Hardy 05 - Mercy Rule, The (26 page)

Three of her girlfriends and her little brother, Jerry, in Concord — three answering machines and one she woke up.

Okay, she told herself, it was just one of those nights.

But — the walls closing in, the droning television her only companion, she decided she’d go out for a walk, grab a cup of decaf at one of the places over on Clement, that’s what she’d do. By then her mom and dad might be home and she could talk to them for a few minutes and then turn in.

She considered calling her partner; but no, she saw enough of Lanier, and socially he was not her idea of company. Besides, they would wind up talking about the case.

It was eating her up.

She felt an unseen pair of hands pushing down on her, holding her in the chair. She was not going to turn out like Sal Russo, she told herself. So what if she lived alone in an apartment not too dissimilar from his? What did that mean? Half the city — hell, half the people her age in cities all over the world — lived like this. Or worse, sometimes much worse. It didn’t necessarily lead anywhere.

She wasn’t anything like Sal. She wasn’t going to wind up where he had. She was a success. By thirty-two she’d reached the peak of her profession.

The walls again. She hadn’t gotten around to hanging any art. With her work she hadn’t had time. And look, there
were a
couple of posters after all — the Monterey Aquarium, a saguaro cactus in a desert somewhere that reminded her of her parents — but they were both unframed, sagging from their tacks in the faded drywall.

She got up and took the five-step walk into the kitchen. It was neat enough, unlike Sal’s. (‘See?’ she said to herself.) There were no dirty dishes piled anywhere. But the linoleum was peeling up in the corners. The table and chairs were thrift store, secondhand. Nice enough, but after thirty more years, she wondered what they’d look like, what they’d
feel
like, at that time to someone who was her age now.

But that was silly. Of course she’d move up, into something better. Now she was young and unattached. She didn’t need any more. But Graham — damn him, coming back into her consciousness like this! — Graham’s place wasn’t at all like this, was it? It was elegant and fine. And he, too, was young and unattached.

In the door between kitchen and living room she surveyed her own place objectively, as if it were a crime scene, as if something had happened to her here, tonight, now.

The afghan had been tossed off, and lay half on the ancient wing chair, half on the woven throw rug. Everything in sight was well used: the homemade brick-and-board bookshelves with their dog-eared paperbacks and law-enforcement journals, the cassette player, the lion’s-claw coffee table, pocked with rings from hot, cold, wet glasses placed directly on the wood.

The couch was frayed and worn, its once-bright red, gold, and green brocade now lackluster, nearly sepia. The three-bulb standing lamp behind the sofa threw almost no light; two bulbs needed to be replaced.

She was going out. All right. This was just a mood. If she didn’t like her apartment, she’d change it soon. It had never bothered her before. She wasn’t stuck with it forever. She’d just turn off the television…

‘… Graham Russo, who was arrested, then released, last week for assisting at the suicide of his father…’

*
    
*
    
*
    
*
    
*

He was not home. The house was as dark as it had been the night before.

She’d parked at the bottom of the street, across from a streetlight under a canopy of trees. Now she stood leaning against the hood of her car, looking north, back toward her apartment, trying not to think.

Edgewood dropped off in a cliff. From where she stood, she could look down a hundred feet or so into the backyards and onto the roofs of the multi-story buildings below her, on Parnassus. In one of the upper windows — close enough to see clearly — two men were in a bed together, naked.

The chill had come up again, a brisk breeze out of the west, although with her fisherman’s sweater, she wasn’t cold. Still, she tightened her arms around herself. A stair street — Farnsworth — fell off steeply to her right. In the wake of the
chik-chik-chik
of an owl flying overhead, she heard footsteps coming up the steps.

She’d left her apartment hurriedly, unarmed. Now she backed into the shadow of the canopy as the steps came up to her, paced and rhythmic, jogging.

Suddenly certain, she stepped out into the light as Graham got to the top of the steps. Seeing her, breathing hard, he stopped. His shoulders dropped and he shook his head as if she’d finally beaten him. Gathering another breath, he spread his hands, palms out. ‘Am I under arrest?’

The thought was so far from her mind that she laughed out loud. ‘What are you doing?’

