The Eighty-eighth Key Ch. 36

"I don't think it much matters, Harry. It is what it is. We do the best we can with what we've got to work with."

"Yeah, I know," Callahan muttered. "That's what you always say."

"Because that's how I feel, Harry."

"So, what next?"

"I'm going up to Tahoe."

"You're going to take out Briggs?"

Bullitt shook his head. "No. I'm going to get him to the Colonel, send him to that little house of horrors. Let them figure out what he knows, and where we go from here."

"Okay, Frank. You do that, but you tell Goodman I'm done. I'm through being a pawn on this board."

"So. You're going to turn in your paperwork?"

Callahan sighed. "No, at least not yet, but I've got to find some good reason to wake up in the morning, ya know? 'Cause this ain't doing it for me anymore. It might. It might if we were supported, if everyone wasn't picking our motives apart, turning mistakes into a legal lottery where everyone stands to make a buck - everyone but us, that is."

"What happened this morning? With Evelyn?"

"Two lost souls, Frank. Drowning, trying to hang on to the same life preserver."

"Oh? Sounds fun."

"Does it? Well then, this has been a real fun day."

Bullitt pulled up to curb in front of Harry's apartment building, and both were surprised to see Evelyn sitting on the steps, waiting for Harry.

"You going to be okay, Harry?"

Callahan shook his head. "You know, Frank. I'm not so sure right now."

"You want me to take her back with me?"

He looked at her sitting there, then turned to Frank. "No, I'll be okay."

"What about her, Harry. Will she be okay, too?"

"I hear you."

"She's my sister, Harry. All that's left of my family."

"And you're my friend, Frank. Maybe the only friend I have left in the world."

"Alright. Just be good to one another. She's had a bad couple of years, and my sense is she's very fragile right now."

"Yeah? Well, that makes two of us."

Bullitt sat there for a while, watched his sister and his friend disappear inside the old walk-up apartment building, and he tried to get a read on what Harry had just said.

Was he still fit to be out on the street? Had he lost the edge?

He sighed, dropped the car into gear and headed out into traffic, not at all sure where these questions were taking him - and not at all happy he felt he needed to ask them - but all the warning signs were flashing red now. Callahan had come back too soon. He had been a flaming wreck before Crawford; now he was way beyond that.

When he got back to Sea Ranch he called the colonel, told him what had happened, and what Callahan had told him.

"I expected as much," Goodman said. "Should I come get him?"

"Not yet. I think we should give him some room, let him try to figure this out for himself."

"Is he a danger to himself?"

"Harry? God, no."

"Okay. Keep me advised."

"I will."

All in all, Bullitt thought, this was the best he could do, the best thing he could do for his friend.

Cathy was waiting for him out on the patio, and she'd made guacamole and fresh margaritas.

She held out her glass as Frank sat: "Well, what shall we drink to?"

Bullitt clinked glasses while he thought. "To new beginnings, I think."

"To new beginnings," she added. "And to those we met on all the old roads we traveled, once upon a time."

_____________________________

She walked into his apartment and looked around, shocked by what she saw. Walls the color of a smoggy day, beige carpeting threadbare in places, and a kitchen that defied easy description. Rudimentary, perhaps, best described the tiny space, and as her eyes roamed she tried to reconcile what she was looking at with the house he was building. After a moment she gave up and went to the tiny sofa and sat down, then she watched him as he took off his jacket and hung it in a tiny closet just off the entry.

"Could I get you something to drink?" he asked. "I have Coke and O.J."

"Coke works for me," she said, her eyes falling on the piano - which even though it was an upright seemed to be of exquisite quality. "What kind of piano is that?"

"What kind?"

"Who made it, I mean."

"Bösendorfer. They're made in Vienna, and in a roundabout way I distribute them here in California."

"You what? Did you say..."

"Yup."

"I'm sorry, but I don't get it..."

"It's complicated."

"Cathy described the piano she heard you playing on, and this isn't it."

"Oh. That was my mother's. It's..."

