A Small Matter (3 page)

As they made the crawl, Vickie found herself
surveying the wonders of the basin as though for the first time.
“When I first met Jack, he took me hiking around here. We’d start
right here at the Dam and make our way across the spine of the
Santa Monica mountains and down through Rustic Canyon all the way
to the Pacific. One time we got caught in this huge concrete
channel in the rain and had to wade five miles in hip-deep water to
get out. I still remember how that channel ran through the
backyards of the Arabs, and how all the peacocks came out and
hooted at us. We also had a favorite place at the bottom of a ridge
below Bel Air--a cave hidden by a waterfall--it was our own private
world.”

“Jack was a man among men. I remember the
time there was a monkey loose in Van Nuys. We think the
banana-eater escaped from some movie mogul's petting zoo up on
Mulholland or someplace. It climbed a telephone pole and snuck into
some guy’s third-story apartment and hid under the bed. When Jack
and I were called in, we got down on our bellies to take a look and
the thing charged us. Let me tell you, you don’t want to be trapped
in a bedroom with a pissed-off monkey.”

“What happened to the monkey?”

“I capped it with my flashlight. Jack was a
little irritated, what with his love of the wilderness, and
wildlife, and all. He’d wanted to capture the small simian by
throwing a blanket over it or something. He was a bit sensitive in
that way, but it never got in the way of him doing his duty.”

“He loved the wilderness up in those
mountains. We walked every trail. Nowadays it’s not the same. The
Getty Museum’s gone in, and the rich have started paving over the
place.”

“It’s the end of an era,” Mulroney admitted.
“When rich producers start moving to the mountains and replacing
nests of vipers and skunks--I figure Mother Nature considers that
an even trade.”

Vickie looked down from her perch high up in
the Suburban at the traffic below her, the cars filled with sharply
dressed office types, talking on the Bluetooth, some applying last
minute makeup, some even reading, as the long slow cavalcade made
its way across the wastelands towards the hill where the freeway
connections could be made. The sight of the people with someplace
important to go made her feel all the more the disconnecting impact
of her present situation with the tumor. “I guess I’m quitting my
job for good. No need to pretend with this leave of absence
charade. Scratch one more departmental Special Liaison Rep.”

“You should quit. That job wasn’t good enough
for you.”

“When Jack died, I went crazy staring at the
walls. The job gave me a reason to get up in the morning, and a
feeling of being needed by my colleagues. But I’ve learned
something--those people weren’t really my friends. Nobody’s called
me since I took the time off. But I don’t blame them. All they’re
interested in is kissing corporate butt, doing deals and making
money. It’s easy to see that, from their viewpoint, there’s not
much deal potential in phoning a dying woman to see how she’s
feeling.”

“They’re morons. They should all be burned at
midnight in some downtown alley. At least they’d serve a purpose by
keeping the winos warm for a few hours. But enough of them. I
wanted to apologize to you for last night.”

“For what?”

“Last night. When I shot the jukebox.”

“You were just being you. Other men would
have simply held my hand, or brought me flowers. You clipped the
juke.”

“May I get away with a little tactless
honesty?”

“It’s now or never,” Vickie said. “What’s on
your mind?”

“Okay. I feel like I ought to get you on
Sally Jesse or something to say what I want to say to you. I didn’t
have it figured for me to be saying it in the middle of rush hour,
but you know, Vickie, we’ve grown pretty close over the two years
since Jack died.”

“Sure we have. I guess it’s because we both
shared the common grief of losing somebody we both loved and
depended on. Actually, if you think about it, we’ve been together
almost every day since he died, if you count the time I spend at
The Lamplighter.”

“Well, that’s right. But last night, when
Dalk gave me the bad news about you--about you’re--well, you
know.”

“Call it cancer,” Vickie said. “Let’s be
right out front with it. It’s cancer, with a capital C.”

“Yeah, okay. Anyway, when I got the news, I
nearly lost it--it didn’t seem fair. I thought, Why is God
punishing me this way? Wasn’t I a good enough Catholic? You know,
I’ve worked all my life, never taken a real vacation, saved all my
money, put together a healthy retirement, paid my house off--all
that--and suddenly I find out that you’ve got--Cancer!”

