One Door From Heaven

for you," he insisted.
        "You know the deal," Micky said stubbornly. "Either hear me out-or throw me down the stairs. And if you try throwin', for starters you'll need Bactine, Band-Aids, and a sitz bath for your balls."
        He sighed. "Pushing me like this is a mile past desperation, lady."
        "I never claimed I wasn't desperate. But I'm glad to hear you think I'm a lady."
        "Can't figure why the hell I answered the door," he said sourly.
        "In your heart, you were hoping for a flower delivery."
        He moved backward. "Whatever your story is, just spit it out plain and simple. Don't bother strumming on the heartstrings."
        "Can't strum what I can't find."
        His living room also served as his office. To the left stood a desk, two client chairs, one file cabinet. To the right a single armchair was aimed at a television set; a small table and a floorlamp flanked the chair. Bare walls. Books piled in the corners.
        The drab furniture had probably been purchased in the thrift shop on the corner. The carpet looked as cheap as any loom could weave it. Everything appeared to be scrubbed and polished, however, and the air smelled like lemon-scented furniture wax and pine-scented
        disinfectant. The place must have been the austere cell of a monk with a cleaning obsession.
        A cramped kitchen lay visible beyond one of two interior doors. The other door, closed now, evidently led to a bedroom and bath.
        As Farrel sat behind the desk, Micky settled in an unpadded, rail-backed chair provided for clients, which was uncomfortable enough to serve as dungeon furniture.
        The detective had been working at his desk, on the computer, when Micky had rung the doorbell. The printer fan hummed softly. She couldn't see the screen.
        At a few minutes past ten in the morning, Farrel had also been working on a can of Budweiser. Now he picked it up, took a swallow.
        "Early lunch or late breakfast?" Micky wondered.
        "Breakfast. If it makes me look any more like a responsible citizen, I also had a Pop-Tart."
        "I'm familiar with that diet."
        "If it's all the same to you, let's can the chitchat. Just tell me your sad story if you really have to, and then let me get back to my retirement."
        Micky hesitated, wanting to start her story well, and remembered Aunt Gen's prophetic words from Monday evening, not yet four days past. She said, "Sometimes a person's life can change for the better in one moment of grace, like a miracle almost. Someone so special can come along, all unexpected, and pivot you in a new direction, change you forever. You ever had that experience, Mr. Farrel?"
        He grimaced. "You are peddling Jesus door-to-door."
        As succinctly as possible, Micky told him about Leilani Klonk, old Sinsemilla, and the pseudofather on the hunt for extraterrestrial healers. She told him about Lukipela gone to the stars.
        She withheld Preston Maddoc's identity, however, afraid that Farrel shared P. Bronson's admiration for the killer. If he heard the name, he might never give her the opportunity to win his involvement.
        More than once as Micky talked, Farrel gazed at the computer, as though her story wasn't sufficiently involving to keep him from being distracted by whatever was on the screen.
        He asked no questions and gave no reliable signs of interest. At times he leaned back in his chair, eyes closed, so still and so lacking in expression that he might have been asleep. At other times, his features once again seemed as hard as mortared stone, and he made eye contact of such discomfiting intensity that Micky thought he had lost patience and would throw her down the stairs regardless of her threat to put up a fight.
        Breaking off a nail-you-to-the-wall stare, he abruptly rose to his feet. "The more I hear, the more I know I'm not right for this. Never would have been right, even when I was in business. I don't even see what you could want from me."
        "I'm getting there."
        "And I suppose you insist on getting there. So to lubricate my way through this meeting, I'll need another beer. You want one?"
        "No thanks."
        "I thought you were familiar with this diet."
        "I'm not on it anymore."
        "Hooray for you."
        "I've already lost all the years I can afford to lose."
        "Yeah, well, not me."
        Farrel went into the