by Nick Totem
“I know, bro. But don’t be paranoid. What you got to do is just to sit tight. Don’t do anything rash. And do me a favor and run stuff by me first.”
The possibility of being set up for another scam jolted Thomas. After he hung up with Mike, he couldn’t rest. Instead, anger and sadness nearly smothered him, that he found himself disassembling the Beretta. He took out its original barrel, a unique part of the gun that has its own serial number, and replaced it with an old barrel; he had found this old barrel in a damaged gun that had been left on a bunk in Iraq. He didn’t know what had happened to the owner, but the gun had been badly neglected, and no other parts had worked or could have been salvaged. Once the gunpowder residue had been polished off, the barrel worked as it should, firing very smoothly, and the bullet being fired through this old barrel could never be traced to him. He headed to the gun range, with a wisp of a thought that he could shoot Chau the Dog with the old barrel and get away with it. He went through a lobby and checked in his gun. The attendant examined the Beretta and checked his ID. He bought a canister of bullets and went into the range. At the far end, a lone gunman was shooting, and methodical bursts of gunfire echoed very loudly throughout the range. Thomas recognized the sound; it was a Magnum.
He stepped up to the counter and sent the target out at twenty feet. He held the Beretta in his hand, familiar with its contours. Aiming the gun at the target, he saw Chau the Dog’s face superimposed on the bullseye. On each exhale he squeezed the trigger; the gun spit fire and smoke, every bullet taking away a portion of his anger. The hot casings flew all around him, littering the ground. He shot on and on, until his ears, though protected with ears muffs, were ringing loudly. Gun smoke, pungent and acrid, filled his nose. Finally, the paper target was shredded and he had to stop. Only then did he see that he had gone through more than a hundred bullets. The lone gunman firing the Magnum had left. Though he knew it wasn’t wholesome, he didn’t regret shooting at the imagined face of Chau the Dog. What disturbed him was Lana’s face creeping on to his gunsight now and then, quite beyond his control.
14
The sun was already high in the sky when Thomas woke up the next day. He sat up on the side of the bed, and his head was groggy. His ears were still ringing. After getting home from the gun range, he hadn’t been able to fall asleep. He had lain in bed with eyes alternately closing and opening. He had gotten up and paced about the house. Around four in the morning he had fallen asleep.
As was his habit, he reached for the cellphone on the table. The screen brightened, and as his eyes glimpsed the message, he jumped up. It was from Lana.
“Everything cleared up. Most unfortunate turn of events. Will explain when I see you.”
That message was sent at six in the morning, and another one followed.
“Please come to Astrid’s party tonight. 8 pm, 423 Winston st, at the corner with Main st. Please call me when arrived. You will be made whole.”
“What is this?” he mouthed, staring at the cellphone in disbelief. “If she thinks I’m falling for this, she’s crazy.”
He cleaned up and took his surf board to the beach. He went to the water’s edge, and here where the waves crashed over the sand bank he relived that awful day when he had tried to save her from the clutches of pimps and pornographers. The resurgence of anger and sadness matched the motion of the waves. And then the image of the check and the text messages from Lana assaulted his mind, as though they contained secrets essential to his sanity. He considered calling Mike about the texts, but decided against it; he should be man enough to handle these things himself, to stand up against the next wave of evil that might come his way. Abruptly, he plunged into the ocean and paddled out, going as fast as he could so that nothing could come into his mind save the need to breathe, to live in the moment.
His mother was waiting in her car when he got home. At seventy two, Grace Loynaz Wilde had no sign of senility or physical slowness. Her grandfather had come from Cuba, from a proud family that included a famous writer. Though she had divorced his father when Thomas was sixteen year old, she had kept the name because it was her way to connect to her children. She lived by herself, drove everywhere, and had an opinion about all things. Her gray hair was abundant and tied neatly. Thick eyebrows arching high above her piercing eyes gave her a dignified look, but her nose flared a bit widely, robbing her of the chance to be a great beauty.
