The Blue Hour

Twenty-Eight

The next morning Colesceau watched the cops come to his door on TV because it was easier than getting up to look through the blinds.

The Purse Snatcher duo, he thought, recognizing them from the papers. Not that you’d have any trouble telling what these kind of people were. Hess, the fascist general, and Rayborn, his Doberman bitch helper. He imagined their offspring with black feathers, four legs and grotesque genitalia.

Colesceau’s heartbeat upped its rate. He felt a cold prickling sensation on the skin of his face. Then he saw himself sitting there, waiting for whatever they had in mind. What could they possibly want with him?

He was physically and emotionally exhausted by the crowd and by what Grant Major had pulled on him. It made him want to give up and blow his brains out.

Just remember who you are, he reminded himself: Colesceau the innocent, Colesceau the wronged, Colesceau the castrated and contrite.

He thought about murdering some local kids just to add some relevance to this irritating chant. Stake their heads on the push-arms of some FOR SALE signs. The trouble was he kind of liked most of the kids he noticed these days — so happy and spoiled and obsessed with their own selfish little schemes. It would probably just be a waste of time.

Then he saw the old cop ring his doorbell on TV and heard his actual doorbell ring at exactly the same time. There were so many reasons to be awed by America.

He decided not to answer for a minute so he could watch them react. Surely Trudy Powers would vouch for his whereabouts. The whole mob would. That, in fact, was the very proof of his innocence — these fine neighbors always knowing where he was. His witnesses. He’d never expected such convenience to develop from such humiliation.

The Doberman bitch turned to look at the crowd. She wore sunglasses like a fighter pilot and her hair was wavy and dark. A big one, he saw: a strong-legged, proud-assed, heavy-breasted dog. He pictured her in something revealing, sitting beside him in Pratt’s yellow Cobra doing ninety. Maybe. He preferred a more delicate, feminine woman, though he could see her features were strong and far from unattractive. She probably had yellow teeth. He could easily imagine doing her out of pure meanness, as a way of repaying her for what she was.

She reached out and the doorbell rang again.

“I am coming!” he shouted.

Funny, how on the TV screen he could see them fix their attention on the door like it had just spoken to them. Really quite amusing.

He went to the front door, opened it two inches and peered out. “Yes?”

Out came two badges — Sheriff’s Department somethings. Behind the badges were two sets of sunglasses and two frowns.

“Mr. Colesceau, I’m Sergeant Rayborn and this is Lieutenant Hess of the Orange County Sheriff-Coroner Department. We’d like to come in and have a word with you.”

He opened the door. The chant got louder.

“Welcome to my home.”

The bitch pushed in first, then the fascist. Colesceau looked out at Trudy. She was at the forefront per usual, her picket sign in hand, her face lovely. She looked directly back at him. He saw that the higher calling was still in her, that she was still tasked by her God to deal with the human excrement Colesceau. He saw mercy and understanding and dignity on that face.

He shut the door and locked it. They stood there looking at him, hands on their hips. Both sets of sunglasses were gone.

“You can come in and have a seat if you want.”

“Thanks,” said the male.

The bitch stood her ground and watched him pass by her, as he followed the old one into his living room.

“Would you like something to drink?”

“No,” said the bitch.

“No, thank you,” said the other.

Neither of them sat.

“I have no rights that I am aware of,” he said. “I will answer any questions you ask. You may search this apartment all you like. I ask that you don’t break anything more than necessary. I’ll be happy to show you where things are located, if this will make your job easier.”

“You give me a pay raise, too?”

The bitch, of course.

“I would give myself a job first,” Colesceau answered. “My old boss, Mr. Pratt, has given me two weeks of pay, but the work is gone. There was a mob outside there, too.”

“My eyes are misting over,” she said.

“I worked there for two years, at five-fifty an hour. No benefits. No vacation. I only missed one day. That was when an accidental overdose of female hormone made me vomit for six hours without relief.”

“What are these things?” she asked, ignoring his woes. She was standing in front of one of his display cabinets, facing his mother’s artistry.

“Eggs.”

“You paint them up like this? Put on the lace and glitter?”

“My mother does this. Egg painting is a respected Romanian folk art. She is considered accomplished.”

“Isn’t that where the vampires and werewolves live, Romania?”

“They only live in the imagination, I believe.”

“What kind of name is Matamoros? I mean, it’s a city in Mexico but you’re Romanian.”

Colesceau was slightly surprised to hear her say this. She was correct, but it was rare when an American knew anything about Mexico, their closest neighbors to the south, let alone the city of Matamoros. In fact, there were two cities of Matamoros in Mexico. Colesceau decided long ago that he was named after the larger and more important of them.

He realized he had an odd feeling inside.

