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I was home by 3:35, but it took me almost an hour to track down the lieutenant, who was certainly interested in having a chat with Lyda Case. He said he'd be there at 5:00 in an unmarked car, on the off-chance that she was feeling truly skittish about contact with the police. I changed into jeans and a sweatshirt and pulled on my te
By the time I reached the meeting place, the sun was almost down. The bird refuge is a landscaped preserve near the beach, established to protect geese, swans, and other fowl. The forty-three-acre property abuts the zoo and consists of an irregular-shaped freshwater lagoon, sur-rounded by a wide lane of clipped grass through which a bike trail runs. There's a small parking lot at one end where parents bring little children with their plastic bags of old popcorn and stale bread. Male pigeons puff and posture in jerky pursuit of their inattentive female coun-terparts who manage to strut along just one step away from conception.
I pulled into the lot and parked. I got out of my car. Sea gulls swirled and settled in an oddly choreographed dance of their own. Geese honked along the shore in search of crumbs while the ducks paddled through the still waters, sending out ripples around them. The sky was a deepening gray, the ruffled silver surface of the lagoon reflecting the rising wind.
I was glad when Lieutenant Dolan's car pulled in be-side mine. We chatted idly until Terry appeared, and then the three of us waited. Lyda Case never showed. At 8:15, we finally gave it up. Terry took Dolan's number and said he'd be in touch if he heard from her. It was a bit of a letdown, as all three of us had hoped for a break in the case. Terry seemed grateful for the activity and I had to guess that it was going to be hard for him to spend his first night alone. He'd been in the hospital Friday night and with his mother-in-law on Saturday while the bomb squad finished their crime-scene investigation and a work crew came in to board up the front wall of the house.
My own sense of melancholy had returned in full force. Funerals and the new year are a bad mix. The pain-killers I'd been taking dulled my mental processes and left me feeling somewhat disco
I drove home hoping Daniel would appear again. With him, you never knew. The day he walked out of the marriage eight years before, he hadn't even left a note. He didn't like to deal with anger or recrimination. He said it bummed him out to be around people who were sad, de-pressed, or upset. His strategy was to let other people cope with unpleasantness. I'd seen him do it with his family, with old friends, with gigs that no longer interested him. One day he wasn't there, and you might not see him for two years. By then, you couldn't even remember why you'd been so pissed off.
Sometimes, as in my case, there'd be some residual rage, which Daniel usually found puzzling. Strong emo-tion is hard to sustain in the face of bafflement. You run out of things to say. Most of the time, in the old days, he was stoned anyway, so confronting him was about as produc-tive as trying to discipline a cat for spraying on the drapes. He didn't "get it." Fury didn't make any sense to him. He couldn't see the co
I found a parking spot six doors away. Daniel's car was parked in front of my place. He was leaning against the fender. There was a paper bag with twine handles near his feet, a baguette of French bread sticking out of it like a baseball bat.
"I thought you might be gone by today," I said.
"I talked to my friend. It looks like I'll be here a couple days more."
"You find a place to stay?"
"I hope so. There's a little motel here in the neighbor-hood that will have a room free later. Some folks are check-ing out."
"That's nice. You can reclaim your stuff."
"I'll do that as soon as I know for sure."
"What's that?" I said, pointing at the baguette.
He looked down at the sack, his gaze following mine. "Picnic," he said. "I thought I'd play the piano some, too."
"How long have you been here?"
"Since six," he said. "You feel all right? You look beat."
"I am. Come on in. I hope you have wine. I could use some."
He pushed away from the car, toting the bag as he followed me through the gate. We ended up at Henry's, sitting on the floor in his living room. Daniel had bought twenty-five votive candles and he arranged those around the room until I felt like I was sitting in the middle of a birthday cake. We had wine, pate, cheeses, French bread, cold salads, fresh raspberries, and sugar cookies the size of Frisbees. I stretched out afterward in a food-induced rev-erie while Daniel played the piano. Daniel didn't play music so much as he discovered it, calling up melodies, pursuing them across the keys, embroidering, embel-lishing. His background was in classical piano, so he warmed up with Chopin, Liszt, the intricacies of Bach, drifting over into improvisation without effort.
Daniel stopped abruptly.
I opened my eyes and looked at him.
His expression was pained. He touched at the key-board carelessly, a sour chord. "It's gone. I don't have it anymore. I gave up drugs and the music went with "em."
I sat up. "What are you talking about?"
"Just what I said. It was the choice I had to make, but it's all bullshit. I can live without drugs, babe, but not without music. I'm not made that way."
"It sounded fine. It was beautiful."
"What do you know, Kinsey? You don't know any-thing. That was all technique. Mechanics. I got no soul. The only time music works is when I'm burning with smack, flying. This is nothing. Half-life. The other is better… when I'm on fire like that and give it all away. You can't hold back. It's all or nothin'."
I could feel my body grow still. "What are you say-ing?" Dumb question. I knew.
His eyes glowed and he pinched his thumb and index finger together near his lips, sucking in air. It was the gesture he always used when he was about to roll a joint. He looked down at the crook of his elbow and made a fist lovingly.
"Don't do that," I said.
"Why not?"
"It'll kill you."
He shrugged. "Why can't I live the way I want? I'm the devil. I'm bad. You should know that by now. There isn't anything I wouldn't do just for the hell of it… just to stay awake. Fuck. I'd like to fly again, you know? I'd like to feel good. I'll tell you something about being straight… it's a goddamn drag. I don't know how you put up with it. I don't know how you keep from hangin' yourself."
I crumpled up paper napkins and stuffed them in the sack, gathered paper plates, plastic ware, the empty wine bottle, cardboard containers. He sat on the piano bench, his hands held loosely in his lap. I doubted he'd live to see forty-three.