I remembered the smell of burned wax and perfume, a door opening and cool air sucking me down a dark hallway. I stepped into a narrow room with a single overhead light and a plain wooden table. The suit motioned me to sit. He passed some paper across the table. I signed. He read what I signed and nodded. Then he left the room and returned with a vessel made of plain black stone and sealed with white wax. I pulled the vessel toward me. It felt cold and heavy in my hands. I could smell the crush of dead leaves and saw a pair of thin, bloodless lips, set in a cruel line and stitched together with dead man’s silk. A shovel turned over in my mind, and the world went black. I looked up. The suit grinned and offered me the stubs of his teeth, sunken into yellow, swollen gums. I pushed the vessel back across the table and left. Voices chased me down the hall. I could feel their eyes as I grasped the handle on the front door and nearly took it off its spindle. Then I was outside again, into the sun’s blister, the blast furnace of South Central L.A., the storefront undertaker on his stoop, yelling now, telling me I needed to come back. There were more bills to pay. More credit cards to run. I shucked my coat over my shoulder and hit it. Walked along Florence Avenue for the better part of the day, feet melting into the pavement, sun bursting inside my head. I sat on a bench at a bus stop and closed my eyes. A couple of locals hit me up for money, but I shrugged them off. Buses came, buses went. Their exhaust fused with the heat and settled into a sludge that I breathed. Finally, the sun went down and a blessed cool came into the valley of the city. I opened my eyes to headlights from the traffic and the sun dissolving orange against a blue-black sky. I took a cab to LAX. The early flights to Chicago were booked, so I caught the redeye. I leaned back in my seat as the plane lifted off beneath me, thinking I had left my father behind. How wrong I was. MY EYES SNAPPED OPEN to a ceiling fan cutting lazy strokes through the late afternoon sun. My heart thundered in my chest, and my mouth felt parched.
The phone rang. I checked cal er ID, lifted the phone, and dropped it back onto its cradle. Then I went into the kitchen and found the Macal an. Or what was left of it. The phone rang again. This time I picked up.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Rodriguez said.
I looked at the water glass of scotch in front of me. “Getting drunk. How about you?”
“No one’s heard from you for a day and a half.”
Actual y, that wasn’t true. Four days ago, I watched as they put Hubert Russel in a hole I’d dug for him. I spent the next three days at Northwestern Memorial. They let me in to see Rachel once. She cried until I left.
“What do you want, Rodriguez?”
“How is she?”
“Nothing’s changed.”
“You gonna try and see her again?”
“They said they’d cal.”
“You want to get a drink?”
“I’l let you know if I run out.”
Rodriguez grunted and hung up. I found an old pack of cigarettes and lit one up. The pup didn’t like that and went back into the bedroom. From the bottom drawer of my desk I pul ed out a folder tabbed L.A. and opened it. On top was a police shot of my father, cold and stiff in a one-room SRO in South Central. Underneath, more of the same.
I turned the picture facedown and picked up the phone. She answered on the first ring.
“Yes, Michael.”
“Anything new?”
“From an hour ago? No, Michael, nothing’s new.”
The woman’s name was Hazel Wisdom. She worked the day shift on Rachel’s floor. My contact at night was a nurse named Marilyn Bunck.
“Did she eat lunch?” I said.
“I don’t know, Michael, but I’m betting yes.”
“Did the doctors see her?”
“I told you. They see her every day.”
“Did she talk to them?”
“I wasn’t there when they examined her, but I know she’s getting stronger. It’s just going to take a while.”
“Meanwhile, I need to keep my distance.”
“It’s not distance. It’s space. Just a little space so she can heal.”
“Doing nothing doesn’t work for me, Hazel.”
“Real y? I hadn’t noticed.”
“Don’t blow things out of proportion.”
“You hung around here for three days, living on coffee and Snickers bars, sleeping on the floor when you weren’t staring at her door and haunting every nurse and doctor that came in and out of her room.”
“Until your hospital booted me out.”
“It wasn’t helping her, and that’s what’s important. Listen, if I could make it happen for you, I would. We al would. But it’s just not the way these things work. You’re in the business, Michael. You know.”
She was right. I’d sat with plenty of them: fathers and husbands, boyfriends and brothers-victims once removed. Most would nod and gasp for air, hands clenching and unclenching, faces moving in broken pieces, lips mouthing questions for which there was never a good enough answer. And now I was one of them, asking a nurse to play God, wishing I could turn tomorrow into yesterday, wishing I could make Rachel whole. Hazel’s voice brought me back to the moment.
“The truth is you just have to sit tight. Chances are she’l be asking for you. Another day or two at most.”
I nodded to an empty room. “Thanks for putting up with me, Hazel.”
She laughed. “For what it’s worth, if I’m ever sick or hurt, I hope you’re on my side.”
“Be careful what you wish for. You’l cal me if-”
“If she asks? What do you think?”
“Bye, Hazel.”
“Talk to you in an hour, Michael.”
I hung up the phone and felt the silence, heavy around me. I took my smokes and drink into the living room, and put on some music. Bruce’s harmonica chased Roy Bittan up the keyboard as “Thunder Road” unwound. I took another sip of scotch, smal er this time, sat down at my desk, and clicked on my Mac. Hubert Russel ’s face popped up. It was the last video he made before he was murdered. His thoughts on the case I’d asked him to investigate-the case that got him kil ed.
“I’ve already sent you the police file on your pal Jim Doherty.” Hubert dropped his eyes to his notes. “It’s probably nothing, but you said he worked the ’80 crash as a cop. As you can see, he didn’t get out of the Academy until 1982.”
No, he didn’t, Hubert.
“Anyway,” Hubert continued, “probably nothing, but whatever. I sent his Academy picture to your phone along with the file. The other thing I’m sending is about your old train crash and the company I’d mentioned, Transco.”
I leaned forward and studied the digitized image of my friend. The kid was excited, knew he’d found a couple of pieces that clicked.
“Your hunch was right, Mr. Kel y. Transco and Wabash Railway were owned by the same group, a corporation cal ed CMT Holding.”
I pul ed out a pad and pen and wrote CMT HOLDING at the top and TRANSCO just below it. Then I drew a line between the two. On-screen, Hubert kept talking.
“CMT appears to have had its fingers in a whole bunch of things back in the day. Railroads, related properties, manufacturing companies. Al held through various subsidiaries. Al very discreet. I don’t have a line yet on who actual y control ed CMT, but I’m working on it. The company’s registered agent was an attorney named Sol Bernstein. He’s dead, but I think his son might know something. So, we’l see. By the way, I also found CMT’s logo.”
Hubert hit a few more keys. “Just sent it to your phone. A dead ringer for the one someone left on your doorstep. Cool, right?”
Hubert paused on-screen and looked to his left. “Just heard something outside. Maybe the good guys are here to take me into protective custody.”
He flashed a sly grin at the absurdity of it al. “Don’t worry, Mr. Kel y. If al else fails, I’ve got my steak knife to protect me. Talk to you later.”
And then Hubert was gone. I shut down my Mac and turned up the music. Eddie Vedder had replaced the Boss and was tel ing me about a kid in Texas named Jeremy. I put my feet up on my desk and watched the day’s light flicker and fade against the wal s. By the time I finished the scotch it was mostly dark. I left my gun at home and walked down the street to find a cab. Rachel would come back, or not. But Hubert Russel was dead. And I needed to do something about it.