Play It Again (21 page)

“Casey.” He leaned forward and put a hand on her shoulder. She pulled away but turned to face him.

“Listen,” he said, “we’re going to be cooped up together for a couple more days. Don’t be so touchy, okay?”

She arched an eyebrow. “Was I being touchy?”

“Yeah, you were.”

“Oh. I’m sorry if I overreacted. But you’re
not
touchy, are you?”

“Look—”

“So I guess if I made remarks about your profession, you wouldn’t mind, isn’t that right?”

“Casey—”

“Because I think that taking pictures of other people screwing without their knowledge, for money, must be about the vilest, sleaziest, scummiest, rottenest thing in the world, and I would think that the kind of brainless, heartless, soulless, amoral orangutan who does that sort of work would be the last one to make remarks about what
normal
people do for a living, wouldn’t you agree, R.J.?”

And she turned away, leaving him with his mouth hanging open.

* * *

The next day was one of the hardest R.J. could remember.

The tension between him and Casey had gotten worse. They ate a miserable, cold dinner with no more than ten words
between them. The high point of the meal came when he passed her the salt and she said “Thank you.”

And yet, that night, he had figured he was in the dog house and went to sleep on the couch. In the middle of the night he opened one eye, aware that he was no longer alone.

She stood there in the harsh light from the window, looking down at him. She did not say a word. He wasn’t sleeping, exactly, but he figured he must be dreaming. The look on her face was soft, inward. Her expression was like that found in one of those Renaissance religious pictures of the Madonna.

Then she raised both arms over her head and slipped off her nightgown. She stood there naked. The hollows of her body glimmered. Neither of them spoke.

She slid down onto him, stretching out on top of him on the couch.

For a moment she just lay there. R.J. could feel the warmth of her body against his. His pulse pounded, jump-started from sleep to top speed in one heartbeat. He reached a hand up and cupped her butt. He dug his other hand under the weight of her hair and rested it on the back of her neck. He felt her sigh heavily against his neck, and then she lay her mouth on his.

Once again they made love, gently this time. When they were done she got up, still without a word, and went back into the bedroom.

In the morning he couldn’t be sure it had happened. She was cool and distant as they got ready for the day, eating her plain yogurt and fresh fruit.

R.J. had always had trouble focusing until after his coffee. He slurped it fast, wanting to say something, anything, to get her to talk, to help him figure out what the hell was going on. But by the time he had cleared his head and was ready to speak with her, she was gone.

R.J. finished his high-cholesterol breakfast of bacon and eggs, had a final cup of coffee, and went to the office.

* * *

Wanda was already there when he arrived.

“Morning, Boss,” she said cheerfully.

“Good morning,” R.J. said, but his heart wasn’t really in it. “Any messages?”

“Mrs. Burkette called,” she said, trying to hide her feline amusement.

“Oh? What did she say?”

“You don’t want to know,” Wanda said.

“Uh-huh. Fine. Nothing else?”

“That’s it.”

R.J. went on into his inner office and closed the door. He stuck a cigar in his mouth, leaned back in the chair, and tried to persuade himself that he was working. He didn’t have any luck.

What the hell am I doing? he wondered. My mother’s killer is out there and all I can do is sit in this goddamned overstuffed chair.

He tried to believe that he was doing all he could. He ran over the list: Uncle Hank was polishing up the profile down in Quantico, Arthur was digging around in Hollywood, and Hookshot’s army was circulating, armed with the composite picture. There was no other lead to exploit, no other opening—but he felt he should be doing something more than leaning back in his chair and thinking about Casey.

The only problem was that he couldn’t think of anything worth doing.

So R.J. sat in his chair for three-quarters of an hour. At the end of that time he’d had enough and stalked out the door.

“I’ll see you later,” he told Wanda.

“Bye, boss,” she called after him, flinching as he slammed the door.

It was raining again. It seemed like it had been raining a lot
lately, like every time he stepped outside. He knew that wasn’t true, but that’s what it felt like.

He dropped his soggy cigar in the gutter and started walking anyway. Maybe walking in the rain would work as a kind of penance, help him put his life back on track through suffering. Maybe it would help clear his head, give him perspective.

On the other hand, maybe he’d just get soaking wet and catch pneumonia.

The rain let up after ten blocks, settling into a light drizzle. Still, by the time he got to his mother’s apartment he was wet to the skin.

He hadn’t started out to walk to the apartment, but that’s where his feet had taken him, and he didn’t argue.

Tony held the door open. “Hey, Mr. Brooks. You’re wet.”

R.J. stepped into the lobby. “Yeah, Tony, I know. That happens to you when you don’t have enough sense to come in out of the rain.”

Tony shook a finger at him. “You get outta those wet clothes, Mr. Brooks. You’ll get sick or somethin’.”

“Yeah, I will. Thanks, Tony.”

On the elevator up to the apartment, R.J. wondered again what he was doing here. He hadn’t come just to have a quiet place to sit and think. He was too antsy for that.

As he unlocked the door he knew he was heading for his mother’s journals again. And it occurred to him that even though he was pretty sure they did not hold the key to his mother’s murder, in some way he felt certain they held the key to solving the turbulence that was slamming through him, keeping him so far off-center. By solving his mother, he might solve himself, and even Casey. It didn’t make sense, but he believed it.

In her office he sat in the chair with a stack of the journals within easy reach.

