THE BLUE HOUR

by T. Jefferson Parker

  The bench had a back and he leaned against it. He put on the hat and adjusted the brim. He didn't even bother to look down at himself. It felt like someone had burned a hole through his middle with a cigarette the size of a fire log.

  He was still breathing fast and shallow. Couldn't get quite enough air. Just not enough to go around.

  He could see the Japanese man coming toward him down the pathway, with the flat of flowers still in his hands.

  Hess didn't really feel like talking. But he knew he should have something to say, some accounting of himself. After all, he was armed and trespassing and taking up space on a perfectly good bench. He could hear the slow pitter-patter of liquid hitting the ground below that bench, like night fog spilling off an eave.

  Hess straightened himself and looked up. He folded his hands in his lap and it was like putting them into a pan of something hot and wet. He tried to figure out what he should say. But his thoughts came slow like thoughts in a dream, and he couldn't tell if they were really good or not.

  Hello. I'm Tim Hess . . .

  It seemed to him that the nurseryman was studying him from a rather long distance. His lips moved. No sound. Earnestly, Hess tried to read them. Then he remembered that there were words, too. Always words. You just had to wait for them.

  "Are you the good guy or the bad guy?"

  Very slowly, because he could not do it any other way, Hess removed his hat. Something here demanded manners. He set it on his lap and looked at the nurseryman. It took a long time and a lot of strength to formulate his reply. He wanted to get it right. And in the end he got it out in what he hoped was a strong and resonant voice.

  "I'm an Orange County Sheriff Department. . . detective. You put the creeps away. They come back again. Over and over. I've done small. Things. Only a small number of people... care about. A few people will remember me. I wish I had children to . . . give things to. I did save three lives. Three. Those are sure saves. Maybe a few by ... accident. So those . . . three lives are my best contribution to. Things. What I wanted to be was. Useful. In a way you could. See. Like a trash man or a bricklayer. Or a doctor. That's all I have to say."

  The nurseryman hovered above a mirage on a distant horizon. His flat of flowers threw colored beams of light into the sky.

  "Sounds like you do all right, old man."

  "I guess I'm ready."

  "Don't talk. I'll call someone."

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  The trail led through the tall bamboo and she could only see him in flashes, out ahead, in the small clearings, looking back over his shoulder before vanishing back into the pale yellow thickness. Cats slithered through the stalks. In an opening she leapt over a small campfire surrounded by three stupefied men in rags who just stared at her, mouths hung in dirty beards, wordless as she flew past.

  She wasn't fully aware of how she had gotten here. The haze of the chloroform hadn't fully cleared when she saw Hess, tried to warn him off, heard the shots boom, then saw the sunshine flood through the door as Colesceau made his escape.

  Her instincts had made her pull on her clothes and take Hess's backup gun, upend her purse, then stumble into the bright summer morning. She saw Hess lumbering down the alley and the Purse Snatcher skittering out ahead. And she willed her legs to carry her where she needed to go. While she ran she tore the tape from around her face, unreeling it in big rasping circles that left her skin burning but free.

  Now she was deep in the thicket and Colesceau was thirty yards away. She felt the air piercing deep into her lungs and every step seemed to push more of the poisonous gas out of her. If he stopped and hid and waited, he could shoot her on her way by. She knew this and tried to watch the bamboo in font. And every time she saw him she thought of Hess and dug deeper and tried to close the distance. He looked wobbly. She wished she had her nine.

  • • •

  Colesceau heaved himself toward the trail. He wasn't sure if his hormone-depleted legs could carry him much further and he knew the jungle would give way to the wide, dry riverbed soon and when it did he'd be out of cover. Then he'd have to start shooting. He had the fancy police gun but really no skill with it at all. His shot at the old bastard was pure luck, but from the whap sound of it, he'd hit him good.

