Burning Man (27 page)

“Who could resist a man in a fez?”

“It’s the tassel.”

“Be still my heart.”

The waitress brought the check and our doggy bags. Lisbet said, “Can I...,” and I raised a hand.

“You cannot.”

“Next time is my treat, then.”

I liked the sound of the words “next time.”

She asked, “If I give you my doggy bag, can you be trusted to pass on the salmon to Sirius?”

“Scout’s honor,” I said, holding up my index and middle fingers in a
V
sign, “but I should mention that I was never a Scout.”

“Sirius will tell me whether you made good on your promise or not.”

“The salmon’s a bribe, I think. You’re trying to get him to forgive you for eating his dog biscuits.”

“It was
one
dog biscuit.”

“That’s how it innocently starts. The next thing that happens is you’re hitting the kibble pretty hard, and then you begin experimenting with rawhide chews. Before you know it, you’re out on the corner doing Liv-A-Snaps and Snausages. I’ve seen it before and it’s not pretty.”

“I’m so ashamed.”

I paid the bill and the two of us took the long way to the car. By the time we reached the first of the inn’s two pools, we were walking hand in hand. The bright lights of LA make it easy to overlook the stars, but out in the desert the stars can’t be ignored. One bright flickering star stood out more than the others.

“Sirius,” I said, pointing, and then added, “the Dog Star.”

“After his heroics I’m thinking that Sirius should join Lassie and Rin Tin Tin with his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.”

“Not a chance,” I said. “He thought it was a travesty that Benji never got a star, so he’s made it clear that if Hollywood comes knocking, he’s not interested.”

We paused in our walk to take in the stars. Lisbet leaned a little into me and I liked that. She said, “I used to go camping in the desert with this friend who would bring out his huge telescope and spend most of the night hunting down stars and planets and moons. He taught me to look up at the sky and see the constellations. Orion was easy: pick out the three stars that make up Orion’s belt and work from there. And finding Sirius always made it easy for me to work out Canis Major.”

I was feeling a little jealous of another man’s being Lisbet’s guide to the stars, so I decided to sound like I knew something about the subject. “You ever hear the story about how Orion and Sirius got up there?”

Lisbet shook her head, which allowed me to show off the lone piece of star trivia that I knew. “According to Greek mythology, Apollo tricked Artemis into killing Orion by challenging her to shoot an arrow at a faraway speck in the ocean. Artemis didn’t know that the object Apollo targeted was Orion, who was out for a swim. Because she was overcome with grief at what she had done, Artemis decided to place Orion in the heavens as a constellation. But Artemis wasn’t the only one grieving. Sirius was Orion’s faithful hunting dog, and when his master disappeared, he tirelessly searched for him. Because of that, Artemis decided that Sirius’s place was in the heavens right at Orion’s heel.”

With one hand I was pointing to Sirius; the other hand had found its way around Lisbet’s shoulder. Our heads moved from the stars to each other, and we kissed.

CHAPTER 16:
LIAR, LIAR, PANTS ON FIRE

Gravity didn’t seem to have quite the same hold on either one of us after the kiss. It had been a long time since I’d felt good like that, and that feeling of exhilaration kept bubbling up and going to my brain. Lisbet’s smiles and animated conversation told me she was feeling the same thing, which made the return drive to the Garden of Angels and Lisbet’s car seem all too short. As I came to a stop in the cemetery’s parking lot, Lisbet surprised me by asking, “Where are you sleeping tonight?”

“I imagine the same place where I’ve slept for the last eight years.”

“Someone wants you hurt or dead. Maybe you should find another place to stay the night.”

“Sirius is the best guard dog in the world—no, the universe.”

Sirius heard his name spoken and thought that meant it was time to socialize. He settled in for some serious scratching, acting more like a lapdog than a guard dog.

“I do have a comfortable sofa bed,” she said.

“You don’t need to spoil Sirius. He can sleep on the floor.”

“He can sleep with you on the sofa bed.”

“I thought your apartment didn’t allow dogs.”

“As you’ve mentioned a time or two, Sirius isn’t a dog but an LAPD officer.”

