Hot Sur (54 page)

Rose went from hallucination to boredom, from shock to disappointment, from fire to ice. It was over, he had figured out the case, at least roughly, forcing a detail here and there, filling in the gaps where needed, admittedly, but in any case getting an overview, assembling enough support in reality to feel that he had basically succeeded in untangling the mess. The fever had subsided and with it the state of exaltation. He had given birth, and now he felt he was sinking into postpartum depression, the maternity blues. Fleeing from this mood, he went to the kitchen to make tea, but could not find milk and had to resign himself to drink the tea without its cloud. “Sorry, Mother.” He looked for the bottle of Effexor and was about to down a couple with a sip of tea to put an end to crisis, but relented. “No more pills,” he said to the demon Effexor. From here on, he needed all his tools and faculties, including pain, anxiety, and panic, everything that was part of his system of alerts. He buried the antianxiety pills in the soil of a potted fern, climbed back up to the attic, and dropped, exhausted, on his son’s bed.

“I am the detective, I am the avenger, I play victim and the executioner . . . Forgive me, son, playing all these stupid games to make sense of the senselessness of your death,” he said aloud not so much to Cleve but to Cleve’s things surrounding him in the attic.

Two days later, winter descended suddenly upon the area. It had not stopped snowing in the past twenty-four hours and Rose was overcome by a sense of lethargic weightlessness, looking out the window at the snow falling with the slow grace of silk. Perceived as such, with the heat of the fireplace and through the windows, it seemed beautiful and harmless, something even warm about it. Yet Rose knew it well enough to be sure that this time it was not going to stop until it enveloped people, animals, and things, vanquishing all sounds, erasing all color, leveling all shapes, and leaving the land converted into a white ball, inhuman and bright as the moon, a static frozen landscape of serenity. Rose pressed his hands against the warmth of his teacup when Empera burst in like a whirlwind and handed him her cell phone.

“You want to take this,” she said.

“I’m calling about the grates,” a female voice declared.

“What grates?” Rose, who had still not come fully down from his hallucinatory state, asked.

“You know the grates, the ones you ordered.”

“I haven’t ordered any grates,” Rose said, annoyed with the insistence, but Empera shot him a look that made him realize that this could be important, something to do with María Paz, maybe “grates” was a kind of jail code. For what? Rose was speechless and there followed a tense silence that he didn’t know how to break. He couldn’t very well blurt out, Is that you, María Paz? This could very well be a clandestine contact through phones that were tapped, or using recorders and things like that.

“The grates, you know,” the voice said.

“Are you a friend of the grates?”

“A friend of a friend.”

“Have you been in touch with her?”

“That’s why I’m calling, to tell you that she has the catalog.”

“The catalog of the grates for the garden?”

“Exactly, the grates for the garden.”

“And when can I see it?”

“She wanted to know if you could meet today if possible, about three in the afternoon in the food court at the mall. Your housekeeper says she knows the one. If you can’t today, we can talk later to make an appointment for tomorrow or . . .”

“Tell her I’ll be there, drinking a Diet Coke,” Rose said, emphasizing the Diet Coke because it seemed an apt detail. How else would María Paz recognize him among the crowd?

“You shouldn’t.”

“I shouldn’t what?”

“Drink Diet Coke. If you have to drink Coca-Cola, at least don’t drink the diet one; it’s pure poison,” the voice said, and Rose had no idea if they were still talking in code, or if the caller was just concerned for his health.

“Alright, tell her that I will be drinking regular Coke.”

“Like everyone else there.”

“You’re right. Tell her I will be drinking three cans of regular Coke. Three cans placed in a triangle on the table,” he said, and felt ridiculous, as if he were playing a game of spies.

“Then what do you prefer?”

“The regular Coke,” Rose said.

“I mean the appointment, for today or later.”

“Sure, sorry, I misunderstood. Tell her today. And to bring samples.”

“Samples?”

“Samples of the grates, tell her to bring them. Tell her it’s important, very important,” Rose said and was going to add that it was a matter of life or death, but he refrained so that those who might be listening in on the call would not mistake him for a terrorist. Life or death, fatherland or death, victory or death, death to the infidels: it was best to avoid any kind of language that sounded like extremist talk.

