Dear Old Dead(71)

She went to the back of the hall and down the stairs to the cafeteria.





3


OUTSIDE, AT EXACTLY ONE O’CLOCK, Robbie Yagger found himself getting tired. No, he was worse than tired. He was confused. He was confused with a confusion so violent and so lawless, it was as unlike his usual state of mental chaos as a full-grown jaguar was like a domestic feline kitten. Back at the Holly Hill Christian Fellowship, they had warned him not to talk to anybody at the center except to tell them what he wanted them to hear. Back at the Holly Hill Christian Fellowship, they had warned him that talking was dangerous, because the devil could just as easily defeat you as you could defeat the devil. Now he had been defeated, not by the devil, but by a girl, and he didn’t know what to do. He had been carrying his sign all morning, up and down, up and down, just like always. Instead of feeling like a soldier, Robbie felt like an absolute fool. Between six o’clock this morning and now, fewer than a dozen people had gone in and out of the center. Nobody paid attention to him. There had been no traffic on the street. Usually, deadness like that made him frustrated. It made him feel as if he were talking to dead air. Today, he had welcomed the emptiness. His sign looked odd to him. His attitude felt all wrong. He didn’t know what he wanted.

The girl’s name was Shana Malvera, and Robbie supposed he shouldn’t call her a girl. Girls liked to be called women now, especially when they were all grown up, which he was sure Shana was. He didn’t think she was much more grown up than he was, though. He couldn’t be sure. She moved around a lot and talked a lot and wore a lot of jewelry. She had half a dozen charm bracelets on her left arm that made musical silver sounds when she gestured with her arm. Shana was always gesturing with her arms. Shana did not like his sign.

It was hot out here. It had been hot this morning, and it was getting hotter. Robbie could feel the sweat on his forehead and his neck. Walking past the small, square, basement level windows of the center, he could see the reflection of his scuffed shoes and his pants legs that didn’t reach down far enough. He’d bought both new at a discount place in Brooklyn, but the discount didn’t seem to have been worth much. He was falling apart. Why would a girl like Shana Malvera, who could afford to wear all those charm bracelets, want to talk to somebody like him?

Robbie had his jacket with him, just in case. He had a stack of leaflets stuck into one of the pockets, printed up by the Life Project Committee at Holly Hill. These had the picture of a forlorn looking young man on the cover and the words, “FATHER’S DAY IS COMING, BUT HE’S NOT CELEBRATING.” Inside, it told the story of how the young man’s wife had wanted to fulfill herself and didn’t have time for children, so when she got pregnant she had an abortion and didn’t even tell him until afterward. Robbie had cried the first time he had ever heard that story, and he wanted to cry right now just thinking about it, but then the confusion started at the back of his brain and he didn’t know. Shana had told him a whole lot of stories that had made him want to cry, and they were nothing like this one. He didn’t know whom to believe.

Robbie walked wearily up the front steps of the center and looked in. There was nobody around that he could see, although somebody would come out if he went inside. The door had an electric eye that rang a little bell in the back just in case all the nurses were busy. Robbie felt in the pocket of his pants and came up with fifty cents. That was just enough money for a cup of coffee in the cafeteria. If he went to the cafeteria, Shana might be there.

Down at the end of the hall, a young woman came out of one of the offices or one of the examining rooms—Robbie didn’t know which was which—and hurried toward the staircase at the back. Robbie did a double-take. It was the same young woman he had seen the night Charles van Straadt died, and she was doing now what she had been doing then. She was carrying one of those paper funnels you put in coffee machines. It looked full and sopping wet.

Robbie stepped past the electric eye, heard the bong, and winced. Gregor Demarkian had to be right. There was nothing the least bit strange about a young woman carrying a funnel full of coffee grounds. It was just his imagination that made the scene seem so strange.





FIVE


1


HECTOR SHEED ATE LONG lunches, talking all the time in that oddly English accent of his that had nothing to do with anything Gregor had ever known about New York, talking about Michael Pride and the center and the Homicide division and the three children his wife was looking after out in Queens. By the time Hector was finished with three pastrami sandwiches on rolls with Russian dressing, two orders of french fries, two orders of cole slaw, six large garlic pickles, and a piece of chocolate pie, Gregor was getting desperate. How could the man eat like that? Why wasn’t he fat? It hardly seemed fair. But Hector Sheed wasn’t fat. His massiveness was all muscle and bone. His appetite wasn’t accompanied by stupidity, the way it often was in movies and books. Gregor didn’t think Hector noticed what he ate. He just ate.