Dave Zeltserman: Bad Karma

“Not a thing,” Eunice muttered. “Besides, what’s the point?”

“Maybe to bring some closure to you and Randall and anyone else affected by Taylor’s death. And bring your son some justice.”

“It’s too late for that.” She inhaled deeply on her cigarette. Her expression remained phlegmatic as she looked in Shannon’s direction, her eyes still unable to focus on him.

“Why’s it too late?”

“Because Taylor’s beyond justice.” Her cigarette had burnt down to mostly ash. She tossed what was left onto the plate. “Only justice left is making that landlord pay for what happened. When me and Randall collect our five million dollars, that will be justice.”

Shannon felt a dull throbbing in the back of his head, partly from his conversation with Eunice and Randall Carver and partly from the stench filling the house. Even though he was breathing in through his mouth, it seemed as if he could taste the sweetly rancid smell in the back of his throat. More perfunctory than anything else since he would’ve bet his last dollar against ever getting a call from either of them, he left Eunice his business card and asked that she call him if she thought of anything that might help. He turned off the tape recorder and was pushing himself out of his chair when he again noticed the new stove and microwave.

“You’ve made some recent purchases,” he said.

Eunice didn’t bother to respond.

“New stove, microwave.” Shannon waved his damaged hand in the direction of the combination living room/dining room. “Plasma TV, sofa, stereo system,” he continued to list.

“So?”

“Did you come into some money recently?”

“Taylor bought me all that. Before he got killed.”

Shannon’s gaze narrowed as he met Eunice’s small dark eyes. “How’d a college student get the money to buy stuff like that?”

She shrugged. “Wasn’t my place to ask him.”

“Was he working?”

She stared at him blankly before shrugging again.

Shannon looked over at Randall and realized he wasn’t going to get a better answer from him. He simply thanked the two of them for their time and left the room. Neither mother nor son bothered to move as he let himself out of the house. Buttercup was waiting for him, though, head thrust forward, eyes intently following him. When he got into his car, he smelled his shirt, then both his arms. Cigarette smoke and the cheese-perspiration smell had saturated his shirt and skin. After opening both front windows of his late model Chevy Corsica for ventilation, he drove fast to get the hell out of there.

When Shannon arrived back at his apartment, Susan tried intercepting him for a kiss, but wrinkled her nose when he got within a few feet of her.

“You don’t smell too good, hon,” she said.

“I know. I visited Carver’s mom and this is what her house smelled like. I’m going straight into the shower, scrub myself raw-and if that doesn’t work, buy some industrial-sized drums of tomato juice. And I’ll probably have to burn my clothing.”

He tried to sidestep her, but Susan moved quickly, got on her toes and kissed him hard on the mouth.

“Must be true love to get anywhere near me smelling the way I do,” Shannon said.

“You do worse for me,” Susan said. “Every morning you kiss me passionately no matter how bad my morning breath is.”

“What are you talking about? Your breath always smells like sweet petunias. Especially in the morning.”

Susan laughed at that. “One of these days I’m going to find out where you got that ‘sweet petunia’ expression from. And besides, I don’t think petunias even have a smell.”

“Of course they do. A wonderful smell. Exactly like your breath.”

Shannon gave her shoulder a little squeeze as he made his way by her and into the bathroom. Once in the shower, he put the water on as hot as he could stand it and scrubbed himself until all traces of the rancid cheese-sweat smell were gone.

When he finished, he dressed quickly, then sent an email to Professor Lester White, introducing himself and asking for information about Taylor Carver. After that he called Chris Jackson. Jackson confirmed what Paul Devens had told him earlier-that he knew nothing about his tenants or any problems they might’ve had, that a management company handled his rental properties for him and that he himself had no involvement with his apartments. He thanked Shannon for his thoroughness in calling him. He also told Shannon that he was counting on him to pull his ass out of the fire with this thing. “I feel awful, of course, with what happened to those two kids, but what could I’ve done? If I knew there was a rusty deadbolt I would’ve gone over there myself and squirted a couple of drops of oil on it. This has just been a hell of a thing to go through.” Shannon couldn’t disagree with him.

Before leaving the apartment, he found Susan in the living room. She had her reading glasses on as she sat cross-legged on a pillow, chewing on the end of a pen while going over pages of handwritten notes. Shannon felt his pulse quicken as he watched her. There were times like this when he was completely stunned at how beautiful she was and, no matter what else had happened in his life, couldn’t believe his good fortune that they were together. She sensed him standing there, looked up and smiled at him. “I’m going over some homeopathy notes for one of my patients,” she said. “So what’s next on your agenda?”

“I called Eli on my way back from Loveland. We’re meeting at the Center at five. After that I’m going to see if I can talk to Taylor Carver and Linda Gibson’s neighbors.” Shannon hesitated, showing a slight smile. “I’m also thinking of heading over to Coors Field later and catching the Sox. It will be my first chance to see them play since I left Massachusetts. Care to join me?”

Susan showed a disappointed look. “I’d like to but these notes are for a client who’s coming over at eight. Maybe Eli will go with you?”

“Nah, he’s afraid he’d have to pay money just to watch the Sox win, especially with how the Rockies are playing now.”

“Well, you should go to the game anyway. And root for Nomar for me!”

“The Sox traded him last year.”

“ Nomah’s not on the team?” She exaggerated the Boston accent with Nomah , as Jimmy Fallon and Rachel Dratch used to do on Saturday Night Live . “Jeeze, what’s this world coming to? Then root for Pedro Martinez for me!”

“Pedro’s not on the team anymore either.”

Susan shook her head. “I’m out of names then. But even though they got rid of the only two players I knew, you should go to the game and have fun.”

“Maybe, I haven’t decided yet. But I’ll give you a call before your eight o’clock appointment and let you know what I’m doing.”

Shannon glanced at his watch and saw he only had ten minutes before he was supposed to meet Eli. He reached down, gave her a quick kiss, and realized if he was going to meet his friend on time he’d better leave while he still could.

Shannon found Eli Rosen in his office thumbing through a book on chakra meditation. Raising his heavy eyelids, Eli looked up when Shannon knocked on the open door.

“Fascinating stuff,” Eli said, referring to the book. “This author has documented Tibetan monks who’ve sat naked in minus twenty degree weather and kept themselves warm simply by meditating on their Manipura, or solar plexus, chakra.”

“You might’ve mentioned that to me once or twice before.”

“I still find it fascinating no matter how many times I read about it.” Eli tossed the book on his desk and smiled broadly as he looked at his watch. “Miracle of miracles,” he said. “You’re on time for a change. Let me guess, you didn’t stop off at home or, more likely, Susan was out.”