The Pressure of Darkness (27 page)

Bowden wants to throw up. He slides behind the wheel of his own car and drives away. He is surprised to find his entire body soaked with sweat. He stops at the on-ramp to the Hollywood Freeway and attempts to light another cigarette, but his hands are shaking too badly. Bowden takes a photograph of his daughter out of his pocket and studies it. He wonders what this girl, now nearing puberty, would think of her brave daddy, the heroic policeman.

Or perhaps the man she thinks is dead . . .
is
dead.

A horn startles him. Bowden looks up and into the rearview mirror. A drunk in a Chevy is behind him, waiting to get on the freeway. Bowden rolls down the driver side window to flip the prick off. He laughs and gets on the freeway. He keeps the window down and lets the cold fresh air wash over his damp body. It's refreshing, but fails to make him feel clean again.

THIRTY-THREE

Burke left Gina to stay with a terrified and confused Nicole Stryker, stumbled home, undressed, and was soon asleep. He began dreaming of a long hot beach with brilliant white sand. In the dream, he was getting a massage, and the hands that touched him were clearly the hands of a young woman. It excited him that he did not know who she was, couldn't see her face. But then the dream changed . . .
Burke walked into a room filled with blood, gore, and body parts. In the center of the room sat a man who had smeared himself with offal and excrement. His eyes were wide, his teeth wetly red, and he was roaring with laughter. Burke searched for his weapon, struggled to raise it, but he could not find the strength . . .

. . . But then he was back on the beach, being massaged by a woman he couldn't identify. A large bird passed overhead. It made an odd, guttural chirping noise, almost metallic . . .

The telephone
.

Burke shook himself awake. He checked the clock. It was not quite five in the morning. The whole world seemed cold, dark, and silent. He fumbled around on the nightstand, found the receiver in the darkness.

"Hello?"

Silence, but for a light, feathered breathing and his own, bass heartbeat; Burke instantly knew who it was, what was happening. "Hello?"

"I need to see you."

Varied emotions hit him, all from different directions; feelings of every temperature and color, most too vivid and powerful for words. "Yes. Where are you?"

"Where do you want me to be?"

And then she knocked on the front door.

Burke ran barefoot to the living room. He paused at the door, damp palms pressed against the varnished wood. The porch light, a quick look for safety; he opened the door and embraced her, clutched at her clothing and kicked the door closed. She dropped the cell phone on the area rug. They kissed long and wet for several moments. Not a word was exchanged.

He dragged her toward the bed, a bit too roughly. His mounting heat had become an agony and it drove him forward, left him almost indifferent to her feelings. He crushed her lips, ripped at zippers and buttons. He forced her to her knees. She took him in her achingly warm, soft mouth. He cried out in torment as much as pleasure. He stopped her a moment later, before it was too late. He took her there on the rug, staring down at her wide-open eyes.

Later he dragged her to the bed, threw her down, licked her dripping sex and entered her from behind. She groaned in a way that spoke of other worlds and shared climaxes. He still held back, until she reached the cliff a second time. When he finally shouted loudly and poured hot lava into her, she was weeping. They curled like spoons and Burke fell into a dark and dreamless sleep.

. . . The dawn, leaking like warm butter through the window blinds: Burke had a sudden flash of instinct and awakened. He opened his eyes. Indira Pal was staring down at him, dark skin still glowing from their frenzied bout. She had an odd expression on her face; those dark eyes seem more sad than happy.

"I love you," Burke whispered. Deep inside, another part of him winced with guilt and objected like some strident prosecutor.
She is married, shut up.

Indira Pal did not seem pleased. In fact, her sadness deepened visibly. "I should not have come here, Red."

He nodded. "You're probably right, but I'm glad you did."

She lowered her head to his chest, listened to his pounding heart. He stroked her hair, acutely aware that she had something she needed to say, not sure he wanted to listen. He had always been keenly attuned to her and had desperately missed that feeling.

"I have to go back to him."

He did not answer. Could not.

"He needs me."

Let her talk, let her tell it.