  The vest was heavy as steel around his chest and it pressed tightly against his breasts. But it had saved him from the ugly Hess. Now he wished he could just shed it and gain a little speed. He looked back again and saw Merci twisting her way through the towering bamboo. She was gaining fast and he knew how determined an angry woman could be. And weren't they always angry about something?

  So close, he thought, so close to getting what I wanted. Another ten seconds and he'd have had that carotid hooked and out and cut, and the insertion tube in place and the Porti-Boy churning and Merci Rayborn would be immortal right now. But the second he heard the car pull up outside, then heard someone trying at the doors, he knew it was the old man who was her partner. The tank captain. It made better sense to get on the vest and slaughter Hess than it did to start the preservation. Then he'd have had almost an hour before Pratt and Lydia and Garry arrived. Seconds, he thought. Just seconds from giving her all the fluids necessary for eternity.

  He thought of his mother and how free and light he'd felt when he was done. Why had he waited so long? He thought of Trudy Powers and how satisfying it was to see her face when Stork went down. He thought of Lael and Janet and Ronnie and how liberating it was to be rid of them, their demands, their petty games, their selfish power.

  Through the thicket ahead he could see the sandy expanse of the riverbed and he knew it was time to make his move. Rounding the next curve in the trail he saw a small pocket of space in the stalks. He stopped, turned and ran back to it. He got there and backed in and with both hands raised the big automatic up to his chest.

  When he glanced down at the barrel it was like staring into a big dark pit.

  • • •

  Merci saw the riverbed through the bamboo and she went fast into the curve. She looked far up the trail before her and saw nothing. She looked right out in front of her and saw an elbow tip protruding from the foliage.

  She slid like a base runner. Feet out in front, plowing her boots into the mulch. Made sure she had the .32 ready, left arm up to protect her face. The momentum of her body brought her upright, three feet from the blond man hiding in the stalks.

  She fired twice and he flinched.

  My body armor.

  He pointed something at her.

  She shot a snap kick, standard academy issue, not pretty but her boot caught his wrist and the gun barrel jumped. She ducked, dropped Hess's gun, then came up fast and with both hands swept the stiletto across the top of the vest. A hiss. Colesceau's eyes went wide. His head tilted back, and a gap yawning open under his chin. She changed her grip on the knife and brought it back higher, point first, planting it hard in his temple. She let go and brought both her fists down on his hands. The H&K went off with a crack and flew onto the trail. Colesceau sank to his knees, hands at his neck.

  He looked up at her with eyes that seemed sad. The wig had slid up on his head.

  "Tha . . . you," he gurgled.

  "You're welcome," she answered. She could barely hear her own voice, though the world was silent.

  Colesceau looked down toward the H&JC so she kicked him in the forehead and he went over backward.

  She got her gun and stood over him with the "barrel pointed down.

  "Tha... oo."

  "You're welcome."

  She pulled the trigger and his face jerked and his skull lost its shape but his eyes were still on her. uTha..." She heard the half syllable and she shot him again.

  • • •

  Hess was sitting on a bench by the roses when she got back to him. His hat was on his lap and his head hung comfortably like a man in siesta. She saw the red all over his shirt and the little shiny puddle of it under the bench. She knelt down in front of him. He was looking down
toward the ground. His expression was hopeful and gentle and he was seeing nothing. The lines of his face had softened and he looked like he did that night when he fell asleep in the chair by the window and she had wanted so badly to touch his hair.

  Merci touched his cheek. Then she saw motion to her left and she stood. A man was coming her way with a blanket in his arms. She recognized him as the same man she'd run past a few minutes ago, but then he'd been carrying a flat of flowers.

  He stopped when he saw her, a large woman with blood on her and a big gun in her hand.

  "He's a detective," said the nurseryman. "No one is going to remember him. He saved three lives."

  She looked at him. "It was four and you don't know squat. Give me that blanket. Please."

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  In the spring, Merci bundled up the infant and drove to the Wedge. It was late, a cool and blustery night following an unseasonable May storm.

