O.k., I might expand this later, but
for now, this is as complete as it
gets. Sorry it's late.
RED HOLT STEELE REDUX
By Pat Christensen
The clock hands moved a fraction of
an inch closer to 9 p.m. Laura Holt felt
her shoulders. They were hunched with the tension she felt. Even
her jaw was
clenched.
Damn the stubborn idiot, anyway!
She tried to force herself to relax.
He was an adult. He was perfectly
capable of walking around on his own. He didn't need a nursemaid.
A
therapist, maybe, but not a nursemaid. Besides, it was his life,
she
reminded herself. If he wanted to throw it away, being a macho
idiot, who
was she to stand in his way? Of course, she reflected wryly, as
long as he
had a spare set of lockpicks, she didn't have much choice in the
matter.
She went back into the kitchen to
check on dinner. Before she even reached
the stove, however, her front door opened and closed again. She
was back in
the livingroom like a shot.
He looked tired, but unharmed. She
opened her mouth, then closed it again,
firmly. He smiled at her, but it was a sad shadow of his normal
grin.
"Your cleaning lady was by,"
he said. "She left a bottle of polish here
yesterday and came back to collect it. Fortunately she had the
keys to those
deadbolts of yours, or she might not have gotten in at all."
Laura sighed and shook her head. "I've
been keeping dinner warm. Come and
eat," she said.
She was half surprised when he actually
followed her into the kitchen and
sat down at the small cherrywood table her mother had given her
when she'd
moved into the little house. She put a plate of crackers on the
table and
then carried a cream-colored soup tureen over as well.
"Don't get your hopes up,"
she said. "I'm no gourmet chef. This came out of
a box. But there's half of a very good cherry pie my mother sent
me in the
refrigerator for dessert."
"Thank you," he said, absently,
as she passed him a bowl filled with the
chicken soup mix she'd heated while she'd waited for him. The
blue jeans
were too short and the "Bankers Do It With Interest"
t-shirt was tight under
his arms and slightly sweat-stained, but he sat as stiffly as
if he was
wearing his best three-piece suit.
"Did you have any luck?"
she asked after she'd served herself. She was
careful not to look at him as she asked.
"No." His tone was so blunt,
she looked up almost involuntarily. He was
staring into the depths of his bowl, not touching it, his face
clouded with
frustration. And something else she couldn't quite recognize.
She took a calming breath. "Well,
Mildred and I didn't have much more luck
ourselves," she told him. "Stonewall Aircraft was closed
today when I went
there with the pictures you took in the park yesterday, so I couldn't
get a
lead on the men we saw. I'm sure they're the ones responsible
for
firebombing your apartment, though. And we're still officially
fired from
the case. Mrs. Stonewall wouldn't return my calls."
He didn't look up or change expression.
She wanted to reach out and touch
him, but didn't dare. "I know your contacts are good, but
I think you need
to look at what's going on now, not what went on in your past,
for the
answer to this one."
He didn't look up. "Perhaps you're
right," was all he said. She stared
across the table at him, totally at a loss for any comfort to
offer.
"How about that pie?" she
said, finally, noting that he seemed totally
uninterested in his soup. He blinked a few times and looked up
at her.
"What? Oh, no. Thank you, Laura,
but I'm afraid I'm not up for anything else
tonight. I think I'll grab a quick shower and try to get some
sleep if it's
all the same to you." He laid his napkin on the table next
to his untouched
soup and rose.
"I fixed up the couch,"
she said. "I'm planning to watch an old Cary Grant
movie tonight, so I thought you'd be better off taking the bedroom
and I'll
sack out on the couch."
He made no reply to this. In fact,
she wasn't entirely sure he'd even heard
her as he moved away once again.
"Mr. Steele?" He paused
and looked back at her. She kept her tone gentle.
"Mrs. Timson's death is not your fault. She was just in the
wrong place at
the wrong time. And there was nothing you could have done to prevent
it."
He said nothing, but the hard lines
around his mouth softened for a moment.
He bowed his head briefly and said something too softly to be
heard.
"I'm sorry?" said Laura.
"I said," he replied, "that I'll take the couch."
She watched him leave the kitchen
and felt somehow that she'd failed him
once again.
******
Normally, during a thunderstorm, Nero
would huddle on her pillow, pressed
against the hollow of her neck for comfort. But the sleek black
cat wasn't
in his usual spot and after twenty minutes of waiting for him
to appear,
Laura pulled on a robe and headed out into the living room.
The illumination from a flash of lightning
forced it's way past the closed
drapes to show her the outlines of her reluctant houseguest. He
was sitting
perfectly still on the edge of the couch, his back to her. He
was wearing
the new robe and pajamas she'd picked up for him that afternoon.
She paused,
wanting to go to him, but sure he'd rather she didn't, and even
more sure
that, if she did, she'd just say the wrong thing anyway.
Still, she was rooted to the spot,
watching the back of his dark head. She
couldn't go to him and she couldn't walk away. She was caught
in this
dilemma when she heard a soft rumble that was not thunder. It
was coming
from the direction of the couch. Nero. Purring. Probably sitting
on his lap.
In the darkness, she saw his shoulder move as his hand stroked
the unseen
cat.
She sighed softly. What comfort he
could find tonight would have to come
from Nero, she supposed. She turned back toward the bedroom.
"Please."
She froze, mid-step.
"Don't go. Not just yet."
She turned back and saw he had shifted
and was looking back at her. A small,
black shadow flowed around the side of the couch and Nero was
rubbing
against her calf suddenly. She paused, still unsure of how to
approach him.
