BUD WHITE

New Orleans, April 2, 2005

Midnight. City of angels.

No. Not that City of Angels.

She used to tell me this was the City of Angels and Devils.

She always gave me a smirk when she said that to me.

It's the only city I ever been to where the angels spend eternity entombed above ground. It's the only place I've known since I was really home that has that same attitude that says angels are okay but only when they're dancing with the devils.

That's how I always felt about L.A., see. It might have been sunny, inviting and glamorous to the rest of the world. But to people like me, people who lived in the real world of L.A., it was filled with corrupt cops, elegant hookers, manipulative press and a shifting sense of justice that depended less on who you knew and more on what you knew was right.

This place? She might have been right about it. She always said I'd have fit in here as a cop. She didn't necessarily mean that in a nasty way. She wasn't ever nasty to me. Me? She liked me for some reason. Not for any reason other than that she thought I was a good man under it all. She knew just what I was; she chose to see the good side of me. I liked that about her.

I just never really understood why she left.

And I still am not liking the fact that someone else is in her place.

But, even so, I really hate that this is the first time I've even really thought about how someone should have been looking after her all this time. Looking after the one who took her place, that's what I meant to say.

It's fucking hard to think she's been out on her own all this time. It's fucking harder to understand why I never worried about her.

But the longer I'm here, in the city where I first met her, the more a fog seems to have parted in my brain and in my soul. If I have a soul, I should say. And I've been thinking on how she's had to make it here alone. And I've been thinking how that's just wrong. And I've been thinking maybe I should do something about that.

Been here a month now. Working on a case. Not one of mine, mind you. But a lead fell in my lap ... given to me by someone who "suggested" this might be just up my alley. Yeah, the perp was wanted by our department in San Francisco. He'd skipped bond on a drug rap. I hadn't been interested; was going to pass it on ... and then I got the file. And I saw why my own personal contact had thought I'd be interested ... does everyone know that side of me?

I sure wasn't even looking to take this job on. But I had a break in my schedule. A big fat one. Dino called; said this could be a big score for me; said maybe I'd want an excuse to be out of town for a while and to go someplace it was already spring. Fucker had to know how I'd feel coming back here. Maybe he wanted me here on purpose to check on her.

Dino was the reason I ever looked at the perp's file. He said to trust him, this one was worth looking at, that I had a chance to do something that mattered on a level that mattered maybe more to me than about anyone else he knew. So that's what I did. Dino may be many things in my book, but he's never before refused to take a "no" from me.

Okay, so maybe there're thousand other cases and perps who'd ring this particular chime with me. But then Dino told me to take a good hard look at where the perp had once done business. And that was like the final thing. Something just called out to me to do this, to see where it led.

When I asked about tracking this perp down, I got a big fat turn down by the Narc bureau. I understand the territorial crap of them not wanting another bureau to get credit for one of their collars who'd skipped his bail under their noses. I pushed anyway. My boss wasn't supporting me. So I said I was taking leave and gonna track this guy down on my own time. The captain said there might not be a job waiting for me when I came back. I said then it wasn't a job worth having if I'd lose it over doing this. He didn't get it. My partner didn't get it. No one could, I suppose, not knowing me as I had become at that point.

Though, if you didn't know me back when I was a cop in L.A., chances are you don't know the real me.

Who's that?

I don't know. I'm not real deep into all that touchy-feely crap. It's enough for me to know that being a cop's like my own personal war. I do better on the mean streets. I may not love the fucked up war I used to wage, but I'm damned good at it. I won't apologize for that. Maybe I want to start feeling like there's a reason I'm here that matters to me.

That war of mine ... it's still inside me. It was an itch that had been dull as if controlled by some heavy narcotic that left me half-dopey and half-me. But now? Here in this town for about a month and I think maybe the itch is a damned good sign that I can feel it, scratch it, enjoy it.

I've met cops in this town who make me remember why being a brother of the badge had mattered to me.

But there's something else that's been getting more and more large to me in the last two weeks: I need to solve the mystery of her. And maybe then I can stop thinking about what it all means and maybe then I can go back to where I was living.

First, though, I got to collar the creep I tracked here. 

Behind me, I can see the outline of a white sedan. Inside, two silhouettes. My backup. NOPD's finest from the 5th District. Only here because I've made friends with the detectives. We talk the same language; she used to call it "cop speak." It's also because they have come to figure that I'm doing their job for them on this ratfuck I'm after. They don't want him in their town. But they're chronically low on manpower and they got no time to dog this like I do. Like I will. Like they know I will.

