My request for aspirin was met with a sarcastic grimace. “Did somebody bother you again?” Melanie asked, as we stood by the big front desk.
I shook my head, though it felt like a couple of Kennedy halfs rattling in an empty tin cup. I stopped moving and protested, “The other night was a little more than a bother.”
“Was it?”
Melanie turned her back to my open mouth so I shut it. She walked to the back room, then returned with a paper cup of water and two pills. I wanted half a dozen.
I gulped the aspirin and said, “Your young friend just threatened me about something. Does that count?”
“My friend?” Melanie looked at me. “Who are you talking about?” “Therin.”
“Oh.” A frown stayed on her face while I followed her to the back of the storefront. She sat down at a cheap folding card table. I took a seat across. Melanie reached into the pocket of her tan cardigan, pulling out an open pack of Camels.
“Still trying?” I asked, still hoping to tease away some of her anger. “What are you talking about?”
“The cigarettes. Trying to like Camels?”
She dismissed my peace offering. “I don’t know what I’m trying. Do you want one?” “No, thanks.” I reached for the Newports and started to puddle in my discomfort. “What did he say to you?”
It took me a second to realize whom she meant. “He showed me a small tribe in the alley, then warned me about ruining things for him. Apparently I pose a threat.”
She looked past me toward the back wall. “He’s a lonely boy.”
It wasn’t much of an explanation, but we weren’t there to explain Therin. Melanie took my silence for an invitation. “Why are you investigating Peter’s death?”
“I’m not.”
“Don’t lie to me,” she snapped. “Jonathan told me you were.” Her voice was strained; the hand holding her cigarette trembled. “You traded on my attraction to you to get information about my brother.”
She pulled her mouth into a bitter smile that looked like my arm’s slash. “You got your information, didn’t you? More than you bargained for, I bet?” She sat still, breathing angrily, her eyes flecked with worry.
“Melanie, I didn’t question you about Peter.”
“You didn’t need to, did you? All you had to do was sit there!”
“I didn’t visit because of the case,” I objected. “I came because there was, is, something between us.”
“Apparently what’s between us is Peter’s death,” she snapped. “Something you neglected to mention when we were talking about your work.” She reached up with her hand and plucked at her hair. “I shouldn’t feel surprised,” she said. “You didn’t volunteer that you were a detective when you first came to the storefront, either. Was that due to something between us?”
Beneath the hostility lay a tremor of panic. A reflection of vulnerability, a variation of what I’d been going through.
“Mel, when I first came to the storefront I hadn’t decided to take the case. By the time I arrived at your house I’d quit. I visited for the pleasure of your company, not for business. When I said I still had things to finish up, I was grabbing at the easiest way to withdraw.”
“Withdraw from what?” she demanded.
“From you.” Boots’ breakfast litany rang in my ear and I tried to rid myself of it in a rush of words. “Not really you, Mel. Ghosts. My own. I brought up Peter’s death with Jonathan because I wanted to learn more about you.”
Her breathing slowed. “What are you trying to say?”
I shook my head. “I’m saying that the other night scared the hell out of me. I’m not on any case. Even my curiosity about the beating is gone.”
“You were never in The End on a job?”
“Emil wanted me to look into something, but I didn’t want to.” And I didn’t want to tell her that Peter’s death had been Blackhead’s Trojan horse.
Equal parts of relief and anxiety showed on her face. “Why didn’t you want to investigate?” She cocked her head, trying to be certain she understood my next words.
“When I don’t trust the client, I don’t do the job. I’m not just a hired gun.”
She looked away, but I could see the side of her jaw work. She turned back and asked, “And you didn’t trust Emil?”
“He’s hard to trust.”
Even with her hand over her mouth she couldn’t contain her laughter. It reeked of tension and relief. “You didn’t trust your client,” she squeezed out, followed by another round of giggles. Eventually she caught her breath.
“I don’t get the joke.”
Melanie took her time to answer, staring past me as if I’d disappeared. When she finally spoke someone, or some force, had taken an oversized mallet to her anger. “There is no joke,” she said calmly, removing her wire-rim glasses and placing them in her sweater pocket. “I’m relieved, that’s all. You’re not the only one visited by ghosts. I can’t bear to have you actively involved around Peter’s death, whatever the reason. You drag up enough memories as it is.”
“I never intended to thrash around anything, Mel. I’m sorry.”
Her head gave a little jerk and her eyes strafed my face. Finally, in an odd tone of voice, she conceded, “No, Matt, you have nothing to be sorry for. None of us can help our past.”
