Fever

27

JAKE RUNYON

The call came in a few minutes before nine Monday night.

He was on the couch in the living room with the TV on for noise, watching a Spencer Tracy movie he’d never seen before. Long, busy day and he was tired, but not tired enough yet to sleep. His cell phone was the unit that rang, and it was in his jacket draped over the back of a chair. He muted the TV and got up to get it.

“Jake Runyon?” Tentative, a little anxious. “This is Bryn Darby.”

It was a few seconds before he said, “Yes. Hello.”

“I’m not calling too late?”

“No, it’s still early for me.”

“I almost didn’t call at all. I wasn’t sure…”

“I’m glad you did.”

“Yes. Well.”

“How did you get my cell number?”

“It wasn’t difficult,” she said. “I have a smart lawyer and you and the agency you work for have a very good reputation.” Pause. “Tit for tat.”

“How’s that again?”

“You tracked me down, now I’ve tracked you down.”

“What made you change your mind? About talking to me again.”

“I’m… not sure. Your visit on Thursday… I kept thinking about it off and on all weekend.” Pause, followed by an odd little chuckling sound-odd, he thought, because it had come out of only one side of her mouth. “Like song lyrics that get stuck in your mind.”

“I understand.”

“Do you? I suppose you do.” Pause. “I was thinking… Maybe it would be all right if we… what you suggested on Thursday.”

“Sat down over a meal or coffee and talked?”

“Yes.”

“I’d like that,” he said.

“There’s a coffee shop on Taraval just off Twenty-third Avenue. The Royalty Cafe. Silly name, but the food’s good-I go there for dinner sometimes. I’ll probably do that tomorrow night.”

“What time?”

“Six-thirty, seven.”

“Either fits my schedule.”

“Seven, then.” Pause. “There’s something you should know. I could wait to tell you, but this is as good a time as any.”

“Yes?”

“My face… the entire left side is paralyzed. I had a stroke a year and a half ago and that was the end result. Facial nerve paralysis, it’s called. The doctors say I may regain control of some or all of the muscles in time, but chances are I won’t. Most likely they’ll atrophy and the condition will worsen over time.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “But if that happened, it wouldn’t matter to me.”

“It matters to my husband. That’s why he divorced me.”

“Then you’re better off without him.”

“It also matters to me.”

He said it again: “But not to me.”

“We’ll see,” she said. Then she said, “Good night, Mr. Runyon.”

“Until tomorrow, Ms. Darby.”

For a long time he sat motionless, his hands resting on his knees, staring at the muted picture on the screen without seeing it, focused inward.

Damaged goods. The phrase she’d used to describe herself the other night. Well, so was he damaged goods. That was the attraction, the central ingredient of his compulsion-that, and the loneliness. He understood that now.

He understood something else, too. About himself and Colleen and her fading image in his memory and his Thursday-night dream. What his subconscious had been trying to tell him was that it was time to let go of the past, time to stop mourning the dead. Colleen had been gone almost two years now. He would always love her, but loving and grieving were two separate emotions. He was still here, still able to function. But if he didn’t start living again, she would fade completely away, and once that happened he’d be left with nothing, no hope. He’d be so deeply mired in emotional quicksand that he’d eventually be sucked under-a form of suicide as final as the real thing.

Don’t keep doing this to yourself, Jake. Promise me-please!

“All right,” he said aloud. “All right.”