  The baby bawled almost the whole way there, but this was no surprise. It was an inconsolable thing, always hungry, miserable or asleep. It wasn't much to look at, either: big and lean, hardly any fat, a head of wispy black hair. Its lungs and voice box seemed unnaturally, unbelievably, strong. It suckled greedily and cried for hours without a comma. All this, delivered in twelve hours of agony she had never imagined possible. When she saw the thing all she could do was weep.

  For Merci, the last nine months had been the most miserable of her life. Burying Hess was like losing half of herself, the half she liked. Burying her mother six months later was worse. She hadn't expected it to make her feel so bad, but it made her think of a million things she'd wanted to say but hadn't. Trying to console her father was impossible because he clung to Merci with a desperation she never knew was in him. Had her mother put up with that for forty years? Well, now it was all hers. He was all hers. He was asking to move in.

  Then came her request for the maternity leave. As she talked about it with Brighton she felt like she was handing over her career. No more head of detail by forty, no more sheriff by fifty-eight. No more sixty-hour weeks for a while, maybe not ever. He had nodded, leaned forward on his elbows and tried to look glum. She could read his thoughts. She knew her ovaries had accomplished what no amount of political maneuvering on the part of Chuck Brighton could accomplish: she was soon to be a single mom and her career was shot. Maybe not fatally wounded, but shot just the same. Nature had put the little woman in her place.

  Merci parked and gathered up the baby and walked down to the sand. The moon was three-quarters and she could see the jetty rocks jutting out into the ocean in a straight line. The waves were no longer high from the storm but she could still see them building along the rocks until they got in close, then rising in the moonlight and breaking on the beach.

  The ocean at night could be a frightening thing. Not as frightening as Colesceau hiding in the bamboo with her H&K in his hands and murder in his eyes.

  As she climbed onto the jetty Merci could feel the power of the waves vibrating into her legs. Good thing she'd worn the trekking shoes, she thought, the ones with the lug soles and solid grip.

  She looked out at the black, horizonless night and forced herself to think of all the good things that had happened these last few months, the worst of her life: the Deputy's Valorous Conduct award back in January, all sorts of PR about courageously chasing down the Purse Snatcher, getting bumped up a pay grade in the tank. A series of private talks with Chuck Brighton, who wanted to leave her in Homicide. No problem there.

  She knew that some of these good things came in return for dropping the suit. The trade was understood and unspoken, though clearly engineered by Brighton. It was a time for healing. For forgetting and moving on. And most of all, for the saving of face. She was glad to have the lawsuit gone. It wasn't her battle anymore. The other five plaintiffs were holding tough and Kemp wasn't out of the woods yet. Fine with her.

  There was no mention in the media of what was for Merci the worst of all that had happened: that her gun had killed Hess. No mention whose life was laid down to save whose. No mention that the suspect Sergeant Rayborn had earlier rejected was the very one who had three corpses stashed in the apartment behind his own, was the very one who had shot her partner. No. The Grand Jury's criminal justice committee, investigating the shooting of Colesceau, had gone easy on her.

  There was plenty of public ignorance, but Merci knew how it had gone down, and so did most people in the department.

  She would carry that knowledge to her grave.

  It had not occurred to her that she had done pretty much the right thing, given the circumstances. Given the fact that nobody was always right, always smart, always fast. She felt too bad about Hess to entertain such a notion.

  He wouldn't let her.

  • • •

  She walked further out on the rocks. She could feel the breeze sharp against her face. It didn't seem that strong back on shore. She could see the jetty out in front of her, the moon and its silver wobble of moonlight beyond the rocks, the waves growing higher as they approached, the infinite black Pacific all around her. Hess's ocean, she thought.

  "Here it is, Tim," she said. "What your father loved."

  Odd. Odd to say that name now, privately, just to herself and her baby. There was something truthful and unbreakable and sacred in it. It meant something different now, but what it had meant before was still true.

