Free Red Light by T. Jefferson Parker Page A

friendship."
    "That's
what it was all about, Merci. Friendship."
    Mike took another
drink. Then he rattled the ice and got up. He had the drunk's deliberate motion
through space, the aura of numb assurance. She glanced to the little table set
up near the kitchen, with phone and answering machine and notepad on it. Mike
hung his holster on the chair there, except when his son, Danny, was around—every
other weekend—and when he went to bed at night. Then it was over a coat hook on
the back of his bathroom door. It was on the chair now.
    He
sat down, his refilled glass held overcautiously out in front of him.
    "Let me tell you
what I saw in her, Merci. What I saw in her was someone young and full
of potential and life. I saw a complete waste of a human being, doing what she
did. That was my opinion of her and she knew it. From the first time I saw her.
And she, well, she knew I was right. I was doing everything I could do, within
reason, to get her out of that world. She wanted a friend. She wanted a man who
wasn't just paying up and getting off. She wanted a father and a brother. A
friend that's what I was trying to be."
    "How?"
    He huffed through his
nose, stared at her. "How do you think? I took her to church with me a
couple of times. We'd pray and talk about; options, other things she could do.
We'd do everyday stuff. We walked on the beach. We went to a park. We'd just. .
. be. That isn't too much to comprehend, is it? Two people who are just
content to be?"
    Merci
felt as if her skin were on fire. It was actually getting hard to see well.
When she got mad her vision constricted and lost color, it was like looking at
things through the barrel of a shotgun.
    "Not
hard at all. What was in it for you, Mike?"
    "What
do you mean, in it?"
    "I
can't get any clearer than that."
    He
drank, and set down the glass. "I liked her. I respected her, uh,
predicament. She was a sweet person, with a good sense of humor, and she'd been
screwed over by everybody she'd ever been close to, starting with her own
parents. She hadn't seen them in three years. I felt like her ... protector. Like a guy who could give
her a fresh start on things. And what that did for me, Merci, was it
made me feel good about me. Because I didn't want anything back from her. I
wasn't taking. I was just giving decency and respect to her. Just common
everyday kindness. It made me feel... good. And needed. I think she needed
me."
    "Was
she in love with you?"
    He
looked away, at the fire, out the window, then down. "I think she was
starting to feel that way. When I saw all the trouble she'd gone to for dinner,
I realized that. Not before."
    "Were
you in love with her?"
    "Absolutely
fucking not. Haven't you heard anything I've said?"
    "I
never heard you say you didn't love her."
    "Don't
play word games with me. You're better at it and it's a shit thing to
pull."
    "I
asked if you were in love with her."
    "And
I said not. Which part of that sentence is so confusing?"
    She
could feel his anger overcoming her own, nullifying it like a backfire. She
said nothing for a beat, hoping he'd cool off. But she could see from the color
of his face and the nervousness of his eyes that he wasn't.
    "I'm
in love with you," he said. She'd never heard those words spoken
with such venom.
    "Oh
Damn, Mike," she said quietly. Then she stood and walked over to the
fireplace. She could feel the heat. The old hardwood creaked under her boots. A
gust of wind whistled through the oaks outside and she heard the plastic tarp
slapping against the firewood. She walked over to the gun case, the telephone
table, the window facing south
    She'd never had her
job and her heart so mixed up in the same thing like this. Pulling different
ways. With Hess there hadn't been discord, just disagreement. The heat near the
stove and Mike's anger made her feel claustrophobic and faint. The hollowness
inside of her had replaced by a dry fire.
    Was she just an
incredibly selfish bitch who made her men dead or