They’d arrived at the top of the freeway
overpass and were suspended forty feet above the Valley. Mulroney
pulled off the boulevard into a small parking area. Before them
stretched the wilderness playground which terminated in the massive
bulwark of the dam, its gates open wide as if they were the portals
connecting the wild to the Land of the Living.

“Last night,” he continued, “I prayed to God,
if he would give you another chance to live, I’d go to Mass every
day. Or if you needed a body part--any body part--I’d donate mine,
or I’d find somebody to give up theirs--one way or the other.” He
broke off, eyes brimming.

“Oh, Mulroney. Where would I be without my
red-faced, white-haired Irishman?” She unclipped her seat belt and
crawled across the console to huddle next to him. “Believe me, I’d
never have made it through those dark days after Jack’s death if
you hadn’t shown up on my doorstep every morning with your little
cardboard tray of coffees and doughnuts.”

They cried together, childlike.

“I thought we had more time,” he said. “So
I’ll say this now--and God have mercy on my soul--I love you,
Vickie. I always have. From the first minute I saw you, I have
loved you. I will love you always, and forever.”

“Mulroney!”

“Let me finish. After you hear me out, if you
want to tell me where to go, that’s okay. Listen--when you and Jack
got serious, I put my feelings for you in a cocoon and went about
my business. Controlling feelings are a cop’s specialty. Early on,
I learned to put my feelings aside and rely on myself to make it
through tough spots. But in the weeks and months following Jack’s
death, my feelings for you came back out. I couldn’t keep them down
anymore. Vickie, I never said anything all this time, you’re being
such a new widow and all, but it’s been two years, and unless I’m
wrong, I think you have some small feelings for me. Vickie, this
weekend, I was going to ask you to consider marrying me.”

His words were huge, washing over her like a
waterfall. Now that they were said, she realized she’d known about
Mulroney all along. She’d seen it in his eyes the first time they
met. A vast empty space opened up inside her as she saw the truth
behind the last twenty-two years of her life.

“You never married because of me,” she said.
“Your whole life you never married because of me. You fool!”

He grinned through his tears. “I’m some kind
of stupid, huh?”

There was a spirit in the air between them,
charging itself higher and higher before releasing its lightning
bolt which struck her right between the eyes, conveying to her its
message of Solomonic purity.

“Mulroney--you know what I’m facing,
right?”

“I know.”

“And yet you could have kept the lid on about
your love for me, but you didn’t.”

“No. But I told it to the priest instead.
I’ve confessed it a million times.”

“You chose just now to finally convey your
deepest feelings to me--you were planning to ask me to marry
you.”

“Yeah.” His features sharpened. “Will you?” A
tiny eternity passed.

“Mulroney, I would have married you when I
first met you. But you weren't ready. You big bastard, you were
just into being a street monster cop and partying with your cop
buddies. That's why I chose Jack. But I would have picked you if
you had straightened up even a little bit."

"Will you marry me?" he said slowly, one more
time.

"Yes."

It was a small word from her lips, but it
hung in the air a long time, like a free-floating balloon.

“Yes?”

“I’ll marry you,” she said. “That is, if you
still want to, considering everything. And you’re right. I do have
deep feelings for you. I just didn’t know how to deal with it until
now. So, knowing what you know, knowing I’m going to die soon, do
you still want me?”

Mulroney looked deeply into her face. Etched
around his eyes were the lines from a lifetime of command
decisions, but now the lines were unfocused, as though he was a
child. “I still want you...even considering everything.”

“There’s one condition. You have to ask me
properly.”

He quickly exited the Suburban without
closing the door and helped her down before dropping to one knee in
the gravel, the formidable roar of freeway and boulevard like a
giant, languageless choir surrounding their moment, she in her
white coat standing before him like a working class angel presiding
over a large and sorry penitent. He took her hand.

“Vickie, I love you and always have. Will you
marry me?”

