For almost a decade with Carol, all the heat and light of that one day was enough to keep the cool regret of his own marital decision at bay. But everything changed when he walked into that little house on the hill in Corona with a suit from the civil division, Kathy Nicolo Lazaro appearing in her terry-cloth bathrobe, her toenails painted pink, her hair wild, her small dark face all incredulous but brave about the news they delivered. Lester had felt a wanting rise in him so deep and immediate his throat flushed, but still he couldn’t look away from this Mrs. Lazaro as he watched her take in the bad news about her house, as he stood there in his uniform and gun belt, his desire so fierce it could almost be a noise in the room. And that changed too, his feeling there was no room to move. With his hunger for Kathy came the new belief that maybe it wasn’t too late. And this feeling only grew when on a hard wide bed at the Eureka Motor Lodge she actually took him inside her, took in his hunger with a hunger of her own that was dark and slick and more heated than any day in Chula Vista. Regret seemed to slide away from his stoop, and with her absence came a picture in his head of having a place of his own, a house where his children would have their own rooms. Maybe a house on a hill in Corona. Kathy had hinted at this scenario, the fact her house had three bedrooms. Then Lester would only have to deal with child support payments and maybe half the mortgage on the house in Millbrae that wouldn’t be his anymore. He could manage that. Maybe it was time he did take Captain Baldini up on one of his memos and go for his sergeant’s stripes and the raise in salary that went with it. And with a sudden heat in his face Lester thought again of shirking off Alvarez; that wasn’t smart. Maybe he should drive down there now and slip a note under Alvarez’s door, offer his apologies and explain that circumstances beyond his control had kept him from reporting in. And that would be accurate, wouldn’t it? But that would take too long, and Kathy might show up while he was gone.
Lester went back inside the cabin and in the light from the fire in the stove he wrote her a note on the back of a grocery bag:
It’s almost eight. Don’t go anywhere, Kathy Nicolo. I’m off to make a call to work.
I love you.
Les
He put the bag on the table. Then, to draw her attention to it, he placed the empty wine bottle on top. He swung the fire door shut on the stove, then went out to the clearing lit by the stark light of the hissing Coleman lantern, picked it up, and walked back up the trail to his car. He hoped Kathy’s Bonneville would pull into the turnoff road right then. But the road was dark and quiet, the cracked asphalt covered by a fog bed that, when he drove through it, rose swirling over his hood and windshield like spirits. He felt momentarily that he was somewhere exotic and dangerous, and he thought of the Iranian colonel, the photograph of him at a party with one of the richest sons of bitches in the world, a man with his own secret police force. The night Lester paid him a visit, the colonel had seemed to be in his walking-around clothes, but Lester had noticed how finely tailored the pants had been, the shirt too. And when Behrani spoke, his words were clear and unhurried, like a man used to being listened to. It would be hard for Alvarez to resist a slick bastard like that, Les thought, and as he drove through the fog up the coast highway, keeping his eye out for Kathy’s Bonneville in the opposite lane, he wondered just how far this thing could go. Would he be charged simply with conduct unbecoming an officer? Maybe receive a letter of reprimand? Or a day’s suspension without pay? Or could it get hotter than that? Would his threat to Behrani be interpreted as the extortion it was? Leave this property or else? But you needed evidence or corroborating witnesses for that kind of charge, so he was probably in the clear on that count. Still, there would be the dark spot in his file, which might very well hurt his chances with the Civil Service Board.
On the coast road in Montara, Les pulled the car into the lot of a gas station convenience store and used an outside phone to call the department in Redwood City. He left a message on Alvarez’s voice mail, apologizing for missing him and saying he would be in the lieutenant’s office first thing tomorrow morning. He hung up, then called the number that until this moment he had associated with home. He wanted to talk to both his children, even if it meant waking them up. Nothing too lengthy or serious, just tell them he was working and that he loved them and would see them tomorrow sometime. But on the fourth ring, the machine picked it up. He hadn’t expected that. He pictured Carol probably reading a story to one or both of them, and he felt wounded at this image of her, holding herself up for the children. Then he heard her cheerful voice tell him the Burdon Family couldn’t come to the phone right now, please leave your name and number or call us back. Les waited for the beep, but the silence that followed felt like a black emptiness he could not imagine speaking through to his son and daughter. He hung up, then felt like a fool because Carol would surely know it was him. A car passed on the beach road behind him and he turned quickly to its sound, but it was a black El Camino with mud-splattered wheel wells and he stood there and watched its taillights get engulfed into the fog. He could hear the surf out on the beach. He looked up the highway but saw no more headlights piercing the mist.
Something was wrong.
But then everything was wrong; he shouldn’t be standing at some outdoor pay phone hoping for Kathy to drive by. And they shouldn’t have to rendezvous at a place like Doug’s fish camp either. Not tonight, squatting in some poker shack as if they were both on the run. Lester stood in the electric light of the pay phone and watched the fog move along the sandy surface of the parking lot. His hunger had vanished, but now he felt scattered and shaky, not quite rooted in his own feet. Nothing was rooted. Everything was suspended in midair until Kathy’s presence—and then what they would do next—made it all move again. He could go inside the store for a chili dog or cup of coffee, but he knew the owner from night patrols, a big gray-bearded man who liked to talk and would never take Lester’s money but seemed instead to expect conversation as payment. And usually Lester didn’t mind this. The man was intelligent and genuinely warm, and speaking with him felt rarely like a waste of time. But Lester didn’t want to talk. You had to look into a person’s face then, let him look back into yours, and he didn’t feel capable of either.
He was beginning to feel something was truly wrong. No longer demons of the Whore 24. And no longer simply the image of his daughter’s face peering up at him so still from her bed. The stillness he felt was the kind a deer goes into right after the hunter’s boot breaks a fallen twig; it raises its head and sniffs the air, the unlucky ones taking the moment to turn their glistening dark eyes to the trouble they smell, to the bright orange vest, the oiled bore of a large-caliber exit out of this life.
Lester got into his Toyota and pulled into the fog of the coast highway, heading north for Point San Pedro and Corona. The fog was so thick his headlights were reflected off it and he had to drive slow, and careful.
I ’M NAKED AND MY BREASTS ARE FLATTENED AGAINST A BED OFsmooth black stones in shallow water on the beach. It’s low tide and the small waves push me forward when they break, then pull me back, and I can feel the stones under me but instead of being cool and wet now, they’re hot and dry, and I want to stand and leave, but my body is too heavy and the beach in front of me is as gray as ash and sticking out of it, in dozens of places, is Lester’s black gun, the handle grip or barrel. Hundreds of them. And toys too, half buried in gray sand: old Frisbees, plastic bats and rubber balls, and a red tricycle, its wheels mostly covered. My throat is a scorched pipe to my stomach. The waves roll me and now they’re hot too, and I begin to cry and the water pulls back, dumping me into the gray sand full of guns and toys. And the waves are taking so long to come back I think they must be pulling up into one huge wall of water. I can feel the still air at my back and I dig my hands into the sand and drop my face to it and wait for the final crush of water, my whole body stiff, but nothing comes. Nothing happens. I hear birds. Seagulls. I raise my head and see my husband and Lester walking together on the gray sand. Their shirts are unbuttoned, both of them tanned, even Nick, who has lost some weight. I call his name, but my throat is so dry no sound comes. Then they see me and they both start fucking me, taking turns. Then Lester pulls out and comes onto my hip and side. And he keeps coming. And it starts to cover me, weighing me down, and doesn’t stop, and now it all begins to harden and I’ve become a stone, a smooth white stone among all the black stones. And the air smells like spiced tea.