Valley of Lights

FIVE

'You told a lie,' Loretta said to me the next morning.

'When?'

'When you said that you weren't going to spend any of your own time on this. I heard you go out at the crack of dawn yesterday.'

I'd been telling her about how I'd almost made myself look like one of those guys who stands on street corners and shouts about the FLYING SAUCERS that are in the sky above us RIGHT NOW and the government knows it but WON'T TELL THE PEOPLE. We'd walked all of the way around the city zoo's three different habitat zones and had finally come to rest on a bench near the birds of prey. School holidays and yesterday's scare had made the zoo a popular place to be, but there was so much of it that it still seemed to be almost deserted. Georgie, with the typical perversity of small children, had paid far less attention to any of the exotic breeds than she was now paying to a tray of day-old chicks in a low shed across the way; she was pressed up against the window, watching them as they milled around like street extras in Blade Runner.

I looked at Loretta. She was shading her eyes against the sun, smiling. I said, 'I couldn't sleep, that was all.'

'I've been watching you, Alex,' she said. 'You're a workaholic.'

'A workaholic wouldn't have made such a hash of the lieutenant's exam.'

'I don't mean in that way. But outside of the job, what else do you do?'

'Lots of things,' I said uncomfortably. 'I've done evening classes. I'm in a couple of clubs.'

'The evening classes were in law, and the clubs are rifle clubs.'

'I told you that?'

'You did.'

'Are you saying that I'm dull company?'

'Not at all. But I'm wondering what I'll have to do to keep your interest. Perhaps if I went out and committed a robbery, then you could catch me and put the cuffs on me.'

I feigned surprise. 'That the kind of thing you're into?'

'If that's the kind of thing that it takes,' she said. The way that the shadow was falling across her eyes, I couldn't see how serious she was being. Perhaps that was deliberate.

Georgie came over then, and said, 'Mom, if we get the right kind of eggs, could I try hatching them?'

'And then what, sugar? I don't think Mr Peabody's likely to let us put a hen run in the trailer park.'

I could just imagine it; first the hen run, then a few cars up on blocks, then a moonshine still, and then the rest of us sitting out on our porches playing banjos. And in the middle of it all, old Peabody the site manager with his hand clutching at his heart and with his lips barely moving.

I said, 'Try suggesting it at school. That way you get all the fun, and somebody else gets all the problems.'

'Yeah,' Georgie conceded, seeing all of the gleam slowly fade from her plan. 'But then they'd be everybody's.'

She thought it over for a moment longer, and then seemed to sense a new tactical avenue; she said, 'How about a cage bird?'

'Maybe someday,' Loretta said in that parental tone that really means maybe never. 'Are you all done over there? Alex says he's got some other places for us to see.'

'I'll go say goodbye,' Georgie said, and ran off down the unmade path. She was in jeans and sneakers and a cowgirl shirt, and she raised more dust than a dirt bike.

Loretta was shaking her head. 'Would you believe it?' she said. 'A million dollars' worth of imported wildlife, and the kid goes crazy over a box of ten-cent chicks.'

'You going to tell her what they're being bred for?'

'I think she probably knows.' Georgie was back at the broader shed window now, on her toes and looking inside again. 'But some things are best if you don't say them out loud.'

Amen to that, I thought.

For the picnic and for the afternoon, we went out to the Pioneer open-air museum and wandered around the old and reconstructed buildings. We spread the checkered cloth in some shade by the pond overlooked by John Marion Sears' Victorian mansion, broke out the food, and waited for the ants. Watching Georgie, I couldn't help wondering if she was lonely and if, in some ways, she wasn't having to grow up too fast. I suppose it was the cage bird business that had set me thinking. By the time that I was her age I'd been through just about every kind of animal that walked, crawled or flew, including a big yellow dog that had died of a tumor at five years old. I grew up believing that kids ought to have pets, but Georgie didn't have any. She lived in a place where the nearest person to her in age was her own mother. She had her own house key, kept her own hours, and had more freedom and responsibility now than I'd had when I was fifteen.

But at least if she was unhappy, none of it showed.

When the day had begun to fade, we headed for home over the mountain road. We came over the crest and there it was, a whole valley of lights against the black velvet of a desert evening, a low-rise city tricked into beauty by a fierce sunset and an unexpected approach. We pulled off for a while and watched as the sky flared through from blood-red to black and the city pulsed with evening traffic. It hadn't been a bad day, if you considered my lack of experience as an entertainments manager.

And it wasn't to end there, because even before we were out of the car Loretta was announcing dinner and I was being pushed back behind the wheel so that I could go and find somewhere to sell me some wine. It was almost five miles down the road to the nearest liquor store – the only one that I could be certain of, anyway – and it took me more than half an hour to complete the round trip, returning with something French that I'd never tried, but which looked awfully classy.

I didn't make it entirely unscathed. When I was back at the site and getting out of my car, I heard a voice call, 'Sergeant Volchak?' It was a voice that I recognised with a sinking heart.

'Yes, Mrs Moynahan?' I said.

'He was here again.' Mrs Moynahan was short and stocky, and always looked as if she was ready to leap to the attack. She lived in the most old-fashioned looking unit on the site, a silver Jetstream like an aluminium bullet. She was coming across the road to me now, mostly a silhouette just slightly warmed by the reflected glow of Loretta's curtains.

I said, 'And who was this?'

'The man from the ClA. Snooping around, knocking on everybody's door.' She thrust a piece of paper towards me. 'I made a list of all the places that he went. This is a copy, you can keep it.'

I hesitated, and then took the paper. Where was the harm? I said, 'Did you speak to him?'

'No. I pretended I wasn't in. Are you going to..?'

'Yeah,' I said, 'we'll put it all into the police computer. Then when he makes a wrong move, we can grab him.'

It was my standard answer, but it was the only thing that ever seemed to satisfy her. Poor old stick. I pushed her piece of paper into my pocket as I went up the wooden steps and into Loretta's house, reflecting that I'd at least escaped without having to listen to the usual half-hour of theories and observations. I can handle these things on the street, but with neighbors you have to approach it differently.

There was no sign of anybody when I got inside. The table wasn't set, apart from two glasses, and there wasn't even a light in the kitchen; but then I heard Loretta, calling to me from somewhere in the back.

'Who were you talking to?' she said.

'Mrs Moynahan, from across the way.' I set the bottle down alongside the glasses. 'She gives me reports on everybody who goes by. There's a salesman been calling around for the last week trying to get the whole site to bulk-order its toilet paper, she's got him marked down as a government agent. Where's Georgie?'

'With her friends.'

'Running loose? Loretta, I don't think…'

'She's not running loose, she's with the Hendersons. The Hendersons have a pool and an Old English Sheepdog and they're having a poolside barbecue for Jilly Henderson's birthday. I drove her there while you were out.'

What was this, a conspiracy? Georgie hadn't said anything about it. 'Loretta…' I began.

'Yes, Alex?' Loretta said patiently.

'Why are we shouting from opposite ends of the house?'

I heard movement, and then a moment later she appeared in the doorway. She was mostly backlit from the bedroom, and she was wrapped in a towel.

As far as I could see – which was quite a lot – she wasn't wearing anything else.

'Damn it, Alex,' she said, 'is it too much trouble just to come through and get a surprise?'

'Try it without the towel,' I suggested, 'and I'll tell you if it's worth the walk.'

One stunned second later, I was walking.