W Is for Wasted (24 page)

Then I caught sight of my left rear tire. “Well, dang. That
is
flat.”

“Look here.” He pointed to a round metal circle the size of a pencil eraser between the sidewall and the hubcap with its tiny silver horse in the center. “Looks like a roofing nail, which is technically called a clout nail. Short shank with that wide flat head? I put myself through college working as a roofer. This is the type we used to fasten shingles or roofing felt. Nail like that isn’t but about that long,” he said, showing me with his thumb and index finger. “Pull it out, you’ll probably see a ring or screw shank.”

“Weird spot for a nail. How you think it got there?”

“My opinion, you’re looking at an act of vandalism. Somebody had to hammer this little fellow through your sidewall. You must have been parked in a bad neighborhood.”

“I guess I was,” I said. I thought about Ethan appearing between the two cars, his tossing something ever so casually into the front seat of his Toyota.

Ron Swingler said, “You want, I can swap that out for you, as long as your spare’s in good shape.”

“Thanks, but I can talk to someone at the service station. I don’t want to hold you up.”

Gilda spoke up, saying, “He doesn’t mind. Why don’t you let him give you a hand?”

“It won’t take fifteen minutes. Probably less,” he said.

I thought about it briefly. These were good people and I suspected the more I protested, the more they’d insist. Maybe their kindness would offset Ethan’s malevolence to some extent. “Actually, I could use the help if you’re sure you don’t mind.”

“My pleasure,” he said. “Why don’t you and Gilda wait in the RV and I’ll come get you when I’m done.”

Which is what we did. Their motor home was parked one aisle behind the one I was in. Gilda unlocked the door to the RV and stepped in ahead of me, then turned back and held open the door.

“You want coffee?”

“I’m fine. I’m hoping to get home without making another stop. Coffee would go right through me,” I said.

The interior was snug: two bench seats with a table between, a tiny galley-style kitchen, and a bed that seemed to fill the front end. I wasn’t sure what we were going to talk about, but that wasn’t a problem because she had plenty on her mind. As we took our seats, she said, “Let me ask you something. Do you have kids or grandkids?”

I shook my head. “I’m afraid not.”

“Listen to this and tell me what you think. Ron has a granddaughter, Ava, who’s seven years old. She’s all into figure skating, which she practices twenty-two hours a week. Her mom and dad—this is Ron’s son and daughter-in-law—are spending nine thousand dollars a year on lessons and competitions. Does that sound right to you?”

“I guess the discipline might be good for her.”

“I don’t know what to think. Seven years old and that’s all she does. Doesn’t read. Doesn’t play with Barbie dolls. She hardly ever goes outside, for Pete’s sake, and that’s all I cared about when I was her age. There’s something off about that.”

“I hear you,” I said.

“What’s her mother thinking is what I want to know.”

She went on in this vein long after my interest waned. I tuned her out, making polite mouth noises while I checked the wall clock behind her. I could tell she was processing the idea of keeping her mouth shut, which is generally a smart move though I’ve never mastered it myself.

When her husband finally opened the door and told me the spare was in place, I thanked both of them profusely. I didn’t want to bolt when he’d just done me such a service, so we chatted for a bit. I expressed my gratitude again and he waved aside my thanks. I knew better than to offer him money. He was clearly a man who enjoyed being of service to women in distress.

We finally affected our farewells and I continued on to the pay phone, where I piled change on the metal shelf, inserted coins, and dialed Henry’s number.

He picked up on the third ring. “This is Henry.”

“Hey, Henry. It’s Kinsey. Sorry I didn’t have a chance to call you earlier.”

“Where the heck are you? I thought you were on your way home.”

“I am but I had a flat.” I filled him in on my stop for lunch, wondering how far I might have gotten driving on a tire with a nail driven into it. No point in worrying about it now, so I moved on. “How’s Felix doing?”

“Not well. He developed a clot on his brain, so they had to go in and operate. Now it looks like he’s fighting some sort of secondary infection, which is more bad news.”

“Is he going to make it?”

“Hard to know. William swears he’s on his way out.”

“William thinks everybody’s half dead. What do the doctors say?”

“They don’t seem optimistic. It’s not what they say; it’s the look in their eyes,” he said. “I’ll be glad to have you home. What time do you think you’ll get in?”

I checked my watch again. It was now 1:22. “Not for another couple of hours.”

“Why don’t you plan on having supper here? You’ll be tired and you’ll need a glass of Chardonnay.”

