Shame

wanted by the police.”
    “Are you guilty?”
    “No. But if I was, that’s not something I’d be likely to confess.”
    “Are you trying to talk me out of helping you?”
    “I’m just trying to figure out why you’re helping me. You don’t strike me as a professional do-gooder.”
    “Maybe you’d think differently if you saw me in my nun’s habit. It’s very modern, very chic, the kind of threads a nun on the fast track to being a Mother Superior might wear.”
    “You’re a funny guy....”
    “Gal. Or lady. Or even bitch. Just make me something female. That’s the etiquette.”
    “Miss Manners.”
    “Better.”
    “I was trying to tell you that you don’t even know me.”
    “I know you.”
    “Just because I look—”
    “That’s how I noticed you, not how I know you. I took one look at you, sugar, and I saw more than the spitting image of your father. What I saw was someone with the weight of the world on his shoulders. Now if you have a problem accepting help from the likes of me, then you better get over it,
Jack
, or
Paul
, or whatever you’re calling yourself, ’cause my car is right over here.”
    There was no night attendant in the outdoor lot on Second Avenue, just signs posted everywhere. Half the signs said that management wasn’t responsible for any valuables lost, while the other half warned that those who hadn’t paid, or weren’t displaying a current parking sticker, would have their cars towed away. Management seemed to have all bets covered.
    Lola walked by herself over to a canary-yellow Mustang convertible. She didn’t look back, just opened her door, sat down, closed the door behind her, and then started the car. Caleb stood undecided for a long moment, then finally moved. He ran over to the Mustang’s passenger door and tapped on the glass. The window lowered, but only slightly.
    “My name’s not Paul,” he said. “It’s Caleb.”
    Lola reached out with one of her long fingernails and opened the lock.
    “Buckle up, Caleb,” she said.
    As they waited for the light to change on Broadway, a siren sounded. Caleb visibly tensed, turning to the sound. Flashing red lights raced at them. Caleb only started breathing again when a fire truck roared by.
    “You want to talk about it?” Lola asked.
    Caleb didn’t. But he had to. He let out a long sigh, and it was as if he let the air out of himself. His explanation came out flat, monotone: “There’s a murderer out there who’s copying my father. He’s strangling women and writing the word
shame
on their bodies. He’s managed to kill in such a way as to place me at every murder scene.”
    Lola didn’t say anything. The silence built between them.
    “If you want to let me out, I understand.”
    “Why haven’t I heard about the murders?”
    “You have, just not the details.”
    “And the police think you’re the killer?”
    “Like father, like son.”
    “What’s their evidence?”
    “My lack of any alibis, and my heritage.”
    “That’s it?”
    A lifetime of being beaten down was voiced: “That’s enough.”
    “With your hangdog attitude, it just might be. Right now you’re wearing a Kick Me sign on your backside.”
    “All I’ve ever wanted was to be left alone.”
    “That your ambition in life?”
    “Close enough.”
    “Doesn’t sound like much of a life.”
    “Compare it to the one I’m leading now.”
    She could hear his teeth grind down on his own bitterness.
    “I’m the son of Shame,” he said. “Before last night, that wasn’t something I had admitted in more than twenty years.”
    “You never told anyone about your father?”
    “No one. Not even my wife.”
    “Your big secret.”
    He nodded.
    “I’ve been there, sugar. I know what it’s like to try to hide something from the world. The difference between you and me is I came out of the closet, and you were outed. You sure were outed. But the big question is why?”

14

    “M AKE YOURSELF AT home,” Lola said.
    Caleb reluctantly stepped inside. He wasn’t there for a night’s shelter so much as for what came with it: a promised disguise. Lola was willing to change his hair color.
    Her Hillcrest bungalow wasn’t what Caleb expected. He had thought it would be as glitzy and showy as her dress, but instead he found it refined and homey. The decorations were eclectic, with needlework, paintings, Art Deco, and American Indian artifacts all somehow combining for a pleasant ambience. The Native American items, in particular,