“My mother fell in love with a picture of Mexico when she was a young woman. For her it represented a paradise far away from the frigid Carpathians. She never went there until we came to live in America. She chose the name out of a book. And she gave it to me.”

Doberman: “Hmf. I like this giant blue one with the yellow feather boa around it. It looks like a pregnant stripper.”

“Cassowary. I think it’s garish and obscene.”

“You’re sensitive for a three-time granny raper.”

She turned and looked at him. The odd feeling was still inside him, slightly stronger.

No, he thought.

“But that was a long time ago,” he continued, “and I am a different man. Please, sit down. You can watch the crowd outside on the TV, or you can open the blinds and watch them in reality. You can do both. I usually just watch on the TV because I can turn it off. Of course I can’t turn off the crowd outside. But it’s a comfort.”

“Do you get out much?” asked the Doberman. She was still standing in front of the display case. The old general was on the other side of the room so that Colesceau couldn’t see them both at the same time.

“I used to, occasionally. Now, it’s not possible.”

She looked toward the door. “Got you surrounded.”

“Like Custer in American history.”

“Custer thought he was a military genius. What kind of genius do you think you are?”

“None at all, I’m afraid. But I’m surrounded just the same.”

“Sit.”

Colesceau sat. He was suddenly outside himself again, watching himself sit. From this dislocated vantage point he could look down on the old guy’s bristly head, the Doberman’s wavy locks and his own thinning dark hair. When the bitch’s coat fell open he saw the holster up under her arm, saw the snap was loose, wondered if she kept it that way for quick kills.

And the strangest thing had begun to happen — his shrunken, hormone-battered sex organ was starting to stir.

“So, where did you used to go, when you could get out?” Sergeant Rayborn asked him.

Sergeant Rayborn.

“Movies, Sergeant. Inexpensive restaurants. The library.”

Yes, it was growing. Why now?

“When? What time of day?”

“After work, Sergeant. Evenings. Generally not on weekends because of the crowds.”

“Ever go to malls?”

“Yes. I like malls.”

“Why?” She was looking at him sharply now. And he was looking down at himself, at the beginning of a lump in his pants. He crossed his legs and locked his fingers over his knees.

What was going on?

“Variety,” he said. “Food, entertainment, merchandise. A nice environment. If you grew up where I did, an American mall is a wonderful place.”

“Ever go there to look at the women?”

“Never. I have had no interest in women for three years. I have no desire to look at them or touch them. Occasionally I want to talk to a female person, because females can have such a refreshing way of seeing things. Then, I can call my mother, or perhaps my psychologist, Dr. Carla Fontana. But so far as striking up conversations with unfamiliar women — I don’t do that. Very occasionally, one will strike up a conversation with me.”

“What do you do then, run?”

“I’m a good listener,” he said. He wondered if he was laying it on a little thick, because this Merci Rayborn was no typical American airhead. He had the feeling she was seeing right into him. He pressed his legs together to apply pressure to his shrunken testicles, in hopes of discouraging his excitement. What is it about talking to her that does this to me?

“I’ll bet you are,” she said. “Gives you a chance to think about them, watch them.”

“This is what conversation is, no?”

“Not when you’re figuring out a way to rape them it isn’t.”

“That is never what I do.”

“Stay where you are.”

He felt his excitement rise a notch.

“Don’t move.”

“Yes, Sergeant. Whatever you demand.”

Another notch. Something to do with her commanding voice, he thought: her authority and conviction. It was like she wore an invisible uniform. And not some indecisive American law enforcement costume, but the actual power-emanating uniform of the Romanian state police.

Merci thought that Colesceau was one of the weirdest guys she’d ever laid eyes on. The weirdness was too vague and vast to identify yet but she felt it anyway, like the first breeze before a massive storm. She shook her head and walked over to Hess, who was now looking at the eggs.

“Take your tour,” she said. “I’m going to stay on him.”

Hess looked over her shoulder, toward Colesceau, then back to the display case. “Keep him in front of you. He used an ice pick on those dogs.”

“I’d like to see him try one on me.”

“Beware a weak man’s rage.”

“Yes, master.”

She left Hess at the case and went back to Colesceau. He was right where she had left him, legs crossed and fingers locked over one knee. He looked pudgy and soft and she thought she could see mounds of breasts under his shirt. A track light from the ceiling lit the back of his slightly balding head. It was hard to imagine this man doing what was done on the Ortega, or at the construction site off Main. But he was compact enough to fit into the floor space behind the front seat of a car. So were half a million other men in the county.

“I’ve got some dates I want to ask you about,” she said.

He looked at her and smiled. “From a woman as attractive as you, I would say yes to all dates.”

She gave him her drop dead look, heartfelt. “Let’s get something straight, worm. One more comment about my appearance, I’ll book you for verbal assault. I’ll have your ass back in slam before you can form your next thought.”

He squirmed a little on the couch, nodding with apparent sincerity. He almost looked repentant.

