A Tightly Raveled Mind

by Diane Lawson

  “Your father has some problems,” I said.

  “You both suck.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  I could have called him again late that night. Left another pathetic message. His cell phone. His office phone. Mike Ruiz, Private Investigator. Leave your name and number after the tone. Then the same message in Spanish: Deja su mensaje despues del tono. But he hadn’t picked up or responded to any of my previous calls. His not answering yet again would only make me more desperate. And if he did answer, he’d be angry. Either way, I’d be worse off for trying.

  By two in the morning, the out-of-date Ambien I’d found in the medicine cabinet had given up any pretense of putting me to sleep. I couldn’t stay in bed any longer. Pugsley half-heartedly woofed when I stuck my head in Alex’s room. Alex lay on top of his comforter, tangled up in an old SAPD tee shirt Mike had given him. Tamar looked like a baby under her canopy, peaceful after her outburst. Seeing her like that made me remember how I’d crawl in alongside her softly snoring body when she was little. I tried to do it then, hoping her sleep would be contagious.

  She pushed at me with full-grown feet. “Mom. You’re too big. You have your own bed.”

  I made for the kitchen, fighting the impulse to eat something. Extra-butter microwave popcorn called from the pantry. Ice cream sent muffled messages from the freezer. Hagen-Daz Dulce de Leche. Breyer’s Vanilla Bean eager, as always, to float in Stewart’s diet root beer. Central Market’s own Chocolate Meringue cookies tapped on the side of their clear plastic box. I’d been too uptight to eat much dinner, but the binge I wanted wasn’t about the food. I was starving for whatever I thought Mike Ruiz was made of. Whatever I imagined him to possess.

  How to understand my mental state at that moment? Dr. Bernstein would have sung his old Oedipal song or alternately interpreted yearning for the paternal phallus, if not literally, at least for the power it symbolized. An analyst interested in infant development would regard my frenzy as derivative of a craving for the kind of mother I never had. And a psycho-pharmacologist would have seen me as just in need of a quick serotonin fix for my hungry neurotransmitter system. Use whatever theory suits you—libido or chemicals, drives or the drivenness of deficit. Something had to give.

  Finding Mike’s home address didn’t take a private investigator. It didn’t require a social security number or his license plate. It was right there in the Southwestern Bell phone book between Ruiz, Miguel G. and Ruiz, Miguel Luis and Anna. All told, two full pages of Ruiz-this and Ruiz-thats. Psychoanalysts never list their home numbers. Knowing Mike had worked homicide, it seemed a strange and dangerous thing to me, having his name there in black and white. Quite enough to make me muse like Dr. Bernstein about the Death Instinct, Freud’s pessimistic and underrated final theory.

  I did know, even as it was going on, that my urgency was a symptom of something more than my insecurity about Mike—for all that the insight was worth at that moment, which was nothing at all. I just need to know he’s okay, I told myself. Not for him. For me. More accurately, I needed to know he wasn’t with anyone else. Belly dancing Helena, for example. Or Dr. Perv’s he/she Darla. For godsake, I even thought of Darla. That’s how crazy I was, thinking he might be giving some other woman what he wouldn’t give me.

  And what is that?

  Just what is that?

  I paced around the house, from the kitchen to the dining room to the great room, like a prisoner in the exercise yard, a sane part of me watching an insane part of me ratcheting up. I watched myself go back upstairs and get dressed in a pair of jeans and a tank top. I watched myself check on the kids one more time, set the alarm for Away, bypassing the upstairs motion detector just in case anyone got up. I watched myself walk out the back door, descend the porch steps, cross the courtyard in the moonlight, open the garage and get in my car. I watched myself go west on Hildebrand, past the closed junk stores, past Fast Freddy’s $7 Haircut Salon de Belleza—Se Habla Espanol, past any number of llanterias. Green lights all the way tempted me to keep going. I slipped under the expressway, merged on to I-10 East (which, true to San Antonio, runs south), and, mere minutes later, exited Commerce into the near west side.

