Playtime (8 page)

 Blaine almost says something about divorced
people not being the best advisors on love issues but bites his tongue. If he
starts in on the divorce things will go south in a hurry, and he doesn't want
that. A few weeks back it wouldn't have been an issue. He had been successfully
broken up from Renee and focused on the writing. It was the accident that had
changed that, he thinks. She never would have sought me out if it hadn't been
for that. And he wouldn't have looked for her either. Now it seems like he is
right back in the soup again. And they're not even living together. Yet. He
sighs and looks across at his brother, salutes him with the Heineken. They tap
bottles and he takes another swallow. Todd may be just trying to look after him,
but still, he can be irritating. 

 "Random acts of kindness" is a phrase
that comes to his mind. He is thinking about plain old random acts like the
motorcycle accident. If he hadn't had the wreck, no telling what he would be
doing right this second. Not this, that was almost certain. The bar has started
the lights flashing, the different colors making the dancers and people's
motions look jerky and disjointed. The music has gotten louder yet. 

 So we spend most of our lives, he thinks,
scheming and planning to take control, make things go a certain way, and in one
second all of that is ripped out of your hands. He fools with the beer and the
cocktail napkin, wipes a damp spot on the table. Todd gets up and asks a
good-looking, dark-haired girl to dance and Blaine sits there watching the
strobe effect highlight them as they move. He looks over at the bar but doesn't
see the big man any longer. Motherfucker. Todd is right about the money and the
women, he thinks. They may say they love you and stay for a while, but at some
point you've got to produce
something
or they're going to walk away. He
wonders if that is why he let Renee go the first time. Maybe inside he knew he
was not going to be able to give her the things she deserves and took the easy
way out. Maybe Todd is right. She is too good for him. The song ends, and his
brother holds the dark-haired girl's hand for a second, chatting her up, then
she goes the other direction and he heads for the table. Blaine gets up and
stands waiting for him. Time to go, he thinks. Glances at the far corner of the
bar. Holed up there are Mandy and Doug. She has a flower-print dress on, and he
has what is probably his dress blue jean jacket. She has her hair done up
fancy, diamonds glinting on her ears, looking good. They are both sipping
exotic-looking drinks in big glasses from straws.
Well, well
, Blaine
thinks, momentarily distracted,
small world
. But it really isn't that
huge a coincidence. You could count the night spots in Galveston that were
upscale like this one on the fingers of one hand. The rest of them were dives
or neighborhood bars, or the places on the sand with the really loud music.   

They get out of there and go cruising down the
beach. Todd is looking out the window at the whitecaps rolling in under a full
moon. They pass the new amusement park that the richest folks in town had built
out of the old Flagship Hotel. It had been the only hotel on the island that
actually jutted out over the water, with a T- head at the end for fishing. Now
it is all bright-hued lights plastered over Ferris wheels and other rides.
Blaine is thinking about the writing game and following his muse and all that entails.
Maybe Todd is right. Maybe life is passing him by while he tries to be creative,
and he will wake up one day an old man wondering where it all went. He's in his
thirties now, and most of the guys he knew in school were settled into careers
with wives and kids. Chasing the dream. 

 People are strolling along on the seawall:
holding hands, joggers with headphones, even though it is starting to get late.
They head to IHOP to get something to eat. 

IHOP is not that crowded. It's not even midnight,
and the place really starts hopping a lot of nights after the bars close at
two. All the displaced drunks trying to get some food in their bellies. They
take a booth by the window next to three elderly black women who are talking
about some sales program they belong to, one of those deals where you sell to
all your friends, recruit them, then make money off what they sell and you
sell. One of those pyramid deals. They are enthused, pumped up, talking big
money and power walking. Todd has his back to them but he's listening, and
after a minute he rolls his eyes at Blaine as if to say
how
so many
times
done
all that stuff is. The ladies are good-sized and excited,
and every once in a while Blaine can feel the booth shift when they move. 

 That makes him think about movie theatres, and
how he hates to have anybody real close when he's watching a movie. He always
picks a seat with empty spaces in front and in the seats on the sides. He doesn't
like to be watching over somebody's head. Of course, invariably, after the
previews a latecomer will then plop right down in front of him. He usually varies
between resting his foot on the back of that chair, crossing his legs, and the
feet-flat-on-the-ground posture, and so the guy in front of him has messed him
up. They can always feel your foot in the back, and then they start shifting
around like you're bothering them. Very annoying. He usually moves. 

