Fever(59)

She was vivid to him in every detail; her whole body shimmered and glowed as if she were encased in a kind of haloed bubble. He sat up and reached for her again, whispering her name. And again she backed away.

“Don’t do this,” she said.

“I won’t,” he said. “No one else. Just you.”

“Please don’t do this.”

“You’re the only woman I’ll ever love.”

“No more,” she said, “no more.”

“I don’t need anybody but you.”

“Don’t keep doing this to yourself, Jake. Promise me—please!”

He said, “I don’t know if I can,” and as soon as the words were out the shimmery glow began to fade, she began to fade until he couldn’t see her clearly any longer. He jumped out of the dream bed, his arms clutching emptiness. By then she was gone.

He woke up shaking. All the bedclothes were on the floor and the room was like a cavern of ice. He got the blankets up and over him and lay there afraid to close his eyes again, because when he did he knew he would see her in the same soft, fading focus as before.

“I don’t need anybody but you,” he said aloud. “I don’t need anybody.”

Lies.

Don’t keep doing this to yourself, Jake. No more, no more.





21





JAKE RUNYON




In the morning he had himself under control again. Emotions in check, his professionalism hard-wired back into place. The fever of last night, the past week, had burned itself out; the disturbing sense that he might be cracking up was gone. There wouldn’t be any more episodes, he’d see to that. He’d keep on functioning as he had been for nearly two years now, doing the job he’d been trained to do, existing in the moment. There was no other way. Opening himself up the way he had last night was like opening a vein and watching himself bleed to death.

The order of business today was the Youngblood pro bono case. He hadn’t been paying enough attention to it. Focus on it, get it wrapped up, move on to the next. Youngblood’s mother, sitting alone in that empty house of hers after her work, worrying, waiting for word—he owed her a quick resolution.

On the way up Nineteenth Avenue and through the park, he thought about what Bill had told him yesterdy. Youngblood’s ten-thousand-dollar borrow from Nick Kinsella, and the eighty-five hundred he’d laid on Kinsella three days ago to cover two-thirds of what he owed. Where’d it come from? Not from another loan shark; Bill was right about that. A friend? None of Youngblood’s friends seemed to have that kind of money lying around. His mother? Same thing. Brandy?

Find out more about Brandy. He should’ve done that by now. Drag it out of Youngblood, if he couldn’t get the information anywhere else.

First things first: Verna Washington.

The Lake Street apartment building where she lived was old San Francisco—cornices, bay windows, ornate stucco facade painted a pale salmon color. Three stories, four apartments each on the first two floors, two big flats on the top floor. Verna Washington lived in one of the apartments, second floor rear. When he rang the bell this time, he got an intercom response.

She was willing to talk to him. Buzzed him in, looked at his license through the peephole in her door, took the chain off, and let him inside. The apartment was cluttered, the furniture a weird mixture of old wood, fifties tubular chrome, and sixties bean-bag. One wall was painted black; the others were different shades of blue. Posters hung everywhere, most of them the restaurant-and-food variety, a few music-related. Rap music played, not too loudly, from an iPod on a glass-topped table. He tuned it out.

She stood with her hands on her hips, looking him over, smiling a little. Dré Janssen had called her “funky”; it was as good a word as any. She was small and round-faced, her hair done in uneven cornrows and colored an off-red, a small gold ring looped through one nostril, rings on all her fingers, and jangly bracelets on both wrists. Some kind of patterned caftan-type garment, African probably, covered her body from her neck to her bare feet. Her toenails were painted a violent purple. If she ever walked out of the kitchen at Bon Chance looking like she did now, there’d probably be a riot.

“Brian’s in some trouble,” he told her. “Could be big trouble. That’s why I’m here.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“I’m trying to find out.”

“Well, you won’t find out much from me. I haven’t seen or talked to the man in more than two years.”

“In touch with any of his friends?”

“Nope. Only met a couple and we don’t hang in the same places.”