Gumshoes

Vandyk

Asleep like the curl of a fist. Dreams of the ocean, of forever purple deeps, of light so far down.

Alarum.

Black peep of eyes through lashes gummed with sleep. Grit at the corners, foul taste in the mouth. Headache. Hands and feet bloodless and cold; hot water from sink burns them into life while the toilet flushes. Rumpled face in mirror, tongue thick and coated, “Mlarghaw.”

Shower needles. Stand up, bend down, head to toe, stretch, shake, awake. Breakfast is cereal and raisins; outside the birds are alive in the trees, and the sunlight comes through the windows golden as butter, or wild honey. She takes cream in her coffee.

As she is leaving the house the alarm goes off again, the Selby Tigers shouting. As she is opening her car door Sam throws open the window and leans out, naked and gilded by the sunlight. “Be careful, Van! I love you!”

She blows him a kiss as she drives away, settles the fedora a little more firmly on her head. There were puzzles out there.

Vandyk

Sam and I were having sex when Charlie Kane was killed. The two weren’t connected except in point of time, but, working it out later, that’s how it was. We were finished about the same time he was through dying. The phone rang a few minutes later, while we were spread out next to each other, pleasantly exhausted. Sam grumbled, “Ah, can’t they leave us alone?” and the bedside clock said 3:27 when I reached over him for the buzzing phone. The voice on the other end said, “Ms. Vandyk?” and I said yes and they said Charlie’d been killed. I said I’d be down in thirty minutes.

Sam grumbled some more to please me and made comments that were meant to be funny while I was getting dressed to annoy me and asked if he shouldn’t come along. “No,” I said. “You go to sleep. This’ll take a couple of hours, maybe more.” He promised to take me out to breakfast when I got back and was asleep before I left the room. Sam’s awfully sweet but he sleeps more than any man I’ve ever had. But, like a cat, he’d fall asleep quickly and wake up equally quickly, which was nice, what with my hours being so irregular.

The Liturgical Hours Have Slipped from the Sidereal

Outside the front door cars approach, bearing news and family, bastards all, demons, wild men and bloody, and aye their women. We gather, the clans, to celebrate, to eulogize, to curse and rage against the end of life, to remember, and, at last, to make peace. To forget. Our father is dead, but not buried, and so we have come to the ancient home, immemorial, incestuous, ingrown seat of plenty, to indulge in expensive liquor and cheap badinage.

The bell in the Catholic church rings, ten, twelve, fifteen times, warning of the storm approaching. Drama, drama. One of Terry’s wolfhounds comes padding from the direction of the library and I aim a kick at it, which through long practice it avoids.

“You’re in a foul mood,” says Terry, trailing behind it. “But don’t take it out on my dogs, poor brutes.”

“Damn your dogs, and damn you, too.”

His eyes are cool, but there are lines around his mouth that lengthen in anger. Oh, he’s a cool one, my brother, self-contained. I would beat him and drive him to passion but he is stronger than I am, four inches taller and forty pounds heavier. “How much have you had to drink?”

“Are you keeping score, now? Are you your brother’s keeper? This false piety –“

“Enough!” And for a moment his hands shake and I see the wild hatred hidden in the planes of his face and would dance if I could.