Another story engendered by list discussion! Talk of "evil Twinkies"
started me thinking. Nick...Twinkies. Not an obvious pairing, is it?
Why would Nick have anything to do with a package of Twinkies? This
story is what I came up with.
Please consider all the usual disclaimers made. Permission is given to
archive this on the FK fanfic and FTP sites. Everyone else, please ask
permission.
=============================
Remnants of a Life
by Nancy Kaminski
(c) January 2000
=============================
"Ah-choo!"
Natalie Lambert hurriedly scrambled into the passenger seat of Nick
Knight's Caddy, slammed the door, and sneezed. Water dripped from her
nose and chin as she sniffled and searched through the pockets of her
raincoat."Oh, lord, I better have a kleenex somewhere..." She sneezed
again.
The early spring rain beat loudly on the canvas roof and streamed down
the windshield of the idling Caddy, the wipers clacking at double
time, futilely trying to keep up with the downpour. Giving up on her
pockets, Natalie cast a desperate glance at the driver, sneezed, then
opened the glove compartment. "Please tell me you have a box of
tissues stashed in here, Nick, like every other person in the world."
"Um, I don't think so," Nick said doubtfully.
She rummaged through the compartment. "I don't believe it. You
actually have a pair of gloves in here." She stared at the pair of
black leather gloves in her hand in amazement, then another sneeze
prompted her to resume her search. She dropped the gloves on the seat
and started pulling maps and bits of paper out. "Pleeeease," she
muttered under her breath, doing her best to stifle the next explosive
sneeze.
A large square of snowy white linen floated into her field of vision.
"Will this do?" Nick inquired.
With a moan of relief Natalie buried her face in the handkerchief and
blew mightily, then scrubbed her nose. "Ahhhhh, that's better," she
sighed and sat back, looking ruefully at the drift of paper on the
seat and floor. "Sorry about the mess, Nick. It's such a pain to have
car trouble and a cold at the same time!" She started to stuff things
back into the glove compartment. "Can you believe this rain? I keep
expecting to see an ark floating down Granby Street."
"I think Noah would have trouble making the corners. I speak from
experience driving large vehicles," Nick said wryly.
Nat snorted, then paused and drew a cellophane-wrapped package out of
the depths of the glove compartment. "What's this?" she said, and
laughed when she recognized it. "Nick! Don't tell me you've taken up
junk food!" She brandished the package under his nose. "Twinkies? You
know, people say that you can keep these things for years and they
never go stale because of all the preservatives. They're the perfect
artificial taste treat." She peered at the packaging, tilting it so
the light from the streetlamp fell on the label. "See? The expiration
date is a couple of months ago, and they're still nice and soft!"
Her grin faltered and disappeared when she looked up from the Twinkies
to see Nick's reaction. He was staring at the Twinkies; his face
registered surprise, then pain, and finally a growing anger.
"What?" she asked, bewildered. "What did I say?"
Nick clutched the steering wheel so hard she thought it would break
and began swearing in a language Natalie didn't recognize. His voice
was low and frighteningly intense, and his body quivered with his
barely contained rage. She shrank involuntarily against the car door,
pummeled by the torrent of Nick's inexplicable anger. She had never
seen him like this, not even when he had let the vampire loose.
Suddenly the flood of invective ceased. Nick stared at her with wild
eyes, then wrenched open his door and leaped out. He slammed the door
so hard the car rocked on its springs. Natalie saw him silhouetted
momentarily in the headlights as the rain danced like silver spears in
the twin beams. He kicked a newspaper vending machine on the sidewalk,
shattering the glass cover into a thousand pieces. Then he was gone.
Natalie looked after him in shock, her heart hammering in her chest in
reaction. Numbly she registered the rain roaring against the car roof
in a monotonous counterpoint to the windshield wipers. A lone car
swished by on the street and disappeared around the corner.
She straightened in her seat. She was cold and wet, she realized
distractedly, so she turned on the heater. What the *hell* was that
all about? She looked down at the rumpled Twinkies package in her
hand, but it gave her no clue. What could have set Nick off?
