House of Sand and Fog (34 page)

Behrani looked like he wanted to say something, but was content to wait for hours.

“She’s had a change of heart about the house.”

“What does this mean?” The colonel glanced back into the mirror.

“It means you can keep it.”

Behrani’s eyebrows went up, two thin snakes springing out of nowhere. “She does not wish the sale to be rescinded?”

“Yes and no. Only she wants to be included in the transaction this time. No county, just a private deal.”

“I do not understand.”

“Between the two of you. You take the county check and sign it over to her. When the county returns ownership to Kathy, she’ll just let you keep it and she gets some rest.”

They were entering a small business district, passing a clothing boutique, a golf supply outlet, and a video store and sandwich shop. Behrani’s eyes were back on the road, his face expressionless. “She will produce the proper paperwork for this amount? It will be in writing the bungalow belongs to me?”

“Yes.”

Up ahead was the turnoff for Skyline Boulevard and the Junipero Serra Freeway. Lester usually took El Camino Real, but the freeway would get them there faster.

“Are we agreed, Colonel?”

Behrani glanced into the rearview. “Once the county bureaucrats have written the property in my name, I will give to her the money.”

Lester took a deep chest-wavering breath and let it out. That could take days. “Take the Skyline, please.”

The colonel took the turn slowly. He had just agreed to sign over the check, but why the somber, doubtful tone in his voice? It was the circumstances under which all this was happening, Lester was sure of it. It was the colonel’s pride. Lester thought that maybe he should apologize, just explain that he hadn’t known what had happened to Kathy, that he’d overreacted and now would like to put it all behind them if he could. But then he would be offering the captive colonel his bare throat, and a new fear was beginning to move coolly through Lester’s ribcage; the county tax office was fifty yards from the Hall of Justice building in Redwood City, so he would have to let the colonel go in alone and hope he was sold enough on this new proposition just to sign his papers and leave without an extra word to anyone. And what about the boy? If Lester let him go with his father, then Lester would be a lone target on a shelf if Behrani concluded he was better off calling in the wolves than keeping his end of the agreement. And what
was
in it for Behrani to stay in the deal? He already owned the house. All he would be getting in return is what he already had, that, and Kathy and Lester off his back, which he could also get if he called the department from the county tax office and a half-dozen deputies descended on Lester sitting in the colonel’s Regal. No, Lester thought, this was no time for false hopes; the thing to work on was getting back to Corona with the county check, then taking a reading on things from there. And he was going to have to reconsider the tone of this whole exchange; the only thing Lester still had going for him was the fact he
had
lost his temper last night, that he was still armed, and for all practical purposes was moving the colonel and son against their will and they still did not know what he was capable of, which meant Lester was going to have to keep the boy in the car with him once they got to Redwood City, keep the boy as some kind of human collateral, a thought that sent a tinge through Lester’s shoulder and neck. He rotated his head once but his muscles were too tight for anything to crack.

He looked out the window. Skyline Boulevard ran along the spine of hills that divided the ocean side of the penninsula from the bay, and when he first began to patrol this territory, Lester had been taken by the absolute contrasts in vegetation on either side. The land to the west, from the hills to the beaches of the Pacific, was locked in fog and rain and so was thick with forests of live oak, digger pine, madrone, and Douglas fir. And south of Half Moon Bay the farmland was planted right to the shore, wide-open artichoke fields that were such a sustained green, Lester found it almost too much to take in while driving. Lawns came in thick and coarse, but
green.
But in towns to the east, from San Bruno to Palo Alto, the grass looked parched and yellowed. Even the watered grounds of estates in Woodside didn’t have quite the same chlorophyll-rich look as those to the west. Lester’s own lawn in Millbrae was too dry and coarse to sit on without a chair. And it was yellow at the roots. Instead of tall evergreens, the bayside towns were filled with dry shrub of manzanita, piñon, and toyon, plant life that did well in eroded soil.

