Everything here seemed the same as last week except me. New insights didn’t improve my vision any, and I cracked my skull against an unexpected girder. I gave myself a moment—no blood or sounds of anyone running to investigate the noise. Cautiously, I felt my way over to the door I had used last week and nudged it open.
It was no wonder I hadn’t remembered the girder. I was nowhere close to where I thought I was. Instead of being across the auditorium, I was about a dozen rows behind Fran and friend. I had planned to get closer than last time but not this close.
After my heart quieted and the hammer in my head eased into a dull ache, I was rewarded with the eternal truth of trade-offs. While I couldn’t see faces, if I controlled my anxiety I could clearly hear what they were saying.
Twenty minutes later I prayed my way back outside. I was relieved to find my illegally parked car ticketed but untowed. I left the red swatch on the windshield and slid inside, smoking a cigarette and thinking about what I’d heard. Fran had solved Simon’s case herself. She had apparently reached the same conclusion I had about her troubles. Although she never mentioned nightmares, she told her friend she “couldn’t handle it” enough times for the message to sink a piling into the harbor. Which it hadn’t by the time I left. The guy didn’t sound big and bad so learning his identity seemed like a needless precaution, but I had plenty of time to kill before meeting Boots. Plus, it would neatly round off my pay from Simon, though he wasn’t going to get an itemized bill.
I had a feeling the nightmares were soon to be history.
Ten more minutes passed before I saw Fran on the boat’s platform. I watched as she threaded through the line of people waiting on the ramp for the show. She crossed the courtyard toward the parking garage and out of my line of vision. I kept shifting my eyes toward the top of the ramp and the garage until Fran’s Mercedes pulled up to the attendant’s booth. I watched long enough to make sure she wasn’t going to drive in my direction, then returned my attention to the boat.
A man with the general appearance of Fran’s lover slipped onto the ramp as the waiting crowd surged forward. I still couldn’t get a decent look so I hopped out of the car and hurried across the street. Halfway there I glanced toward the garage and saw the rear of a cream-colored
Lincoln heading in the same direction as Fran. I thought about returning to my car to give chase. As a motorist blasted his horn at my indecision I realized I’d never catch the Lincoln, so I ran the rest of the way to the Aquarium’s main door. It was too late to remain unobtrusive.
It was too late, period. My man was nowhere to be seen. I stomped back to the car, got in and slammed the door before I saw the second ticket on the window. I jumped out, grabbed those red fuckers, and ripped the shit out of them. Too late I noticed a meter maid three cars up staring at me strangely.
I stood there with the shredded tickets in my hand while she walked briskly toward me.
“Not only am I going to rewrite each of your tickets, but I’m going to give you a third for ripping up the other two.” She looked pointedly at my hand. “And, if I see one scrap of those tickets on the street, I’m going to cite you for littering.”
I ground my teeth. “What do I get for more than one scrap?” and opened my hand wide as the garbage floated south.
I found out when I added the numbers on the red slips after I parked in a legal spot about three yards from where I’d been. I stared at the tickets. I was going to do the last work on Simon’s case for the city.
I sat in the car and stewed. I wanted the rest of the joint but was afraid the meter maid was hiding behind a nearby parked car. I looked around and surreptitiously lit the joint. Still nervous about the fucking meter maid, I took a couple of quick hits and stubbed it out. I finally let some of my mad go. I couldn’t find the Lincoln now anyway, but I was still too pissed to check on Fran’s beef.
It took a while but I managed to shake enough change for dollars from passersby to replenish the sinking parking needle. I had plenty of time before meeting Boots and, without thinking, began to walk toward the North End.
As I strode up Commercial toward Hanover, years of reading about the city’s development leaped off the printed page. If you liked big buildings and brick plazas and renovated piers, the city was big-time. Personally, I missed the dowdiness. I marched into the heart of the North End, thought about eating, but settled on groceries instead. I walked into a hole-in-the-wall pasta store for fresh noodles and homemade pesto. I bought enough for two. It didn’t take a weatherman to guess what was blowing around my brain.
