“Actually,” I said, “we’re married. In a technical sense.”
“Huh?”
I explained that Mrs. Schmulowitz and I shared the same address. As such, any good lawyer (an oxymoron if there ever was one) would argue that we lived together. And that made her my common-law wife. Which made it perfectly permissible, I told the nurse, to be briefed on her condition.
“Sir, I really don’t have time to play games.”
“OK, look, in the interest of full disclosure, I’m just her tenant. But Mrs. Schmulowitz is more than my landlady. She’s my inspiration. Hell, she may be the best person I’ve ever known. All I need is a word. Just one word. Critical? Stable? What? I don’t think that’s too much to ask, do you?”
The nurse sighed, tired of my badgering. “Mrs. Schmulowitz is in serious condition. We’d upgrade her to stable, but she insists on getting out of bed every hour to do leg-lifts.”
I thanked her and signed off, feeling as if one large rock had been lifted from me. Whatever lightness of being I felt lasted about as long as it took for my new, less-than-smart phone to ring. It was Savannah.
“You said you were going to call me.”
“True.”
“I waited, Logan, all night. Then I tried calling you. Because I was worried. Any idea how many times I tried calling? Go on, take a shot at it.”
“Many?”
“I stopped counting.”
“My phone died, Savannah. I had to get a new one.”
Was it the whole truth? No. But being a Buddhist is all about not hurting others. Telling Savannah all I’d been through in the past twenty-four hours would’ve only inflicted pain.
“I’m sorry you were scared, Savannah. I’m fine. I promise.”
She exhaled. “OK, apology accepted.” There was a pause, then she said, “I just miss you, that’s all.”
“I miss you, too, babe.”
There was a pause.
“You haven’t called me that in a long time,” Savannah said.
“What?”
“Babe.”
“It just sort of slipped out. Again, my apologies.”
“Don’t apologize. I like it.”
So much I wanted to tell her. That I ached for her. That I could do a better job, be a more thoughtful human being next time around. But I held back. The next step toward reconciliation was unconditional forgiveness. I was still working on that one.
“I talked to the hospital. Looks like Mrs. Schmulowitz is gonna make it.”
“That’s wonderful, Logan. She’s one of a kind. I hope your cat comes home, too. I know how much he means to you.”
“Why he does is beyond me.”
“I think it’s because you admire his sense of independence.”
“It’s not because of his selflessness, that’s for sure. It’s Kiddiot’s world. We just live in it.”
Savannah laughed. What I needed, she said, was a visit from The Cat Communicator, the reality television show Crissy Walker was hoping to produce at Animal Planet.
“My new client actually works at Animal Planet,” she said. “He’s having panic attacks over picking which shows to produce. He gets pitched hundreds of ideas every week.”
“I can see it now: the guy sits in climate-controlled comfort all day, sipping lattes and having people beg him to make their shows, then wigs out because he can’t decide between Monkeys Gone Wild and The Real Rodents of Orange County? I’m glad he’s not taking flying lessons. I don’t think he’d do very well.”
“Just because you’ve never had a panic attack, Logan, doesn’t mean they’re not real. They can be terribly debilitating.”
Only a minute earlier, I’d vowed to be a more empathetic human being. Now here I was, the same old insensitive me. Bad habits die hard.
“I’m sure your counseling will help him immeasurably.”
“You’re just saying that to placate me.”
“You know me better than that, Savannah.”
She blew air through her lips, flapping them. “What am I going to do with you, Logan?”
“I can think of a few things.”
The phone made a funny beep in my ear. I ignored it. Savannah didn’t.
“You have another call coming in,” she said.
“I don’t have call waiting.”
“Yes, Logan, you do, because that beep’s definitely call waiting. Could be important. I’ll let you go.”
I reluctantly admitted that I was “unfamiliar” with how call waiting worked on my new phone — or any phone, for that matter.
“You can fly the wings off anything ever built but you can’t figure out call waiting?”
“If I were dyslexic, Savannah, would you make fun of that?”
“Of course not.”
“Then why belittle a man who’s cellularly challenged?”
“You’re right. That was incredibly insensitive. You’ll have to forgive me.”
“I’m working on it.”
She told me which buttons to push on my new phone to toggle between calls. I pressed a button, promptly disconnecting her along with whoever else was trying to reach me. The phone rang almost immediately. It was Detective Rosario.
“One of our patrol units located that pickup truck you were looking for,” she said, “the one registered to C.W. Lazarus. We also located Mr. Lazarus.”
I’d fantasized about finding the son of a bitch myself, forcing a confession from him, then enacting with my fists the damage he’d done to the Ruptured Duck. But that wasn’t going to happen now. Life, I reminded myself, is full of disappointments.
“Did you ask him about my airplane? I’m hoping he spilled his guts.”
“That he did,” Rosario said. “But he won’t be talking about your airplane anytime soon, or anything else. C.W. Lazarus is dead.”
Twenty-three
Turkey vultures orbited high above Lazarus’s remains as Detective Rosario and I ascended the hill where his corpse lay under a broiling, late afternoon sun.
Mountain bikers had discovered the body a few hours earlier about a quarter-mile from a trailhead in the Cleveland National Forest where Lazarus’s Nissan pickup with its PCAFLR vanity license plates had also been found. The truck had been broken into and its radio stolen — not an uncommon occurrence these days among vehicles left unattended overnight in America’s majestic outback. Authorities surmised that garden variety vandals were likely responsible for the ransacking of Lazarus’s truck. As for the apparent murder of Lazarus himself, blame and explanation had not yet been apportioned.
“Ever wonder why vultures are bald?”
“Can’t say I have.” Rosario was breathing hard, trudging uphill. “But I don’t think it’s because Mother Nature decided that rockin’ a bald look would necessarily enhance their appearance.”
“No feathers means the gunk that clings to their heads dries faster and falls off quicker after they go Dumpster diving inside the body cavities of dead animals.”
“I could’ve gone the rest of my life without knowing that.”
Rosario stopped and bent at the waist, hands on her knees, trying to catch her breath. I paused and waited for her. She was wearing lace-up hiking boots, faded Levis with her badge and pistol clipped to the waist, and a pink tank top that, without her shoulder rig obscuring it, revealed ample cleavage I hadn’t noticed before.
“You doing OK, Detective?”
She nodded. Sweat beads dripped from her short black hair onto the dirt. “I gotta start hitting the club more.”
The club. Before the days of computerized incline stair-steppers and cardio monitors, they were called “gyms,” unvarnished houses of pain where jocks and those who aspired to be jocks sweated, not preened. You went there to pump iron until your hands bled and your arms burned like magnesium. Nobody went looking to check out the local talent. I’d had my fill of gym workouts after four years of playing wide receiver for the Air Force Academy. Exercise for me these days consisted of a few tortured minutes every morning of stomach crunches and push-ups, followed by coffee and three ibuprofens. Call them whatever you wanted, health clubs or fitness centers, I’d no sooner join one than I would the Communist Party.