“Why not? Other people-”
She signed it: “You sound like my mother”.
He gave her a look and took both hands from the wheel. “Other people do it,” he signed. “Why don't you? Then”-the car began to drift and he made a quick grab for the wheel-“then we could talk,” he said aloud, his eyes darting to the rearview mirror.
“We are talking.”
“You know what I mean.”
“No,” she said. “No, I don't. You mean I have to talk on your terms, in your language, is that what it is?”
“It's just that it could be better, that's all I'm saying.”
“Listen,” she said, “even if I wanted to let somebody open up my head, and I don't-would you want somebody to open up yours? Even if I did, even if I could hear something, anything, the best things in the world-music, my own lover's voice, your voice-I wouldn't do it. This is me. If I could hear, even for an hour, a minute, I'd be somebody different. You understand what I'm saying?”
He nodded, but his eyes had that vague look, as if she were speaking in some foreign language, and then he snatched them away and focused on the car ahead of him. Maybe he hadn't heard her properly, maybe that was it. Whenever she got passionate, whenever she got wound up, she tended to garble her words. She repeated herself, the whole speech, because her mother was wrong-she wasn't stubborn, just determined. And decisive. Even as a child she'd known which world she wanted to live in-the world she'd created for herself, the one she'd built block by block around her till it was impenetrable-and there was no one, not her mother or father or the nimblest and most persuasive audiologist in the world, who could tell her different.
Now, sitting in the car beneath the tree in the midday swelter while Bridger frowned over the map, she came back to the present and thought of what they were doing, what they were about to do, and felt her heartbeat quicken. There were two Calabreses listed in the Peter-skill directory, an F.A. at 222 Maple Avenue and an F.R. at 599 Ringgold Street. “Which one do we do first?” Bridger asked, turning to her, his finger stabbing at the map. “This one”-she saw the diagonal slash of the road heading southeast, out of town-“is F.A., and this”-his finger slid across the map, indicating a street due south of where they were-“is F.R. Looks like F.A. is closest, but it doesn't really matter because the town isn't all that big… What do you think-you choose.”
“I don't know, it's a toss-up,” she said, and the image of the flipped coin rose and settled in her mind. “F. A., I guess.”
Bridger looked over his shoulder, put the car in drive and swung out onto the nearly deserted main street of Peterskill, and she asked herself why she was so keyed up, so nervous, why her hands had begun to tremble and she was having trouble catching her breath. They didn't even know if the guy's name “was” Frank Calabrese-it could have been just another one of his aliases-and whether or not he was headed for Peterskill, no one could say. That was just their best guess. There was the evidence of the police report Milos had given them “(Frank Calabrese, born Peterskill, NY, 10/2/70),” and the cryptic letter from somebody called Sandman postmarked just up the line in Garrison, and what had “he” said? See you soon. That could have meant anything-he could have been flying to California or they were going to meet someplace in between or go to some crooks' convention together in Arkansas or Tierra del Fuego.
She flipped open the file folder, just to see the words there on the page, as if staring at them long enough would reveal their hidden meaning: “Hey, that thing we talked about is on, no problema. See you soon.” Was that enough? No problema? See you soon? Did they really expect to find this guy waiting patiently behind the screen door on Maple Avenue or Ringgold Street? It was crazy. Everything that had happened in the last month was crazy. And where were the cops-wasn't this their job?
Bridger's lips were moving. He was leaning into the windshield, counting off numbers: “Two-sixteen, two-twenty-there it is! Look, that place with the faded siding. Right there, see?”
He'd pulled in at the curb across the street and her heart seized all over again. She was staring at the most ordinary-looking house in the world, a pale gray Cape Cod that had no doubt replaced one of the tumbledown Victorians in the fifties or sixties in some kind of misguided attempt at urban renewal. There were weathered streaks under the drainpipes, a lawn that seemed to recede beneath an even plane of dandelion puffs, a tumble of kids' bicycles flung down on the blacktop drive beside a very ordinary car scaled with rust. Bridger took hold of her hand, and he was saying something, repeating it: “Do you want me to handle this? Because you can stay here if you want-it's probably nothing anyway, right?”
“I'm going.” She reached for the door handle, but he hadn't let go of her hand.
“But we need a plan here,” he said. His features were pinched, his eyes staring wide. He was trying to be cool, she could see that, but he was as agitated as she was. “If it “is” him in there, and chances are it's not, I know-we have to just back away, I mean, “run,” and I'll call the police on my cell. Okay? Don't say a word, don't talk to him, nothing. Just identify him and call the police.”
“Yes,” she said, “yes, I know. He's dangerous. I know that.”
Bridger was saying something else, using his hands now to underscore the words. “'Assault with a deadly weapon,' remember? That's in the police report. We do not mess with him like back there in that parking lot in where was it, Sacramento? That was insane. We're not going to do anything like that, you understand? Just identify him and call for help. Period.”
The sky had closed up, and as she slid out of the car and crossed the street with Bridger, feeling light-headed, the first few spatters of rain began to darken the pavement. At the last moment, when they'd already started up the walk, she wanted to hang back, reconnoiter the place-or the joint, case the joint: isn't that what they said in the old movies? — but then they were on the porch and Bridger was knocking at the screen door and there was a dog there, a shih tzu, all done up in ribbons, and it was showing the dark cavern of its mouth, barking. A moment later a woman appeared behind the screen, not a pretty woman, not young and dark-eyed and stylish, but the sort of woman who'd live in a house like this and find the time to tie ribbons in her little dog's hair.
Bridger did the talking. Was this Frank Calabrese's house, by any chance? No? Did she know-oh, the “F” stood for Frances, Frances Annie? Uh-huh, uh-huh. He was nodding. Frank, the woman thought-and she didn't know him, they weren't related-lived over on Union or Ringgold, one of those streets on the other side of the park.
It was raining heavily by the time they got to Ringgold Street, dark panels of water scrolling across the windshield, the pavement glistening, the gutters already running full. The house Bridger pulled up in front of wasn't appreciably different from the one they'd just left, except there were no bicycles out front and the car parked in the drive was a newer, more expensive model (but not a Mercedes and not wine red). And what had she expected, to see the thing sitting there sparkling in the rain with its California dealer's logo framed neatly in the license-plate holder? She felt deflated. Felt depressed. This time she stayed in the car while Bridger hustled up the walk, his shirt soaked through and a newspaper fanned out over his head. She saw him at the door, saw a figure there behind the screen-a shadow, nothing more-and she was frightened all over again. It was him, she was sure it was… but no, they were talking, some sort of negotiation going on, and now she could see the faint pale oval of the man's face suspended against the matte darkness of the interior, a naked forearm floating beneath it, gesturing, and in the next moment the door was shutting and Bridger was dodging his way back down the walk. She reached over to fling the car door open for him.