Looking at him, breaking into a smile. She remembered herself speaking softly.

“Bram, I think I met someone.” She looked down at her feet. “A policeman of all things.”

When he didn’t respond right away, Rina felt her stomach drop. Finally, he said, “A cop…” He smiled with closed lips. “Doing your bit for public service?”

Red-faced, she walked away, stung by his nastiness. Of course, he followed.

Instead of lashing out, she rebuked him with guilt. “Of all the people I know, I would have thought you would have been the most happy for me.”

“I’m elated,” he said flatly.

Again she walked away. But he dogged her heels, held her by the arm. “This isn’t the right place to talk.” He blushed, dropped her arm. “Can you come by my place around eight tonight?”

She stared at his face. “No, I can’t!”

“When can you come by?”

“Never-”

“Rina-”

“For goodness’ sake, Bram, you’re a priest. You know how people talk!”

“I don’t care-”

“But I do. I care for myself, I care for my friend. The cop. My bit for public service-”

“Rina, I’m sorry. I loved Yitzy. It just seems so soon-”

“That’s a very odd statement coming from you. Mr. Peptalk. Mr. You’re young and need to go on with your life. Mr. Life is short so live for the moment-”

“You’re damning me out of context!”

“Then let’s talk about context now! Your friends are going to wonder about you, Father. So you’d better go. Like I said, people talk.”

Bram took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. He looked as miserable as she felt. Pity tugged at her heart. Within minutes, her presence had turned him from a fun-loving youth into a morose, burdened old man.

He put his specs back on. Looked at her intently and whispered, “This isn’t the right way to say good-bye.”

“So I’ll say it properly.” Her voice softened. “Good-bye and good luck. I mean that, Bram.”

“Rina, please don’t-”

“I’ve got to go. So do you.”

She walked away.

And he had called her that night, begging her over the phone machine to pick up the receiver. When she didn’t, he left a long, rambling message.

Apologizing profusely for his rotten behavior.

Not realizing what had gone on at the yeshiva just a few months earlier, how some maniac had been stalking her, terrorizing her life. How this cop, this Decker had come through for her when she had needed help. Obviously he must be of fine character to put aside his own safety for her welfare. He hadn’t kept up contact with Rav Schulman so no he hadn’t known. He hadn’t known. Because if he had known…he would have…he felt like an ass…just please, please pick up the damn phone.

But she didn’t pick up. Instead, she lay in her bed, tears in her eyes, listening to him implore her. Please, please, please call him back.

But she remained stubborn, deaf to his pleas.

A year later, out of courtesy, she had sent him a wedding invitation. Bram had sent back a gift-a silver kiddush cup-along with the reply card, an X marked in the “yes” box.

The wedding came, the wedding went.

Abram Sparks had been one of their few no-shows.

They decided to take Webster’s ’68 metallic-blue Hemicuda-a primitive animal that rumbled and roared, requiring a firm grip on the reins. But it fit nicely with the assignment and, more important, it flew at high speeds. From the Devonshire Substation, it was a quick hop north on the 405 until it merged with the Golden State, the empty lanes on 1-5 begging for pedal to the metal. The ’Cuda zipped through the north Valley, past the smooth, glassy surface of the brimfull LA reservoir, onto the Antelope Valley Freeway into Santa Clarita. Off the freeway and deep into Canyon Country.

Quarry Country. Miles upon miles of limestone mountains, rising and falling like scoops of toffee ice cream. The sky had turned endless and virginal with puffs of crystalline cloud. No-man’s-land. The area held electrical lines, telephone lines, smooth ribbons of asphalt, and not much else. Up close, the rocky hillsides nurtured lots of life-copses of chaparral, carpets of yellow and pink flowering weeds, gnarled oak, wizened Podocarpus, and thickets of oleander, shimmering silver with its thin, poisonous leaves. A sizable breeze rustled through the flora, blowing sand and loose gravel from recently tarred roadways.

Webster rolled up the cuffs of his Hawaiian shirt as he raced the ’Cuda through the sinuous turns. “Y’all think I should stuff a cigarette pack in the fold of my sleeve?”

“It would be authentic,” Martinez said. “I like the grease spots on the denims, Tom.”

“Quite the verité. From DW-40ing my daughter’s tricycle.” Tom chewed briskly on a stick of gum. “Me? I like the sunglasses hanging from my pocket. Thought that was a good touch.”

“Nice shades. What are those? Porsches?”

“A knockoff. But they are UV protected.” Webster changed the car’s CD from Bizet to ZZ-Top. “Like the shitkicker music? Bought it yesterday for the assignment.”

“Fits like a glove,” Martinez said. He had donned an oversized denim work shirt and a pair of torn, saggy jeans. On his feet were black biking boots. His hair was slicked back, and he hadn’t shaved that morning. “What kind of piece are you carrying?”

“Beretta, nine-millimeter. You?”

“Smith and Wesson six eight six.” Martinez picked up the Thomas guide. “You know where the hell we are?”

“I was wondering that myself. Guy at the dealership where Grease Pit worked told me to stay on Placerita, but I b’lieve I took a wrong turn somewhere. What intersects Placerita?”

Martinez skimmed through the map. “Bear Canyon, Coyote Canyon, Rabbit Canyon…oh, here’s a good one. Cougar Canyon.” Martinez sniffed exaggeratedly and wiped his nose with the back of his arm. “Want to hunt some cougar, boy?”

“Just let me get my rifle and dawgs.”

“What kind of dawgs you got, boy?”

“A pit bull and a Tree Walker Coonhound.”

“A what?”

Webster smiled. “A Tree Walker Coonhound. From Kentucky, indigenous to the South, suh. Anything illuminating on our map as to our whereabouts?”

“First we gotta find a landmark.”

“I’d settle for a crossroad.”

“How about a canyon? We’ve got plenty of canyons. We got Oak Canyon, Wilson Canyon, Maple Canyon, Ant Canyon, Bee Canyon, Tick Canyon…” Martinez looked up from the atlas. “Tell me something, Tommy. How do they know that the bees stay in Bee Canyon, the ants in Ant Canyon, and the ticks in Tick Canyon.”

Webster smiled. “’Cause they all zealously guard their turf. Little bee homeboys, brandishing stingers and wearing their wings backwards, fending off the new immigrant arrivals-industrious but interloper ants who bring over millions of relatives all crammed together in a single house. They bog down our welfare system.”

“Call up INS.”

“And don’t you know that both groups are scared witless of the tick gang-bangers drooling saliva teeming with Rocky Mountain spotted fever Rickettsia. I ain’t lying about this. Just check it out with any bug CRASH unit.”

“What the hell is Rocky Mountain spotted fever?”

“My uncle once got it when he was traveling up near the Great Divide. Comes from a tick bite. You get high fever, muscle aches, chronic fatigue, and lots of skin shit. He weren’t pretty for a long, long time.”

“The Great Divide is around a thousand miles from here, Webster.”

“Yeah, but with plane travel anything’s possible. You probably shoulda worn long sleeves.”

Martinez rubbed his arms. “Why didn’t you tell me this shit?”

“How was I to know there was gonna be a tick canyon out here?” Webster looped around a hairpin curve. “We passed Mountain Crossing. Don’t I turn there?”

“Yes, I think you do.”

Immediately, Webster swerved to the right and maneuvered an unsafe U-turn, wheels squealing under the chassis. Martinez gripped the door handle with white knuckles. “You’re crazy.”