Amelia Gray - Threats

“You sound like a smart guy,” said the man on the porch.

“Pay no mind to my partner,” said Chico. “Justice holds the progressive close to her breast. Anyway, we see it all the time.”

David closed his eyes. The wood floor felt smooth on his nakedness. “Her heart may bleed,” he said, “but the scales are forged with hands wrought heavy by tradition.”

“Urine, I mean,” said Chico. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m confused all day,” said David.

“That’s understandable. Do your friends come by? Family members?”

“I got a haircut.”

“Give me a break,” said Chico’s partner.

The detective pulled a notepad from his back pocket. “Could you give us the names of some people we could contact?”

David knew he would enjoy very much the feeling of a woman placing her palms on his face. “Someone altered my clocks,” he said.

“We don’t want to alter your clocks, sir.”

“I’m concerned.”

“Could you look at me?”

Chico was bundled in police-issue winter gear, which included a heavy coat, his badge pinned to the lapel. “Neither myself nor Officer Riley over there is going to alter your clocks,” he said.

“Maybe clean ’em,” Riley said.

“That’s not as helpful as you might assume, Officer Riley,” said Chico, keeping eye contact with David. “Sir, please let us in. We do have the power to make this unpleasant.”

David hooked his fingers under the window’s sash. “It has already been unpleasant,” he said. He pulled with no luck, then squatted and pushed up. The sash groaned and lifted, and he felt cool air against his face and lower body. His skin felt moist and young as he leaned close to Chico’s face. “I am concerned that the dead bolt is electrified,” he said.

THE MEN seemed exceptionally kind, considering that one had crawled through the window. David apologized to them for the trouble, and they apologized for interrupting him. Officer Riley found a blanket and a small cardboard box in the trunk of the squad car. He tossed the blanket to David and deposited David’s wet clothes in the cardboard box. He left the box at the base of the stairs.

Riley led the way to the kitchen and began going to some trouble to find instant coffee and mugs. He boiled water in a pot someone had left on the stove. Chico walked the perimeter of the room, his arms crossed.

David stood in the doorway and watched them both. He felt comfortable and warm, wrapped in the police blanket from the waist down. He imagined that if his house was on fire, he would want to be wrapped in that same blanket while standing on the street. The feeling of being swaddled as an adult was foreign and tender.

“The city has no shortage of blankets,” David said. “Have they considered opening a Salvation Army?”

Chico removed his gloves and raised one hand toward Riley. “You know, that’s a fine idea,” he said to David.

The men stood, listening to the sound of the hissing range as it heated the water. “The dead bolt was not electrified,” David said. “I was glad to learn that was the case.”

“As were we,” said Chico. “Why would it have been?”

“I feel swaddled.”

“Understandable.”

Riley took the pot of boiling water from the stove and filled the cups. The instant grounds soaked to become an approximation of coffee as the officer carried the remaining water to the sink.

“You’ll bust the pipes,” David said.

Riley looked at him. He turned to put the pot back on the stove.

“There are some numbers on the friends,” David said. “For my fridge.”

“Your feelings are understandable,” Chico said.

Watching as Riley opened his notebook and examined the numbers on the fridge, David leaned in toward Chico. “I don’t trust that man,” he said.

“Do you trust me?”

David frowned.

“I am trying to find out what happened to your wife,” Chico said. “I am going to be coming back to talk to you over the next few days. I want you to be ready for that. We’re going to come back and talk to you. I don’t want you to be alarmed, David. Take your head out of your hands and look at me. I don’t want you to be alarmed. What happened to your wife has become a question for members of local and state law enforcement.”

“These are numbers for hospitals,” Riley said. “There’s a plumber, a salon. Do you have any personal contacts?”

“I certainly don’t want you to be alarmed,” Chico said, “but I’m going to ask a lot of questions and not provide a lot of answers. I hope you appreciate my candor and relative honesty at this time.”

“Relative candor.”

“And honesty. Right.”

David swirled his coffee. “I believe there is glass in this,” he said.

Chico lowered his cup. “What inspires that concern, David?”

“The glass broke. I worry it found its way in.”

“When did this happen?”

David pictured the broken glass. They had eaten meatloaf afterward. It must have been winter. Franny sat at the table, drinking from the bottle of wine. She had the ability to look at him as if she was an animal peering in through a window. “I had much more hair at the time,” David said.

“Was this a long while ago?”

The ring on her finger tapped against the bottle when she raised it.

“David, when did you break the glass?”

“The glass broke yesterday.” He could not remember the time.

“Was Franny there?”

“Her hair was longer.” He knew enough to know that hair falls out in autumn, when it reaches the end of its follicle cycle. Two willing partners could make a home with the shedding. It had always seemed unlikely to David, but now he seriously considered living in a comfortable room lined with the product of years of naturally fallen hair.

“It could not have been yesterday, then.”

“We had enough hair between us for a home,” he said. “Franny and myself.”

“David, it wasn’t yesterday.”

“Why not?”

Chico opened his mouth. Inside his mouth was a nest, and inside the nest there were three blue pills huddled up against one another like eggs. David leaned close to examine the pills. They jostled, alive on the man’s tongue. Saliva dampened the sides of the nest. His mouth made a warm incubator. David could not determine the nest’s composition. It looked like sharded toothpicks at first, but closer examination yielded a softer substance, such as a slivered reed wound around itself. The pills were precisely the size of those in the packet that Franny had kept by the toilet for years, exactly the same but for the fact that the pills on Chico’s tongue maintained their own individual life.

“I see,” said David.

When Chico exhaled, one of the pills rolled to the lower edge of the nest, looking like it might fall to the floor between them.

“Listen,” David said, closing his eyes. “You should come back another day. I hope you would do me the honor of leaving now and returning another day for pleasant conversation. I will receive you at some time in the future. At the moment, you see, I’m not feeling well. I have been through a lot. I’m sure you understand.”

He remained there with his eyes closed until the men left. Once they were gone, he rubbed his forehead, his eyes. He brought the water to a second boil and poured it down the sink.

WHEN DAVID LEFT the dental practice, Franny experienced a natural adjustment period. Anyone would do the same, David reasoned. There was a financial arrangement to consider, as they began to rely on Franny’s income from the salon. She started bringing home liter bottles of shampoo. Meanwhile, he settled comfortably back into his habits from dental school. He mixed chicory in his coffee and avoided using the heater.