When he could no longer deceive himself about his guilt, he left, returning to a place few people chose to leave. The person most important in his life had left that place, too, but surely she had not chosen to do so.

He took with him what he considered appropriate pay for the services he had rendered.

•  •  •

Tom could smell the cologne before he opened the door. He looked up at the tall, beefy, middle-aged man waiting impatiently on the doorstep.

"Yes?"

"Tom!" the man boomed. "You haven't changed at all! You look just the same!"

The other man's face and body had changed considerably. It was the loud voice and overbearing manner that identified him. "Jack Tourneau," Tom said. "I didn't know you were still here." After the briefest hesitation, he added, "Come in."

As he led the way to the living room, Tom asked, "Want something to drink?"

"What's that you're drinking? Looks like urine with ice in it."

"Why, you haven't changed either, Jack." Tom held his glass up to the light for a moment. "You're right." He sipped his drink. "Fortunately, it tastes like bourbon. Want some?"

Jack shivered. "Brr! Alcohol! Never touch the stuff." He slapped his thick middle. "That's how I've managed to keep my schoolboy physique. Got any Diet Pepsi?"

"Nope."

"Okay, then, I'll have a bourbon on ice."

Tom raised his eyebrows.

"Almost never touch the stuff. Today doesn't count."

"And why is that?" Tom asked as he went behind the bar.

"Because today I'm greeting an old school friend I haven't seen in over twenty years. So this is a special celebration."

Tom put a couple of ice cubes in a glass and poured bourbon over them. He glanced at Jack, already sprawling at his ease on the couch with the best view.

"You can see the whole damned city from here," Jack said. "Hell of a view. Hell of a drop-off."

"About a hundred feet."

"Better be careful when you mow. But I bet you hire the mowing."

Why don't you go outside and stroll along the edge? Tom thought. Swallow all of your drink first. "I don't have a lawn. I went for the natural look."

Jack snorted. "That figures. I always wanted a house up here. This place must have cost you a fortune."

"Mm hm."

"Quarter mil? Half? More?"

"A fortune."

Jack grinned at him. "Close-mouthed bastard. You haven't changed in that regard, either." He reached up to accept his drink from Tom. It was the gesture of a monarch accepting a drink from a servant.

Tom shook his head in silent wonder at Jack's old talent for taking center stage. "I just moved in yesterday. How did you know I was here? Or is this a coincidence? Maybe you came to my door to sell encyclopedias."

"Nice try, Tom. You went into the license bureau this morning to get a driver's license. The woman who took care of you was Janice."

"Janice?" Tom frowned for a moment, recalling the face. She had seemed familiar at the time, he remembered. "Wait a minute. Not Janice Sheridan? Janice the cheerleader?"

"That's right."

"Jesus," Tom muttered.

"Twenty years," Jack said. "And fifty pounds."

"I didn't move back here to get depressed," Tom said, "but now I am."

"So why did you move back here?"

Jack must have thought he was being casual, that he was disguising his interest. But reading other men, seeing through their armor, had become a survival skill for Tom during his twenty-two years in Chicago. "Just looking for peace and quiet, Jack. Early retirement in the old home town."

"Pretty damned early," Jack said. "You're the same age I am, and I won't be able to retire for more than twenty-five years. What've you been doing since you left town?"

"Saving carefully. What have you been doing since I left?"

"Why, I've been following in my daddy's footsteps, Tom. Some of us have reason to want to do that, you know."

I actually looked up to this jerk when I was a kid, Tom thought. Amazing. "So you're teaching at the college?"

"Not just teaching at Triple C. I'm teaching English, just like my father. Been there for ten years, now. Ever since I got my Ph.D."

"How is your father?"

Jack shrugged. "Dunno. He got old enough to retire, the lucky bastard. He and my mom are off somewhere in the Pacific. They spend all their goddamned time traveling and squandering their savings. They gave us the house, anyway. You remember the house." He held up his empty glass. "Like another."

"Like, okay," Tom said. He set his own almost full glass down on the coffee table and stood up. He took Jack's glass and went to the bar with it. "I always liked your father," Tom said. He refilled Jack's glass, but this time he put in four ice cubes first. He brought it back to Jack, who had slid lower on the couch.

"More than you liked your own," Jack said. "For which I never blamed you. No fault of yours. I understood why you were always over at our place. Especially after your mom--" He paused and had the grace to look embarrassed. "After you lost your mom."

