Broken for You (51 page)

"Aren't you freezing out there?" she asked.

He shrugged. "I'm the gardener. There's a lot to tend to here. A person can't always do their work in the sun."

He brought his coffee to the worktable and watched her. She w buttering bits of tesserae with thin-set and then applying them to a child-sized valise. "What do you think about, when you're doin' that?" asked. His eyes were downcast and focused in the direction of the valise, but he seemed to be looking elsewhere.

"I try to think as little as possible," she said. "Why?"

He shrugged again and wandered to another part of the studio.

"That woman you loved," she ventured. "Did you follow her to t
he
ends of the earth?"

"You could say that."

"Did you find her?"

"No."

"What happened?"

He didn't answer right away. "I followed her until somebody else found me."

Something in his tone made her look up. He was staring at her in a way that made her think he'd been staring for a while. She didn't like being under such scrutiny.

Troy came back from the main house, where he'd been working with the volunteers. "They've got about two-thirds of one of the lanes done," he said excitedly. "You wanna see it?"

Wanda scowled and returned to her work. "Maybe later."

"It would mean a lot if you'd come by, is all. They're working really hard and they could use some encouragement."

"I said I will," Wanda answered testily. "Just not right this minute."

"Fine," Troy barked back. "Don't thank them then. Jesus, Wanda." He slammed the door and left.

A moment passed before Mr. Striker muttered, "It's a bloody wonder that boyo puts up with you. He's not gonna hang around forever, you know."

Wanda was incensed. "He can leave anytime he wants! If he's not happy, he can just go." Then she mumbled with a pinched, bitter mouth, "I hope he does. I hope to Christ he gets out, for his own sake."

"You'd better not hope that." Mr. Striker's expression was sharp now, his tone stern and biting. "You know what your problem is, girl? You're like one of those people who get their house broken into. They spend a fortune putting bars on all the windows and doors, and their property never gets violated again. And there they are, lookin' at the world from behind bars for all bloody eternity." He slurped down the last of his coffee and slammed his mug on the table. "Not every man is a fuckin' burglar, you know."

Wanda was working late in the studio. The deadline for
Family Recreation
was fast approaching, and she was often awake past the time when everyone else—even Troy and Mr. Striker—had gone upstairs to bed. She had just gone into the kitchen of the main house to get coffee from the pantry when the phone rang.
"Hello?" said a timid voice. "I'm supposed to ask for Wanda."

"That's me."

The caller whispered, "Is this Detective Lorenzini?"

Wanda's mouth went dry. "Yes, it is," she whispered back.

"This is Dermot. From Blissed on Bop? You came in a couple of years ago, in pursuit of a B&E suspect. Do you remember?"

"Yes, I do."

"Is the investigation still on?"

"Yes," she answered, without hesitation.

"That's good," citizen Dermot hissed urgently, "because I think he's here! It was the music he asked for that made me think it was him. That, and his physical appearance, of course. I still have my notes—and that really awesome drawing. It looks just like him."

"Describe the suspect."

"Long hair, big nose—"

"Does it look like a boxer's nose? Like it's been punched a few times?"

"Yeah! Exactly like that! His face is kinda puffy, too."

"What music has he been looking at?"

"Parker. Rassan Roland Kirk. Baker. The rare recordings, like you said."

"What does he smell like?"

Dermot paused. "I don't know. I'm not that close. Would you like me to—

"Never mind." Wanda started getting out of her work clothes. "Stall him. Find something really rare. Do you have the live Mingus recordings from Paris in '57?"

"Yeah."

"Get 'em out. Put 'em on. I'll be right over."

"Ten-four, Detective."

Wanda wanted to race up the stairs; but of course, she couldn't— her bones wouldn't let her. It seemed like an eternity before she could get to her room. She struggled into her black skirt and peplum-edged jacket. She slipped into her flat-heeled shoes. With shaking hands, she applied some lipstick. By the time she got to Troy's door and knocked, she was breathing hard. Her joints ached. Her head sizzled. She heard a recording of piano and vibes playing quietly in his room, something lyrical and smooth.

