by R. L. Maizes
Three days later, he signs the apartment lease, pays a deposit, and moves in. When he frees Mo from the carrier, she presses herself under the dresser and refuses to come out. Perhaps the streaked vinyl flooring and sagging mattress depress her as much as they do Zev. If he inspects, he’s afraid he’ll find bedbugs, but if he doesn’t, he won’t sleep, imagining them there. A scorpion waves its tail when he lifts a pillow. Zev bats it to the floor, crushes it under his heel, and wipes up the mess.
In the bathroom, cartoon roadrunners dash across the shower curtain. A man pees into a lunar crater in a framed poster. Preferring the pink wall with a nail hole, Zev takes the picture down. The rest of the art in the apartment is the kind found in office lobbies: a sunset over the Sonoran Desert, a flicker nesting in a saguaro. Once white, the kitchen appliances are gray. A small washer tops a dryer in a closet. The place comes with a twenty-four-inch flat-screen TV, cable included in the rent, and Wi-Fi.
He’s sorry he forgot La La’s castle drawing. He would have hung it above the apartment’s only table, an unsteady butcher block. Pushed into a corner of the tiny kitchen, the table barely sits two. He leans a photo of La La holding a plastic stethoscope to Tiny’s heart against the nightstand lamp where it will be the last thing he sees before he closes his eyes.
With supplies he took from the motel, Zev scrubs the apartment and washes his clothes. He walks a mile to a used car dealer, where he pays cash for an old BMW, registering it to Roger. The manager of the lot barely glances at the stolen license.
Zev has an instinct about the man. “I have some jewelry I might be looking to sell and some silver.”
“I know someone who’d be interested,” the manager says. He gives Zev the name of a gas station and directions to the place. “You want Arturo.”
When he returns to the apartment, Zev reaches under the dresser and runs his fingers along Mo’s cheek. “This is pretty weird for us both.” She raises her chin, and he scratches her neck.
The next morning, he inspects the pool. Mesquite and paloverde trees border the property. Agaves, chollas, prickly pears, and a knife-edged plant he can’t name dot the rocky landscape. The water is a light, artificial blue, lanes separated by ropes and buoys. The intense sun has burned off the chlorine, and he can barely smell it. He has it all to himself.
Stretching out on a lounge chair, he imagines what it would be like to retire. He doesn’t have the money, and he’d get bored, watching birds and still water. There isn’t a door he can’t get through, a window he can’t open. It would be a shame to waste his skills. He enjoys rescuing stranded homeowners, and he might even miss the burglaries, the surge of adrenaline giving way to satisfaction once he’s safe.
He never intended to hurt anyone. And who can say it wasn’t Claude Thomas’s time? That he wouldn’t have had a stroke on the landing even if Zev weren’t there?
Zev’s jeans and long-sleeved shirt, fine for spring in Colorado, trap the Phoenix heat and make him sluggish. He closes his eyes to the sun. Listening to the hum of the pool filter, he falls asleep.
When he wakes, he’s startled to find the chair next to his occupied by a woman. Out of habit, he touches his back pocket, checking for his wallet. He raises his backrest, so she isn’t looking down on him. “I didn’t hear you sit down.” She smells of the sunscreen that streaks her cheekbones. Reading glasses pinch the end of her nose.
“You were out.” She pushes her glasses to the top of her head, flipping back blond hair cut in a bowl, gray roots beginning to show. Wet from a swim she must have taken while he was sleeping. A facelift hollows her eyes, but her expression is open, poised to take in more than what’s on the surface. Under a blue one-piece bathing suit, her belly rises gently. Not wishing to be caught staring, Zev looks away. “Are you visiting someone?” she says, lowering a copy of Psychology Today.
The magazine is one of Zev’s favorites, providing insight into human nature and helping him answer questions such as who will turn a blind eye to his activities and who among his contacts he can trust. He’s already read the issue. “The cover story about fathers and daughters is interesting,” he says. “In the magazine. Anyway, I moved in yesterday.”
