Title: A Savage Place
Author(s): Robert B. Parker
Publisher(s): Dell
Pages: 186
Year: 1987
Format: MOBY
Language: English
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We ate a room-service dinner, in near perfect silence and went to bed early. What a difference a day makes. I lay on the bed in my room and watched an Angels game on television until I got tired. Then I switched everything off and went to bed. Sleep. Death’s second self.
In the morning we went to Candy’s apartment to check her mail and listen to her phone-answering machine and get some clean clothes. The sun was bright off the pool and filled the room. There was a breeze. The faint movement of the pool made the light glance and quiver. Candy stood by her desk in the living room sorting through her mail. She had on a dark blue suit with gold piping. She punched on the phone recorder as she looked at the Mail, and Mickey Rafterty’s voice came up.
“Candy,” it said, “where the hell are you? I’ve been trying to get you all day. I braced Felton and I know he’s scared. All we have to do is keep on the pressure, and he’ll crack. I’ll keep calling till I get you… I love you, babe.”
Candy dropped the mail and slowly sank to her knees and put her arms around herself and began to rock slightly back and forth, sitting on her heels, her head hanging. I stepped over and shut off the recorder. Candy murmured something.
I said, “What?” and bent over to hear her.
She said, “A voice from the grave,” and gave a little snicker. “From the other side, through the magic of machines.” She snickered again. And then she was still and rocked.
I squatted beside her on the floor and said, “Would you care for a hug or a comforting pat, or would that make it worse?”
She shook her head, but I didn’t know if she was saying no to the hug or no, it wouldn’t make it worse. So I stayed where I was and did nothing, which I probably ought to do more of, and after a while she stopped rocking and put a hand on my thigh to steady herself and then stood up. I stood with her.
“Poor little Mickey,” she said. “He acted so tough.”
“He was tough,” I said. “He was just small.”
“Big or small,” she said, “bullets would have killed him anyway.”
The rest of the phone recordings had to be listened to. I was thinking how to go about it.
“If I’d been a weathergirl,” Candy said, “Mickey’d be alive.”
“You’ve had a bad time. You’re entitled to be silly,” I said. “But don’t do it too much. You know his dying wasn’t your fault.”
“Whose fault was it?”
“I guess most of the blame resides with the guy who burned him. I’d guess old fat Franco. A little of the blame is Mickey’s. He screwed around with stuff he didn’t know about. It’s a way to get hurt.”