  She stood there and looked at the dark water. The swells heaved and shifted. She was surprised how big they were, given that the storm was over. The horizon was impossible to see, as impossible to see as tomorrow. She looked to her right just as an advancing mountain of water clipped along the rocks toward her. The big wave passed in front of the moon, the moonlight caught the water as it lumbered past, then rode the back of the swell as it went by. It was like nothing she had ever seen before on earth.

  The tears exploded out of her. For Hess, for herself, for the baby. For Jerry Kirby. For Colesceau's dead, the Rose Garden Home patients, even for weird, misused LaLonde. For everybody who was touched by it.

  Most of all for Hess, because she'd felt like he was accusing her from the other side of death's river every waking moment of every day: you, you, you.

  "Let me go, Hess."

  The waves didn't answer. Tim had gone quiet and she could see the twinkle in his eyes, a galaxy of two, deep down in the blanket.

  "Just let me go. I loved you and I lost you and I killed you. I'll never forget 1 killed you. That what you want? Want me to say it, Hess? I'm so fucking sorry I killed you."

  She sobbed and looked at the water right below her.

  I could just step off the rock and get lost in it, she thought: let Hess's ocean take care of everything.

  No, I'm better than that.

  I couldn't save your dad, Tim, she thought. I tried so hard to do everything right. Everything I knew.

  And with this thought something inside her broke away—Hess, perhaps, or what she believed about Hess—separated and moved from her, out over the water and into the night. There was sadness in watching it go, and more tears.

  Then even those were gone.

  • • •

  She started back, choosing her steps carefully, hugging Tim tightly to her body. She could feel his grip on the collar of her coat.

  She wanted to look again at the waves, Hess's beloved waves, the waves over which something inside her had just glided away forever.

  But the spray turned her face away so she never saw the thing that pulled her in.

  It was like being grabbed. For the second time in her life, she was taken from behind by a monster she had not known was there. Merci could think of only one thing: keep Tim alive.

  She knew she had to reach the surface or he would die quick, but the wave had taken her upside down and headfirst and with the roar of the water around her and the ocean pounding her down and down and down and then dragging her one way then another she couldn't know where she was. No up. No down. And w
hen she willed her eyes open all she saw was a shapeless dull black world and she realized she was almost out of breath. She thought if she could just be still, she would rise to the surface, back to air, back to life.

  So she called on all her powers to do this. And in the great calm of will, she rose. She broke the surface, holding Tim high in both hands. She kicked for their lives. Tim bellowed for his.

  Then Merci felt herself being picked up from behind, felt her body lifting. Higher. Higher again. Higher still. Her stomach dropped. The world withdrew. She looked down at the terrible trough of blackness and she held Tim tight and surrendered.

  She closed her eyes in the fall but she held her son tight. That much she could do, and she could do it well and she would do it forever. She apologized for letting him die like this, her fault entirely, stupid and cowardly and self-obsessed. But she did not let go. Nothing was strong enough, not even this wave and this ocean, to make her let go of him now.

  When she hit the bottom the wave crushed them down and pounded them forward. Over once. Over twice. Direction gone now, ears roaring, a scream of red inside her eyeballs.

  Then she was sliding on her back up the slick wet beach and her eyes were burning and Tim was tight in her arms screaming with his fists still locked on her coat.

  She looked up at the stars. She heard the rush of water receding around her, sliding back down the beach to join the sea.

  THE END

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I would like to thank Robert Boettger, director of the Cypress College Mortuary Department, and Franklin Barr of Pacific View Memorial Park for their insights into the art of undertaking, sometimes known among its practitioners as the dismal trade. Thanks also to therapist Betsy Squires for her insights on the subject of chemical castration of sex offenders, and to Sherry Merryman for her helpful research into contemporary car theft and theft deterrents. Special thanks to Pam Berkson, R.N., of the UC Irvine Medical Center, for her help with chemotherapy. Finally, thanks to Larry Ragle, retired head of the Orange County crime lab, for his patient answers to my questions.