I killed the remaining time in a bar drinking Becks’ Dark and watching well-dressed men and women relate. They worked hard at it. It was something that apparently didn’t come easy to anyone. I luxuriated in my generosity. Eventually I looked at the clock behind the bar and confirmed the bad news with my watch. I paid for the beer, gathered my bundles, and walked outside into the afternoon sunlight. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust, then I hustled to the car and stashed the groceries.
The concrete and brick courtyard in front of the Aquarium was swarming with people. I angled over to the harbor seals and sat on the lip of the viewing wall. Although there were plenty of families milling about, the area seemed like an outdoor convention for midtown business people. I turned my head and watched a seal lying on its back catching rays. I wasn’t absolutely sure but I thought it winked. I looked back into the crowd and worried about missing Boots.
I didn’t notice anything until I felt a hand on my shoulder. “You were early.”
I looked up but was blinded by the sun. “Can you move around to this side? I can’t see shit this way.”
“Were you intending to stay?”
I stood up. “Where would you like to go?”
I felt rather than saw her move away. I rushed to catch up before she melded with the crowd. Something was telling me this wasn’t going to be an easy conversation. I followed her out the concourse and down the street to a red brick building. She walked purposefully through the door and led us into a large bar with a number of rooms. She grabbed my hand and pulled me toward one in the back.
“Hurry, I see something open.” She skillfully sliced her way through the jostling crowd as I tried to keep up. Although she wasn’t a drop-your-jaw looker, she garnered a fair share of male appreciation. I didn’t feel nearly as accepting of humanity’s struggle to relate as I had in the first bar. I kept my eyes straight ahead and followed. It wasn’t until we were in our seats—two small easy chairs intimately connected by a small wooden table—that I really saw my surroundings.
I was in the belly of the whale. Not one workshirt or pair of dungarees. The closest thing I saw to informality was a blazer. “I’m not going to pass the dress code.”
“They don’t have one.”
I nodded toward the rest of the room. “You mean they dress’like this voluntarily?”
“Who do you think you’re sitting with, a prisoner?”
I waved for the waitress. This morning’s speeches seemed far away. And Boots wasn’t bringing them any closer. I ordered German, she ordered tonic with a twist of lime. We waited quietly until the waitress returned with our order. The crowd of people in the room seemed to fade as I grew used to the decibel level and I began to focus on the woman I had abused the other night.
“You wanted to talk, so talk.” Her voice was brittle and her lips were drawn in a tight line across her face.
I took a long swallow of my beer and lit a cigarette. “I don’t blame you for being hostile. I don’t imagine it makes much of a difference, but I’m ashamed of my behavior the other night. Not just the, the physical stuff. I’m pretty embarrassed about choosing Amalfi’s to meet.”
“And why is that?” Her voice challenged, but her eyes showed interest.
“Too close to the crap of a couple of years ago.”
“So why do you do it?”
I finished my drink and waved for another. She hadn’t touched hers.
“I don�
��t have any single answer. Somehow treating me decent was something to take advantage of. I seem to have trouble belonging to clubs that’ll take me.”
She drank from her glass. “Give me one of your cigarettes, will you?”
I lit and handed her one.
“You think you took advantage of me the other night?”
I offered a grim smile. “What would you call it? I had an explosion coming for a hell of a long time and I had just enough balls to explode on you. Not exactly what I’d call ‘real man’ material.”
She started to say something and I leaned over and put my finger on her lips. “Wait a second.” I was gratified that she didn’t pull away from my touch. I took a deep breath and willed myself to keep talking. “I spent the rest of the weekend full of hate. During the day I hated myself, at night, everyone else. But, at no time over the weekend did I hate you.”
Her eyes flashed the rest of the way alive. “Why should you? We did Friday night.”