"Don't tell me, you have another house."

"Yeah, I do."

She grinned, shook her head. "And where is this one? Colorado? Aspen, maybe?"

"Switzerland."

"Of course it is. Why not?"

"Like I said, it's complicated."

"Are you serious? You have a house in Switzerland?"

"Yeah. Davos."

"I hate to seem rude, but just how much money do you have?"

He shrugged. "I have no idea, really."

"Of course you don't. That makes perfect sense. So, do you really know how to play this thing?"

He brought her a Coke and a glass full of ice; she looked at it closely and thought 'at least it looks clean,' before she popped the top and poured.

He walked over to the Bösendorfer and retracted the keyboard cover, began playing Carly Simon's That's the Way I've Always Heard It Should Be. He even tried to sing here and there - but his voice was too gravelly, more like a hoarse whisper, but nevertheless she was impressed.

"Do you know any Bill Evans?"

He drifted into Peace Piece, then wandered back to Gershwin, as he always did - then he stopped and asked her to come and sit by him on the bench.

"Closer, please, and put a hand on me."

"What? Why?"

"I want to try something."

"Where?"

"Anywhere."

She put her hand on the top of his thigh and he returned to That's the Way I've Always Heard It Should Be. A few bars in, his playing slowed and his head seemed to relax, to fall away...

And he could see the living room - inside another apartment, and that snow was falling outside. Endless pines, their limbs falling under the weight of a massive snowfall. With another passage he saw Evelyn and a man, and then he saw the man was beating her, with a heavy belt, screaming at her as he towered over her.

"Move your hand to my face, please."

She moved her hand.

"Higher, just by my left eye."

She adjusted her hand.

"He hit you here. That's when you fell. When things fell apart..."

She jumped up and moved away from Callahan, now clearly terrified of him. "What the Hell are you doing?" she screamed, and she watched him, almost mesmerized, as he broke free of the piano and seemed to return to the present.

He turned and looked at her, clearly shaken by what he'd just seen. "It's okay," he began, gently. "I think I understand now."

She backed away again, until her back was up against a wall. "What do you mean, 'you understand.' Just what do you think you understand?"

"What happened, to you. Why you left him."

"How could you possibly know that. I mean, that's simply preposterous!"

"It is, isn't it? Would you listen if I described to you what I just experienced?"

She nodded. "Yes-s-s-s...but I don't understand..."

"Neither do I, really. This is only the second time I've tried to do this."

"Do...what, exactly?"

"Well, Evelyn, I'm not sure how, but some music, some chords within music, seems to connect me to...well, I'm not exactly sure, but it feels like I can slip through time, even to different places, and I can see things there."

"Pardon me for asking, but are you, by any chance, like schizophrenic?"

"I don't think so. But bear with me here, okay?"

"Alright?"

"The first thing I saw was a living room in an apartment. White walls, gray trim. Wood floor, like a mahogany color. Green leather sofa, matching wingback chairs. An oval-shaped coffee table, very old...an antique..."

"Dear God..."

"You are wearing jeans and a red plaid flannel shirt, you are wearing socks, white socks, but no shoes. He is wearing jeans and has on a down parka, dark red, and those funky boots, the ones with the rubber lowers and the leather uppers..."

"How are you doing this..."

"He's screaming at you. Telling you it's none of your business who he talks to on the telephone. You're holding up a statement, from the phone company, pointing at a number. New Haven. The phone number is in New Haven. You're telling him he's been having an affair with a woman there. There...at Yale...a philosopher. Last name Shaw, and that's when he hit you, when you fell to the floor. Then he kicked you, more than once..."

Callahan broke free of the vision, saw her curled up on the floor in what almost looked like a fetal position, only she had pulled her knees up to her chest and she was trying to rock herself, almost like she wanted to be held...

He fell to her, wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close. "It's alright, Evelyn. I understand now..."

Her head came up, her face was tear-streaked and red, snot running out her nose and her teeth chattering. "This isn't right," she whispered. "What you're describing..."