“You really don’t need to worry about me. I’m pretty sure those bad guys are either holed up or on the run. No one is coming after me tonight, Lisbet.”

She didn’t look completely satisfied but didn’t push it further. I extended my hand, and we twined fingers.

“I am not ready for the night to end yet. If you’re not too tired, you’re welcome to come to my place for a nightcap.”

“I’d like that. But I will need to attend to bowser burger business on the way.”

“Then I’ll not get in the way of your alliteration or Sirius’s dinner.”

Sirius must have been eavesdropping—either that or his burger radar, which worked better than Pavlov’s bell, went off. The slap, slap, slap of his tail made it clear that he knew dinner was imminent.

Lisbet lived in a multicolored apartment in West LA not far away from Loyola Marymount University. The apartment’s color scheme looked as if it had been inspired by the choreography of
Miami Vice
, with the exterior stucco painted in pastels of peach, pink, and lime. At least there were no plastic pink flamingos in front.

She was waiting in her car out front, and per her hand gestures I followed her down to the garage and took a space in visitor parking. Then Sirius and I crammed into Lisbet’s Civic and all of us drove over to her assigned parking spot.

“You better stay in the car while I make sure the coast is clear,” she said. “I don’t want to run into the apartment manager.”

While Lisbet was doing her scouting, I broke Sirius’s three by three into pieces and fed it to him. He was already sniffing at the restaurant’s doggy bags when Lisbet came back and signaled for us to join her. We took the elevator up to the second floor and
made our way across a walkway to her unit. Lisbet had personalized the exterior of the apartment with an entry mat that actually said “Welcome.” Her particular patch of stucco was the color of peach. The entryway was festooned with several ridiculously healthy hanging plants overhead. Decorative stained glass lined her windows. There was a wooden planter next to her door that held several succulents with eye-catching geometric shapes. I wasn’t the only one sizing up the plant life, but I was pretty sure Sirius wasn’t doing it for aesthetic reasons. Since I had taken him for a walk at the In-N-Out, I knew his need wasn’t to pee but to advertise.

“Don’t even think about it.”

The circling leg stilled.

Lisbet finished working keys to locks and opened the door. “Be it ever so humble,” she said.

If I’d had the same living area, it would have remained institutional, but in a glance I could see that Lisbet had tailored her apartment into a warm nest.

“Would you like the grand tour?”

“Lead on.”

The kitchen was small, but a rolling butcher block evidently served as an island when needed. There were two framed prints in the kitchen, Van Gogh’s
Café Terrace at Night
and a black-and-white picture of an old Earl Grey tea box. A ristra of red peppers hung down from one of the cabinets. Over the sink was a wooden overhang for wine glasses; above it were flavored oils and vinegars with sprigs and stalks that appeared to be as much for use as decoration.

“Are you in the mood for a glass of wine?”

“Only if it’s red or white.”

She checked the refrigerator and found an opened bottle of sauvignon blanc. Before pouring, she twisted out the cork, sniffed the vino and decided the wine was still drinkable. We clicked glasses and she led me into the living room. There was one picture on the wall, a large black and white of trees shrouded in fog.

“I love the fog,” she said, “except when I’m driving in it.”

We continued down the hallway. As I entered the room I felt eyes tracking me: there was a Felix the Cat clock with moving eyes on one wall. The bedroom was set up as an office, with a light table, art supplies, two computers each with a different printer, and a photo workshop. One wall of the office was set up for cubby holes, with markers, pens, brushes, papers of all sizes and colors, proofs, and work supplies. I reached for a red Swingline stapler.

“Don’t touch my stapler,” Lisbet said, using Milton’s voice from the movie
Office Space
.

“Where are your TPS reports?” I asked, and we exchanged grins at being in synch with movie shorthand humor.

I moved to the next wall and looked at two different René Magritte prints. Lisbet must have interpreted my nod as meaning something and asked, “Do you have any art at your house?”

“I don’t, but Sirius does:
Dogs Playing Poker
. It’s not as bad as it sounds, though. It’s on velvet.”

There was one other piece of wall art in the office, a reproduction of an old map of the world. It bore some resemblance to the present-day world maps, but there were the notable omissions of a continent or two.

