“That’s a lot of perhapses there.”
He laughed. “Tell me about your day.”
She did. Talked about the guy from Funkley. About some of the regulars. About Little Feat. And about how Johan had learned a whole raft of new words and was now spouting them like a waterfall. Now and then the man behind the wheel nodded. Sometimes he laughed. At other times just grunted. Sometimes he asked about something and seemed as though he was really interested. It was easy to talk, so easy she had to be careful not to say too much, she thought. But it was all fine, and she hadn’t gotten him wrong in the bar or that last time he drove her home; he understood what she was talking about, understood her simple, practical and unsentimental way of thinking about things. Liza knew she could scare the type of man who preferred soft, cuddly women, sensitive and delicate women they could look after. And it wasn’t as if she didn’t need someone to lean on when the going got tough, but most of all she needed someone who respected her and who she could respect in return. Sure, she didn’t know Bob Oz well enough to know if he was a man like that, all she knew was that she liked…well, what was it about him she did like, actually? That behind all the bullshit he was honest, that he didn’t try to pretend to be someone or something he wasn’t. If that was because of courage or just laziness she didn’t know, but she liked it. She liked being around him. That was the plain truth. And hell, that was enough.
As it had the last time, the journey to her little home seemed over too quickly.
“Shotgun shack,”he said as they both peered up at the kitchen window where they saw the profile of Liza’s sister who, as Liza knew, would be deep in some romance novel.
“Is it something you look forward to?” he asked.
“Look forward to?”
“Going inside and seeing your kid sleeping there in the bed, safe and warm. That was always the high point of the day for me. It made it all worthwhile, all the grind.”
She looked at him. Hesitated.
“You think often about that?” she asked.
“Every day.”
“Would you…want to come in and see him?”
He looked at her in surprise. “You mean it?”
She nodded.
Liza unlocked the door and they went straight to the kitchen, where she introduced Bob and the sister to each other and told her to keep reading, Bob wouldn’t be staying long. Then they made the short trip to the bedroom and opened the door. Light fell across the little bed. Her three-year-old was wearing pale blue pajamas. He was fast asleep, one little fist clenched with the thumb sticking up like a hitchhiker. The Radica 20Q lay on the comforter next to him. Liza heard Bob’s intake of breath, as though he was about to say something, but nothing came.
After a few moments they closed the door again.
“Thanks,” he said as they stood on the steps outside the front door. Liza wanted to give him a hug, but she resisted.
—
Bob looked at Liza standing there in the doorway. He wanted to give her a hug but resisted.
“Sleep well,” he said, and with a short, clumsy bow he turned and headed back toward his car.
“You know what, Bob Oz?”
He stopped and turned. “What?”
“You’re not a wolf in sheep’s clothing. You’re a sheep in wolf’s clothing.”
He nodded slowly and smiled. “I’ll have to think about that one.”
And that’s what he did as he drove away, listening to “On Parole,” a sheep of a pop song in the wolf’s clothing of hard rock. Disguise, there was something there. Not something about him but about Tomás Gomez, maybe deep down a decent, hardworking family man who dressed himself up in the clothing and rituals of a gang member, a cold-blooded killer. Even if loneliness had driven him crazy and afflicted him with what Alice had called the rage of abandonment, could a person really undergo such a complete transformation? And if not, why had no one exposed the sheep in wolf’s clothing?
Two hours later, as he sat on the couch in his apartment and opened his third and final beer, the thought still swirled around inside his head: who is Tomás Gomez?
—
Where is Tomás Gomez?
Kay Myers stared at the ceiling above her bed as though the cracks in the paint were a map that might reveal where he was hiding. Listened to the couple making love in the next-door apartment, as though their cries might tell her something. All kinds of disparate thoughts swirled around inside her head. Mrs. White’s bird. Ted Springer’s pin-striped suit. Walker’s bass voice. The man at the porn theater with the present for his daughter. The phone call from Bob Oz requesting the file on Perez, a homicide case from 1995. Was there some pattern here? Something she should have spotted, something that would reveal exactly what his next move would be? She checked the time. Twelve hours until the opening at the U.S. Bank Stadium. Why think about that? It wasn’t her responsibility anymore. Springer and Hanson, from now on Gomez was their problem. She’d called the woman who called in the tip-off from Cedar Creek but got no reply. Kaydecided she would head up there early in the morning so she could cross it off her list. What she should do now was sleep. The couple through the wall had fallen silent now. She envied them their lovemaking. Envied their waking up together. It had been a long time since she’d had anyone else in her bed, man or woman. She felt the mattress dip at the foot of the bed and an instant later the cat came snuggling up next to her as though it had read her thoughts. She closed her eyes and stroked its head. She thought of the painter. How a mask through which all you saw was a pair of eyes left you free to invent the rest any way you wanted. Make your own imaginary person. What was it he wanted to show her on Sunday? She thought briefly about it, then her thoughts moved on. Who was Perez? What—if anything—did Bob know that neither she nor anybody else had seen?
The phone on her bedside table rang. She checked the screen and recognized the number.
