“We’re all something,” said Tilton.
Fiona drilled him with her purple gaze. “You up for this?”
“I’m here, aren’t I?”
“You better be up for this,” she said.
“I’m here, okay? I’m here.”
They weren’t going into the Bledsoe house until eleven o’clock. Drackman glanced at his watch. Going to be a long evening.
98
After Malcolm went home, Mrs. Lorenzo wanted to talk over a cup of coffee at the kitchen table, so I had a cup, too. She was happy to be living with us, and she didn’t get teary every time she mentioned her husband, so I thought she must be healing from that loss. But she had been alone for a year during which she’d had a lot of time to think. I suppose there were thoughts she’d had when all by herself that she wanted to share with someone.
Over coffee, she told me that the four things she loved most, loved with all her heart and soul, were her father, her husband, God, and food. Her father died young. So did her husband. She still loved God, she said, in spite of His habit of taking from her the people she loved with all her heart. The problem was that no matter how much she loved God, He remained invisible, and the only way she knew how much He loved her was to read scripture, which could be hard going. Meanwhile, the love that she brought to her cooking was returned to her daily by the flavor of what she put on her plate.
She was well aware that gluttony was a deadly sin, but there were three reasons why she didn’t worry about that. First, the formal definition of gluttony was eating and drinking to excess, but Mrs. Lorenzo didn’t drink. Second, before eating her meals all by herself back in the apartment, she always said grace, thanking the Lord for His bounty. Therefore it seemed to her that if the Lord disapproved of the size of the portions she ate, He would make her even poorer, so that she couldn’t afford so much food. Or He would reclaim from her the culinary genius that was her gift, so that what she cooked didn’t taste worth eating. Third, she kept a list of what she ate, soberly considered what might be excessive, and at the end of the week read every item during her confession and received absolution. “Whatever weight I put on, Jonah, is sanctified fat.”
“I sure wish I could get some sanctified fat,” I said. “I’m still a stick.”
“If I cook long enough for you, child, you’ll be a regular Godfrey Cambridge.”
He was a terrific comedian and actor back then, a bit on the hefty side. I might have given up music to be as funny as Godfrey Cambridge.
Anyway, after a while, Mrs. Lorenzo decided to go upstairs and read in bed, either scripture or recipes, she couldn’t decide which. She checked the locks on all the doors and windows before leaving me alone on the first floor.
After I brushed my teeth and completed my other bathroom business, I put on my pajama top and wrestled my uncooperative legs into pajama pants. I sat up in bed for a while, reading about Tin Pan Alley: the legendary Fats Waller and Jelly Roll Morton; Jerome Kern; George Gershwin, who started out by writing a song for Sophie Tucker to sing and went on to become the greatest composer of the century.
All of it was interesting and inspiring, but I couldn’t see myself in anyone I read about. Nevertheless, I intended to keep reading a thousand such books, if I had to, until I figured out how they did what they did.
At ten o’clock, I took the penlight from the nightstand drawer and switched off the lamp. Lying in the dark, I listened to the storm for a while, and it bothered me that the drumming of the rain masked all other sounds.
Eventually I clicked the penlight and swept the room with the narrow beam. I discovered no zombies or emotionless seed-pod people from outer space, no monsters of any kind. I decided to leave the penlight on for a few minutes.
99
Earlier in the day, using her second set of false ID, Fiona had rented another car, a Chevrolet, and parked it at the motel. Before leaving Room 14, at Lucas’s direction, she gave the keys to Mr. Smaller and said, “Don’t make it too easy for the sneaky bastard. We’re in this soup because of him.”
“You sure maybe they ain’t watchin’ him, too?”
“If they are, they’re invisible.”