Meter Maids Eat Their Young (23 page)

Robyn was standing inside the door of the Rose Street apartment, a swirl of Indian summer leaves dancing about her feet. I knew this dream. I'd had it enough times, though not in recent years. I knew that no matter how hard I might try to wake myself up, I couldn't. The dream would play itself out according to its own script, little things changing from one replay to the next.

I was sitting on the floor like always, a Smith Corona portable typewriter in my lap, notes on scraps of yellow paper scattered all around me. This part of the dream had really happened once, long ago, and it was the only part of the dream that repeated itself. Robyn in the doorway, white silk blouse, pale blue bra beneath it, a short white skirt, all of which she took off that time in the waking world, but never in the dream, however much I longed for it.

In this go-round, I could hear HL outside taking loudly to someone. There was a smashing sound which I knew was the Mangler crushing meters with a sledgehammer. My gaze, though, was locked on Robyn. She reached for the top button of her blouse and then hesitated, her gaze shifting to the doorway of the bedroom. I became afraid. I knew Jaz was in there, sleeping in my bed. Robyn turned back to me, a look of sadness on her face. Lawrence walked in the door dressed in one of those Shakespearean get-ups that always denotes the cuckold. He glared at me, took Robyn roughly by the hand, and dragged her out the room. “Today's the day, Teller,” she said over her shoulder.

I woke up.

Turning my head with great care, I tried to see the clock past the inert form of the Beast who lay on the pillow beside me. It was 6:00 a.m. Jaz must have pulled the heavy drapes closed because the room was still dark.

My head hurt. I was covered in cats. I sank back into the pillow, tried to go back to sleep but it wasn't happening. Thoughts of the previous evening roiled about, making my headache worse. Oddly enough, my coccyx hurt worse than my head. And then there was the dream. Robyn had never spoken to me in the dream before.

The cats, knowing the difference between my sleeping movements and my waking ones, started yawning and stretching and getting into my face. They didn't care what time it was. I was awake, ergo, it was food o'clock.

I rolled out of bed as best I could and waited for the pain to hit. To my surprise it didn't. Just a dull ache at both ends of my spinal column. I made my way to the kitchen, limping, woozy, battle-scarred cats in tow. It was cold. The tile floor felt sticky against my bare feet and the room smelled of old cat food. I'd been neglecting my household chores again, something I am all too prone to do. The lines from an old Neil Young song drifted across my thoughts. Yeah. Like I could afford a maid. Or want one to see the mess I'd let the house become. I'd have to clean the whole place first to save myself the embarrassment. Weird how that works.

I set water to boil and dumped six scoops of Peet's into the French Press. There were a dozen small cans of over-priced, gourmet cat food in the pantry that I'd been saving for a special occasion. As saving my life seemed like a special occasion, I pulled them out, opened them up and dumped the contents on separate plates, one for each of my saviors.

Leaning against the counter, not yet ready to venture beyond the kitchen to examine the mess I knew the dining room to be, I stared at the kettle, willing it to boil, thoughts of the previous evening giving way to thoughts of the dream. A pointless endeavor. I hadn't understood it the first time I'd had it years ago and hadn't understood a single version of it since. Having someone else in my bed was new, though. That someone being Jaz scared me a bit. And what did Robyn mean that today was the day?

The kettle clicked off. I poured, gave the grounds about thirty seconds of the six minutes they should steep, and poured myself a cup. I am not a patient man in the morning.

I knew that I should stop this line of thought, turn back to the task at hand. I was in the middle of a breaking story. My best friend was dead. I was being stalked. Last night I'd been attacked and nearly killed. My house was a mess and several of my cats were injured.

Yet here I was, staring out the window, wondering about the dream. Why had it returned? Contrary to what I'd said to Jaz, I rarely think of Robyn anymore, much less dream of her. Nothing I'd consciously done had put her in my thoughts these last weeks. I hadn't been going through the photo albums, listening to silly, sad, love songs, or reading through my old journals.

It was being back in this town that was doing it, I decided. I was born here. Grew up here. Spent most of my adult life here. This whole place is full of memories, dark shadows everywhere I turn. What was hardest to understand was that my time with Robyn was such a small percentage of the whole, and yet I find her hiding in most of those shadows.

Why was that?

Why is it that I walk past the old movie theater, a place I spent every Saturday of my entire kid life, and all I can remember of it is the one time Robyn and I went there? I drive by Jilly's lounge and think of all the times I spent there with her, never the years I spent there before her. The Coney Island place; the park; the fountain downtown; the camera shop; the Stonehenge bar. Hell, the ATM in the square, which wasn't even an ATM when she and I were together, just some dumb plaza with bizarre black stone sculptures littering it. What was the deal here? I couldn't be pining over a long-ago love, could I? I mean, how pathetic is that?

No. Not happening. I loved her when I was with her. Mourned her when she left. Okay, so maybe the mourning went on a bit long. Okay, too long. But I got over it. Sure I did. Cat without Robyn is just … well, Teller again. Which isn't such a bad thing. For me, losing Robyn was like losing a part of your body that wasn't absolutely essential to your day-to-day functions. You could go days, weeks, months, and not notice it gone. Then one day, you go to pick up a bottle with your left hand and it slips through your fingers because you have no thumb.

