The Eighty-eighth Key Ch. 35

"You went right to the heart of the house, Harry," she said as she came up to him. "Why am I not surprised?"

"I have no idea what part of the house I'm in, but I love it already."

Cathy smiled. "Thanks. Frank Lloyd Wright did a house down in Carmel, the Della Walker house, and I wanted to borrow some of the major design elements from that house. Glass, stone, and copper. Low, strong horizontal lines. You're standing in the living room. Your bedroom is just over here, same view, but the view will be framed by that tree," she said, pointing to a scruffy pine that leaned out over the cliffs. "There will be a stone walk down to the rocks, right above the surf."

"I'm really stunned, Cathy. I had no idea..."

"Really? Why?"

"It's magic. Like it was designed by God or something..."

She laughed at that. "Nope, just little old me."

"You're a genius."

"Well, I brought you some coffee. Frank said you had a rough night, something about Threlkis and the Mark Hopkins."

"Yeah."

"Did you meet Brett?"

"I did. What's he do here? Construction?"

"Actually, he's from our firm. He comes out twice a week and goes over the materials and workmanship, makes sure everything is up to my specifications, and that all the work is up to code."

"I bought a painting a few days ago, pretty shattering stuff, really. A portrait, but a portrait of madness." He handed over the gallery's business card before he continued. "If you get a chance, drop by and see if there's a place for it here in the house, and maybe where it'd fit in."

"Okay. Sounds intense."

"It is. Well, maybe it's more than intense. Maybe it sums up my career, maybe better than I'd like to admit..." 'And maybe it sums up the women in my life,' he thought, but left unsaid. "It's big, too."

"Alright," Cathy said, now more than a little curious, "I'll swing by tomorrow when I go into the city."

"Thanks. Great coffee, by the way."

"From Kenya. Very smooth."

"My coffee comes from May's Diner, and it ain't - smooth...at all."

She laughed.

"How long 'til I can move in?"

She shrugged. "Depends on the temperatures. If it stays warm enough to lay stone through October, maybe around Christmas. If not, we're looking at April or May. Any rush?"

"No, not really. Curious more than anything else."

She walked over to corner spanned by mitered glass, the main view was of the sea. "Your piano will go here, in this space. Would you rather face the sea, or be broadside to it?"

He came to her side and looked around the space, then at the views from different spots. "Amazing how different each is. I think here, facing the sea."

She nodded. "That's the way I drew it, but I wanted to make sure."

"See. I told you I trusted you."

She looked down, and Harry could tell she was blushing.

"Harry? Why this?" she asked, spreading her arms wide to indicate this house. "I mean, why me?"

Callahan stuck his hands in his back pockets then stood up on his toes, flexing up and down. "You know, I've known you and Frank for years, and just being around you, a lot of what you know about design has rubbed off on me. I listen, I guess I'm trying to say. Anyway, I think I've grown to trust how you look at the world..."

"Me? The Jimmy Carter Democrat?"

"Yeah, Cathy. You. And I appreciate your political points of view, too. I listen, and I learn."

"Maybe if we took time to listen to one another more there wouldn't be so much trouble brewing."

"Yeah," Callahan sighed. "Maybe."

"I never got to tell you, but I was devastated by Sara...what happened and all..."

Harry nodded. "I know. We all were."

"I don't know how you handle it, Harry."

He looked away. "Habit," he ended up saying. "Like breathing, I guess. It's hard to stop."

"This Threlkis stuff last night? Will there be more trouble?"

Harry nodded. "Yeah."

"Well, stay safe. I'm going to go put on breakfast if you want to come over?"

"Sure. Thanks. Did they do a good job on the house?"

"Good as new," she said, smiling, then she turned and walked back to her house.

He walked around for a while, then walked down to the cliffs that looked out over the surf-line, and even with just a gentle breeze blowing in from the sea the noise was spectacular. 'What will it be like in a storm?' he wondered.

Because a big storm was coming. He could feel it in his bones.

Threlkis. Escobar. The vigilantes.

After taking out Crawford...who would come at them first? And how hard would they come at the team?

He walked along the edge of the cliff, always looking down at the surf, until he came to Cathy's house...

He looked in, saw Frank and Cathy hugging in the kitchen, then he saw Cathy's sister come in and pour a cup of coffee, and the sight of her took his breath away. Blond, shoulder-length hair, gorgeous eyes...

Then she turned and looked directly at him, and a second later Frank and Cathy waved at him, beckoning him to come inside and say hello to his future...

He waved back and smiled, but for the past several hours all he could really see was that face in the PSG's scope, then, with just the slightest pressure on one finger, how a life had been so casually snuffed out.

Had Frank been, in the end, right? Was Crawford's death really so different? Was his death really cold-blooded murder? No more, no less?

"And what if it was?"

"Oh, God...what have I done...?"

© 2020 adrian leverkühn | abw | and as always, thanks for stopping by for a look around the memory warehouse...[and a last word or two on sources: I typically don't post all a story's acknowledgments until I've finished, if only because I'm not sure how many I'll need until work is finalized. Yet with current circumstances (a little virus, not to mention a certain situation in Washington, D.C. springing first to mind...) so waiting to mention sources might not be the best way to proceed. To begin, the primary source material in this case - so far, at least - derives from two seminal Hollywood 'cop' films: Dirty Harry and Bullitt. The first Harry film was penned by Harry Julian Fink, R.M. Fink, Dean Riesner, John Milius, Terrence Malick, and Jo Heims. Bullitt came primarily from the author of the screenplay for The Thomas Crown Affair, Alan R Trustman, with help from Harry Kleiner, as well Robert L Fish, whose short story Mute Witness formed the basis of Trustman's brilliant screenplay. Steve McQueen's grin was never trade-marked, though perhaps it should have been. John Milius (Red Dawn) penned Magnum Force, and the 'Briggs'/vigilante storyline derives from characters and plot elements originally found in that rich screenplay, as does the Captain McKay character. The Threlkis crime family storyline was first introduced in Sudden Impact, screenplay by Joseph Stinson. The Samantha Walker character derives from the Patricia Clarkson portrayal of the television reporter found in The Dead Pool, screenplay by Steve Sharon, story by Steve Sharon, Durk Pearson, and Sandy Shaw. I have to credit the Jim Parish, M.D., character first seen in the Vietnam segments to John A. Parrish, M.D., author of the most fascinating account of an American physician's tour of duty in Vietnam - and as found in his autobiographical 12, 20, and 5: A Doctor's Year in Vietnam, a book worth noting as one of the most stirring accounts of modern warfare I've ever read (think Richard Hooker's M*A*S*H, only featuring a blazing sense of irony conjoined within a searing non-fiction narrative). Denton Cooley, M.D. founded the Texas Heart Institute, as mentioned. Many of the other figures in this story derive from characters developed within the works cited above, but keep in mind that, as always, this story is in all other respects a work of fiction woven into a pre-existing historical fabric. Using the established characters referenced above, as well as a few new characters I've managed to come up with here and there, I hoped to create something new - perhaps a running commentary on the times we've shared? And the standard disclaimer also here applies: no one mentioned in this tale should be mistaken for persons living or dead. This was just a little walk down a road more or less imagined, and nothing more than that should be inferred, though I'd be remiss not to mention Clint Eastwood's Harry Callahan, and Steve McQueen's Frank Bullitt. Talk about the roles of a lifetime...]