She waited apprehensively in the idling car. At two in the morning the
street was virtually deserted -- it would have been, even if it
weren't raining -- save for the occasional delivery truck, squad
car, and late-night reveler. Would he return, that boyish half-smile
and an apology on his lips? Would he explain himself? Or would he
shrug his shoulders and say, like usual, that she wouldn't understand
-- that she shouldn't want to know?
After fifteen minutes she gave up waiting and slid over to the
driver's seat. God, she couldn't even reach the pedals! Impatiently
she found the seat adjustment and slid it forward, then adjusted the
mirrors. Where should she go? Her place? His place?
His place. He'd turn up there eventually, and she wanted an
explanation. Deep inside, she didn't think that his rage had been
caused by his "condition," -- it was a purely human reaction, but to
what, she didn't know. She glanced at the package of Twinkies on the
seat and shook her head. Nick was a mystery wrapped in an enigma, she
thought, or however that quote went.
Twenty minutes later the Caddy was safely ensconced in its garage and
Natalie was climbing the stairs to the loft. Once inside she shed her
damp raincoat and turned on a couple of lamps. She shivered. As usual
the temperature in the loft was too low for comfort, for a mortal at
least. She allowed herself a moment of irritation. Why couldn't he
keep the damned place at a decent temperature? It's not like he
couldn't affort the heat, she grumbled to herself. She hunted up the
remote and fumbled until she found the button that controlled the gas
fireplace. That going, she spotted the thermostat on the wall near the
stairs, and turned it up.
With a sigh she settled on the sofa with a newspaper and a cup of
instant coffee and prepared to wait.
**********
The sound of footsteps on the roof staircase took Natalie's attention
away from 37 Across. She put down the crossword puzzle and folded her
hands in her lap, her eyes on the door from the roof. It opened and
Nick stepped inside.
He looked terrible, completely soaked and bedraggled. He closed the
door quietly and simply stood looking at her. Water dripped from his
clothes and puddled on the floor.
Natalie broke the silence first. "I think you better dry off a little.
You'll ruin the hardwood floor dripping like that."
He looked down at the puddle at his feet, then without a word, went up
to his bedroom. Five minutes later the shower started. Natalie went
back to her crossword puzzle, wondering if he'd reappear or simply go
to bed. She put the odds at sixty-forty against seeing him again that
night.
She lost her bet. A half hour later Nick came back downstairs to stand
in front of her.
Natalie regarded him calmly. He had changed into jeans and a cotton
pullover, and was barefoot as he usually was when at home. His hair
was still damp, but he had made an attempt to comb it into some
semblance of neatness. He looked like he wanted to talk, but didn't
know quite how to start.
"Would you like me to drive you home?" he finally asked.
"Not really. I'd rather have an explanation." She nudged the package
of Twinkies that she had placed on the coffee table. "What did these
things ever do to you?" She looked at him sternly. "And I think you
owe the Globe and Mail some money for their newspaper box. That was
quite a demonstration. Did you punch out any streetlights after you
left?"
Nick sat down in the chair facing the sofa. "No. I yelled a bit,
though."
Natalie sat back and folder her arms. "So, do you want to tell me
about it?"
He sighed. "I had forgotten those were in there. When you waved them
at me -- well, it brought it all back."
"Brought what back?"
"Schanke. They're his...*were* his. He put them in the glove
compartment the night before the crash. He said he'd save them for a
snack the next time we went out on a call after he came back." Nick
picked up the Twinkies and turned them over in his hands as if he were
examining a rare artifact. "And he never came back." He set the
package carefully in the center of the coffee table. "I just got so
angry that he died, that that maniac took away two of my friends -- I
just lost it."
"Oh." Natalie looked at him sympathically. She knew Schanke's death
had hit him hard, but he had seemed to have accepted it and started
building a good relationship with his new partner. Apparently the hurt
was still just below the tightly controlled surface he presented to
the world. "So, where did you go when you stormed out into the storm?"
"I just went -- anywhere, as long as it was away from that reminder, I
guess. But I ended up at Schanke's grave." He looked away, ashamed. "I
yelled at him for dying and and leaving us all here -- Myra, Jenny,
and me. And you. All of his friends. And then I apologized for not
taking that plane instead of him." Nick stared into the fire, lost in
his memories.
"Oh, Nick," Natalie said gently, "You know it isn't your fault. And
there still would have been a tragedy -- you wouldn't have been able
to save anyone, and if you had survived you would have had to move on.