  The argument could be made that my behavior was reasonable under the circumstances. Healthily self-assertive even. I did need and deserve to know this man who’d found his way into my heart, not to be just some dumb cow led to slaughter like I’d been with Richard. And believe me, I’d feel better about my little expedition if I thought that kind of me had been captain of my voyage. To be honest though, if that healthy me was on board at all, she was merely along for the ride.

  I found his house on my second drive-by, a small frame bungalow with peeling white paint and metal awnings. Not so bad, after all. The streetlight revealed an uneven walk leading up to a sagging front porch with filigree iron trim that matched the burglar bars on the windows. An empty aluminum carport stood over a narrow driveway, smack up against a chain-link fence.

  He wasn’t home.

  I could have left it at that.

  Instead, I pulled in and locked my car with the key to avoid the honk. I went through a gate around to the back of the house where a concrete slab patio held a lawnmower missing a wheel and a picnic table with a dead plant in a plastic pot. I had my Swiss Army knife from the glove compartment out, remembering how Mike had popped open John Heyderman’s apartment door with something similar.

  As it turned out, there was no need. The unlocked back door went directly into a kitchen that looked, in the dim light from outside, to be original. Worn linoleum tile. Cabinets with painted wood doors and wavy chrome handles. The faucet of a rust-stained porcelain sink dripped in rhythm with a wall clock. Two empty bottles of Dos Equis stood on the counter. The refrigerator held the other four and a jar of moldy Pace Picante Sauce, the HOT version. I opened myself a beer. The living room was a museum-quality display of working class life in the 1950s. Overstuffed couch with matching chair, crocheted doilies pinned to the backs and armrests. Wooden coffee table with glass on the top. And crammed in parallel to the wall, the La-Z-Boy recliner pointed directly at a television console. A narrow hall led from the living room, walls filled with framed photographs. I flipped on the light, revealing the image of a sober, young Latino in a WWII Army uniform. Next to it hung a faded, formal portrait of a clear-eyed woman in her twenties, wild blonde hair filling the frame. Another of the same woman and an infant boy propped on her lap. One of that boy, posed in batting stance in a Little League uniform that said Angels. Another of a bigger Mike graduating from the Police Academy, mother beaming at him, father standing to the side looking warily at the camera. A final shot of Mike in a poorly fitting tuxedo, arm around an unsmiling dark-haired bride, followed by an empty space with a nail.

  Further down the hall, two bedrooms split off. In the first, a double bed, sheets rumpled on one side. In the other, a twin bed pushed to the wall made room for a huge wooden desk. The desktop was uncluttered, making me question for a moment if it could really belong to Mike. The first three side drawers I opened were empty, but the fourth contained the missing photo (Mike and the wife with a shy toddler in a sailor suit) and two newspaper clippings. The first clipping from The San Antonio Express-News was brief in its description of the apparent suicide of Juan “Johnnie” Chaca, a west-side man who had been under investigation for drug-related murders. The other was an obituary:

  Ariantha Kostos Ruiz. Born in Greece February 17, 1935. Called by her sweet loving Jesus to eternal rest on December 24, 1995. Preceded in death by her husband Ernesto. Survived by her son Miguel and grandson Alejandro. Donations should be made to the San Antonio Police Foundation.

  Then, as if I’d come to—the effects perhaps of the Ambien wearing off—I realized what I was doing. What would I say to Mike if he walked in? He’d be furious. He’d hate me. It would be over. I put everything back just as I’d found it. But something in the narrow drawer under the desktop seemed to pull at me. The drawer for pens. For
paper clips. For tape. I opened it. No office supplies. But something. Yes. An old leather case. Inside a pearl-handled revolver sleeping on velvet. Elegant. A perfect fit for my hand. My arm stretched out straight and tight. Took a bead on the wounded lawnmower through the window. The tiny box of bullets was nearly full, brass catching the light. The gun slipped nicely into the left pocket of my jeans. The ammunition found a place in the right.

