Cry Havoc (12 page)

“No,” Gail admitted. “I just… I don’t know. I know you claim to be an agnostic, but I always thought underneath it all, bottom line, that you’d have something to cling to greater than yourself.”

“So why’s that so sad?”

“It seems lonely. And it makes it impossible to share what I believe in.”

Locking the patio door, Frank answered, “Not at all. I love it when you talk about the trees and stars. And that grove in Berkeley that you used to hike to when you were a kid. You light up when you talk about that stuff. You’re beautiful. Just because I don’t believe in it doesn’t mean I can’t respect that you do.”

“It’s just such a comfort to have faith in something greater than myself and my fellow stumbling, bumbling human beings. It’s a wonderful sense of tranquility to believe I belong in the world; that I’m part of a design, even though I don’t know what that design is. I don’t know how to express it. You’d have to feel it yourself and that’s the part that makes me sad. That we can’t share that tranquility. It’s not an option for you.”

Frank kissed the top of Gail’s head.

“I’m tranquil when I’m with you. That’s all I have right now and it’ll have to do.”

“But I’m only human, Frank. I’ll fail you.”

“And God hasn’t?”

“No,” Gail said, twisting out of Frank’s arms. “Never. Things might happen that you don’t like but they happen for a reason. Fate, God, Karma, call it what you like, everything happens for a reason.”

“Ah. The Divine Plan.”

“Exactly. Just because you don’t know what it is doesn’t mean there isn’t a reason.”

“There was a reason you got cancer,” Frank argued.

“Yes! I believe that every time we’re faced with a choice we can make a good one, a bad one, or a mediocre one. How you choose affects the results. If we keep making poor choices, ones that concentrate on our lower, more base instincts, then we keep getting the same poor situations until we learn to respond to diem with love and move beyond them. So for me the breast cancer was God’s way of shaking me and getting me to take a look at how I was living my life.

“I worked from six in the morning until eight at night. I ate shitty food, got no exercise and slept horribly. All I had was work and the cats. Then when I had to face the very real possibility that I might die, I realized how much I was missing. How much time I’ve wasted in my life, how much love I’ve missed. It was so wonderful to be around my mom and sisters and to just appreciate how much they loved me. And how much I loved them. I’d never realized it, never really felt the depth of my passion for them until I was so close to losing them. And you know what? I might not die today or tomorrow, hell, I might live another fifty years, but the point is, I
am
going to die. Someday. Yet I’ve lived like I had all the time in the world to waste. The cancer showed me I
don’t
have that time to waste. It was a gift in that it opened my eyes to all the goodness that I can have in my life.”

“So now that you realize all that you’ll never get cancer again?”

Gail sighed.

“Now that I realize all that it doesn’t
matter
that I get cancer again. I have the best life imaginable. The best work, the best family, the best lover, the best friends. I finally feel like I’m not missing something.”

“I’m still not sure how God figures into all this bliss.”

“Because my body will be gone, but my soul won’t. The core of me, the essence, the energy I have created—either good or bad— will go on without a corporeal vehicle. I don’t know if it’s reincarnation or angels or what, but I will take the lessons I’ve learned and apply them elsewhere. The fundamental goodness of me will persist. Just like the stars. I don’t know what shape I’ll take but I believe there are realities we can’t sense, that we’re not supposed to sense because our poor little pea brains couldn’t comprehend their magnitudes. There’s a joy in the mystery, in the not knowing. It’s exciting. When I die I’m going on a huge adventure, like a cosmic Disneyland. I don’t know what the adventure is—I don’t have to know—all I
do
know is that it’s out there.”

Frank didn’t say anything. God meant nothing to her and dead was dead. If there was a god, she’d reasoned when she was still a child, he wouldn’t have taken her father and left her to care for a woman with one foot wedged in the nuthouse door. When Maggie died, she had irrefutable proof that there wasn’t a god. She allowed people their beliefs like an indulgent parent allowed their child an invisible friend. Besides, she had so many of her own crutches she couldn’t very well kick others’ out from under them.

