False Memory

and the afternoon fading, he wore only white khakis and a white T-shirt, as usual. If the Camaro ever broke down, he appeared to be capable of carrying it to the garage.
    The trees along the periphery of the lot trembled in the wind, and little funnels of dust and litter spun across the pavement, but Ned appeared unaffected by—and even unaware of—the turbulence.
    When Dusty lowered his window, Ned looked in past him, smiled, and said, “Hey, Martie.”
    “Hey, Ned.”
    “Sorry to hear you’re not feeling well.”
    “I’ll live, they say.”
    On the phone from Ahriman’s waiting room, Dusty had said that Martie was ill and didn’t feel well enough to go into a pharmacy or a bookstore, and that he didn’t want to leave her alone in the car.
    “It’s hard enough working for this guy,” Ned told Martie, “so I imagine how sick you must get living with him. No offense, boss.”
    “None taken.”
    Ned passed a small bag from the pharmacy through the window. It contained the prescription for Valium that Dr. Closterman had phoned in earlier. He also had a larger bag from the bookstore.
    “If you’d asked me this morning what haiku is,” Ned said, “I’d have told you it’s some kind of martial art like tae kwon do. But it’s all these chopped poems.”
    “Chopped?” Dusty asked, peering into the bag.
    “Like my car,” Ned said. “Cut down, streamlined. They’re kind of cool. Bought one book for myself.”
    Dusty saw seven collections of haiku in the bag. “So many.”
    “They’ve got this long shelf full of the stuff,” Ned said. “For such a little thing, haiku’s big.”
    “I’ll cut you a check for all this tomorrow.”
    “No hurry. Used my credit card. Won’t come due for a while.”
    Dusty passed Martie’s house key through the window to Ned. “Are you sure you’ve got time to take care of Valet?”
    “I’m on for it. But I don’t know dogs.”
    “Not much to know.” Dusty told him where to find the kibble. “Give him two cups. Then he’ll expect a walk, but just let him into the backyard again for ten minutes, and he’ll do the right thing.”
    “Then he’ll be okay in the house alone?”
    “As long as he’s got a full water dish and the TV remote, he’ll be happy.”
    “My mom is a cat woman,” Ned said. “Not the Catwoman, like in Batman, but she always has a kitty-cat.”
    Hearing big Ned say kitty-cat was akin to seeing an NFL fullback break into ballet steps and execute a perfect entrechat.
    “Once, a neighbor poisoned an orange tabby my mom really loved. Mrs. Jingles. That was the cat’s name, not the neighbor’s.”
    “What kind of person would poison a cat?” Dusty commiserated.
    “He was running a crystal-meth lab out of the rental next door,” Ned said. “Piece of human garbage. I broke both his legs, called 911, pretending I was him, said I fell down the stairs, needed help. They sent an ambulance, saw the meth lab, busted his operation.”
    “You broke the legs of a drug thug?” Martie said. “Isn’t that risky?”
    “Not really. Couple nights later, one of his pals takes a shot at me, but he’s so whacked on speed he misses. I broke both his arms, put him in his car, pushed it over an embankment. Called 911, said I was him, cried for help. They found dirty money and drugs in the car trunk, fixed his arms, and put him away for ten years.”
    “All this for a cat?” Dusty wondered.
    “Mrs. Jingles was a nice cat. Plus she was my mom’s.”
    Martie said, “I feel Valet’s in good hands.”
    Smiling, nodding, Ned said, “I wouldn’t let anything bad happen to your puppy.”

     
     
    On the peninsula, on Balboa Boulevard, a few blocks from Susan’s place, Martie was paging through a haiku collection when she gasped, dropped the book, and huddled forward in the seat, her body clenched as though in pain. “Pull over. Pull over now, hurry, pull over.”
    Not pain, fear. That she would seize the wheel. Swing the car into oncoming traffic. The by now familiar the-monster-lurks-in-me blues.
    In summer, with the beach crowds, Dusty would probably have had to cruise through an hour-long panic attack to find a parking place. January allowed a quick move to the curb.
    On the sidewalk, a few kids whistled past on in-line skates, looking for senior citizens to knock into nursing homes. Bicyclists pumped past on the left, on a quest for death by traffic.
    No one showed any interest in Dusty and Martie. That might change if she started screaming again.
    He considered how best to restrain her if she began to bash her head against the dashboard.