by L. R. Wright
“I know that. I don’t care. I want a change.”
“Color’s a nice change.”
“Lenore. Please. Could we talk about length first? Then maybe—maybe—I’ll listen to color.”
“Not frizz. I shouldn’ta said frizz. It’s gonna curl more, though. For sure. But if you don’t mind that—okay.” She stared at Cassandra in the mirror, playing with her hair, concentrating. “I’d say if you’re gonna do it, do it good and proper. Get rid of all this, keep the fullness around here, do the bangs thing—whaddya think?”
“Okay,” said Cassandra. “Let’s do it.”
“I see you lost a lot of weight,” said Lenore, leading her to the sinks. “You quit eating, or what?”
“I got the flu,” said Cassandra.
“That’s handy. You gonna keep it off?”
“I haven’t decided,” said Cassandra, leaning back in the chair, breathing in the fragrances of shampoos and conditioners and gels and mousses and perm solution and hair-coloring preparations. “I might.”
***
Alberg sat in his sun porch on Wednesday evening, wearing his reading glasses, studying his notebook, absorbed in the puzzle that was Charlie O’Brea.
He made a note to check the cabs operating out of the airport the day Charlie disappeared, in case Charlie had just used the long-term lot as a place to dump his vehicle and hadn’t gotten on a plane at all.
So far he’d called seventy-five numbers from Nola King’s collection of business cards, which represented everything from hairdressers’ establishments to a piano tuner, from photographers to a health care worker, from car dealerships to florist shops. Several of the people he’d talked to knew Charlie, but only casually, and only in connection with the insurance business.
Alberg put his glasses away and went outside into the backyard. It was ludicrous to be spending time on this thing. The guy had had months to get himself some false ID. He’d probably done the obvious, flown out of Vancouver Saturday evening, right after getting rid of his car. Alberg would never run him down. Nobody would ever run him down.
He’d stick with it, though, until his leave ran out. Which gave him less than a week.
He found himself looking at the rioting rosebushes, the towering hydrangeas, the cherry trees run rampant. Jesus, he’d better hire somebody fast, he thought, hands in his pockets, eyeing the climbing roses waving three feet above the top of the fence. The hydrangeas were massive. He’d had no idea something called a shrub could grow that big.
He walked around the house, which when studied closely revealed itself to be in need of a new coat of paint. Why hadn’t he noticed that when he gave in and bought the place? He saw that the front porch had progressed from rickety to sagging and that the sidewalk leading to it was cracked. What he ought to do, he thought, crossing his arms, was a substantial renovation. Could he afford that and a sailboat too?
His mind wandered back to Charlie O’Brea. What if Charlie hadn’t had anything exotic in mind, like fleeing to a warm beach somewhere? Apparently he hadn’t been all that enthused about either his wife or his job. So what had he liked about his life? Maybe, Alberg thought, if he could figure that out, he could make some progress.
He was mulling this over when a car pulled up in front of his house. He turned, only mildly curious, and saw that it was an almost new Toyota, a four-door, red. He’d never seen this car before. He’d never seen the woman who got out of it, either—at least he didn’t think he had, until she turned around to face him, shading her eyes against the setting sun.
“My God,” said Alberg. “What did you do?”
“I cleaned out my savings account,” said Cassandra, “and put myself in hock again too. Bought me a car.” She pushed the door closed. “And some new duds.” She walked around the front of the car and through his broken gate and onto his cracked sidewalk. She held out her arms and turned, slowly.
“I’ve always admired your legs,” said Alberg.
“Never mind the legs. How about the suit?”
“I like the suit very much indeed. Because it shows so much of your legs. What did you do to your hair?”
She threw back her head and shook it from side to side. Then she stepped closer to him, running her hands through her hair. “I got it cut.”
“You sure did.”
“I’m a whole new woman.”
He put his hands on her waist. “I hope not,” he said, bending to kiss her temple, her cheek, her neck. He felt her shiver. “What are you up to?” he said into her ear, kissing her. “What are you up to, Cassandra?”