It would have been *your* picture in the morgue waiting to be matched
up with a body that we would never find."
"Yeah, but then at least Schanke could have lived..." His voice
trailed off. "You're right, Nat, but I can't help the way I feel."
Silence fell. They watched the flames leap and dance in the fireplace,
each reliving the grief from that dreadful night nearly six months
before.
Presently, in an effort to shake off the mood, Natalie asked, "Where'd
he get Twinkies? I thought they only sold them in the States."
"His brother-in-law lives in Buffalo. He came up to visit and brought
a whole case with him for Don." Nick laughed softly. "I was treated to
a monologue on the virtues of Hostess snack cakes -- SnoBalls, HoHos,
and especially Twinkies -- over virtually every other form of treat
available in Canada."
Natalie chuckled. "That was our Don, all right. A connaisseur of all
things edible. Remember how he tried so hard to make you eat donuts?"
"Yeah, and souvlaki, and soft pretzels, and ice cream, and
hotdogs...well, I guess I ate a hotdog, huh? But I made him pay for
it," he said, thinking back on his Litovuterine-inspired eating spree.
"He did do his best to drive me crazy. I'm surprised I didn't kill him
those first couple of months."
"Especially after he wrecked the Caddy," Nat said wryly.
"Did I ever tell you he switched the radio to a polka station during
that ride from hell?" Nick asked. "There I was, being slammed around
in the trunk while he destroyed my car piece by piece, thinking that
at any moment I'd be thrown outside to spontaneously combust in the
middle of Avenue Road, all the while being forced to listen to polkas.
It was sheer torture."
She laughed. "And do you remember..."
They traded Schanke stories back and forth. The sky gradually
lightened until the automatic shutters quietly whirred down into
place. Nick drank his breakfast, and Natalie went through several more
cups of instant coffee and a bagel she found in Nick's freezer. It
felt good to reminisce about their friend -- it was almost a delayed
wake, a chance to laugh and cry and treasure the moments they all had
shared.
During a pause in the flow of stories, Nick said suddenly, "He knew."
Nat yawned and stretched. "He knew what?"
"About me. About what I am."
Nat jolted back to alertness. "He *knew*? Nick, are you sure?"
"Oh, he never said anything, but I could tell. This was after that
time when he talked to Janette and Lacroix -- you know, when he first
suspected, and when Lacroix convinced him he was just tired, under
stress, and seeing things. After a while he started putting two and
two together again, and it still came up 'vampire.' "
"And he never said anything to you?"
Nick shook his head. "No. But he stopped eating garlic, he quit
pushing food on me, and he stopped insisting that a little bit of sun
couldn't possibly be *that* bad.
"One time, when we were having a hard time dealing with a suspect who
was combative and on the edge of hysterics, he asked me to 'do that
thing you can do, you know, to calm him down.' Nat, he wanted me to
whammy the guy."
"And did you?"
Nick nodded. "Just enough to quiet him down. And Schanke said it beat
the hell out of using a choke hold."
"Oh my God, Nick, you don't think he told Myra, do you?" Natalie was
struck with fear at the prospect of the Enforcers paying Myra and
Jenny a visit.
Nick said, "I'm certain he didn't. Under that buffoonish exterior was
a very intelligent man, Nat. He wanted people to underestimate him so
he played the fool. He knew that this was a very dangerous secret and
he kept it to himself."
"Oh. my," Nat said faintly.
"Why do you think he got on that damned plane?" Nick asked bitterly.
"He knew the publicity that whole case was generating would have put
me in the spotlight, and I would have had a hard time getting out of
the daytime activities that were scheduled. Cohen wanted me to go, you
know, because I was the arresting officer, but he talked her out of
it after I couldn't. Everyone thought he was just trying to hog some
publicity for himself, but he really did it for me. He died for me,
Nat, and it was just so *pointless*." He stood and started pacing
restlessly.
Natalie got up and stopped him with a hand on his chest. She looked up
into his grief-clouded eyes and said gently, "Yes, it was pointless,
but he didn't think he was going to die. He didn't take a bullet for
you, Nick, he saw a situation in which you weren't invulnerable, and
was just trying to protect you in the best way he knew how. Like a
partner should protect a partner -- or a friend should protect a
friend. It was a hideous, dreadful coincidence that he got on that
particular plane."
