Fear Nothing

air. Midnight had arrived. She didn't mention me or introduce the song with a dedication, but she played “Heart Shaped World” by Chris Isaak, because it's a favorite of mine.
        Enormously condensing the events of the evening, I told Bobby about the incident in the hospital garage, the scene in Kirk's crematorium, and the platoon of faceless men who pursued me through the hills behind the funeral home.
        Throughout all of this, he only said, “ Tabasco?”
        “What?”
        “To hotten up the salsa.”
        “No,” I said. “This is killer just the way it is.”
        He got a bottle of Tabasco sauce from the refrigerator and sprinkled it into his half-eaten first taco.
        Now Sasha was playing “Two Hearts” by Chris Isaak.
        For a while I repeatedly glanced through the window beside the table, wondering whether anyone outside was watching us. At first I didn't think Bobby shared my concern, but then I realized that from time to time, he glanced intently, though with seeming casualness, at the blackness out there.
        “Lower the blind?” I suggested.
        “No. They might think I cared.”
        We were pretending not to be intimidated.
        “Who are they?”
        He was silent, but I outwaited him, and at last he said, “I'm not sure.”
        That wasn't an honest answer, but I relented.
        When I continued my story, rather than risk Bobby's scorn, I didn't mention the cat that led me to the culvert in the hills, but I described the skull collection arranged on the final two steps of the spillway. I told him about Chief Stevenson talking to the bald guy with the earring and about finding the pistol on my bed.
        “Bitchin' gun,” he said, admiring the Glock.
        “Dad opted for laser sighting.”
        “Sweet.”
        Sometimes Bobby is as self-possessed as a rock, so calm that you have to wonder if he is actually listening to you. As a boy, he was occasionally like this, but the older he has gotten, the more that this uncanny composure has settled over him. I had just brought him astonishing news of bizarre adventures, and he reacted as if he were listening to basketball scores.
        Glancing at the darkness beyond the window, I wondered if anyone out there had me in a gun sight, maybe in the cross hairs of a night scope. Then I figured that if they had meant to shoot us, they would have cut us down when we were out in the dunes.
        I told Bobby everything that had happened at Angela Ferryman's house.
        He grimaced. “Apricot brandy.”
        “I didn't drink much.”
        He said, “Two glasses of that crap, you'll be talking to the seals,” which was surfer lingo for vomiting.
        By the time I had told him about Jesse Pinn terrorizing Father Tom at the church, we had gone through three tacos each. He built another pair and brought them to the table.
        Sasha was playing “Graduation Day.”
        Bobby said, “It's a regular Chris Isaak festival.”
        “She's playing it for me.”
        “Yeah, I didn't figure Chris Isaak was at the station holding a gun to her head.”
        Neither of us said anything more until we finished the final round of tacos.
        When at last Bobby asked a question, the only thing he wanted to know about was something that Angela had said: “So she told you it was a monkey and it wasn't.”
        “Her exact words, as I recall, were 'It appeared to be a monkey. And it was a monkey. Was and wasn't. And that's what was wrong with it."'
        “She seem totally zipped up to you?”
        “She was in distress, scared, way scared, but she wasn't kooked out. Besides, somebody killed her to shut her up, so there must have been something to what she said.”
        He nodded and drank some beer.
        He was silent for so long that I finally said, “Now what?”
        “You're asking me?”
        “I wasn't talking to the dog,” I said.
        “Drop it,” he said.
        “What?
        “Forget about it, get on with life.”
        “I knew you'd say that,” I admitted.
        “Then why ask me?”
        “Bobby, maybe my mom's death wasn't an accident.”
        “Sounds like more than a maybe.”
        “And maybe there was more to my dad's cancer than just cancer.”
        “So you're gonna hit the vengeance trail?”
        “These people can't get away with murder.”
        “Sure they can. People get away with murder