I shook my head. “I don’t hate you, Boots, never have. I hated me and couldn’t stand the fact that you didn’t.” I felt my words starting to run out. “I don’t know, I don’t have any brilliant interpretations about Friday night. I’m just sorry. You’ve always been good to me and I’ve always been rotten to you. I’m just sorry about it.”
All the words from this morning were gone. I felt stripped down to my beer and cigarettes. I couldn’t explain myself to anyone else; I couldn’t explain myself to me.
I heard her voice and looked up. Much of the tautness was gone from her face. “You didn’t take any more advantage of me Friday night than I took of you. You weren’t there by yourself. This idea that you weren’t some sort of ‘real man’ the other night is part of the bullshit. You were as real as it gets. And so was I. You didn’t control what happened, we agreed. I put my face where it met your hand; to think otherwise is macho bullshit.”
I watched as she picked at the cigarette’s filter with her free hand. After a moment she stopped and looked back at me and continued, “Toward the end of our relationship I realized that your backhanded treatment of me was a turn-on. Your hostility attracted me. In that respect you were right about the slumming, though not because of class. You were a piece of me I wouldn’t admit to. I stopped seeing you because I fell in love with you, but I was beginning to despise myself.”
She smiled and touched my hand. “I didn’t come here expecting to say this, but you’ve been so damn honest. I had planned to take the self-righteous high road. To make you pay.”
She stubbed her cigarette hard into the ashtray. “I wanted us to be together like that. I wanted it like that since we met.”
Her eyes narrowed and grew hard. “Wanted it. Past tense. No more losers, no more abusers for me.” She smiled again, only a bit more ruefully. “If we’re different as a result of Friday, maybe we ought to thank each other.”
The rest of the people in the bar had long since disappeared. There were just the two of us. Or maybe just her. “What’s the matter with us, Boots? It’s not as if we’re bimbos.”
She finished her drink. I lit two more cigarettes and passed her one. She took a deep drag, “You once told me that people play the hands they’re dealt. I guess we’re helping each other see our cards.”
“I’m not sure I like what I see.”
“You never did.”
“Then I couldn’t see the cards. Now I can.”
She grinned, waved to the waitress, and signaled for the check. “It’s a start.”
“I wish I knew to what.”
She didn’t say anything and, as we sat there, the room began to slowly reemerge. I leaned forward. “Where does all of this leave us?”
She looked at me and shook her head. “Sometimes you really surprise me. That’s the last question I imagined you would ask.” She pushed her half-smoked cigarette into the ashtray and sucked on the ice in her glass. “Give me another one, will you?”
I lit one and handed it to her. On my way I pushed the still smoldering cigarette deeper into the ashtray.
“I don’t know where this leaves us, Matt. I don’t have many friends.”
Before I could think of what to say I heard words pop out of my mouth. “Well, what about sex?” My voice dropped with the last word. It didn’t matter; she heard.
Her eyes widened and she burst out laughing, “I’m sorry, I’m not laughing at you, you’re just amazing today. I don’t know any more about sex than you do. Less, if our last encounter is any indication.”
Her attitude about Friday was a relief. I felt my cheeks grow hot. “I didn’t mean that, exactly. I, uh, meant …”
“I know what you meant and I don’t know. We’ll see what happens. If we are going to be friends we’ll talk things over. We’ll wait and see.”
The operative word was wait. I decided to forego my dinner invitation, I felt disappointed and relieved. “Can I ask a favor?”
“Why not?”
“It’s a work thing. I’m not sure what your job is exactly, but Simon thinks you can trace things.”
“Are you kidding? I’m Ma Bell. Information Ma can’t get isn’t worth having.”
“I have a partial license plate I need matched with a cream-colored Lincoln. I want the name and address.”
“A day.”
I fished what I had out of my head, told her and added, “It’d be a real help to have it.”
“You’re doing repo work?”
I laughed. “No. Nothing like that.”