Still, she found it amusingly human that people persisted in believing in soft and warm and fuzzy. It was so much easier than admitting there was nothing out there, nothing waiting when your ticket finally got punched but oblivion. Frank didn’t really think oblivion would be all that bad. Some days she felt it would be her reward for the hell she walked through now. So if Gail wanted to believe in trees and stars, and Mother Love Jones wanted to believe in chickens and hexes, then who was Frank to judge? It was still a free country.

“Look,” Frank said, trying to put an end to the interrogation. “My dad was Catholic and he went to church once a year. My mom tried on religions like they were shoes. I had an aunt who was a devout Catholic and I’ve never seen a more pious, more bitter woman. My uncle hated the church and slammed it every chance he got, usually in front of my aunt just to drive her crazy. I didn’t have any good role models for organized religion. Or unorganized religion for that matter. I learned that at the end of the day, all I could count on was me. And I haven’t seen anything in forty years to change that.”

“How do you explain miracles?”

Frank frowned. “Random circumstance.”

“I don’t believe this,” Gail marveled, “I’m in love with a raving atheist.”

“Ah, ah,” Frank corrected, shaking one finger. “Agnostic, I don’t believe in a god but I don’t care if you believe in one. For all I know there might even be one and
then
won’t I be in trouble. Now, can we drop this and go to bed?”

Gail followed Frank into the bedroom, grumbling, “A drunken agnostic. How can I ever take you home to meet my mother?”

“You’ll just have to play up my other attributes.”

“Remind me what they are.”

“Brilliant detective, superior commander. Exquisite lover. Gourmet chef and chief bottle-washer.”

“Not to mention smooth talker.”

“Not to mention,” Frank agreed, pulling Gail to her and hugging her oh-so-tightly. Tight enough that if there was a god, he couldn’t take this woman too.

All Frank could see was the mouth gaping wide, with rows and rows of teeth. Sharp, glistening teeth. And laughter. The Mothers laughter, pealing like bells. And behind the laughter, bells did ring. The war was over. But Frank knew that couldn’t be right. This war would never be over. Not between these two. Not now. Not ever.

The Mother was still laughing, but farther away. She stood against a red sunset, trailing black and red and white gauze. The wind flapped her wrappings, unraveling her like a mummy. The Mother held a bloody sword above her head and a hand stretched to Frank. Blood dripped from the sword into pools at the Mothers feet. She laughed, beckoning Frank.

Behind her, a soldier stood amid the rubble of a ruined city. Around him, singly and in heaps, dead men stretched to the horizon, their artifacts strewn carelessly by the eternal desert wind.

Lip-smudged photographs and letters torn at their folds blew restlessly from corpse to corpse.

Vultures flapped indifferently among the abandoned relics, feasting easily from gaping wounds.

Ragged beggars and women in chadors scurried to collect gold fillings and wedding rings.

An ancient crone knelt at a body. She stared at the soldier, her eyes milky blue, like Aegean shoals after a storm. She wrenched the dead man s neck, then dangled a crucifix, cackling.

The soldier turned away, his helmet under his arm. Sand filled his hair and blew over his boots. Still he stood. He had been here before. He had never been gone. He had always been a soldier. He scanned the desolate horizon. It was silent, empty but for the rising moon.

He listened to the steady snick and crunch of jackals feeding. They ate without snarling. No need of that tonight. There was plenty for all.

The moon cleared the earth. It lit the dead sleeping in their shadows. The dogs slipped stealthily between them.

She woke slowly, floating up from the dream into the solidity of her bed. Canceling the alarm, Frank rolled into Gail. She kissed her shoulder, pressing into the doc’s flank, wanting to wake her and get lost in the sweet, ephemeral refuge of desire. But Gail didn’t stir.

Frank resigned herself to a scalding shower, then dressed in the clothes she’d laid out the night before. When she flipped the light on in the kitchen, the coffee was hot in the pot. She poured it into her travel mug while the twin gods of Routine and Order maintained harmony in her world.

Frank sipped her coffee at the sink. Bobby was probably going to be in court all day, and Darcy would be on his own. They were next up on rotation so if a call came in she’d send Darcy out with Diego. Noah and Lewis would—

Frank whirled, her eye catching a flash of white. She instinctively dropped her mug, reaching for the Beretta she hadn’t strapped on yet.

