The phone rang and it was Hess.
“I was thinking about you earlier,” she said. “And I wanted to know if... well, I wanted to know... how you’re doing with this morning.”
“I’m hoping for prints off the interior.”
“Well, I am too. What I meant, though, was if you were doing okay now, after seeing that.”
“It got me. I remembered cleaning deer up in Idaho. The way the guts kind of stick together and fall out in one big mass. Hardly any blood. And I thought that was one awful thing to do to that girl.”
“Six, Hess. We’re looking at six now.”
“I know. I just... it really makes you wonder where these guys come from. It’s just pure meanness.”
“Where do they come from, Hess?”
“I think they’re born evil. That’s not a popular notion these days but I believe it.”
“They say these monsters are created, not born.”
“I’m just disagreeing is all. I don’t understand a guy who kidnaps and kills a woman, keeps her carcass but takes the time to do what he did with that purse. Again and again. What do you call that, besides just plain evil?”
She thought. “It doesn’t matter, really. For us.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
“It’s interesting to think about, though.”
“Yeah. It raises some interesting questions for Corrections and Sacramento and police science classes.”
“And for politicians,” she added.
“Writers.”
“Priests and evangelists.”
“I’ll say, Merci.”
“I’ve always known that. Some guys are just born bad.”
“Well. I usually don’t trust things that seem simple, but in this case I just can’t help seeing it that way. It’s what I’ve gathered over the years, is all. You see what you see.”
“Hey, Hess, what if I came over?”
There was just enough of a silence to make Merci wonder if she’d done something wrong.
“That would be great,” he said. “Not much in the cupboards, though.”
“I’ll bring something to eat.”
“There’s a parking space behind the garage.”
Twenty-Five
A quick shower and clean clothes, plus Merci wanted Hess to know that she liked him now, so she tossed the old fast food and stopped for some new. She overbought, then wondered if a guy on chemo and radiation ate much of anything. Fries and shakes, hamburgers, tacos, onion rings, the works.
She was surprised to find his apartment neat and clean, the opposite of Mike’s place in Anaheim. She suspected it was a furnished rental unit until Hess told her so and removed all doubt. They sat in the living room at either end of a blue plastic couch, with the white bags strewn on the coffee table in front of them. Hess left the TV on. The windows were open and the shades up and Merci could see a pale prairie of sand topped by a black ocean topped by a blacker sky alive with stars. Voices wavered up from the sidewalk, laughter, the hiss of roller skates. Then the distant thump of waves followed by a sound like a soft drink poured over ice.
She leaned forward and ate.
“So, where were we?” she asked.
“Evil, I think.”
“I never think about evil. I just think you should be punished for what you do. Wow, these hamburgers are good.”
She looked across and saw that Hess was eating, too.
“They really are.”
“Do you eat healthy?”
“I have since the operation. Before, anything went.”
“How come you aren’t fat? Alcohol is really high in calories, you know.”
“Metabolism.”
“Yeah, and thirty years of cigarettes.”
“Fifty-five.”
“You really are old.”
He chuckled but that was all.
“I’ve got a terrible diet,” she confessed. “I actually like cooking, but not for just me. So it’s stuff like this half the time, decent stuff the other half.”
“You work it off, though.”
“I’m in the gym all the time. God, don’t we sound like a couple of real Californians now, talking about what we eat and what we do with our muscles? I spend my vacation every year in Maine. Kittery, Maine. Dad took me out there when I was little so I still go. Anyway, they don’t live like we do back there. You start talking lifestyle and they roll their eyes.”
“I always hated that word.”
“Me too. And anything with cyber in it I promised myself I’d never use it, now I just did.”
“Same with virtual.”
“Yeah. Virtual sucks. It’s all just bullshit to get you thinking you’re missing something new. So you’ll go buy things. Makes me want to puke. Vanilla or chocolate on the shake?”
“Chocolate.”
“Good. I got two of them.”
“And no vanilla.”
“Not a one.” Merci heard herself giggle, then giggled at the sound of it. “I thought that was funny when Izma asked me if I wanted ice water, then, when I bit, he said he didn’t have any ice or any water. That’s one large creepy dude, Hess.”
“He was holding a frozen cat when I busted him. When he opened the door, I mean.”
“What did he do with it?”
“He dropped it. It sounded like a rock on the floor.”
“God, what a hoot.”
“I was scared. I pistol-whipped him real hard to take him down. He hit the floor like a bag of nails, but after that, he was always real nice to me.”
“I noticed you got his attention. Do you like beating people up? Someone who really deserves it?”
Hess was nodding. “When I was young I enjoyed it. Trouble is, it’s hardly ever a fair fight, with batons and sidearms. You know?”
“If you’re a woman it’s fair. I mean, if you’re up against a guy you need all the help you can get.”
“I doubt you beat many up for the fun of it.”
She looked at him. “True. You’d think I’d do it a lot, given my bad temper and what a misanthrope I am.”
She thought of Lee LaLonde. “I actually didn’t get that much enjoyment dunking the thief out in Elsinore. I mean, besides the thrill you get dominating someone physically. Just to know you can do it. But I got lots of enjoyment out of the results, though.”
“You got them.”
“Do you think I was wrong?”
“No. You might have saved lives.”
“End justifies the means?”
“That’s another one of those simple statements that sort of bug me. But with LaLonde you did what was right.”
“How come you got married so many times? Wasn’t it like, three or four?”
He was about to take a bite of his hamburger. He closed his mouth and stared at her a long beat.
“Three.”
“Well, why three? Wasn’t once horrible enough?”
“Stupidity.”
“Whose?”
“Mostly mine.”
“You mean you gave up a good one or two?”
“All three, really.”
“How come you never had children?”
“Kept waiting. Waited too long. Some bad luck, too. Back when I was in my forties I wanted some. Never worked out.”
Merci thought about this.
“I don’t believe in luck. I think you’re directly responsible for what happens to you.”
“I used to think that.”
“How else could it be?”
“I don’t think you can lay what happened on Ronnie Stevens, for instance. I think she crossed paths with someone much stronger and more cunning and vicious than she ever was. Within the limits of what we’d call reasonable, it wasn’t her fault.”