It took a minute for him to figure out what she meant. ‘Trying to stay in shape. Running off some of this’ — he gestured ambiguously, took in another lungful of air — ’all this madness.‘ He was still panting. ’Those are some serious stairs. More than a hundred, I’d bet, but who’s counting?‘ Then, focusing back on her, ’So if I’m not under arrest… ?‘

She took a half step toward him. ‘I guess I’m finally off duty. I thought you might have some of that wine left.’

They walked uphill, in the middle of the street, in silence.

Inside, he turned on the indirect track lights and opened the curtains to the view. Downtown and the East Bay shimmered down below them. ‘I was going to take a shower,’ he said, indicating the tiny booth that was his bathroom. ‘There’s no room to change in there.’

She swiveled in the chair, grabbed one of the magazines. ‘I won’t look.’

When he got out of the shower, he opened a bottle of red and poured them both a glass. They moved to opposite ends of the low leather couch. Graham was back in his uniform — barefoot, baggy running shorts, a T-shirt. Sarah, tennis shoes and all, had her legs curled under her.

Though Barbara Brandt’s announcement that she’d counseled Graham in the minutes before he’d killed his father was the immediate catalyst that had gotten her out of her own apartment and up to here, Sarah felt no inclination to raise the subject. She’d told him she was off duty, and she was. Graham evidently hadn’t yet even heard about it; he’d been out jogging to the beach and back, over an hour. The phone, she noticed, was unplugged.

She had no idea where the words came from. ‘Your father painted,’ she began, out of the blue.

The comment seemed to require an adjustment to Graham’s mind-set. He shifted on the couch, averted his eyes. ‘He did a lot of things. Are you still off duty?’

She had to smile at that. ‘Yeah.’

‘You want to talk about my father?’

She nodded. ‘Looks like. I was at his place. It got a little bit inside me. So did he.’

Graham leaned down and put his wineglass on the floor, then stood again, crossing to the bookshelves. He turned. ‘You know, when I got the letter, I hadn’t talked to him in like fifteen years. He was at my high school graduation, just came up and said hello when my mom wasn’t around. Congratulations. I had no idea what to say back. I think I just looked at him. All I really remember is it made me feel sick.’

‘And that’s the last time you saw him? I mean, before the letter?’

Graham shook his head no. ‘That’s what’s funny. When I worked for Draper, I’d see him on Fridays all the time, out in his truck behind the courthouse. I’d stand at the window and watch him out in the alley. Everybody seemed to love him.’

‘But you didn’t go down?’

‘I thought I hated him.’ Still across the room from her, he pulled a kitchen chair over and straddled it. ‘Even after the letter…’ He stopped.

‘I thought the letter was when you connected.’

He considered that for a beat. ‘I saw him in Vero then, once. But it wasn’t very good. I was a jerk. I think it’s my truest talent, jerkhood.’

‘I think it’s jerkitude.’ Then, realizing how that could be interpreted, she added, ‘Not your truest talent. The word.’

He shrugged. ‘Well, whatever you call it, there it was. So right after I read the letter, I decided I’d sucked it up enough. I should spill out how I felt. It would do me good. My dad had caused us all so much grief and I’d never told him how I felt about it, what he’d put us all through. So he writes me this, this beautiful letter, reaching out really, and somehow this cues me — sensitive guy that I am — that the time is right to go and beat up on the old man.’

‘Literally? You hit him?’

‘No. I might as well have. I told him he was a son of a bitch who had a hell of a nerve thinking he could make some kind of amends.’

Sarah didn’t think Graham was aware that he’d stood up and begun pacing.

‘As though he’s going to somehow make up for leaving us, just walking out. In his dreams. What’d he think I was going to do, forgive him? Take him back with open arms? Get a life, Sal but I’m not letting you back in mine! I don’t want to make you feel better. Not now, not ever. I don’t
care
how you feel. And we’re not going to be friends, for Christ’s sake. You think we can be friends? I hate you, man. Don’t you fucking
get
it? I hate your guts!’

He was yelling by the end. Now, in the small room, the silence when he stopped left a vacuum. He was breathing hard, looking back at Sarah as though in panic. ‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘I beat him up. I beat the hell out of him.’

