“Hello, you’ve reached Mrs. Aurelia Castellano, but she’s not home at the moment. Please leave a message and she will call you back.”
Sitting in his truck, Peter held the yellow flier in his lap, looking down at the face badly reproduced there. Clean-shaven, dark hair combed down, a shy smile. But it was hard to see much more than that. Copy paper wasn’t photo paper, and it looked like it had been out in the weather awhile before Jimmy pulled it off a telephone pole. Not to mention that the young man in the neat new uniform might not bear any resemblance to the man he had become during the war. He thought of the Marines he had lost over there. He thought of Jimmy, who he had failed.
When the beep came, this time he left a message.
“Hi, my name is Peter Ash. I saw your flier about Felix, and wanted to talk with you for a few minutes.” He left his number. “Please call me back, I’d like to help.”
He got dressed and made coffee and a grilled cheese sandwich on the little backpacking stove, glad to have something warm in his stomach. The day was cold and damp. His breath made a dense fog, and the cloud cover hung low enough to hide the treetops. When he folded the gray tarp, he had to shake off a thin rime of ice that had formed overnight.
Before he left the vacant lot, he scattered the stones and broken bricks of the fire ring to the far corners, not wanting to damage the old man’s lawnmower in the spring. The wind had already taken the ashes. Other than the charred circle at the end of the driveway and the dry spot where his truck had stood, he left no sign that he was ever there.
At Best Buy, the clerk stared at the bruise on Peter’s cheek, which was evolving into an ugly greenish yellow, but he didn’t have long to look. Peter was in and out in under two minutes.
He could find free Wi-Fi outside any chain coffee shop, but it was too windy for an outdoor table, and it would be awkward to sort through the box of Jimmy’s things from the seat of his truck, even if the Wi-Fi made it to his parking spot. But the university library might work.
He parked on Kenwood near the Union, checking the street for the scarred man’s Ford, but didn’t see it. He got out of the truck and closed the door before Mingus could jump out after him. The dog cocked his head for a puzzled moment, then jumped gracefully through the empty window frame. Not an easy feat for a hundred-and-fifty-pound dog.
He really needed to get that window fixed. Especially if he was still here when it snowed. He opened the door again. “Get back up there, Mingus. I need you to guard the truck.”
Mingus jumped up on the seat. Peter closed the door. Mingus jumped out the window again, then looked up at him with that serrated grin, tongue lolling.
Peter sighed. “Okay, buddy. But I don’t think they’re going to let you in the library. Especially not with that stink you’ve got going.”
Peter wondered if they’d keep him out, too. After four days without a shower, he didn’t smell so good himself.
He opened the back and collected the cardboard box with Jimmy’s personal effects. He added the bag of papers he’d taken from Jimmy’s apartment and went to find the library. He needed a place with decent windows to spread out and think.
Mingus ranged ahead to terrify the coeds, trailing the stench of pepper spray and dog funk like a plume of tear gas.
Peter had always liked big universities. He liked the young undergrads, the scruffy grad students, and the even scruffier professors. He liked the idealistic vibe, the fliers posted everywhere for meetings and talks and galleries and concerts. He liked the coffee shops and cheap restaurants at the perimeter. Maybe one of these days he’d be a student again. Maybe.
The University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee wasn’t beautiful. Most of the unruly jumble of buildings seemed to date from architecture’s uglier periods. Now that the sun had come out, the sky a high, clear blue, the air crisp and cold, Peter’s legs twitched for a long run.
He found a glass-walled addition to the student union that connected to the library. He looked around for the dog, but Mingus had disappeared. Peter shrugged and pulled open the door. The dog could clearly take care of himself. He knew where the truck was.
Inside, the white static rose up, but less than Peter had anticipated. Maybe it was all the windows, the natural light. Maybe because it was a university, it didn’t set him off like an office building or a cheap motel.
He wondered, could the static tell the difference?
He bought himself a cup of coffee and an accordion folder at the bookstore, then headed into the library.
The girl at the information desk wore red lip gloss, rectangular glasses, and a form-fitting red blouse. She had her hair up in an unraveling bun, trying for that hot-librarian look. Usually Peter went for that kind of thing, and he was sure the undergraduates were eating it up. But next to Dinah or Josie, this girl looked like a spoiled child.