onto her stomach and looks at me.
âKnow how we just talked about me being a detective? If youâre doing something to hurt yourself, Iâll find out.â
âLet it go this time, okay? Iâm just a little off balance, but Iâm getting better.â
âOkay,â she says uncertainly. âBut I reserve the right to bring it up again if I suspect you of asshole behavior.â
âAgreed.â
She sits up and kisses me.
âYou told me I could tell you anything. You can do the same with me.â
âIâll remember that. Thanks.â
She puts her arms around me and I just hold her like that for a while. I feel something light slide down my chest. Sheâs crying or Iâm sweating. Probably both. I feel like Iâm fourteen, caught in a lie within a lie with no way to get out.
âDo you want to get a dog sometime?â Candy says.
âNot really.â
âThank God. Neither do I.â
See? The truth didnât hurt. Now I need to get out of this particular knot of lies by not going back into the fight pit.
âGet whatever kind of lamp you want for the living room. Flying robots. Naked witches.â
âYou know I was going to anyway.â
âYeah, but I just wanted to say it.â
âThanks. You know if I find out someoneâs hurt you, Iâm going to eat their fucking heart, right?â
âI know.â
âI know you know, but I just wanted to say it.â
âThanks. Can I ask you one more favor?â
âWhat?â
âCan you turn that goddamn surf record over and play the other side. Youâve played this one about fifty times.â
âThis is my homework. Alessa is going to teach me surf guitar.â
âI bet there are songs on the other side you can learn.â
âYour wish is my command,â she says, and pads out of the bedroom to the stereo.
When sheâs gone, I take a long, deep breath. This thing we have. I donât want to fuck it up. I donât want to lie anymore and I donât want a dog. I just want Candy or Chihiro or whoever she has to be next to stay alive. Weâre in this together and Iâll kick the ass of anyone who gets in the way. Even if itâs me.
âDid I tell you an angel gave me a birthday present tonight?â
She comes back into the room and flops onto the bed.
âNo. Tell me every little thing about it.â
So I do. And weâre okay.
For a while.
C ANDY IS GONE when I wake up in the morning. Thereâs a note on the kitchen counter when I go in to make coffee.
            Jamming with Alessa at her rehearsal space after work.
            Home late. Be naked.
There are some hearts and sheâs taped a press-on tattoo of a sleeping cat at the bottom of the note. I lick a spot on my forearm and press down on the tattoo. A minute later I pull it off. No cat. Just a few frayed lines scattered across my scars.Once again, my stupid body rejects the simplest amusements. So, I make coffee. Thatâs one bit of pleasure that still works.
I donât bother going downstairs and bothering Kasabian. Heâs even drearier than me in the morning. Before he gets up and turns on the news or does something else to annoy me, I turn on the rest of a movie I started with Candy the other night: Amer . Itâs a deconstruction of Italian giallo flicks. The directors tear it down to its essential elementsâbeats, images, violence, colors, sexual tensionâbut they do it almost wordlessly, like a silent movie. Just the thing for that time of day when words are still hard to come by.
I sip coffee and smoke, letting the movie run through to its end and one last little shock, then pick up my phone and thumb in Vidocqâs number. He picks up after a few rings.
âJames, how nice to hear from you at this early hour. Is everything all right?â His voice