She waited until he’d crossed to the kitchen sink and scooped a few handfuls of water into his face. ‘Sorry,’ he said.

‘So what did he do? How did he react?’

He was leaning against the counter, his arms crossed over his chest, his massive shoulders slumped. ‘He said I was right. He was crying. And you know what, I was
glad
he was crying. He said he was so sorry.’ Graham blew out in frustration. ‘And right in character, I told him sorry wasn’t good enough. Sorry didn’t make any damn difference anymore.’

In the pause she asked, ‘And then what?’

‘Then I left.’

‘So how did you… ?’

‘That was later,’ he said.

There was an old hose in the alley where he parked his truck across from his apartment. It had been left behind by the construction crew at the federal courthouse, and Sal Russo had claimed it. He had it hooked to a spigot and was washing out the bed of his truck, which got tolerably rank by the end of Friday.

There wasn’t any nozzle, but Sal was happy enough to control the spray with his thumb. It spit water back all over him, but he didn’t care. His life was sea spume and fish smell. This was part of it.

He’d polished off the last mouthfuls of the gallon bottles of Carlo Rossi that his customers hadn’t got to. He had the cigar butt in his teeth, chopping words off around it, half singing, half humming ‘Sweet Betsy from Pike’. It was the middle of the summer, two or more hours of daylight left, and the wind was gusting up in front of him, blowing the spray back, soaking him by the second. Chomping down harder on his cigar, he grinned into the force of it, then turned to get another angle on the truck bed, flush out the scales.

Initially, he thought it was a premonition of one of his spells — a shadow in the center of the sun’s glare, something about the shape so mnemonic, it felt like a haunting. Moving to one side, he squinted up into it. ‘Graham?’

‘Hey, Dad.’

Sal bent the hose over on itself, stopping the flow of water. He hadn’t seen his son since that time in Vero, and that had been a stupid mistake. He had seen him play and then hadn’t been able to stop himself. He thought enough time might have passed. Maybe Graham could understand. But he’d been wrong.

And now here he was again. ‘What’s goin’ on? Your mother all right?‘ He couldn’t imagine any other reason his son would come to see him — not after the last time. Helen, he thought, must have died and they send Graham to tell him.

‘Mom s fine.’ He shifted on his feet. ‘I, uh, I came by to apologize. I’m sorry.’

The world took on a blurry edge for a beat, but Sal only blinked and nodded. ‘Yeah, well, like I said, you were right.’ He released his grip on the hose, pointed it vaguely at the truck. ‘So how you doin’?‘

His son didn’t answer right away, which forced him to look. ‘Not that great, to tell you the truth!

Sal kept the water going
. ‘
I saw they cut you
!

‘I don’t blame ’em,‘ he said. ’I sucked.‘ There was a set to the face, a tight control. He looked about to break. ’I’m too old. It’s a kid’s game. I was stupid, the whole thing was stupid.‘

Sal nodded. ‘Yeah, probably. If it’s any consolation, it’s in the blood. I’d a probably done the same thing, then got cut too. Bet that makes you feel better!’

A smile started, but went nowhere. ‘Lots. Thanks!

‘Don’t mention it. You hungry?’ He squeezed off the water again, held it with one hand, and pulled a roll of bills out of his front pocket.

Sal had a regular spot at the U.S. Restaurant, a lone table that spearheaded the sidewalk at the narrowest point in the triangular building. The place was in the heart of North Beach and had been in its location half a block from Gino & Carlo’s bar, essentially unchanged, for as long as Sal could remember. You still couldn’t spend ten bucks on a meal there if you tried.

They were on their third carafe of red wine. The wineglass was a prop and Sal had his hands wrapped around his. A foot from them both, outside the glass, the tourist night was getting into swing, the lights coming up on the street.

‘I don’t know if there is a why anymore,’ Sal was saying. ‘Maybe there never was. I don’t know.’

‘But there had to be, Sal. You don’t just…’

‘Maybe you do. Maybe one day you wake up and you’re a different person. You’re going along and something happens and the whole vision you have of who you are — suddenly that whole thing just doesn’t work anymore. So everything it was holding up comes crashing down around it.’

‘What? Did Mom have an affair?’