“You took long enough,” Grace said, visibly irritated. She got out of the car. “I cooked a nice pot of spaghetti sauce and meatballs.” She removed a paper bag from the backseat.
“If you didn’t want to wait, you should have called,” he said.
Grace halted by the side of the car and eyed him. “What’s the matter?”
“I’m a grown man, mother. You can’t just barge in whenever you feel like it. Try to live in the modern time. Try using your cellphone once in a while and you won’t have to wait.”
“Why are you yelling at me? If you’re a such a grown man, where is your wife? Where are your children? My grandchildren,” Grace said loudly and took a few steps toward the front door.
“Being married and having children don’t make you a man.”
She stopped, holding the paper bag with both hands, and looked at him. “Then what does?”
“Having my own life. Living my life the way I want.”
“What kind of a life is it?” She lowered her voice and resumed her way to the door, as if she was debating herself. “A half-grown man, that’s what you are. John is dead. Just you now. Where are my grandchildren? I can’t wait much longer. This can’t be the end of my life.” Suddenly she stopped, hesitated for a moment, and then threw the paperbag on the ground. Something inside crashed. She got back into her car.
He ran to her and knocked on the window. She rolled it down and looked up at him.
“I’m sorry, mom,” he said. “Things are just not going well right now.”
“You don’t look so good either. What is going on?”
“I killed a boy.” He said it but couldn’t quite believe that he had said it. He had never told anyone about the Iraqi boy. Having thought about Jeffrey Marshal, he had meant to tell her about his death during surgery.
“Oh God,” she uttered and got out of the car. “I’m so sorry, my son. Was it a complication of surgery?” She took his hands.
“No, mom. I killed him when I was in Iraq.”
“What? What happened?”
“We were ambushed. It was an accident.”
“Did they do something to you?”
“No. I was the only one who knew. Now you know, too.”
“I’m so sorry, my son. I will pray for him. Is that why . . . all the troubles? The divorce?” She closed her eyes and bent her head. Then she put her arms around him and hugged him tightly. Slowly he, too, embraced her and felt her thin frame, and, as if for the first time in his adult life, he realized that his mother had become an old woman. With sands sprinkled in his hair, his short, still wet, and wearing an old T-shirt, he seemed to have become a boy again; such comfort and warmth and love engulfed him. Standing under the pure blue sky that was better than any church on the earth, he was glad that he had confessed to her. The cancerous metastasis of guilt seemed, for the moment, to have been stopped. He held her until she kissed him on the forehead as she had once done when he had been a little boy.
“I’m going off for a week or so. I need to relax and get away,” he said softly as he let her go.
“Do what you must, Thomas. I’ll pray for you and the boy. I’ll be here when you get back,” Grace said and got back into the car.
Seeing his mother driving away, he understood why she had said the things she said and the worries of a mother, and he heard again the speech she had given him a hundred times before.
“So you’re really going through with this? Why, Thomas, the divorce, of course. It’s a dirty secret that feminism frees the men more than the women . . . I can’t help thinking it’s my fault. Ma
ybe because I divorced your father when you were so young, it tipped you over. God know I just couldn’t take that man any more. I know you haven’t seen him since high school, but he’s still your father. God know I was heartbroken with you and your brother, God bless his soul, and now I have to go through it all again. God help me. I’m sorry but I can’t help thinking that it’s my fault. It’s like the original sin.” Her voice raised its pitch high when saying ‘sin.’ “The sin of the father is the sin of the son. Well, in this case it’s the sin of the mother. I know you don’t take those biblical warnings literally, maybe you should. I guess I can’t count on you for that grandchild I’ve always wanted now that you’re divorced.”
Thomas packed his bag and put a clean suit—a custom-made dark blue suit—and a white shirt. He wanted to be ready to hit his favorite night spot in San Francisco as soon as he got into town. And deciding that he had had enough of madness, he locked the Beretta in the safe.