The bill came but we ignored it. “What then?” she teased. “You have to give some information to get some. Anyway, why didn’t you just have Simon check? He certainly can.”
“I don’t want him involved. This is a tricky situation.”
“Don’t tell me you care about confidentiality. Not when you ask me to jack into the matrix.”
“What the hell is ‘jack into the matrix’?”
She tossed her head. “It’s information mining. What’s this about?”
“I’m not sure you really want to know.”
“You don’t want Simon involved and now you’re protecting me?”
“Maybe you should be the detective.”
My words fell on deaf ears. Boots was staring straight ahead. I knew I was back in focus. “This has something to do with Fran. That’s what you were doing at that building? You were following her?” Tension and suspicion filled her voice. “Whatever you are working on better not hurt her. She is one of the few real friends I have.”
I thought about denying it all. Telling her that her imagination was overheating. Or relating the car to Dr. James’ case. But I had been too honest for too much of the day; it was a variation of Newton’s third law. “I’m not trying to hurt her. That’s why I don’t want Simon involved. The trace is an attempt to get Simon to stop prying into Fran’s private life. Nothing else.”
She looked into me. “You know about her affairs, don’t you?”
I nodded. “I know about one.”
She didn’t blink. “What’s this about?”
I told her. I suppose I wanted to. It was a relief to talk about it with someone other than Simon. Someone I didn’t have to lie to. She changed her order to rum and coke and we added a couple more drinks to the tallied check as I detailed Simon’s request and my thinking. I didn’t leave anything out. I even managed to weave in the James case. By the time I finished she had smoked more of my cigarettes and I was feeling lighter. It was in moments like these I appreciated the rite of confession.
Unfortunately my relief was short-lived. I hoped Catholics had it better. She slowly shook her head. “I don’t buy it.”
“Of course not. Simon’s idea was crazy from the jump.”
“I don’t mean Simon’s idea. I just don’t believe that Fran’s affairs have very much to do with her problem.”
“Nightmares.”
“I think it’s more than nightmares.”
“You sound like Simon.”
�
�So what? Maybe he’s onto something.”
I didn’t buy that. “Do you know anything about her dreams?” For a moment I felt like a gossip. I had to remind myself that this was work.
“She won’t tell me.”
I still thought the reason for her problem wore pants. “I don’t see why you are so sure the pressure from her affair”—I wasn’t comfortable surrendering to the plural—“couldn’t be the reason for her breakdown.”
“It isn’t a breakdown.” Boots’ voice flared with protective anger.
I moved my fingers in a gesture of peace. “Could Fran be pregnant?”
“I don’t know. It’s not something she’d tell me. But even if she were I don’t think it would get to her like this.”
I shrugged. “If it means anything, Alex agrees with you.”
She took a deep breath, tucked her head into her shoulders, and leaned forward. “How close did you get to the guy Fran is seeing?”
“Pretty close.”
She bobbed her head upward. “God, I feel like a shit talking this way. What did you think of him?”
“Not much. Why?”
“If you know Fran it’s obvious. I don’t even know which one you saw, but no guy she sleeps with is much. They’re a tension release, not a cause for concern. None of them has the capacity to cause her any anxiety. That’s how she picks them.”
I felt uncomfortable about Boots’ attitude. “You seem pretty confident about Fran’s judgment. It seems possible that she could have made a mistake along the way.”
“Her judgment about anything else might be questionable, not men.” Boots shook her head in her characteristic manner and grinned. “Some of us don’t travel blind when it comes to sex.”
I lifted my bottle in her direction, then took a swallow. “If her act is so together why is she breaking it off? How long has she been doing this to become so good at it?”
I caught Boots eyeing me with a mixture of annoyance and pity. “This bothers you, doesn’t it?”
“Not in the abstract, but Simon is my friend.”
“Does my relationship with Hal bother you?”
“Hal?”
The Complete Matt Jacob Series Page 17