An Unexpected Grace (15 page)

L
ila helped Grace out of the Volvo, and, with ebullience, she hobbled on the sidewalk. Her nostrils flared as she skimmed her nose over an empty Coke can, chewing gum, and ancient spit. She'd surely never been on a city street, and she seemed thrilled.
Woweeee! Ecstasy!
exclaimed her quivering nose.

Yikes,
said Lila's quivering stomach. They were on Spring Street, which was narrow and deserted. The afternoon fog grayed the shabby buildings, which felt like they were closing in on the sidewalk. Without Grace, Lila might never have made the trip to this depressing part of San Francisco. She'd come to find Yuri Makov's flat, though she didn't know exactly where it was.

On TV she'd seen the building it was in—a two-story stucco box the dull taupe of cheap nylon stockings. Three black doors led to separate entrances. On the front wall, three dented mailboxes hung above a row of water meters, and rolled-up, yellowing newspapers littered the stairs to the porch.

Alberto Hernandez, the TV reporter, had avoided tripping as he made his way to the middle door, to Unit 2. Ignoring the drizzle that matted his pompadour and darkened his khaki bomber jacket, he rapped on the door. “Was this Yuri Makov's apartment?” he asked as the door swung open.

“
Da,
” said a man who Lila assumed was Yuri's roommate.

A brontosaurus of a man, he loomed over Alberto. His hair was slicked back from his thick forehead in a European style, and his jowls looked like hams. His huge hands could have strangled Russian bears.

“I'm from KROS-TV. Can I ask you a few questions?”

Yuri's roommate glared at the TV camera. “I have not time.”

If Alberto had been made of weaker stuff, he'd have turned and fled, but he'd stiffened his wiry legs and pressed, “How long did you live with Makov?”

“I not speak.”

“Was he upset when he left for work yesterday?”

“I tell you I not speak.”

“Did you have any idea what he planned to do?”

The roommate curled his beefy lip and muttered surly, Slavic-sounding grunts. He stepped back and slammed the door.

Alberto had turned to face the camera. “Unfortunately, Makov's roommate couldn't provide any information for us. This is Alberto Hernandez signing off at Makov's flat on Spring Street.”

At “Spring Street,” Lila's breath caught in her throat. Dozens of times, on her way to work, she'd taken a shortcut down that street's three blocks to avoid early morning traffic on Van Ness Avenue. Maybe Yuri had looked out his window and seen her pedal by on her bike. If he'd wanted, he could have shot her then. But, clearly, he'd had bigger plans. Killing one person wasn't going to be enough for him.

Lila hurried Grace to the end of the block and crossed the intersection. Ahead was a dreary brown building with three entrances. But there were no water meters, and the doors were chartreuse. Wind blew a ripped manila envelope against the tire of a rusty Ford parked out in front. Beside it, garbage overflowed a bin.

Grace and Lila crossed another intersection, but Yuri's building was nowhere in sight. Perhaps she'd heard Alberto Hernandez wrong, and he'd said Spruce or Ming Street. Discouragement seeped into her as she and Grace stepped up on the curb of Spring Street's last block. But halfway down the other side of the street was a building that looked like Yuri's. They jaywalked toward three black doors and three dented mailboxes.

As Grace and Lila approached, she hesitated. Yuri's roommate could slam the door in her face, as he had in Alberto's, or even attack her. Beastly men, like those breaking down the door in Lila's recurring nightmare, could be hiding in Yuri's flat, and she'd told no one she was going there. She grabbed a clump of Grace's reassuring curls. Though Lila had never seen Grace bark at anyone but Agnes Spitzmeier, Lila was glad Grace was there.

Dodging newspapers on the stairs, they climbed to the middle door, and Lila knocked. No answer. She was about to knock again when a deadbolt turned and links of a guard chain clacked on wood. As the door opened, at her nearly six-foot height, she had to bend back her head to look into the flushed face of Yuri's roommate. He might have snacked on growth hormones. He could have been a giant in a Diane Arbus photograph.

He wore a gray velour running suit, the jacket of which was unzipped to his waist and exposed a chest like a granite slab. Below his neck, a gold chain ran through what looked like a woolly mammoth's fur. There was something oppressive about him; to show off at parties, he might rip phone books in half. He looked like he'd been born to intimidate people.

When Lila introduced herself, his nod acknowledged she existed. But he frowned at Grace as if she were a cockroach and he was about to stamp his foot and make her skitter out of sight. Grace flashed him her most misanthropic glower, and the fur along her spine rose like a Mohawk haircut. She pressed back her ears and let him know that protecting Lila mattered more to her than oxygen.

