Perri O'Shaughnessy - Presumption Of Death

“Good work. Where does he live?”

“On Siesta Court in Carmel Valley Village.”

“The Village? Close to-”

“Right, the fires. And there’s another name listed at the same address: Ben Cervantes. Must be that uncle the Boyz mentioned.”

“We’ll go see him.”

“Good plan,” Paul said, smug, as if he hadn’t already laid it out.

“Finished?” Nina asked.

“Ah, very full. Very happy,” he said.

“The dishes are yours.”

He stood, picked up his plate, and said, “Now I remember why I like to cook.”

While Paul loaded dishes into the dishwasher, Nina surfed the channels, trying to find the news among the two hundred stations that flitted seductively by. Finally, she located a local channel that mentioned the most recent fire.

“At least one person is dead,” said the blond anchorwoman. She wore a silk scarf over a tight low-cut “business” suit jacket. A map behind her pinpointed the locations of the various fires.

“Authorities believe that there’s a method behind this madness. Apparently, the antidevelopment people are resorting to domestic terrorism. Their weapon of choice? Arson.” She then identified herself and her station.

A commercial showing elderly zombies wandering in an eroded esophagus came on, touting a prescription antacid.

She flipped the television off.

“Let’s go talk to Tío Ben. Unless you’re too tired. It’s been a long day,” Paul called from the kitchen.

“I’ll get my bag.” She heard the phone from the bedroom and picked up the bedside extension.

“Mom?” said the voice on the phone.

“Bob! I’m so glad to hear your voice! I was thinking of you this morning.”

“Why?”

She didn’t mention Wish. Bob was Wish’s friend, but he had his own problems. “Just… I hope you’re being careful.”

His sigh sank into depths so low only a fourteen-year-old could find them. “Just in case these Swedes go berserk and come after me with hatchets. Right.”

“Driving. Being out at night. With Nikki. You know.” Stop, she told herself, you’re lecturing him already. With an effort, she went on cheerfully, “How’s the weather in old Stockholm?”

“It’s raining.”

“What time is it?”

“Nine o’clock. In the morning.”

“Amazing. You’re on the other side of the world.”

“You don’t have to remind me.”

“Your dad okay?”

“Fine.”

“So how are you?” she said.

“Not so good. See, Mom,” he said, as if they were continuing a shared line of thought, “what I don’t understand is, how come they like you one minute and the next minute they don’t? What kind of B.S. is that?”

“Do you mean… Nikki?”

“No, I mean Genghis Khan.”

How could one so young sound so dour? “You sound upset.”

“She told me she really really liked me!” he burst out. “I operated on the basis of that!”

“I’m sorry, Bob.”

“Yeah, sorry,” he said. “It’s just… see, we went to practice yesterday. All the guys in the band were there. Nikki fronts on a couple of songs, and sometimes she plays her guitar. I was doing digital recording that we might upload to the Web site she designed for them… anyway, Lars, he thinks he’s so cool. He’s like so much older than she is!”

“How old?”

“Twenty!”

Three years older than Nikki then, six years older than Bob. Oceans of time between them all.

“Well, I think you’re cool, Bob.”

“Being cool only matters if the people who think you’re cool are cool. No offense, Mom. Anyway, Lars is the drummer. He was sitting on a couch smoking a cigarette and talking about how he’s part Spanish, and somehow…”

She heard the pain in his voice and felt a little piece of her own heart chipping.

“Somehow she ended up next to him. Next thing you know, they’re kissing. I was disgusted, Mom. I mean, she went to the practice with me, you know? We were a couple. Everybody knew it even though she didn’t act like it half the time.”

Nikki must favor sofas. The image of Bob and Nikki on her sofa back in Tahoe several months before was permanently burned into Nina’s brain. Nikki, three years older, much too wise, and her fledgling son, entwined… Nina had poured herself a glass of wine, collected herself, and more or less kicked Nikki out. Which had only caused more hormones to hit the fan.

Unwisely, she went back to lecturing. “You haven’t started smoking, have you?”

“I didn’t call for this, Mom! I’m tryin’ to talk to you about something important!”

“Okay, okay, honey. All right. So. Nikki and Lars.”

“I can’t stand to go to rehearsals anymore, Mom. She’s made her choice. But I miss her. I don’t like Sweden, Mom. Nobody smiles and they all wear black and smoke all the time.”

And they’re all way too old for you, Nina thought with huge relief. “You could take some music lessons. Your dad’ll get you into a summer school. He’s the one you went to visit, Bob, and now maybe you can spend more time with him.” Bob’s father, Kurt, a classical pianist, had not known Nikki was coming to Stockholm either.

“You don’t get it. You just don’t get it.”

“Honey, what are you going to do?”

“I want her back.”

“I know you do.”

“But when I told her that, you know what she said? You won’t believe this.”

“What did she say?”

“She told me I was too young for her.”

“Well, those three years… they are big ones, Bob.”

“Anyway.” She visualized his shrug. “Screw it. I have to come home and figure things out.”

The shock waves this announcement generated made her sit back, gulping.

“Question, Mom. Where exactly is home? Am I going to Carmel or Tahoe? I need to know.”

She put him off. It wasn’t hard.

They talked for a few minutes more. Bob told her how he spent his time when he wasn’t getting into trouble with Nikki, and about Kurt’s latest performance. By the time they hung up, he sounded less miserable.

She had done her job. Bob felt better. She felt worse, so much worse. She went out to the deck and slumped across from Paul.

“Well? How’s the boy?”

“His heart’s broken.”

“Nikki dumped him?”

“Yep.”

Paul shook his head sadly. “It’s the first time, but it won’t be the last,” he said. “I hope Kurt’s up to the challenge.”

Nina thought but didn’t say, I don’t know if Kurt will get a chance.

“Women have this problem with constancy,” Paul added.

“Men have this problem with thinking women are their property,” Nina shot back.

They looked at each other. Paul’s silence rang like the end of the fifteenth round at Madison Square Garden. She hung her purse off her shoulder. “Let’s go, then,” she said.

Wait a second, it was the doorbell making that racket. No dulcet chimes for Paul’s door.

Nina smoothed down her hair and went to answer it.

She peeked through the peephole Paul had installed in his door.

“Who is it?” she said, but flung open the door when she saw who was standing outside.

“Yo, Nina,” Wish said. “I’m so glad you’re home.”

H E WORE BATTERED BLACK DOC MARTENS boots, Nina noted, still laced in some complicated fashion. He also wore the denim jacket and jeans the Boyz had described, but the T-shirt seemed to be missing and the pants were tattered and black. His eyes were almost swollen shut and what Nina could see of his hands, wrapped with white bandages, were red and blistered, glistening with petroleum jelly. His singed, wild hair hadn’t been combed that day. All in all, he looked like a sadhu who had tripped on the coals.