The Silent Hour (7 page)

    "Good
morning, Mr. Perry."

    I was
barefoot and he was in shoes, but still I had a good four inches on him, and
I'm not particularly tall. He was thin across the chest and shoulders, with
small hands and weak wrists, and seemed like the kind of guy who would need his
wife to open the pickle jar for him. Until you looked him in the eye. There, in
that steady and unflinching gaze, was a quality I'd typically seen in much
larger men, stronger men. Men who felt invincible.

    "Did
I wake you—" he said when I didn't respond to the greeting. "I
apologize. I'm an early riser, though. Always have been."

    He
put out the hand with the ring and waited until I shook it, until my palm was
firmly held in his, to say, "My name is Dominic Sanabria."

    I
pulled my hand free and stepped forward, out of my doorway and into the
daylight.

    "I'm
sorry you made the trip," I said. "It was entirely unnecessary, Mr.
Sanabria."

    "You
don't even know the purpose of my trip."

    "I
know the source of it, though."

    "Do
you—"

    "A
lawyer named Child probably gave you a call. Or somebody in the Medina County
Recorder's Office, though that seems unlikely. Either way, somebody told you I
was inquiring about your sister's home. That information is no longer correct."

    "Is
it not—"

    I
shook my head. "I've learned the house is not on the market and will not
be on the market, and I've passed that information along to my client. We're
done with it now."

    He
reached up and ran a hand over his mouth, as if drying his lips, and then he
spoke without looking at me. "Let's go upstairs and talk—and I'd ask you
not to continue lying to me. It's not something I appreciate."

    He
walked past me and headed up the stairs without another word, and I turned and
hesitated and then followed, swinging the door shut and closing out the
daylight behind us.

    When
I got to the top of the stairs he was already in my living room, standing in
front of the bookshelf. He slid a Michael Connelly novel out with his index
finger and studied the cover.

    "I
had a brother-in-law who was a big reader," he said. "Not these sort
of books, though. Not fiction. He was an anthropologist. Studied people.
Studied the, what's the word, indigenous types."

    He
pushed the book back into place and turned to face me.

    "He
didn't study me. Did not have the slightest desire to study me, or my people.
Wanted very little to do with us. Oh, he was polite, you know, a hell of a nice
guy, but he definitely wanted to know as little as possible about me and my
associates and what it was that we did. I always liked that about him."

    I
didn't answer, didn't say a word as he crossed to an armchair and sat carefully
on the edge of it. Dominic Sanabria was in my apartment. It was not yet nine in
the morning, and Dominic Sanabria was sitting in my living room discussing dead
men. I wasn't going to require coffee to get my nervous system energized today.

    "My
sister is a very special girl," he said, crossing his legs in a manner
that would have looked effete from anyone but him. "A woman, of course,
but I can't help but think of her as a girl. She's nine years younger than me,
you know. By the time she was growing up, there was some awkwardness around my
family. Some legal troubles that you might recall, or might not. You're pretty
young. Anyhow, my father, who was not without his faults but always loved his
children dearly, he thought it would be best to send Alexandra away to
school."

    I
hadn't taken a seat, hadn't moved from the top of the stairs, because I thought
it was better to simply stand there and listen. There are guys who bring out
the smart-ass in me, the desire to throw some jabs back at them, show them the
tough-guy bullshit isn't as intimidating as they'd like it to be. Dominic
Sanabria was not one of those guys. All I wanted to do was listen and get him
the hell out of my home. Even while that desire occupied my thoughts, though, I
hadn't missed the tense shift. He'd referred to Joshua Cantrell in the past,
and well he should—Joshua was past tense for this world, no doubt. Alexandra
had received present tense.
My sister is a very special girl…

    "They
found a school out east, somewhere in the Adirondacks, cost a friggin'
fortune," he said, "but it was worth it, you know— It was worth it.
Because Alexandra, she was always a special kid, but after being out there,
being around those sort of teachers and those sort of… I dunno,
experiences,
I guess, it made a difference. She was a kind of, you know, a deeper spirit
when she came home. A very compassionate person. She was not as close to the
family as the rest of us were, but that was good. It was good for her to be
around other people. Other influences. Every family has their darling, and she
is ours."

    He
did that thing with his hand again, running it over his mouth, the way you
might if your lips were chapped and bothering you.

    "When
she got married, the guy was, well, a different sort from the type we know.
Probably from the type you know. Quiet guy, real studious, shit like that. Nose
in a book, right— All the time with that. I liked him. He wasn't real
comfortable around me, maybe, but he was good to my sister. They matched up
where it counts." He touched his head with two fingers, then his heart.
"Where it counts."

    Out
on the street a truck's gears hissed and someone blew a horn while Dominic
Sanabria sat and stared at me.

    "I
liked Joshua," he said. "Used to call him Josh, and he never bitched
about that, but then Alexandra said he didn't like it. Joshua, she said. I
liked him. Because I love my sister, and he made her happy."

    He
sighed and kneaded the back of his neck with his hand and looked at the floor.