He moved away from her and resumed pacing. "Don't you think I know
that? But I can rationalize it all I want to, and the fact remains
that he's dead, and I'm not." He stopped to stare at a painting that
Schanke had critiqued with a scathingly accurate parody of an effete
art critic. It was a savage slash of black paint against the livid
hues of an angry sunset, and the anger and despair it portrayed
mirrored his mood precisely. He said without turning, "Nat, please
go."
"Nick..."
"No...don't try. Just go."
Stung by the rebuff, she silently collected her coat and purse. At the
lift she turned and looked at him. He was still staring at the
painting as if held the answers to all his despair. She tried again.
"Nick..."
He turned his head slightly towards her. "Nat...thank you, but...not
right now. I just need to be alone."
She nodded once in understanding and allowed the lift door to slide
closed.
The loft fell into a strange silence, as if Nat's leaving had removed
something vital. Even the fire seemed somehow diminished. Nick moved
slowly through the room until he was once again standing at the coffee
table looking at the package of Twinkies. Such a pathetic object to be
the remnant of a life.
He picked up the package and was tempted to squeeze it into oblivion,
but stayed his hand at the last moment. Instead he carried it across
the room to the shelf where he kept the rough wooden box containing
Saint Joan's cross. Carefully he placed the package next to the
ancient reliquary.
Perhaps it was sacrilege placing the absurd with the sublime, but the
Twinkies were somehow just as much a symbol to him of his lost
humanity as the cross was a symbol of his lost faith. And like the
cross that held out the hope of regained faith, they seemed a faint
promise of regained humanity.
In the back of his mind Nick could hear Schanke's voice. "Yeah, right,
Knight. Instead of getting all philophical about 'em, why the hell
don't you just eat 'em? Geesh!"
He picked up the remote and turned off the fire, then headed up the
stairs, pausing to turn down the thermostat. "Maybe someday I will,
Schank. Someday," he said aloud, and went up to bed.
FINIS
======================================================
Comments, criticisms, and creme-filled snack cakes to:
nancykam@mediaone.net
======================================================
started me thinking. Nick...Twinkies. Not an obvious pairing, is it?
Why would Nick have anything to do with a package of Twinkies? This
story is what I came up with.
Please consider all the usual disclaimers made. Permission is given to
archive this on the FK fanfic and FTP sites. Everyone else, please ask
permission.
=============================
Remnants of a Life
by Nancy Kaminski
(c) January 2000
=============================
"Ah-choo!"
Natalie Lambert hurriedly scrambled into the passenger seat of Nick
Knight's Caddy, slammed the door, and sneezed. Water dripped from her
nose and chin as she sniffled and searched through the pockets of her
raincoat."Oh, lord, I better have a kleenex somewhere..." She sneezed
again.
The early spring rain beat loudly on the canvas roof and streamed down
the windshield of the idling Caddy, the wipers clacking at double
time, futilely trying to keep up with the downpour. Giving up on her
pockets, Natalie cast a desperate glance at the driver, sneezed, then
opened the glove compartment. "Please tell me you have a box of
tissues stashed in here, Nick, like every other person in the world."
"Um, I don't think so," Nick said doubtfully.
She rummaged through the compartment. "I don't believe it. You
actually have a pair of gloves in here." She stared at the pair of
black leather gloves in her hand in amazement, then another sneeze
prompted her to resume her search. She dropped the gloves on the seat
and started pulling maps and bits of paper out. "Pleeeease," she
muttered under her breath, doing her best to stifle the next explosive
sneeze.
A large square of snowy white linen floated into her field of vision.
"Will this do?" Nick inquired.
With a moan of relief Natalie buried her face in the handkerchief and
blew mightily, then scrubbed her nose. "Ahhhhh, that's better," she
sighed and sat back, looking ruefully at the drift of paper on the
seat and floor. "Sorry about the mess, Nick. It's such a pain to have
car trouble and a cold at the same time!" She started to stuff things
back into the glove compartment. "Can you believe this rain? I keep
expecting to see an ark floating down Granby Street."
"I think Noah would have trouble making the corners. I speak from
experience driving large vehicles," Nick said wryly.