"Mo hasn't been well. And that makes my having done this seem even worse than it did the first time."

"Do you want me to feel bad about us? I can't do that."
Not true
. Deep down he did feel bad, for his own reasons as well as those she had just articulated, because selfishly, greedily, he wanted her to stay, to have sex one more time. His flesh needed the sustenance. Burke had been a corpse and she had brought him alive again.

"I have missed you. I have thought of you always, since school. The feelings never went away."

Another flash of guilt, for different reasons: in the spaces in between, Jack Burke had lost himself in someone else, married that someone, and for him these intense feelings had seemed ancient history. He had never forgotten Indira; the memories were precious and rare, but until recently they'd been carefully tucked away in a mental scrapbook, tied with twine, left on a dusty shelf. The past was dead and gone—but now it had returned. For him, things could never be the same now, and he knew it. An affair would not suffice. Their coming together had been irresistible, but he was bound to want more, and soon. Burke had learned how fickle passion could be, likewise how steady real love could become. Perhaps it was one of the parts of him that had already grown old.

"I'm glad you came here." He repeated himself because he was at a loss for words. His hand, even while stroking her forehead and playing with her long, dark hair, paused for a new thought: "How did you know where I live?"

"I had your address in my book." Had she stiffened a bit? "Perhaps you have sent me a holiday card. No, did you not leave your business card with Mo?"

"That doesn't have my home address."

Indira sighed. "I think of you so often maybe I got it once the last few years, I don't know. I had it when I looked for it and the computer gave me a map. I waited for Mohandas to fall asleep. He stays up very late sometimes. But then when he went to his room I left to come here."

"You sleep in separate rooms, then?" The thought of their marriage failing so badly instantly made him jubilant, but that response soon provoked a third twinge of guilt.
What, that makes me the golden penis or something?
"It sounds like you have been unhappy for some time."

"Yes."

Moments passed. Indira roused herself to speak again. "But how have you been? Are you . . . working?" That question also was burdened by back story, heavily weighted. Indira had known of his violent adventuring and had always disapproved.

"Not much," Burke lied. "And very little of the wrong kind."

"That is good." Her voice was becoming slurred, her breathing turning lighter and moving faster as she fell asleep.

He considered trying to arouse her again, but let it slide. "Too tired?"

"Hmm. Yes."

Reluctantly, Burke put resurgent lust aside. "Sleep, now. Get some rest." He closed his own eyes and inhaled the scent of her: perfume and perspiration and the heavy musk of sexuality. It had been such a long, long time. He fell asleep.
The dream came again, a man sitting in a pile of gore, laughing
. . . Asleep or awake, Burke couldn't seem to find a way to kill that demon.

When he opened his eyes again, Indira was gone.

THIRTY-FOUR

Burke awoke groggy and depleted from the odd combination of sexual fusion and graphic nightmares, feeling both stimulated and exhausted. He ran his fingertips along the indentation in the white sheets and on the pillow where her head rested; plucked a long, dark hair from the covers. He inhaled the scent of her perfume. A great sadness seized his heart, and he wondered—not for the first time—how a man could so deeply love two women. He did a series of yoga stretches, then stomach exercises and pushups, used the free weights and gave himself a thorough workout. When he was dizzy and his muscles were trembling, he stopped. Then it was time to repeat the stretches and unwind a little before taking a long, hot shower.

He made a protein shake with fresh fruit and skim milk. He turned on the television in the living room to watch CNN. The blender screeched like a surgeon's bone saw. When he turned it off, he caught the last minute of a story involving "Juan Dominguez, one of South America's biggest drug lords," who had died of some lingering illness at a remote location in Mexico. Unsurprisingly, both American and Mexican officials were not displeased.

What had brought international attention, however, was an outrage involving Maria Consuelo Dominguez, the drug lord's spouse. At the written request of Senor Dominguez, and with the full approval and involvement of his gang, the wife was gagged and bound and thrown onto her husband's funeral pyre. Although that practice was well known in the east it was virtually unheard of in South America. Human rights activists and feminists the world over were in an uproar.

