Max Collins - True Detective

“Well, the way he took a powder, who can blame you for tossing the junk out.”

I’d used the word “junk” to test the old boy, and he passed: he flinched as I said it.

“I didn’t throw his things out, Nate,” he said. “They’re crated away in the basement. Except those damn scrapbooks of his. Those I burned.”

He touched his face, for a moment, with a gray-gloved hand; he wasn’t as strong as he liked to think. Then he excused himself, saying he’d let me get settled and come back later, and I stripped down to my drawers and got into bed. I looked over toward the window, where the moonlight was coming in, though I couldn’t see the moon itself.

I thought about Mary Ann, in a room nearby; next door maybe. Part of me wanted to go looking for her; part of me wanted her to come looking for me.

And part of me didn’t want anything to do with her, not tonight, anyway. Not here. Not in her brother’s room. His bed. That would’ve bothered me, though for the life of me I didn’t know why.

Thunder woke me.

I sat up in bed; rain was at the windows, rattling them, pelting them. I checked my wristwatch on the small table by the bed: just after three. I tried to go back to sleep, but the insistent tattoo of rain, and the ground-shaking thundercracks, worked against me. I got up and went to a window and looked out. That nasty sky we’d driven here under had finally kept its promise, and I was glad I was inside and not driving across Illinois in a Chevy. Then, while I was still there at the window, the sky burst open, showering hailstones; it was like a dozen Dizzy Deans were up there hurling baseballs at the house. It made an incredible racket.

“Nathan?”

I looked back and Mary Ann, still in the baby-blue robe, arms folded to herself protectively, was rushing across the room to me. She hugged me. She was trembling.

“Just a hailstorm, baby,” I said.

“Please. Get away from the window.”

Down on the lawn, the hailstones were gathering. Christ if they weren’t the size of baseballs. One of them careened off the window, and I took Mary Ann’s advice.

We stood by the bed and I held her.

“Let me get in under the covers with you,” she said.

She sounded like a kid; there was no ulterior motive here: she was really scared.

“Sure,” I said, and went over and shut the door.

She curled up against me in bed, clinging to me, and, gradually, her shaking stopped, though the hailstones kept up for a good twenty minutes.

“I’m sorry about today,” she said; I could barely hear her over the hailstones.

“We were both a little childish,” I said.

“I suppose maybe I am sort of a snob,” she said.

“Who isn’t?”

“I do love you, Nathan.”

“You do, huh?”

“I do.”

“Why?”

“I’m not sure. Do you know why you love me?”

“Besides the physical? I’m not sure, either.”

“I feel safe with you, Nathan.”

“That’s nice,” I said, meaning it.

“You’re stronger than me. You see the world as it is.”

“In my trade, you see it any other way, you don’t last long.”

“I guess I’ve always seen it through rose-colored glasses.”

“Well, at least you know that. That means you’re more of a realist than you think.”

“Everybody who sees the world through rose-colored glasses is a realist. That’s why they put the rose-colored glasses on.”

“Come on now, Mary Ann. You’ve had a nice life so far, haven’t you? I mean, you don’t exactly seem to’ve had it tough. Your father appears to be a terrific guy.”

“He is. He’s wonderful.”

“And you obviously got along well with your brother, or you wouldn’t be going to all the trouble of hiring me to track him down.”

“Yes. Jimmy and I were very close — I — would crawl in bed with him sometimes, like this. Don’t get me wrong. It wasn’t like — like that. I suppose we played doctor and kissed and did the silly things kids will do growing up. But I wasn’t in love with my brother, Nathan. We didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I know “

“I know you know, because you’re the only man I’ve ever been with. And you know that’s true.”

“I know.”

“But Jimmy and I... we banded together. Daddy is wonderful, but he can be — distant. He’s sort of formal. It’s the doctor side of him, I guess; or the professor side, maybe. I’m not sure, exactly. I grew up aware of not having a mother. I grew up aware of her having died giving birth to me. And Jimmy. I used to cry about it, at night, sometimes. Not often — don’t get me wrong — I’m not neurotic or anything. The psychiatrist I go to is simply for understanding myself better — that’s only healthy for an actress, don’t you agree?”

“Sure.”

“Did my father tell you about the accident? When he burned his hands?”

“Yes.”

“It was my fault. Did he tell you that?”

“No...”

“I saw the other car. I saw the other car coming at us, and I got kind of — hysterical, I guess, and I grabbed Daddy’s arm, and I think — I’ve never said this out loud to anybody but Jimmy — I think that’s why Daddy couldn’t avoid the other car.”

“Mary Ann, have you ever talked to your father about this?”

“No. Not really.”

“Look. The other car was driven by a drunk driver. Without any lights on, is what your father told me. Isn’t that true?”

“Yes,” she admitted.

“So if it was anybody’s fault it was that guy’s. And even if it had been in some way your fault, you were a little kid. You got scared, and so what? You should let go of this.”

“That’s what my psychiatrist says.”

The hailstones were trailing off; the rain kept at it.

“Well, he’s right,” I said.

“I just wanted to tell you about it. I don’t know why I wanted to. It’s just something I wanted to share with you... if ‘share’ is the right word.”

“I’m glad you did. I don’t like secrets.”

“I don’t either. Nathan?”

“Yes?”

“I know another reason why I love you.”

“Really?”

“You’re honest.”

I laughed out loud at that. “Nobody ever accused me of that before.”

“I read about you in the papers. I said I came to your office because you were first in the phone book. Well, that was partially true. I also — I recognized your name, too. I remembered reading about you quitting the police, after that shooting. I asked some of my friends in Tower Town about it, and they said they heard you quit because you didn’t want to be a party to the corruption.”

“That sounds like the kind of high-flown horseflop that might pass for thinking in Tower Town.”

“It’s true, isn’t it? And you told the truth at that trial, last week. Because you’re honest.”

I took her by the small of the arm; not hurting her, but firm enough to engage her attention. “Look, Mary Ann. Don’t build me into something I’m not. Don’t put your rose-colored glasses on when you look at me. I’m more honest than some people I know, but the soul of honesty, I’m not. Are you listening?”

She just smiled at me, like the child she was — or chose to be.

“Is that why you love me?” I asked. “Because I’m a detective? A private eye? Don’t build me into a romantic figure, Mary Ann. I’m just a man.”

She picked my hand off her arm like a flower and gave me that impish grin of hers, which she really had down pat by now. Then she hugged me and said, “I know you’re a man. I’ve been paying attention.”

“Have you, Mary Ann?”

“Maybe I am naïve, Nathan. But I know you’re a man, and an honest one — for Chicago, anyway.”