by Tom Larsen
***
“First you’re going to California and then you’re not. It’s your judgment, Lena. It isn’t sound.”
“I’ve just had second thoughts. There’s no hurry. I can go anytime.”
“They’ll hold a job open for you? How can they do that?”
“It’s per diem, mom. They always need people.”
Minna goes on about her judgment and how Rita wants to move to the shore, as if that will ever happen. Lena sees that she should have stayed at the cottage, even though her gut said Harry forgot the phone number. She should have stopped to think things through instead of rushing home and telling lies. More lies than she’ll never be able to cover.
“I don’t know why you can’t just get a job here. The city’s full of hospitals.”
“I’m trying to get a life going mom. You could be a little more supportive.”
“You have a life. Why would you throw it away?”
“See, now you’re getting mixed up. This is your argument against going. I just told you I’m not going, yet.”
“Is this about a man?”
“Don’t be silly.”
“What’s silly about it? You’re trying to hide something from your mother. What else could it be?”
“I’m not hiding anything, mom. I’m just trying to get through this.”
But Minna won’t let up and Lena feels a tug for the days when they weren’t getting along. All the phone calls she didn’t have to wade through, the guilt strained through endless questions.
“You know your father hated California, don’t you?”
“Listen, I gotta go.”
“He was stationed there during the war. San Diego, I think it was.”
“I wouldn’t go anywhere near San Diego. Listen mo–”
“And so expensive. I saw on the news where–”
“I’ll call you.”
The whole night spent watching the phone, but he doesn’t call. What if he never calls? Harry’s note gave her that feeling and when she thinks of it her head starts to hurt. Why would he do this to her? He’s crazy and he’s got a gun, a bad combination. This is about the second dead guy, Lena knows it, which means they’re after him, or he thinks they’re after him. No matter how she looks at it, Harry’s let her take the fall again. What else could explain it? So she can expect a SWAT team to come crashing through the door at any time, waving guns, busting up the place. The way it happens when you least expect it. So she goes to the door and peeks outside and sees the Benz parked right out front.
***
It’s still raining the next morning. Harry lays in bed listening to the clank of the radiator. A cozy touch with the windows steamed up and traffic splashing through puddles. The feeling that nothing can touch him here and he wraps himself up in it. But then he thinks of Lena and the feeling fades. How she’ll never get here without a passport and the nagging suspicion that she never got one.
He rolls out of bed and studies his image in the window. Then he looks down to the top of the marquee next door, a neon sign in French with the time, 12 p.m. More French across the front, reflected backward in the window across the street, and he makes out Born to be Bad, Robert Ryan and some other names. Funny, he didn’t notice a theater when he checked in. Must be some sort of American movie retrospective, Robert Ryan’s been dead for years. The rain is really coming down now and he thinks about killing the day at the movies, grabbing a bite and a bottle to while away the day with. Born to be Bad, something noir-ish by the poster in the window, Ryan behind a woman in a slinky black dress. The poster clinches it.
He showers and shaves, stops on his way out to reserve the room for two more nights. The woman at the desk looks Indian or Pakistani and her English is weak so they go through it with hand gestures. He thinks she gets it but can’t be sure, so he takes the key with him, out the front door and across the street to the same café for the same pancake looking pastry that’s just as delicious as he remembers. He watches someone talking on the payphone then hits up the waiter for a handful of coins. Christ they weigh a ton. Out in the rain, trying to make sense of the phone, but it’s too confusing so he puts off calling. Still time to kill before the theater opens so he walks over to Notre Dame, rain soaks through his jacket as he passes a black guy selling umbrellas. Feels pretty good about the transaction, even if he paid twice what it’s worth and it won’t last the day. The cathedral is as grand as you’d expect but it doesn’t feel right without Lena and he only stays a few minutes. Ends up at another sidewalk café, under the awning with a bottle of burgundy. No label, like they mix it in the basement, but tasty, though he’s not really a wine guy. Rain and more rain, as if Paris wanted to look it’s coldest and loneliest and Harry buys another bottle and hustles across the street just as the man opens the ticket window. At first he’s the only patron, but others come drifting in and they spread around like people do in movie theaters. A handful of couples, a dozen loners, and Harry wonders if they’re regulars or just getting out of the rain.
