The Porsche was tiny taillights far ahead. I thought of Chief Tucker threatening to send Marino to cultural diversity class. Marino could go the rest of his life and I wasn't sure it would cure him.
'Tomorrow's Thursday,' he said. 'I've got to go to First Precinct and see if anyone remembers that I still work for the city.'
'What's happening with Sheriff Santa?'
'He's scheduled for a preliminary hearing next week.'
'He's locked up, I presume,' I said.
'Nope. Out on bond. When do you start jury duty?'
'Monday.'
'Maybe you can get cut loose.'
'I can't ask for that,' I said. 'Somebody would make a big deal of it, and even if they didn't, it would be hypocritical. I'm supposed to care about justice.'
'Do you think I should see Doris?' We were in Richmond now, the downtown skyline in view.
I looked over at his profile, his thinning hair, big ears and face, and the way his huge hands made the steering wheel disappear. He could not remember his life before his wife. Their relationship had long ago left the froth and fire of sex and moved into an orbit of safe but boring stability. I believed they had parted because they were afraid of growing old.
'I think you should see her,' I said to him. 'So I should go up to New Jersey.' 'No,' I said. 'Doris is the one who left. She should come here.'
11
Windsor Farms was dark when we turned into it from Gary Street, and Marino did not want me entering my house alone. He pulled into my brick driveway and stared ahead at the shut garage door illuminated by his headlights.
'Do you have the opener?' he asked.
'It's in my car.'
'A lot of friggin' good that does when your car's inside the garage with the door shut.'
'If you would drop me off in front as I requested I could unlock my front door,' I said.
'Nope. You're not walking down that long sidewalk anymore, Doc.' He was very authoritative, and I knew when he got this way there was no point in arguing.
I handed him my keys. 'Then you go on in through the front and open the garage door. I'll wait right here.'
He opened his door. 'I got a shotgun between the seats.'
He reached down to show me a black Benelli twelve-gauge with an eight-round magazine extension. It occurred to me that Benelli, a manufacturer of fine Italian shotguns, was also the name on Gault's false driver's license.
'The safety's right there.' Marino showed me. 'All you do is push it in, pump it and fire.'
'Is there a riot about to happen that I've not been told about?'
He got out of the truck and locked the doors.
I cranked open the window. 'It might help if you knew my burglar alarm code,' I said.
'Already do.' He started walking across frosted grass. 'Your DOB.'
'How did you know that?' I demanded.
'You're predictable,' I heard him say before disappearing around a hedge.
Several minutes later the garage door began to lift and a light went on inside, illuminating yard and garden tools neatly arranged on walls, a bicycle I rarely rode, and my car. I could not see my new Mercedes without thinking of the one Lucy had wrecked.
My former 500E was sleek and fast with an engine partially designed by Porsche. Now I just wanted something big. I had a black S500 that probably would hold its own with a cement truck or a tractor trailer. Marino stood near my car, looking at me as if he wished I would hurry up. I honked the horn to remind him I was locked inside his truck.
'Why do people keep trying to lock me inside their vehicles?' I said as he let me out. 'A taxi this morning, now you.'
'Because it's not safe when you're loose. I want to look around your house before I leave,' he said.
'It's not necessary.'
'I'm not asking. I'm telling you I'm going to look,' he said.
'All right. Help yourself.'
He followed me inside, and I went straight to the living room and turned on the gas fire. Next I opened the front door and brought in the mail and several newspapers that one of my neighbors had forgotten I to pick up. To anybody watching my gracious brick house, it would have been obvious that I was gone over Christmas.
I glanced around as I returned to the living room, looking for anything even slightly out of order. I wondered if anyone had thought about breaking in. I wondered what eyes had turned this way, what dark thoughts had enveloped this place where I lived.
My neighborhood was one of the wealthiest in Richmond, and certainly there had been problems before, mostly with gypsies who tended to walk in during the day when people were home. I was not as worried about them, for I never left doors unlocked, and the alarm was activated constantly. It was an entirely different breed of criminal I feared, and he was not as interested in what I owned as in who and what I was. I kept many guns in the house in places where I could get to them easily.