It was already two o’clock in the afternoon when he started to drive. He wanted to take the scenic route, going along the coast, reaching San Luis Obispo in about three hours, as he had often done with his ex-wife. Traffic on a Saturday was light, and the BMW’s engine responded to his foot with an agreeable rumble.
“I’ll just dive into the game. I’ll hit on any skirts that come my way, pretty or not. Yeah, the only way to cure women problems is more women,” he said out loud and slammed on the gas.
Two and a half hours later, he arrived in San Luis Obispo, and went directly to a restaurant on Pismo Beach. It was nearing five o’clock, and the sky was slightly overcast. The restaurant wasn’t open yet, not for half an hour. A cold wind was blowing in. He wiped his glasses clean, buttoned his jacket, and put a scarf around his neck. Wanting to stretch his legs, he took the boardwalk and headed onto the pier. Some people were fishing along the pier, and others leisurely strolling about. A strong fishy smell rose whenever the wind ebbed. At the end of the pier, he leaned against the railing and gazed down, his vision lost in the undulating water, cold and purposeless. Then the water’s surface suddenly rose, and a wave broke into whitish foam, in which he saw the turmoil of the past few weeks coming at him with the same raw ferocity. He saw Lana again, feeling a rush up his head. As a wave passed, the water’s surface became clear and smooth as glass, and dark.
He continued to gaze into the water and took a few steps along the railing. At length, the chilly air began to settle in his chest, and as he turned to leave, he caught sight of a woman standing nearby, taking a selfie. She turned to him and she smiled. He returned the smile and almost reflexively said, “Hi, how are you?”
“Fine. Thank you,” she said and then added quickly, “It’s beautiful, isn’t?”
He took another step but halted. Following her eyes Thomas gazed out toward the horizon. He hadn’t noticed the setting sun gleaming red through a break in the clouds. “Yes, it is,” he replied.
“You’ve just got to take the time to appreciate it,” she said, sounding like a typical Californian, slightly drawing out her voice.
Thomas looked around the pier. A couple of people stood on the other side. He looked back at her more closely. By the fine wrinkles around her eyes and mouth, she appeared to be in her forties—her hair light blond, her figure fit, and her face pretty enough. A black coat covered from her knee to her neck.
“You’re so right.” He continued to look at the sunset.
“It doesn’t last long though.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
“Are you from around here?” She turned to look at him and then back at the setting sun.
“No. What about you?”
“No, I’m in town for a company meeting. I’m Barbara Boyle.” She extended her hand.
“Thomas Wilde. Nice to meet you.” They shook hands. “Where are you from?” He moved closer to her.
“San Jose. I work for a tech start up. What about you?”
“Hermosa Beach. I was just heading to San Francisco.”
The sun dipped below the horizon; only a faint orange afterglow lingered but was fading quickly, and a grayish paste was descending from the clouds.
“For business?”
“No, just a week of relaxation.”
“What kind of work do you do?”
“I’m a doctor,” he answered, knowing that, at least for him, this fact had always put women at ease. Almost unconsciously, he began to project the immediate future steps—drinks, dinner, her room.
“Oh, what kind of doctor?”
“Otolaryngologist,” he said. They started to walk slowly toward the boardwalk.
“Ear, nose, throat, isn’t it?”
“Yes, you’ll be surprised how many people don’t know that.”
“It must be very interesting.”
“Yeah, sometimes.” He tried to pick out a story that he could spin.
“You must have helped a lot of people.”
A cold wind picked up strength. And a sudden dreariness he wanted to escape from pressed down on him. But it was everywhere, and he had tried to run away from it, only to head right into it again.
“I suppose,” he said. He visualized the scene well into the night, when he would have to be charming, to feign interest in her bourgeois life. He turned to look at Barbara, wanting to begin his story of how he had saved a patient with a life-threatening illness, but saw only the mundane in her face. Instead he said, “Anyhow, it was really nice to have met you.”
“Oh, okay. Same here,” she said with an awkward surprise.