And it all comes down to this one night. 

Little fuck's in there. I know it. I've got to piss. But I can wait. I'm a patient man when it comes to waiting. 

Maybe that's been my downfall these last few years. I been waiting, been patient ... only I never knew why I was waiting. Nothing was ever gonna really happen. Was it?

I see a splotch of white light spill out an open door. It bounces off the puddle right before he steps into the water and curses because his white sneakers got some muddy water on them. He's a piece of work. Real piece of work. He's gotten a little cocky this week. Been careless.

Tonight, he was just plain turd stupid. All perps are stupid; they're just stupid in different ways.

This one decided to throw himself a birthday party at his old favorite club. He'd been by to visit it every so often. Every time he had, I heard about it too late. But this time, I got the skinny off nothing more than a cool hundred tip to a hooker.

I glance back in the rear view again at the cops behind me in that car. They're waiting on me to make the first move. I like that; I like the way the cops here think and handle themselves. It might not be LAPD, but they don't take shit off civilians and perps any more than we ever did.

Guess I can see why she thought I'd fit in. The more I been here with these cops, the more that itch to be the kind of detective I used to be has returned to me. By this night, it's burning a hole right through me. I was never so good as I was when I was with the LAPD. It was a life I just needed like some people need sunshine. I don't know why I never saw that before ... why I been denying my own nature that way.

A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do.

I said that to her once. She had said, "And as often as he can."

She and me had a way of talking together ... I always liked talking to her. Even when she was busting my chops, it was something, y'know?

And here I am back in her city ... wonder what she'd make of me now?

My night's about to be complete. The fucker's walking past my car. He's got no idea what's waiting for him. And then he's passing the back bumper and I'm out of the car. He looks at me, a white guy looking too old to worry about ... only illumination's from the streetlamp down the block ... he can't see me too good yet.

He gets the first real look at me just before I shove him down the alley. Shove? Yeah. Full body shove. He's picking his gut up off the trash in the alley when my knee slips and helps him stand upright.

By the time the NOPD cops are there, my backup, he's face first in the cement wall and he's coughing up a bit of the blood pooling in his mouth.

"What do you call that kind of move?" one of the cops asks me. Det. Bobby Broussard. Big guy. Talks like he's from Brooklyn but he says he's from here.

"I call that justice," I say.

"This one personal, Bud?" asks the other cop. Det. Nate Simmons. He's smart as hell and he's mean as all shit. I like him a lot.

"Not personal. Just don't much care for drug dealers," I say as I brush my hands off and let them check the handcuffs I've already put on the collar.

The perp's hollering now about his rights and other crap. Finally: "You got the wrong guy! I don't do no drugs!"

"I got no pity for a man who makes his woman fuck his supplier to make up for the shortfall he owes him," I say. "And then beats her to almost nothing when she tries to run away. Got no pity for him when she turns on him and starts talking to the Narc boys. I figure he's earned what's coming his way."

He smiles at me just before Nate shoves him in the squad car that's come chasing up to the scene. Perp smiles at me. Mouth full of blood and he's smiling?

"What the fuck you smiling at, asshole?" I say.

"She ain't ever gonna testify against me," he says. 

He's right. I got a sick feeling that he's right. Got an even sicker feeling she still thinks she's in love with him. And the sickest feeling of all? If they're hanging their case on her testifying, he'll walk.

Nate, Bobby and I stare at the squad car as it takes off. Blue lights bounce off the wet pavement and off the dark windows around us in this seedy area of town. We're not the only ones watching. The arrest brought out the customers of the dive bar where my perp had just been celebrating the day of his birth.

A lot of people, even cops, might be nervous in this spot.

Nate turns and gives them one hard, all encompassing look. There's a lot of mumbling but they start filing back in the bar.

See? That's respect for the badge. 

In a city like this? It's all that keeps a cop alive sometimes because they are seriously out-numbered. And they don't even have enough cops to fill their roster. They been telling me that ever since I been here. How they got so many openings. How it can be tough to fill the slots with good cops.

Takes us another two hours to finish the paperwork. My perp's now officially a ward of the NOPD until the extradition paperwork's done. I'll probably have to let a federal marshal come gather him up and head him back to San Francisco by the time they release him to us.

So I'm free and clear now that that's done. Nothing else really holding me to this city. Except Nate asks me do I want to go have a drink. Bobby's got a wife he's going home to. Nate's only got a crummy cracker box not too far from city limits. It's in Metairie, which seems to me to be almost the same as New Orleans, but it's not.