"I…couldn't sleep. I thought
I'd heat some tea for myself. I could bring you
a cup as well, if you like."
"Yes," he said, almost too
softly to be heard. "Tea. There's always that,
isn't there? No matter where you go, they have it, or grow it.
I've never
been to a country yet that doesn't have it somewhere. I suppose…"
He bowed
his head and the sigh that followed sounded positively wretched.
She crossed
to the couch and sat down next to him, placing her hand on his
shoulder,
wordlessly. He looked up at her and his face was filled with anguish,
too
deep for tears and almost too deep for words.
"It's never felt like this before.
Never. I have no idea what to do with
myself," he said. "And it's not just Mrs. Timson. I
understand she was just
an innocent victim. Anyone could have been passing my door at
that instant
and been killed just as easily. It's not that, really."
He stared, not at her, but straight
ahead, not even noticing when Nero
bounded lightly into his lap and began purring again.
"I've lost so much over the years,"
he continued, absently stroking the
sleek fur. "Homes. Belongings. Friends. Identities. And yet,
this is the
first time I've actually felt as if I've lost something that mattered.
As if
I've truly lost something of value that I can never get back.
The more
people I talked to today, the stronger that feeling got. And I
don't quite
understand it. I don't know…how to cope with it, really.
I can't even begin
to fathom what it is I could have lost that could be so important.
I've
always taken care not to become attached to my belongings. There
was nothing
in that apartment I can think of that would bring on this feeling.
Nothing.
And yet…" He swallowed hard, and she felt something
twist in the middle of
her chest. And then loosen, suddenly.
"George," she heard herself say. He looked at her.
"George?" He looked at her quizzically. "Another old boyfriend?"
"A spider plant," she said,
smiling faintly at the memory. "My grandmother
gave it to one of her neighbors as a housewarming gift years ago.
Annie
Merkling. I used to run to the grocery store for her when I was
in grade
school. She was this bitter, dried up husk of a woman who rented
the little
house that used to be next door. Just a tiny cottage-sized place,
really,
and she didn't have more than a few sticks of old furniture. A
bed. A
broken-down rocker. A little, formica-topped kitchen table and
one wooden
ladderback chair. And a little tray table over by her front window.
That's
where she put George."
"The spider plant," he said, without at trace of irony.
"She didn't name it herself,
I don't think. That was my grandmother's doing.
She was always naming plants. Annie wasn't the sort to have that
kind of
imagination. She looked like someone who just bounced from one
catastrophe
to the next, barely surviving any of them and not really expecting
to
survive. But the only thing on that tray table, for as long as
she lived
there, was George. If the dishes collected in the sink and the
dust piled up
everywhere else, George was taken care of. The soil was always
just the
right level of damp and she even bought plant food for it. I know.
I did her
shopping. And every few days she'd turn it. Just a quarter turn
each time,
to make sure it got exactly the right amount of sun. That was
George."
"What happened to George?" he asked, softly.
Laura sighed. "It was a crummy
little cottage. Probably never up to building
codes." She shook her head. "There was a fire one day.
It started in the
wiring, they said. The place went up in an instant. Fortunately,
Annie wasn'
t at home. She'd had a doctor's appointment and when she got home,
the fire
was blazing away. My grandmother had called the fire department
and then
gone out to make sure the fire didn't spread to her own house.
And then
Annie came home. And she went completely nuts. My grandmother
told me later
that she'd had to hold her down to keep her from running into
the place
while it was still burning. She kept screaming for George."
She shook her head at the memory.
"The firemen thought there was a child
inside, or maybe a pet." She glanced at Nero and shuddered
briefly. "It was
hard for my grandmother to explain that all that hysteria was
over a spider
plant. Of course there was no way to save it. I don't think anyone
really
even tried."
"What happened to Mrs. Merkling?" he asked.
"She moved in with my grandmother.
Here. In this house." She looked around
her. "It seemed to work well. Of course, Annie only lived
another two years.
She had cancer. But as long as she lived here, there was always
a little
tray table over by that window," she pointed at the bay window
looking out
at the street. "And on that table lived George, Jr. When
Annie died,
Grandmother replanted it on her gravesite."
She stared straight ahead for a moment,
lost in the memory. "I asked my
grandmother why George was so important once. She said that it
was because
the plant was something that needed to be cared for. Something
that needed
to be paid attention to. She said the roots of that plant didn't
just reach
down into the pot. She said they twined themselves around Annie
herself and
grounded her. Gave her roots. Gave her a sense that there was
a place in
this world that could really be hers."
She looked up at him. "I think
maybe you feel you've lost a George of your
own, somehow. Not any particular thing, maybe just a sense that
you were
finally home. But you haven't really lost it. There's a George,
Jr.
somewhere, waiting for you. I know there is. You just have to
be patient
until it sprouts and you can see it. The roots are there. We'll
find it for
you. Trust me."
He looked down at her and smiled.
It was a small smile, but it was a real
one at last. He slipped one arm around her shoulders. "Somehow,
Laura, after
everything that's happened, I do trust you." He kissed her
forehead. "Thank
you."
She hugged him back and rose from
the couch. "I should let you try and get
some sleep, huh?"
"I think I finally can, you know,"
he said, sounding slightly surprised
himself. She smiled and, leaning down, kissed his forehead in
return.
"Goodnight, Mr. Steele," she said and headed for her bedroom.
His reply was too quiet for her to
hear, but Nero heard it clearly, sitting
in the darkness on his lap.
"Goodnight…George."