Bill Pronzini: Beyond the Grave

I didn't know how to take that, so I got up and went over by the bureau to sulk. Mama didn't seem to notice.

Dr. George continued to talk with her for a few minutes, describing the procedure and the recovery period. Mama watched the ceiling the whole time; I wasn't sure if she comprehended what he said or not. When he finally left, the silence in the room stretched so taut that I thought I might scream.

Instead I said, “Mama, it won't be so bad. By this time tomorrow it'll be over and …”

She looked at me, and I saw bewilderment in her face. “I do not understand how this could happen,” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“I have never been sick a day.”

“Mama, Dr. George said-”

“I have never been sick.”

And I have never been able to argue with my mother. I just nodded.

“I think,” she added, “I would like to be alone now.”

“All right,” I said.

“Do you want me to stay, Gabriela?” Nick asked.

“Thank you, no. I want to be all alone.”

Nick went over and kissed her on the forehead, then crossed to me, put a hand on my shoulder, and began steering me toward the door. “We'll come back after dinner, then.”

“No.”

He stopped. “Gabriela-”

“No. Come tomorrow before the operation. Tonight I wish to be by myself.”

“If that's what you want,” Nick said, “we'll wait until then.”

We went out and down the hall to the elevator. Nick pushed the button, and we waited in silence. When we had gotten on the car and its doors had shut, I said, “Nick, she's in terrible shape.”

He nodded, looking very worried now.

“Nick, what are we going to do?”

“Be here for her tomorrow.”

“But-”

“Let it be, Elena. It's out of our hands.” He touched my shoulder again, his fingers warm and comforting.

When we stepped out of the hospital into the waning spring sunlight, I said, “What are you going to do now?”

“Go home and have a run. It'll take my mind off things. What about you-what do you plan to do?”

“Go home.”

“And …?”

“Just go home.”

I'd planned to drop the marriage coffer-which at present was wedged into the passenger side of my VW-at the museum before going home. But after leaving the hospital I was much too depressed to bother. Instead, I drove to my house; the chest could spend the night there with me.

The house is an old green stucco in a quiet residential area in the flatlands, below the dividing line where Santa Barbara's terrain and the property values rise. In the hills above me are the comfortable homes with splendid vistas for which the city is renowned. From up there on a clear day you have a sweeping view of the channel and its islands, undmimed by the pall of smog that most people associate with Southern California. In contrast, I don't have any view at all-except for old Mrs. Nunez across the street peering through her curtains, usually at me. But I do have a giant fuchsia plant cascading gracefully over a newly repaired trellis on my front porch, an ancient pepper tree to sit under in the backyard, and five rooms that, while small, are mine alone. Owning the house in which I was born always gives me a comforting sense of roots-and comfort was what I badly needed that night.

When I pulled up, several of the neighborhood kids were taking turns hopping up and down my front walk on a pogo stick. They scattered when I parked in the driveway-I have the reputation of an ogre-but I corralled Donny Hernandez and made him help me carry the little chest inside. Donny is the neighborhood fat kid, and he usually can be found wistfully watching the others, who never ask him to play. I don't waste any sympathy on him, however, because I suspect Donny will eventually have the last laugh; about a year before I'd found him perched in my pepper tree, reading, and after my initial concern for the heavily burdened branch subsided, I noted that his book was a thick paperback on creative investments. Someday, I am sure, Donny will return to the old neighborhood in a fancy car and show everybody that fat can be beautiful.

We set the chest in the living room, and I gave Donny a couple of quarters that would probably become the cornerstone of an impressive blue-chip portfolio. Then I threw open some windows, changed into jeans and a shirt, and returned to look over my new acquisition. It was really a good piece, highly representative of the style favored by the dons and their ladies, and I was sure Rudy Lopez would be delighted. He and I had worked hard to convince the museum's board of directors to okay the expenditures for the furniture. While the museum had originally been founded to educate Americans on the arts of Mexico, I'd recently decided to gradually shift that emphasis to the arts of Mexican-Americans, and the display of furnishings was one of several planned steps in that direction.

I ran my fingers over the rough-hewn wood of the chest, then lifted its humpbacked lid and looked inside. It was empty except for an old-fashioned, rusted hairpin. Then I tried the shallow drawer below the upper compartment. It was locked, and although it was fitted with a hammered-brass keyhole, I couldn't find any key. Of course that didn't matter for purposes of the museum's display, but it annoyed me all the same. I'd have to call the auction house on Monday and ask if perhaps the key had somehow gotten separated from the chest.

There was a knock on the screen door. I went over and peered through the mesh. Dave Kirk-lieutenant with the Santa Barbara police department and my current boyfriend-stood there. I felt a rush of pleasure and said, “Oh, you're back!”

As soon as Dave stepped inside, I could tell there was something wrong. He didn't kiss me or smile or ask me how I was. In fact, he didn't seem to want to look at me, and his brown eyes were troubled, the set of his mouth grim. When I'd first seen Dave, I'd thought him a nondescript, unreadable Anglo; his appearance was all brown and bland, and his manner-except when crossed, which I had managed to do within a few seconds of our meeting-was mild and low-key. But as our relationship had deepened and we'd become friends and then lovers, I'd learned to read him very well-every nuance of expression, every tone of voice. And what I was reading now was not encouraging.

“How was your trip?” I asked.

“Fine.”

“Can I get you a beer?”

“No, thanks.” He looked around the room, his eyes briefly stopping at the marriage coffer, but he didn't comment on it. “Listen, Elena,” he said after a few seconds, “I really can't stay. I just came over because there's something I have to tell you.”

A coldness began to settle on me. It had to be bad news, and I wasn't sure how much more of that I could take today. “Yes?” I said.

“You've probably wondered where I was the last four days.”

“The question has crossed my mind, yes.”

“I was up in Oregon-Rockaway. It's a small city on the coast.”

“Why did you go there?”

He hesitated, and then his jaw became even more set and he went on. “There was a job open. Chief of police. I went up to interview, and they hired me.”

“Oh. Well. Congratulations.” I was having difficulty taking the information in. Oregon. It seemed very far away. I'd only been there once, on a driving trip with my mother, when she'd insisted on stopping at every myrtlewood factory along Route One. I tried to remember anything else about the state but couldn't. “So, when do you start?” I asked.

“In two weeks. I called the department and gave notice before I drove back down here.”

Two weeks! So little time. “Oh,” I said. And then I waited. It was several seconds before I realized he hadn't said he was sorry he was moving away, or that he'd miss me, or that I should come up to visit. And when I looked into his chocolate brown eyes, I saw an uncharacteristic nervousness, coupled with a kind of resolve.