Nat snorted, then paused and drew a cellophane-wrapped package out of
the depths of the glove compartment. "What's this?" she said, and
laughed when she recognized it. "Nick! Don't tell me you've taken up
junk food!" She brandished the package under his nose. "Twinkies? You
know, people say that you can keep these things for years and they
never go stale because of all the preservatives. They're the perfect
artificial taste treat." She peered at the packaging, tilting it so
the light from the streetlamp fell on the label. "See? The expiration
date is a couple of months ago, and they're still nice and soft!"
Her grin faltered and disappeared when she looked up from the Twinkies
to see Nick's reaction. He was staring at the Twinkies; his face
registered surprise, then pain, and finally a growing anger.
"What?" she asked, bewildered. "What did I say?"
Nick clutched the steering wheel so hard she thought it would break
and began swearing in a language Natalie didn't recognize. His voice
was low and frighteningly intense, and his body quivered with his
barely contained rage. She shrank involuntarily against the car door,
pummeled by the torrent of Nick's inexplicable anger. She had never
seen him like this, not even when he had let the vampire loose.
Suddenly the flood of invective ceased. Nick stared at her with wild
eyes, then wrenched open his door and leaped out. He slammed the door
so hard the car rocked on its springs. Natalie saw him silhouetted
momentarily in the headlights as the rain danced like silver spears in
the twin beams. He kicked a newspaper vending machine on the sidewalk,
shattering the glass cover into a thousand pieces. Then he was gone.
Natalie looked after him in shock, her heart hammering in her chest in
reaction. Numbly she registered the rain roaring against the car roof
in a monotonous counterpoint to the windshield wipers. A lone car
swished by on the street and disappeared around the corner.
She straightened in her seat. She was cold and wet, she realized
distractedly, so she turned on the heater. What the *hell* was that
all about? She looked down at the rumpled Twinkies package in her
hand, but it gave her no clue. What could have set Nick off?
She waited apprehensively in the idling car. At two in the morning the
street was virtually deserted -- it would have been, even if it
weren't raining -- save for the occasional delivery truck, squad
car, and late-night reveler. Would he return, that boyish half-smile
and an apology on his lips? Would he explain himself? Or would he
shrug his shoulders and say, like usual, that she wouldn't understand
-- that she shouldn't want to know?
After fifteen minutes she gave up waiting and slid over to the
driver's seat. God, she couldn't even reach the pedals! Impatiently
she found the seat adjustment and slid it forward, then adjusted the
mirrors. Where should she go? Her place? His place?
His place. He'd turn up there eventually, and she wanted an
explanation. Deep inside, she didn't think that his rage had been
caused by his "condition," -- it was a purely human reaction, but to
what, she didn't know. She glanced at the package of Twinkies on the
seat and shook her head. Nick was a mystery wrapped in an enigma, she
thought, or however that quote went.
Twenty minutes later the Caddy was safely ensconced in its garage and
Natalie was climbing the stairs to the loft. Once inside she shed her
damp raincoat and turned on a couple of lamps. She shivered. As usual
the temperature in the loft was too low for comfort, for a mortal at
least. She allowed herself a moment of irritation. Why couldn't he
keep the damned place at a decent temperature? It's not like he
couldn't affort the heat, she grumbled to herself. She hunted up the
remote and fumbled until she found the button that controlled the gas
fireplace. That going, she spotted the thermostat on the wall near the
stairs, and turned it up.
With a sigh she settled on the sofa with a newspaper and a cup of
instant coffee and prepared to wait.
**********
The sound of footsteps on the roof staircase took Natalie's attention
away from 37 Across. She put down the crossword puzzle and folded her
hands in her lap, her eyes on the door from the roof. It opened and
Nick stepped inside.
He looked terrible, completely soaked and bedraggled. He closed the
door quietly and simply stood looking at her. Water dripped from his
clothes and puddled on the floor.
Natalie broke the silence first. "I think you better dry off a little.
You'll ruin the hardwood floor dripping like that."
He looked down at the puddle at his feet, then without a word, went up
to his bedroom. Five minutes later the shower started. Natalie went
back to her crossword puzzle, wondering if he'd reappear or simply go
to bed. She put the odds at sixty-forty against seeing him again that
night.
