There was a brief pause, but then I filled the space with inane questions about Kayla’s folks and life in North Carolina, where both of us had been born. By this time, I had calmed down some about the unexpected call from Kayla, and I was more myself.
“So how are you?” I asked her. “You really okay? Almost recovered?”
“I am. I’m clearer on certain things than I’ve been in a while. Had some time to process and reflect for a change. Alex, I’ve been thinking that . . . I might not be coming back to Washington. I wanted to talk to you about it before I told anyone else.”
My stomach dropped like a runaway elevator in a skyscraper. I had suspected something like this might be coming, but I still buckled from the blow.
Kayla continued to talk. “There’s so much to do down here. Lots of sick people, of course. And I’d forgotten how nice, how sane, this place is. I’m sorry, I’m not putting this . . . saying it very well.”
I snuck in a light thought. “You’re not real verbal. That’s a problem with you scientists.”
Kayla sighed deeply. “Alex, do you think I’m wrong about this? You know what I’m saying? Of course you do.”
I wanted to tell Kayla she was dead wrong, that she should rush back here to DC, but I couldn’t bring myself to say it. Why was that? “All right, here’s the only answer I can give, Kayla. You know what’s right for yourself. I would never try to influence you at all. I know that I couldn’t if I wanted to. I’m not sure that came out exactly right.”
“Oh, I think it did. You’re just being honest,” she said. “I do have to figure out what’s best for me. It’s my nature, isn’t it? It’s both of our natures.”
We went on talking for a while, but when we finally hung up I had this terrible feeling about what had just happened. I lost her, didn’t I? What is wrong with me? Why didn’t I tell Kayla I needed her? Why didn’t I tell her to come back to Washington as soon as she could? Why didn’t I tell her I loved her?
After dinner, I went upstairs to the attic, my retreat, my escape hatch, and I tried to lose myself in the remainder of old files from the time of Maria’s death. I didn’t think too much about Kayla. I just kept thinking about Maria, missing her more than I had in years, wondering what our life could have been if she hadn’t died.
Around one in the morning, I finally tiptoed downstairs. I slipped into Ali’s room again. Quiet as a church mouse, I lay down beside my sweet, dreaming boy.
I held little Alex’s hand with my pinkie, and I silently mouthed the words, Help me, pup.
Chapter 85
THINGS WERE HAPPENING FAST NOW . . . for better or worse. Michael Sullivan hadn’t been this wired and full of tension in years, and actually he kind of liked the revved-up feeling just fine. He was back, wasn’t he? Hell yes, he was in his prime, too. He’d never been angrier or more focused. The only real problem was that he was finding he needed more action, any kind would do. He couldn’t sit still in that motel anymore, couldn’t watch old episodes of Law & Order or play any more soccer or baseball with the boys.
He needed to hunt; needed to keep moving; needed his adrenaline fixes in closer proximity.
Mistake.
So he found himself back in DC—where he shouldn’t be—not even with his new short haircut and wearing a Georgetown Hoyas silver-and-blue hoodie that made him look like some kind of lame Yuppie wannabe who deserved to be punched in the face and kicked in the head while he was down.
But damn it all, he did like the women here, the tight-assed professional types best of all. He’d just finished reading John Updike’s Villages and wondered if old man Updike was half as horny as some of the characters he wrote about. Hadn’t that horned toad written Couples too? Plus, Updike was like seventy-something and still scribbling about sex like he was a teenager on the farm in Pe
nnsylvania, screwing anything with two, three, or four legs. But hell, maybe he was missing the point of the book. Or maybe Updike was. Was that possible? That a writer didn’t really get what he was writing about himself?
Anyway, he did fancy the fancy-pants women of Georgetown. They smelled so good, looked really good, talked good. The Women of Georgetown, now that would be a good book for somebody to write, maybe even Johnny U.
Jeez, he was amusing to himself anyway. On the car ride in from Maryland he’d been listening to U2, and Bono had been wailing about wanting to spend some time inside the head of his lover, and Sullivan wondered—all cornball Irish romanticism aside—if that was really such a capital idea. Did Caitlin need to be inside his head? Definitely not. Did he need to be inside hers? No. Because he didn’t really like a lot of empty space.
So where the hell was he?
Ah, Thirty-first Street. Coming up on Blues Alley, which was fairly deserted at this time of day—as opposed to nighttime, when the clubs were open around these parts of Washington and the crowds came calling. He was listening to James McMurtry and the Heartless Bastards now. He liked the CD well enough to stay in his parked car an extra few minutes.
Finally he climbed out, stretched his legs, and took a breath of moderately foul city air.
Ready or not, here I come. He decided to cut through to Wisconsin Avenue and check out the ladies there, maybe lure one back into the alley somehow. Then what? Hell, whatever he damn well felt like. He was Michael Sullivan, the Butcher of Sligo, a real crazy bastard if ever there was one on this spinning ball of gas and rock. What was that old line he liked? Three out of four voices inside my head say go for it.
The Thirty-first Street entrance to the alley was bathed in this faded yellow glow from the lights at a spaghetti joint called Ristorante Piccolo. A lot of the hot spots on M Street, which ran parallel to the alley, had their service entrances back here.
He passed the back entrance of a steakhouse, then a French bistro, and some kind of greasy burger joint spewing smoke.
He noticed another guy entering the alley—then two guys—coming his way, too.
What the hell was this?