  Picking up speed on my way through the dark kitchen, I rammed my hip hard, gun metal against bone, into the edge of a table, an insubstantial one, a portable maybe. It slid screeching, knocking over a folding chair. Goddamn it. Sounds—things made of metal, things made of wood, things made of glass, hitting the floor in a frantic scattering fall. I picked up the chair, but couldn’t figure out how to open it. Goddamn it. Just let it drop.

  I had my hand on my car door handle when the voice said, “¿Busca Miguel, Senora?”

  I started the car and in my agitation started it again, hearing the sickening grind of the flywheel. The porch light of the house next door flashed on, revealing a slick young man sitting on the stairs, big jeans hanging off his hips, a smoke in his mouth and an older woman framed in the screen door.

  “¿Que paso, hijo?” I thought I heard her say.

  What’s happening, indeed.

  Chapter Thirty

  I’d just dropped off to sleep when the doorbell started: Buzz. Pause. Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.

  “If I’d known you were coming I’d have baked a cake,” Mike said when I opened the door, his unshaven face not looking at all festive.

  “What are you talking about?” I stalled.

  “You had an interesting night.” He hesitated at the threshold before brushing past me, heading toward the kitchen.

  “Not particularly,” I said, following him. “But you must have since you couldn’t answer your phone. Are you looking for coffee?”

  “I’m not on call twenty-four hours a day for you. Just tell me if you enjoyed your little tour.” He pulled a cup off the shelf and started messing with the espresso machine.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said, heart racing. I leaned against the doorframe at a safe distance, trying to look relaxed.

  “I live in a neighborhood, Nora. People pay attention. Shit,” he said when the cup overflowed. “What the hell did you think would happen? You parked your fat Lexus in my carport. By the way, that half-full beer bottle you set on the desk that belonged to my grandfather made a nasty white ring. And you left the light on in the hall.”

  “You believe that hoodlum…”

  “His name is Jorge. He’s an EMT.”

  “He was smoking pot.”

  “You were trespassing.”

  “Where were you?”

  “Where was I? I was working,” he said. “And it’s none of your business. Get it? You’re not my only client. You don’t own me.”

  “So, where’s the wife?”

  “Gone.”

  “Where’s your son?”

  “With her.”

  “Are you divorced?”

  “What the hell do you think?” He started to light a cigarette.

  “Don’t smoke in my house,” I said.

  He lowered the lighter, but left the cold cigarette in the corner of his mouth. “You know, I’m starting to get some sympathy for Richard. You fucking never let up.” His words were angry, but he looked like he was about to cry.

  And then as if to prove his point, I said, “Who was Johnny Chaca?”

  “Chaca was a drug-dealing low-life.” He stared straight at me while he lit up. I kept my mouth shut. “Under investigation for a murder. Turns out he hadn’t done it. That one, anyway.”

  “So he suicided. He was a crook. What’s that got to do with you?”

  “I harassed him, Nora. Made his life hell. I was beating on his bathroom door when he blew out his brains. That’s what has to do with me.” The color drained from his face.

  “Okay. I’m sorry,” I said, ready for him to stop. I reached out to touch his shoulder.

  He brushed my hand aside and pinned me with his arms against the counter. “No. You want to know. Want to know so bad that you broke into my house. So now you’re going to know. I dogged Johnny Chaca because I was in love with someone…”

  “Shut up,” I said, his words knifing into my heart. I tried to turn away, but his hands stopped me.

  “No. You listen. I was obsessed. Crazy for Chaca’s ex-girlfriend.”

  “You had sex with a criminal?”

  “An informant. The bitch played me. Used me as a weapon. I’m done with that. Understand, Nora, I’m not doing your dirty work for you.”

  “What dirty work? Who said anything about you doing my dirty work?”

  “You don’t even know what you want,” he said.

  I got Mike out on the back porch with The New York Times. I’d cancelled the local paper. Unlike the San Antonio Express-News, the Times didn’t feature recurrent articles about my dead patients. I’d just served him a fresh espresso, some orange juice and an omelet I’d managed to scrounge together when I noticed a car honking.

  Mike heard it, too. “What’s the deal?” he said. “Thought this neighborhood had class.”