The lights go dim and they show attractions coming up and its not clear if the movies are going to start or they’re just old trailers. Either way the familiar faces and the black and white work their magic, and by the time Born to be Bad begins Harry’s back in the 1940s, lavish sets and tough talk, the cars and the chain smoking. A world apart from his own, subtitled in French no less, Ryan – young and handsome – in a dark polo shirt with that sneery delivery. He’s a San Francisco writer and he’s after Joan Fontaine who looks a bit spinsterish, but turns out to be the “bad” one. Harry sinks so deep into the story he forgets where he is and how desperate things have gotten. And when it’s over he has trouble reconnecting and leaves the theater disoriented, passes right by the payphone to the wine bar where he sits chain-smoking and watching the rain.
***
Lena grabs Harry’s baseball bat and storms out the front door. Billy starts to get out then dives back inside as the first blow dents the roof.
“Fucking lowlife asshole!” The second shatters the side mirror and then she’s all over it, hood, headlights, doors, grunting and heaping curses, giving it her all. Lights come on as she takes out the windshield, folding in sections, then breaking apart.
“Scumbag stinking piece of shit!” There’s a hand on her arm but she shakes it off, goes at the taillights, a blast of glass and shattered red plastic. In rhythm now, wild and unstoppable, slam-banging until the bat splinters in her hands.
“Lena, whoa!” Duffy wrestles her away, still spitting and fuming, but winded now. A final fling and the bat handle bounces down the street. Then she’s handed off to Sally who turns her away and she hears Billy jabbering like an idiot. A dozen neighbors crowd the Benz, men and women barking threats and insults. Billy lays on the horn like that might help, tires crunching glass as he pulls out and hits the gas. A bottle clunks off the roof then jeers and catcalls resound as Billy beats a path through the crowd.
When he’s gone they mill around talking tough while the kids fill the windows. Someone gets a broom and they sweep up the mess, no one even asks what brought it on.
***
A week of no television and Harry’s climbing the walls. He’s gone through half his cash but Lena’s card still works and he hits it for another grand. Moves two blocks to a hotel with a television, but it’s all in French, the shows, news, weather, everything. Lovely sound, though, like music, with the occasional word in English. How un-French they sound, falling from those Euro lips like tasteless crumbs. There’s more on his mind besides Lena and the police sketch, loneliness, for one thing, isolation. He hasn’t met a soul except for the fat guy who seems to live at Starbucks and the woman at the jazz joint who beat him for a twenty before ducking out the back. He hasn’t even tried to find out about the Thruway killer, as if the French give a shit. And now his tooth is acting up again, feels like it’s going to crumble, there’s pain on the way but he doesn’t want to think about it.
A week without sun, though it does stop raining. He tries seeing the sights, but it’s hard to connect, even with the phrase book, which only seems to annoy people. No routine to speak of except sleeping late and drinking, French barflies and women who don’t speak his language, crazy to piss his money away.
He sees Born to be Bad again and when the feature changes to Dark Passage he sits through it twice, stumbling out into more rain and a bone-rattling chain of sneezes. Germs, just what he needs. Harry takes to his bed, watches French television and stares at the ceiling.
***
Lena gets her credit card statement. Harry’s in Paris and from the looks of things he’s found all the watering holes. She tries to picture him there, but all she gets is a shape moving up a crooked little street. The same street that’s in the picture above the upstairs toilet, Rue something or other. A picture Harry committed to memory over the years, inventing stories for the little stick figures at the bottom, two in particular, hailing a cab to take them to the racetrack, or a swanky café, or wherever Harry wanted over the course of his nightly six-pack. Lena calls the passport bureau, puts her application on the fast track.