Soon they were on the freeway and the colonel was driving at a normal speed. An eighteen-wheeler began to pass on the left and Lester could see only the spinning chrome of its wheels through the window. He lowered the pistol between his knees and placed it on the floor at his feet. On their left was San Andreas lake, the start of the fish and game refuge, the water catching the bright gray of the sky. Lester closed his eyes to it a moment but then opened them just as quickly. He still had that hum inside him and it was not unfamiliar; his limbs felt light, as if vapor moved through them instead of blood, and everything he saw had a new clarity to it: the small dots of lint in the gray fabric of the Buick’s headrests; the colonel’s profile whenever he would glance to the left or right, the way Lester could distinguish easily between each eyelash; the boy’s hair, as black as a Mexican’s, his pink scalp barely visible between thick strands, just the hint of smooth brown pigment. It was adrenaline but more; it was adrenaline that had stopped coming in amateurish gushes and instead shifted into a slow feed, the whole body on a sort of molecular alert. Lester had known this feeling from the births of both his children; he’d known it with varying degrees in his work; and now it seemed to come with the territory of leaving one’s wife, with stepping so far over the line to do it Lester felt sure he was about to come up with a pan full of gold or else get swept down the river altogether. And you couldn’t really call it a bad feeling. It occurred to him now it was probably how felons wanted to feel all the time.

The sun had burned through the cloud bank and was warm on his skin through the glass. He was thirsty and wanted a bottle of cold spring water, but he couldn’t send the colonel or boy into a store to get some, and he couldn’t chance all three of them going in either. In the lane in front of them was a municipal van full of Chicano kids, ten or eleven years old. Most seemed to be moving about in their seats laughing and shouting at each other. But sitting sideways at the rear window was a teenage boy wearing a white helmet, his mouth open, his chin wet with saliva, and he kept rocking back and forth, looking directly at the Buick, at all three of them, it seemed. The colonel slowly changed lanes to pass, and the boy began to rock faster in his seat, his eyes following the Buick as it began to pull out of his sight, his mouth nothing but a dark wet hole in his face.

F
OR A LONG TIME AFTER LESTER LEFT WITH THE COLONEL AND HIS
son, I just stood in the bedroom and listened to Mrs. Behrani quietly cleaning up out in the kitchen. I didn’t like being left alone with her. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do and I wished I hadn’t volunteered to stay. Lester had told me to think of someplace sunny we could go to, but all I could think of was my family, my brother Frank and my mother, their faces when they found out I not only sold Dad’s house without telling them, but that all I got was an auction price for it before I fled town to spend it. And then they’d get the whole story: my drinking, the gun, the pills, Lester and the family he took hostage. My brother would roll his eyes at me one last time, then write my name permanently on the expensive side of his internal cost/benefit sheet. My mother would just curse me for good. I felt queasy, like an important organ inside me wasn’t attached all the way. My front shorts pockets were heavy with Lester’s bullets.

Yesterday I was convinced that by this time today he’d be back with his wife and kids, back to his life in Eureka Fields. But instead he ended up committing a string of crimes to sit and watch over me in my drugged sleep while he didn’t sleep at all. When he made the colonel park my car out of sight in the backyard, I came into the bedroom and watched from the window as he leaned forward and pushed his unloaded gun into the colonel’s neck. Lester got out first, stuffing the gun into his pants and covering it with his shirt. And when the colonel followed, the morning sun in his face, it felt good to see him afraid, see
him
bullied by someone.

Your shit is my shit.
But I never wanted this problem solved bad enough to scare a woman as sweet as Mrs. Behrani. And what was I supposed to do? Go out there and watch her like a prison guard? But then how could I do anything
but
help Lester get us out of this trouble, which was really more mine than his?

It was quiet out in the kitchen and I pictured her running down the hill into town to find a cop, tell him everything. Maybe they’d catch Lester on the road, think he was armed when I knew he wasn’t. I let out a long weak breath, and stepped fast into the hallway.

She was still at the kitchen sink. The breakfast dishes were stacked neatly, and she was just standing there, looking out the window, though there wasn’t much to see but the wooden staircase up to the new roof deck that was hers now. I used to like looking out that window while I rinsed a plate or coffee cup, see my small side yard and the drop of the hill into town.