  “Car alarm, maybe?” I said, just as it stopped, “Speaking of noise, what did I knock over in the kitchen?” I went on, changing the subject without it even occurring to me, although it certainly should have, that the honking had portent for us.

  “Nothing much,” Mike said from behind the Business Day section.

  “Really? Whatever it was made a spectacular ruckus.”

  He dropped the paper, glared at me a while, then shook his head. “A thirty-piece wood carving set. And about five-million-fucking-little-pieces of stone and glass I collected over the past two years.” He pulled a tiny wooden case with inlaid barrel top and filigreed sides from his pocket. “Here. You can have it.”

  “I don’t deserve this.”

  “Take it anyway,” he said, holding it out to me.

  When I reached toward him, the red of Richard’s polo shirt caught my eye.

  “Richard,” I said, standing up, startling myself with the scrape of my chair on the decking. He stood by the kitchen island, as if he’d been there for days.

  Since the early morning air was pleasant, I’d left the French doors open and the dogs, alerted by the hubbub, roused themselves from under our patio table and ran toward Richard, growling and wagging their tails at the same time.

  He took two steps toward us, and I saw a flash from the sun hitting something in his hand. For a moment, I thought it was one of his precious Japanese kitchen knives he insisted on keeping razor-sharp.

  “Mike,” I said, “watch out.”

  But the glint came off his car keys. In any case, he stopped at the threshold. “I honked but you didn’t come out,” he said. “I’m taking the kids to breakfast. I’ll have them back by noon.”

  “Be my guest,” I said. And then, because I couldn’t stop myself, I added, “If they’ll go with you.”

  Richard flew out the door, put a slim loafer on the metal edge of the glass tabletop and, in one swift motion, kicked the whole thing over. Porcelain espresso cups and matching saucers somersaulted over blue Mexican goblets and antique silver spoons. Arcs of dark coffee and Tropicana Not-from-Concentrate Medium-Pulp with Calcium and Vitamin D showered over us all. The barely touched omelet plopped greasily onto the floor, where the dogs made quick work of it.

  “Settle down, man,” Mike said in the voice of a true cop, ready to spring, but not leaving his chair. “Just settle down.”

  Richard stood there, looking at me, then at Mike.

  “You’re your own worst enemy, Nora.” He bent over to pick up one of the French Provencal napkins that had floated to his feet. He held it for a moment, then lifted one foot at a time and wiped his shoes. “You’ll hear from my attorney next week,” he said. He made a stiff exit, heading upstairs for the kids.

  “
Fucking blowfish, huh?” Mike said, Richard out of earshot.

  His hand shook when he lit his cigarette, the cold blue of the butane mirroring the color of his unblinking eyes.

  I knew better than to say anything.

  “And Nora,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Just hold on to that revolver.”

  “I’m having the locks changed,” I said to Mike, an hour later.

  “Good idea,” he said. “Coming about six months late.”

  We were cruising down Zarzamora Street, referred to by some as the true US-Mexico border. Mexican eateries, herboristerias, tiendas of infinite variety glided past in a blur of primary colors. In the wake of Richard’s visit, Mike had offered to spring for breakfast tacos at a dive in his neighborhood he guaranteed would be safe from a visit by my estranged.

  “And I’m getting a restraining order,” I said.

  We were in my car, which I’d insisted he drive, only to find myself increasingly annoyed by his tinkering with the car’s gadgets—altering the pitch of his seat, switching from CD to FM radio to AM radio with the buttons on the steering wheel, shifting gears with the sport paddles.

  “They won’t redo the orders. Just get divorced.” He put his window down, up, back down, finally resting his elbow in the open space.

  “My lunatic of a husband can come to my house, beat up my son, destroy my stuff, threaten me and my invited guest and I can’t get a restraining order?”

  “Why don’t you get divorced?”

  “That’s the wrong question,” I said.

  “The fact that you don’t want to answer it doesn’t make it the wrong question. If you hate him so much, why don’t you divorce him? Huh, Nora?” He opened the sunroof.