I pointed to the words “Here there be dragons” and said, “The cartographer got it right.”

“How is that?”

“Where he wrote those words is right where LA is.”

The master bedroom was filled with mission-style furniture. Along the longest wall were shelves that held books, CDs, and an assortment of keepsakes. In the corners of the room were sconces for soft lighting. Lisbet’s green thumb was evidenced in a number of houseplants, and a variety of fresh and dried flowers filled half a dozen vases. One of the walls was devoted to a display of framed familial pictures, and among them were a number of smiling faces that resembled Lisbet.

“Four sisters,” she said, “three nieces, two nephews, and one brother.”

“
And a partridge in a pear tree
,” I sang.

In the air was the scent of potpourri, the balsam of pine sachets, the sandalwood of scented candles, and the fragrant gummy smell of eucalyptus leaves. It was a feminine room, because few men would take the time to make a space so appealing to the senses, but it was a room that would be easy to leave your boots in.

Her apartment couldn’t have been more than eight hundred square feet, but she’d managed to pack a lot in. Mirrors, recessed lighting, and Lisbet’s good taste made the space feel much larger than it was. She left exploration of the loft—or what she called “my meditation space”—for last.

The loft was a fusion of East and West. There were definite shrine elements to it: a tatami mat, a shoji door, and a small rock garden with trickling water. The space was set off by wall dividers of shadowed ravens and cranes. There was no altar but a table that seemed to be a memorial of sorts. Laid out on it were items Lisbet must have deemed significant: a piece of amber with a fossilized insect; some sea shells; a few interesting-looking stones; a tiny pink baby blanket that held an ostrich egg; a cameo locket; a feather; a snow globe; a well-thumbed Bible; a book-sized container filled with white sand and a tiny rake; a small music box; and a framed black-and-white picture of the Garden of Angels.

I picked up the picture and studied it for a moment. It wasn’t one of those views of a cemetery with creeping fog and shrouded images, but neither was it an inspirational shot of the sun rising. The picture showed the youthful reminders without the youths. It was sort of like seeing a deserted playground; you knew what was missing and what should have been there in place of the grave markers.

“You’ve made a special place on this planet,” I said, carefully returning the photo to its place.

“A lot of people have made it a special place. Today you saw how many are involved. I always like to quote from one of the memorial bricks: ‘Our share of night to bear.’”

“Sometimes it seems like a long way to dawn.”

“Sometimes it does, but not tonight.”

“No, not tonight.”

I took her in my arms and we held one another. The moment seemed to stir a lot of memories and feelings in me: the burial of Rose, Sister Frances’s miracle, the pleasure of holding Lisbet, and the thought that I wouldn’t be alive if she hadn’t saved me with a fortuitous phone call.

“If you’re ever up for sainthood, I wonder if you saving my life would qualify as a miracle.”

“I already told you that I don’t want to be a saint.”

As if to emphasis this, she offered up a long and passionate kiss. When our lips finally disengaged I said, “I’m beginning to believe you.”

She felt along the right side of my face, gently touching the scar tissue there. “Do you mind?”

“Do you?”

“I want to feel free to touch you.”

“I hereby give you permission to ravage me wherever you want.”

“Are you sensitive here?”

“I can show you a few spots where I’m a lot more sensitive.”

“I’m being serious, Michael. If touching you here isn’t pleasurable for you, I’ll stop.”

“Don’t stop. What’s prickly is my personality, not my skin. The scarring makes that area not as sensitive to the touch as other parts of my face, but your warm hand still feels good to me.”

“I’m glad.”

“You’re actually feeling my buttocks, you know.”

“You could have fooled me.”

“That’s where they took that particular skin graft from.”

“So you’re speaking out of your ass?”

“You really have forever dispelled your saint image.”

“Good,” she said, still stroking my face. “You know, the first time we met I asked around about you. That’s when I learned that you were the officer that was burned while bringing in the Strangler.”

“That explains why you were nice to me. You felt sorry for Quasimodo.”

“You mean I heard bells ringing?”

I used the pretense of stretching to move my face away from her hand. I don’t like being self-conscious, but I am.