Wendy Hornsby - The Color of Light

“It’s the next-door neighbor,” I said. “Something must have happened.”

Rafael opened Jean-Paul’s door first, and then stood close beside me after he handed me out of the car and walked me up to Jean-Paul.

“Mr. Loper?” I called, staying near the car as George Loper rose and started down the steps toward us. “Is there a problem?”

“That damn hoodlum.” He smacked the side of his leg with his bat. “I told him that if I saw him hanging around here anymore, I wasn’t going to call the cops again. Next time I’ll take care of him myself.”

“Are you talking about Larry Nordquist?” I asked.

“Damn right,” he said.

I saw some movement behind the big hydrangea next to the front porch. So did Rafael. Before he could move or say anything, I gripped his elbow. When he looked down at me I mouthed, No . He got the message and he stayed where he was.

Loper, sounding like the patronizing jerk I remembered him to be, said, “I don’t want the guy skulking around, not with you alone in the house.”

“I’m not alone now,” I said. I introduced Jean-Paul to him.

“Well, well.” Finally, Loper smiled as he offered his free hand-the one without the bat-to Jean-Paul. “The boyfriend we’ve heard so much about. My wife would love to meet you, Mr. Bernard. She’s a regular Francophile. Can I offer you a drink? A little nightcap?”

“Thank you,” Jean-Paul said. “Perhaps another time. I’m afraid that it is quite late.”

“Rain check, then,” Loper said, releasing Jean-Paul’s hand.

I wished him good night and thanked him for his concern. As he turned to leave, he winked at Jean-Paul while aiming a finger at me.

“Take good care of our girl, now,” he said. “Trouble seems to follow her around.”

Jean-Paul said, “Good night.” He sounded genteel; he meant Go away .

We watched Loper until he reached his own front walk.

Rafael asked, “What do you want done?”

I knew he was referring to the person hunkered behind the hydrangea. I said, “Would you please help us with the things in the trunk?”

The three of us huddled over the open trunk. I explained to them who Larry was and that I wanted to speak with him. “Please don’t let him get away. He’ll probably try to run.”

Rafael laid out a strategy. Jean-Paul gathered our bags and Rafael collected the two towers of green silk-covered candy boxes that the chocolatier had given Jean-Paul to hand out as promotional gifts. With Jean-Paul on the porch beside me and Rafael waiting at the bottom of the steps, I unlocked the front door.

As soon as I opened the door, the two men sprang into action. Jean-Paul dropped the bags and dove right, toward the hydrangea, flushing out Larry. Larry, rising from a crouch, was off balance, easy pickings for Rafael, who grabbed the smaller man, pinned his arms behind him and marched him into the house.

“Hello, Larry,” I said, as he was quick-walked across the threshold past me.

“Yo, Maggie,” he said, giving up his resistance to Rafael. “Long time no see.”

“Do come in.”

Rafael sat him down in a chair in the living room as Jean-Paul moved into position blocking the most obvious escape route, with Rafael standing as backup near the locked front door. Larry seemed agitated, sweating profusely, as he noted where Jean-Paul was. I wondered, as Beto had, if he was on something.

I said, “Can I offer you a cup of tea, a glass of juice?”

“I could use a shot of something a hell of a lot stronger than tea.” Larry pushed off his hood and shook out his ponytail.

“Sorry,” I said. “That’s all I can offer.”

“Yeah.” He settled into his seat and looked around the room. “It’s nice here. Really nice. Comfortable, you know. Not all formal like I expected. Some places, jeez, they’re so done up you’re afraid to touch anything. Know what I mean?”

“You’ve never been inside the house before?” I asked, thinking about the person in the house the night before who moved about as quietly as a shadow, as if he were familiar with the layout.

“Oh, yeah, sure,” he said, his tone bitter, defensive. He picked up a coaster from the table beside him, glanced at it and tossed it back down. “Like maybe you invited me to your birthday parties with all your prissy little friends? That never happened.”

I heard self-pity in his tone and found it worrisome. I said, “I heard you wanted to talk to me.”

“Yeah, well.” He flicked his chin toward Jean-Paul, a question in the gesture. “It’s kind of personal.”

“Larry, this is my friend Jean-Paul Bernard. Jean-Paul, meet Larry Nordquist.” They exchanged perfunctory nods. “Larry, Jean-Paul is staying, and so is Rafael.”

He swiveled in his seat to find out where Rafael was.

“Why don’t we just get it over with?” I sat on the sofa, facing him across the coffee table. “Before someone like Mr. Sato or Mr. Loper knocks your block off for sneaking around.”

He dropped his head, chagrined. But he remained quiet.

“Sir,” Jean-Paul said. When Larry looked up, he said, “It is quite late. Miss MacGowen has had a very long day. If you have something to say…”

Larry nodded, but seemed unable to begin. I tried to nudge him along.

“Beto told me you want to make amends to people you feel you have harmed,” I said. “You and I had a couple of run-ins when we were kids, but I don’t feel you harmed me.”

Again he glanced at Jean-Paul. “Did she ever tell you she beat the crap out of me?”

“I never laid a hand on you,” I said.

“But you still won, didn’t you?”

“I’m sorry I hurt your feelings that day,” I said. “Is that what you want to talk about? That fight? What you said that day?”

“No.” He swiped the arm of his sweatshirt across his glistening face, took a deep breath, and squared his shoulders.

“Maggie,” he said. “I did wrong you. And I’m sorry if what I did hurt you or put you in danger.”

“If it’s not the fight, then what are you talking about?”

“I saw you on TV,” he said. “When that woman died.”

“You mean Isabelle Martin?”

“Freaked me out,” he said, nodding. “I mean, I knew her. When I saw her picture on TV and they said she was your mother I about lost it, you know? Because I knew her.”

“What do you mean, you knew her?”

“It’s kind of hard to explain.” He scratched his neck, looked behind him, hoping maybe for some help to appear.

“Do your best.”

“The woman who died? Miss Martin?” he said. “Way back then, she got me to report about what you were doing all the time. She gave me stamps and paper, and I wrote stuff to her. Sometimes she called me on the phone and asked about you.”

“You spied on me for her?”

“She paid me.” He shrugged, a sheepish grin on his face. “I didn’t look in your windows, or anything. I just told her about school, like the time you played some kind of bird in the school play.”

“I was an owl,” I said. “Fourth grade.”

I glanced up and caught Jean-Paul smiling. Rafael must have thought that the situation was under control. Quietly, he slipped outside to collect the bags and chocolates we had left behind. But when he came back, I heard the snick of both deadbolts shooting home. So did Larry: He watched Rafael the way that prisoners watch their keepers, always knowing where they are, always wary, afraid that they’ll be called out.

“What you did was-” I searched for the right word.

“Bizarre,” Jean-Paul supplied.

“Definitely, bizarre,” I said. “But I never knew about it. And nothing happened to me because of what you did.”

“Doesn’t matter,” he said. “I still needed to tell you.”