Three days later, Steve stopped at the Sheridan Arms and found that his old apartment was still for rent.
“You come back!” Jong Choi said, not asking a question.
“I come back,” Steve said.
“Oh! You know seven? You call cops.” He produced a card from a drawer and handed it to Steve.
The card was LAPD. A detective named Holmes. Not Sherlock. Lee.
“Seven?” Steve said.
“Arrest,” Jong Choi said.
“The kid in number seven?”
Choi nodded vigorously.
Steve went out to the courtyard and called the number. Holmes was in. Told him that Chris Riley, Numba Sev’n’s real name, had been caught with a lot of hot stuff, including Steve’s computer. So Numba had turned thief, and was now residing in the county jail. And, Holmes wanted to know, would Steve come in and make a statement?
Yeah, he would. And as he clicked off the phone he decided something else. He didn’t know where it came from, but there it was. He would go down to the jail to see the kid. Try to talk some sense into him.
He’d tell him a story, about prisons and cons, about the way they end up by staying stupid. He’d give the kid one shot because there aren’t too many breaks in the world. Steve had been given one. So he’d pass it along to somebody else.
It didn’t make much sense. Steve knew the odds. But he also knew he just had to do it.
He heard a mew at his feet.
Nick Nolte padded around him with a feline nonchalance that said, I didn’t really miss you but I’m glad you’re back anyway.
“I love you too,” Steve said as he picked up the cat. “Come on and give me a hand. I mean, a paw.”
He started moving some of his belongings into the apartment. Managed to get half the stuff in before Mrs. Stanky stuck her head out as he walked by and carped about needing some Milk of Magnesia as if he’d never left. He assured her he’d get it.
Then she said, “Get rid of that cat.”
He was home.
Jong Choi helped Steve with his last item, the old trunk. It had been with him the whole way, through every ugly turn and every ray of light. He put it against the bare wall where he once had a sofa.
When he was alone at last, Steve opened the trunk. The photos and papers were scattered around, a random pattern that seemed to match his own patchwork life.
He found the picture of Robert in his train pajamas. The cereal picture. Looked at it for a long time.
Then he got on his knees. He put his hands together over the trunk. And just like when he was five years old, stumbling over words but putting his whole soul into it, he said a prayer for Robert Conroy.
And somewhere in there he said a prayer for himself. It felt good. It felt like he was talking and someone was really listening. It freaked him not at all.
He’d tell Gincy about it in the morning. Gincy would show him what to do next.
When Steve finished his prayer, he lay on the carpet and looked at the ceiling. Full circle. For better or worse he’d landed back in LA.
For better or worse.
He knew then there was one more thing he had to do.