Payback by John Inman Page B

away.
    “Sorry,” Chris mumbled. I wasn’t sure why.
    Looking out over the lawns and seeing the red sunset quickly fading to starlight on the horizon, I remembered that fateful night, the things Spence and I had talked about, the unfamiliar weight of the rings on our fingers, the excitement of knowing that because of the rings, our lives were now more intertwined than ever before. Inseparable, that was us, Spence and I. Or so we thought.
    Chris waved a hand, encompassing all the people in front of us, most of them standing around chatting with each other while their dogs raced around like lunatics. “Do any of these people look familiar to you? Chances are the people who bring their dogs here do so on a regular basis. Maybe a few of these faces will ring a bell.”
    I did as the detective asked, never mentioning to him I had been here only a few days ago. I studied the faces in the gloaming, and as I did, the security light high atop the public bathroom blinked on, illuminating the park, casting sharp shadows across the grass. Still, I simply stared out at the people in front of me, offering no comment, dredging up no memories. The silence hung between the detective and me like a layer of fog. Finally he swept it away with a question.
    “You look better,” he said. “Is your hand healing? How does it feel?”
    I gazed down at the hand like someone had just attached it to the end of my arm and I had never really noticed it before. I flexed my fist. “The fingers still ache sometimes. Maybe they always will.”
    “Hopefully not,” he said. “When are you going back to work?”
    The question took me by surprise. I realized I hadn’t thought about work once—not once—since the day my boss phoned. And Joey. Good old weaselly Joey.
    “I guess I’ll go back when I can’t stay away any longer,” I said.
    Chris’s face softened in understanding. “Makes sense to me.” He pointed to a tiny Chihuahua making amorous passes at a German shepherd. We both laughed. “No inferiority complex there,” Chris chuckled.
    As quickly as his laughter flared up, his face sobered. He turned to me, and said, “It’s not good cutting the world out of your life, Tyler. It’s not good letting your grief get the better of you.” I started to protest, but he raised his hand to shush me. “I’ve learned a few things about grief in my line of work. I’ve learned how it can destroy a person. Grief and hatred combined make a deadly cocktail, Tyler. It’s a one-two punch that leaves you reeling. Some people never recover from it. I’d hate to see that happen to you.”
    I looked away—back to the dogs, back to the city skyline on the horizon. Anywhere else but at the sympathy in Chris’s face. For some reason his compassion infuriated me.
    “I’ll be fine,” I said, my voice emotionless. Empty. But immediately I was drawn back to Chris’s face, Chris’s eyes. Something in the empathy I saw there made me wonder things about him I had never considered before. What kind of life did he lead outside of work? What must it be like to see the terrible things he saw day after day, then go home to—who? A cat? One fucking cat? And why was he really seeking me out this way? Was it really to jog my memory? Was that truly the reason he came to see me today? Was that really the purpose behind our getting together?
    Or was he simply lonely? And that begged the other question. Was he gay?
    “Are you married?” I asked because I didn’t have the nerve to ask the other question.
    He studied my eyes for a moment, then responded, “No.”
    “Girlfriend?” I asked.
    The slightest smile tweaked the corner of his mouth. “No.”
    A yip at my feet made me look down. A Pomeranian stood by the fence looking up at me. His fluffy tail was nothing but a blur. One happy dog.
    Then a memory kicked in. A memory from that night. The young woman with the Pom. I remembered her words and spoke them out loud. “He’s the only male in my life who ever