She hugged him, pressing herself tightly against him. “I’m attempting,” she said, “to alleviate my restlessness.”
“Let me help,” said Alberg.
“Come to my house, then. I’ll make you some dinner. And then we can—you know. Do stuff.”
***
That night, Alberg edged past the overloaded bookcases in Cassandra’s bedroom and stepped out into a net of luminous curiosity cast through her window by the moon—a tall, broad-shouldered figure, hair thick and tousled, his naked belly protruding relaxed and vulnerable. Cassandra smiled to see this. She was a little surprised that he was fumbling his way through the darkness of her bedroom naked. He was usually quick to cover himself after they’d made love.
“You’re a sexy man, Karl Alberg,” she said, watching his belly, and sure enough he promptly sucked it in. She laughed out loud, and he pretended not to know why.
Cassandra pulled the covers up to her chin and gazed at the moonlight, bright and substantive, and after a while Alberg returned with two squat glasses containing Scotch over ice cubes.
“Did the whole thing without turning on a light,” he said. He settled himself on the bed, on top of the covers, with a bunched-up pillow behind his head, his legs crossed at the ankles.
“Oh, look at that,” said Cassandra tenderly. “Look at your private parts, snoozing away there, all worn out—aren’t they sweet.”
“Hey, hey,” said Alberg uncomfortably. He pulled a chunk of bedspread over his genitals. “Get your eyes off my private parts.” He slurped Scotch with a clean conscience, knowing he was staying the night.
“Karl,” said Cassandra. “I have to tell you something.” She’d figured she’d know when it was time. And now, suddenly, the time seemed to have come. Part of her wanted to balk, and for a moment she hesitated. “I really do,” she said firmly, more to herself than to him.
She hadn’t told her mother yet; shouldn’t her mother be the first to know?
She hadn’t told her brother, either.
Screw this, she thought. Just get on with it.
“I’ve been thinking,” she said. “Quite seriously. And—” Alberg had put down his glass, and now he turned to her. “Look at me.”
She looked at him.
“Will you please marry me?”
Cassandra stared at him, his face half in moonlight, half in shadow. She reached out and smoothed his pale hair away from his forehead. Such a tranquil face. Unlined. Unreadable. But his eyes sometimes gave him away. “What are you doing, Karl?”
“I’m saying I want us to get married.”
“Why?” She realized that they were whispering—no, not both of them, just Cassandra. She said it again, louder. “Why?”
“I want us to be together.”
He was quite tense, she realized. “Why now, Karl?”
“I don’t know why now. Why not now? If you mean why not earlier, I don’t know.” He took her hand and stroked it, looking at it attentively, as if it were her hand that would answer him. “I want us to have a porch swing.”
She pulled her hand away, threw back the covers, and swung her legs over the side of the bed. “Fuck,” said Cassandra. She reached for her robe, lying in a heap on the floor, and put it on. Then she stood up and stalked out of the room.
In the kitchen, she stood, fuming, looking out the window toward the Indian cemetery across the highway: she could see some of it
s white crosses glowing in the dark like fireflies. Would he get up, hurt and bewildered, and get dressed, and quietly leave the house, and quietly drive away? Or would he wait reproachfully in her bed for her to return and explain herself.
She felt his arms slip around her from behind. He was still naked.
“I don’t want you to go,” he said quietly.
“What are you talking about?”
“I don’t want you to leave town.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. And even if you were right,” she said, furious, “even if I was thinking about it, you’ve got no right to do something like this.”
“Sure I have,” said Alberg, his arms firmly around her waist.
“It’s my life,” said Cassandra.
“And mine. Your life is my life too. And my life is your life. That’s what’s happened to us.” He turned her around. “That’s why I’m asking you now, instead of earlier. I didn’t figure it out earlier.”
She pulled her robe more tightly around her. “This is a ridiculous conversation.”
“It’s a very important conversation,” said Alberg resolutely.