She lost her bet. A half hour later Nick came back downstairs to stand
in front of her.
Natalie regarded him calmly. He had changed into jeans and a cotton
pullover, and was barefoot as he usually was when at home. His hair
was still damp, but he had made an attempt to comb it into some
semblance of neatness. He looked like he wanted to talk, but didn't
know quite how to start.
"Would you like me to drive you home?" he finally asked.
"Not really. I'd rather have an explanation." She nudged the package
of Twinkies that she had placed on the coffee table. "What did these
things ever do to you?" She looked at him sternly. "And I think you
owe the Globe and Mail some money for their newspaper box. That was
quite a demonstration. Did you punch out any streetlights after you
left?"
Nick sat down in the chair facing the sofa. "No. I yelled a bit,
though."
Natalie sat back and folder her arms. "So, do you want to tell me
about it?"
He sighed. "I had forgotten those were in there. When you waved them
at me -- well, it brought it all back."
"Brought what back?"
"Schanke. They're his...*were* his. He put them in the glove
compartment the night before the crash. He said he'd save them for a
snack the next time we went out on a call after he came back." Nick
picked up the Twinkies and turned them over in his hands as if he were
examining a rare artifact. "And he never came back." He set the
package carefully in the center of the coffee table. "I just got so
angry that he died, that that maniac took away two of my friends -- I
just lost it."
"Oh." Natalie looked at him sympathically. She knew Schanke's death
had hit him hard, but he had seemed to have accepted it and started
building a good relationship with his new partner. Apparently the hurt
was still just below the tightly controlled surface he presented to
the world. "So, where did you go when you stormed out into the storm?"
"I just went -- anywhere, as long as it was away from that reminder, I
guess. But I ended up at Schanke's grave." He looked away, ashamed. "I
yelled at him for dying and and leaving us all here -- Myra, Jenny,
and me. And you. All of his friends. And then I apologized for not
taking that plane instead of him." Nick stared into the fire, lost in
his memories.
"Oh, Nick," Natalie said gently, "You know it isn't your fault. And
there still would have been a tragedy -- you wouldn't have been able
to save anyone, and if you had survived you would have had to move on.
It would have been *your* picture in the morgue waiting to be matched
up with a body that we would never find."
"Yeah, but then at least Schanke could have lived..." His voice
trailed off. "You're right, Nat, but I can't help the way I feel."
Silence fell. They watched the flames leap and dance in the fireplace,
each reliving the grief from that dreadful night nearly six months
before.
Presently, in an effort to shake off the mood, Natalie asked, "Where'd
he get Twinkies? I thought they only sold them in the States."
"His brother-in-law lives in Buffalo. He came up to visit and brought
a whole case with him for Don." Nick laughed softly. "I was treated to
a monologue on the virtues of Hostess snack cakes -- SnoBalls, HoHos,
and especially Twinkies -- over virtually every other form of treat
available in Canada."
Natalie chuckled. "That was our Don, all right. A connaisseur of all
things edible. Remember how he tried so hard to make you eat donuts?"
"Yeah, and souvlaki, and soft pretzels, and ice cream, and
hotdogs...well, I guess I ate a hotdog, huh? But I made him pay for
it," he said, thinking back on his Litovuterine-inspired eating spree.
"He did do his best to drive me crazy. I'm surprised I didn't kill him
those first couple of months."
"Especially after he wrecked the Caddy," Nat said wryly.
"Did I ever tell you he switched the radio to a polka station during
that ride from hell?" Nick asked. "There I was, being slammed around
in the trunk while he destroyed my car piece by piece, thinking that
at any moment I'd be thrown outside to spontaneously combust in the
middle of Avenue Road, all the while being forced to listen to polkas.
It was sheer torture."
She laughed. "And do you remember..."
They traded Schanke stories back and forth. The sky gradually
lightened until the automatic shutters quietly whirred down into
place. Nick drank his breakfast, and Natalie went through several more
cups of instant coffee and a bagel she found in Nick's freezer. It
felt good to reminisce about their friend -- it was almost a delayed
wake, a chance to laugh and cry and treasure the moments they all had
shared.
During a pause in the flow of stories, Nick said suddenly, "He knew."
Nat yawned and stretched. "He knew what?"
