Christopher Reich - Numbered Account

Nick walked into the hallway to retrieve something from his briefcase. He returned carrying a slim black book. He set it down on the table and said, “This is my father’s agenda for 1978. It came from his office at USB in Los Angeles.”

Sylvia eyed it warily, sniffing at it as if its contents were as suspect as its odor. “It doesn’t smell like it came from an office.”

“Floodwater,” said Nick, matter-of-factly. He’d gotten used to the smell of mildewy leather a long time ago. “Believe it or not, I found it in a U-Rent-It storage facility. It was on top of a pile of old junk my mother had kept for years. The place flooded twice during the time she rented it. Everything stacked below three feet was completely destroyed. When she passed away, I flew back to take care of her effects and to make the necessary arrangements. That’s when I found this book. There’s one for 1979, too.”

He opened the first agenda and leafed through the pages, stopping to point out several of the entries that had merited his attention. “Oct 12. Dinner with Allen Soufi. Undesirable.” “November 10—Soufi in office.” And beneath it, “Credit check” followed by an incredulous “Nothing?!” And finally, the infamous notation of September 3, “Bastard threatened me”—florid commentary to a twelve o’clock lunch engagement at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel with the oft-appearing Allen Soufi.

“There’s more like this in the next agenda. You’ll see.”

“You only have the two of them?”

“They were the only ones I could find. Luckily, they were the last two he kept. My father was killed on January 31, 1980.”

Sylvia drew her arms around herself, as if suddenly chilled. Nick stared into her warm brown eyes. Once he had found them remote and selfish. Now he found them caring and sympathetic. He leaned back in the stiff wooden chair and stretched his arms. He knew what he had to say, knew that he had to tell the whole story. He was suddenly struck by how few people he had actually told about his father’s murder: a few kids from school after it had happened, Gunny Ortiga, and, of course, Anna. Normally the prospect of sharing the story left him antsy and uncomfortable. But tonight, sitting close to Sylvia, he felt calm and at peace. The words came easily.

“The worst part of it was the ride over,” he began softly. “We knew something had happened to him. The police had called. They said there had been an accident. They sent a squad car for us. My father wasn’t living at our house at the time. I think he knew someone was after him.”

Sylvia sat as steady as a rock, listening.

“It was raining that night,” he went on, speaking slowly as the images came back to him. “We drove up Stone Canyon. My mother was holding on to me so tightly. It was late and she was crying. She must have known he was dead. Her intuition, whatever. But I didn’t. The police hadn’t wanted me along, but she’d insisted. Even then she wasn’t very strong. I looked out the police car’s window, watching the rain fall, wondering what had happened. The radio was squelching all the time, that clipped police jargon. Somewhere in there I heard the word homicide and the address where my father had been staying. The policemen up front didn’t say a word to us. I expected them to say, ‘Don’t worry,’ or ‘Everything’s going to be fine.’ But they didn’t say anything.”

Nick leaned forward and laced his hands in Sylvia’s, bringing them to his chest. He saw that tears had formed in her eyes, and for a few seconds he was mad at her. Seeing another person cry prompted in him a disdain for that person’s weakness. He knew his anger was bred out of a fear of confronting his own emotions and that he was wrong to have it. Still, it sat there for a minute and he had to wait until it played itself out before going on.

“You know what I felt sitting there? That everything was going to be different. I knew right then that my world was going to turn upside down and nothing would be the same.”

“What happened?” Sylvia whispered.

“The police figured that someone came to the door of the house at around nine o’clock that night. My dad knew whoever it was. There was no sign of forced entry. No sign of a scuffle. He opened the door, led the killer inside the house a few steps, probably talked to him for a while. He was shot in the chest. Three times from close range, just two or three feet. Someone looked my father straight in the eye and killed him. You’d never know a man has so much blood in him. I mean, that whole entryway was red. The police hadn’t covered him up yet. They hadn’t even closed his eyes.” Nick allowed his own eyes to wander to the broad picture window and stared outside, seeing nothing but darkness. He blew out a breath of air and let go of the memory. “Boy, it was raining that night.”

Sylvia placed her hand on Nick’s cheek. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m all right.” He half smiled, and nodded to show that he was in fact okay, that a marine never cries, that he was hardly deserving of her compassion. “So my father is dead. That’s it, right. That’s the sad part. Obviously, I’m wondering who did it. There’s the regular investigation, but no witnesses, no murder weapon. The police didn’t have a thing to go on. Six months later, case closed. Life goes on. Chalk it up to a random act of violence. The cops will tell you it happens all the time in a big city like Los Angeles.” Suddenly, he pounded his hand on the table. “But goddammit, it doesn’t happen all the time to me.”

Nick slid his chair away from the table and asked if she minded if he stepped outside for a moment. He crossed the living area, then opened the sliding glass door and stepped into the icy night air. A perfect semicircle was carved from the snow so that one could stand on the terrace and look out at the curtain of forest. The night’s cold embrace could not stifle the scent of pine and oak. He breathed deeply and watched as the vapor of his condensing breath cut a swath out of the darkness. He willed himself to think of nothing, to make his mind a blank, to breathe and watch and feel the world around him as if this were all there were.

“It’s beautiful here.”

Nick jumped at the sound of Sylvia’s voice. He hadn’t heard her approaching. “I can’t believe we’re still in the city,” he said.

“Just out the front door and down the street.”

“I feel like I’m in the middle of the mountains.”

“Mmmm,” she agreed. She looped her arms around him and drew herself against his back. “Nick, I’m so sorry.”

He placed his hands over hers and held them tightly against him. “So am I.”

“So that’s why you came here?” she whispered, more answer than question.

“I guess so. Once I found the agendas I didn’t really have a choice. Sometimes I tell myself that there’s no way in the world I’m going to find anything.” He shrugged. “Maybe I will, maybe I won’t. I just know I have to try.”

For a while neither spoke. Gently, he rocked back and forth, enjoying the warmth of her body and the mix of her perfume with the crisp air. He turned to Sylvia and lowered his face toward hers. She touched his cheek and as their lips met, he closed his eyes.

Inside, Sylvia asked Nick what the next step was.

“I need to see my father’s activity reports for 1978 and 1979.”

“There are eight volumes. Four for each year.”

“So be it,” he said.

She replaced a strand of hair behind her ear and nodded as if summing up a daunting task. “I’ll do my best. I really do want to help. But, Nick, it’s been so long. Who knows what your father might have written in those reports? Please don’t expect too much. You’ll only be disappointed.”