Mrs. Behrani slowly turned her head and looked at me over her shoulder. It seemed to take her a second or two. Her hair was still flattened a little on one side, and I pictured her sleeping in the bathroom, in the tub or on the floor. I guess I expected her to look ready to fight me somehow, but instead her lined face seemed pained, her eyes taking me in like she wanted to understand me before it was too late. It was almost my mother’s look.

“Please, your friend—” Her voice was weak and she looked down and pressed her hand to the side of her head, then took a deep breath and looked back at me. “Will he to hurt my son?”

“No, he doesn’t want any more trouble, Mrs. Behrani. He’s just trying to finish all this, I guess.” I thought about reaching into my pocket for the bullets.

She stood still, looking at me, her hand pressed to the side of her head. I was about to tell her I was selling them the house, but her eyes were almost black, like she was imagining something that really scared her, and I knew what it was.

“He has a son of his own, you know.”

She nodded once and took a breath. Then she closed her eyes and pressed until her fingertips whitened.

“Are you all right?’

“Migraine. Please, I must—” She moved by me and I watched her walk down the dim hallway as slow and careful as an old lady, one hand in front of her, the other pressed to the left side of her head. She left the bathroom door half open and I could see her feet and lower legs as she knelt on the floor at the toilet. I felt so strange, like it was almost fate that I walk over and hold her forehead as she retched her small breakfast, then sniffled and let out a long moan.

“Are you all right?”

She raised her head, her face grayish white. “I must to medicine.”

On the sink was the brown vial I’d emptied the night before and my face flushed as I opened her medicine cabinet thinking, please, please don’t be that one. But there were only vials with that snake alphabet on them, and I wouldn’t know which one she needed even if I could read them. I picked up the empty vial on the sink and turned around, but Mrs. Behrani was up and halfway out the door.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Behrani, I’ll drive downtown and buy you some right now. I’m really sorry.” I saw myself getting pulled over in the car, arrested for yesterday’s slip over the edge at the gas station, never getting back here to relieve Mrs. Behrani’s agony. I would have to walk or run down the hill into town, or maybe their son had a bike. But could she be faking all this to get me out of the house so she could call the police? No, she looked too terrible; she was dragging her fingertips along the wall, then she was in her bedroom and so was I, watching her sit on the bed and pull open the nightstand drawer, take out a prescription bottle. I was so relieved I hadn’t robbed her of what she needed right now, I felt almost cheerful. She dropped her chin as she tried to get the lid off but couldn’t, and I took it from her hands and opened it.

There was half a cup of cold black tea near the lamp, Lester’s I guessed, and Mrs. Behrani shook out two capsules, palmed them into her mouth, then drank the rest of the tea. She pressed her fingers to the side of her head, her eyes closed, her hand shaking slightly. “I must for rest.”

“Okay.” There was nothing else to say or do. I watched her lie back on the bed and draw her knees up. She rested her arm across her eyes.

“Please.” Her voice was almost a whisper. “Close for me window light.”

I did as she said. I went to the window, my red Bonneville parked under it in the sun, and I pulled the heavy curtains shut. I heard the click of her tape player, then that same music she’d been playing when I came here yesterday to talk. I could see her thin arm adjusting the volume, though her other arm was still across her eyes, and I knew this was something she’d done too many times, come to this darkness and lain down on this bed with this music that at first made me think of fairy tales I’d read as a girl, snakes with the heads of princesses, carpets that would fly over black deserts under cold stars, men with long curved swords dancing around a pit of flames. But then a woman’s voice began to sing in their language, high and mournful about something she’d lost, and I suddenly felt I was standing where I had no business being at all, like I was watching a stranger die, or two people making love.

I left my old bedroom and my old house. I went out to my fugitive car, sat in the driver’s seat, and smoked. My head didn’t feel stuffed with wet rags anymore, but still, everything seemed too bright and downy: the sun’s glare across my hood, the way the hedges around my back door seemed to hover slightly off the ground, the muffled and tinny sound of Mrs. Behrani’s music coming from inside the house. But the cigarettes were helping, the nicotine sticking its legs down into my chest like a baby, and I sat there in my Bonneville, the seat cover too warm under the sun, and I smoked and waited, waited for Lester.