Tom went to the window and stood looking out over Ransom, his back to Jack. The window extended from floor to ceiling and across most of the east wall of the living room. The builder had assured Tom that he would install glass capable of withstanding the winds up here. How about bullets from resentful people living below, Tom had wanted to ask. "Do you enjoy teaching, Jack?"

Jack grunted. "Most of the time, I hate it. But I like the hours. And the coeds. You should see them, Tom. They don't dress the way they did when we were young. Oh, I'm sorry, you didn't go to college. I forgot."

Tom laughed despite himself. "Sure you did, Jack. So, let's see. You've checked out my house and me and my liquor. We've renewed our dear, close friendship of boyhood days. What else did you come here to do?"

"To invite you to the opera," Jack said.

Tom spun around. "What?"

Jack chuckled. "Caught you, didn't I? Well, it's not my idea. I hate opera. It's Ellen's idea."

"Ellen?"

"My wife. The former Ellen Chernikov."

Again, Jack had managed to get him off balance. "Ellen married you?"

"I married Ellen." He radiated self-satisfaction. "You'd know this stuff if you'd kept in touch with the old gang, Tom."

"You have children?" Tom shivered inwardly with disgust at the thought of Ellen Chernikov pregnant with Jack's babies.

But Jack shook his head. "Turned out Ellen couldn't. It used to bother her at first. Just fine with me, though. I hate kids. Anyway, Ellen runs the Ransom and Central Colorado Opera Guild. The name's bigger than their whole damned budget. Or the size of their audiences. Ellen always did love music, but you probably don't remember that."

Tom remembered everything about Ellen Chernikov with painful clarity, and he was sure Jack knew that. "So Ellen knows I'm back?"

Jack drained the last of the bourbon from his glass and set it on the coffee table. "I told her as soon as I found out. And she insisted I come up here and invite you to the opera they're putting on." His speech had become slurred. "Tomorrow night is the first performance. They rent the auditorium at the high school. If you want, I could tell her that you hate opera as much as I do, and you said you couldn't come."

"I love opera."

"Ugh! You do?" He stared at Tom for a moment. "Where have you been for the last twenty plus years, Tom?"

"Listening to some of the best singers in the world. I got addicted. However, I do hate amateur opera. Opera's like ballet -- brilliant or awful. There's no middle ground."

"Christ, I bet you like ballet, too."

Tom nodded. "All real men like ballet, Jack."

Jack snorted. "We have a different definition of real men."

"Very likely."

Jack stared again at Tom, then looked around the living room. Then he shrugged. "Your business. Anyway, these folks aren't really amateurs. Not entirely, I mean. A lot of them are from the music department at Triple C. And the locals Ellen recruited have some background, too. She says they're pretty good, and I trust her judgment on this. I can't tell the difference. It's all crap to me."

"What opera are they doing?" Tom asked, hoping it would turn out to be a light musical and not an opera at all. Or at the worst, an operetta.

"Tosca."

Of course, Tom thought. He wondered why amateurs always aspired too high.

"At least it's being done in English," Jack said.

Tom groaned inwardly. Of course it is, he thought.

"There are only a few of the old gang still living here." Jack said. "Most of them will stay as far away from this thing as they can, but a couple of them might show up. And some of Ellen's and my friends will be there. This would be a good chance for you to get yourself involved in the social life of Ransom, such as it is. Unless you're rather spend your retirement--" he grimaced ". . .up here by yourself. I know Ellen was looking forward to seeing you again."

Tom looked at him sharply, but this time Jack maintained a bland expression that Tom couldn't see through.

Finally, Tom nodded and said, "Okay, Jack. Tell Ellen I'll be there."

Jack sprang to his feet with surprising vigor, but then he swayed a bit and put one hand on an arm of the couch for support. "Tomorrow night, eight o'clock, high school auditorium. Buy your ticket at the door." He laughed. "There're always plenty of seats available. Get there early, so I can introduce you around. You remember how to get to the high school, don't you? Of course you do. Hell, you practically grew up in that place, right? Okay, Tom, see you tomorrow night." He walked to the front door in a fairly straight line and let himself out.

Tom stood watching Jack leave, making no move to accompany him to the door.

After Jack was gone, Tom locked the door, dumped the ice cubes from Jack's glass and the remaining liquor from his own into the sink, picked up the book he had been reading when the doorbell rang, and resumed his quiet evening.

Copyright © 2000 by David Dvorkin