She looks at the cover, then pulls a water bottle from a cloth bag decorated with a Chihuahua, an image that makes him think of La La. As she sips, Zev realizes he must look out of place, sitting by the pool in street clothes, without water or anything to keep him occupied. She sticks out her hand—slender ringless fingers, nails painted turquoise. She could be single, or maybe she doesn’t wear her ring to the pool. “Julia. What’s interesting about it?”
He wipes his palm on his jeans. “Roger.” Her grip is firm. “It says fathers have a greater impact on daughters than mothers. I wouldn’t have thought that.”
“I’ll have to read it. You must have a daughter.”
“Yes. Grown, with her own life.”
“Sounds like you miss her. I know the feeling. I have a boy and a girl, both married.” They fall silent. A truck on a nearby road beeps, backing up. Zev fans himself with his hand.
“Did you move here with your wife?” Julia asks.
“Not unless she’s a cat.”
“You’re an animal person!” She scrolls through photos on her phone and shows him one of a Chihuahua. “This is Dee-Dee.”
“Short for—”
“Desdemona.”
He was going to guess Dorothy. He vaguely remembers a character named Desdemona in a Shakespeare play he didn’t bother to read in high school.
“Where are you from?” she asks.
“Missouri,” Zev says.
“Any family in town?”
Her questions make him uneasy. Rising from the chair, he grabs a leaf skimmer and runs it through the pool.
“Maintenance will do that,” she says.
“I like things clean.” He sets the skimmer down and scoops water from the pool, splashing it on his face to cool him. It’s been decades since he met a woman socially.
“Are you retired?” she asks.
“I’m a locksmith.”
“I’ll keep that in mind in case I’m ever locked out. Do you enjoy it?”
“Anyone ever tell you that you ask a lot of questions?”
“Hazard of the trade. I used to be a therapist.”
Zev’s never been in therapy but he has the idea—where he got it he isn’t sure—that therapists can tell when you’re lying. When he leans the skimmer against a wall, it falls to the ground, clattering. “Have to feed the cat.”
“I was just leaving, myself.” Throwing on a black-and-gold cover-up, she gathers her things, and they exit via a slate path lined with boulders on either side. Julia in front in flip-flops. They’ve taken only a few steps when Zev hears the rattle. Glancing down, he sees the snake on the path. It must have been sunning itself, but now it flicks its tongue, its body curled. Julia is about to step on it. Zev grabs her arm and yanks her back, then steadies her, so she doesn’t fall.
“What in God’s name—” she says.
“Look,” he says, and points.
She backs up, putting more distance between her and the rattler, her hand covering her mouth.
“I’m surprised you didn’t hear it,” he says. “You were just about on top of it.”
“I took out my hearing aids. To swim.”
The gray-black snake slithers behind a boulder and disappears. They stare at the empty spot where the rattler was, and Zev pictures the snake, doing what it had to do to protect itself. Julia’s chest rises and falls quickly, as though she’s reliving the incident, too. She looks older than she did at the pool, the lines on her face more pronounced.
“I hate to think how that could have turned out,” she says. She raises her eyes to his, and he sees gratitude in them, and uncertainty, whether about him or something else, he doesn’t know.
“I could walk you home,” he says, knowing he should, though he’s hot and tired, and just wants to get back to his apartment.
“If you don’t mind. I’m just a few houses down. I’ll pay more attention to where I put my feet.” They walk to the end of the path, then cross to a block of single-family homes. Julia’s is a small ranch house. Her front yard is xeriscaped with cactuses and a mesquite tree, a birdhouse shaped like a castle hanging from a branch. Julia unlocks the door. “I think I’ll lie down for a while.”
Once she’s inside, Zev turns back toward his apartment.
In his kitchen, he fills a glass with water and drinks it down. Sitting at the table, he studies the stains in the butcher block. The refrigerator buzzes. A few small clouds drift by outside, and he remembers how La La used to say clouds were the puff of smoke at the end of a magic trick in which the magician disappeared.
* * *
Zev shoves his cart through the supermarket, relieved to be in the air-conditioning. When Colorado’s heavy March snow was burying his house, Arizona’s high temperatures sounded good, but they don’t feel so good now.
