Twilight (6 page)

When he finished the presentation, Cal took the elevator up. It wasn’t part of the job, but he always took a stroll on the confused floor. Sure enough, Martha was in the hall, stunning in an anklelength beaded gown, her posture at eighty-four was elegant, her figure svelte. Her arms, covered to the elbow in gloves, swung just so with each step.

“I’m Martha, the Victorian.” She engaged him with her eyes. “They said my baby died, but
I know
they stole it.” Fallout from the days they didn’t let women see their stillborn children. Sometimes Martha was clear as a bell, but when she was in her promenade mode, she didn’t converse, she recited. She raised her chin again and walked on. “I’m Martha, the Victorian.” Cal let her stroll and went into the third room on the right.

Here the woman was tied into a wheelchair to keep her from slipping out. She looked up. “Hello.”

“Hi there, Olive.”

She smiled, showing straight teeth. “Did I ever tell you my father was on the stage?”

“Is that so?”

“He was a comedian … and a tragedian.”

They shared the laugh they always did.

“He had lovely white hair. Oliver DeForest. That was his stage name. He was a comedian … and a tragedian.”

Cal squatted down and took her hand. “You doing all right, Olive? Anything you need?”

“My mother was a janitor.”

“Nothing wrong with good honest work.” Cal patted her hand and stood.

“Gladdy cut my eyelashes off. She was my half sister.”

“Well, you have lovely eyelashes now, Olive.” He framed her with his fingers. “Pretty as a picture.”

She laughed. “Go on, you flirt.”

Cal squeezed her hand. “You have a nice day, Olive.”

“A comedian
and
a tragedian. Such lovely white hair.”

Cal left her reminiscing and ducked into the other rooms briefly. He was on the clock, so he couldn’t do much more than say hello. But that was enough. He walked out with a spring in his step.

After leaving the home, Cal headed for the library. Merv Peterson had earned himself an early inspection by twice calling in a smell of smoke between
true crime
and
mystery
. Both times the men had pulled the engine around to assess from three sides without seeing so much as a puff. Both times the interior proved sound. Merv took his position seriously and made sure everyone knew his importance to the library. But before Merv made this a habit, Cal intended to set his mind at rest and maybe slap him with enough infringements to discourage future overreactions.

Looking official in his uniform, with clipboard in hand, he sauntered into the stone-block building, pressed through the swinging half doors and made his way to the desk. Merv’s hound-dog jowls dangled, and his lips parted when he saw Cal coming. Cal held out his hand, and Merv joined it with his sub-normal temperature palm. “Did someone call?” Merv asked, darting his eyes to see who might have overstepped him.

“No. I’m here to inspect.”

“Oh … well …” Merv spluttered.

“Don’t worry. I’ll whisper.”

Cal found the two floors open to the public in relative good order, except for one blocked exit and an excess of flammables in a janitor’s closet. These he wrote up, then descended to the cellar, flipped the switch that lit a row of bare bulbs along the ceiling, and eyed the ghostly shelves of out-of-date and out-of-mind literature.

“Whew.” He blew a dusty cloud, then made tracks through the gray thickness that muffled his steps. It was like walking the catacombs; no man-sized spider webs, but a smell and silence of age and solemnity.

At the stone wall, Cal followed the wires up to the ceiling with a cloth from his back pocket, chasing the dust like fur before it. They were old, but sound. Must have been replaced since the place was built. He had hoped to make more of a point. Ah, an almost ceilinghigh pile of periodicals in the back corner, beside the boiler room no less. Cal slipped the clipboard from under his arm. Now that should keep Merv busy for a while, especially as the man would never part with a one.

After a long discussion with Merv about the basics of fire prevention, Cal grabbed a bite at Benny’s Burgers, went through the usual debate at the register, then let Benny comp his bill. Two years ago he’d breathed life back into Benny’s son, who’d nearly drowned in a neighborhood pool. Benny swore Cal’s cash would never be good in his store again. And after all this time, he still refused to take it. Cal almost stopped eating there, had been reluctant to return until word reached him that Benny was crushed by his absence. How many burgers was a boy’s life worth? Cal made it in at least once a week. Best burgers in town.

