• • • • •
The car had to be towed. He called Casey, and Sal came to get him.
“I appreciate this,” he told Sal, mildly humiliated.
Sometimes a sociopath helped you out.
They drove together to a rental car agency, Hal shooting sidelong glances at Sal’s hands on the controls. The fingers bore small tattoos between the knuckles, which he was relieved to see were small plantlike designs rather than, say, LOVE and HATE. Looked like pot, possibly. There was a stale smell in the car—sweat, grease and cigarettes. He cracked the window, then rolled it all the way down. The dash was covered in stickers: rock bands, possibly, to judge by the graphics. Of course the names were unfamiliar to him. Blood, skulls in cowboy hats, sheriff’s badges and guns, tigers and poppies and roses and faux-Gothic lettering.
Some of the paraphernalia was Mexican, some American, but all of it was equally encoded. Loud music played, a polka beat with electric guitar and an accordion. A narcocorrido if he was not mistaken: he had learned about these on National Public Radio. They celebrated drug kingpins.
Sal was moving his head to the beat and seemed to be muttering the lyrics.
“So your Spanish is fluent?” Hal said loudly, and smiled.
Sal nodded and flicked his fingers against the wheel, still mouthing.
“You grow up in L.A.?”
“East. I used to be police,” said Sal. “L.A.P.D.”
“Casey told me.”
“She tell you I got shot by a friendly?”
“She didn’t tell me that part.”
“Yeah. This little kid, his first day on the job.”
“Jesus,” said Hal, shaking his head. “That’s . . .”
“Fucked-up shit,” said Sal, and went back to hitting the steering wheel and jutting his head forward in an embarrassing rhythm. Thankfully they had already reached the car place.
She has to be kidding, thought Hal as Sal screeched out of the lot touching his forehead in a mock salute.
He called the office from the car-rental counter. He had to take the rest of the day off, he said: car accident, and half the afternoon was already gone. Then he tried Susan’s office and got the answering machine.
He wished he could go back to Casey’s apartment, but that was inappropriate and would come off tedious and doting. Also very possibly Sal had gone back there also. No, he had to make his own entertainment. He would drive home in the rental and relax, take the dog for a walk.
•
His street was silent—neighbors dispersed to other parts of the city, in their compartments of earning. The branches of trees were still, there was no breeze at all, and pulling into the driveway in the rental car he had a curious impression: nothing was moving.
The car shifted into park, he sat beneath a giant maple. The leaves had turned red. After he turned the key to shut off the engine, even he was still. He concurred in the stillness of the scene, half by choice, half by temperament. There was a kind of soft suffocation in it . . . time, he thought, passing forever in front of him and not passing at all.
A young man was coming out the front door. It was Robert, who worked with Susan, shrugging on a jacket as he closed the door behind him.
“Robert!” he said, but since he was inside the car the sound of his voice was trapped. He opened the car door and Robert glanced up from his feet, startled briefly before he smiled. Hal stepped up and shook his hand.
“Hey,” said Robert. He was handsome—far nearer to what Casey should have for a boyfriend than, say, Sal was. Although Robert, like Tom Stern, erred on the side of a prep-school caricature. No doubt he had rowed for Yale. “Hey! Yeah! So how you doing, man? I’m here on courier duty. Susan’s working at home today.”
“You looking for a new job yet?”
“I am. I wish I wasn’t.”
“I know. Unfortunate.”
“It’s a tragedy, is what it is.”
“You don’t think maybe he, you know, chose to leave? Numbered accounts, like that?”
“Hey, you gotta think that way. Right? Being the IRS and all.”
“Occupational hazard, I guess.”
“Seriously, I considered it for a minute or two. But nah. He’s basically a good guy. And I mean there are projects we’re right in the middle of. I’m talking, with him not being here? Like literally millions of dollars are getting washed down the drain.”
“Have you met my daughter?” asked Hal, aware this was a non sequitur. When he hit the curb something had jarred him—he thought the shock of the crumpling fender had torqued his neck, possibly. Suddenly he was feeling lightheaded.
“Casey? Sure. Why?”
“Oh, I don’t know . . . ,” said Hal vaguely, and all at once they were awkward. “Anyway. Good luck with the job search.”
Inside he heard the shower running. A sealed manila envelope lay on the dining room table, along with the mail. The dog must be upstairs with Susan. But climbing to the second floor, he shivered with a passing chill—the house felt wrong. He and Susan needed to go away somewhere, he thought: since the accident they never traveled much, fearing Casey would suddenly need them.
“Susan?” he called, and the dog came galumphing out of the bedroom.
“In here,” came her voice, and he went into the bathroom, where the mirrors were steamed.
“Ran into Robert on his way out,” he said to the shower curtain.
“Uh huh? What are you doing home, honey?”
“Car accident.”
She pulled back the shower curtain. Her face was flushed; she looked lovely.
“You OK?”
“Maybe a little headache. No big deal. But I have a rental.”
“No one was hurt though?”
“Zero casualties.” He reached out and kissed her. “You smell so good.”
“It’s the shampoo.”
He wanted to go to bed with her. He held her and kissed her more, water falling on both of them.
“Oh, Hal, not this second,” she said. “I’m all wet.”
“That’s fine with me.”
“Later. I promise.”
He let her go and stepped back, his hair plastered.
“You look cute,” she said, and swatted the wet