Her eyes flickered down his body. “You look pretty stupid, standing there buck naked, trying to have an important conversation.” She turned away. “Ah, Karl. Don’t complicate things.” She tore a piece of paper toweling off the roll that hung under the cabinet and dabbed at her eyes. “Ah, shit.”
“So what do you say?”
Cassandra opened the cupboard under the sink and tossed the paper towel into the garbage. “I’ve never been married before, Karl. It’s a very big deal to me.”
“It’s a big deal to me too, for Christ’s sake.”
She turned and leaned against the sink. “We could try it out, I guess.”
“Try it out?” He sounded indignant.
“We could, you know, live together. For a while. And see how it works out.”
This possibility had clearly not occurred to him. “I don’t know,” he said reluctantly.
Cassandra raised her eyebrows. “You don’t know if you want to live with me? I thought you wanted to marry me, and now you don’t know if you want to live with me?”
“I want to, I want to. It’s just that—well, shit, how the hell would it look, for God’s sake?”
Cassandra stared at him. “You mean…because you’re a cop?”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake—”
“Aren’t cops allowed to live with people? Is there something in Rules and Regulations about not living with people? Does the RCMP tell you who you can bloody live with?”
“All right, all right!” The cold had seeped up through his body from his feet, bare on the tile floor of the kitchen. He shivered. “Shit.” He wanted his robe. “All right. We’ll live together.”
“Good,” said Cassandra briskly. “I’m glad that’s settled.” She looked at him with a certain amount of fondness. “You go get your robe. I’m going to make us a sandwich.”
Alberg plodded off to the bedroom. His good mood had vanished. He’d thought they’d buy a house together, he and Cassandra. He had even had his eye on a couple. It seemed that was no go, at least for the moment.
He picked up his robe from the end of the bed and put it on, and slid his cold feet into his slippers. He gazed resentfully at the bookcases and wondered where the hell he’d find room in his small house for Cassandra’s things. He tied the robe around his waist and headed back toward the kitchen. Maybe she could sublet, he thought. Bring only personal stuff with her. Still, even then, he only had the one closet.
He went into the kitchen, where Cassandra had turned on the light and was peering into the fridge, looking for sandwich fixings. She turned to smile at him, and her smile was so open, so loving, her mouth so soft and inviting, that he felt himself stirring, and wondered if maybe instead of eating—
“When do you want to move in?” said Cassandra.
35
THE NEXT MORNING, Alberg was sitting on the stool in his kitchen, waiting for the lawyer in Phoenix to come back to the telephone.
The weather had changed again—back to cold and gray and blustery. Alberg was in a snarly mood. It had something to do with Cassandra, of course, and something to do with his mother. He felt set upon by females and wished that at least one of his offspring had been male.
While he waited, he looked within himself for that dispassionate crystalline substance that he thought of as his soul, as the essence of him. It wasn’t very reliable. It was always coming and going.
“Here I am back,” said the lawyer.
“Hi again,” said Alberg politely.
“You ever been down here?” said the lawyer, shuffling papers.
“I’ve been to Tucson,” said Alberg.
“How’dja like it?”
“I liked it.”
“Pretty nice up where you are, so I hear.”
“Yeah, it’s pretty nice, all right,” said Alberg, looking out at the broody gray sky, flecked with rain.
“Okay, I found it,” said the lawyer. “Here it is. She passed away on June 13, 1991, aged sixty-eight. Poor woman. Sixty-eight isn’t old. Not anymore.”
He said this with such firmness that Alberg was touched. “You’re right,” he agreed, smiling.
“She got a blood clot on the brain, and poof, that was it. Well, it can happen. Now, let’s see… ”
Alberg drank some coffee.
“Okay, right, yeah, that’s what I thought. She had an estate worth a hundred thousand dollars, left the whole shebang to her only son, Charles Madison O’Brea.”
“Has Mr. O’Brea claimed his inheritance?”