Over the first drink, Nate says he still can't believe I'm a cop in that chi-chi city in pansy northern California; that I was made to be a detective in city like this, where the cops take on the job like the fight's not going to be won anywhere but in the trenches. Over the second drink, I get another earful about how NOPD won't promote any cop who lives outside the city limits and how that's making it damned hard to keep the good detectives. Nate's got his own views on why that is. I think he's probably right. But it's not my fight. So I just listen as I scope this joint.

We're at some dive not far from his place. We had in mind picking up a few girls for a little party but I've still got this promise I made to someone else and even though there're things happening, I feel some obligation. So when Nate snags a brunette with too much makeup and too many miles, I just can't rustle up anything but a sense of futility for Nate. Not that he asked my opinion so I don't give it to him.

It takes me about ten minutes after he and the brunette leave before I've finished my scotch. I head down to the Quarter after that. I park on the block I've gotten to know real well over the last few weeks. The noise from Bourbon is a dull throb in the distance. It's quiet here otherwise. The bar on the corner is why I'm here. Not that I've ever been inside.

Bars don't really have to close here in this city. Some do if they haven't got the business early mornings. This one stays open all night. Every night. Steady stream of people even as quiet as this area is. I asked Nate about this place. He says it's one of the joints the people who work the other bars in the Quarter come after work to drink and unwind. Not too many tourists ever find it.

For the last two weeks or so, I've started coming here most every night, parking in this same block, just keeping surveillance on the bar from here. I started stopping by real late at night after putting in quality time looking for the perp. At first it was just a stakeout of sorts, just to catch a glimpse, to see if I could tell anything much about her life from here that didn't seem tawdry and dark. But tonight? Tonight I should be packing to leave this city and heading to the place I've got my stuff ... the place I thought was a home but that I've come to view a bit differently with that strange clarity that distance always seems to bring.

Tonight I have to admit to myself that I'm here for more than a glimpse. Can I really leave this city with only a glimpse?

First time I saw her, it was a shock. That was just over two weeks ago. It seemed like a coincidence when I finally did see her ... but sometimes I think, maybe nothing's ever really a coincidence.

You know that one of the first things I did when I got to New Orleans was to track down where she was living. Easy to do; cops here did it for me in a few minutes. So I knew where she was ... I'd just convinced myself for a little while that I could be here, this close, and not look her up.

In the end, I didn't have to look her up. Our paths crossed. Maybe I'd been looking out for her the whole time I'd been there, like something in the shadow of my mind was alert for her. She was living out near where Nate lives. She'd moved from when I knew her. Not that I knew her, mind you. But I had once known ... a different her. Damn, this is confusing.

One Saturday, Nate invited me over to his place, regular card game with other detectives from his precinct. Driving over, I saw the street I knew her place was on.

Saw the street sign and I stared at every woman I saw the rest of the drive ... wondering if I'd see her. And then during the card game, I couldn't shake this feeling ... that I should say to fuck with everything else and I should be getting my ass over to see what had become of her.

It's a mystery to me. And the fact I never even cared enough to solve it before is an indication that something real bad has been going on around me and I been in some kind of fog not to have seen it.

For a while now, I have sometimes felt I've been losing the part of me that I used to be sure about. The things I've accepted ... the things I've taken as normal ... the ways I've been compromised but never saw it until recently. Until Arthur called me with the news he was now a father.

Arthur? A dad?

It was true. My first thought? Why him? Why him and Angharad? Him?

But it got me to seeing that this particular mystery really was, "why only him?"

Don't have the answers yet; Arthur thinks he does. He called me maybe a month after his baby was born, said that now that I'd heard about it, did I want to hear why it'd been possible for him. He just called me up out of the blue and asked me that. I said, spill it. He had a wild theory. I didn't buy it. I told him he was fucked up.

Yet in some ways ... it was this feeling I started having ... things I started wondering about with no one to talk to about it for fear I was just a bit crazy.

Right on the tail end of that second call from Arthur, Dino called me with a lead in this case that is the reason I left and came to New Orleans for a while. He had dangled the information out ... and then said what else was really keeping me tied down at the time? Wasn't it about time I showed some initiative? Okay, initiative was not the word ... the word was balls. "You got any left?" Dino had asked me. You know how he talks shit. Then he said if I had any balls left, I'd look at the file and do what I was meant to do.

The odd thing about it was the timing of it all.

