Hot Springs by Geoffrey Becker Page A

the fire, which was mostly under control. A local teacher had published a children’s book, which he’d illustrated, too. He paged further in, still expecting at any moment to find a photo of himself, or of Bernice, or of Emily. He didn’t know how the paper could have gotten such a photo, but he felt it was inevitable.
    When he was done looking, relieved that he still seemed to dwell in a temporary state of grace, he locked up and took the truck into town, dropping his trash into a Dumpster behind the Walmart on South Academy, where they’d bought the car seat. Bernice’s apartment was downtown, near where the highway cut through, in a complex that looked like a Motel 6, complete with a battered swimming pool. Apparently she paid quite a bit for it, and it was unclear to Landis where her money came from. She’d quit her job at the coffee place back in April and begun working part time at a little gallery in Manitou that sold pottery and paintings and kachina dolls and other stuff to tourists and the occasional intrepid Broadmoor lady. She’d already cleaned the apartment out, more or less, and told the manager she was moving even though she had two more months on her lease, and she and Landis had stood one final time on her tiny balcony looking west toward Pikes Peak, improbably huge and wearing its barren top like some misshapen skullcap. On the horizon below it, attached to a building much closer, there was a red neon sign that read, simply, “Fish.” Bernice had insisted it was a Christian thing, and while at first he’d argued with her, pointing out that it was a restaurant, and that he’d even been there, she was impossible on the subject—to the point of growing sarcastic with him—and he’d given in. “You think some restaurant is just going to put up a big Fish sign ?” she’d said. “It’s the same thing as those symbols on everyone’s cars.”

    “OK,” he’d told her. “You’re right. I’m just saying, it’s a fish restaurant. That’s what they serve.”
    “Anyone who orders seafood in Colorado ought to have his head examined,” she’d said.
    Landis parked down the block, walked to the complex, and checked Bernice’s mail. There was quite a bit of it. He’d never been in her mailbox before, and it felt strangely personal. He told himself it was just a mailbox. And yet for a while she’d seen it as some kind of battleground, refusing to lock it, which resulted in the postman’s refusing to deliver her mail. This went on for weeks until, eventually, the postman gave in.
    He stuck the mail, none of which looked important, into the glove compartment of the truck, then walked three blocks to Tejon Street. Midnights was open for lunch these days, and he took a seat at the bar and ordered a Fat Tire and a burger special from a woman he didn’t recognize, who didn’t seem particularly friendly. She was probably around forty, pretty enough, with tattoos up and down her arms. There wasn’t an ounce of fat on her. She had blue-black hair, and her T-shirt read “Don’t Ask.”
    “What?” he said when she delivered his plate.
    “Whatever it is you’re thinking of,” she said. “Unless it’s more ketchup or another beer, it’s off the table.” She smiled at him. You could have slipped a quarter between her front teeth.
    “Where’s Reno?” he said.
    “She’s out sick. I’m Robin. You a regular?”
    “Sort of. I work here sometimes. Tate calls me in when he can’t do a show.”
    “Tate’s an old friend of mine. What’s your name?”
    “Landis,” he said.
    “Nope,” she said. “I never heard of you.”

    “Well, I do sound.”
    “So I figured.” She maintained eye contact but didn’t say anything else.
    “Can you give me an example?” he asked, finally.
    “A date. The time. Directions. To see my tits. You name it, I don’t want to hear it.” She leaned forward. “What don’t you want to be asked?”
    There was only one other person at the bar, a muscular