“You can stop shaking me now,” he said. He didn’t know whether to hug her or kick her in the behind. He lay in the bed as if dropped from a great height. “I’m awake, or at least I better be.”
“What happened?”
“A real brain-broiler of a nightmare, that’s all.”
Melissa crouched by the bed. He felt relieved; she wore a dumpy pair of pajamas rather than the nightdress of the dream. And he was pleased to see she didn’t have a cigarette in her mouth.
“I’ll bet they heard you all the way from here to Bowie,” she told him.
“What?”
“You were screaming.”
“Come on, I was not.”
“You were screaming bloody murder. I was almost afraid to come in. It sounded like someone was doing a number on you with a blowtorch.”
Kurt refused to believe it. “I wasn’t screaming—men don’t scream. You’re lying, as usual.”
“Believe what you like.” Now she was giggling at him. “I told you those Mexican TV dinners give you bad dreams. But do you listen?”
“What time is it?”
“Way past two.” Grimacing, she looked at her hands and wiped them on her pajamas. “Gross. You’re all icky.”
“I probably lost ten pounds in sweat.”
Kurt and Melissa looked at each other.
“Someone’s at the door,” she whispered.
This was too much, too soon. The thunking was the same. “Be a sport and—” but he stopped short. He would not recite the dream verbatim. “Go see who it is,” he said.
“No way. I’m not answering the door in my pajamas.”
“Please. As a personal favor to me, just go answer the door. I’ll give you a dollar.”
“Forget it. Only nuts knock on doors at this hour. It could be some escapee from St. Elizabeth’s… It could be
“You’re the nut,” he concluded. “I hope it’s the stork, coming to take you back.”
She gripped his shoulder, fretting. “But it could be one of the vampires!”
Kurt got out of bed. “Do they make corks big enough to fit your mouth?” He headed for the hall.
“You’re not going to answer the door in your boxers, are you?”
“Why shouldn’t I? It’s not the pope or the President. They came last week, didn’t they?”
“What are you taking
“Taking what?” he said. He was holding his service revolver; he’d taken it off the nightstand without even realizing it. “Impulse, my dear. If you’d had the dream I just had, you’d understand.”
Kurt went out and down the staircase, thinking that the only thing funnier than a man walking down the stairs in his underwear was a man walking down the stairs in his underwear with a gun.
In the foyer, he held the pistol behind him. He could feel the steel’s cold through his shorts. He opened the door a crack and wilted.
Chief Bard walked in. He held a large carry-out coffee and wore clothes that looked slept in. “Don’t dress up on my account,” he said.
“Sorry, Chief. If I’d known it was you, I would have put on my polka dots.”
“Quit yammering and get your suspended ass in gear. We’ve got to hustle.”
“Hustle?” Kurt said. “To where?”
“South County General. We’re meeting Glen at the body shop.”
“What the hell for?”
“I don’t know. The prick called me up a little while ago, said he found something at Belleau Wood.”
“Shit, Chief. I don’t want to go the morgue.”
“Well you’re going anyway,” Bard said. It had already been decided. “I’ll be damned if I’m going there alone at this hour.”
Kurt realized he had no choice. Defying Bard was equivalent to defying King Neptune. “Let me put some clothes on.”
“You can go nude for all I care. Just hurry the fuck up.”
Kurt trudged back upstairs. Melissa stood tensely in wait. “Let me go, too, Kurt,” she pleaded.
“The only place you’re going is to bed.”
“Oh, come on.”
“Get out of my way, Roachface.”
“I wanna go to the morgue!”
“You’re a morbid little animal,” he informed her. He pushed the door to and pulled on his clothes. “I’ll stuff you in the toilet tank if you don’t
They drove in Bard’s big T-bird. A light rain began as they turned off 154. It misted the windshield and made Route 50 shine like oil.
“Where’s Higgins?” Kurt asked.
Bard scowled at him. “Working your shift, remember?”
“Oh. Right.”
Kurt told the chief about his dream, hoping to exorcise it from his mind. Bard laughed uproariously at him, which lessened the severity of its effect, and that helped. “Don’t feel bad,” Bard said, as if to offer solace. “Nightmares are an occupational hazard for cops; it’s a curse that comes with the tin. One time I dreamed I was in bed with the best-looking blonde I’d ever seen. I mean, this girl was so beautiful she’d make Marilyn Monroe look like pimples on a gorilla’s dick. And this broad’s begging for it, right? She’s begging me to let her have it with the hoagie, but in the course of things, I come to find out that she’s got two vaginas. One was too small for me to get my hose in, and the other was full of gravel. I’d love to hear what a head doctor’d have to say about that one.”
Kurt winced.
“So who was the chick on the phone?” Bard asked.
“Beats me.”
“How about the skinny dude who left the body bag on the bed?”
Kurt’s throat tightened. “Swaggert, I think.”
That brought silence. Bard rolled down the window and spat, perhaps not wanting to reveal that the topic of Doug Swaggert inspired unease. Down the road, he said, “It’s fear.”
“What is?”
“The dream you had. The nightmare. It’s job-related fear, fear of violent death, fear of the unknown. That’s what a head doctor would tell you.”
Kurt smiled. “Since when are you a head doctor?”
“Hey, I took a psychology class in high school once. I know about these things. Fear is nothing to be ashamed of, it’s normal for those in our line. These days, a cop’d be crazy
“I’m not afraid of death,” Kurt said. “Simply because I’ve got no intention of dying anytime soon.”
“Consciously, you’re not. But dreams are
“You’re right, I am afraid,” Kurt said. It was a sudden, otherworldly response. “I’m scared shitless.”
“You and me both.”
Kurt lit a cigarette. Smoke gushed out of his mouth like an escaping spirit. “So level with me, then. Are you convinced that Doug’s dead?”
“Dead and buried. Murdered by stoners for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. And ten to one his body’ll never be found, so we’ll never know exactly what went down. That’s the worst part, if you ask me. Never