Troy opened the door. He must have been awake, reading. He wasn't wearing a shirt.

"I have to go somewhere," she said. "Can I borrow the truck?"

"Sure, but. . ." He rubbed his eyes. "Is there something wrong with the Volvo?"

"Oh," she said, dully. What was she thinking? Why was she here? "No. There's nothing wrong with the car. I don't know why I. . ." She paused. Someone sang,
"It's not the pale moon that excites me, that thrills and delights me, oh no . .
."

"You want to come in ?"

Wanda stared at his chest and chewed her lip. "What is this? What are you listening to?"

"Nancy Wilson. George Shearing."

"You don't like jazz."

"Yes I do. I just don't like the stuff you listen to."

"Why not?"

"It makes me nervous. It makes me feel like the world is coming apart."

Wanda listened to a few more phrases.
"It isn't your sweet conversation that brings this sensation
..."
It was very nice music, but not what she should be listening to at this moment. It was not the music that would keep Detective Lorenzini in uniform.

"What's wrong?" He came closer. He took her hand.

"Can't sleep," she mumbled, feeling dazed. "I'm going for a drive. Or maybe to get something to eat."

"Let me come with you."

"No!" she cried. "I have to go alone. I'll be back in a few hours."

"You're pretty dressed up for the I-Hop."

"Oh, well, I . . ."

"Okay," he said, letting go of her hand and backing away. "Do whatever you have to do. Just be careful."

He closed the door. She leaned against the wall outside, listening to the last few bars of the song, breathing in the lingering scent of him, safe again from the dangers of being too near the one person who made her feel like something more than damaged goods.

From Margaret's house, it took only a few minutes to get to Blissed on Bop. She fairly flew along the crest of Capitol Hill and then careened down Denny Way, heading due west. From there it was a straight shot across town to Queen Anne and the Seattle Center, where the Space Needle was silhouetted against the glittering night sky, appearing just as it did in the postcard that brought her here almost five years ago.

She parked across the street from the store. The place looked busy. She put the finishing touches on her lipstick, her hair.

She walked in. Dermot did a double take, then signaled her to the counter,

"You look different," he whispered. "What happened? Were you injured in the line of duty?"

"Something like that," she answered. "Where is he?"

Dermot jerked his head toward the back of the store. "He came in about an hour ago, with that girl in the sundress, the one who's wearing the headphones. I gave them the Mingus recording to listen to."

Wanda wandered closer. With her back to them, she pretended to examine some LP recordings from the "Easy Listening" section. She felt Peter's voice even before she heard it: the low, fuzzy tones and slurred diction that had always given her the feeling of being wrapped in a mohair sweater. He was chuckling in a way she knew too.

"Isn't that incredible?" he was saying. "Isn't he a genius?"

He was drunk, Wanda could tell. He'd always been a nice drunk. She couldn't get a good look at him yet.

The girl smiling up at him looked like she was maybe in her early to late twenties. She was small and pert and pretty. Peter liked little women, she remembered. He'd told her that on more than one occasion.

This girl, however, differed physically from Wanda in one striking way. "It's fantastic," she cooed, her 38-D chest fully inflated with admiration. "Unbelievable."

"Isn't it?" Peter said. "People like that, they're real artists. They're like angels. They're evolved. The rest of us, we're like . . ."—he gave a muffled belch—". . . nothing."

Listening to his voice, she could feel the texture of him in a way that she hadn't before. She could feel, too, what her own texture must have been when she'd loved him—her bri
skness, her edginess, her compe
tence. He'd needed that. Apparently, he needed it still. He hadn't changed. Not one bit.

