Bill Pronzini: Blowback

Maybe I was not much of a detective, and maybe my work and my life had no real importance or significance in the scheme of things, and maybe I had patterned myself in the mold of fictional creations who were far greater in their world than I could ever be in mine-but none of that was a lie. A lie was something that hurt other people, like Harry's love and Harry's friendship, or had a conscious basis in pain or deceit or hypocrisy; there was none of that kind of blackness in my soul either. If I was a pulp private eye, at least in spirit, then so be it. It was nothing to apologize for, nothing to feel ashamed about, because it was an honest thing to be, and a decent one.

I wish I'd been able to tell all that to Erika, I thought.

Then I thought: I wonder if she's still here in San Francisco, still free of attachments? And if she is, would she want to see me after all these years? Well, it might be worth the effort to find out. I've got the perfect reason to call her, after all-tomorrow I'll be fifty years old, and no man should have to spend his fiftieth birthday alone.

Maybe I would try to call her, then. Maybe I would.

And I turned off Grant onto Geary, parked illegally in a bus zone in front of the building where Dr. White had his offices, and went in to find out at last if the lesion was malignant or benign…