T. Parker - Full Measure

“They’re pretty big targets,” said Ted, looking down at them and wiping the sweat from his brow.

Driving home, gun and leftover ammo locked in the taxi trunk, Ted had a sudden premonition that another terrible thing was about to happen to him. But two minutes later, Cleo called from Friendly Village Taxi to say that his regular fare, Lucinda Smith, needed to be picked up at home in half an hour. She had asked for him again!

Ted swung into the Rite Aid and bought their least expensive bottle of men’s aftershave and breath mints. Outside he touched just a dab of the weirdly blue-green liquid to his Adam’s apple before locking the cologne in the trunk beside the Glock. Crunching the breath mint, he studied himself closely in the rearview, then drove east on Highway 76 for Fallbrook.

Lucinda came down the stairs with her usual reusable grocery bag and air of gloom. She was wearing nicer clothes than she had worn before, and fashionable boots. She had a small embroidered Chinese satchel over one shoulder. He thought she looked lovely. She told him Major Market and Rosa’s restaurant after that. The fare clock registered one point six miles before Ted could no longer be quiet. “And how are you today?”

“Good. What’s that smell?”

“Probably ash from the fire. Are you going to the Cruzela Storm concert on Sunday?”

“No. It smells like someone shaved in here.”

“That’s better than ashes, isn’t it? I have two tickets to Cruzela. The show is to raise money for the lighted crosswalks Fallbrook doesn’t need. Would you like to go with me? I’ll pick you up, do all the driving.”

There was another long silence. “How do you know we don’t need them?”

“Just by using my own two eyes.”

Another long moment passed and in the rearview Ted saw her looking out the side window. She wore her sunglasses as always. He had never seen her eyes except that one time when she cleaned her glasses in the back of his cab. “No. I can’t go to the show. But thank you.”

“Why not?”

“I’m busy.”

“I thought you’d say no. Though I’d really like to know what you’re so busy doing, that you can’t see Cruzela Storm. She’s good. Do you have a job? Wait, that’s none of my business so I’m not going to ask. I take that back. I unsay it. I’ll be quiet now. I promise. It isn’t that hard if I concentrate. Like driving a car. More or less. Well, to be honest, it is hard, Lucinda. Do you ever think other people might have problems, too?”

“I don’t have the capacity to care about them. And I hate that in me. I wasn’t always this way.”

He dropped her off in front of the market and watched her walk in, then parked in the shade and turned on the news. The San Diego PBS station had a story about the arrest of Ibrahim Sadal in Fallbrook. Federal charges were being readied. According to Department of Homeland Security Investigations Special Agent Max Knechtl, they had recovered from Sadal’s place of employment a timer, batteries, and accelerant “similar” to those recovered from the flashpoint of Fallbrook’s devastating Rice Canyon Fire. Also found were print copies of an Islamic jihadist publication called Inspire, two of which contained explicit instructions for building firebombs and urged “native jihadists” to deploy them in hot, dry, windy weather. Knechtl said that Sadal had been granted political asylum fifteen years ago, after fleeing Saddam Hussein’s regime, and there were obvious concerns that he might be part of a larger sleeper cell operating in the United States. Ted thought of Sadal working away at the gas station, right in front of everybody, for years. It made him even angrier to realize that the government could make Ted take a nystagmus test in broad daylight in front of his friends and neighbors, and let the local gangsters jack him, but couldn’t secure the borders.

Lucinda came out with her bag lightly laden. She climbed into the backseat and Ted shut the door. This door-opening was a new courtesy she was allowing him. At Rosa’s she came out with two plastic bags, and again Ted got the door for her.

“Would you drive me around the town again like you did before? Along holy hill with all the churches?”

“I’ll drive you anywhere you want.”

Ted swung onto Mission, then looped around past Los Jilgueros nature preserve, turned left at Fallbrook High School, and followed Stagecoach. On holy hill he noted the new Baptist Church aphorism: “Trespassers Will Be Baptized” and found it amusing. He wondered why Lucinda Smith always wanted to take the long away around.

“Let’s go back and eat these lunches at Jilgueros,” she said.

“Really?”

“I like the native plants. Please turn around before I change my mind.”

The nature preserve sat between downtown and the high school. There were trails and two big ponds and all of it was planted with California natives. They parked in the lot and walked in past enormous sycamores and stout oaks. Rounding a curve the trees gave way to more open land — grasses and white sage and big stands of matilija poppies. Ted watched two red-shouldered hawks wheel and cry above them. From behind him a hummingbird shot over his shoulder so close that for a second it sounded like a car going past his ear. Then the sound drifted off. Ted lifted some promising fallen bark to see what was under it and uncovered a large potato bug. “They can give you a painful nip.”

“It looks shiny and waxed, like a car.”

“When you lift things to find creatures, you have to put the things back the same but different. So you don’t squash what’s under them.”

“I had two blue parakeets. A group of parakeets is called a chatter.”

“Bats don’t make good pets.”

“They’re noisy creatures. There’s a bench on that hilltop. Let’s eat there.”

“The bats are generally quiet and mostly eat bugs.”

“I miss them, the parakeets.”

They climbed the hillock and sat. The day was muggy and warm, strange for October, and he felt the drop in pressure that presaged a storm. The latest from the weather people had rain beginning Sunday, and possibly lasting five straight days. Ted had heard one San Diego TV weathercaster call it “Stormageddon” and another “Stormocalypse.” The low pressure made it feel as if his body cells were less tightly held together. Like his brain had more freedom, not that this was necessarily good.

“Stormageddonocalypse-oramathon is on the way,” said Ted.

“So they say.”

They sat at opposite ends of the same bench, facing town. Ted could see part of Main, Evelyn Anders’s office building, the spire of the little church up on Fig, and the American flag over the post office. Lucinda had a light, almost inviting, scent that ran contrary to her general joylessness. Ted let the warm breeze bring it to him. He hadn’t spoken in a few minutes and he wondered if silence was all they could agree on. Silence as communication. That lasted exactly thirty seconds — Ted timed it on his watch — then he suddenly felt like sniffing a big load of pure crank and talking to Lucinda for a week straight. Play some music loud enough to melt his face, and dance to it. Maybe take a deserving person to the next level. Then he could sleep for another week straight. Sleep a lifetime. Instead Ted went to work on the taco. He poured a little green sauce on it.

“I liked what you said last time about finding a place to get away from the darkness,” she said. Ted nodded. “I think I know where to find that place.”

“Where?”

“Not far from here. I think I’ll be going there for a while.”

“A quest like?”

“Not exactly, no.”

“Exactly what then?”

“It will be clear soon enough.”