She looked away then. “Some of us can’t even do anything about the future.”
I was thankful for the following minutes of silence. Her strange tone and rapid emotional swing had unsettled me. My mind wandered to Boots: her ability to jump start different moods. As far as women were concerned, I danced on shifting sands.
Melanie’s face was still turned away as she exhaled her smoke. “What about me? What did you decide about me?”
“I didn’t know there was a decision to be made.”
She kept her face averted. “Even without choices there are always decisions to be made.” As if to prove her point, she stood and turned back toward me. “I hope you didn’t get angry at Therin,” she said. “He thinks of me as his only friend. And he knows there is,” she paused, “a great deal of intensity between you and me. It frightens him.”
I slowly got to my feet. “Look, I’m sorry I’ve caused everyone this much turmoil.”
“I told you, Matt, there are no apologies due.” Melanie led us toward the front of the building, but stopped halfway and turned to me. “If I thought you were doing something to intentionally hurt me I’d be very upset.”
She resumed her progress to the front where we stood by the plate-glass window and looked at each other. A smile crossed her face as she reached out and grasped the equalizer in my pant pocket. “Is that a pickle in your pocket, or are you glad to see me?” she asked slyly.
So much for a second career as a soothsayer. “I’m glad to see you.” Maybe.
She nodded, leaned over, and kissed me on the cheek. “Then we’ll have to see each other again.”
I smiled as the remaining fissures between us closed.
On my way to the car, leftover images of the night streamed into my head: Lou’s snub, Melanie’s rage, Therin’s Indian friends. But I felt good when I left the storefront, finished with the lies. Melanie complicated my life, but she was a problem of riches, not poverty. The street itself glistened with the sheen of the season’s first real snow, snow that hadn’t yet had a chance to turn a gritty urban gray-and-yellow. As much as I hated the cold, the city seemed quiet and peaceful.
A peace interrupted by the sudden sound of a powerful engine springing to life. I looked up and was blinded by a bright spotlight from a 4×4’s roof. Expecting the light to move, I lifted my arm to shield my eyes, but the harsh gleam just bored in deeper. Even though I was on the sidewalk, the truck screamed directly at me. I was too surprised, frozen with fear to move. At the last second the truck tires swerved, and missed. I stood cursing the wet ground that, a moment before, I had admired.
The sound of the engine was still somewhere in range. I hoped his skid, and my near-death experience, had slowed the bastard to a more reasonable speed. I took a deep breath and slogged on, adding yet another reason to hate winter.
I walked another block before the truck came at me again. This time I was crossing the street when it gunned out of an adjoining alley. Same thunder, same blinding light. I started to run back to the sidewalk, but didn’t have the time. I turned and dashed in the opposite direction. As I ran by, a figure in the driver’s seat wearing a dark hooded sweatshirt pulled low over his face had his fist raised and waving.
I raced down the street, still hearing the engine. It grew louder, and I turned my head to see the 4×4 slide out of a U-turn and pick up speed. I knew I should get to a secure location; but I panicked, and just kept running. I heard the engine’s roar reach a crescendo, and felt its lights heat the back of my head. Suddenly the engine whined, and, at the same time, my feet slipped out from under me. I sprawled face down on the wet concrete. In that instant I thought my life was over.
The hooded fucker must have stood on the brakes because the truck stopped inches from my back. The smell of gasoline, oil, and grease filled my nostrils and I threw up on the street. Before I could collect myself, the truck backed away, and disappeared.
Once again all was quiet except for the fading hum of the truck. I might have believed it was all a terrible acid flashback, but the stenches of gasoline and vomit were still there, along with tire tracks. I picked myself up and limped the rest of the way to my car—frozen, frightened, stinking, but alive.
Back home, before I climbed into bed I dropped to my knees and dragged out the gun box. I put two months of unread %ew Yorkers on the floor and placed the box on the night table. I pulled out the holster and .38 and strapped it on. I looked ridiculous sitting on the edge of my bed in a pair of boxers and undershirt wearing a gun, but I didn’t care. It helped calm my nerves. Lying on my back, I pulled my gun from the holster and rubbed the barrel across my sweaty forehead. Another bout with the shakes was coming, and I tried to short-circuit it with more grass. The night’s final images tugged for what seemed like an eternity, but sleep finally approached. I put the gun back in its holster, but kept the holster strapped to my chest.
Right before sleep I saw the mental picture of my mess on the street. There is no way to keep an urban snow clean.