“You clear on that, Jack?”

“Absolutely, Sergeant.”

His eyes, when I got up close, looked wet and sad...

A good description of this shitbird, thought Merci.

“Saturday night, fourteen August. Three nights ago.”

He looked at her with his regretful eyes and sighed. “I sat here and listened to my neighbors chant. I would like to state right now that I love children and have never harmed one. Anyway, I watched TV. I saw myself interviewed by a man who presented himself as an American Civil Liberties lawyer. He was in fact a reporter with a hidden camera. I confronted the crowd at approximately six, to see if they would be a little less loud. And again at nine-thirty, because they had not yet set a time to discontinue the noise. So, Sergeant, you can go outside and speak to them. They are my witnesses.”

“I’ll do that. All right, three August — two Tuesday evenings ago.”

“I need my calendar. It’s on the counter over there, by the phone.”

“I’ll get it. You’ll stay put.”

He was smiling again, an expression that seemed to hold a thousand messages but contain no clear meaning that Rayborn was familiar with. He recrossed his legs and fingers. “Thank you, Sergeant.”

Hess started in the kitchen. He could hear their voices as he stood in the middle of it and took in the generalities: neat, clean, used. He slid out the drawers and looked at the flatware, the oven mitts, the utensils, the plastic wrap and foil. No ice pick. The inside of the oven was clean. So was the stovetop. He turned on the sink faucet and let the water run a minute, turned it off and listened to it gurgling down the garbage disposal U. He looked in the cabinet under the sink: wastebasket, pots and pans, dishwasher soap, glass cleaner, rags, brushes. The dishwasher was half-loaded. No lidless canning jars. The refrigerator was lightly stocked with ordinary staples and condiments. The freezer had boxes of vegetables, ice cream and a package of hamburger.

The small downstairs bathroom looked rarely used. The fixtures were dusty and dry and the toilet bowl had a pale stain just above the water level.

Hess climbed the stairs and went into the main bedroom. Colesceau slept on a small twin that was neatly made: brown cotton bedspread, white sheets and pillow. On the wall above the bed was a poster of a bright yellow Shelby Cobra with its hood open to reveal a big highly chromed engine. Hess recognized the coveted Holly carbs of his youth. The print at the bottom said “Pratt Automotive — Classic Automobile Restoration,” which Hess remembered as Colesceau’s recent employer.

Eggs with their insides altered, made decorative.

Cars with their insides altered, made custom.

Bodies with their insides altered, made... what?

The closet held a few shirts and trousers on hangers; underclothes folded and stacked on a shelf; shoes toe to toe in a plastic sleeve hung from the ceiling. Like Janet Kane’s, he thought. No wig — human hair or otherwise.

Where would you hide the driver’s licenses? Flat and small enough to fit into a million different places.

Where would you hide them?

He bent down and looked under the bed: an aluminum baseball bat, a short rod and spinning reel, a Daisy spring action BB pistol cast to look like a six-gun.

When Hess stood back up he felt the blood rushing to his head, then a ringing lightness. The walls bowed convex then back flat again. Two of them were empty but the one opposite the bed had a framed poster of a castle looming atop a jagged mountaintop. He walked up close but there was no title or description. Against one wall was a dresser, which held sport shirts, shorts and more underwear. On top of it, Hess found some change, paper clips, a pen and stubs from three computer-generated movie tickets dated over the last three months. He wrote down the dates, times, titles and locations of the theaters, and put them back. One of them was for the night Janet Kane disappeared from the mall at Laguna Hills. The theater issuing the ticket was in Irvine, just a few miles away.

In the bathroom he scraped one of his credit cards down the bath towel hanging over the shower door, using a sheet of toilet paper to catch the fallout. With his head angled to the light he pulled several hairs out of the cotton terry and set them on the toilet paper too. He added more from the hairbrush in the top drawer, then folded the paper and slid it into his coat pocket. There was nothing of interest in the wastebasket, the cabinets or the toilet tank, from which he removed the top for a look. Someone had set bricks in each corner of the tank to save water.

Save water, Hess thought.

Save eggshells.

Save cars.

Save things in canning jars.

Save bodies.

The spare bedroom was really quite small — just a bed, a dresser with a lamp on it and a closet. It felt larger than it was because the closet doors and the back wall were mirrored. In the closet were four boxes of books, most of them in Romanian. Some extra blankets and pillows, a collection of men’s clothing that looked faded and rarely worn. A TV. The dresser held heavy sweaters, coats and socks. On the mirrored wall opposite the bed hung a black plastic crucifix that struck Hess as the loneliest depiction of Jesus he’d ever seen.

It seemed to Hess like a waste of a room. Why bother to pay for a two-bedroom unit? Hard to imagine overnight guests in the home of Matamoros Colesceau.