“Sounds good.”

We were winding up the conversation and I was close to hanging up when he said, “Oh! I almost forgot. Your friend Dietz is on his way down from Carson City. He says he should be here by six, so I invited him for dinner, too.”

I could feel myself squint. “Dietz? What’s he want?”

“I guess there’s a problem with that job referral.”

“
Job
referral?”

“That’s what he said. I figured you’d know what he was talking about.”

“I have no idea.”

“You can ask him yourself when he gets here,” he said.

And with that, he hung up.

Naturally, the rest of the trip was uneventful and the miles flew out behind me at warp speed. Just when I longed for a delay (a minor car wreck, perhaps, or a sudden bout of the runs that would have me getting off the highway at every other exit lest I mess my underpants), there was no such luck in store. Feeling crabby and out of sorts, I brooded about Ethan Dace hammering a nail into my tire and then, as if I wasn’t sufficiently annoyed, I took a little trip down memory lane, summing up my relationship with the aforementioned Robert Dietz.

I’d met him five years before, in May of 1983, when I found myself on the hit list of a small-time Nevada punk named Tyrone Patty, who’d been charged with attempted murder in the shooting of a liquor store clerk. He’d fled to Santa Teresa and I was assigned the task of tracking him down, which I did. He was sent back to Nevada, where he was tried, convicted, and thrown into prison. From that point on, his life had spiraled out of control and he held four of us personally accountable: me; the Carson City DA; the judge who’d sentenced him; and Lee Galishoff, the public defender who’d represented him. Never mind that Tyrone Patty was a persistent felon long before we entered the picture. Like many whose poor choices have led them astray, he accepted no responsibility as long as he had someone else to blame.

Once out of prison, he’d gone right out and murdered three more hapless victims—also our fault, no doubt—but while still in prison, he’d put out feelers for a contract killer to whack the four of us. Galishoff had gotten wind of it and called, urging me to hire a bodyguard, which I thought was absurd. Who can afford a bodyguard twenty-four hours a day? Was he nuts? He’d suggested Robert Dietz, a PI who specialized in personal protection. I’d recognized the name because I’d put a call through to him the year before when I needed a quick job done and it made no sense for me to travel to all the way to Carson City.

Galishoff gave me his number again and I jotted it down with no real intention of contacting him. I’d just picked up a new job and I was on my way to the Mojave Desert. I didn’t take the threat seriously until someone ran my VW off the road and into a ditch. I ended up in the hospital and that’s when I called Dietz. He agreed to escort me back to Santa Teresa. In that same phone call, he told me the judge had been gunned down in front of his own home despite the presence of the police.

Dietz showed up in my hospital room and drove me home in his little red Porsche. Once the jeopardy passed and life returned to normal, if Dietz and I ended up in the sack, that was really nobody’s business. What followed was a three-month live-in relationship, at which point Dietz took off for Germany, where he was under contract to the military to conduct antiterrorist training. I was miffed by his departure, but what choice did I have?

He’d said, “I can’t stay.”

I’d said, “I know. I want you to go. I just don’t want you to leave me.”

We connected again in January of 1986 after an absence of two years, four months, and ten days. That visit bled over into March, a period during which he had knee-replacement surgery and I agreed to drive him back to Nevada. By the time we parted company, I’d spent two weeks at his place in Carson City playing nursemaid, a role in which I have never been known to shine. I’d driven a rental car from there to Nota Lake, picking up an investigation that would have been his to handle if he hadn’t been laid low. I hadn’t seen him since.

I’m not an on-again, off-again kind of girl, and Dietz wasn’t good at staying put, so emotionally we were always at odds. To be fair about it, neither one of us was suited for a long-term commitment. Dietz was afflicted with wanderlust and I was chronically self-protective, having been married and divorced twice.

Here’s how it seems to work in my life: Usually when you say good-bye to a friend, it’s a casual matter because it doesn’t occur to you that you might not see that certain someone again. It’s an
à bientôt
kind of thing . . . a term I remember from my high school French class. These are the few phrases I committed to memory even though I never got better than a C on a test.

À bientôt
 . . . see you soon.

À plus tard
 . . . see you later.

À demain
 . . . see you tomorrow.

À tout à l’heure
 . . . see you in a while.

