"Fare thee well, Dr. James." I got out and made it to my door without turning back to look. When I did she was gone.

I let myself in and ran up the stairs. Going nowhere in a hurry, I thought as I opened the door to my apartment. All that greeted me was a pseudo-hungry cat. There was a heap of food in her bowl, she just wanted a newer, fresher variety. I ignored her and she lay down to take a nap.

I sat down, enjoying the comfort of the familiar. I tried to sort through my mail, even glance at a magazine, but my thoughts keep churning.

I could have told Cordelia that I loved her, not let her off easy.

Though it was true, it would still have been manipulation. She carried considerable guilt about her father killing my father and it would have been easy to have used that.

The kindest thing I could do was to let her go. She didn't love me and wasn't going to, so all that was left was for us to be kind to each other. Too bad, all this kindness hurt like h.e.l.l. For me, at least.

Congratulations, Micky, now you know exactly how Danny felt. King Lear. How appropriate. That was the line. "The wheel is come full circle; I am here."

I jumped when I heard the key in the lock.

"I could shake you until your teeth fall out of your head. Cordelia had to call me and tell me you were here."

It was Danny. I remained where I was, still staring out the window.

"Where the h.e.l.l do you get off," she continued, "letting us worry about you all this time. You've got some pretty nasty people out after your a.s.s and it's not stretching the realm of the possible to picture you floating out to the Gulf face down. Do you hear me?"

* 243 *

"Danny," I said, finally turning to face her, "It's too little and way too late, but I love you."

"Micky," she said, her tone changing. She came over to me and brushed a tear off my cheek. "I know that."

"You still deserve to hear it."

She put her arms around me, stroking my hair while she talked. "I can't tell you how furious I am that you didn't tell me the truth about what happened to your parents," she said, but her voice wasn't angry.

"I'm sorry. I couldn't."

"Yeah, sugar, I know." She held me while I cried.

"d.a.m.n it, Danny, I keep ruining your clothes," I said, pulling away and wiping my eyes. There was a large wet spot where my head had rested. "How p.i.s.sed is Ranson?"

"Well, yesterday she was madder than an eel on a fishhook. She calmed down a wee tad after Cordelia called last night and said you were all right."

From the grocery store, of course.

She continued, "But the sooner you convince her that you're alive and well and ready to testify, the better it will be for you."

"Right. I can see Joanne Ranson twisted into a knot like an eel."

"Shall we go?"

"Let me wash my face. What are you doing here in the middle of the day, anyway?"

"Stick your nose where it doesn't belong, dear El Micko, and you end up being my official business. One way or another."

I washed my face, but I still looked like s.h.i.t.

Danny took me to her office and left me in an empty room to await my fate.

Ranson appeared about an hour later, nonchalantly chewing on a roast beef po-boy. Seeing her made me realize how hungry I was. She and Danny continued their conversation. Ranson pretended to ignore me.

"Definitely the asylum," Ranson was saying, "Either that or the women's penitentiary."

"Naw," Danny played along, "she'd be too disruptive an influence there."

Enough of this.

* 244 *

"Nice to see you, too, Detective Sergeant Ranson," I said, breaking into their reverie of what to do with me.

"Oh, Micky, I didn't see you back there in the shadows," she commented, taking another bite of her sandwich.

Two can play this game. "I must have heard the rumor wrong," I said. "I heard that you were as p.i.s.sed as a water moccasin on a trawling line. But I knew you could control your temper better than that. That you wouldn't get madder than an eel on a fishhook," I repeated Danny's words, imitating her.

Ranson shot Danny a killer glance.

"You two." Danny burst out laughing. "Here, lunch." She put a sack in front of me. My very own po-boy. I stopped plotting a sneak attack on Ranson's. "I've got to do some work around here. Get along, girls, or I'll call the fire department to hose you down," Danny said and then left.

"Polite of you to reappear, Ms. Knight," Ranson said, coolly appraising me. I ignored her and started eating. "Where did you go yesterday?"

"I took a walk," I said between mouthfuls.

"A walk?"

"A long walk."

"Where?"

"East, I think."

"Mick," Ranson said, leaning across the table at me, "if Milo doesn't kill you, I will."

"Joanne, after all I've done for you." I feigned chagrin.

"To me. You are a major pain in the b.u.t.t, as I'm sure you're aware."

She started pacing the room again.

"I've not had a fun-filled time these past few weeks, you know," I shot back, feeling sorry for myself.

"I do know that. I'm very sorry about yesterday," Ranson replied in all seriousness. "I wish...I'm sorry. Do you want to talk?"