But I'm happy enough with my life. Aren't I? Sure it's a little duller. It's supposed to get dull after five plus decades, isn't it? And yeah, it's lonelier. But whose fault is that? It's not like Robyn cursed me, or that the years transformed me into a hunchback gnome too ugly to look at. I'm a little weathered, perhaps, but not all that unattractive. So why have there been no significant relationships in my life since Robyn? And why, why, why is she still haunting me! You'd think we had broken up a week ago instead of … instead of …

‘
Today is the day, Teller
.'

My coffee cup tilted downward, sloshing hot coffee over the counter and onto the floor. Onto my bare feet, but I didn't notice it. I set the cup down. Unhooked my finger from the handle. Turned. Stared at the calendar on the wall. It was the end of May. Ric's Americana Café. The day the earth opened up and swallowed me whole.

‘
Today is the day, Teller
.'

It was twenty years ago today that Robyn and I broke up.

“I see you're still alive, Teller,” Jaz said.

I looked up, startled to find myself on the porch. The sun was up. Market Street was clogged with cars. I looked at the Zappa clock on the wall. It was a quarter to nine. Nearly three hours gone. Instinctively I looked around, expecting to find empty bottles surrounding my chair. Except for ashes, cat hair, and a few scattered leaves, the space around me was empty.

“Lose something?” she asked, taking the chair next to mine.

I sat back, closed my eyes, a wave of relief washing over me. I hadn't gone to the liquor store. Where I had gone was questionable, but at least I hadn't gone there. I ran my fingers through my hair. Damp. I had even managed to take a shower, change my clothes.

“Did the kick to the head relieve you of your voice?”

“Huh? Oh. Sorry,” I said. “A lot on my mind this morning.”

“You promised you'd tell me about it.”

“Tell you? Oh. Last night. Right.”

“Are you sure you're all right, Teller?”

“Yeah. Fine. Hurt a little. Nothing major.”

“So, last night?”

Staring through the screen at the park across the street, not really seeing it but seeing last night instead, I gave her the story, pretty much as I had to Marion.

When I was through, I looked over at her. She was wearing a pale yellow blouse with matching skirt. It looked good with her blue hair. I remembered that in my dream she had been in my bed. Something fluttered beneath my rib cage and I turned away. Robyn, Jaz. Jaz, Robyn. This was all too emotionally complicated.

“Wow,” she said. “That's pretty amazing about the cats. I mean, I know a dog will defend its master, but cats? I've never heard of that before.”

“Yeah, me neither. I couldn't have been more surprised but I sure am thankful. Pity I didn't get it all on tape. They could be stars of the World's Weirdest Videos or something.”

“You think he was here to kill you?”

“I know he was. He said as much, anyway.”

“What was he after?”

I considered telling her about the tickets. Decided against it.

“I'm being followed,” I said, staring out at the cars that inched their way up Market Street. “Or was until last night.”

“And?”

I looked back at her, said nothing.

“Do you think it has something to do with the Mangler?”

“Do you mean do I think the Mangler followed me around, trashed my place and tried to kill me? No way.”

“Why not?”

I resumed studying the cars.

“I think the Mangler wants the same thing I want. He wants to know what's going on at that place you work. I think Harrison wanted that, too. Following me around, trashing my place, it's counterproductive. No point. Worse, it interferes. No. It wasn't the Mangler.”

“So who set this guy on you then? DPE?” she said.

“That's a safe enough bet. No way to prove it, though. Not yet.”

There was a long silence. I looked over at her. She was staring out the window, watching the cars as I had been. I decided to shift gears.

“I asked Research to get me some info, yesterday,” I said, shifting in my chair to face her. “Should have been routine, you know, public record and all that.”

“And?”

“Well, apparently it's not so public.”

“What do you mean?”

I explained what I had asked Lynn for and how the links to the information I was looking for were screwed up. I debated telling her about the additional probing Lynn had done but I wasn't sure I could explain it. I didn't tell her about the tickets I'd found in the waste container. I needed more time to consider what they meant and, though loathe to admit it, I was beginning to wonder just what Jaz's involvement in all this was.

“Bottom line,” I continued, “none of the financial information on the department was accessible.”

“But that can't be,” she said. “All that information is public record. There's a small room filled with filing cabinets and a long table where the public can come in at any time and examine the records. Not that anyone ever does.”

“And not that they can at the moment.” I explained what Lynn had told me about the public viewing room being under construction.

“Construction? There hasn't been any construction in that building in ten years. But even so, the information has to be available on the Internet. I know because I set up the online part of it. Took us over a year to convert all the paper files to electronic ones. How can it not be available?”

“You're asking the wrong guy, Jaz” I said. “But trust me, if Lynn says it's not available, it's not available.”

She turned away, her fingers nervously tapping out a silent tune on her knee. She mumbled something under her breath that sounded like “What are they up to?”

“Tell me about Forest Forrester,” I said.

“Forest?” she said, a note of surprise in her voice.