They tramped up the stairs, through the bedroom, turning on lights as they went, and Will led him out on the small deck.
“Wow,” John said.
It was a “wow” view. This side of Liberty Hill was high enough that they could see over the rooftops of the townhouses across the street and into downtown. Directly in front was a vacant lot, enhancing the vista. The air had turned cool and the skyscrapers floated in the liquid black sky above the trees. The city brooded around them on its hills and inside its ravines beneath the green abundance of the changing season. The Queen City of the West, but the West had moved on. It was still a beauty. The night was quiet except for the steady distant rumble of Interstate 71.
Will set his cane against the railing and eased into one of the two chairs. The weight of the day was full on him now and he had been looking forward to the chance to actually sleep tonight. It would be a rarity. At the moment, he didn’t know if he could even get up again.
“How do you handle it down here?”
Will sipped his beer. “I like it.”
“The riots were right over there. And all the blacks…”
“Oh, John, there’s all sorts of people in this neighborhood. You weren’t raised that way, and as I recall you didn’t like it out in the suburbs.” He took a deeper pull of the Christian Moerlein. “So are you going back to Portland after the summer?”
John said he didn’t know if he would return. He had liked the city but thought college was boring. Will might not have been his real father but he couldn’t stop worrying about this baby who had become a man in the quick-time that was the dark gift of getting older. He had been such a sweet little boy. Then adolescence, and they had lost him. He was aimless and angry, an indifferent student except for music and art classes. This, even though Will and Cindy had skimped to put him in a good high school before Cindy started to make real money at the bank. Will blamed himself. Cindy was gone more and more with work. Some of her positions required travel, and then there were her serial affairs. Will should have done more, but he, too, worked long hours on homicide. John had often been left to raise himself.
“There are good schools here, too,” Will said.
“I hate Cincinnati.”
“Miami’s right up the road. Live on campus. You’d never know Cincinnati existed.”
“Still pimping for your alma mater. You went there with all those preppy snots and became a cop. How the hell did that happen, man?”
Will laughed and John did, too, stretching out his legs and relaxing a bit. Will thought about offering some fatherly advice about college and careers. He wanted to ask about his friends and find out what his plans were, but he thought better of it. He was grateful for the company, and had been the designated bad guy in John’s life for so long that he didn’t want to spoil the moment.
“I’ve partied up there,” John said. “But the kids are so stuck up.”
Will knew that could be true at one of Ohio’s “Public Ivies.” Time to change the subject.
“Those are nice shoes.”
“You think so?” John said. “I bought ’em in Portland. They’re called Drainmakers.” He pointed to the lime green soles.
“How are you?” John asked.
“I’m okay. It’s been a long day.”
“But the cancer’s gone, right?”
Will wearied of explaining the betrayal his body had carried out a few months after he turned forty-one. The doctors had discovered a tumor inside his spinal cord. It was a very rare condition. Luckily it had not been cancerous. They called it “malignant by location”: it would have left him paralyzed. Fortunately, they seem to have gotten it all. He ran through it for John patiently. There was no reason to expect Cindy would have told John the details.
“So it won’t come back, right?”
“Unfortunately, there’s no guarantee of that. Every day’s a gift.”
“You’ve turned into one mellow dude, Will. Letting me have a beer, not even ragging my ass about the pot.”
He was trying to get a rise, but Will remembered being that age, when small things loomed so huge, when a young man’s pride was everything.
“Come on, John,” he said gently. “That was a long time ago. Your mother and I were concerned for your well-being, doing the whole parent thing. You’ll be there someday.” He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I guess you heard about Kristen Gruber.”
“Yeah.”
“You remember meeting her?” Will had taken John to the party thrown by the show’s producers to mark the completion of filming for the first season of LadyCops: Cincinnati. It was the last time Will had attempted to draw John out of his shyness. Kristen had worn one of those little black dresses that night.
“I remember.”
“I’m the lead detective on the case.”
“Back in homicide? Good for you,” John said.
They fell into silence and Will’s mind was back on the case. Henderson had taken her evidence back to Kentucky and Will had stopped by a Skyline Chili to grab a late dinner and update the online police blotter. The Enquirer’s Web site had a long story about Kristen, but also another one about a double-homicide on the Miami University campus. A suspect was in custody and a knife had been used in the attack. He made a mental note to call the police in Oxford in the morning.
“It’s really bad,” John said in a low voice. “Her being killed.”
“Yes.” Will never talked about the ugly details of his work with his family.
“So you like doing the whole TV thing? ‘Police spokesman.’ You’re a celebrity.”
“Not really. It’s the job they let me do. It’s not like I can chase the bad guys any more. So I’m grateful for it.” Will shook his right leg and wondered why John was there. He hadn’t seen him in months. Coming by to check on him was a mature thing. That was good. Will set aside his suspicious cop thoughts, looked into the lights of the Kroger Building, and let his mind swim across memories of Cheryl Beth.
“So are you seeing anybody?” he asked.
John started to speak but only shook his head. Then: “I’ve tried to do scamming, but the girls don’t really go for me. They, like, want to be friends. Not friends with benefits, you know? Like ‘friends’ means get lost. Don’t want to dance with no pants. They save that for the dangerous ones, the alpha dudes. Then they complain because they turn out to be pricks.”
“I’ve been there,” Will said, wondering what “scamming” meant. “At your age. It’ll change.”
“I don’t know.” John chugged the beer and put his feet up on the railing. Metal clattered onto the floor. It was a folding knife.
John scrambled to retrieve it and slipped it back in his pants pocket.
“Why are you carrying a knife?”
“Because.”
Will waited.
“Things are dangerous in this city,” John said.
“Make sure it’s not used on you. And make sure you tell a police officer you have it if he ever starts to search you.”
“Yes, sir,” he said, with sarcastic emphasis.
“Relax, John. I’m not your enemy.”
John sat upright and fiddled with his pants. “Check this out, Will. Now that you’re cool and all…”
John unzipped his pants and pulled out his penis. Even in the ambient light, Will could see something like a small carabiner attached to its head. No, it was more like a crescent or curved barbell.
“What is that?”
“They call it a Prince Albert piercing,” John said. “This is what the chicks dig.”
“That looks like it hurts. Can you pee?” Will stopped looking.
“Not a problem,” John said.
“You can put it away now,” Will said, and John did. Will wished he had something stronger than the beer. He started to ask if his mother knew he had done that with the money she gave him, but stopped himself.