The Night Detectives - [7]

Except for the few years I was away, I had lived in this house all my life, and my grandparents before me. Yet the walls silently said, “You are only passing through here. We will remain.” The walls didn’t care about the tragedies this house had endured.

In the kitchen, I pulled the Beefeater out of the freezer and stirred a martini, the perfect chaser to diet cherry Coke. The only thing I had done to the house lately was to put up new curtains that completely hid the back yard from view when one was standing at the sink. They still did provide privacy, but I couldn’t avoid pushing them against the glass as an extra measure of safety.

I have stopped turning on the lights. I have stopped listening to jazz. I have stopped reading books. The outside world holds no appeal, either. I’ve made myself go to several movies at the AMC downtown at Arizona Center, but I left each one after a few minutes. I couldn’t stand any of it. So I sat in silence in the living room, sipping the cold gin, staring out at the street, trying to keep my mind locked down. At least the neighbors had stopped their well-meaning water torture of relentless expressions of sympathy over Robin’s death and inquiries about when Lindsey is coming home.

I went to the bedroom and stripped down without turning on any lights. I lay down on Lindsey’s side of the bed. It turned into Robin’s side, too, bastard that I am. Over on the bedside table sat John Lewis Gaddis’ biography of George F. Kennan. I felt all of Kennan’s emotional shakiness and had none of his brilliance. My “long telegram” would not be about the Soviet Union but about my own union that was breaking up, if not hopelessly broken. I picked it up and tried to read. Nothing caught the gears of my brain. It wasn’t Gaddis’ fault. So I tried to sleep. Peralta would be here at seven, packed for San Diego.

Too soon, I found myself on a Central Avenue bus. No, it was an airliner. I didn’t recognize anyone around me. But I dropped my cell phone on the floor and it slid backwards. What if Lindsey suddenly called? I got on my knees and found the phone two rows back.

Then I was out on the street. The sidewalk was broken and I had to watch my step. New buildings were going up and others were being restored. Bright paint was being applied. The city had never looked better, with a huge downtown skyline against majestic, snowcapped mountains. I would have to stop criticizing it.

A door was open and I walked in. Instantly, I was in my former office at the old courthouse. The big room was nearly empty and I felt sad, until I saw Robin sitting at the desk. She looked up and gave me that roguish smile. She stood and I took her in my arms, brushing back the long, tousled blond hair and covering her with kisses, sobbing and holding her while she laughed and we talked over each other. She put a finger over my mouth and I was silent, listening to her tell me… Tell me…

Then she was gone.

I was in a hallway painted blood red, looking for Robin. I walked for what seemed twenty-five paces, trying locked doors, and then turned into a narrower passage. I was completely alone. In my pocket, where my cell should have been, was only a wallet. I pulled it out again and it was a pack of Gauloises, the brand of cigarettes Lindsey smoked.

My gut was in full panic gear now but I kept walking, finding new hallways, each one smaller than the one that came before it, turning and turning. Where was I? It seemed as if I was going in circles. There was nobody to ask for directions. My cell phone was gone and my legs moved only with ever-greater effort. I kept going. Behind me was only darkness. Then I could barely make it through the hall; it was so narrow I turned sideways to make it into the next section. Finally, the walls tapered together in a “V” and I was at the end.

I knew by now that I shouldn’t push against the drywall, but I did.

I couldn’t stop myself.

I always did.

That was when the explosion came.

We were in the back yard on Cypress. Night. Robin was on the ground and I was on my knees, trying to resuscitate her, trying to stop the bleeding. Her blouse was wet from the blood and it was all over my hands.

I looked up and this time the woman with the gun was still standing there.

This time the woman was Lindsey.

Then the dark bedroom greeted me and I was awake, in the dimension where the mountains were low and the city was not reclaiming Central. Where the downtown skyline was still squat, monotonous, and ugly and the only real event of where I had been was Robin’s death in the back yard from a single gunshot.

I had this dream nearly every night. I called it my maze dream.

6

Peralta slid into my driveway at precisely seven a.m. I walked out with my bag and the surly attitude of a non-morning person, stowing my gear in the extended cab of his gigantic Ford F-150. I would leave the argument about his personal contribution to greenhouse gases and climate change for another day. He surprised me with a venti non-fat, no-whip mocha from Starbucks, my usual drink, and one he has disparaged on many occasions as virtually anti-American. He, of course, was drinking black coffee. We backed out, cruised through Willo and Roosevelt, and then slid onto Interstate 10 where it pops out of the deck park by Kenilworth School. It was only ninety-nine degrees. I was in my tan suit with a blue Brooks Brothers polka-dot tie, about to keel over from heat exhaustion.