Jan Burke - Remember Me, Irene

Near the crate, the view from the windows took in a narrow glimpse of the sea. The buildings directly across the street didn’t block the view, but several blocks away, especially along Broadway, a long cluster of skyscrapers stood between the Angelus and the Pacific Ocean. One in particular caught my attention-a black glass monolith, one of the tallest buildings downtown. Three letters crowned the giant: BLP. The Bank of Las Piernas. Ben Watterson’s bank.

“Let’s try the next floor down,” I said.

THERE WAS NO LIGHTin the hallway on the fourteenth floor of the Angelus Hotel, but there was still plenty of cold air. It didn’t stink like the first-floor hallway, making me wonder if that was one reason Lucas took the trouble to climb all of those stairs in the buildings he slept in.

Rachel grew cautious again, listening carefully before opening the first door we came to. As it creaked open, she waited a moment in the hallway before stepping into the room. I crept in after her.

Only when a hotel room is absolutely empty do you realize how small it is. No carpet, no drapes, no bed. A radiator against the wall beneath the window. Only the window trim and wainscoting kept the room from being utterly plain. I could see our breath as we looked around.

No sound.

Rachel glanced in the small bathroom and closet.

“Nobody has been in here for ages. Let’s keep looking.”

As we left the room, I started to pull the door shut.

“No, leave it open,” she said. “More light in the hallway.” She paused, then added, “Would you like me to open one of those windows?”

I shook my head. “I’m okay now. Thanks-for offering, and for what you did earlier.”

“You know I didn’t mean it, right? It’s just that you were looking like you might pass out down there, and that was the first thing I could think of to distract you.”

“You were successful. And yes, I know you didn’t mean it. But next time, let’s just argue politics or religion.”

“Wouldn’t have worked as fast,” she said, then leaned an ear to the next door. We opened six doors on six small rooms on the fourteenth floor of the Angelus, and found nothing.

On the seventh try, we found Lucas.

HE LOOKED DIFFERENTfrom when I had met him on the bus bench. Cleaner, for the most part. He had cut his hair and shaved since then. He wore the same jacket, but it had been washed. Beneath it, he was casually dressed-in worn jeans, a flannel shirt, running shoes.

Near him, in an open duffel bag, was a neatly folded suit. A pair of dress shoes next to the bag looked as if they had just been polished. If he had been wearing those clothes, he would have looked even more like the man I knew in college.

It’s strange, the things that will haunt you. In many later moments, I would think about the care he took with the suit and the shoes, and I would waste wishes.

He lay face-up on a sleeping bag. His breath wasn’t chilled like Rachel’s or mine-he wasn’t breathing at all. There was a small amount of dried blood on his face, as there was on the floor and the radiator. A thermos bottle lay on its side near his feet; on the floor beneath its gaping mirror mouth, a pool of liquid had congealed into a pancake-sized stain.

And someone had placed dull pennies on his eyes.

That much I saw.

Rachel had seen him first, and quickly turned and tried to block my way, but I looked over her shoulder. She held on to me, pushing against me as I tried hard to push past her. I learned that I’m no match for her-but I put up a decent struggle before I stumbled backward out into the hall. She followed, somehow keeping me from falling. When I had regained my balance, she quickly reached back and closed the door behind her.

“No-stay back,” she said, seeing I was willing to go at it again.

“It’s Lucas,” I said.

“Not anymore.”

“Yes-”

“No, it’s not,” she said. “Come on, you don’t want to march your big feet all over the evidence now, do you?”

Evidence.

There’s something of a blank in my recollections from the point that she asked that question until a little later, when we were sitting on the floor of the room next to Lucas’s. I was too numb, I suppose, to register most of it. I heard and didn’t hear Rachel talking to me. Felt and didn’t feel her arm around my shoulder.

I suddenly realized she was swearing like crazy in Italian. It startled me out of my detachment. She was holding her cellular phone in her free hand.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, sitting up straighter.

“Can’t get a signal in here. Wait right here, okay?”

“Where are you going?”

“I’m not going anywhere,” she said firmly, “just over to the window.”

I watched as she struggled to get the window open. “Dammit. Fricking thingamajiggy won’t work. Probably hasn’t been opened in fifty years.” To my amazement, she pulled out her flashlight and used the grip end to bust out the window. “Destroying private property,” she muttered, clearing the last fragments from the frame. “Pete will really be thrilled.”

With phone in hand, she leaned out the window, then pushed some buttons. “This will only take a minute,” she said to me.

“Caro?” she said into the phone. “Listen, we’ve got a situation here…No, just a…no, will you listen? Si calmi! Christ. Stà zitto! Put Frank on…No, I’m not going to say another word to you…oh, really? Well, va f’an culo, Mr. Big Shit Detective. I’m hanging up. And if this phone rings, it had better be your partner calling!”

She pressed a button. “Excuse me,” she said to me-very calmly, as if she hadn’t just been insulting her husband bilingually and with enough gestures to make a mime envious.

I just looked at her. I felt as if I were watching an experimental theater production from a front row seat. Up close, and it still didn’t make sense. I put my head down on my knees.

“Irene,” she started to say, but the phone chirped. She pushed a button and leaned out the window again.

“Frank? What do you know-he’s catching on. Listen, we found Irene’s friend. Possible 187…Yeah. Well, exactly. I’ll tell you in a minute-we’re in an old hotel, and it’s a little hard to describe how to get here. You out of earshot of your boss? Good. Now, what I want to say is, I think the situation could use a little TLC, you know what I mean? Yeah, I’ll let you talk to her. She’s right here. But about the, er, business aspects of all of this…exactly. Good…And can you talk Carlos Hernandez into handling this one himself?” There was a long pause, then she said, “No. Not from the looks of things.” She glanced over at me. “Coins on the eyes, for one thing. Also some sort of head injury, although-no, of course not. Stepped right back out of there…Yeah. We’re at the Angelus Hotel. Fourteenth floor.” She gave him the address, and when she started to describe the entry, I interrupted her.

“Tell them about the footprints near the drive.”

She passed the message along, gave him a few more details, then gestured for me to come near the window. I took the phone, and leaned out as she had done.

“Irene?” I heard him say.

“Tell Pete not to blame Rachel.”

“They’ll be all right. How are you doing?”

I didn’t know how to answer that.

“Irene?”

“I know it won’t be your case,” I said. “But do you think you could come over here, maybe take me home afterward?”

“Of course. We’ll be there soon.”

“Thanks. Here’s Rachel.” I handed the phone back to her and sat against a wall, the one facing the wall which adjoined Lucas’s room.