His biggest concern is that her eye is not responding very well. They remove the cast on her leg in a few days, so there is no way to know how much use of her knee she will regain until her rehab begins. I tell him not to worry, that both her eye and her leg are going to be fine.
"Yo tengo fe."
She's out in the backyard, sitting on a chaise when I get there, throwing a man made bone for two large black labradors. I get a nice hug from her mom, and I sit down on a second chaise next to Perez. Maria starts giving Roberto crap about forgetting to get mustard like she asked him. He makes an excuse and she hits him on the arm. Now I know.
Perez has a gauze bandage over the left eye, and her left leg is in the same plastic and metal cast she had when we flew her home. I want to see the scars on her stomach, but I don't ask. Her mom brings us lunch and leaves us alone with the dogs.
She says she's fine, that she's off the pain medication, and everything is healing. She doesn't remind me of our deal, but it's there, unspoken, hanging over the conversation. We talk about Garza and Juarez and the other bad men. She goes through the documents I brought. I can barely stand to watch her read with only the one eye. The question is, what do I need to do next, about them and about her.
"And what do you want me to do when I nail it down?"
She looks at me funny.
"I'm serious, Perez. Call the FBI? Destroy everything and leave them to their fate? Rip their fucking arms off? You tell me, and it will happen."
"For now," she says, "let's leave their arms attached to their bodies. Once we know what evidence we have, we'll know whether or not giving them to the feds will work."
"Yes sir. No arm detaching. How about a couple fingers?"
"
Air Force."
It's her exasperated voice. "Anger leads to the dark side."
"Thank you Obi-Wan."
We go back to talking options, including the nagging issue of becoming alive once again. I have been dead for nine weeks, and I am totally happy about it, but I can't save the world and be dead all at the same time. I have another week off from work I can use any time, my second and last vacation week of the year, so I can deal with the bad guys, but that does not mean I necessarily have to go public right away.
Before we can reach any conclusions, Maria brings us lunch, and there are eight of us (Perez, parents, me and four brothers) and two dogs enjoying sandwiches in the afternoon sun.
I spend the afternoon engaged in backyard football with the brothers and dogs, the evening eating and getting my ass kicked by Perez playing Combat Alert III on the family game console. She shoots just as well in cyber space as she does in real life.
Mr. Perez offers me a room of my own, the older brothers' room, but the younger brothers convince me to bunk with them. They want to talk flying, the youngest thinking about violating the family code and going to the Air Force Academy instead of the police academy.
We go out for brunch Monday, then back to her house, and everyone leaves us alone for the afternoon. Perez tells me she reached a conclusion during our shooting adventure, and we finish a plan not long after dark, gather the pages into a nice neat pile, and sit back in our chairs.
"I didn't thank you for saving my life." Out of the blue, no prep.
I use my best Batman voice. "And you'll never have to." She smiles.
"Do you know how much time you lost?"
"No. Don't care. Doesn't matter."
"It does to me."
"My clock was ticking anyway, Perez. You deserve a long and happy life."
Then her dad's at the back door, reminding us it's time to go. She grabs her crutches and hobbles off with me. It's big hug time, and Mr. Perez is driving me to the airport so I can catch a flight home.
"You and Kiana are up to something," he says when we're nearly there. It was obvious he had something he wanted to say, but it took a long time before he said it.
"Yes. The FBI and DEA are no closer to finding out who set the bomb then they were a month ago. Kiana is smarter than them, and she has me doing leg work. We have something hard now which we can hand to the feds. They ought to trust her given her track record."
"Be careful. I don't want to have to sit next to your hospital bed."
"With your daughter after them, they're the ones that need to worry."
He laughs. "Still, I worry."
"And I'm glad you do. But we are done investigating, assuming the FBI gets off it's ass now."
Then he gets serious on a different track.
"My daughter needs to start a new life once she's able. She may need your help."
"I already told her that I will do anything I can. She's family. She's more than that. But I wouldn't count her out of going back to her old life yet. No one is
más fuerte
than her."
"She says the same about you. It's a shame you won't be partners any more."
"No matter what happens, sir, your daughter and I will always be partners."
He doesn't say anything else until we get to the airport, then simply reminds me to thank my mom and dad again for all their help.
On the flight home, I make a decision. The light stands and applauds.
Chapter 17
In a way, it's stupid. I fly home in the jump seat of a 757, then drive to Upland so I can fly back to San Francisco without an airplane.
It's 10:30, or thereabout, by the time I get back to the Perez house and land quietly on the roof. Her window is cracked open a touch, but the screen is blocking. A little push on the molecules, and I am hanging in the air outside. Quietly, knowing the trouble I'm in if I wake her up, I slide the window the rest of the way open, then push on the screen, both in and up at the same time. It conveniently comes out of its tracks, I slide it to the floor, and am free to enter.
As gently as I possibly can I fly over to her bed, and land beside it. Bending over, I repeat the light kiss on her forehead that worked last time I wanted to fix her. Just as before, a little piece of light jumps between us as my lips finish the kiss. She doesn't stir, and I am out the window, float, replace the screen, bail for home and my flight out.
