Bob stopped in front of the house.
Saw the lights in the windows. Listened out for the sound of laughter. Saw all three of them running around in the garden; it was summer and the shower from the garden hose made their own little rainbow for them. Or on some weekday, after a night shift, with the house all to himself, sitting on the veranda and hearing the playground sounds from the Christian Minnehaha Academy, where nothing bad ever happened, nodding to the FedEx driver as he placed a package outside a neighbour’s door on the other side of the road, a package that would not be stolen, not the way it would if you lived just two minutes’ drive further west, in Phillips. Sometimes it seemed like their biggest concern was all the squirrels that chewed at the electricity cables around the house. Once, when the lights went while the Super Bowl was on TV, he’d threatened to get his pistol from the bedroom and shoot them down. But Alice didn’t laugh at his joke, just stared at him wide-eyed, as though she didn’t know what to believe.
Instead of heading for the front door Bob took the steps up to the veranda. Alice had told him not to come around, but when a barbecue has to be returned then it has to be returned. No, he wasn’t here to argue, he’d come to sort things out, make sure things were returned to their rightful owner. Who could have an issue with that?
He walked silently to the veranda door but didn’t knock. Took a deep breath and peered through the window into the living room. The light was on, so was the TV, but the room was empty. He held his breath. In the silence he heard something, something rhythmical. He looked up. The bedroom window was open. Bob and Alice’s bedroom. At first he wasn’t sure whether what he was hearing was an echo from back then, or whether it was real, and now. Not until he heard Alice’s hoarse voice sighing a name that wasn’t his name. A rushing sound spread through his head. He should leave but he couldn’t. There was that barbecue that had to be returned. He raised his fist to bang on the door. The rushing sound turned into a howl. Knock hard and call her name out loud, that’s what he ought to do.
Think before you speak, think before you act.
Bob bunched his fist so hard it felt as though the skin over the knuckles might split. Silence up there now, as if they were listening out for sounds. He breathed out with a shudder and pressed his forehead against the cool glass. Stayed like that a while. Counted. Heard footsteps on the stairs. Bob pushed away from the glass and silently crept down from the veranda. Back at street level he turned up the collar of his coat and hurried off in the same direction he’d come.
Back in his car he sat and stared through the windshield.
Pulled out his phone and went through his list of contacts.
Anne. Aurora. Beatrice.
‘Hello?’
‘Hi, Beatrice, it’s Bob. It’s been a while.’
‘Two months.’
‘Really? I’ve often thought I should call you and suggest we meet, but there’s been so damn much going on at work. Anyway, I’m out driving and actually not too far away from you, if you feel like a visit?’
Pause.
‘Now?’
‘Yes?’
‘This is not a good time. Some other time, maybe.’
‘Of course. Anyway, nice to hear your voice, Beatrice. Later then.’
‘Tuesday next week is good.’
‘OK. I’ll check how that’s looking for me and I’ll get back to you.’
‘OK.’
They ended the connection. Bob closed his eyes and hit the steering wheel. Ants everywhere, under the skin, soap bubbles in the head, prick, prick, shit, shit! The phone rang. That B something, she must have changed her mind. But no, it was from the Homicide Unit.
‘Yes?’
‘Good evening, Aaa-ss. Your esteemed colleague Hanson here. Are you far from the office?’
‘What’s this about, Hanson?’
‘You’ve got a visitor. Seems like something important that can’t wait.’
‘Who is it and what’s it about?’
‘I guess you best come here and find that out for yourself. What I can tell you is that the information from the person concerned appears to be valid and important.’
Bob checked the time. Seven. His working day was over, he could head home now. Home to an apartment stinking of loneliness, dirty laundry, old masturbation tissues and leftover wedges of pizza.
‘There in twenty,’ he said and turned on the ignition.
I stood at the reception counter of the Regency Hospital. I didn’t yet know whether this was where he was, but there are two hospitals in Minneapolis where they bring people with bullet wounds. My city was not regarded as especially violent in this country, but it has two hospitals with specialists in removing bullets. Of the two, this one was closest to Jordan.
‘I’m visiting my cousin,’ I said. ‘But I don’t know which ward he’s in.’
I spelled out the name Marco Dante and the woman behind the counter typed it into a computer. Reflected in the lenses of her glasses I could see the screen flickering. Saw her study for a few moments the page that came up before she answered.
‘We don’t have any record of a patient of that name being admitted,’ she said.
But her hesitation and the vagueness of her answer told me all I needed to know. She probably had a note saying no information was to be given to anyone asking about Marco Dante. Which could mean he had some kind of protection. I thanked her, told her I must have got the wrong hospital, and turned away. I headed toward the elevators and stood waiting among people carrying flowers, their shoulders hunched, anxious looks on their faces. There were no checks on visitors, no barriers, maybe because it wasn’t a private hospital and they couldn’t afford that type of security. No one asked to see my ID, or what I was carrying under my jacket that made it bulge. I entered and exited the elevator on a couple of floors, peered down long corridors but didn’t see anything that might have given me a clue. So when a man wearing white with a hospital ID card on his breast pocket got into the elevator I told him I’d been asked to deliver a set of keys to an Officer Smith who was on guard duty here but that someone must have directed me to the wrong floor.
‘Ah, that must be the man sitting outside 531,’ he replied, and without my asking pushed the button for 5.
I got out on the fifth floor. Read the numbers off the doors as I passed them along the busy corridor. Took a right turn and there, on a chair up against the wall, sat a uniformed policeman. He was staring straight ahead, probably had something on his mind — don’t we all? I slowed down. Fewer people here. My plan was to reconnoitre first and work out the best time to act, maybe when the guard had to use the bathroom or went to get himself a coffee. But as a plan I saw now that it was weak, too vague, it called for improvisation and I hadn’t reckoned on that. I’d thought of my main plan, my big idea, as being so watertight that Dante ought to be dead by now, so that improvisation wouldn’t be necessary.
And in that same instant I realised that this improvised plan was dead too, that I had to get out of there. Because suddenly the police officer turned and was now staring directly at me. Head motionless, neck tensed, like a deer sensing or hearing the presence of danger. The risk involved in going ahead with my plan was too great. I wasn’t afraid on my own account, only that the bigger plan would be compromised. So I walked on. I could feel the policeman’s gaze following me. As I was about to walk past him the door opened and two men appeared, both wearing suits; one was unusually tall and slender. He made me think of a Maasai warrior. They exchanged a few words with the guard. Police officers.
At the next crossroads in the corridor I took a right and presently found myself close to the elevators again. I could see the backs of the two police officers as they stood waiting. I could’ve taken the stairs. Of course. Instead I stood behind them and waited too. Listened.