Vixen

9

JAKE RUNYON

It was a couple of minutes past seven on Wednesday evening when Runyon pulled up in front of Bryn’s brown-shingle house on Moraga in the outer Sunset. Lights glowed behind the front windows, which meant she and Bobby were home now. She never wasted electricity when the two of them were out. He scooped the shopping bag from the passenger seat, went up and rang the bell.

Bryn opened the door, evidently without checking through its peephole. She was smiling, but the smile dimmed when she saw Runyon. Expecting someone else, he thought, and her first words confirmed it.

“Jake. What are you doing here?”

“Dropping off Bobby’s birthday present.”

“Oh, you remembered. Well, he’ll be pleased.” Not her so much, though, he thought; the smile was almost gone now. “But you should have called first. You always have before.”

“I did call,” Runyon said, “around five-thirty. No answer. I thought you might have taken the boy out for an early dinner to celebrate.”

“No, we were at Safeway. Why didn’t you leave a message on my cell?”

“Didn’t think of it. Didn’t think you’d mind if I just dropped in.”

“I don’t, only…” She shook her head. “Never mind. Come in.”

Inside, in the hallway light, he saw that she wasn’t as casually dressed as she usually was when she intended to stay in. Starched white blouse, green patterned skirt, a cameo locket at her throat, and a gold bracelet on one wrist. Ash-blond hair neatly combed and decorated with a ribbon that matched her skirt. Lipstick, too, and a little eye makeup. The scarf covering the stroke-frozen left side of her face was the paisley one Bobby had picked out, in Runyon’s company, for her last birthday.

He said, “If you’re going out again, I won’t keep you.”

“We’re having dinner here. I’d invite you to stay, but… well, it’s not a good time.”

“Company coming?”

“As a matter of fact, yes.” Four-beat. “Robert.”

Runyon was silent.

“He called and asked if he could come,” Bryn said with a defensive note in her voice. “He has presents, too, and after all, he is the boy’s father.”

And the man who had divorced Bryn when she suffered her crippling and disfiguring stroke, the man who had used his attorney’s influence to take Bobby away from her and into the clutches of the unstable woman who’d been his mistress, the man she claimed to hate and had fought bitterly, with Runyon’s help, to regain custody.

He said only, “Sure.”

“Robert’s been nice to the boy, much kinder than when Bobby was living with him.” The defensiveness was more pronounced now. “It’s hard to believe, but he’s changed since Francine was murdered. Oh, he’s still arrogant, still the typical lawyer, but the nastiness and cruelty… they seem to be gone.”

“Showing signs of humanity.”

“Yes, exactly. And he truly loves Bobby, cares about his future.”

“Never much doubt of that.”

“So when we… So I didn’t see any reason not to invite him to stay for dinner.”

Runyon said, “No need to justify it to me.”

“I wasn’t justifying, I was simply stating a fact.”

“All right.”

“I’m not getting involved with him again, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

It wasn’t. “None of my business in any case.”

“No. I just wanted you to know.”

“All right.”

But she couldn’t seem to let it go. “Neither Robert nor I wants to get back together,” she said. Threads of defiance, now, in her voice. “I wouldn’t take him back if he got down on his knees and begged me. He hurt me too much, there’s been too much anger and bitterness between us. You know all that. We’ve talked about it often enough.”

“Yes.”

“He’ll be here pretty soon,” she said.

“Then I’d better leave.” Runyon extended the shopping bag. “You can give this to Bobby and wish him a happy birthday from me.”

Bryn hesitated. “No, he should have it from you. He’ll want to thank you personally. He’s in his room-I’ll fetch him.”

She hurried away to the rear of the house. Standing still while he waited made Runyon fidget; he moved over to the living room doorway. Soft music was playing in there, one of the quieter classical pieces Bryn favored. A tray of canapés had been set out on the coffee table, and there were three or four gaily wrapped presents-her birthday tribute to Bobby-neatly arranged on one end of the couch. He stepped back into the hallway, slow-paced back and forth until Bryn returned with her son.

Bobby was ten today. He’d grown another half inch or so since Runyon had first met him, still a gangly kid who would probably stand well over six feet when he reached his full growth, his hair longer now and combed in a more conventional fashion than the spikily gelled style he’d favored back then. He hadn’t lost any of his shyness, at least not around Runyon. He was smiling and seemed glad to see him, but there was a reserve in both his greeting and his off-center gaze. The bond that had developed between them during Runyon’s investigation of the brutal murder of Francine Whalen, Robert Darby’s mistress cum fiancée, and that had lasted for a while after Bryn won the second court battle for the boy’s custody, hadn’t been strong enough to last. Devolved into a polite and increasingly distant relationship as they spent less and less time in each other’s company.

Bryn steered them away from the living room and into the dining room-table set for three, crystal glassware and good china-and the aromas of something cooking in the oven wafting in from the kitchen. Bobby opened his gift at the cleared end of the table. Two Nintendo video games, Star Fox Command and Metroid Prime Hunters, that the salesman in the computer store in Stonestown had recommended to Runyon. The boy seemed pleased with them, and his thanks was genuine enough, but it lacked any real excitement and only a tepid warmth. Probably saving his enthusiasm for whatever his mother had given him, whatever his father brought.

A brief hug, and Bobby took the video games away to his room. Bryn cast a look at her wristwatch for the third or fourth time. Runyon said, “Don’t worry, I’ll be going now.”