When it comes to partings, the French are ever the optimists. My outlook is bleak. While my attention is fixed on the totally wrenching boo-hoo of an impending separation, the French language conveys hope and expectation, the happy assumption that in a short period of time, they’ll be
bonjour
ing each other all over again. My lifelong “good-bye” experiences lean toward finality and pain. My parents died. My aunt died. My first husband died. I’m dead set (as it were . . .) against having a pet because the risk of loss would soar into the stratosphere and I’ve got troubles enough as it is.

After our last parting, I’d set Dietz out on the curb, metaphorically speaking, in hopes the alley fairies would come along and cart him away. It’s not that I never thought of him, but by and large, people in my life knew better than to mention his name. Now here he was again and I couldn’t figure out what was going on.

I pulled up in front of my studio apartment at 4:25. I grabbed my shoulder bag and duffel, locked my car, and made my way through the squeaky gate and around to my front door. I left my Smith-Corona in the trunk of my car, intending to take it into the office with me first thing Monday morning. There was no sign of Henry, but the backyard smelled of pot roast and freshly baked bread, both of which he does to perfection. I let myself in and carried my duffel up the spiral stairs to the loft. I’d been telling myself Dietz’s arrival didn’t matter one way or the other, but I postponed my official appearance at Henry’s door until I’d slipped into a change of clothes. I stuck to my standard outfit: black turtleneck, blue jeans, and boots. I didn’t want it to look like I was trying too hard. I skipped the makeup, which I seldom wore in any event. I did floss and brush my teeth, and then stared at myself in the bathroom mirror.

In novels, the protagonist is forever doing this because it affords the author an opportunity to describe the character’s physical traits. That ploy won’t work here because I always look exactly like myself. This can be discouraging. Sometimes when I’m standing in a supermarket checkout line, I’ll spot the cover of a tabloid magazine plastered with candid photos of well-known actresses the paparazzi have caught off guard. What a shock it is to see legendary beauties looking washed-out and furtive, with matted hair, puffy lids, and splotchy complexions; flaws made all the more alarming for the images we carry of them, creamy-skinned and doe-eyed with tresses artfully tousled and sprayed to a hard shine. My looks fall somewhere between the two extremes, but closer to the puffy end. To my credit, I don’t misrepresent my basic attributes with a lot of gunk. Anyone who’s startled to see
me
looking splotchy hasn’t been paying attention.

It was 4:55 when I knocked on Henry’s back door. I was feeling more curious about Dietz than uneasy, which shows you what a moron I am. Dietz wasn’t due for an hour and I was grateful for a brief interlude alone with Henry so I could fill him in on my trip to Bakersfield.

Henry let me in. He’d already opened a bottle of Chardonnay, resting now in a cooler on the kitchen counter. I grant you it was a teeny tiny bit early for a glass of wine, but how could I refuse the half a glass when he handed it to me? He poured himself a tot of Black Jack over ice and we sat down at the kitchen table.

One of Henry’s many endearing qualities is his interest in matters that are of interest to me. He has remarkable recall of my past attitudes and behaviors, and he doesn’t hesitate to bring inconsistencies to my attention. He’s also free with his opinions even if they don’t coincide with mine, which is an irritating trait but one that I’ve come to appreciate.

He had two freshly baked loaves of bread sitting on a towel on his kitchen counter, and his oven was exuding enough mild heat and roasting aromas to make the room feel cozy. I knew he’d serve a salad and something simple for dessert. Of particular interest on this occasion was the presence of the cat, who had apparently taken possession of Henry and everything related to him. Ed had been in residence only briefly when I’d taken off for Bakersfield. I could still hardly believe I’d been there so short a time when it felt like I’d been gone for so long.

I said, “Tell me about Felix. How’s he doing?”

Henry waggled his outstretched hand in a gesture that indicated not so good. “After supper, we can go over to St. Terry’s, if you like. He’s unconscious, so you can’t actually visit but you could look in on him. The nurses are kind, but I don’t like being underfoot. As one nurse put it, ICU doesn’t lend itself to looky-loos.”

“No improvement at all?”

“They’ve been pumping him with antibiotics, which I gather hasn’t done much good. In a situation like this, things tend to go from bad to worse. I don’t mean to sound so pessimistic, but there’s no point in mincing words.”

“How’s Pearl holding up?”

“She’s currently off on a bender from what I hear. Your friend Dandy as well.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“Oh, yes. I was at the hospital last night and Pearl was conspicuously absent. She’d been at his bedside, as faithful as a hound, whenever she was allowed. Suddenly, no sign of her, so I stopped by the shelter as soon as I left the hospital. I couldn’t get a word out of Ken, the guy at the desk, but one of the residents heard me ask about her and he took me aside, which is when others chimed in.”