“May I talk with you for a minute?” Lila asked.

She took his nod as begrudging permission, but his glance at his watch as a sign she'd better keep her talk short. She was glad he did not invite her in because, even with Grace, Lila would not have wanted to be with him behind a closed door.

“I'm one of the people Yuri Makov shot. I was hoping you could help me.”

“I know nothing.” The man's voice was nasal and unpleasant.

“Can't you tell me about him?”

Two mountainous shoulders shrugged.

“What was he like?”

“Smart man. Moscow University study.”

“Did he try to work as an architect here?”

“Nobody want. Must janitor.”

“Did that bother him?”

Another shrug.

“I heard he got fired,” Lila said.

“He tell nothing.”

“Was he mad about anything?”

The man's hand went to the doorknob.

“Please,” Lila begged. “I'm trying to find out why Yuri was upset. Don't you have any idea why he shot everybody? What was he angry about?”

“You people. Ask, ask, ask. Is too much.” He waved his hand with impatience, like he wanted to flick Lila off the porch.

“I need to know. It's really important.”

“He speak nothing. Police I tell. His mother I tell. Everybody . . .”

“His
mother
?” Lila's heart took a running leap against her ribs. “How can I find her? Do you know?”

“
Nyet.
” He crossed his arms over his chest and shoved his hands under his armpits.

“You don't know where she lives?”

“Here she telephone.”

“I need to talk with his family. Please, can't you help?”

His yawn exposed a giant uvula and silver teeth. “Cousin. Near Monterey. Yuri she sponsor.”

“Do you know his cousin's name?”

“
Nyet.
”

“Is his mother near Monterey too?”

“I know nothing.”

“What about Yuri's friends?”

“I am not friend.”

“But he lived with you.”

“Room rent.”

“Did anybody visit him?”

“Enough. Enough. Ask, ask, ask. Okay, good-bye.” Scowling at Lila, he stepped back into his entry hall.

As he was closing the door, Lila asked, “How did Yuri get to the U.S.?”

“Lottery green card. Moscow.” A deadbolt turned with a scraping sound.

A couple walked by jabbering in Spanish. Grace must have sensed Lila's disappointment because she pressed herself against Lila's leg.

“That jerk has the compassion of a turnip,” she grumbled as she and Grace made their way around the rolled-up newspapers back to the sidewalk.

Lila glared at a wooden Russian doll on the windowsill of Yuri's landlord. A kerchief and apron were painted on the squat, peasant body. Red circles represented rosy cheeks. She was a matryoshka doll that opened again and again to keep revealing a smaller doll inside. It seemed like the dolls would go on forever and there would never be an end. Maybe she was a sign from the universe.

 

On the way home in the car, Grace leaned against Lila's shoulder extra-hard, as if she were trying to cheer her.

“I bet Yuri expected the streets here to be paved with gold, and he'd be the Frank Lloyd Wright of California. I bet he was really mad he had to work as a janitor,” Lila told her. “But that couldn't make him shoot a bunch of people, Grace. It just couldn't.”

Grace studied a fly buzzing against the windshield's corner, trying to find a way out.

“Why did he do it?”
Why? Why? Why?

His oaf of a landlord's “ask, ask, ask” came to Lila's mind. She shuddered.

“Yuri must have had a reason.”

Grace eyed the fly, which had landed on the visor.

“I have to talk with his family.” Lila drove onto the ramp that would curve around to the Golden Gate Bridge. “I've got to find his mother.”

T
ired from the trip to Yuri's flat, Lila ate dinner and climbed into bed. As usual, Grace curled up on the rug, as close to Lila as she could get. Moonlight silvered the floor and windowsill. As Lila closed her eyes, wind churned the redwoods, and their cones clattered on the deck outside the French door.

Just as Lila's conscious thoughts were about to turn over the key to her mind to her subconscious murk, something creaked outside. Unnerved, she snapped her eyes open, bolted up in bed, and turned toward the window. She cocked her ears in the dark. The side gate's hinge or a foot on the deck floor could have caused the sound. She could not tell from how far away or from what direction it had come.

Another creak. Her shoulders tensed. Straining to figure out what had made the creak was like straining to understand what had exploded in Weatherby's lobby. God only knew what threat was out there.

“Grace?” Lila whispered as prickles of fear crept through her.

Grace got to her feet and leaned against the mattress. Lila rested her hand on Grace's shoulder and reminded herself she wasn't alone. She craned her eardrums, listened. Something thunked on metal. Or on wood? Lila thought of the thugs in her nightmares and the psychopaths loose in the world. Just as she'd frozen in fear in her Weatherby cubicle, she stiffened against the headboard.