She’s seen nothing more on the Thruway killer. The police sketch really knocked her for a loop, shave a few pounds and the guy’s a dead ringer. And she knows every life has strange twists and turns, but nothing stranger than tracking your man’s manhunts over two continents. A sketch of a guy who looks like Harry Watts, if you know Harry and are thinking of him when you see it. Even then it wouldn’t mean much, unless you knew what Lena knows and no one does, so no mention is made. Still, late at night it’s always SWAT teams kicking down doors or Billy D sneaking in that wake her up, and finally Lena packs some things and drives upriver just to get some sleep.
She dreams that Harry’s dead, a dream that chills her when she wakes to the truth. That he’s still out there and she still has to worry. What really chills her is she’s had these dreams for years, and the relief she felt when she woke up beside him was like a perfect gift. The best thing she could ever hope for, a second chance at everything. And this was just the opposite! Lena doesn’t want to believe it but she lives in a world of things she can’t believe. Lying there, fully awake now, she can see where loving Harry has become too much for her. It’s amazing the places her mind will go these days, places she didn’t know were there.
Now she’s crying, fuck it, and she opens the locket and there’s Harry, full of himself. It all seems so unreal.
The dog comes later that day. Lena sees him lope across the lawn then hears him scratch at the door, nosing his way in when she opens it, slurping at her hand, tail banging the doorframe.
“Whoa fella,” Lena pushes him away but he dances right back, licking at her chin and up her nose. Big brown dog with big brown eyes and so darn happy to see her. There’s no collar that she can see, but he’s clean and well fed. It’s clear he loves her madly as he follows her into the kitchen where he trots to the corner and scratches at a bottom cabinet. Lena finds a bag of dog food inside it, left by a previous tenant, and pours him out a big bowl full. He eats half then circles the rug and curls up with a heavy sigh.
In the afternoon she takes him for a walk on the towpath, Lena walking, the dog bounding into the brush, crashing over leaves and branches, popping back out a hundred yards farther down. There to sit stock still until Lena calls out for him, then off like a shot, ears pinned back, big sloppy smile on his face. So much fun he does it again and again, always the mad dash finish, until Lena worries he’ll hurt himself. Okay, one more time and that’s it, and he takes off, crashes around but doesn’t pop out again.
Lena calls down the towpath but the dog doesn’t show. Probably took off for home, but she keeps at it until it’s almost dark. For no other reason then she’d hoped he’d stay the night, a warm body to curl up to and watch television with. She wishes she knew the dog’s name, where he lives, wishes she’d stopped the game when she was going to. They’d be home by now, Lena, the dog and a roaring fire. That she can’t have that makes her want it more than ever and the thought of home alone hurts more than she can stand.
She gives it a few more minutes then starts back, and halfway there hears him coming on fast. Turns just as the dog blows by, a single pant, a thump of paws, then waiting and wagging at her back door.
The night turns out just how she pictured it, balled up with the dog on the sofa. He’s a sucker for belly rubs, a sprinter even sound asleep. The next morning they walk the towpath in the other direction and it goes much the same way. The dog rips through hedges and tramples flowerbeds in the homeowners gardens. She puts him on a leash when they get to the village and the dog is transformed, stepping beside her like a show dog, waiting patiently when Lena stops to shop. Back home just in time for the latest from Oprah central, little Lilly and her brave fight for life. Cameras track the crowd as Oprah runs down the latest setback, calls for prayers and the power of hope. That they must believe, that belief is the key. Then they’re cheering for Lilly, cheering and crying for Lilly, and to a lesser extent, God, but mostly for Oprah. All things Oprah and the way she gets things done.
Lena wants to believe. But there’s an overblown, television feel to it, Oprah and any damn thing, and try as she might, Lena can’t see it ending well. Doesn’t want to think how it all could go wrong, or right. Doesn’t want to think about Harry at all, not today, with her new dog and how it’s going so well. She hugs him to her when her thoughts turn to Harry. A thousand hugs and it works every time.
