Hardscrabble Road(98)

He passed his own apartment and looked up at the windows at Lida Arkmanian’s on the other side of the street. The big bank of glass on the second floor was dark. If Lida was home, she wasn’t in her living room. He crossed the street so as not to be directly in the line of fire when he passed the Ararat. He had to pass the church first, and that was all right. The spookiness he’d gotten from it before it had been rebuilt was gone now that its entire facade was lit up all night long, framing the tall new stained glass windows and the broad stone steps as if they were works of art. If he went up the steps and tried the door, it would be open. Tibor insisted on it. There was always the possibility that somebody, passing, might need to pray. They took care of the security problems by having a tandem team of parishioners sit vigil all night. You could come in to pray, but if you tried to leave a package under the pew, it would be discovered before it could blow the church to pieces again. He had sat vigil a few times himself, to fill a gap in the schedule, or because he knew he wasn’t going to be able to sleep anyway. Most of the time it was the Very Old Women who stayed up all night, and who didn’t mind spending the time in a church.

The Ararat was packed. He was glad for the Melajians at the same time he was sad for the days when he could always stop in and eat, because there was always a place at the tables and never much of anybody around he didn’t know. He passed Ohanian’s and considered stopping in to buy loukoumia, or something else he could shove down his throat without thinking about it. He was starving. He should have eaten hours ago. He went another half block, crossed another street, and went another half block again. By now, the street was very, very quiet. It was all residential here. Most of the buildings were private houses that didn’t rent their ground floors out to businesses. He went up the steps of the one that was wrapped up to look like a box of chocolate candy—Donna must be getting ready for Valentine’s Day early—and rang the buzzer.

It was Tommy who came to the door, a book in one hand and a pair of glasses in the other. The glasses were new this year, and he had been very careful to get wire rims, like the kind Harrison Ford wore when he was teaching college classes in the Indiana Jones movies.

“Hi, Mr. Demarkian. Have you talked sense into Grace yet?”

“Grace is in New York playing the harpsichord,” Gregor said. “What does she need to have sense talked into her about?”

“About the name of that dog,” Tommy said. “I mean, it’s undignified. It’s undignified for the dog.”

Down at the end of the long hall that ran past the stair, a door opened. Donna Moradanyan Donahue stuck her head out and said, “Oh, Gregor. Hello. We weren’t expecting you. Aren’t you on a case?”

“Relax,” Gregor said. “I haven’t come to pump you about Bennis.”

Donna relaxed so visibly it was practically the punch line to a comedy routine. Gregor ignored it, and kept coming down the hall toward the kitchen. “I’m looking for Russ, to tell you the truth. I’ve got a few things I want to ask him.”

“Is it private?” Donna asked. “If it’s private, you can go into the study.”

“It’s not particularly private. I don’t care where we are. Would it be wrong of me to ask if you had a ham sandwich somewhere around? It’s been a long day and I forgot to eat dinner.”

“Did you remember to eat lunch?”

“Lunch, yes,” Gregor said. “For that, I had Tibor come to keep me company.”

“I’ve got a lot of dinner left over. I’ll throw some into the microwave. Russ is watching something or the other on cable.”

Gregor turned to his left and went into the door that led to the “study,” which the Donahues sometimes called the “television room.” Whatever it was, it was the place where the television was left to rest, because Donna had strong views on having a television in a place where people were supposed to socialize. Gregor always thought it was one of those things she must have picked up at college before she dropped out.

In the study, Russ was camped out in an enormous overstuffed chair, watching Forensic Files. Gregor had seen some of those programs on Court TV, and although they’d seemed accurate enough, he couldn’t understand why anybody watched them. It seemed to him there was far too much information out there about crime and forensics as it was.

Russ looked up and said, “Hey, Gregor. What’s up?”

“I’m looking for a lawyer,” Gregor said.

“Has John managed to get you arrested? I saw you on television, by the way. Jackman’s out of his mind. He’s going to cause a nuclear explosion by the time he’s finished with this.”