The Venus Fix

Eight

The plane had landed two hours late due to the weather, and the cab didn’t drop Noah at Broadway and Eleventh Street until ten that night. Upstairs, he threw his suitcase on the floor and dropped his coat on a Stickley chair. He wanted to call Morgan, but first he had to get the day out of his system. He poured two ounces of Maker’s Mark into a crystal tumbler and sat down at the baby grand piano.

For a detective, he had a lot of fine things. Smiling, he ran his hand lovingly over the piano’s black-lacquer top. Even though he’d only published a few dozen songs over the years, they’d sold well and afforded him some extras. His apartment was beyond the reach of a detective’s salary, as were the antiques and artwork. These things were indulgences, but he appreciated each and every one of them. Like the whiskey, they smoothed away some of the rougher edges of his job.

Noah took a drink, put the glass down and started to play. It took almost fifteen minutes for him to slip into the zone where he was no longer conscious of his fingers flying over the keys, or the day he’d had, or the problems waiting for him at the precinct house. There was just music. And he was sailing on it.

Being a detective was part of him. It was what his dad did. What he always wanted to do. But he played piano from inside. He needed it for balance, for beauty. For the sliver of soul he still had intact. That’s what the music had salvaged.

The music.

It had always come through for him the way nothing else had. When his father died, when his long-term relationship had broken up, when a case burned its images into his head and held him captive in its gruesomeness, only the music offered consolation.

It had been too long since he’d felt the first thrill of the birth of a new jazz piece. He needed to hear one now, so he stayed at it long after the whiskey was gone, longer than he should have, considering how many hours he’d been awake.

The sounds that rose up soothed him even when they made his listeners want to weep, but there was no one there to hear him that night. That mattered. But not that much. The music mattered more. It was his faith. As long as he could write it, and as long as a few people showed up to listen to him play it on Saturday nights at the jazz bar around the corner, he could take the darkness when it came.

Inside of him, that darkness churned. Until he’d met Morgan he’d never tried to explain it to anyone. But she’d understood. Because she was insightful and listened to him with her heart as hard as she listened with her head. She did everything like that.

But it was more than that. Morgan had understood because she had that same darkness inside of her.

Morgan.

He pounded the keys.

Morgan.

Morgan of the fathomless brown eyes brimming with compassion. Morgan of the skin that felt too soft for his callused fingers. He closed his eyes. Notes poured out. He could almost feel her head on his chest, her tears wetting his skin.

You let me cry and it doesn’t scare you, she’d said to him once. And that’s practically some kind of miracle. If only I believed in miracles.

It was the same for him, too. Because of their professions, they were both confronted with proof of too much depravity. Evidence of too much evil shoved in their faces, twenty-four hours a day. They had no choice but to focus on it. You couldn’t just shake off the darkness when you got home. Couldn’t just drown it in a drink, though God knows how many of his fellow officers tried.

He liked the idea that what he was writing would be Morgan’s song. Then he smiled at the utter romanticism of the thought.

Noah worked on it for a while longer, wanting to get it down and smoothed out before he saw her again.

They hadn’t gotten off to a good start when they’d first met. They clashed as much as they connected. And now they didn’t see each other often enough. Unlike so many people who fell into being together all the time, they hadn’t. The old-fashioned pacing was foreign to him, reminding him of a time and place he’d never experienced. It made him that much more aware of how tenuous their connection still was.

The song was complicated: an enigma for a few bars that turned suddenly, revealing a hint of sensuality. It was uneasy. Edgy. And exciting.

Parts of Morgan were closed down so tight that he didn’t know if he’d ever be able to pry them open. For the present, he wasn’t trying. When she felt too exposed, she disappeared and he had to start over. He didn’t want to grow tired of doing that and so this time he was hoping he could wait her out. Perez kidded him that the more complicated a case, the more hopeless, the more it obsessed him and captivated him. The more tenacious he became.

It was true. Not just with work. Other women, less complicated women, hadn’t held his interest. But still…

Jordain began his search for a riff that would lead him past the transition. He was picturing Morgan waking up in his bed, each time still slightly astonished that she was there.

They’d known each other eight months, separated into two periods. Four weeks last June, followed by a three-month break, then together again in the October. Since then they’d seen each other regularly, usually once a week. Her first priority was her teenage daughter. Her second was her job. Then there was his schedule. After those three things, there wasn’t all that much time left. It was simple to explain.

And yet.

He played the riff again.

And yet.

Morgan remained just out of reach for a reason.

His phone rang. Once. Twice. His fingers hovered over the keys. Damn how he wished he didn’t have to get up and answer it.

“Jordain,” he said tersely into the receiver.

“So, can you see the Met Life tower from your window?” Perez asked.

“No, I can’t. What’s up?”

“Well, I’m only about six blocks away from you and I can see it just fine.”