Goodnight, Irene

Frank looked over at me. “Don’t think about it anymore. Not today-I’ll quit bringing it up.”

“I’m okay. I’ll get my suit.”

WE LOCKED UP and drove over to the store. There was some fresh swordfish on sale, so we picked up a couple of steaks of it, a cold bottle of fumй blanc, and salad fixings. After a brief hassle at the checkout stand, we agreed to split the bill.

It was starting to get dark by the time we got back to his house. While Frank opened the wine, I made a call to the paper to make sure the story about the nicotine poisoning had gotten out of the coroner’s office. They had heard about it and already had someone working on it.

We let the swordfish cook on the grill while we made the salad. We ate outside on the patio. The warm evening air was redolent with honeysuckle.

“Great di

“My compliments to the co-chef.”

We finished the wine and cleaned up.

“We should wait awhile before sitting in that hot tub,” he said. He turned the radio on to a classical station. “This okay?”

“Fine.” I don’t know what it was, but it was gentle and soothing. I sat down on the couch next to him. He was rubbing his forehead. “Headache?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

“Lie down with your head in my lap.”

He gave me a look that said “What are you up to?” but he did it. A long time ago, a friend of mine taught me a few things about massage-the genuine article. One type of massage is great for headaches. Keeping in mind that he had some tender spots from the accident and that his concussion was probably causing the headaches, I very gently started rubbing his forehead, his neck and shoulders, and the area behind his ears.

“That feels great,” he said.

“Good. Let me know if I hurt you-I’m trying to avoid the bruises.”

“You’re doing fine.”

He closed his eyes, and within about two minutes was fast asleep.

“I knew you were worn out,” I whispered.

I watched him for a long time. After a while my feet started to tingle from lack of circulation, but I held off waking him.

He moved a little and I guess that woke him up. He seemed a little startled at first, then relaxed. “Well, I’m an exciting kind of guy to be around. You’ve probably spent more time around me asleep than awake this week.”

“You’re a guy who was in the hospital a couple of days ago. Why don’t you call it a night? The concussion, wine, and hot tub might not be such a great combination right now anyway.”

He reached up and traced my brow. “You’ll take a rain check?”

“It’s a deal.”

He dropped his hand to cover a yawn.

“In that case,” he said, “I’ll admit to being dead tired and a little achy and thank you for being understanding.”

We said goodnight and I left.

As I crawled into bed later that night, I thought about how I had made it through two days in a row in a fairly peaceful fashion. Cody jumped in with me and I snuggled close to him. I felt good all over. I don’t know how I could go from feeling so good to the nightmare, but that night I dreamed that someone was trying to cut off my hands and feet.

37

IWOKE UP IN DARKNESS, startled and drenched in sweat, after hearing myself cry out in my sleep. In those first few seconds, bordering between being asleep and awake, I wasn’t sure my hands and feet were still attached. As I reassured myself that the faceless villain of my dreams had not succeeded, I became aware that my heart was racing. I took some deep breaths and tried to calm down.

I looked at the clock radio. Three in the morning. The dream still seemed close to me, and I felt some small fear of its return should I fall asleep too soon. I decided to get up for a few minutes, hoping that if I left the room, the dream would quit hovering over me, and leave by the time I got back to bed.

Cody made some fussing noises as I turned on the light and sat up, and was thoroughly displeased when I got out of bed. He seemed to waver between following me to see what I was up to and staying in bed. In the end, his curiosity won out and I heard him thump to the floor behind me.

We went into the kitchen, where I cut a few pieces of salami as a treat for Cody and poured a glass of milk for myself. Now that I was awake, I reflected on the fact that this was really my favorite time of day, when the coolness of the air combined with a kind of stillness. Distractions were at a minimum. No one was going to call or drop by, few if any cars would be on the streets. There were enclaves of activity here and there, but most of the city was asleep. “Just you, me, a few night owls and certain members of the criminal element are up and about,” I said softly to Cody, who was washing up after his meal. He looked at me as if I should hear some reply he had made, then went back to work on his front paw.

The paper I had bought earlier at the hospital lay on the kitchen counter, and I began to browse through it. When I reached the front page of our local news section, I saw something that triggered a memory that had been itching at me since the night before.

It was an a

In itself, it might not mean anything. Lots of people had graduated from there. As far as I knew, Hollingsworth had always been thought of as a “clean” candidate. Other than O’Co

I thought about the microfilm article on the Hollingsworth wedding, which had been so close to the date of Je

No use suspecting everybody who had ever been in the state of Arizona, I told myself. All the same, I knew that whoever was involved was powerful, and few men in Las Piernas were more powerful than Andrew Hollingsworth. What if on the eve of his wedding, a young woman had suddenly shown up to tell him she was pregnant with his child? Would he kill her? Mutilate her body? Why not just pay her to keep quiet?

Who would have better access than a district attorney to a rogue’s gallery like the one that had been involved in the dirty work so far? I tried to picture Andrew Hollingsworth in this role. It was not impossible, but I had a long way to go before I was out of the realm of speculation.

I picked Cody up and lugged him back to the bedroom. “You weigh a ton, old boy,” I whispered to him, and got a purr in response. I flopped down on the bed with him, and we got settled in. I turned the light out and lay in the dark, thinking of Frank. I wondered if he was still asleep. I wondered if we would start driving each other crazy if we got any closer to each other. He could irritate me so easily, and I knew I could return the favor. Yet, paradoxically, there was something so comfortable about him, so easy to be with.

I wondered if I felt drawn to him because of the circumstances, if I had reached out to him as some kind of refuge. I was vulnerable, and I knew it. O’Co