“I wasn’t worried,” she said, trying not to look relieved, “it’s just that it would be awkward. You don’t like Robert and he doesn’t like you…”

“No need to explain.”

She went with him to the front door. “Jake,” she said as he started out, looking past him to the empty street. “Next time, call first before you come over. Okay?”

“I will.”

But he wouldn’t, because there wouldn’t be a next time. He knew it and so did Bryn.

Their relationship, even the friendship part that had included Bobby, had come to an abrupt and irredeemable end.

Home for Runyon since his move to San Francisco was a drafty, sparsely furnished, one-bedroom apartment on Ortega Street, off Nineteenth Avenue. His first actions when he let himself in were habitual, done each night without thinking: turn the heat up, switch the TV on for noise, put a kettle on to boil for tea, check the landline answering machine and his laptop for messages. No calls, no e-mail that needed an immediate reply.

In the refrigerator he found a package of Swiss cheese slices and another of pressed ham that hadn’t gone green yet, buttered two pieces of stale but still edible bread, and made himself a sandwich he didn’t want. His appetite was light at the best of times and the scene with Bryn had killed what little hunger he’d had tonight, but you had to eat. The human engine, like the mechanical one in the Ford, wouldn’t run long or far without regular injections of fuel.

When the tea was ready, he took cup and sandwich into the living room and ate in front of the TV. Old movies were all that he watched because he wasn’t into sports and everything else had endless commercials, laugh tracks, halfwits making fools of themselves in so-called reality shows, bogus cops solving sensationalistic hour-long psychodramas, and macho types firing off automatic weapons, blowing up cars and buildings, and spilling excess amounts of blood and gore. The only vintage film showing at the moment, an old musical with Bing Crosby, didn’t hold his attention. The final split with Bryn was still on his mind.

Not that it had had much of an emotional effect on him. The finish had been coming for some time now. Tonight had been nothing more than a kind of pro forma good-bye.

Her ex-husband wasn’t a major factor, just the catalyst that had snapped the last connecting thread. Didn’t really matter, but Runyon couldn’t help wondering if she’d take Darby back on a temporary or permanent basis. Possible, he supposed. That old fine line between love and hate: one that had turned into the other could turn back again if the circumstances were right. How much Darby had changed, how remorseful he was, how willing and able to deal now with her facial paralysis. And the deciding factor: how much Bobby would benefit from a reconciliation. The boy’s welfare was first and foremost to Bryn and always would be.

Whatever her feelings for Darby, whatever her plans for the future, they no longer included Jake Runyon. That much was clear. She’d needed him desperately for a while, and in his bitter loneliness he’d needed her almost as much. But the bad time for both of them was over, past history. She’d always be grateful for his help in regaining custody of her son, but gratitude only went so far. There’d never been much else between them except the mutual damage control, nothing deep enough to cement a lasting bond. Now that she and Bobby were a solid package deal again, having Runyon around was probably a painful reminder of a period of suffering that had brought her to the brink of self-destruction. Time to burn her bridges, time to move on.

He’d miss her a little, but nowhere near as much as he missed Colleen. Miss Bobby, too-a nice, sensitive kid, the kind of son he’d like to have had. But the missing would be only temporary. The truth was, Bobby had never been and could never be anything more than a surrogate for Joshua, his own painful reminder of the failed relationship with his son. Bobby was better off without him; he was better off without Bobby. Better off alone, now that he’d made some measure of peace with himself…

When the phone rang-his landline, not his cell-his first thought, because he’d been thinking of her, was that it might be Bryn. He came close to not answering it. They had nothing more to say to each other, and the only other landline calls at this time of night were either wrong numbers or late-lurking telemarketers.

Wrong on all counts. He picked up on the sixth ring, mainly to shut off the clamor, and a man’s thin, nervous-sounding voice, unfamiliar at first, said tentatively, “Mr. Runyon?”

“If you’re selling something-”

“No. I remembered your name, I looked in the phone book…”

He recognized the voice then. “Ken Beckett?”

“Yeah. I… I have to talk to somebody, Mr. Runyon. I don’t know anyone else.”

“What’s on your mind?”

Pause. Then, “Not on the phone, okay? I can’t talk about this on the phone.”

“Are you home? I can come there-”

“No! Cory’s out now, but she might come back any time.”

“Meet me somewhere, then.”

“I can’t do that, either. She locks me in at night when she goes out.”

“Every time?”

“Yes.”

Runyon said, “Can you get out during the daytime?”

“I think so. She lets me go down to the yacht club in the morning if she’s in a good mood. On the bus.”

“Which yacht club?”

“Where I used to work. The St. Francis.”

Runyon thought it over. He had a case interview scheduled in the morning, but it could be postponed. From the stressed-out sound of Beckett’s voice, whatever he had to say was important.

“All right, Ken. What time in the morning?”

“Ten o’clock, is that okay?”

“Name a place to meet. I’ll be there.”

“Just you? Nobody else?”

“Just me.”

More silence. Then, “I have to be careful. If she finds out, I don’t know what she might do…”

“You can trust me. I don’t betray confidences.”

That satisfied Beckett. “You know the big green clock in front of the St. Francis, right by the parking lot?”

“I can find it.”

“Thanks, Mr. Runyon. I’ll see you at ten.” Then, as if to himself before he broke the connection, “I can’t be alone anymore.”