***
“Lena?”
“Yes Harry.”
“Are you okay?”
Lena doesn’t know how to answer so she says nothing.
“I’m in Paris.”
“I know.”
“Please. I don’t blame you for hating me.”
“I could never hate you, Harry.”
“Who’s there with you?”
“My dog, Chester.”
It’s the last thing Harry expected to hear and he thinks maybe it’s the connection. But the dog starts to bark, Lena yells something and the phone bounces off the floor.
“Sorry, he doesn’t like me to talk on the phone.”
“I need to see you, Lena.”
“What’s happened?”
“Nothing’s happened. I just . . . need to explain. Something came up and I just had to go.”
“Is something coming up for me?”
“What? Why would–”
“Because you know how you’ll hate yourself if I should know but you don’t tell me. So tell me, Harry.”
“No, I don’t know.”
“Chester, quiet! Tell me what to do if they get me, Harry.”
“It’s not what you think. You have nothing to do with this.”
“Everything you do has something to do with me. I told them you were dead, remember? They paid off.”
“Did you get your passport?”
“It’s coming.”
“Just stay at the cottage until it comes. We paid in cash. The landlord doesn’t care who we are. You’ll be okay there.”
“But they won’t send it here. I’ll have to go home to get it.”
“Have Alice check the mail.”
“Forget it. I’m not involving anyone else.”
Harry winces. “I have to see you.”
Lena wraps her arms around Chester’s neck. “Okay. How do we do it?”
“I’ll let you know. I have to go now. I love you Lena.”
“Harry?”
Click.
***
But there is no way to check the mail without involving someone else, so Lena waits a few days then drives in to check it herself. Less than an hour by car and she thinks about what she’ll do if the cops get her. Deny everything. They can’t touch her for the Cooperstown thing and if they tie in Mexico she’ll make a deal. Give them Harry like he’d give them her. The thought scares her to death and as
she turns off at Pennsport that hard thing in her heart gets even harder. Her passport’s not there but nobody jumps out to grab her. She waits a few days and drives in again, with Chester. Her passport’s there this time, but Sally spots her and drags her into an interrogation. Then the kids come home, see the dog and the block’s all over her.
***
“Est-ce que quelqu’un assis ici?”
Harry turns to a woman in black leather, attractive, but not happy about something. Slips in beside him before he can say a word. Harry looks to the bartender and shrugs his eyebrows. The bartender grins and sets her up.
“Vous etes mignon,” she leans her head in her hand. “Est-vous mariee?”
“I don’t speak French,” Harry tells her.
“Mon mari est un porc.”
“Sorry. Can’t be helped.”
But she doesn’t seem to mind, slipping a hand in the crook of his elbow, lighting him up like a hundred watt bulb.
“So, you live around here?”
She answers with a warm smile and a long explanation, in French with coy looks and Audrey Hepburn eyes. Those lips and her hand warming slowly until he wants to . . .
“Qui diable etes vous?”
They both turn to a big guy with a nasty snarl. The woman spins away and mutters into her drink. The man glares at Harry.
“Ce que vous faites avec ma femme?”
“Sorry pal, it’s all Greek to me.”
The next thing he knows he’s looking up at legs and faces, hears loud shouts and a woman scream. Someone grabs his arm and he knows what’s happened, that the fucker hit him. And for the first time in a long time he knows what to do, scrambles to his feet as the guy comes at him. Headbutts the asshole crushing his nose, then a fist to the gut and a picture perfect uppercut. Frenchy folds over then flies backwards, taking out a passing waitress, drinks and glasses flying. Someone blows a whistle and the crush of bodies carries Harry along and then he’s out the door and running. Through the streets of Paris! No idea where he’s going, but senses when he’s out of range, that no one’s chasing.