What would he do when he finally told her the cop-novel idea and she smashed it without a trial, without even an exploratory breakfast discussion? Ike’s given the idea more than a month of thought. He’s sure it has some genuine merit, and in more than one area. Ike’s big wish in life is that Lenore was still someone you could talk to. But it’s as if she’s starting to give up on the concept of dialogue, to become an apostate to the idea of exchange, slowly being converted to the church of the monologue. At least as far as Ike is concerned. He wonders if this is what she’s like with the other cops. In a lot of the mysteries he reads, cops are famous for their short tempers and misguided self-righteousness. But Lenore’s perpetual anger, this heated, seething, ongoing outrage, seems like a mile beyond the day-to-day petty nastiness found in those novels. It feels like it comes from a more dangerous place and like the enormity of the possible damage it could cause is too large to measure. At night, lying in bed, sleepless, while his sister lurks in alleys around Bangkok Park, Ike says unfocused, nondenominational prayers, not that Lenore will change, but simply that her wrath is universal, not meant for him alone.
He’s tried to make vague suggestions that might or might not change her. He’s mentioned news articles that prove the connection between loud music and hearing loss. He’s spoken of talk shows that detail the results of long periods of time without vacation. He’s mentioned casually the fact that he might switch to decaffeinated coffee. But he knows he’s probably just too close to the problem to be able to identify it. And Lenore’s response to all the seeming small talk is the same cutting sarcasm and annoyed interruption.
Ike thinks back, pictures his mother. She’s like an opposite image of Lenore, cell for cell. Like Lenore was formed out of some negative mold of her mother, received all the counterqualities that Ike remembers in the woman. She was soft-spoken, contented, serene, endlessly compassionate, at times joyful, with a deep vein of humor and a love of the quiet. Now it’s as if someone stole her away, inverted all of those traits, and placed her back in his presence in the form of Lenore.
But Lenore wasn’t always this way. That’s the thing. That’s the killer. He’s not deceiving himself. She was always tougher, capable of being more cutting, always a little quick, in motion. But it was a strength, and it was only part of the total package. She was also the funniest person Ike had ever met. No question. And way back it had seemed like, in her own way, she’d had her own well of mercy. And if she was always capable of violence, Ike thought it could be triggered only by an assault on the people she loved, that the two sides of her were absolutely connected, and rage could only be tapped by an aggression against himself or Ma or Dad. In first grade, when Dennis Lamont bloodied Ike’s nose at recess, Lenore waited for the end of the school day, then went after the kid with a vengeance. She blackened both his eyes and left lumps all over his head. Ike felt more than a little ashamed, but he both acknowledged and appreciated Lenore’s motivation. A Thomas had been harmed. Retribution was like a simple reflex. The next day she had noticeable contempt for the principal’s lack of understanding. It was one of the first of her many childhood disputes with authority.
Although he can’t be certain about the chronology, Ike thinks it was a decade later that Lenore began to change. It was as if in entering puberty, some natural biological event kicked in, and Lenore’s tendency toward aggression took leave of its natural trigger. One day it was just not necessary for a family member to be affronted. Lenore’s hostility had a life of its own. But it seemed within the boundaries of normalcy until their parents died. From that point on Ike started to fear her a little. There was something about Lenore that was not there before. There was an irrational menace; an unhealthy predatory feeling surrounded her. When she came to his side of the duplex now, Ike expected her to be wearing a black hood and carrying a sickle.
Ike despises the fact that she collects weapons. He’s sure it’s not something the other cops do. He’s aware that narcotics is one of the most dangerous jobs in the department. Especially lately. If he has to, he can understand the Magnum, rather than the standard-issue.38. But Lenore has something like an armory on the other side of Ike’s walls. It just isn’t necessary, and it’s a sign of something wrong. She also seems to love the weapons, to dwell on them inordinately, take them out and clean them incessantly. She keeps small cans of oil on her end tables the way other people keep candy dishes. Ike knows there are tubes of graphite and bristle reamers in the slots of her silverware drawer. She spends more time in the depths of the shooting bunker than most women her age spend at the latest downtown clubs. Ike thinks he’d be shocked if he just knew the percentage of her salary that went to bullets.
What’s the thing with guns? Where did it come from? There was never a gun in the house where they grew up. Dad wasn’t a hunter, didn’t believe in it. If he was in front of the TV on the weekend and some hunting segment came on the sports program, he’d get up and turn to anything else. Bowling, cartoons, a cooking show, whatever. As long as he didn’t have to watch guys in forests up in Michigan or swamps down in Louisiana, big guys who spit phlegm a lot and kept their rifles broken open, hinge on the arm, barrels hanging limp to the ground until they spotted duck or deer or moose. Ike remembers his father saying they had “little brains and less heart.” Now the man’s daughter keeps things like an AK-47 and an Uzi in her bedroom closet. Something’s gone wrong in the family.
What would Eva make of Lenore? They’re both professionals, very conscientious in their respective jobs, proud of their competence, confident in their abilities. Is that grounds for mutual admiration or competition? Would they recognize each other’s proficiency? Would they miraculously fall into this ardent conversation about slacking standards and the general decrease in the intelligence of the population? Or would a terrible hazard take over the room, Ike’s kitchen maybe, as they summed each other up and felt unconsciously threatened? Would insults be mouthed, slanders shouted, push degenerate into shove? And Ike has to admit that he’s interested enough to wonder, if the worst happened, who would win the war. Clearly, Lenore has the superior weaponry and the training to use it at maximum efficiency. But there’s something in Eva. He’d have to give Eva big points for control, more control than Lenore, a genuine coolness in the face of anything, a type of dispassionate reasoning you can’t learn, a fierce ability to calculate that has to come through the genes, through generation after generation of cold, often brutal logic, winning out over emotion, primal sentiment, and bloodlust. Ike suspects Eva’s got it. And realizing that makes him startled to think she’s hesitating, debating what to do about Rourke and the gang. Ike should be the one hesitating, weighing options, stalling for time. Eva should have it straight from the start. It’s one more thing that adds to this constant feeling of displacement, this general sense that rules are melting and order fading away.
He’d like to stop, go home, spend the day in his bathroom throwing cold water in his face. But he knows this would be the worst thing he could do. When this feeling blankets him, the only solution is to find the most common, routine, instinctual activities and walk through them. And right now that would be to continue sorting, continue with the repetition, the hand-to-slot motion, the pattern of reading an address and filing a letter. What could be more mechanical than this? More rote and mindless?
He hears the customer bell ring at the front counter. Has Eva opened the doors already? He checks the wall clock and sees that it’s after eight. The station is officially open. He puts his handful of letters back in their tray and walks to the counter, but there’s no one waiting. He looks beyond the waiting area, out the window to the parking lot, but there’s no sign of anyone. There’s only a small box wrapped in dull brown mailing paper and tied with twine. It’s about the size of an average donut box and he doesn’t want to touch it, doesn’t want to go anywhere near it. His stomach goes into a spastic knot and he wishes he could just radio for some official men in space suits, bomb squad guys with huge bulky gloves, boots twice the size of their feet, special metal boxes hooked up to obscure canisters full of disarming, defusing chemicals.