"That's the way it happened, isn't it?"

"Yes, but this isn't normal. People can't do this..."

"Yeah, I guess so, but nevertheless I think that's exactly what I just did."

"Oh, God...no..."

"It's okay. It's still me..."

"How did you do it?"

"Actually, I have no idea, but it's something my mother told me about. She could do it, and I don't think she's the only one."

"You mean, the music..."

"Playing the music, not simply the music in and of itself."

"So, playing the music lets you see things..."

"I'm not quite sure it's that simple. It helped to have you touch me, at least it did this time. The first time it happened, well, I was just playing when what I thought were visions came to me. Only they weren't simple visions. It was more like I was transported to that time and place. In a way, I could move around there, look at things, even move stuff around..."

"Harry, that's just not possible. I'm sorry, but what you're describing seems like..."

"What? A delusion?"

"Yeah. Maybe."

"Okay. Wanna try a little experiment?"

"I'm not sure."

"That's not fair. You're a scientist, right?"

"I think you could say that, yes."

"So, we come up with a hypothesis then generate experiments to prove or disprove the hypothesis."

"Well, kind of. It's not really that simple."

"Okay, but what's a simple hypothesis? That some musicians can manipulate time and space, and while doing so they can observe past events? Does that sound about right?"

She shrugged.

"Okay, well, let's go back to the piano. You think of some past event, you tell me what music to play, and then let's see what happens. I report what I end up seeing, if anything, and you record the results. Do we account for source bias that way?"

"This is crazy. You know that, right?"

He nodded. "It's crazy as Hell."

She stood and held out her hand, and they went to the piano. He sat, then patted the bench on his left side. "Sit here."

"Hand on your leg again?"

"For now."

"Okay, I'm thinking about something."

"Music?"

"Elvis. Can't Help Falling in Love."

He thought for a moment, then began playing. Slowly, then slower still, until he was in a room. A child's room, and it felt like he was a wraith looking down, like the room was in the near distance and sheathed in an ion mist...

Chord by chord time advanced, until he saw a man enter the girl's room. He came to her bed and leaned over, kissed the girl once on the forehead...and as the music moved so did his understanding of the scene below...the man...dressed in a uniform...military...Navy...a pilot...he's telling his little girl goodbye, that he's going to Vietnam...no, to Korea...and that he loves his little girl...

He felt her jump up and fall away, but he kept playing, saw the man leave the little girl's room...then everything receded from view and he stopped playing, turned to see Evelyn on the sofa, balled up with her knees pulled up to her face, rocking back and forth, crying again, then sobbing hysterically...

"What is it?" he whispered as he came to her. "What happened?"

"I...I don't know. The more I pressed my hand into you, the more I saw..."

"You saw...what did you see?"

"You first. You tell me what you saw."

"A bedroom. A little girl, asleep. A man, a naval aviator, telling her goodbye, then leaving her room..."

"That's right," she whispered, "yes, that's right, but you missed the most important part..."

"What? What did I miss...?"

"That I wasn't really asleep. I was mad at him for leaving me so I pretended to be asleep. I didn't get to tell him that I loved him, and that I really wasn't mad at him..."

"And he didn't come home again?"

"Yes, that's right. Did Frank tell you?"

"No. We've never talked about things like this."

"Frank stayed up with dad that night. They talked and talked about his going to war, what it meant - to him - to serve. What country really means. But, I pretended to sleep, and I never got to say goodbye..."

"You were a little girl, you couldn't possibly have known..."

"I was a selfish brat..."

"And you've been punishing yourself ever since."

She looked up at him. "Yes. That's right." She stood and then flew into his arms, held him so fiercely it took his breath away.

"You don't have to do that anymore, Evelyn. You don't have to bear that cross alone."

"I don't know," she whispered. "I just don't know anymore..."

"What don't you know?"

"How I can go on."

"You don't want to?"