Two more appointments and he called it a day. It was Friday. Poker night. Cal rubbed his hands. For some reason, he felt lucky. That feeling stayed with him until Ray caught him at his door.

“Cal!”

Cal turned on the perch at the top of his stairs. “Can’t help tonight, Ray. Got plans.”

“It’s just a short job.”

“Got poker tonight, Ray.” He’d tried to include Ray once, but there was no bluff in the man at all. He’d felt so guilty over Ray’s losses, he’d made them up from his own pocket, which wasn’t deep to start with.

“But I need your jeep.”

Cal leaned on the rail while Ray described the job. Ray’s bomb wouldn’t do it; that was clear. He’d planned on this time to make the place presentable, but …

“All right. Let’s go.” He headed back down the stairs. It wouldn’t take too long to drag the trunk sections of a fallen tree into the woods behind Fred’s house. And Ray was bobbing from one foot to the next like a kid going to the circus. Two jobs in three days was something.

Cal reached the ground. “Got chains?”

Ray nodded. “They’re in my trunk.”

That was one thing to be said for Ray’s bomb. It had a trunk the size of Texas. “Move ’em over to the jeep.”

Together they headed for Fred’s, a mile away by road, shorter if you walked around the pond and through the woods. Cal pulled the jeep into Fred’s backyard. Dogs came yapping from all sides, but there was no sign of Fred.

“He’s not home.” Ray climbed out of the jeep and greeted each dog as it slathered his hands.

Cal joined the melee. When they’d satisfied the dogs, he pulled the chains from the trunk, hooked the loops over his shoulder, and started for the nearest piece of the old elm that had rotted through and snapped in the last storm. Fred had sawed the trunk into six-foot sections, but they were half that much around.

Ray lifted while Cal looped the chain around, then attached the other end to the hook at the back of the jeep. It was rough ground between Fred’s kennels and the woods, but the jeep could handle it. Ray’s car would have lost its differential. They left the logs in a semicircle at the edge of the woods like a boundary marker.

“Good enough?” Cal detached the chain from the hook after the last log had been placed.

Ray nodded. “I think so. He said he’d pay me tomorrow.”

So they could have done the job tomorrow. But Ray wasn’t like that. Everything was now for Ray. He wagged a finger. “I didn’t say I’d pay you.” The same old joke never got old for Ray. But with Benny’s gratis burger in his belly, Cal just figured what went around, came around.

Cal clapped his shoulder. “Get in.” They drove home, and Cal gave Ray a wave as they parted in the yard. That lucky feeling hadn’t departed. If anything, it had grown.

Having slept like a rock following the poker game, Cal staggered to the kitchen. Thank goodness for Mr. Coffee. If everything could be that simple. A pain connected his temples, which was hardly fair since he’d refused Rob’s Chivas and stayed clergyman sober. Boy, had Rita scowled when Rob walked in with the bottle. But it wasn’t all about avoidance. Half the battle was resisting while in the presence.

It hadn’t been difficult either. He hadn’t drooled once, though Rita watched him as though she thought he might. She had difficulty leaving her professional role. Did she even have a life outside the loonies she rescued? Every man in the fire department had bent her ear at one time or another, debriefing whatever incident had caused stress, though most of them weren’t court-ordered into her special treatment program. That was reserved for the truly deserving.

Shaking his head, Cal laughed. Well, he’d been lucky last night. It was always his lucky night when Rob brought liquor. He’d had him in his pocket last night by eighty bucks. Even Reggie owed him, although Rita had cleaned up. Not literally, unfortunately. He dug a Coke can from the sink drain and tossed it in the trash along with the unfiltered remains of Rob’s Camels. Smoke still clung to the air.

There was something warped about a smoking fireman, but that was Rob. If he didn’t get enough smoke in his lungs from the job, he provided it himself. Always on the edge, Rob. Together they’d pulled some pretty stupid pranks. Now they spent most of their time avoiding subjects Rob thought might kindle Cal’s memories or his madness.

