When I’m done I head into the nearest parking building and I steal a car. I consider a late-model Mercedes, but you can’t steal expensive European cars and sit around in them outside a police station. I go for a nondescript and hopefully reliable Honda that takes me less than a minute to break into and hotwire. I adjust the seat and open my briefcase and pull out a baseball cap and put it on. When exiting the building I hand over the ticket that was on the dashboard along with some loose change to the guy at the booth on the way out. He hardly notices me.
The car I’ve selected is one of the dirtiest I could find. I drive to a supermarket and use one of the knives in my briefcase to remove the license plates. I switch them with a Mitsubishi, then drive to a nearby service station and take it through the car wash. When the car is clean, I drive back to the police station, satisfied I have taken most-if not all-of the risk out of being caught. No risk means no excitement, but I’m not looking for excitement right now.
It is six sixteen when Travers arrives back. It is another thirty-five minutes before he leaves. I follow him home thinking about the list, the all-important list. He lives in a nice neighborhood. The houses aren’t rusting and the gardens are alive. Shiny homes with clean windows and nice cars parked up paved driveways. His house is a single-story place that’s probably around thirty years old, aluminum windows, well looked after. I wait outside for an hour before he leaves again. He has changed into red jeans and a yellow polo shirt that looks like casualwear for Ronald McDonald. He tosses a sports bag into the passenger seat and pulls out onto the street. Over the last twenty minutes or so the last of the daylight has gone, and it’s almost dark now.
I knew Travers was going out tonight-I’d heard the message on his answering machine. I follow him through a couple of suburbs until he finally arrives outside an attractive two-story house in Redwood, where the houses are shinier and the cars slightly more expensive. He parks in the driveway, drags out his sports bag, and locks the car.
A guy, also in his midthirties, answers the door. When Travers is in, his friend-a fellow with dark brown hair and a small, trimmed mustache-scans the street, like he’s looking for something or somebody. If it’s me, he doesn’t find it. Playing with the collar of his lime silk shirt, he turns and whisks the door closed behind him.
They’re having dinner in tonight.
I’ll have to wait a few hours. I have brought Daniela’s crossword magazine to fill the time and to keep my mind ticking over, using a nearby streetlight so I can see. Four down. An omniscient being. Three letters. Middle letter, O.
Joe.
Time dribbles. I look for, but can’t find, any active life in this well-kept suburb, and I wonder where everybody is. Maybe they’re all dead. I polish off a few crosswords before the lights finally come on upstairs in the house and the ones downstairs disappear. I wait another ten minutes until the upstairs lights twinkle off. A smaller and dimmer version replaces them. A bedside lamp is my guess. Travers is still inside.
I open my briefcase. Take out the Glock. I stuff the gun into the pocket of my overalls. Ideally I would like to scale a nearby tree to see, unfortunately, what needs seeing. I’ve seen some pretty strange things in my time, but never this. I suck in a deep breath. Focus on the job at hand. I only have to see it.
You don’t need to do it. It’s my mother’s voice, coming from nowhere.
Fumble with the lock. My hands are shaking. Fifteen seconds.
The house is so neat it looks like a show home. I walk softly through the downstairs living area, pausing at the big-screen TV, wishing there was a way I could take it home. I’d like to take the lounge suite too, if I could fit the damn thing in my apartment. The large rug in the middle of the room ties everything together and would tie everything together back at my place too. Everything in here is colorfuclass="underline" the sofas are bright red, the carpet tan brown, the walls a sunburst orange. I realize I’m stalling for time.
Gun pointing ahead, I make my way to the stairs and slowly start climbing. I keep my feet near the carpeted edges to minimize any sound and it works well. When I get to the top the grunting I hear means any sound I would have made would have gone unnoticed. I stand still and think of the list. Five names. A simple peek into the bedroom will make it four. The grunting gets louder.
The hallway branches into maybe four rooms up here, but it’s the closest one I’m concerned with. I reach the master bedroom where the sounds are coming from. It sounds like somebody is having a pillow stuffed down their throat. The door is slightly ajar. Doesn’t matter. If it had been closed I could have opened it undetected. If not, I still have my gun. I poke my head forward and try to see through the small gap. All I need to do is take a glimpse, and then I’m out of here. Downstairs and into the night, and my list will be smaller. But I can’t see much. The bed isn’t in sight. I lean further around until things come into view.
Suddenly I feel sick. Nauseous. I pull away, nearly dropping to my knees. I suck in a deep breath and try to control the urge to vomit, but I’m not sure I can. My legs become jelly, and my mind is spinning. I saw what I expected to see, but I didn’t count on feeling this way. My stomach is trying to escape up through my throat. I push a hand against it and lean against the wall. More deep breaths, then I hold it for half a minute. The urge to throw up on the carpet slowly fades.
I’m down to four suspects, but it doesn’t make me feel any better.
I hobble to the stairs and grab hold of the banister to keep myself from tumbling to the ground floor. I pause to think about what I’ve just seen. I think of my mother and how she keeps asking me if I’m gay. Is this why I feel sick? Because she thinks that what I just saw is the sort of thing I do?
Something else is banging around in my thoughts too. Something I can’t quite get a firm grip on. I can see the edges of it floating back there, but when I try to haul the damn thing in, I lose my grip on it and it falls completely away. Will it come back if I take another peek? No way in hell am I going to find out.
I raise my hand to my mouth and bite my knuckle. I can hardly feel a damn thing. My hand tastes of sweat. I wonder if Dad ever thought I was gay.
Should I go back and shoot these two men for making me feel this way? I look up at the ceiling and nearly lose balance. My knuckle is still in my mouth. What would Jesus do? It would be rather Christian of me to go in there and shoot them. Abnormal acts like that only mock Him.
What would Dad want me to do?
I have no idea why I even consider his outlook on this. So now I’m standing here with another dilemma. I’m sure God won’t mind if I shoot them, but Dad will. In fact, God’s probably urging me to. I’ll be doing both Him and humanity a favor. But do I feel like doing God a favor? I try to think of one favor He’s done me, but all He’s ever done is take away my father and give me my mother. No, I owe Him nothing.
I turn back toward the bedroom. I can hear Dad telling me that they’re just people doing what people do, and I should leave them be. People are allowed to be happy. Nobody has the right to judge people who fall in love with the same gender. That’s what he’d say. Only I’m not listening to him, because he’s dead, and dead people’s opinions don’t really account for much, and even so Dad is wrong because this isn’t what people do.
That’s enough for the night. It’s time to focus on the positives. It’s time to be Optimistic Joe. When I call in Candy’s body tomorrow there will only be four people to watch closely. It’s getting late. If I don’t get home soon, I might sleep in again tomorrow. I should have been out the damn door by now.