a cop-out.”
“No more of a cop-out than you ignoring him and getting all pissy when someone else starts paying attention to him.”
“Julie—” Kevin tried to intervene.
“No. Let her finish, Kevin.”
I didn’t glance over at him because I didn’t know if I could stomach the look on his face. “I talked to other residents, Amery. I know you don’t visit him as often as you say you do.”
Her chin drooped to her chest.
“I’m right, aren’t I?”
She shook her head. “It’s true I don’t visit him in the common room. If you saw how confused he was today, then you can imagine what he’s like when he sees me.” She slowly lifted her face to meet my eyes.
“Did you ask him about me?”
I nodded.
“He didn’t know who I was, did he?”
“No.”
“That’s because he thinks I’m my mother. I look just like her. Sometimes he even thinks I’m my grand-mother. I suspect part of him knows they’re both dead, and that’s why he gets so flustered when he sees me.
Yes, he has reality issues, some idea that my mother was kidnapped. Sometimes he claims a man took her; 81
sometimes he claims he paid a man to take her to keep her ‘safe.’ So, no, when I visit him we don’t hang out in the common room. Because, like you said, they’d put him in a straightjacket.
“He might be old and confused, but he does deserve some dignity. You want to know why we hide in his crappy apartment? Because I’m selfish. I want to spend time with him even when he doesn’t know who I am.
“So you’re right. It is a cop-out. But I’d rather those nosy residents felt sorry for him because he didn’t get any visitors, than have them ridicule him because they think he’s crazy.”
This case had been fucked up nine ways ’til Sunday from the beginning, and my defense of myself wouldn’t change that.
Amery stood abruptly.
“I-I have to finish up some things before I leave on my trip. I’ll see you later tonight, Kevin.”
“Wait. I’ll walk you out.”
I sparked another cigarette and swiveled my chair to face my blank computer monitor, bracing myself for yet another butt chewing.
A few minutes later, Kevin wandered to the window and kept his back to me. Hands jammed in the front pockets of his dark green suit pants; shoulders hunched nearly to his ears. “You happy now?”
“Happy about what, Kev? Happy that I saw a bloated dead body first thing this morning following 82
up on a case I didn’t want to take in the first place?
Happy that I spent ten minutes trying to talk to the client’s grandfather and then another ten trying like hell to get away from him? Happy that I’ve been the one dealing with ageism, racism, and sexism? And you haven’t done a fucking thing on this case you insisted we take? Happy that your client questioned my investigative skill and my ethics, in my office, and you fucking sat there and let her do it?
“Or are you asking if I’m happy that I saw you screwing our client, in the middle of the goddamn day, in the middle of the goddamn conference table, when you didn’t bother to check the goddamn locks on any of the office doors? Which one should I be the happiest about? ’Cause I’m dying of fucking curiosity to know which one you’d choose.”
I swore I heard his molars crack from him clamp-ing his jaw so tightly.
“It was stupid of me not to lock the doors yesterday.”
Not exactly an apology. I waited for . . . something. A sheepish explanation. A lewd joke. Nothing.
Looked like I’d be holding my breath for a long time for anything besides another confrontation.
Screw it. I’d had enough confrontations. I snuffed out my cigarette.
Kevin didn’t turn around until I was bundled up and ready to leave. He seemed surprised. “Where are you going?”
“Home. And if it’s like this tomorrow I won’t be in.”
83
If I thought my partner might stop me so we could have a serious dialogue about all the shit that’d gone down, I thought
Cordwainer Smith, selected by Hank Davis