E is for Evidence

His expression was pained. He touched at the key-board carelessly, a sour chord. "It's gone. I don't have it anymore. I gave up drugs and the music went with "em."

I sat up. "What are you talking about?"

"Just what I said. It was the choice I had to make, but it's all bullshit. I can live without drugs, babe, but not without music. I'm not made that way."

"It sounded fine. It was beautiful."

"What do you know, Kinsey? You don't know any-thing. That was all technique. Mechanics. I got no soul. The only time music works is when I'm burning with smack, flying. This is nothing. Half-life. The other is better… when I'm on fire like that and give it all away. You can't hold back. It's all or nothin'."

I could feel my body grow still. "What are you say-ing?" Dumb question. I knew.

His eyes glowed and he pinched his thumb and index finger together near his lips, sucking in air. It was the gesture he always used when he was about to roll a joint. He looked down at the crook of his elbow and made a fist lovingly.

"Don't do that," I said.

"Why not?"

"It'll kill you."

He shrugged. "Why can't I live the way I want? I'm the devil. I'm bad. You should know that by now. There isn't anything I wouldn't do just for the hell of it… just to stay awake. Fuck. I'd like to fly again, you know? I'd like to feel good. I'll tell you something about being straight… it's a goddamn drag. I don't know how you put up with it. I don't know how you keep from hangin' yourself."

I crumpled up paper napkins and stuffed them in the sack, gathered paper plates, plastic ware, the empty wine bottle, cardboard containers. He sat on the piano bench, his hands held loosely in his lap. I doubted he'd live to see forty-three.

"Is that why you came back?" I asked. "To lay this on me. What do you want, permission? Approval?"

"Yeah, I'd like that."

I started blowing out candles, darkness gathering like smoke around the edges of the room. You can't argue with people who fall in love with death. "Get out of my life, Daniel. Would you just do that?"

20

I got up Monday morning at 6:00 and did a slow, agonizing five-mile jog. I was in bad shape and I had no business being out there at all, but I couldn't help myself. This had to be the worst Christmas I'd ever spent and the new year wasn't shaping up all that great as far as I could see. It was now January 3, and I wanted my life back the way it was. With luck, Rosie would reopen later in the day, and maybe Jonah would return from Idaho. Henry was flying home on Friday. I recited my blessings to myself as I ran, ignoring the fact that my body hurt, that I had no office at the moment, and a cloud of suspicion was still hanging over my head.

The sky was clear, a torpid breeze picking up. The day seemed unseasonably warm even at that hour, and I won-dered if we were experiencing Santa Ana conditions, winds gusting in from the desert, hot drafts like the blast from an oven. It was the wrong time of year for it, but the air had that dry, dusty feel to it. The sweat on my face evaporated almost at once and my T-shirt was clinging to my back like a hot, soggy rag. By the time I got back to my neighborhood, I felt I'd blown some of the tension away. Kinsey Millhone, perpetual optimist. I jogged all the way to Henry's gate and took a few minutes walking back and forth, catching my breath, cooling down. Daniel's car was gone. In its place was a vehicle I hadn't seen before-a compact, judging from the shape, anonymous under a pale-blue cotton car cover. Off-street parking in the area is restricted and garages are rare. If I ever got a new car, I'd have to invest in a cover myself. I leaned against the fence, stretching my hamstrings dutifully before I went in to shower.

Lance Wood called me at 8:00. The background noise was that hollow combination of traffic and enclosure that suggests a phone booth.

"Where are you?" I asked, as soon as he'd identified himself.

"On a street corner in Colgate. I think my phone at work is tapped," he said.

"Have you had it checked?"

"Well, I'm not really sure how to go about it and I feel like a fool asking the phone company to come out."

"I'll bet," I said. "That's like asking the fox to secure the henhouse. What makes you think you've got a tap?"

"Odd stuff. I'll have a conversation and the next thing I know, something I've said is all over the place. I'm not talking about office gossip. It's something more insidious than that, like comments I've made to out-of-state custom-ers that people here would have no way of knowing."