    "They
found his bones a few months ago, and I cannot tell you how unhappy that makes
me, because I know how unhappy that makes my sister. I feel that pain in my
heart, you know— I feel it for her. There are people out there, somewhere in
the world, who know some things that I will need to know."

    "I'm
not one of them." It was the first time I'd spoken since he entered my
apartment.

    "Probably
not," he said, "but you may be working for one. I believe you
probably are. I'd like to speak with that person."

    
Give
him up!
my brain screamed.
Give him up!
A quieter voice, the soft
whisper of instinct, offered dissent.

    "Mr.
Sanabria," I said, "I run a business that would not exist without
confidentiality. It would disappear if I did not maintain that, and I'd be out
on the streets looking for work. I respect you, though, and I respect your
interest in this, and here's what I will tell you: My relationship with this
client is done. That's a promise, that's a guarantee. I ended it yesterday, and
I will not resume it at any time, ever. I don't know anything—
anything
—that
can help you. I assume Mr. Child communicated that idea to you. I was utterly
clueless when I went into his office, and I remain that way now. Nor do I have
any desire to learn more."

    "Who
hired you—"

    I
shook my head.

    "You've
been around," he said. "You understand that people can eventually be
convinced to share information."

    "I've
also seen how stupid and wasteful all that convincing becomes when it doesn't
produce any information of value. I've seen the problems that can arise as a
result of the effort."

    "You
were a cop."

    "I
was."

    "Cops
tend to feel safe. Off-limits, protected. That sort of thing."

    "I've
been to a few police funerals. Enough to know better."

    "Still
you refuse me."

    "The
name can't help you, Mr. Sanabria. My client is a nobody.
Was
a
nobody."

    "Maybe
you like me," he said. "Maybe you like having me around, want me to
drop in again. That must be it, because here you have a chance to send me away for
good, and you're refusing that."

    "I
like you fine. You're terrific, trust me. Even so, I sure as shit don't want
you around."

    "You
sound a little uneasy there."

    “I
am.”

    "You
sound, maybe, even afraid," he said, and there was a bite in his voice, a
taunt.

    "I'm
afraid of my own stupidity," I answered. "There are people I'd rather
not be involved with, at any level, at any time. You are one of those
people."

    "That
could be viewed an insult."

    "It
should be viewed as a statement of fact. I don't want anything to do with you,
and I don't know anything that can help you. Where we go from here, I guess you
will decide and I'll deal with."

    He
nodded his head very slowly. "Yes. Yes, I guess I will decide."

    Another
pause, and then he got to his feet and walked toward me. Slowed just a touch
when he reached me, then turned and went down the steps and opened the door and
walked outside. He left the door open. I waited for a few seconds, and then I
went down and closed it and turned the lock and sat on the steps. I sat there
for a long time, and eventually a car engine started in the parking lot, and
then it was gone, and I was alone.

    For
more than a week, it was quiet. At first I checked the locks with extra care, wore
my gun when I left the apartment, and held my breath each time I turned the key
in the ignition of my truck. Visits from a guy like Dominic Sanabria can make
you conscious of such things.

    Nothing
happened. Sanabria didn't stop by, nor did anyone operating on his behalf.
Parker Harrison made no contact. I was quiet, too—despite promising Harrison
that I would pass his name along to the Joshua Cantrell death investigators, I
didn't make any calls. After Sanabria visited, it somehow seemed better to do
nothing. Amy and I discussed the situation frequently for the first few days,
but then the topic faded, and soon I was leaving the gun at home and starting
the truck without pause. I'd gotten out of the mess early enough, it seemed,
and no damage had been done.

    "Managed
to escape yourself this time," Joe said when I called to say that seven
days had passed without disaster following Sanabria's visit. "It's good
that you're developing that skill, LP. Without me around, you've actually been
forced to learn some common sense."

    "Aren't
you proud."

    "Not
particularly. If you'd had even an ordinary amount of that sense, you'd never
have agreed to look at the house in the first place."

    "Harrison
assured me he'd been rehabilitated. What else could I do—"

    "I've
sat in on parole hearings and listened to true psychotics insist on the same
thing."

    "You
wouldn't release a jaywalker until he'd done five years in solitary, Joe."

    The
conversation drifted away from Harrison then, on to more important things, like
baseball, and eventually Joe asked after the weather.

    "Warm,"
I said. "The sun's shining every day, and it's warm. So why are you still
in Florida— I'm pretty sure the rest of your kind has migrated back
north."

    "My
kind—"

    "Snowbirds,
Joseph. Men who sit around the pool all day talking about their experiences
fighting in Korea and working for the Truman campaign. You know, your
peers."

    "My
peers." Joe hated the idea of being one of those flee-for-Florida-in-
winter retirees, so naturally I raised the subject during every phone call.

    "Perhaps
I'm wrong, though," I said. "Perhaps you're not part of that group.
Like I said, most of them are already coming back north. So if you need to stay
down there this late in the year, you must be even more old and frail."

    "That
must be it, yes," he said, determined not to rise to the bait this time
around.

    "When
are you coming back—" I asked, serious now. I'd been expecting his return
sometime in April, but that month had come and gone and he remained in Florida.