By noon, Rose was busy putting the chains on the tires of his car, and then began shoveling the driveway. He was soon out of breath with the exertion and stopped halfway through, stiff and sweaty, feeling like a Santa Claus under many layers of clothing. From a distance, the three dogs watched, resigned and still, sitting in a row from biggest to the smallest, as they always did right before he was about to leave for anywhere. When Rose finished shoveling, he said good-bye to them very affectionately, as always, maybe not as always, this time more so than ever, giving each a Scheiner’s sausage and a tight hug, with a finality to each gesture, as if he were going on a journey with no return. Empera had filled him in on the details that he had not received by phone: the meeting would be at the Roosevelt Field mall in Garden City, accessible by the Meadowbrook Parkway. Empera was helping after all, perhaps grateful for the salary increase. She also agreed to stay in the house until Rose returned, to look after the place and watch the dogs.

When he turned on the engine of his Ford Fiesta, Rose admitted to himself that he would have preferred a thousand times over to go to the food court with Ming at his side and now regretted not having accepted his offer. The idea of María Paz pursued by the law, bounty hunters, and her criminal brother-in-law was not an appealing one and certainly made Rose skeptical of getting into trouble with so many people. After all, he was no epic hero, or to put it how Cleve phrased it, the epic wind did not blow at Rose’s back. But there was nothing to do. He could not pass this up, because it was unlikely there would be another chance. There was a frustrating bottleneck on the parkway and Rose was so nervous that he took the wrong exit twice, but he still managed to get to Roosevelt Field with plenty of time to spare.

The food court was crammed with people, with ornaments and twinkling lights, with music and smells: humanity preparing for Christmas. Rose, who had been locked up for months in the shadows of his grief, was taken by surprise with this crowded bazaar that surrounded him with all its agitation and clamor.
Strange,
he thought,
how now we celebrate the birth of Jesus in a manger, but come spring we commemorate his death on a cross. Poor puzzled mankind, inventing so much silliness to hide the fact that it understands nothing. But what does my Cleve have to do with all this? Who the hell tries to make these things clearer by confusing Cleve with that king born to die crowned with thorns?

All around Rose there were dozens of young women moving about with coffee-colored eyes and hair, and judging by the photo of record, any of them could be her. With fifteen minutes still to the appointed time, Rose bought three regular Cola-Colas. It was hard to get a table but one finally opened, and the next step was to sit down and arrange the three cans in a triangle. How stupid to use such a sign, he realized as he was doing it. It is impossible to arrange three cans in anything other but a triangle. It may have been relevant to specify what type of triangle, an equilateral, isosceles, or scalene one, depending on the length of its sides, or a right, obtuse, or acute one, according to the degrees of angles. He put down the three cans in whatever manner, as if it mattered, those three cans of Coke were invisible in the sea of the products that crowded the place. How stupid, really, when it would have been much more practical and sensible to specify other details, to have said, for example, that he would be wearing a gray coat and a black scarf. In the end, it wasn’t entirely his fault; no one had yet had the sense to publish
Conspiracy Tactics for Dummies
. It was already a quarter past three and no sign of the girl with the grates. If she had come, it would have been very difficult to find him in the middle of that zoo. Rose began to sense that he had somehow failed and did not know what to do but wait and tap the table with one of the cans. What if this was nothing more than a trap, and he was going to end up thrown in a Manninpox for men? The noise of the place disoriented him, and the loud ambient music thundered in his ears: Pavarotti howling “Silent Night” and “White Christmas” from the loudspeakers. It did make Rose smile, remembering that Cleve used to call Pavarotti Ravioloti. “I really like Ravioloti’s records,” he used to say, as if it the great singer were an overstuffed pasta dish.

While he waited, Rose thought about something he had heard many times before, that Plácido Domingo was the greater tenor of the two, that in Milan, Pavarotti always failed to hit the high notes during the second act of
Don Carlo
. “Maybe you blew it at La Scala,” Rose told Pavarotti, “but here in this food court, the victory is all yours, rest in peace, you marvelous fatso, here you out-howl all of us together.” It was already half past three and not a sign of María Paz.