 They order some omelets and toast and coffee from
an anorexic redhead who licks her pencil before she writes. They are both a
little buzzed, but not drunk. Todd smiles at her when she brings the coffee,
and says thanks. 

 "I have a rule," he says, leaning over
the tabletop to get closer to Blaine. "It's never piss off the server
before they bring you your meal." Blaine shrugs his shoulders. No argument
from him there. Their dad used to say never piss off the cook. 

 "I don't want to make anybody mad,
anyway," he says. "Live and let live is what I believe." 

 "Except when they're hitting on your
woman," Todd says smiling. 

 "Yep, I would say that is the exception to
the rule." He
had
gotten hot about that, more so than was good.
"That's why I don't carry my gun when I drink. I don't want any doubts
about my judgment if I need to pull that thing." 

 The omelets come, steaming hot, with toast and
potatoes on the side, and the brothers eat in silence for a while except for
the chewing noises.   

 "Thank God Dad never carried one,"
Blaine says, and they both laugh. The old man liked the booze every now and
then, and he got quick-tempered after a few beers. Even after the esophageal
cancer got him he would drink one every once in a while. His dying had been
slow and painful to watch. Neither of them smoked. Back in the old man's day
nobody even knew it was bad for you. That was one reason Blaine didn't trust
doctors. They always seemed to be one step behind the curve. Prescribing this
and that the drug companies were pushing, and then finding out the next year
that the side effects were epileptic seizures and heart failure.   

 Todd is chewing away, shoveling that omelet and
the potatoes in together in huge spoonsful. They are both running on fumes
after the surfing and beer. He finally reaches the end of it all, sops up the
mixture left on the plate with his last piece of toast, dabs a napkin to his
mouth. 

 "Maybe I was out of line on the writing
thing," he says. "I don't want to trample on your dream." 

 "Don't worry about it," Blaine says.   

 His brother is studying him over his coffee cup
as he drinks. "No," he says, "But you know what the difference
is between a dream and a goal?" 

 "What?" 

 "A game plan," his brother says.
"A set of steps designed to get you from where you are to where you want to
be. That's what you ought to be thinking about if you're that serious. Why
aren't you where you want to be? What do you need to do every day to help get
there? What do you need to change?" 

 The ladies in the next booth have stopped talking,
and Blaine can tell by the tilt of their heads they are listening. This stuff
is right up their alley. Probably play Tony Robbins CDs while they sleep.
Still, his brother is right. 

 "You're right," he says. "I have a
plan, but it really doesn't seem to be working. Maybe it's time I revisited it
and came up with something different." 

 Todd is nodding his head. "Couldn't
hurt," he says. "Desire by itself just won't always do it. I tell you
what," he says, "I think this accident has changed you, made you a
bit edgier, more decisive or something. I can't quite put my finger on it, but
you're different. Like you know something you didn't before." He has
leaned back in the booth, done with the dinner, and taken one of the toothpicks
he likes to carry to clean his teeth. He likes to brush right after eating but
when he can't he uses the picks. Sometimes he forgets they are there and they
dance around in his mouth like this one is doing now.   

 What Blaine forgets sometimes is how good his
brother is at what he does. He has taken their earlier disagreement and filed
the edges off it: changed it to something less sharp and dangerous and more
something they can talk about. Added some insight that showed he thinks a
solution to this problem is possible. And that is what he does on the deals he
makes. He overcomes the problems by restating them in terms that make them
something to work on, overcome. Analysis that shows some thought. He is the
kind of guy you never count out, a dangerous man in his way. Blaine remembers
one time on a big mountain in the winter a storm had blown in while they were
over 12,000 feet up. The conditions had quickly become almost whiteout. The
storm had been unpredicted by anybody, blown over the top of the mountain and
was on them with no warning. Despite the lack of visibility, Blaine had thought
he knew the way down well enough to get them out of there. They had a heated
argument right on the slope with the wind and snow whistling around them. Todd
thought the visibility was too poor to try and get down and wanted to
shelter-in-place right where they were and wait it out.   