When something crashed on the deck, Grace managed to lunge at the French door despite her injured leg. She barked like a person screaming, red faced, through a bullhorn. She rose on her hind legs and snarled as if a rabid tiger had sprung over the railing. As Lila pressed her pillow against her chest, Grace limped to the window and looked outside. Whatever she saw upset her more, because she yowled like she might break the glass and dive into the backyard.

A scream lodged in Lila's throat. No one would hear her. She couldn't fight off anyone with her injured arm. If someone wanted to kill her, she was defenseless. Though Grace's leg hadn't healed, she was Lila's only protection.

Grace seemed determined to make any killer run for his life. As she hobbled back and forth in front of the French door, her barking boomed to a crescendo. Her barks ended with raging exclamation points.

Slowly, though, her punctuation changed to angry periods, and she panted between barks. Then, in a diminuendo, her protests quieted to growls and whines, which seemed like parting shots. Grace must have felt her foe had retreated, because her ferocity cooled and she silently shuffled back and forth at the door. When she finally calmed, the room also seemed to calm, as if the walls and floor had been roped into the brawl and were settling down, victorious.

Lila slid back under the covers and tried to slow her breaths. As she searched her mind for what might have caused the creaks and thunks, her adrenaline took its sweet time fading from her bloodstream. Her anxiety lingered.

Grace looked out the window. She slowly padded over to the bed and rested her chin on the mattress next to Lila's pillow. In the moonlight, Grace's eyebrows bristled as they did when she was worried, and Lila knew the worry was for her.

Grace's eyebrows clearly stated that the responsibility between her and Lila went both ways.
I'll always protect you. I love you! You can count on me.

Lila pulled her arm from under the covers and stroked Grace's widow's peak and shaggy ears. “What a good girl you are. The very best.”

Grace sat on her haunches and put the paw of her good front leg on the mattress. She plainly asked,
Do I have to lie on the floor in my usual spot? Would you let me get on the bed?

Lila threw back the covers and struggled to help Grace climb up. When Lila got into bed again, Grace lay down behind her back. Very gently, Grace placed her paw on Lila's healing arm and rested her chin on Lila's shoulder.

As she listened to Grace's soft, calming breaths, Lila had no doubt Grace was watching over her. Feeling safer than she'd felt since getting shot, she closed her eyes and slowly breathed in sync with Grace. In her hug, Lila fell asleep.

 

The next morning the mattress was sagging behind Lila, and something was weighing down her shoulder. All night Grace had kept vigil and not moved an inch. Though it was daylight, she was still guarding Lila. Grace's breath warmed Lila's neck.

She reached back, took Grace's paw in her hand, and ran her fingers over the rough gray pad and rounded nails. Warmth was emanating from Grace's flesh. Kindness seemed to be embedded in her very cells.

“Oh, thank you, Grace. Thank you.”

 

The morning was sunny, and the blue sky seemed ostentatiously generous, as if it were putting on a charity ball. In the pure, still air, the crows were belting out squawks like jazz violinists. No one would have believed that the night before had served up fear.

Lila checked outside to see what might have made the thunk and crash, and she found a raccoon's tracks across the deck and, below it, a broken terra cotta pot.
Perhaps the raccoon had been looking for slugs and knocked the pot off the deck
, she thought, relieved she had nothing to worry about.

Grace pranced into the kitchen the best she could on her gimp leg. As always, her plumed tail was high in the air with eager expectation for the day ahead. Lila made the usual breakfast of high-fat kibble and canned chicken morsels, but this morning she also poured in gratitude and love.

She made herself a cup of pomegranate tea and went to the table. Grace sat in front of her and tapped her knee with her paw:
Here I am! Pay attention! Notice me!

“I see you, Grace.” Lila ruffled the fur on Grace's forehead and took a sip of tea.

The eager paw landed on Lila's arm. Tea spilled on the floor, just where Grace had chewed the brush.

No point fretting over spilled tea. Lila got a paper towel and mopped it up. “Oh, well.”

 

Grace's dog tag arrived in the mail. After Lila fed her a celebratory hot dog, she worked the tiny heart's metal loop onto Grace's collar and gently buckled it around her neck, which had healed so new fur almost completely covered the scars. Grace must have liked the tag because she panted and smiled. As she shifted her weight, the heart made a pleasant clink against her collar's buckle.

From then on, the clink reminded Lila of her and Grace's connection to each other. Adam or Marshall couldn't think of claiming Grace if Lila's name was on the tag. It formally announced that she and Grace were a family, and no one could change that. Their commitment to each other was official in the Book of Life.