“Are they holed up someplace?”

“Someone suggested a sports bar in the area. I don’t know the name.”

“Dandy mentioned the place. They play darts there on weekends if they’re sober enough.”

“I doubt they’re playing darts. I’d have looked for them myself, but I don’t have the patience.”

Throughout this exchange, Ed was sitting in Henry’s rocking chair, following the conversation solemnly with his oval eyes, the one blue, the other green. He was short-haired and white, with a patch of black over the right side of his face and touches of black and caramel on the left. His ears stood straight up, triangles lined with pink and edged in black. His stub of a tail looked like a black-and-tan powder puff. Henry regarded him with a doting expression, which the cat seemed to think was entirely his due.

I nodded at the cat. “How’s he been? Looks like he’s settled in and made himself at home.”

“He’s a very good boy. He’s caught everything from mice to moles. Two lizards yesterday and one today.”

“I hope no birds or bunnies.”

“Of course not. We had a chat about that and I explained his limitations. He comes when he’s called and doesn’t play in the street.”

“I thought Japanese bobtails were supposed to be talkative. He hasn’t uttered a peep.”

“He only speaks up when he has something to say.”

“Is it okay if we discuss him like this when he’s sitting right there?”

“He likes being the center of attention. He’s even taught me a trick. Watch this.” Henry picked up a wad of yarn the size of a golf ball. Ed was instantly interested, and when Henry tossed it across the kitchen, Ed streaked after it, brought it back, and dropped it at Henry’s feet. Both Henry and Ed seemed extremely pleased with themselves. Ed watched Henry for a bit to see if they’d play again.

I said, “This is weird. Like you just had a baby and all we’re going to do from here on out is sit and stare at the little tyke and admire everything he does.”

“Don’t be churlish,” he said. “Tell me about your trip.”

This I did while I set the table and Henry put together a rustic apple tart, rolling out a round of pie dough that he covered with pared apple slices, butter, sugar, and cinnamon. He seemed to recognize that I was still trying to settle on an attitude about my newly discovered cousins, so we didn’t pursue the subject beyond the basic information. Meanwhile, Ed curled up in the rocker and closed his eyes, though his ears continued to twitch like rotating antennae.

“So what’s with Dietz? I can’t believe he called after all this time.”

“He put in a fair amount of effort looking for you. He said he tried you at your office and tried you at home. He left messages both places, but when he didn’t hear back he called me, asking if I knew where you were. I said Bakersfield, but you’d be back this afternoon. He said he was on his way and then he hung up.”

“No explanation?”

“He doesn’t strike me as a man who explains himself.”

“Good point.”

Henry opened the refrigerator door and took a bag of fresh salad mix from the crisper drawer. “I wonder if you’d give these a rinse. The package says ‘ready to eat’ but that’s a relative term. Lettuce spinner’s in there.”

He indicated the corner cabinet that was outfitted with a lazy Susan so that cooking items could be stored in otherwise dead space. I opened the cabinet and removed the spinner, took out the perforated inner bowl, dumped the loose lettuces in, and ran water over the greens. I popped the bowl back into the spinner and pulled the cord, which made the inner bowl rotate at high speed, excess water flung off by the centrifugal force. The rapidly retracting cord snapped back and caught me in the hand. Wow, shit, hurt, ow.

I was happy for the distraction. Henry had mentioned an estimated 6:00 arrival time for Dietz, whom I knew to be punctual. I stole a quick glance at my watch. It was only 5:20, so I figured I was still in the safety zone. I couldn’t imagine why a job referral would warrant a trip to Santa Teresa. Maybe he meant to refer
me
for a job. I knew I hadn’t sent any business his way. When the knock came at Henry’s aluminum screen door, the sound barely registered, so I was startled when Henry opened the door and I heard Dietz’s voice.

In the first glimpse I had of him, I knew something major had gone down in his life. As usual his hair was shorn close, but the medium gray had now turned almost entirely white. Something in the change suggested he’d been hit with an emotional blast, like a flash fire that leaves singed hair where your eyebrows had once been. I blinked and saw him restored to himself, looking as he always had. The white was the natural progression of a graying process already under way. His nose was long and sharp, humped at the bridge where a fan of lines ran upward intersecting the horizontal lines that traced his forehead. It was the gray eyes and the deep tan that made his face arresting, along with the occasional lopsided smile.