"No, I'm okay. I want you to spend your time chasing the bad guys, not nursemaiding me. I have to get out of 'protective custody'

sometime soon and earn my rent."

"Right. Hutch will be by later to pick you up. He'll drop you off at my place after dark."

* 245 *

"What a glamorous life," I commented.

"Right. Mick? You won't like this, but the gun Beaugez used was the gun that killed Elmo Turner."

"What? That doesn't make sense. That's not..."

"Calm down," Ranson ordered. "It's probably an odd coincidence.

Milo throws it away or p.a.w.ns it, and Ben gets it through some perverse fluke. I doubt that it means anything.."

"Then why the h.e.l.l tell me?"

"Should I let you read about it in the paper?"

I shook my head. Ranson had to be right, it couldn't mean anything.

When I didn't reply, she said, "See you later," and left. I sat around and read law books out of sheer boredom and to keep myself occupied.

Idle hands are the devil's workshop, Aunt Greta had always said. Aunt Greta could go to h.e.l.l, I decided. I didn't want to think about her anymore. That was easy. The hard part was not thinking about having made love to Cordelia last night.

Hutch came and got me a little after six. By the time we got up to Ranson's, she was already there. She hurried me in, then talked briefly to Hutch.

"Make yourself at home," she said as she came back in. "You know how, I'm sure."

"As if I had any choice," I replied.

"I've got to work on some reports," she said, and she went into her study.

I didn't see her until eleven when the phone rang. From what I heard, I gathered it was Alex. They talked for a while. After she hung up, Ranson suggested that it was time for bed. "I'm very tired," she added, with a yawn to prove her point.

"Yeah, me, too," I agreed, though I didn't really want to go to sleep. There would be no one to hold away my fears tonight.

Ranson disappeared into her bedroom after helping me unfold the couch and make it up.

I turned out all the lights, save the one next to me. As tired as I was, I still didn't want to sleep. Waiting is always the hardest part. That's what I was reduced to these days. Just waiting. And remembering.

If Ranson had had headphones, I would have listened to music, even the sixties rock and roll she seemed so fond of. Instead I found my * 246 *

bottle of Scotch and took a swig. Another couple of shots and I would be able to sleep.

A light from the bedroom door fell across me. Ranson stood watching me.

"I forgot to brush my teeth," she said, a tight anger in her voice.

She couldn't miss seeing the bottle.

"I thought you were asleep," I mumbled.

"You'll get yourself into trouble with that. Drinking alone."

"I am in trouble," I replied. "Remember?"

"That's the solution? Drinking cheap Scotch by yourself?" she said contemptuously.

"Oblivion's better than pain."

"Pain will still be here in the morning."

She came over to me and put her hand on the Scotch bottle to take it away. I tightened my grasp and wouldn't let her have it.

She suddenly let go. "Do as you like," she said. Then she turned and left, going back into her bedroom and shutting the door.

I sat still, not moving. Then I defiantly took a large swallow of the Scotch. It burned all the way down. I took another one. Finally, I put the bottle down. Then I fell asleep.

I shuddered awake. I had been having a dream. A nightmare. My father was there. No, not my father, but what death had made him.

Blackened and burned, almost beyond recognition. He led a parade of the dead and dying. Barbara Selby, with blood dripping out of her head, dyeing her hair a harsh crimson. Frankie, with his guts hanging out, dragging behind him like a ghastly tail. And Ben with half his head gone. They were coming after me. Telling me that they would never leave me alone. The final horror hit me when I realized that I was awake and that I knew it to be true. They would never leave me. I would carry their memories until the day I died.

I sat shaking, holding myself. I thought of waking Joanne, telling her that tonight was the night I needed her to hold me. But I was afraid of her anger and that she would dismiss my dream as a result of my drinking.

I got up and paced the living room, trying to get the b.l.o.o.d.y and burned images out of my head, but I couldn't walk away from my memories. I stood staring out the window, watching and waiting for the gray dawn to come.

* 247 *

When Ranson came out of her bedroom in the morning, she found me dressed, with coffee already made. "What are you doing up?" she growled, still groggy.

"It's a free country. I can wake up when I feel like it."

"You look like s.h.i.t. But cheap Scotch will do that to you."

"It's hard to get decent Scotch when you're under arrest," I retorted.

Ranson's jaw tensed, but she didn't say anything. She went into the bathroom and slammed the door.

I sat drinking coffee.

Ranson came back out of the bathroom. "You can stay with Danny," she said. "I don't want you here."

"I don't want to be here."

"I'm not watching you drink your life into the gutter. You want to be a f.u.c.k-up, be a f.u.c.k-up somewhere else."