We land in Kona just before noon local time, about 15 minutes late, the ocean breeze and sun perfect complements to my mood. There's a text on my phone that uses some bad words. It makes me happier, if that is possible. I may not be around to see Kiana Perez back at work, living a full life, eventually teaching little Perez's how to clean a Glok, but I know it will happen and that's all I need.
I'm flying with a new captain, fresh to the company from another airline, and he seems like a decent guy, especially when I take him for $50 on the golf course. He flies straighter than he putts.
Early evening I change in my room, sneak down to the beach, make sure no one is looking, dive into the ocean, push underwater molecules until I'm a couple miles off shore, then breach and jet to San Francisco, Mach speed but not fast enough to leave a trail or destroy my underwear.
Her house is dark, but she's sitting on the bed in her room, obviously still awake. I slide the window up, loud enough that she can hear, and she's there, helping me take the screen off. As soon as I'm in the room, she wacks me on the arm, hard, not hard enough that I feel it, but hard enough that it hurts her.
Then she's crying, pounding on my chest with both fists, chanting, "Fuck you, Air Force, Fuck you, Fuck you," over and over and over again.
I let her hit me a dozen times, then wrap my arms around her and pull her into as comforting a hug as I can manage, she puts her head against my chest, stops talking, but keeps crying.
Eventually, I take my arms from around her, put a hand on each upper arm, and push her slightly away from me. She picks her head up and looks me in the eye, which was my intention.
"I love you, Kiana Perez. I know there can't be anything between us, but I don't care. I know what I said, but I couldn't leave you in pain."
"You believe what Ali said about me?"
"And Jen."
"Jen told you about us?"
I give her a little nod.
"Simon, I pretended to be gay when I moved to LA to avoid wrestling matches at work. I like girls, I play with girls, but I am not...."
She never gets the last word out. Our lips meet, and we're kissing, crying, smiling, teardrops rolling off both our cheeks.
"You should have said something." Probably not the best thing for me to say at the moment, but all that came out.
"You could have asked, instead of listening to a terrorist."
I answer that with another long, slow kiss. When we're done, she pushes me back a little.
"Air Force, you should have listened to me. Six months now. Six months."
I must have had my usual stupid look on my face, because she asks a question.
"You haven't visited with your fog friend, have you?"
"No. No need. I told him I didn't care what the price was, and I don't. If tomorrow is my last day, today was worth it."
She hits my arm, softly.
"He came to see me again tonight. Colorful fog, blue and yellow and red."
"That's the mad fog."
"Mad fog?" She laughs a puzzled laugh. "He told me you have until the first of the year, maybe into January."
"I really need to get you a cat."
"
Air Force."
She's using her exasperated voice again.
"I love you Kiana Perez."
She falls into my arms again and goes back to crying.
I wait a couple minutes, then I whisper. "Come to LA for the weekend."
"I.... Ok."
"Good. I need to get back to Hawai'i."
We exchange another kiss, warm on my skin even though I'm him, something else on the long list of things I can't explain.
Now it's her turn. "I love you Simon Packer." A quick kiss, and I am gone out the window. How is it that I just found out I have maybe seven months to live, and I am happier than I have ever been in my life?
Get home from Kona after 10 on Wednesday night, and go to sleep, anxious to have my chat with Fog Dude. I don't get the technicolor angry fog, I get the original. Dark and white at the same time, swirling, the evil grass mowed back to two inches tall, the sound of boots, the tall man with his pet fog balls in tow.
"You should have listened to us."
"She'd be dead, and don't give me any Yoda I should let Han and Leia die if I honor what they believe in crap."
He stops to think for a minute. Mistake. Halloween lets him have it and I am awake, alert, and in love.
I eat, go running, shower, and get dressed, head in to the airport. Bradford and I are riding bikes in the parking lots today. I call Perez while on break, but get her voice mail.
She calls just as I finish my lunch, and we finalize details for her visit. I paid her rent for her, so her place is still her place, and still full of her stuff. Her Mustang is still parked there. After she hangs up, I call dad to get her on a plane tomorrow.
She spent her morning with two astonished doctors, one not believing that her vision was starting to return, the other amazed that her knee had so little damage when he took the cast off. She pretended not to have full vision back, and limped a lot.
We end our conversation with an exchange of "I love you's." Can't get enough of those.
Chapter 18
Friday I am at the gate at 11 to meet her as she gets off the 10 a.m. from San Francisco, advantage of my life that I am not bound by normalcy. In fact, after the semi-awkward first public hug and kiss (which is also technically the first time I've kissed her, he kissed her last night), she tells me she's hungry, and we grab some tacos and eat on the flight deck of a parked 757. She hits me a couple times, complaining jokingly about the size of my smile.
A dozen times during the course of lunch I feel compelled to reach out, touch her, make sure she's real.
We walk together to the main LAPD offices, holding hands, though it occurs to me that we will never be able to do this once she is back at full strength. After a month of muscle atrophy, I can still barely keep up with her.
It takes us an hour to get out of there, everyone so happy to see her up and well, then we grab Starbuck and head to her apartment, where we spend the afternoon cleaning before we take Starbuck over to her
tia's
restaurant, with another half hour of tears and hugs before we can eat. Perez is clearly exhausted by the time we're done, and she probably should have skipped the wine.
Back to her place, park Starbuck next to the Mustang, walk hand in hand to the door, me more nervous than I ever remember being. I stop her at the threshold.