Though they were walking the same direction, Thomas quickened his pace and left her behind. Soon he was back to the parking lot. He jumped into his car and sped along Pacific Coast Highway, keeping the ocean to his right, racing back.
15
Thomas drove more than three hours before he got back into Los Angeles. The sky had darkened soon after he started to drive. The traffic thickened as he got closer to downtown, slowing him down considerably. Throughout the whole drive, the few words of Lana’s text messages flowed unceasingly through his mind, putting him at the fulcrum of a scale balancing Chau the Dog on one side and all that was good on the other. To which side did Lana belong? He didn’t know, but he had decided to come back and thus was holding onto hope.
At last, he was driving on Main St, and straight ahead he could see Winston St. In the parking lot and with the engine off, he sat in the car to prepare himself. His heart thudded. His glasses were fogged up. There were no more text messages from her. He had to be on his guard for whatever that might come his way, maybe a decrepit apartment full of traps, waiting to do him in. What could they do to him, he who had survived an ambush in Iraq? Only five minutes, and her explanation had better be good, he told himself.
Outside, dew from the night sky was descending. Past nine o’clock, the traffic moved slowly along the noisy street, and groups of pedestrians were crowding the pavement. At the corner of Winston and Main, he made out the numbers on the building. At the gate, a small group of people waited as a woman buzzed the intercom. Thomas saw that they all were well dressed. The gate clicked open, and everyone filed in. And behind him, another couple in jeans and leather jackets also followed them up.
Like others on this block, the building had been built in the 1930s. Its age was obvious by the decorative exterior, the moldings around the eaves harkening back to that era. On the inside, the women’s high heels clicked as they mounted the wide stone stairs. The building must have been built as dormitory of some sort, because the bathrooms were shared, two to each floor. A few people were waiting in front of them. There was no elevator, and the hallway spanned wide, at least ten feet.
Music and voices resonated loudly along the hallway. The entire floor was having a party. The doors of these apartments were open, and from one rock’n’roll music blared out along with raucous hooting from people dancing inside, from another came jazz, and from the end someone was playing a piano. Groups of people gathered here and there in the h
allway, smoking and drinking. Trash cans placed along the hallway were nearly filled with plastic cups, cans, and beer bottles. Thomas recognized the varied fashions—metal spikes around the belts, metal chains hanging from jackets, platform boots, dyed hair sculpted into different shapes, metal rings in noses and earlobes, darkened eyelids and rouged lips. Other men also wore suits, and some women had on elegant dresses and jewelry. Some of them appeared to be the same people he had seen that night at the art exhibit.
The boisterous atmosphere reminded Thomas of a college party. He followed the piano music. Inside this apartment, a shelf full of vinyl records reached up to the ceiling and covered the length of the wall, and on another wall was a shelf full of books. A few yellow and red lights from the corners cast a dim light, and the smell of alcohol and marijuana and cigarettes gave the air the feel of a bar-room. By the piano, a few people were slow-dancing. The man on the piano, his face somewhat bloated and slightly flushed, was whipping his head to the rhythm of his finger work. Thomas had seen this man before, the brownish red hair, the slightly saddled nose, the youthful freckled face with the fevered eyes. He remembered seeing the man talking to Lana at the art exhibit, and realized the man might know where Lana was. Unable to recall the man’s name—Die Gasseous something or other—he tried to talk to the man, almost yelling, but the man would only nod and play the piano even louder. He then began to sing Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody. Finally Thomas gave up and headed into the kitchen where bottles of whiskey, tequila, rum, vodka, along with Coke and ginger ale, sat on a dining table. He poured himself a glass of rum and Coke. His stomach burned as he drank, and he remembered that he hadn’t eaten anything since lunch. After lingering a while, he went back outside.
Out in the hallway, Thomas sauntered and observed the other apartments more closely. He held onto the drink to blend in and decided that he would not call Lana yet and would take this opportunity to gather information, perhaps striking up conversation with some of these people. What would he do if he were to run into Chau the Dog? His hand balled into a hard fist.