George Pelecanos - Nick's trip

“It’s goin’ good. Why didn’t you call?”

“I’m not the aggressive type.”

“You got aggressive pretty quick on the William Henry case.”

“What’s that?”

“I read the Post,” she said. “I figured you were behind it somehow, though I don’t know how you finessed it.” I let her talk. I liked the sound of her voice. “Don’t want to discuss it, huh?”

“Uh-uh.”

“You drunk, Stefanos? You sound a little drunk.”

“Tired,” I said.

“Well, it is late. So I’ll get right to the point. Listen, I was wondering-you didn’t call, so I thought I’d take the initiative here-I was wondering if maybe you wanted to take in a double feature tomorrow night, down at the AFI.”

My cat sat on the radiator, watching me twist the phone cord around my hand. “What’s on the bill?” I said.

“Some shoot-em-up out of Hong Kong, and a Douglas Sirk melodrama. Magnificent Obsession. Something for you, something for me.”

“No Liz Taylor?”

“Nope,” she said. “And no Isaac Hayes.”

I grinned. “Sounds good to me. You buy the tickets, I’ll spring for whatever comes up next. Okay?”

“Okay. I’ll pick you up at your place,” she said. “About six-thirty.”

“You know where I live?”

“Your number’s on the card. I crossed-referenced it to your address in the Hanes Directory.”

“You’re a hell of an investigative reporter.”

“See you tomorrow night, Stefanos.”

“Right.”

I got off the couch with the phone in my hand, and I stood in the center of the room. A Dinah Washington number played from my landlord’s apartment above. I danced a few steps and put the phone down. My cat watched me and blinked her eye.

I took the coffee cup to the kitchen and found the note that had been signed “A Fan” on t he plain white card, in the basket where I dumped my overdue bills. I walked with the note to my bedroom, and I opened the top dresser drawer.

I wasn’t certain that night as to why I kept the note. Call it a feeling, listening to the woman’s voice on the phone, that something right would happen next. But as spring became summer, I began to understand.

That was the summer that I first noticed the texture of the crepe myrtle that grew beside my stoop, the summer I woke each morning to the sweet smell of hibiscus that flowered outside my bedroom window. That was the summer that a tape called The La’s played continuously from my deck, the summer that a Rare Essence go-go single called “Lock It” raged from every young D.C. driver’s sound system on the street. And that was the summer that I held hands in the dark with a freckly, pale-eyed redhead with the perfectly musical name of Lyla McCubbin.

Under a shoe box filled with trinkets from my youth, in the bottom of the dresser drawer, lay the envelope that held the few memories I had chosen to hold on to through the years. I placed the white card into the envelope, behind the photograph of me and Billy Goodrich sitting high on the fire escape in New Orleans. I slipped the envelope back under the shoe box and closed the drawer. My cat walked slowly into the room and settled at my feet.