I entered the fenced yard from a side gate and made my way to the front door. I was surprised when Frank answered the door himself.
“Where’s your baby-sitter?” I asked.
“The department can’t keep somebody on a duty like that forever. I don’t think I was the target anyway. You’re the one we need to keep an eye on. Come on in.”
He was moving a little slowly as he led me toward the back of the house, but his steps weren’t those of someone feeling weak or pain-ridden.
“You’re really making progress,” I said.
“Getting damned impatient with it all.”
“Hey, a few days ago you scared the hell out of me. You could use a little boredom.”
“Life has been anything but dull around you, Irene.”
“Thanks, I think.”
He took me out the back door onto a wooden deck. The yard was very private, another rarity in houses near the beach. Latticework over the deck was covered with honeysuckle vines. Beyond the deck was a winding brick pathway cheerfully bordered by poppies and other colorful flowers. In one corner, another deck began, shielded from view between the garage and back fence, where a willow grew. Tall plants of various kinds grew along the side fences. It was a green and peaceful place. Somehow I had not pictured Frank having this kind of yard.
As if reading my mind, he said, “I like working out here. It’s where I spend a lot of my spare time. A little world of my own, I guess.”
“It’s great,” I said.
We sat down in a couple of redwood chairs. He had put out a small cooler with some white wine in it. He poured out a couple of glasses and we drank and ate our sandwiches. Again there was that comfortable silence between us, and I felt my anxiety about talking to him about my plans for the evening ebbing.
“I’m going to the Hollingsworth fund-raiser tonight,” I began.
He looked up over his wineglass, but didn’t say anything.
“I’m going with Guy St. Germain.”
Suddenly he put the glass down and started laughing, holding the side with the cracked ribs and saying, “Oh, God, that hurts.” But still laughing.
“I don’t suppose you’d mind letting me in on the joke?”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I can’t tell you unless you promise not to be mad.”
“Anything given an introduction like that is bound to infuriate me, so I won’t make a promise I can’t keep.”
“Not worth any fury. Pete told me you were going out with someone tonight.”
I could feel my temperature rising, even though I had half-expected Pete would talk. “And?” I said, trying to control my temper.
“Well, he told me he didn’t think you’d tell me that you were going out, and that if you did, you wouldn’t tell me who you were going out with or where.”
“And what did you tell Pete?”
“It’s not important. Thanks for telling me.”
“What do you mean, it’s not important? What the hell did you tell him? I know there’s more to this than you’ve told me so far.”
“Well,” he said, hesitating, “we made sort of a bet.”
“Sort of a bet, or a bet?”
“A bet, sort of.”
“And the bet was?”
“He bet that you wouldn’t tell me. I bet that you would.”
I could feel my face flushing with anger.
“You’re a cocky son of a bitch, you know that?”
“I can’t believe you’re angry over this. I just stated my trust in your openness.”
“What kind of a simpleminded bimbo do you take me for? I didn’t just fall off the turnip truck, Frank. You weren’t betting on my openness. You were betting on-shall we say, your degree of influence over me?”
“Excuse me, Irene, but nobody can have a damn dime’s worth of influence over you. Goddamn, you are stubborn. I’ve never met a more hardheaded woman in my entire life.”
We were silent again, only this time we weren’t at all at ease. An explosive tension hung between us. We stopped looking one another in the eye. I didn’t just want to stomp off, and I didn’t want to stay there avoiding eye contact. It would have been nice to have been able to vanish into thin air. It was a standoff, all right.
“I’d better be getting back to the paper,” I said, but regretted the words as I spoke them.
“Fine.”
The Arctic Circle was warmer in December than that one word in June. I decided to try again.
“Frank, I’m sorry if I lost my temper. I just wish every cop in Las Piernas wasn’t briefed on our every move. I don’t want this to be some kind of game.”
“And you think I do?”
This steamed me. He was not cooperating. I decided I would get up and leave. Any minute, I was really going to do it. I was going to stand up and walk out and-and then what? Go to a political bash with Guy St. Germain? I didn’t want to leave things like this with Frank.
“I apologize,” I said, speaking two words I find very hard to say in these situations. “I know you don’t think of this as a game either.”
I could see the mollification process going on, and wasn’t going to step in and screw it up. I waited.
“Who is this Guy St. Germain, anyway?” he said gruffly, then softened his tone a little when he added, “I mean, do you know him very well?”
“Not really. He’s a former hockey player who’s now a vice president at the Bank of Las Piernas. I met him the other day when I went into the bank to follow up on something in O’Connor’s computer notes.”
“How does a hockey player get into banking?”
“I don’t know. We talked hockey, not banking.”
“You’re a hockey fan? Isn’t it kind of a violent sport?”
I counted to ten. In between numbers, I told myself: He is just like the zillion or so other people you run into all the time, Irene. Probably a football or boxing fan who has never watched any part of a hockey game except a ten-second clip of a fight on a television newscast. He doesn’t know hockey. Yes, it did feel like a cheap shot. Keep cool.
What I said was, “Yes, I’m an avid hockey fan.”
Quiet again. Not as bad as the previous silence. I heard him exhale. Good, he was still breathing.
“Well, I guess I’m out of sorts,” he said at last. “I’m not trying to pry about Mr. St. Germain. I just want to make sure you’re safe. I don’t trust strangers around you right now.”
“I’m going to this dinner as a reporter, Frank. Guy St. Germain and I had a friendly conversation about hockey and a brief talk about one of the employees at the bank, and he followed it up with an invitation to sit next to him at this dinner. Neither one of us is really looking forward to the fund-raiser, and we each thought it would be nice to sit next to someone we would enjoy talking to.”
“You have every right to go out with anyone you care to go out with. I’m not jealous,” he said, “just concerned.”
Yeah, right, I thought, looking skyward to see if pigs could fly after all. Aloud I said, “I’m glad you’re concerned, Frank. But I don’t think you need to worry.”
“When is hockey season?”
I thought it was a weird question, but decided to roll with it. “The pros will start up again in the fall. You can find amateur games around here all year long.”
He was quiet for a minute.
“Well, maybe you can take me to a game sometime and try to explain it to me.”
“Sure, I’d like that,” I said, feeling relieved.
All the same, he looked a little down. And tired. I decided to let him work through it on his own. Sometimes I actually do know when to shut up.
“I guess I better let you get some rest,” I said. I gathered up the paper wrappers and other odds and ends from lunch, and stood up. His ribs made it a little hard for him to stand up again, but I didn’t want to fuss over him, so I tried to act like I didn’t see him wince when he rose from the chair.