Their eyes met and she realized deep within
herself it was more than just friendship she felt for the man, knew
she wasn’t merely grasping at straws in an attempt to avoid the
lonely chill of death, but rather had been offered a life-giving
bouquet at the onset of a chill, desert winter.

“Yes, Mulroney. I also love you and will
marry you.”

A thumping noise interrupted their psychic
embrace--Kilkenney, infused with the scents of wetlands and dank
concrete gateways to civility, was reacting with cattish vigor to
the eternal promises offered by both.

Chapter 5

“Should we just do it?”
Mulroney said, “or should we first draw up a catalog of
precautionary measures?”

They were back in the Suburban.

“Marriage isn’t so simple as it used to be,”
Vickie agreed. “For one thing, we’re both Catholic, so there’s the
matter of finding a suitable priest. I should probably confess that
I haven’t been a very good Catholic--I haven’t been to Mass in a
‘coons age--or should I say a Maine Coon’s age?”

This last remark was in deference to
Kilkenney, who, de-caged, purred demurely in Vickie’s lap, much to
her amazement and relief.

“I know a guy,” Mulroney said. “Father Larry,
over at Our Lady of Grace on Ventura near White Oak. He owes me a
few."

"A Catholic priest owes you a few? A Catholic
priest?"

"Yeh. They're people like anybody else you
know. We became friends when I was in the hospital after Jack and
me rammed our unit into that porn palace on Lankershim. He’s got a
special place in his heart for cops. I helped him out of a jam one
time. Of course I can't tell you about it, what with him being a
priest and all.”

“You have a long arm, Mulroney. And I
remember him,” Vickie said. “He said the Mass for Jack’s funeral.
But why do I all of a sudden feel the cold breath of reality
breathing down my neck?”

“I can fix that,” he said. He hit the radio,
seeking an oldie. He struck gold, The Beatles--She Loves You--the
close harmonies and odd chords reviving their spirits. “That song
will endure forever,” he said. “That was when Lennon and McCartney
wrote everything together in a hotel room or a van. The edge of
poverty--that’s the proper setting for an artist.”

“Spoken like a true Irishman,” she said. She
turned toward him and took both of his big rough hands in her two
tiny smooth ones.

“Let’s make it our song,” she said. “It fits.
You think you lost your love--but--it’s you she’s thinking of. You
never lost me. True, I had to love another man first, but now I
understand it’s my destiny in life to love two great men before I
die. So you never lost me, Mulroney--I was right in front of you
all the time. It’s just that to every thing, there is a season.
This is our season. And this is our song.”

“I love you, Vickie.”

“I love you, Mulroney.”

Their first kiss was soft, as each gave
quietly of their earthly substance, each seeking to discover the
mystery of the other, yet they found themselves still polite, like
houseguests inspecting their new lodgings, moving forward and
drawing back at the same time.

“Wow,” she said. “Soon we will be married, so
I think we better cool it for now.”

His tears coursed the lines of his face, and
the softening of his features revealed him to be more kind than
savage, a trace of the leprechaun replacing the warlike grimace
inherited from some ancient lineage of Irish Kings.

“I hate to bring this up,” Vickie said, “but
in spite of our newfound delirium at having finally connected, if
we’re going to be married, we both have our respective individual
estates to consider--I have to warn you, I’ve got a ton salted
away.”

“There’s probably a hotbed of tax issues if
we marry our estates together,” Mulroney said. “I, too, have a ton.
I recently sold three rentals I owned free and clear, which left me
over five-hundred grand in the bank after taxes, and I have over
five-hundred grand in my retirement account. I own my place in
Santa Monica free and clear and despite the real estate collapse
and all, it’s worth over six-hundred grand easy. The Lamplighter’s
only a hobby with me, but it’s worth about a hundred and a half,
with no note against it. Income-wise, I get a tidy sum from
retirement, plus whatever I want to draw from the bar, which nets
about sixty-thousand a year. Most months, I draw nothing, putting
the profits against the note. So I guess I’m worth somewhere around
a million-and-a-half, give or take, and it’s mostly liquid
assets.”

“You did all that on a policeman’s salary?”
she said.