She walked up behind him. He still had long hair, but it was streaked with gray now, and had an ill-nourished, desiccated look, as if it were sprinkled with road dust. She touched him on the shoulder. Beyond him, the pert, adoring girl with headphones and cantaloupe breasts turned her radiant smile down a few notches.

"Peter," Wanda said.

He turned around. She saw at once everything he was, everything she knew him to be and had loved fiercely for so many years: a depressed, brilliant drunk, not unkind, but unable to function in the real world of enduring bread-and-butter love. Who he was had taken its toll on his face and body. She hadn't saved him. No one else had, either, but anyone who wasn't careful could spend a lifetime chasing after a dream of him, healed and whole and capable of loving back. And they'd be all right, too, as long as they never lost sight of him or changed. As long as they never woke up.

"Wanda?" he said, pleasantly, sluggishly. "Is that you?" He laughed expansively, like a guiltless, inebriated Saint Nick.

They chatted for a while. Or rather, he chatted. He pontificated. Did he ask what she was doing? Why she was here? What had brought her to Seattle? How she was doing? Why her face was off-kilter? Why she walked with a limp? She didn't know. She didn't think so. But then, she wasn't really paying attention. The diffuse, sonorous quality of his voice—which had once soothed and aroused her—she now found merely slurred and bloated, the voice of the last drunk in the bar at closing time. Peter's girl stared at him with undisguised admiration, adoration, and lust. As he droned on, Wanda nodded mechanically, forgetting their exchange even as it was occurring. Forgetting him.

"Good-bye," Peter said. He kissed her lightly on the cheek, leaving a residue of breath that was part vinegar, part cigarette smoke.

"Good-bye," Wanda answered.

"Who was that?" asked the pert, doomed girl with the market-produce tits.

Wanda didn't wait to hear his answer. She approached the front counter, where poor, loyal citizen Dermot awaited some kind of reward. On the way, she picked up an early live club recording by Nat King Cole.

"Well?" he asked eagerly. "Is that the perp? Is that the guy you've been trying to find?”

She shook her head and paid for her record. Dermot looked crushed She gave him a brusque but appreciative handshake. "Thank you for you
r
help, Dermot, but you can throw away your notes. The case is cold."

She drove for the rest of the night, along the old routes she'd taken whe
n
she'd been looking for him, through this city she'd come to know, when streets curved, intersected, and broke off in response to unruly hills ant unexpected bodies of water. Her prayers had been answered, but then was nothing at the end of them. No sense of relief or redemption. N
o
softening or warming of that old, cold fossil, her heart. The heat of wha
t
she'd felt for him, that marvel of love which had burned like a dengu
e
fever, could not be relit.

She arrived home about an hour after sunrise. She got out of the ca
r
and started inside. She needed to change clothes, make coffee, get t
o
work. She'd go through the patio entrance.

Someone was whistling. The tune was familiar. As she walked to ward the house, she spied Mr. Striker and Maurice, up and about, earl as usual. Maurice was lolling in a patch of catnip; Mr. Striker was kneeling in the herb bed, facing away from her. He usually had his hair tucke
d
up in a hat, but this morning it was pulled into a neat ponytail and hun
g
down his back. The picture had a startling potency, as if she'd see Mr. Striker from this perspective before.

She stopped, stared, listened. What was that music? She started towar
d
him as if he were some rare, wild thing that might take flight. His jack
et
was off—it was already warm outside—and he was wearing one of
his
signature Hawaiian shirts, the pink and lime one that was especially gaud
y.

Mr. Striker started to sing: '"My mama done told me, when I was i
n
knee pants, my mama done told me, Son . . .'"

I
am going to find him,
she thought, and here he was singing, his voic
e
no longer in disguise, but rich with soft wooly vowels and corkscre
w
punch consonants—the unmistakable paradoxes of a native Dubliner speech. She could feel the universe laughing. She almost laughed hersel
f.

" 'A woman'll sweet-talk, and give you the big eye, but when the swe
et
talkin's done . . .'"