Cal contemplated the distance between them these days. On the surface, not much had changed. But there was stiffness, an unease that made it hard to believe they had known each other since they were three. Rob claimed no hard feelings for the fists Cal had thrown his way, and Cal believed him. No, it was the revelation of mortality Rob couldn’t get past. Cal’s meltdown proved they were human after all. That was the part Rob resented.

Rolling an unlit cigarette out from under the toaster oven, Cal remembered Laurie tucking one between her fingers and lighting up behind the gym.
“What do you think?”
she’d said, then frowned when he pulled it from her lips and crushed it under foot.
“I wasn’t going to inhale.”

“I don’t want to kiss a smoker mouth.”
He’d been a crusader then. He shook his head. He’d kiss it now, smoke or no. Splashing water on his face from the kitchen sink, he heard the coffee maker begin to sputter and steam, then release its brown stream into the pot. He traded the place of the pot with his cup, let it fill, then exchanged them again and drank. Ah, morning. What morning? The vacuum started downstairs. Saturday. The second bi-weekly torture began. He groaned when the hi-fi kicked in, warbling Wayne Newton through the floorboards. It was like living in time warp.

Gripping the phone, Cal called Laurie. “You doing anything today?”

“What’s all that racket?”

“It’s an old house.”

“Oh. I have the children home today.”

He switched the receiver to his other ear in hopes of overcoming the noise. “Don’t you think it’s time they met me?” It had been all of four and a half days since he’d learned she was back.

Silence.

“Laurie? Earth to Laurie …”

“I’m here.”

“Have a nice trip?”

She laughed. “I guess you can come over.”

“Something wrong? Are they mutants?”

“That’s tacky.” There was an edge to her voice.

So the kids were off limits for joking. “Sorry. Why don’t we take them somewhere?”

“What doesn’t cost anything?”

“It’s on me.” Cal took a long sip, letting the caffeine absorb into the tissues of his mouth, then swallowed it down.

Again Laurie was silent. A clue telling him what? Then, “I’d rather not.”

Of course. Same old Laurie. One of these days she’d learn that it was also good to receive. And maybe she’d see he didn’t expect much in return. “How about fishing? You and the kids can come here.” The weather had warmed again, and the ground was sufficiently dry. It was reasonable, and it cost him no more than bait. She couldn’t argue that.

“Luke would like that.” Her voice sounded musey.

“That’s your daughter, right?”

“Cute.”

Oh yeah
. “So I’ll see you soon?”

“Okay.”

He cleaned up last night’s debris, and after a quick once-over, a shower, and shave, he was ready. Laurie’s white Lexus pulled up in the drive, and they climbed out. Or rather Laurie climbed, a brownhaired boy, maybe fiveish, tumbled head first, and a smaller girl followed, reaching for Laurie’s hand.

He started down, but they were intercepted by Mildred, and a minute later, Cissy homed in by way of child radar. By the time he reached the ground, both kids had a peppermint in their mouths, and Laurie was providing their vital statistics. Cissy and Mildred turned, Cissy’s face dreamy, but Mildred’s scowl firmly in place.

“Well, now that you’ve all met, we’ll just be on our way.” Cal scooped up the poles and tackle he’d left against the porch. Laurie pulled a food basket from the car and closed the door. The children waved to Cissy, who flapped her wrist like a chicken wing as they all set off through the grass toward the woods. The sooner he cleared Mildred’s scope the better.

Laurie’s son pumped his legs to match Cal’s stride. “Did you ever catch a fish?”

“Sure, have you?”

Luke shook his head.

“Do you talk to ’em?”

“Fish don’t talk.” Luke gave him a gap-toothed grin.

“Well, not people talk. I mean fish talk.”

Luke’s sister drew up close, and Luke said, “That’s Maddie. She’s three.”

Cal stopped and held out his hand, looking down into the dreamy face. Had Laurie looked like that at her age? Large, thicklashed, brown eyes, blond hair curling around her shoulders, tied back in two bows. “Hello, Maddie. I’m Cal.” Her hand was soft as a kitten’s paw inside his calloused palm.