 In the end they did it Todd's way, mostly because
Blaine could see by the look on his face that he wasn't going to give in. They
dug a hole, a snow cave, and huddled in that thing overnight. In the morning
they were very cold, but the snow had stopped, the wind had died, and they were
able to head down the mountain. They trudged on downwards, and Blaine could see
the path he had been about to use to get off when the snow had been blowing. It
led right to the edge of a 300 foot, sheer cliff.   

 They stopped and stared at it for a moment,
looking at one another and back at the drop. Suddenly, Todd reached out and
popped him on the shoulder and smiled. He had smiled back like a drowning man
who had gotten hold of a float. They didn't talk much about it but sometimes
Blaine would look at him and just know he was thinking about that night up on
the hill and the cliff. He would smile that same smile. 

The pounding is not just his head: it is the door,
and Blaine struggles up out of bed to go answer, morning sunlight streaming in.
His brother is farther away, in the back bedroom, probably doesn't hear it. His
head is pounding, too, as he throws on a pair of shorts and a Tee. 

 He's thinking he will go off on them if it is a
reporter, and when the door swings open, that's what he thinks it is. A man
about his size but heavier, with brown eyes and wavy brown hair, charcoal gray
suit and tie on. Maybe 50 years old. A woman in her thirties: a thin, shoulder-length
blonde, with good features, wearing a nice blue business suit dress that
matches her eyes. 

 "Look," Blaine says, "I don't have
anything else to say about the accident, really. You guys need to find another
story." 

 They both look interested. "What
accident?" the guy says.   

 "You guys aren't reporters?" Blaine
asks. 

 "No, sir," the man says, reaching into
his back pocket. He flips his wallet open and shows Blaine a gold shield,
"I'm Detective Nielson and this is my partner, Detective Winslow." 

 "What's this about?" Blaine asks. 

 "Like to talk about it inside, if we
can," says Nielson, glancing at the houses to the sides of him, back at Blaine.
 

 "No problem," Blaine says. He opens the
door wider and gives them a come-on-in wave with his other hand. They walk into
the living room, but he notices their eyes and attention are still focused on
him. 

 "Anybody else here?" Nielson asks.   

 "My brother's asleep in the back,"
Blaine says. 

 "If you don't mind, could you holler for
him," Nielson says. He is looking around at the house but his eyes never
seem to leave Blaine for very long.   

 "Are we in some kind of trouble?"
Blaine says. 

 "Why would you think that?" Nielson asks
back, politely, eyes on Blaine's. 

 "I don't," Blaine says. "I just
never have had any of you guys come to the house like this." Todd appears
in the doorway, disheveled, half-awake. He looks at Blaine, at the two
detectives. 

 "What's going on?" 

 "Let's all sit down in here," says the
woman detective, Winslow, speaking for the first time, gesturing towards the
living room. Blaine is beginning to have a bad feeling about all this.
Something is very wrong. 

 They sit, the two detectives taking the couch,
Todd the other end of it, and Blaine the cushion chair so he can face them.
Nielson clears his throat. 

 "You date a woman named Renee Wilcox?"
he asks. Right away Blaine knows something terrible has happened. Police don't
come to your house to see who you're dating. His pulse starts pounding in his
skull. Nielson's eyes haven't left his for a second. 

 "Yes, I do," he says. 

 "She lived with you at one time?" 

 "Yes."   

 "I regret to have to tell you this, Mr.
Hadrock, but Renee Wilcox is dead." 

 Even though Blaine had that terrible feeling, he
is still not in any way ready for this. Time seems to stop. He feels like he
can't breathe. He feels like suddenly things have become unreal. It seems to
him that if he could just make the detective take that last statement back,
maybe he could get back into the real world again. 

 "That can't be right," he says.
"We just saw her a few hours ago." 

 "No, sir, I am afraid that it is
correct." 

 "How?" says Blaine. He is thinking that
the police don't come to your house for accidents or natural deaths. 

 "She was murdered," Nielson says.
"I don't know of any nice way to put it. I am sorry for your loss, and I
hate to be the one to tell you. I need to ask you a few questions if I
can." Tears have begun to come down Blaine's face, a few at a time,
reluctantly, as he struggles to maintain his composure. 

 "How did she die?" 

