‘Yes, Alice?’
‘Hi. Got a moment?’
He took a deep breath. ‘Let me see... yes.’
‘I saw the video on YouTube.’
‘What d’you think? Regret dumping me now that I’m a celebrity?’
‘Don’t joke, Bob.’
‘OK.’
‘You probably think this isn’t the right time, but I feel I have to.’
‘Have to what?’
‘Urge you to seek professional help.’
‘As in... a psychologist?’
‘Yes.’
‘I thought you might say that. For someone with a hammer every problem looks like a nail. Heard that one before?’
‘Bob.’
‘I’ve seen three psychologists, including you and that anger management specialist of yours. Look how much that helped.’
‘Bob, I see all the signs that you’re on your way into a psychosis. Are you taking your antidepressants?’
‘I don’t like them.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because of that ugly pink packet they come in. And they make me drowsy. Flat. Boring.’
‘And what are you like when you don’t take them, Bob?’
‘Moody. Angry. Aggressive. Suicidal. And a lot more fun.’
‘Take them, please.’
Bob tried to swallow the lump in his throat. That damn concern in her voice. It always hit him in a place where he had no defence against it.
‘Bob?’
‘I’m here,’ he said. ‘Aren’t you going to ask me for my signature on the house?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘Not today.’
‘Maybe you know I still visit there, the house I mean?’
‘Yes,’ she said.
‘But maybe you don’t know the reason. I didn’t know myself. I thought I did it to spy on you and Stan the Man. But it’s because that’s where Frankie died. What I mean is... it was where she lived.’
Bob listened. Heard the tremor in her deep breathing.
‘Just wanted to say that so you know,’ he said and hung up.
I was headed toward Town Taxidermy when, turning the corner, I caught sight of him. He was sitting on the step outside the store, talking on the phone. I stopped at once and ducked back around the corner. Peered out. Doubted that he had seen me, he was concentrating so much on the call. Even if he had seen me, he wouldn’t have recognised me from such a distance. But my gaze was sharp, and he was easy to recognise in that special coat. A guy walking past the store gave him a second look, maybe someone else who’d seen that video on YouTube and thought he must be that cop in the orange coat, the guy who had made such a fool of himself on live TV.
He sat there talking into the phone, but that wasn’t just any old random place he happened to be, he was sitting there waiting for me, I told myself.
So what did I do then?
Phone booth.
I went back the way I had come. There were still a few of the old phone booths left in the smaller towns scattered around, but this one here had to be the last in all Minneapolis. It stood on the outer edge of the sidewalk and had scratched-up concertina doors that clapped together when you opened them, and a phone book for the sister cities. I fed in a few coins and dialled a cell number. The call I was making was to the taxidermist, Mike Lunde.
Bob continued to sit there studying her face on the screen after he had ended the connection. He missed the picture of her that used to come up when she called. How beautiful she was. And how beautiful he had been in the brightness of her aura. As he was on the point of calling Mike’s number the phone rang. And this time it really was Mike.
‘Hello, Mike, some telepathy going on here.’
‘Sorry?’
‘I was just about to ring you. Where are you?’
‘At home.’
‘Not well?’
‘Tired, that’s all. I finished the Labrador this morning, finally got the eyes right. So I closed up and drove home to get some sleep. What’s this about?’
‘I think I know where Tomás Gomez is hiding out.’
‘Oh?’
‘He’s circling round the place where his family died. He can’t let go, it’s the same as with that cat he wants you to stuff. Just like...’ Bob stopped.
‘Yes?’ said Mike.
Bob swallowed. ‘It’s the same as I’ve been doing with Alice and Frankie. We stalk memories.’
‘I understand.’
‘You said Gomez and his family had lived in Phillips West. Do you have that address?’
‘He said something... I can’t remember, Bob, I just woke up. But anyway, remember, his family didn’t die in that house.’
‘No, but that’s the place where they were happy. Happiness is what we cling to, Mike.’
Bob heard a yawn from the other end.
‘I suppose you might be right. Let me make some coffee here and I’ll dig around in my memory.’
‘OK, I’ll call back in half an hour. Talk then. Wait, you were the one who called me. What is it?’
‘Just keeping my word.’
It took Bob a moment to understand. ‘You mean...? Has he...?’
‘Yes. Tomás has been in touch.’
‘How?’
‘Just now. He called my cell phone.’
‘What did he say?’
‘Just said his name.’
‘Just his name?’
‘Yeah. He hung up almost straight away.’
‘Where was he calling from?’
‘I don’t know, but it sounded like from a payphone. You know, the clink when the coins drop.’
‘Do you have the number he called from?’
‘Guess it’s here in the Calls log. Just a moment...’
As Mike read out the number Bob noted it down.
‘Can you repeat for me the conversation in as much detail as you can, Mike?’
‘Sure,’ said Mike. ‘But that won’t be necessary.’
‘Why not?’
‘I used that app of yours.’
‘You recorded the conversation?’
‘Yes,’ Mike said with a quiet sigh of resignation.
‘Great. Great, Mike! I’m on my way over to you now to hear the recording.’
‘OK.’
‘What’s your address?’
‘It’s quite a way, Bob. Know what, I’ll meet you halfway. There’s a McDonald’s on 2nd Avenue and East Lake Street. See you there in thirty minutes?’
35
Target, October 2016
Kay Myers’s desk was located almost exactly in the middle of the open office landscape of the Homicide Department. Maybe that’s why she sometimes felt herself surrounded on all sides. And longed for her own office. She looked at the paper target they had found in the bubble wrap left behind in the shopping mall. Studied the bullet holes.
She felt Hanson’s presence before she heard him.
‘We’ve had over two hundred calls from people who think they saw Gomez.’
‘Oh yeah,’ she said.
‘Springer acts cool, but JTTF have called up half the police in the city for the opening tomorrow.’
Kay read the text on the target.
Hanson coughed. ‘Hope you’re not pissed that Springer put me in charge at this end?’