Yesterday I was convinced that by this time today he’d be back with his wife and kids, back to his life in Eureka Fields. But instead he ended up committing a string of crimes to sit and watch over me in my drugged sleep while he didn’t sleep at all. When he made the colonel park my car out of sight in the backyard, I came into the bedroom and watched from the window as he leaned forward and pushed his unloaded gun into the colonel’s neck. Lester got out first, stuffing the gun into his pants and covering it with his shirt. And when the colonel followed, the morning sun in his face, it felt good to see him afraid, see himbullied by someone.
Your shit is my shit.But I never wanted this problem solved bad enough to scare a woman as sweet as Mrs. Behrani. And what was I supposed to do? Go out there and watch her like a prison guard? But then how could I do anything buthelp Lester get us out of this trouble, which was really more mine than his?
It was quiet out in the kitchen and I pictured her running down the hill into town to find a cop, tell him everything. Maybe they’d catch Lester on the road, think he was armed when I knew he wasn’t. I let out a long weak breath, and stepped fast into the hallway.
She was still at the kitchen sink. The breakfast dishes were stacked neatly, and she was just standing there, looking out the window, though there wasn’t much to see but the wooden staircase up to the new roof deck that was hers now. I used to like looking out that window while I rinsed a plate or coffee cup, see my small side yard and the drop of the hill into town.
Mrs. Behrani slowly turned her head and looked at me over her shoulder. It seemed to take her a second or two. Her hair was still flattened a little on one side, and I pictured her sleeping in the bathroom, in the tub or on the floor. I guess I expected her to look ready to fight me somehow, but instead her lined face seemed pained, her eyes taking me in like she wanted to understand me before it was too late. It was almost my mother’s look.
“Please, your friend—” Her voice was weak and she looked down and pressed her hand to the side of her head, then took a deep breath and looked back at me. “Will he to hurt my son?”
“No, he doesn’t want any more trouble, Mrs. Behrani. He’s just trying to finish all this, I guess.” I thought about reaching into my pocket for the bullets.
She stood still, looking at me, her hand pressed to the side of her head. I was about to tell her I was selling them the house, but her eyes were almost black, like she was imagining something that really scared her, and I knew what it was.
“He has a son of his own, you know.”
She nodded once and took a breath. Then she closed her eyes and pressed until her fingertips whitened.
“Are you all right?’
“Migraine. Please, I must—” She moved by me and I watched her walk down the dim hallway as slow and careful as an old lady, one hand in front of her, the other pressed to the left side of her head. She left the bathroom door half open and I could see her feet and lower legs as she knelt on the floor at the toilet. I felt so strange, like it was almost fate that I walk over and hold her forehead as she retched her small breakfast, then sniffled and let out a long moan.
“Are you all right?”
She raised her head, her face grayish white. “I must to medicine.”
On the sink was the brown vial I’d emptied the night before and my face flushed as I opened her medicine cabinet thinking, please, please don’t be that one. But there were only vials with that snake alphabet on them, and I wouldn’t know which one she needed even if I could read them. I picked up the empty vial on the sink and turned around, but Mrs. Behrani was up and halfway out the door.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Behrani, I’ll drive downtown and buy you some right now. I’m really sorry.” I saw myself getting pulled over in the car, arrested for yesterday’s slip over the edge at the gas station, never getting back here to relieve Mrs. Behrani’s agony. I would have to walk or run down the hill into town, or maybe their son had a bike. But could she be faking all this to get me out of the house so she could call the police? No, she looked too terrible; she was dragging her fingertips along the wall, then she was in her bedroom and so was I, watching her sit on the bed and pull open the nightstand drawer, take out a prescription bottle. I was so relieved I hadn’t robbed her of what she needed right now, I felt almost cheerful. She dropped her chin as she tried to get the lid off but couldn’t, and I took it from her hands and opened it.
There was half a cup of cold black tea near the lamp, Lester’s I guessed, and Mrs. Behrani shook out two capsules, palmed them into her mouth, then drank the rest of the tea. She pressed her fingers to the side of her head, her eyes closed, her hand shaking slightly. “I must for rest.”
“Okay.” There was nothing else to say or do. I watched her lie back on the bed and draw her knees up. She rested her arm across her eyes.
“Please.” Her voice was almost a whisper. “Close for me window light.”
I did as she said. I went to the window, my red Bonneville parked under it in the sun, and I pulled the heavy curtains shut. I heard the click of her tape player, then that same music she’d been playing when I came here yesterday to talk. I could see her thin arm adjusting the volume, though her other arm was still across her eyes, and I knew this was something she’d done too many times, come to this darkness and lain down on this bed with this music that at first made me think of fairy tales I’d read as a girl, snakes with the heads of princesses, carpets that would fly over black deserts under cold stars, men with long curved swords dancing around a pit of flames. But then a woman’s voice began to sing in their language, high and mournful about something she’d lost, and I suddenly felt I was standing where I had no business being at all, like I was watching a stranger die, or two people making love.
I left my old bedroom and my old house. I went out to my fugitive car, sat in the driver’s seat, and smoked. My head didn’t feel stuffed with wet rags anymore, but still, everything seemed too bright and downy: the sun’s glare across my hood, the way the hedges around my back door seemed to hover slightly off the ground, the muffled and tinny sound of Mrs. Behrani’s music coming from inside the house. But the cigarettes were helping, the nicotine sticking its legs down into my chest like a baby, and I sat there in my Bonneville, the seat cover too warm under the sun, and I smoked and waited, waited for Lester.
L ESTER HAD THE COLONEL TURN LEFT ONTO SYCAMORE STREET. THEcounty tax office was on the corner, not a half minute’s walk from the old domed courthouse and the Hall of Justice on the other side of Broadway, and Lester was relieved there were no parking spaces this close to the corner. He began to tap his fingers on his knee, his mouth and throat as dry as paper. The colonel drove slowly, scanning both sides of the street for an available spot. The street was lined with tall laurel trees, and Lester was grateful for the shade. As soon as they’d turned east off the freeway onto Woodside Road, the sky had gone from its coastal gray to a pale, metallic blue, the sun shining brightly everywhere. Now it made Lester’s eyes ache.
Nearly three blocks from Broadway a yellow cargo van pulled away from the curb, and Behrani began to take its place. He backed the car carefully, turning to look over his shoulder and out the rear window. Lester knew he was sitting directly in the colonel’s line of vision, but he didn’t move; to do that would be courteous, and right now, just before he sent the colonel out on his own to do the right thing, Lester couldn’t afford to appear courteous. Or thoughtful. Or soft in any way.
Behrani finished parking and turned off the engine. Lester picked his pistol up off the floor, then pulled from his front pocket some loose change and handed two quarters over the seat. “This’ll give you thirty minutes on the meter. They’re expecting you, so you shouldn’t have to wait.” Lester made a point of looking at the boy, whose eyes were dark and expectant, seeing only his father, and again, Lester wished the teenager wasn’t part of any of this at all, but he was and this was the time to use him.