The second date.
The thought troubled him. It wasn’t that he didn’t want another; he’d had a pretty good time with Linda, but he just couldn’t shake the guilt.
He felt as if he were cheating: cheating on the memory of Madeline.
Remy parked his car at a meter across from the Bowman. The usual barflies were hanging out in front of the neighborhood tavern, smoking their cigarettes, even though the windchill had to be well below zero. The cigarette smoke mixed with the exhalation from their lungs formed thick clouds of white that billowed in the air before them.
Remy passed through the cloud bank and pulled open the heavy wooden door to a blast of warm air that stank of stale beer and age. He looked around and found Mulvehill hunched over the bar, contemplating the secrets of the universe in a Scotch on the rocks.
“Should you be drinking that now?” Remy asked as he joined his friend, removing his heavy leather jacket and placing it over the top of a high-backed stool. “Isn’t it a school night?”
“I won’t tell if you don’t,” the homicide detective said, gesturing for the bartender. “What do you want?”
“I’ll have whatever he has,” Remy told the proprietor as he took a seat beside Mulvehill.
“So?” Mulvehill asked, taking a careful sip of his drink, barely disturbing the ice.
“So what?” Remy replied, knowing full well what his friend was getting at.
“Didn’t you have plans tonight?” Mulvehill said with a smirk.
The bartender returned with another Scotch on the rocks and placed it on a napkin in front of Remy. “Thanks.” Remy nodded as he picked up the drink and took a long sip of the golden liquid.
“Maybe,” he said to Mulvehill as he smacked his lips and set the glass back on the napkin.
Mulvehill laughed. “Asshole,” he said with a shake of his head.
“Coming from you, that means a lot.”
“I know assholes,” Mulvehill said, pointing to himself as he stifled a laugh. “And you’re exceptional.”
Remy lifted his drink in a toast to his friend. “Why, thank you, sir,” he said. “I have at last achieved greatness.”
Mulvehill picked up his own drink in response and they both drank, silently savoring the alcohol and the friendship they shared.
“So, did she show?” the detective asked, finally breaking the silence.
“She actually did,” Remy answered, staring straight ahead at the elaborate assortment of liquor bottles behind the bar. “Imagine that.”
“Imagine.” Mulvehill nodded. “How’d it go?”
“Well, I’m here now, aren’t I?” Remy turned his gaze to his friend with a smile.
Mulvehill cringed in mock horror. “Ouch,” he said, screwing up his face in an expression of pain. “Sorry, dude.”
Remy laughed. “No, it was fine,” he said. “Nice, actually.”
“Nice?” Mulvehill asked. “What, did you go out with my mother?”
“No, that would have been hot.” Remy wiggled his eyebrows for effect.
“Now you’re just getting gross,” Mulvehill said with a disgusted look.
Remy took another sip of Scotch. “Really, we did have a nice time.”
Mulvehill watched him carefully. “Really? A nice time? The sky didn’t open up and rain toads or anything?”
Remy shook his head. “Nope, it was a nice time.” He could still feel the guilt inside, squirming around, keeping company with the essence of the Seraphim, and he hoped his friend wouldn’t notice.
“Then why does your face look like that?” Mulvehill asked, turning on his bar stool to study Remy.
“Like what?” Remy asked, feigning innocence. He leaned over the bar to get a better look at himself in the mirror behind the liquor bottles. “I’m telling you, there’s nothing wrong. I went on a date, we had a nice time, and that’s it. Nothing more.”
“You’re so full of shit you stink,” Mulvehill growled. “I’m going to need another one of these just to talk with you.” He gestured for the bartender.
“I might as well too,” Remy said, lifting his glass toward the bartender.
“So if you had such a nice time, why do you look like you ate a bad piece of fish?” Mulvehill pressed.
“Bad piece of fish?” Remy echoed. “I look that bad?”
Mulvehill nodded. “Something isn’t sitting right with you.”
The bartender brought them two fresh drinks, and was off to the other end of the bar in a flash.
“It’s stupid,” Remy said. He drained what remained of his first drink and set it down before picking up the second.
“Figured as much,” Mulvehill said. “Why don’t you share the stupidity so I can get a good laugh.”
“It’s because I had a good time,” Remy mumbled, embarrassed as he heard himself speak the words.
“You look like you’re smelling low tide at Revere Beach because you had a good time? What’s wrong with this picture?” And then Mulvehill’s expression changed. “This is about Madeline, isn’t it?”
Remy said nothing.
“Jesus, Remy,” the homicide cop said. “Can’t you cut yourself the tiniest bit of slack?”
Remy knew that Steven was right, but it didn’t change how he felt. “I know it’s crazy,” he admitted, “but I can’t shake the feeling that . . .” He stopped, staring at the ice in the bottom of his glass.
“That you’re cheating on her,” Mulvehill finished the sentence for him, his voice low and rough.
Remy nodded once. “Yeah, something like that.”
“You know that’s not true, right?”
“Yeah.” Remy nodded again.
“This isn’t helping you at all, is it?” Mulvehill said.
Remy started to laugh. “Not at all.”
Steven laughed too, picking up his drink and taking a large swig. “You’re your own worst enemy, Remy Chandler,” the homicide cop said.
“Ain’t it the truth,” Remy had to agree.
They were quiet again, the sounds of the bar swirling around them as they sat and drank. There was a tickling at the base of Remy’s brain, and suddenly he could hear a voice—a prayer—ever so softly from someone in the bar. The person was praying for his mother, who was dying. He was praying that her life would end soon.
That there would be an end to her suffering.
“So where’d you leave it?” Steven asked, the distraction an answer to Remy’s own silent prayers.
“We’re supposed to have lunch tomorrow.”
“So you’re going to see her again?”
“Yeah,” Remy said.
“Good. You shouldn’t be alone.”
“You’re alone,” Remy countered, turning to look at Steven.
“But, you see, that’s the difference between us,” the cop explained. “I’m better off alone because I’m a miserable bastard, but you . . . Let’s just say you need a good woman to keep you in check, and we’ll leave it at that.”
Steven was right.
Since the death of his wife, Remy was finding it more and more difficult to control the angelic nature that writhed and churned inside him—desperate to be released, desperate to do what he was created for.
The Seraphim was a soldier—a warrior of God—and he existed to burn away anything that was a blight in the eyes of God. A power such as that had to be controlled.
Steven knew that, and knew that it was the love of Madeline that had kept the destructive, divine power in check for all these years, a love that had kept Remy anchored to the mask of humanity he’d created for himself as he lived upon the world of God’s man.
An anchor that was now missing.
“What makes you think Linda will be able to fill that role?” Remy asked him.
Steven shrugged. “I don’t, but at least you’re out there trying . . . acting like all the other poor schmucks looking for love.”
“Except you,” Remy said.
“I eat love for breakfast and it gives me the wind something awful,” Mulvehill said with a snarl as he finished what was left of his drink. “I need a cigarette and my bed, in that order.”
He fished his wallet out from the back pocket of his pants as he slid from the stool. “I got this,” he said, pulling out some wrinkled bills and placing them on the bar. He gestured to the barkeep and took his coat from the back of his chair.