Full Measure

Chapter twenty-one

At ten o’clock that Thursday morning Cleo from Friendly Village Taxi called Ted to say that their semiregular fare, Lucinda Smith, would be ready for a ten thirty pickup. Ms. Smith had asked for “the big guy” if he was available. The image of Lucinda’s pretty, dour, sunglassed face came into focus in Ted’s mind’s eye like a close-up in a movie.

“I am available!”

He gunned the taxi. In the rearview he saw Mr. Hutchins’s hoary old head rock against the backseat. With only minutes to spare, he sped Mr. Hutchins to the board-and-care downtown to visit his wife, refused the man’s money, then sped over to CVS for breath mints. On impulse he picked up a TV/DVD combination from a display by the checkout line, with a sweet thirteen-inch screen and a remote — $99! Lucinda would love it.

Ten minutes later Ted pulled into a guest parking space across from her building and shut off the engine. Her condo was on a golf course outside of town. Beyond the condo he could see the course and one of the greens and a man striding toward a ball with a club in both hands. It was a warm day and there were wispy cirrus clouds high in the blue.

A moment later Lucinda stood amid the potted plants and flowers on her front porch, fiddling with her keys. The sunlight bounced off her shiny black hair. Down the steps she slowly came, sunglasses on, purse slung over a shoulder, reusable shopping bags wadded in one hand, her usual joylessness apparently in place. She wore jeans and a loose black T and flat black Chinese slippers. She climbed in and shut the door.

“Major Market, then Rosa’s.”

“You got it. I’m truly honored you asked for me.”

Ted backed into the quiet street. In the rearview he saw her looking at him — at the back of his head, anyway — through her blackout glasses. “I wish they hadn’t told you that.”

“Oh?”

“I asked for you because you hardly talk.”

“I’ll hardly talk all you want. Don’t worry. I’m just happy to have the work is all I meant.”

“If you say so.”

Ted put on his own sunglasses. He drove three wordless miles to Major Market and let her out at the entrance. “I’ll pick you up here.” She shut the car door and walked away. She moved like someone wishing not to be seen. She was inside, pulling a cart from the line when the automatic doors slid shut. What was devouring her? He felt it strongly but couldn’t identify it. It was something powerful, too, it felt like she’d left some of it right here in the cab. Anger? Fear? He often wondered if people sensed the same thing in himself. He parked in the shade where he could see her come from the store, resting his arm on the TV/DVD player box on the seat beside him.

She came out with a bag in each hand. Ted pulled up and stopped curbside, offering to handle the bags for her but she swung them into the backseat ahead of her and closed her own door. He pulled out of the lot and got onto Main, headed for Rosa’s Mexican restaurant.

“Keep going,” she said.

“What about Rosa’s?”

“Drive past the air park and the tennis club and turn at the high school.”

“Where are we going?”

“You weren’t going to talk.”

“But I need to have a destination.”

“Rosa’s.”

“We already drove past Rosa’s.”

“Please just drive.”

Ted followed Mission out of town, past the Econo Suites and the deli and the nature preserve at Los Jilgueros. “A jilguero is a goldfinch. Oops.” She was looking at the back of his head again.

“I was rude. You can talk if you have to.”

“What’s bothering you?”

She sighed and went quiet again. Ted thought he’d lost her. Why couldn’t he just keep quiet? Because the same forces that made him want to do something also made him want to say something, he thought. He turned on Stage Coach and drove by the high school and Duke Snider Field and Warrior Stadium. He came to the stretch of Stage Coach that the locals called “Holy Hill,” where many of the churches stood. The Baptist was Ted’s favorite because of the weekly aphorisms on its marquee. This week’s was a good one: WHERE WILL YOU BE SEATED FOR ETERNITY? SMOKING OR NON SMOKING? Ted imagined sinners writhing in flames. “I’ll probably end up in smoking,” he said.

“See you there.”

