and pass the buck.”
“She filed a missing persons report,” said Casey softly. “And she’s been calling the embassy every day.”
“The U.S. embassy? In Belize?”
He heard the front doorbell ring.
“That’ll be him. The father of your grandchild.”
“What?”
“Kidding.”
“I’ll get it,” he said, and rose.
As usual she was right; as soon as he pushed the button to open the door he knew the guy was a loser. Tamped-down anger, free-floating rage.
“Hey, welcome,” he said affably, and stood back.
“Who are you?” asked the guy.
“My father,” called Casey from within. “Hal, meet Sal.”
“We rhyming,” said Sal flatly, and rolled past him with no gesture of greeting. Hal had seen his share of bitter disabled guys and was inured to it—more or less preoccupied with this new information about Susan, he realized, turning from the door as it closed. His wife who was consumed with anxiety about the real-estate guy. The extent of her affection for Stern, the transparently maternal attachment, if examined by a professional, would likely prove rooted in some psychopathology related to the accident.
“I should get back to the office,” he told Casey, and extended a hand to Sal. “It was nice to meet you.”
Sal did something with his own hand that looked like a gang sign. A poser, thought Hal, as he stooped to kiss Casey’s cheek. Understandable, but hardly deserving of respect. Before he was paralyzed he had been a cop, likely a swaggerer and a bully since almost all of them were, but now that he was spinal-cord injured he identified with the same underclass he used to dream of bludgeoning.
Outside Hal passed the suitor’s conveyance, a battered hatchback in gunmetal gray that featured a bumper sticker calling for the rescue of POW/MIAs. It was parked half on the driveway and half on the lawn, and the right-side tires had ripped up a fresh track in the turf.
Law-enforcement officers were not his favorites among the varied ranks of persons who chose a career in public service. He recognized that the job carried with it certain personality requisites, such as a predisposition to violence, and that the demand for violent enforcers was embedded in the system, as was the supply of violent offenders. By some estimates, one out of twenty-five Americans was a sociopath.
And that was higher than anywhere else on the globe: this great nation was a fertile breeding ground for psychos. Or rather, as the economists would put it, the U.S. of A. had a comparative advantage in antisocial personality disorder.
And hey: these guys had to have incomes, just like everyone else.
At the very least one in fifty.
Casey, of course, could not be dissuaded from her choices, having become stubborn and intractable after the accident—a development he had come to accept for the strength it lent her. This boyfriend choice, like the others, had to be left to play out. Still it was difficult to believe she had been on the telephone with the cop-turned-homeboy using that tender voice. Slipping behind the steering wheel, Hal repressed a shudder.
Remember: she is grown up. He often had to remind himself.
Also, she carried pepper spray when she went out at night. She had taken a course in disability martial arts.
Susan had to be frustrated, he reflected, driving. She likely felt responsible for what had happened to Stern. This feeling of responsibility was completely irrational, of course, but he knew it well. When regret was strong enough, guilt rose up to greet it. Maybe she thought she should have kept Stern from traveling alone; maybe she thought she should have persuaded him into therapy or grief counseling. Not that this would even have been possible.
They should talk more, Hal and Susan. They lay down to sleep at different hours, they rarely went out, lately there had been more distance between them than he wanted.
An old lady with a walker stepped out in
