Faye Kellerman - Street Dreams

Magda and Marta fell into an unplanned, unrehearsed embrace, both of them falling on one another’s shoulders and sobbing their little eighty-plus-year-old hearts out. In a speck of time, a lifetime of intervening memories flew out the window as two little schoolgirls hugged and laughed and cried and strolled arm in arm up the walkway to the house. Rina had placed her arm around Anika, who looked a bit uncomfortable with her sister’s display of emotion.

They came through the door like chirping magpies.

“ Ach, this is beautiful, Marta,” Marta Wallek told Magda. “ Sehr schön! ”

Rina said, “Ladies, you remember my husband, Lieutenant Decker?”

“ Bestimmt… certainly. It is a pleasure to see you once again.” Marta smiled, still holding Magda’s arm. “Oh, this is so lovely! You were always such the künstlerin… the artist.”

“ Me? ”

“Don’t you remember how you draw pictures for everyone in the schule? ‘Die modedesignerin.’ ” Marta turned to Rina. “We call her ‘the Dress Designer.’ In art time, she draws amazing dresses.”

“Oh, that!” Magda waved her hand. “That is because of my mother. She designed beautiful dresses.”

“And you draw them all!” Marta said, laughing.

Magda beamed. “Come. You must be hungry.”

“I wouldn’t mind,” Anika piped in. “It was a long ride.”

“Not so long,” Marta argued.

“Not so bad until the freeway. Then it was very long.”

“Rush-hour traffic,” Rina said.

“ Ach, ” Magda exclaimed. “I should have thought of that.”

“It was nothing,” Marta answered. “We rode in an air-conditioned car.” To her sister: “You were sleeping.”

“Just thinking with my closed eyes.”

“You were sleeping. I hear you snore.”

Decker interjected, “You know, I’m flagging a bit. Let’s eat.”

“This way,” Magda said. She glanced over her shoulder and caught Ginny’s joyous face, an expression that bespoke gratitude that things were going well for her mother. Despite her misgivings, Magda knew that Ginny had accomplished something extraordinary, giving Magda a tiny bit of solace from a time when fear and evil had been her constant companions. With wet eyes, she smiled at her daughter and mouthed the words “Thank you.”

There was ample technologyout there for an affordable videophone, but we humans with our frailties and our fears and our bad hair days just weren’t ready for it. Case in point was my phone chat with Buck. The conversation went surprisingly well, mainly because he couldn’t see my pacing and my sweating and my clammy hands. He only heard my deadpan ripostes to his sarcastic comments, making me appear witty and in control. He suggested a café; I mentioned Star$s; we settled on Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, on the Strip in West Hollywood.

As per my father’s request I had had a run-through using Klinghoffner and a few others as my guinea pigs, and we discovered that a multitude of things could go wrong. Since the meeting with Buck wasn’t until Sunday at eleven, there was time to fine-tune. Still, as the hour approached, I felt butterflies in my stomach. The last time I felt this nervous was when I was in tenth grade about to make my entrance onstage in Guys and Dolls as a stand-in Adelaide for Helen Karp, who had come down with the flu. I had pulled that off. There was no reason I couldn’t pull this off as well.

I was early, but he was earlier. The place was decent in size for the typical coffee bar, and the table he had chosen was not the best for our purposes. But since it wasn’t that bad, I decided it was more prudent to stay put than to explain why I wanted to move. Buck was as thin as ever, but his complexion had improved from judicious sunbathing. There were still some remnants of acne, but his cheeks were much smoother. His dark hair was almost shorn, his brown eyes feigning indifference when he saw me. He wore jeans and a black muscle shirt, showing off thin arms with some sinewy muscles. He was reading the Sunday Times and had ordered an Ice-Blended, his cheeks hollowed as he sucked on a straw, wrapping his thick lips around the plastic, pressing down with force. It was so wonderful when I thought about all that glorious DNA.

I sat next to him. “You’re here early.”

He didn’t bother to put down the paper. “Am I?” A careless look at his watch. “I suppose I am. I’m hungry. You can get me a bagel.”

“You can also get one yourself.”

He gave me a bored look. “You asked me. That means you pay. Besides, you’re not going to pay. LAPD is going to pay. So let’s stop the pretense and just get on with it.”

I let out a chuckle. “Plain or cinnamon?”

“I get a choice?”

“I’m full service, guy.”

For the first time, I saw that he was actually registering my presence, his eyes skimming up and down my body. I was wearing a sleeveless sundress that showed some cleavage and lots of leg. His cheeks took on a rosy glow. He hid his face with the front page of the newspaper.

“Plain’s fine. Two cream cheese.” He finished his Ice-Blended. “And something else to drink.” He held up the empty cup. “I’m dehydrated from my workout.”

I couldn’t believe my luck. “What else?”

“Oh… I don’t know. How about a decaf soy latte?”

“How about it?” I stood, looped my purse around my shoulder, and picked up his cup. “I’ll take care of this for you. Be back in a sec.”

I went to the trash can, opened the swing door, but placed his cup in the evidence bag that was hanging off the back of Justice Brill’s chair, hiding the drop with my body. I had been practicing this step with Brill and had become smooth at the hidden maneuver. In this case, I didn’t have to bother. Buck was intentionally ignoring me.

I went up to the counter and ordered. Ten minutes later, I was carrying a paper tray with two bagels, four cream cheeses, a soy latte for him, and a regular latte for me. He made no effort to help me, still buried in the paper. I sat back down and distributed the food. He picked up his latte and continued to read as he sipped coffee. “Cream cheese my bagel for me, will you?”

“No way,” I told him.

He peered out over the top. “That was rude.”

“So is asking me to cream cheese your bagel.” I sipped my own latte. “Anything I cream cheese, I eat myself.”

Lazily, he turned the paper. “How about you cream cheese the bagel and I’ll give you a bite?”

I knocked the paper out of his hands. “How about if you cream cheese your own bagel and look at me when I talk to you?”

Buck folded the paper. “Now I remember you, the one with the nasty temper.”

“Well, Buck, people don’t change that much in three months.”

“Has it been that long? I wish it were six.”

“You know, you could have said no when I asked you to meet me.”

“And miss out on the wit and wisdom of LAPD’s finest? Tell me, Officer, just what little ditties do our public servants in blue have up their sleeves?”

“Meaning?”

“You didn’t ask me out for my charming company. So what gives?”

“Ah, Buck, you cut me to the quick.” I smeared cream cheese on my bagel and took a bite. “Good stuff.”

Buck lavished on the topping, took a big bite, swallowed, then drank coffee. “We can play games, Officer. I don’t mind looking at you while you eat.”

“Oh my!” I smiled. “Was that a compliment?”

Again he reddened. “Statement of fact.”

This was the time for the sincere smile. “Thank you.”

Buck took another bite and stared at me.