Rose stood to become more visible, and surreptitiously scrutinized the women milling about, loaded with children and packages. Could María Paz be that that melancholy skinny one, waiting for something, or someone, sitting alone at her table in front of a disposable cup? She was brown, more or less pretty, had the long dark hair, but just then her beau arrived, kissed her, and sat beside her. So no, not that one. Did María Paz dye her hair blonde to evade her pursuers? Was she that blonde who was so engrossed with her cell phone, punching the little keys with a demonic agility? Wrong again. Without pausing from her texting, the blonde stood up and left. Wait, someone approached. It was an old woman in winter getup, with a pink coat, white boots, and too much makeup that adhered to her face like a mask. The old woman just wanted to know if the coupons that she was holding in her hand were good for the sale at Macy’s. Rose apologized and said he didn’t know, not even bothering to ask about the garden grates. Clearly, this was not the girl.

At half-past four, he gave up. He had been waiting for ninety minutes; at that point, he deduced that the meeting had been thwarted. Or Empera somehow had gotten the information incorrect, and he had gone to the wrong place. Or something had happened to María Paz and she could not make it. Maktub, as she herself said. What could he do? Rose began to go, more relieved than upset, almost running away from the food court and resolving for the time being to relax and disconnect from the situation. He had had enough clandestine activity for the day. Ciao, María Paz, see you later, for now you’re on your own. Sorry, I did what I could; I can’t do any more for you. The situation brought with it a ferocious appetite. Rose realized it was already dark outside and he had not had lunch yet, so he asked for the whereabouts of a real restaurant. No food court, no junk food; since Cleve’s death months before he had been eating terribly and sparingly, but suddenly he felt like eating a hearty meal, and doing it slowly. Someone directed him to a place called Legal Sea Foods, and he went and had clam chowder and an order of shrimp wontons. Now he could return home; the dogs would be waiting. He paid his check and went back to the central area, where Ravioloti was still hitting all those high notes that his detractors claimed he could not hit. A few minutes later, Rose noticed a heavily pregnant woman moving rapidly toward him. She wore a ridiculous multicolored hat and scarf, a crazy matchy-match. Rose made to get out of the way, fearing that if the girl crashed into him, she would give birth on the spot. But she walked right up to him, arms akimbo.

“Are you the father of Mr. Rose?”

“And you . . . you’re here about the grates?”

“I suppose so.” She took half a step back to look at him. “You’re the other Mr. Rose. The father of Mr. Rose.”

“How did you know?”

“Oh, good God, I’ve known you for a while,” María Paz said.

“As have I known you, more than you think,” Rose said, and then realized how truthfully he had spoken, that from reading her manuscript, reading it so many times in the solitude of night, he was more intimately connected to her than he had allowed himself to believe. Now she was there, in the flesh, and he not only felt he knew her, but more than that, he felt a certain closeness to her. There was also something nice about her that made him let his guard down, her guileless smile, perhaps, or her cheerful look. Or maybe it was compassion he felt for her, with that huge protruding belly pushing out from under her coat, a kind of compassion tinged with discomfort at the extravagant knit cap and scarf, and the self-confidence with which the girl carried herself, flashy and out of place as she seemed. But the jumble of feelings suddenly gave way to a more powerful emotion, and Rose’s heart soared at the insane delusion that had taken over his mind. Could it be Cleve’s child? Was this woman bearing the child of his child?

“Is it my grandchild?” he asked, his voice overcome with emotion.

“But how, Mr. Rose; it would have been very nice, but the dates don’t quite match up.” María Paz laughed.

“Then that clamp inside you must be huge,” Rose said, trying to conceal the interplanetary sentimental journey from which he just landed with a joke and hastening to dry his tears with the sleeves of his coat.

“You mean the pregnancy?” asked María Paz, for whom the word “clamp” had little meaning. “This pregnancy is as real as a three-dollar bill.”

“A disguise,” Rose sighed. “But you went too far, dear, it looks as if you are about burst at any moment, and the ambulance will come for you.”