Gregg Hurwitz - The Survivor

After, he went back out to the tiny zone of reception with his cell phone, sat on the edge of the bridge, and let his shoes dangle so the tips touched the stream. Casper stood beside him, smelling of wet dirt and musk, shifting his weight so he pressed heavily against Nate’s side. Nate put his arm around the muscular stock of the dog’s neck, across the twinning patches of lighter fur that the breeders called “angel wings.” Casper’s brow furrowed as he watched birds dart from tree to tree. After a time the wood creaked behind them.

“Quite a Greek tragedy you got on your hands,” his father said. “And the Lou Gehrig’s on top of it all.” With an old-man groan, he lowered himself beside Nate, Casper reluctantly yielding ground, and they stared at the changing leaves, the breeze brisk, the air impossibly clean. “You got life insurance? For Janie and Cielle?”

That was his dad-pragmatics first.

“Yeah,” Nate said. “As long as I don’t kill myself.”

“Was that a consideration?”

“Yes.”

His father nodded once, solemnly. “Dying’s rough. But so’s living wrong, I guess.”

Nate’s shoe touched the stream, froth rising around the toe. “I’ve done enough of that already.”

“As have I.”

The air tasted of pine, a pleasant kind of smokiness. “How can I thank you for this?”

His father chuckled a little, though Nate didn’t understand what he found amusing. “When your mom died, I was in no kind of shape. And I could tell that you just wanted to keep out of my way. But you couldn’t figure out how to do it. And I couldn’t figure out how to help you, help myself. It’s a terrible feeling, knowing you’re screwing up something so important and screwing it up anyway.”

Nate thought about stumbling into Cielle’s room in the clutch of a nightmare, blood streaming down his forehead. Janie crying in the bedroom while he’d listened through the thin bathroom door. So many ways he’d been frozen in place, well before the actual ice block.

“When I cleaned up later,” his father continued, “I figured I owed you. To repay the favor, keep out of your way. I didn’t figure you wanted me around.”

This was the most Nate could recall his father speaking at one go, and he wanted to honor it by resisting anything trite, placating, or untrue. He said, “Maybe this is the one good thing out of this.”

“What?”

“Sitting here together now.”

His father made a muffled noise at the back of his throat and nodded, a sad grin crinkling the skin at his temples. Side by side they watched the patterns of the stream form and dissolve, each froth-flecked curl spending its lifespan of a single instant before getting swept away under the bridge.

The cell phone rested on Nate’s thigh. Still nothing. He remained in the sole spot of reception on the bridge, a chained dog. But sitting with the scent of the pines and the rush of the stream, he didn’t mind. Janie brought him a blanket and a few cups of decaf, affecting a waitress’s demeanor, and he tipped her each time with a kiss. Now he closed his eyes and breathed the sharp air and waited for the damn text alert to chime.

On the porch swing, Cielle flipped through a magazine. Beside her, Jason enacted a comically fake yawn and stretch, landing his arm across her shoulders. She pushed at him. “Go a way. You smell like boy. ”

The predictable squabble ensued, escalating until Jason harrumphed inside. Cielle noticed Nate on his perch at the bridge and rolled her eyes at him. He shrugged. Her boots clopped across the porch, and she walked heavily over, letting gravity tug at her shoulders. She slumped down next to him.

“Jay can be such a asshole. ”

“I thought it was shithead. ”

“What?”

“Nothing.” Then Nate was surprised to hear himself say, “He’s not so bad.”

Cielle tilted her head, incredulous. “You’re sticking up for Jason ?!”

“I am just saying. You’ve always been so goddamned smart. So truthful. But you can use that to … you know, to bludgeon people.”

Her mouth stayed open in a stunned half smile. “Like Jason. Jason as in My Boyfriend Jason.”

“Yes. He’s not … terrible.”

“Hang on. Lemme get a tape recorder.”

“Listen, Cielle-”

She appealed to an imaginary onlooker. “Court stenographer? Can you read that back?”

“-it is possible to be too smart. And it can get in your way. You can shoot yourself in the foot-”

Finally she broke character: “You’re in no position to point fingers.”

“Sure I am.” He aimed his index finger at his chest. “Don’t be like me.” He risked a glance at her face. Sure enough, loosening into a grin. “I’m just saying, you deserve to have whatever you want.”

“But he can be so annoying. ”

“No shit he’s annoying. But he also has certain attributes which are … not altogether reprehensible.”

In his lap the cell phone rang. Nate opened the phone, set it to his ear.

Abara said, “My house, midnight. Texting you the address now,” and clicked off.

Nate slipped the phone into his pocket.

Cielle was chewing her lip, no doubt still contemplating his last words. The shiny row of her bangs was ruler-straight, of a single piece. The richest, darkest hair he’d ever seen. A triumph of nature. “I…” She trailed off.

“What?”

“Nothing. It’s stupid.”

“No,” he said. “What?”

“I wish I was something you could be proud of.” She kicked gently at the stream, specks of spray landing like ice on their cheeks.

“You’re right,” he said.

“What?”

“That is stupid.”

Her wide cheeks grew wider-a grin, despite herself. She backhanded his shoulder.

“Proud of you?” he said. “You’re the single best thing I can take any credit for.” He hoped for some eye contact, but she kept her focus glued to the passing water. A blush came up in her cheeks, and it wasn’t all from the wind. “I gave you up once already,” he said, “and I’m gonna have to again sometime soon.” He swallowed, and it took some effort. “Besides your mom, you’re the only thing I’ll miss.”

Cielle looked away, and then she smiled a sweet, faint smile. “Shut up.” She wiped her running eyeliner, and as a small gift to her he pretended not to notice. “But there’s so much stuff”-she sniffled, dragged her sleeve beneath her nose-“so much stuff you didn’t get to do.”

He put his arm around her shoulder. “I got to do this.”

The azure sheet of the sky dimmed a degree at a time. After a while she leaned her head against his shoulder.

Rusted metal numbers nailed to a split-rail fence indicated Agent Abara’s address. The long driveway sliced through a swath of eucalyptus, towering trunks that disappeared into the ink-black sky. No house in sight from the main road. Nate drove right past, parked a quarter mile up the street, and cut back on foot. The past ten days had taught him that he couldn’t be cautious enough.

Abara’s property was isolated here on a shoulder of the Santa Susana Mountains. Craggy boulders hemmed in the road. To Nate’s back loomed Rocky Peak, and unfurled below was the apron of the Valley, Chatsworth in the foreground with its parks and porn studios, its family homes and crack dens. A little something of everything in a brief throw of land, a rural twist on downtown L.A. thirty miles to the southeast.

Curls of shed bark littered the driveway, softening his footfall. The cell phone in his pocket, now on silent mode, contained Abara’s last text with the address.

The scent of the eucalyptus laced the breeze, reminding Nate of the heavy air of the banya. A humble ranch house lurched into sight around the bend with every step, coming visible in vertical slices between the trees. Farther back among the gray trunks, a freestanding barn blended into the shadows. Much of the main house was dark, though lights glowed in a few rooms. A piece of paper fluttered from the front door, distinct beneath the porch lamp. Odd. Nate felt a stab of apprehension. A good ruse for an ambush.