The telephone rang. Burke answered. "Honey?"

Tony Monteleone. "My office. Half an hour."

Burke heard the same program in stereo. Tony was also watching CNN. "Tony? Hey, did you catch this story on Dominguez and his wife?"

A grunt. "Some of it."

"How low can you go?"

The CNN anchor introduced a video piece. Someone had done their research. A short, narrated clip referred to an obscure, now discredited Hindu practice called "Sati," where a man's widow was required by law to burn beside the body of her spouse.

"The old 'if I can't have her, nobody can,' huh?"

"How about that," Monteleone offered, dryly. "Maybe you can take it with you." In comedy, timing is everything. Tony broke the connection.

The shower felt wonderful on aching muscles. Burke locked up, left, and was surprised to find himself whistling tunelessly as he drove through the city. Even one annoying schmuck who cut him off at the Riverside exit failed to fully arouse his ire. He parked behind Fredo, as usual, and sailed in through the back.

"Have a seat." Tony Monteleone was in his usual booth, papers everywhere. He looked wrung out and short on sleep, his hair divided into two small hillocks not unlike the horns of a satyr. "Want some coffee?"

Burke was already pouring from the pot.

"What the fuck you so happy about?"

Burke sipped, smiled. "Nothing."

Monteleone shook his head. "You scare me, Red. You really do. Just when I start believing you got some brains to go with your balls, you go and fuck up."

Burke felt his smile falter.
How the hell does he know about her?
"I didn't plan on it, Tony. It just happened."
Jesus, he's really pissed.

Monteleone leaned forward. Silverware clanked and tepid coffee pooled in his saucer. His features went pinched. He was having a difficult time keeping his voice level. "What the fuck do you mean, you didn't plan on it? What did you think would go down after the last time?"

When Burke didn't reply, Monteleone became even more irate. "Listen, Red, do you know what I think?"

Burke leaned back in his seat, honestly bewildered. "No, Tony. And I'm not sure I give a damn what you think."

"What?"

"You heard me."

Monteleone's features darkened. His mouth turned down and slanted into a jack-o-lantern scowl. "I owe you favors. You are a man of respect, but don't presume upon our friendship by talking to me this way ever again."

Burke realized, a bit too late, that being with Indira had clouded his thinking—something was very, very wrong here. That there had been an extra car in the back parking lot, a dented Volkswagen bus, yet no one else was inside the restaurant. That the curtain separating the entrance from the main part of the restaurant was always open when the restaurant was this empty—but now it was halfway shut, and below the lower trim Burke could just make out the shape of a large pair of shoes. Someone was watching them argue.

This was a hit.

He slid his hand from the table and allowed it to stray to his weapon. He extended his peripheral vision, soaked up some additional details: The door to the kitchen was open a crack and a thin shadow extended to the edge of the bar.
There are two of them, one straight ahead and one slightly behind me, both probably mob soldiers. What the hell is going on?

Monteleone slowly extended a trembling finger and pointed to Burke's left arm. "Bring your gun hand out and set it down on the table, nice and slow."

Burke did not comply. "Tony, I would very much like us to start over from the top here, okay?"

Tony Monteleone was red-faced and seething. He picked up a napkin, dipped it in some ice water and dabbed his perspiring forehead. "And just how do you propose we do that?"

For his part, Burke was tense, but cold; his fingers were at the butt of his Glock, and he was determined to get out alive. He hesitated. A new approach occurred to him. He slowly brought his hand back into plain view, set it down on the red and white checkered table cloth. "Start over. Tell me why you're pissed. I don't get it."

"What?" Monteleone, clearly stunned. "The fuck you mean you don't get it?"

"I'm serious. Look, my hands are empty. You've got two of your studs drawing down on me right now, and a gun of your own under the table. I'm going to trust you, here. We go back a long way. Now, tell me why you're pissed."

Monteleone shook his head. "You're a piece of work, Burke. You think you can just hit anybody you want? Take out a customer of mine who owes me forty large, without even clearing it first?"