 "She was strangled," Nielson says.
"Out on the beach, on the east end. Some college kids, who probably had
been partying most of the night, found the body this morning. Purse and money
still there, nothing missing. Some info on the job in it, so we've woken the
manager there and spoken to several of her friends early this morning. I'm
surprised somebody didn't call you." 

 "Turn the phone off when I'm trying to
sleep," Blaine says. "They could have called already. You guys sure
it's her?" 

 "We got a positive identification from someone
close to her," the woman says. "You guys were in the bar last night,
weren't you?" 

 "Yeah," Todd says. "Listen, do you
guys think we can cut this short? I think my brother needs some time, here, you
know what I mean?" 

 "Just a couple more things we'll be
done," the woman says. "When was the last time you guys saw
her?" 

 "At the bar," Todd says. "We left
about 10:30, 11:00 or so, went to eat some breakfast at IHOP. Then we came
straight home here, went to bed. We had been surfing all day and we were beat."
  

 "Both of you were in for the night?"
Nielson says, nodding at Todd. He is jotting things down. 

 "Yes." 

 "Did you have some sort of disagreement with
her before you left?" Nielson asks, turning back to Blaine. He is looking
down at a small pad where it looks like he has some notes jotted. 

 "No, not really," Blaine says. His head
is in his hands, and he can't seem to bring his eyes up from the floor.
"There was some creep bothering her by the bar, and she got mad when I
said something, told me she could handle her own business. Not really an
argument, though." 

 "What did the guy look like?" 

 "Big guy, had a suit on, whitish hair,
looked Swedish or Norwegian or something." 

 "Can you be more specific?" 

 "He was arrogant," Blaine says. "Using
his body to block her in at the waitress station. I came up and cleared some
space for her, that's all." 

 "Long hair?"   

 "Medium length. Just a regular
haircut." 

 "What about his facial features? Anything
unusual?" 

 "No, not really," Blaine says. "He
had a big nose, blue eyes. I really only saw him for a minute." 

 "Nothing else? No actual physical contact
with you or her?" 

 "No. He just seemed arrogant to me,"
Blaine repeats. "I didn't like him from the minute I saw him. Looked like
one of those big guys who always get their way." Detective Nielson is
jotting more things down in that small, pocket pad.   

 "We may want you to help us with a sketch of
that man, later. That be possible?"   

 "Sure," Blaine says. 

 "What about enemies, did Renee have anybody
that didn't like her, someone she had a quarrel with?" 

 "No," Blaine says. "Nothing like
that." That he knows of, anyway. 

 "What about you?" 

 "No," Blaine says. "We lead pretty
quiet lives." He realizes the present tense error as he says it, doesn't
correct it. "The guy in the bar was really nothing." 

"Look," the detective goes on, standing.
"We're going to get out of here. I know you must feel terrible right now.
We may have some more questions about the man in the bar, or some other things,
but right now we appreciate your cooperation and we're going to give you some
time for all this to sink in." He reaches in his coat pocket, pulls out a
card and hands it to Blaine. "Call us if you remember anything else that
you think might help us." Blaine takes the card, looks at him and nods. 

 "Was she raped?" he asks. He is
thinking of her independence, the way she wouldn't let him defend her at work,
the way she always wanted to take care of herself. He is thinking he should
have gotten her out of there long ago, taken one of those steady operator jobs
and married her. Taken care of her. If he had any idea this was coming, he
would have done it in a heartbeat. 

 "No sir," the female, whose name he has
forgotten, says, "No evidence of rape." 

 "Can I see her?" Blaine asks. It seems
to him that this could still be some type of horrible mistake. If he looked at
her he would know for sure. 

 "That's up to her next of kin, the mother, I
believe," says Nielson. "We notified her this morning, and I think
she is flying in today. But I wouldn't advise it. Sometimes it's better just to
remember folks the way you knew them." 

 "I'd like to see her," Blaine says. 

 "You know her mom, right? Check with her
when she gets in," the detective says. "Why were you thinking we were
reporters when you came to the door?" 

 Blaine explains the accident, and the dying and
coming back, but his heart isn't in it, his mind is on Renee. He is thinking
that maybe somehow he had stolen her chance at things when he came back. That
doesn't make any sense at all, but that is what he is thinking.