“Look at the hills out there. Black from the fire. Somebody set it.”

“That would be a heavy burden.”

“To set a fire?”

“I would think.”

Ted looked south to where the ruined foothills stood against the pale blue sky. The Fallbrook air looked clear and clean but the burnt smell still hovered. “Are you new here?”

“No.”

“Do you have a job?”

“Please. Please don’t.”

There was so much Ted wanted to ask but he didn’t want to scare her off. He followed Fallbrook Street into town and picked up Mission again at the post office and headed down the hill to Rosa’s. “Go around one more time,” she said. “The same way you just did.”

“I have to charge you. No, never mind. I won’t.”

She ignored him. In the rearview he watched her pull a cell phone from her purse and dial from contacts. She ordered a number ten and a Fanta. Ted heard Lucinda putting her phone back into her bag and when he looked up at the mirror she had taken off her sunglasses. She was looking down, and from the small motion of her shoulders Ted could tell she was doing something with her hands. He heard the hiss of aerosol spray. Her shiny dark hair hid her face. A moment later she lifted her head and looked in the mirror at him. Her eyes were brown, beautiful, and charged with grief. “Life is like a day,” she said. “It has light and dark. You can rearrange them for a while but the portions never change.” She slid the clean sunglasses back on.

“No, they don’t. That’s why you need a place to go where the dark can’t get you. For me it’s on a boat with my brother. His name is Pat and he’s a war hero. I may be working with him someday.”

“You understand, then. Where the dark can’t get you. I like that. I changed my mind. Go to Las Brisas.”

He made the loop again in silence and parked at Las Brisas taqueira. They watched the shoppers come and go from the little grocery with the soccer posters in the windows and the chilies hanging on the eaves. Lucinda came out a few minutes later with a white plastic bag. A few minutes later, parked behind the narrow garage below her condo, Ted lifted the TV/DVD player in one big hand and — with no privacy partitions in the taxis of the Friendly Village — reached back and set it down on the seat beside her groceries and lunch.

“This is for you.”

“I—”

“It was on sale at CVS and it looks like fair quality, for the price.”

“Look... Ted...”

Ted felt the thrill of his name spoken in Lucinda’s voice, coming from Lucinda’s mouth, carried by Lucinda’s breath. “Remote and everything, you even get batteries.”

“I can’t take it. Give it to someone who can really use it. I can’t. Thank you, but I can’t.”

Ted felt like he had been dumped into deep water with an engine block chained to his ankles. “Maybe you could just put it somewhere out of the way for now, then give it to someone later. Christmas is coming up. I can put it in your garage here—”

“No. Do not.”

“Okay, Lucinda. Not a problem, Lucinda.”

She got out and slammed the door and climbed the stairs two at a time, bags in hand.

“Lucinda?”

“What?”

“You forgot to pay me.”

She looked down on him from the patio and he saw her shoulders sag and heard her sigh. Her bags clunked to the deck. She unslung her purse and came back down the stairs.

Ted finished off his shift at five o’clock, drove his truck to Open Sights in Oceanside and picked up his new Glock. Kerry sold him a clip-on holster, cleaning kit, a locking transport box, and a padded cloth pistol bag. The range was busy and the sharp reports of the guns came muffled but forcefully through the walls and safety glass. He thought of Lucinda coming down her stairs. She had asked for him.

“We’ve got some terrific classes coming up next month,” said Kerry. “Self-defense, safety, all the laws you need to know. Plenty of those to learn and more on the way.”

Before leaving the store Ted made sure the gun was empty, then locked it in the hard case. He locked all of his purchases in the toolbox bolted to the bed of his truck. Driving back toward Fallbrook he felt different. He felt calm, capable, and equal. He felt that he had a powerful secret. He felt that he could protect himself and his family and Lucinda against criminals and government. He thought how different it would have been — the day that Edgar held him up and took his money — if only the Glock had been there with him.

She had asked for him.