Last Light

11 Beauty Sleeps

The owner of the house kept a pistol in his nightstand drawer. Pogo said that it was a .40-caliber Ruger P944 with a ten-round magazine. The mere sight of a handgun usually made Makani uneasy, but not this one, perhaps because Pogo meant to use it himself, if the need arose, and she trusted him to do the right thing.

The weapon lay on the kitchen table while they ate a dinner of salad and pizza.

“I shouldn’t be doing this,” she said.

“Cheese and pepperoni? Cholesterol’s just a racket.”

“I mean, I’m putting you at risk.”

“We’re at risk when we’re born.”

“Are you as mellow as you seem?”

“Is there some law against it?”

“Really, I should go.”

“Don’t make me shoot you in the foot to keep you here.”

She smiled in spite of her fear and her sense of guilt.

Pogo carried the pistol when they took Bob into the backyard for his last toileting of the day.

As they waited for the dog, Makani said, “You really believe me about all this.”

“Totally. You proved you can read minds.”

“But Rainer Sparks and all that — it’s pretty far out.”

“A year or so ago, I saw some things.”

“What things?”

“Nothing like this. But since then the world looks different.”

“Different how?” she asked.

“Weirder than it used to. Mysterious.”

Under the ever-receding stars, the moon floated high and round, and farther down the night, its trembling ghost haunted the sea.

“Mysterious,” Makani agreed. “And so damn beautiful.”

“There may be nothing as enchanting,” Pogo said, “as a large black dog piddling in the moonlight.”

After he had retrieved Makani’s suitcase from her car, Pogo set the perimeter alarm.

Shortly after 9:00, together he and Makani shut the draperies and dressed the bed in the second of two guest rooms. The sheets had a high thread count and felt as soft as sleep itself.

“I’ll just lie awake,” she said.

“Try anyway. I’ll keep Bob with me. We’ll be on patrol. You’re safe here. This Sparks guy can’t know where you are.”

“He’ll find me somehow. There’s no way he won’t.” She didn’t like the fatalism in her voice, but she knew that it was also the truth.

“Even if he does, you’ve got some time to sleep. He said the next round would be in the morning.”

She remembered how the murderer, with mock courtliness, had opened the driver’s door of the Chevy for her. Work up a clever plan, girl. Give me a run for my money.

She had no plan. Unless she could count Pogo as a plan.

“But when does he think morning begins?” she wondered. “With the dawn — or just a few hours from now, at midnight?”

“Mellow out, O’Brien. Don’t worry too much about the future. The past is past. The future is an illusion. All we have is now, and we’ll get through it minute by minute.”

“Until we don’t.”

To Bob, Pogo said, “Did you hear me say ‘Mellow out’? I heard me say it. Your mistress isn’t deaf, is she, Bobby? No? I thought she wasn’t.” He looked at Makani. “Chill, gel, relax, fear not.”

He took Bob with him and closed the bedroom door behind them.

Makani wished he would have held her for a moment before he went. He had not touched her since he’d learned of her gift. She wondered if he would ever touch her again.

There were towels in the adjacent bathroom. She took the long hot shower that she’d not had time for when she’d fled from Rainer Sparks to her home in Newport Heights.

After she’d blown her hair dry, she put on clothes once more, dimmed the nightstand lamp, and lay down on the bed, atop the covers, certain that she would not sleep.

Sleep began to steal upon her sooner than she expected. Maybe the long day of sun and surfing had exhausted her more than she thought. Maybe the tension and terror of being stalked — and the Tasering — had taken a toll. Maybe the beers and hot shower had unwound her coiled nerves. But as she slid into a silken slumber, the last thing she saw in her mind’s eye was Pogo, and even in these circumstances, with his face came a sense of peace.