He’s glad to shop for himself. He hated burdening La La, and she never got what he asked for, buying burritos with peppers instead of chicken, trying to trick him into eating sausage made from soybeans. He doesn’t understand the logic behind vegetarianism. If he doesn’t eat meat, what will happen to all the cows and pigs? It’s not like he’s barbecuing a dog. La La says eating a cow is just as bad, a crazy idea that must have come from Dr. Bergman. Even Clem enjoyed a steak now and then, as long as it was grass-fed. Since Zev isn’t around to keep an eye on La La, he wishes she and Clem didn’t break up. He’d feel better knowing someone is taking care of her, even if that someone is the quack. Taking a bottle of cabernet from a shelf, he wonders if it’s the kind of thing Julia drinks, then looks at the price and puts it back.
Longview was filled with university students and professors with young families. Here, especially in the middle of the day, he’s surrounded by old people. They don’t stare at phones, banging their carts into his, then saying “sorry,” when it wouldn’t have happened in the first place if they’d just looked where they were going. Maybe Phoenix will suit him, although the lady in front of him is blocking his path, jabbing every package of rib eye with a gnarled finger, as if she has nothing better to do all day.
As he thinks about growing old and useless, the air-conditioning seems to blow colder, his bones feel stiffer and—he imagines—more brittle. When he was under house arrest, the boredom was terrible. He read every magazine that came to the house cover to cover, even the advertisements. Practiced with the extra ankle monitor for hours, until his fingers calloused. After watching several seasons of This Old House, his ears rang. It was only when he worked, supporting La La and himself, that he had an appetite at the end of the day and was tired enough to sleep. Backing up his cart, he wheels it around the woman.
That afternoon, he opens a map of Phoenix on the kitchen table, the outer areas of the city flapping over the sides. He checks which neighborhoods are close to highways and researches the prices of homes before going for a drive. Sparse landscaping provides less cover than in Colorado. Retired, many owners are home all the time. Zev scopes out a neighborhood with ten-thousand-square-foot houses and long driveways covered with pavers or colored concrete, doubling back to inspect a place where the lawn is decorated with statuary. A family that can afford a marble fountain is sure to own other valuables. A towering saguaro, the kind people steal from the desert, throws a long shadow across the adobe finish. When an elderly man drives away in the only car in the garage, Zev notes the address and time.
At a discount department store, Zev tosses short-sleeved cotton shirts, twill pants, and a blue newsboy cap—the uniform of older men—into a cart. He adds a frame for the photo of La La, and though he shouldn’t spend the money, a cat bed and a plush mouse for Mo, hoping one or the other will coax her from under the dresser. In the hardware section, he selects a crowbar and a wrench. It will take a little more time to gather what he needs for locksmithing.
Mo is curled up on the bed when he returns. She sniffs the plush mouse and goes back to sleep.
* * *
Morning sun slices through the living room windows. A film of dust coats the blinds. With a feather duster, Zev beats back a desert he fears will always be settling on everything. Finding the tool inadequate, he wets a sponge and runs it along the slats. The TV is tuned to Good Morning America.
At the kitchen table, he inspects the wrench and crowbar while he waits for coffee to brew. When someone knocks at the front door, he grabs the tools and tosses them into a closet. He’s not expecting anyone.
“I know you’re in there,” says Julia, knocking again. “I can hear George Stephanopoulos. I came by to thank you. You saved me from a trip to urgent care yesterday and maybe something a lot worse.”
She’s too nosy. There’s nothing to be gained from a friendship with her and everything to be lost.
“Since you don’t have any family here, I thought I could show you around,” she says. “Phoenix is a nice city once you get to know it.”
He opens the door but doesn’t invite her in.
“What have you got in there, Fort Knox? For God’s sake, I’m not going to rob you.”
“The place is a mess. I’ve got a lot of unpacking to do.”
“There’s a film festival in town. I thought you might like to go.”