"About me. About what I am."
Nat jolted back to alertness. "He *knew*? Nick, are you sure?"
"Oh, he never said anything, but I could tell. This was after that
time when he talked to Janette and Lacroix -- you know, when he first
suspected, and when Lacroix convinced him he was just tired, under
stress, and seeing things. After a while he started putting two and
two together again, and it still came up 'vampire.' "
"And he never said anything to you?"
Nick shook his head. "No. But he stopped eating garlic, he quit
pushing food on me, and he stopped insisting that a little bit of sun
couldn't possibly be *that* bad.
"One time, when we were having a hard time dealing with a suspect who
was combative and on the edge of hysterics, he asked me to 'do that
thing you can do, you know, to calm him down.' Nat, he wanted me to
whammy the guy."
"And did you?"
Nick nodded. "Just enough to quiet him down. And Schanke said it beat
the hell out of using a choke hold."
"Oh my God, Nick, you don't think he told Myra, do you?" Natalie was
struck with fear at the prospect of the Enforcers paying Myra and
Jenny a visit.
Nick said, "I'm certain he didn't. Under that buffoonish exterior was
a very intelligent man, Nat. He wanted people to underestimate him so
he played the fool. He knew that this was a very dangerous secret and
he kept it to himself."
"Oh. my," Nat said faintly.
"Why do you think he got on that damned plane?" Nick asked bitterly.
"He knew the publicity that whole case was generating would have put
me in the spotlight, and I would have had a hard time getting out of
the daytime activities that were scheduled. Cohen wanted me to go, you
know, because I was the arresting officer, but he talked her out of
it after I couldn't. Everyone thought he was just trying to hog some
publicity for himself, but he really did it for me. He died for me,
Nat, and it was just so *pointless*." He stood and started pacing
restlessly.
Natalie got up and stopped him with a hand on his chest. She looked up
into his grief-clouded eyes and said gently, "Yes, it was pointless,
but he didn't think he was going to die. He didn't take a bullet for
you, Nick, he saw a situation in which you weren't invulnerable, and
was just trying to protect you in the best way he knew how. Like a
partner should protect a partner -- or a friend should protect a
friend. It was a hideous, dreadful coincidence that he got on that
particular plane."
He moved away from her and resumed pacing. "Don't you think I know
that? But I can rationalize it all I want to, and the fact remains
that he's dead, and I'm not." He stopped to stare at a painting that
Schanke had critiqued with a scathingly accurate parody of an effete
art critic. It was a savage slash of black paint against the livid
hues of an angry sunset, and the anger and despair it portrayed
mirrored his mood precisely. He said without turning, "Nat, please
go."
"Nick..."
"No...don't try. Just go."
Stung by the rebuff, she silently collected her coat and purse. At the
lift she turned and looked at him. He was still staring at the
painting as if held the answers to all his despair. She tried again.
"Nick..."
He turned his head slightly towards her. "Nat...thank you, but...not
right now. I just need to be alone."
She nodded once in understanding and allowed the lift door to slide
closed.
The loft fell into a strange silence, as if Nat's leaving had removed
something vital. Even the fire seemed somehow diminished. Nick moved
slowly through the room until he was once again standing at the coffee
table looking at the package of Twinkies. Such a pathetic object to be
the remnant of a life.
He picked up the package and was tempted to squeeze it into oblivion,
but stayed his hand at the last moment. Instead he carried it across
the room to the shelf where he kept the rough wooden box containing
Saint Joan's cross. Carefully he placed the package next to the
ancient reliquary.
Perhaps it was sacrilege placing the absurd with the sublime, but the
Twinkies were somehow just as much a symbol to him of his lost
humanity as the cross was a symbol of his lost faith. And like the
cross that held out the hope of regained faith, they seemed a faint
promise of regained humanity.
In the back of his mind Nick could hear Schanke's voice. "Yeah, right,
Knight. Instead of getting all philophical about 'em, why the hell
don't you just eat 'em? Geesh!"
He picked up the remote and turned off the fire, then headed up the
stairs, pausing to turn down the thermostat. "Maybe someday I will,
Schank. Someday," he said aloud, and went up to bed.
FINIS
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Comments, criticisms, and creme-filled snack cakes to:
nancykam@mediaone.net
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