He reached for the volume on the top of the small pile. It was from eight years ago. He remembered the period well enough. His mother had made a whole series of “business trips” to New York. It had seemed like he was having to dodge her every other week.

And somehow she would track him down, run into him on the street, and force him into accepting her invitations: to parties with her fruity friends, to the tacky, effete Broadway musicals she seemed to like, and to the awful, cloying Tea Room.

He had been busy that year, and yet he had to put things on hold to trot after his mother, and he had resented it. She kept pulling him along, and he kept trying to get away—trying gracefully at first and, as the year wore on, trying any way he could, often rudely.

All in all it had not been the most successful year in their relationship.

He opened the book and began to read:

I feel desperately unhappy about R.J. No matter what I try he keeps pushing me away. I can’t say that I blame him; I have always been a rotten mother, and now I suppose it’s coming home to roost. Still, it’s tearing into me like some horrible carrion-eating bird.

I see him closing himself off from so much of the world—from practically everything except his work, which God knows is not very elevating, and I know he will pay for that later in his life. I shudder when I think how tiny and pointless my life would have been if it were not for the accidental exposure I’ve had to some of the arts. And now R.J. is halfway gone down the same road.

And he won’t let me near him! I’m so frustrated I could scream. I feel like this is the greatest failure of my life—my own, my only son, and he can’t really stand to be in the
same room with me. I can see that in his eyes when I manage to “run into” him—after hours of stalking and planning!

He can’t wait to get away, to be anywhere but with me, and worst of all, I know it’s all my own fault.

R.J. let the book drop into his lap.

It wasn’t all her fault. Sure, she’d been an indifferent mother when he was a kid. She’d had a career, and she’d thought that was more important than hanging around the house and playing catch with her kid.

A kid who was so self-centered he thought having Mom around whenever he wanted her was the most important thing in the world; and because she was out making a living instead, that made her a rotten person.

What a jerk he was. He was still acting like that kid, couldn’t let go of a kid’s stubborn sense that he was the center of the universe and nothing mattered more than what he wanted.

That
was why he had pushed her away: because he had never grown up enough to admit that she had a life outside of his, so he had to punish her. Play by my rules or I’ll take my ball, kick down the playground, and go home.

He had made his mother miserable because he couldn’t grow up, let go of her mistakes—and his own—and let her be herself with him.

And what a strong, patient person she was! She wouldn’t give it up, like anybody else would have—like he would have, for certain. She kept trying, right up to the very end. Trying to get him to wake up, to see her for what she was, to grow up, to let go of all the mean-spirited, small-minded bitterness he had made his life out of.

She would reach out, he would push her hand away.

She would try again, he would push her away again.

He couldn’t open up to her and couldn’t understand that she was trying to open up to him.

And now the same thing was happening with Casey.

R.J. hadn’t cried since he was a kid, and he wasn’t about to start now.

But he sure wished he could.

CHAPTER 26

It was full dark when R.J. left the apartment.

What he had read, and what he thought about what he had read, had battered him.

He thought about his mother, dead before he could really know her. He thought about his life, and what a total fucking mess he’d made of it.

And he thought about Casey. She was right to think he was a—what had she called him?—a “brainless, amoral orangutan.” Well, he was that.

He’d walled off everything inside himself and slid into a dirty business because he had to keep himself from feeling anything or he couldn’t even do his job.

And now he was feeling things, and it was tearing him up, because he didn’t know how to do it. And because of that, when he needed more than ever before just to do his job, to find his mother’s killer, he was screwing that up too.

R.J. started walking. He had no idea where he was going.

He supposed he should check with Casey, to make sure she was all right. After all, he was supposed to be guarding her.

But he wasn’t sure he could face her without bursting into tears and making a complete jerk of himself. So he just let his feet call the shots and wandered downtown along the edge of Central Park.

He was so busy with the turmoil inside his head that he wasn’t paying attention to where he was going. And so when the man spoke to him, he snapped alert with astonishment.

“Can I help you?” the man said politely.

The guy was wearing a bow tie and a white apron.

R.J. looked around him, totally floored. He was in a bar.

Somehow he’d walked into the place without realizing where he was and bellied right up to the bar, still oblivious.

But his feet were giving him a message. He wanted a drink. He looked at his hands and saw they were shaking just a little.

He looked past the bartender to the cool, clean line of bottles, like a platoon of crack soldiers standing at attention on the parade ground.

His mouth was watering. His head was buzzing, and he could feel all the cells in his body calling out to the gleaming parade of bottles.

He wanted a drink.

Oh, God, how he wanted a drink.

“Hey, you want a drink, or what?” the bartender said, tapping one hand on the bar.

R.J. took a deep breath. His head whirled.

“Yes. I want a drink,” he said and swallowed.

The bartender nodded.

“What’ll it be?”

“Nothing.” R.J. turned and walked on unsteady legs for the door. He could hear the bartender mutter, “Well, fuck you.” But he made it out the door anyway, without screaming, without collapsing into a puddle on the floor, without diving back toward the bar and begging for a shot of oblivion.

On the sidewalk he stood still for a few minutes, just breathing. The air was cold and felt half clean, as if rain was coming behind the breeze.

He’d almost started drinking again. Not that he couldn’t handle it. He’d always handled it before.

But this time felt different. Could he really handle it this time, the same as he’d done in the past, if he had a few? R.J. didn’t know the answer to that, but he didn’t feel like pushing his luck. He suspected the answer was no.