He remembers how she held out a photo of Dee-Dee. Desdemona. A red bandanna knotted around the Chihuahua’s neck. Where she found one small enough is a mystery. He pictures Julia’s turquoise toenails and the slender hammertoe he had the desire to uncurl. Though she used to be a therapist, now she’s just a retired lady looking for company. No need to be afraid of her. “What’s playing?”
“It’s a romantic comedy. French.”
He hasn’t been inside a movie theater in years. “I don’t speak French.”
“You can read, can’t you? There are subtitles. I made you something,” she says, handing him a loaf pan. “I hope you like cranberries.”
He likes the jellied discs on Thanksgiving. He’s not sure about putting them in baked goods.
“It’s just a small thank-you. I’ll pick up the pan when you’re done. By the way, that article was interesting. I was surprised at how wide-ranging a father’s influence can be. So, what do you say, matinee at three?”
“Sure.”
“Why don’t I drive, since I know the way?”
When she leaves, Zev grabs a broom from the closet. He shouldn’t have said yes. He carries the chairs out of the kitchen and sweeps methodically, from one end of the tiny room to the other, reaching the broom beneath the table. He doesn’t know which scares him more, that he might hit it off with Julia or that he might not.
He thought he was finished with women. The last time he saw Elissa, she said, “We need milk,” and disappeared. La La slept. Zev figured Elissa went out at night to avoid being recognized, her role in La La’s near-drowning still talked about everywhere. He waited an hour, then two. Drove to the supermarket, though he hated to leave La La. But he didn’t want to wake her and frighten her, either. Elissa’s Ford Escort wasn’t at the market or the animal shelter.
Imagining she’d been in an accident, he contacted hospitals in Fort Collins and Denver, but she hadn’t been brought in. Another hour passed. A little after midnight, he opened their bedroom closet and found a dozen hangers bare and a shoe rack half-empty. Her suitcase was missing from the closet in the den.
Maybe she’d gone to New York to visit her parents until the scandal died down. Yet why wouldn’t she say anything? When he called Ruth and Harry in the early hours of the morning, they both got on the line.
“I hope she’s okay,” her mother said, her voice tight with anxiety. She seemed to be trying to catch her breath.
“She’s running from him,” her father said. “I’m glad.”
“Not now,” Ruth said.
“Fuck him,” said Harry. “He’s a criminal.”
Three weeks
passed without word. Responding to a call, Zev broke off a key in a lock when all it needed was a little lubricant.
At the breakfast table, La La stabbed her toast with a butter knife, refusing to eat, and Zev told her the truth. “For now, it’s just the two of us.” He took the knife from her hand. “We’ll be fine,” he said, though he didn’t believe it.
* * *
Preparing to go out with Julia, he showers again and dresses in his new clothes. He glances at himself in the bathroom mirror. Since his arrest, patches of white have sprung up in his hair. At least La La gave him his last haircut, using a pair of surgical scissors, leaving the bangs full and sweeping them to the side once she was done. A bit long for his taste, but La La assured him they looked better than when he chopped them short. He could see how they highlighted his large, brown eyes. Elissa always said they were his best feature.
He meets Julia out front at two thirty. Her Volvo is clean and well cared for, though far from new. The ham sandwich he ate for lunch churns in his stomach, and he pauses with his hand on the door. Maybe it’s not too late to say he’s coming down with something.
“Are you getting in?” she says, lowering the passenger window. She looks elegant in a fitted black blouse and gray slacks. Silver hoops dangle from her ears. Nothing worth stealing, still they look graceful against her long neck. He opens the door and slides in.
The label in his shirt pokes the back of his neck. He scratches and then folds his hands stiffly on his lap. “You do this a lot?”
“Go to the movies?”
“Date.”
“I said I would show you around.” On the way to the theater, she points out a pharmacy, a hospital, and restaurants offering early-bird specials. How old is she? Or does she think he’s old? He’s never eaten an early-bird special, but if he’s going to take women out, it’s not a bad idea to find someplace cheap.
Just when he’s sure she’s giving him the geriatric tour, she points out a Cuban restaurant. “They have salsa on Friday and Saturday nights. Maybe we’ll go sometime.”