“You betcha. Came down for the funeral, stayed a week or so, tied up all the loose ends, arranged for the sale of the real estate, transfer of the funds… I guess it was—lemme see, yeah—about six months, early in December, when he actually got the money. Just in time for Christmas. Probably got his wife one hell of a present, huh?”
“You’d think so, wouldn’t you?” said Alberg. “Where was it sent? To his account in Vancouver, I guess.”
“Right. Vancouver. To a bank in Vancouver.”
Alberg hung up and made some notes in his book. Then he pulled another handful of business cards from Nola King’s fishbowl and started dialing. An hour later, no further ahead, he left his house, got into his car, and headed for Langdale.
***
“I’m Karl Alberg,” he said when she answered the door. “We spoke on the phone.” He felt her hostility immediately.
At first she didn’t even ask him in. But Alberg was perfectly willing to conduct the interview standing in the hallway, and when she realized that, she stalked into the living room and sat down. But not in the chair that was obviously her favorite. This was a bizarrely shaped contraption designed to fit the reclining body, and Ms. McAllister had no intention of relaxing in the presence of a cop; even one who wasn’t on duty. There was a table next to this odd-looking chair, on which sat a lamp, a library book, an overflowing ashtray, a package of cigarettes, and a lighter; also the remote control device for the television set. She scooped up the cigarettes and lighter before sitting in an easy chair next to the TV. Alberg settled onto the love seat.
He felt weary, contemplating the effort it was clearly going to take to persuade this unfriendly woman to talk to him. He thought irritably about the long trip home: an hour or more to the ferry terminal, half an hour on the boat… Why the hell was he doing this, anyway: looking for a sonofabitch who didn’t want to be found, a runaway husband who, what with his dead mother’s legacy and various bonds and things, had scooted off with more than two hundred thousand dollars—enough to get him anywhere he wanted to go; a hell of a lot more than Emma could expect to get for the house he’d signed over to her.
And now Alberg was having to deal with this antagonistic woman.
He struggled for patience.
Then, fuck it, he thought.
“Why did you agree to see me?
” he asked her.
“Because Emma asked me to see you.”
“Do you think you have anything useful to tell me?”
“Probably not,” she said with satisfaction. She was wearing black-and-white-checked pants, a white sweater, and a black jacket. Her hair was dark brown, and so were her eyes. She was in her late twenties.
“Okay.” Alberg gave his thighs a light slap and stood up.
“Okay what?”
Alberg headed for the door.
“Hey,” she said, getting up to follow him.
He opened the door.
“What’s up? I thought you had things to ask me.”
“See,” said Alberg conversationally, “I’m not on duty. This isn’t my job I’m doing. It’s a favor to a friend. And so I don’t have to put up with any attitude I don’t like. I don’t have to put up with people who don’t like cops.”
She leaned her hand on the edge of the door. “Emma’s your friend?”
“No, a guy named Sid Sokolowski’s my friend.”
“Is he Emma’s friend?”
“No, he’s Emma’s neighbor.”
“Why are you really doing it? Trying to find Charlie.”
Alberg looked into the hallway, which had pale green walls that needed painting, and indoor-outdoor carpeting in a peculiar shade of bronze. “I’m curious about him.”
“What’s so odd about a guy leaving his wife?”
“Nothing. That’s the point. It happens all the time. So why make such a big deal out of it? Why cause yourself to vanish? Why not just say, ‘Emma, I’m outa here?’ ”
Lorraine stepped back from the door. “You want a drink?”
They went back into the apartment. Lorraine poured herself a Scotch and water and gave Alberg a Coke.
“I’ve been thinking about it, of course,” she said, settling into her recliner chair.
“Why do you think he did it?” Alberg, on the love seat, pulled out his notebook and pen.
She shrugged. “I guess he figured it was about time he did something for himself.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“In all the years they were married, the only thing Charlie ever did that was for him and not for Emma was to decide they’d live in Sechelt.” She drank some of her Scotch. “Emma did not want to live in Sechelt. Oh, no.”