“Jesus fucking Christ!”

Gail stood wide-eyed and startled in a long T-shirt. Frank swore again, ripping off a handful of paper towels and swabbing the spilled coffee.

“‘Jesus.
Give me some warning next time you sneak up on me.”

“I wasn’t sneaking up. I just woke up to pee and figured I’d say goodbye. Fuck you too.”

Frank threw the soggy paper into the trash can, snatching Gail’s elbow before she could leave the kitchen. She apologized.

“I’m just a little edgy.”

“A
little?
Christ, I’d hate to see a lot.”

“I wasn’t expecting you to be up traipsing around. You were sleeping like one of your customers a minute ago.”

“Well, I think I’ll just
traipse
on back to bed.”

“Come on,” Frank said, shifting Gail toward her. “You just surprised me. Guess I’m still jumpy. Had a weird dream.”

“What about?” Gail asked.

“Can’t tell you ‘til I get a kiss.”

Gail gave her a sulky one.

“I was a soldier, and there were dead bodies all around me. It must have been World War II because there were letters and black and white pictures blowing around. And the uniforms looked like they were from then. And the helmet under my arm, too. It all looked like World War II, but it felt like it could have been any time. It was weird. I was dressed like a GI, and so were the corpses, but I felt like I’d been there before. Like I could have just as easily been a Roman soldier standing there with a leather helmet instead of a metal one. And beggars were looting the corpses. Women in robes … veiled, like in the middle east. They were scurrying from body to body like cockroaches. It all felt like it could have been centuries ago or yesterday. It was … eerie, but real familiar too. And the wind was blowing, getting sand all over everything. Covering the dead men’s faces. And it smelled like blood. Fresh blood. Lots of it. It was sad, but at the same time it felt. …”

Frank searched for the exact word.

“Like I was supposed to be there. Like it was my destiny or something. Like I couldn’t have been—like I’d
never
been anywhere else. I didn’t want to be there—I was sick and tired of the whole thing—but it was where I
belonged.
It didn’t feel like I had a choice. And it felt like it was just one more battle in a long campaign.”

“Sounds creepy,” Gail mumbled into Frank’s neck.

“Yeah,” Frank agreed, but it hadn’t been creepy. Just … inevitable.

Frank kissed Gail and said, “Go on back to bed.”

“When do I get to see you again?”

“Tonight? Dinner?”

“Med-line meeting,” Gail said, crinkling her nose.

“Tomorrow then.”

Swinging in a locked embrace against Frank, she pouted. “You going out with your children first?”

“Of course,” Frank smiled.

“Will you be too drunk to make love to me?”

“Have I ever been?”

Gail considered.

“No-o. But let’s not have a first, okay?”

“Deal. I gotta go,” Frank said, disentangling herself. “I’m gonna be late.”

“Ohh!” Gail gasped in mock horror. “The trains will stop running and the wind will stop blowing!”

“You,” Frank said, leaving her with a quick kiss, “who can’t even conceive of being anywhere on time, have a lot of nerve. You’re gonna be leaving Saint Peter or the Devil waiting twenty minutes for you someday.”

“Hey!” Gail cried as Frank grabbed her briefcase and crossed the living room, “I thought you didn’t believe in those guys.”

“I don’t,” Frank called back, “but you do.”

Frank was just about to grab a
torta
for lunch when a call came in from one of the HUD scattered housing sites. Folks in the Projects didn’t much care for the police, so Frank headed out with Darcy, Diego, and two backup units.

Flanked by the uniforms, the nine-three detectives walked behind the apartment manager up bullet splintered, piss-stained stairs. Neighbors huddled outside a door. The one who’d called the station repeated what he’d told Darcy over the phone—the girl across the way had knocked on his door to tell him she’d suffocated her kids. She’d said it as calmly as if she were saying it was going to be a sunny day.

The cops knocked on her door and a small voice said,
“Venga.”

She was sitting on a stained mattress, two boys and a girl neatly arranged behind her. They looked like they were sleeping. The detectives touched the little bodies. Each was cool and starting to rigor. Darcy knelt in front of the mother while she pulled at a hangnail.

“What happened?” he asked, his voice soothing.