Bill Pronzini - Spook

In the car as they started back to the city Horace said, “Really nice this year. Everybody seemed to be having a good time.”

“Yup.”

“But you didn’t say much. Sure you’re okay?”

“Yup.”

“Well, you seemed... I don’t know, not subdued exactly...”

“Mellow?”

“That’s it. Mellow. How much wine did you have?”

“One glass. How about we put on a CD?”

“What would you like to hear?”

“Classical. Yo-Yo Ma.”

She picked one at random, slid it in. Beethoven, Symphony #5 in C Minor, Opus 67. Recognized it on account of she liked classical music. Didn’t say so to friends, family, wouldn’t even admit it to Horace half the time; wasn’t supposed to be cool to like long-dead white guys’ music, or much of any kind except rap and jazz. So all right, so she wasn’t cool sometimes. Who cared?

In the flicker and shine of passing headlights she watched Horace listening to the cello passages, his ugly face almost handsome. A tenderness came into her. She loved him, no question about that. He was her man. Always would be, one way or another. But the thing was, the relationship she had with her job and with Bill was another kind of love, almost as deep in its own way. Tuesday afternoon, what they’d shared... you couldn’t get much closer, more intimate. Jake Runyon had been part of it, too. Three of them working together, a unit, a team... kind of a professional ménage à trois. That was the only reason they were all alive right now.

So she was staying home, just as she’d pretty much known all along she would. The Bay Area was her center, the place she belonged. But that didn’t mean she was giving up on Horace. After he left for Philly, well, maybe they could keep up a long-distance relationship, for a while anyway. Wouldn’t be easy, but love was never easy. She’d always hated that Bobby McFerrin song, but hey, could be the message had some truth after all. Don’t worry, be happy.

She put her head back, closed her eyes, let the soothing sounds of Beethoven and Yo-Yo Ma wash over her. Alive and well, young, part of a team, plenty of future prospects; coming from her family, going home with her man. Wasn’t much more you could ask for on Christmas, was there?

Most of the day before Christmas he spent driving around the city, and Oakland and Berkeley and the other East Bay cities, familiarizing himself with streets and neighborhoods. Early dinner in a Chinese restaurant on Taraval: egg rolls and mooshu pork. Back to his apartment building before seven.

A family party was going on in one of the other units — Yuletide music, laughter, kids’ happy squealing voices. The sounds followed him upstairs, penetrated the walls faintly once he was inside.

He checked his answering machine. No messages. There hadn’t been any messages since before last Saturday. He stood for a time looking down at the phone, listening to the distant pulse of music and laughter from below. Then he caught up the receiver, tapped out Joshua’s number.

Recorded voice. But a different one this time, computer-generated, telling him that the number he had called was no longer in service.

Had his number changed. And the new one would be unlisted.

Runyon went into the bedroom. The silver-framed photo of Colleen, the best of the batch taken by a commercial photographer a few years ago, was on the night-stand. He brought it out to the living room, put it on the table next to the couch. Then he flipped on the TV, did some channel surfing until he found an old movie — always old movies on cable-system TV, even on Christmas Eve. This one was Christmas in Connecticut , with Barbara Stanwyck and Sydney Greenstreet, just starting. He watched it all the way through, not even bothering to mute the commercials. The party below was over by then; even the rain had stopped and the wind was quiet outside. Silent night.

He watched another film, something from the thirties with Bette Davis. When that was over he darkened the set. In the kitchen he took down the bottle of Wild Turkey, poured a thimbleful, carried the glass back to the couch. The table lamp illuminated Colleen’s smiling image, oddly as if the glow were coming from within. He looked at it for a long time, holding the glass of whiskey, remembering Christmases with her in their Seattle home, one up in Calgary, another at a ski lodge. Presents they’d given each other, trees they’d trimmed, food and drink and special moments they’d shared.

He raised the glass. Aloud he said, “Always,” and drank.

In the silence he sat there looking through more good memories, as if he were turning the pages of an album. Dwelling in the past so he wouldn’t have to think of tomorrow.

The best thing about Christmas morning was the look on Emily’s face.

She’d been happy the night before, all smiles after she finished reprising the three pageant carols in her sweet voice and Kerry and I gave her a literal standing ovation. But today, standing in front of the lighted tree in her robe and slippers with Shameless cradled in her arms, peering down at the array of presents we’d set out while she was asleep, she seemed radiant. Almost angelic in the shaft of pale sunlight, the first sunlight we’d seen in ten days, that slanted in through a part in the drapes.

“Some pile of loot, huh?” I said.

“Wow. Santa was good to us this year.”

“I thought you didn’t believe in Santa.”

“I do now,” she said.

I was basking in her glow when the cat did his perverse feline thing, jumping out of her arms and launching himself onto my lap from ten feet away. I wasn’t ready for it and didn’t get my hand out of the way in time; one paw smacked into my bandaged finger and sent shooting pains up my arm.

“Merry Christmas to you too, cat.”

The lingering throb put Tuesday afternoon back into my thoughts. I shoved it out again, but not before I remembered Tamara looking at the smashed chandelier and saying, “Place’ll never be the same again.” She was right, and not just because of the chandelier. We’d counted five bullet holes in the walls and ceiling, and there was what would likely be a permanent bloodstain on the floor where Thomas Valjean’s broken nose had leaked. There was also a leftover aura of violation and violence. It wouldn’t be easy to work there now. Not for Tamara and me, anyway.

Well, why should we have to? We’d outgrown the place as it was, with the addition of Jake Runyon; a larger space, a better address with more modern, upscale trappings would be beneficial for business and morale both. We could afford it, we were on a monthly rental basis rather than a lease, and it was almost the end of another year. New year, new start. Tamara would be all for it, and Runyon wouldn’t care, so why not?

Kerry came in with a breakfast tray. Hot chocolate for Emily, coffee for us, croissants, Christmas cookies she’d baked herself. When she set the tray down she saw me rubbing my knuckle, but she didn’t say anything. She hadn’t said much about Tuesday, other than “Thank God none of you were hurt” and “You manage to get yourself into the damnedest situations even when you’re not working at it.” Runyon and Tamara and I had downplayed the incident to the media; I’d downplayed it to Kerry and really downplayed it to Emily. Nobody but the three survivors knew just how close we’d come to dying that day. Maybe Kerry suspected it and maybe she didn’t. In any case she had the good loving grace to keep her thoughts to herself and let me do the same with mine.

We dug into the food and drinks. Then we dug into the pile of presents. Emily squealed when she unveiled her state of the art, AT&T model 3360 cell phone with the Vesuvius red faceplate; ran over and kissed me and kissed Kerry. I got another kiss when Kerry opened her package of French perfume.