"I really don't know anymore, Harry. I think I ruined my life, like I've ruined everything ever since that night. I see a fault and I pick at it, pick at it like a scab. I pick and pick until I've infected everything around me..."

"So, what are you most afraid of?"

"Right now? That I'll pick on you until we're infected, that we'll wither and die..."

"What if...I stop you. What if I won't let you destroy us? Then what would you be afraid of?" She buried her face in his neck, and as he felt her tears he pulled her closer still... "Why don't you just let go of all that for now. Just let it go, push it all away, think about how you want to be without all that crap cluttering-up your life."

"Harry?"

"Yes?"

"I'm hungry."

"I know."

"How could you possibly know that..."

"Because...I can hear your stomach growling."

She pulled away just a little, shook her head as she grinned at him. "All you cops...you're all the same, you know? Nothing gets by you..."

"Hey, just the facts, M'am...just the facts."

"Uh, I didn't bring my wallet...? And that's a fact."

"I think I can handle dinner. Once, anyway."

"Good."

"So, wanna walk down to the wharf?"

"I thought you'd never ask."

He went to the closet, put on his shoulder holster then his windbreaker while she looked on.

"Do you always wear that thing?"

"Yes. Always."

She shook her head but took his hand...

As they left the building Callahan scanned the street - as he always did - before he started walking down to the Wharf, and within a few blocks he spotted the tail. A black Sedan de Ville, four men inside. They would have to be Threlkis' men, he told himself even as he groaned inwardly. Now, how to get Evelyn out of the line of fire.

He cut down Jones Street and made the jog onto Pier 47, and here he started to walk faster.

"Are we in some sort of hurry?" Evelyn asked.

"Kind of, yeah."

"Okay."

They made it out to Scoma's and ducked inside, and while they waited for a table he saw the Black Cadillac driving slowly out the pier, and predictably, then it stopped...effectively sealing them off from any escape, or at least he hoped that's what they'd think.

Once at their table Callahan ordered wine and recommended she try the Dungeness crab appetizer and the abalone for her entree, and he chose the same. They took their time with dinner, though from time to time he got up and walked to a spot where he could see the Cadillac...

"You want to tell me what's going on?" she said after his last excursion.

He shrugged. "Some of Threlkis' goons followed us. They're waiting for us, well, I should say me, to leave. My guess is they don't think I spotted them, or they would have found a better place to hide."

"You don't seem very concerned."

"I'm not."

"What are you going to do?"

"Well, I don't know who's running the family right now, but I need to send them a message."

"Really? Like what?"

"Basically, back off and don't fuck with me."

"I suppose this is something you really need to do right now?"

"Well, if I don't they'll probably come in here and kill a bunch of people. All things being equal, I think it makes more sense for me to go out and kill them first."

"Just like that, huh?"

"Yeah, pretty much. How's your dessert?"

"Fine."

"Well, I'll be back in about a half hour," he said, looking at his watch, "maybe an hour, tops."

"And if you're not?"

He shrugged. "Call Frank, I guess."

She looked around, saw the restaurant was still full and ordered some coffee, and from time to time she too looked at her watch.

About fifteen minutes later everyone in the restaurant flinched as machine-gun fire erupted a few blocks away, followed by six sonic concussions from a large caliber handgun, then the sound of sirens filled the night.

Not quite forty-five minutes later Callahan rejoined her at the table.

"So, that took a little longer than expected?" she said matter-of-factly.

He looked at his watch again: "Damn. Sure did. Sorry about that?"

"What went wrong?"

"Oh, not much. They were a little more stupid than expected, but hey, c'est la vie."

"Well, is it at least safe to walk back to your place?"

"Oh, sure."

"Good."

"Good?"

"Yeah. Frankly, Callahan, I wasn't sure about you. But now I am."

"You are?"

"Yeah. I sure the hell hope you're horny, because I'm going to fuck your brains out."

Callahan turned, found their waiter and made eye contact. "Check, please."

Turned out there was a taxi out front, which didn't hurt anyone's feelings, not even a little bit.

© 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...]