All of it was happening to send me as far away from that life I'd been leading as I've been in years ... just at a time when I needed to be on my own to make sense of what has been going on in light of this new information from Arthur.

If nothing else should have made me take notice that I no longer really recognized the man I'd once been, it should have been this one thing: the idea of going to see her had somehow felt against the rules. I had given in to that feeling way too easy. Rules? It used to be justice that drove me, not rules. Besides, when have I ever not been driven by the need to help a woman down on her luck?

When I was packing to come here, it was the one thing I was told ... stay away from her. She's dangerous. Fuck that. When was I the kind of man who let something like that stop me from doing what's right? What's right ... when's the last time I really thought about that concept and followed my own conscience?

A while, I'm telling you. Another mystery on my plate, I suppose.

So anyway, that night a few weeks ago after I left Nate's place and the card game, I stopped at a coffee shop nearby. Needed some java, I told myself, to brace me before I went out into the heaviest part of the night to start prowling for my bail skipper again. I was sitting at a table ... just sitting there, like I was waiting for something to happen. And it did.

She just walked in the door. I didn't realize it was her. Something seemed vaguely familiar; her walk, I realize now. Always did like the way she walked ... not swinging her hips like she had to put on a show but more confident and easy. But then I heard a laugh that sounded familiar. And I really looked over at the woman standing at the counter and ... Damn. I almost called her name out except I had been warned not to contact her and for some reason, I hesitated. Decided to wait.

So I just watched her. She looked so different. Wearing black jeans, tight t-shirt, little strappy shoes with thin heels. Her hair was shorter than I'd ever seen it. And it was red. Not fiery red; more a chestnut red, kind of soft. It made her look like a whole different person. More worldly. Less cute.

I didn't follow her when she left. But I did come back the next night. And the one after, she walked in again as I stood near the counter waiting on my order. I watched her so hard. I wanted her to turn around, give me that smile, and say, "Bud White! Oh my God! I'm so happy to see you!"

But she stood at the counter, drumming her fingers, waiting on her change. They called out my order; I went to stand right next to her to get my cup of joe. She just kept looking straight ahead. I fumbled in my pocket for change to put in the tip jar. I was willing her to look at me.

And then she did. She just kind of glanced sideways. No recognition whatsoever in her eyes. She gave me a pleasant enough smile.

I smiled back but I swear ... for the first time in so long, I felt in over my head with a woman. People think I'm a tough guy ... maybe I am ... but I didn't feel so tough standing there next to her. Here was a class woman ... if she noticed me, it wasn't going to be because she was swayed by some outside force or manipulation. Like it was mandatory that every woman be turned on by me by virtue of my genes? I never the fuck wanted that. But this woman? No mumbo-jumbo was gonna make her take notice of me.

It'd been a long time since I'd been on my own with a woman like this. When it's just me ... and, fuck, I never had much luck on my own except one time. Lightening striking twice? Never has for me before. So all that was going on in my mind the instant I realized she didn't even know who I was. What do you say in a situation like that?

I had said, "Nice night out, isn't it?"

She had flashed me this grin. God. I remembered when the woman who used to be her would smile at me, all soft and sweet even if she was egging me into something bad.

"It's raining, so ... no, I guess to me it's not that great a night," she had said, her voice chiding me but not in a nasty way ... as if to say she knew I was trying to hit on her and while she had some empathy for me, I hadn't impressed her so much either.

I had looked out the window at the rain. Felt myself blush. I had looked back at her; felt totally tongue-tied. She had just looked ... Fuck. She looked good. But not interested.

Then she was getting her change and her coffee ... she was turning to leave ... and all I should have really done was watch her go.

That was the first night I had followed her. Two weeks ago. That night, I blew off my surveillance of my bail skipper and followed her instead. She drove to this bar in the French Quarter; the one I been staking out most every night since. I found out later ... she works there. Bartender.

How she fell to this level from where she should have been ... I didn't know. But I was damned determined to get to the bottom of that mystery. Then I started digging up the answers but what I found only made me feel worse that I hadn't been there for her over the last year.

Annie.

Forgive me for not looking out for your replacement. I bet you thought you could count on us. On me.

Maybe it's why I got this obsessive need to watch over her bar at night. Waiting there on that dark street until I'd see her leaving in the dead of the morning; watching as she'd walk away to where her car was parked in a lot nearby. Watching until her headlights swept over me and then she'd turn up another street and I knew she was headed home.

Most every night. Sitting here in this rental car. Knowing she was inside that bar, talking with people, laughing, living a life where I was not welcome. A life that was supposed to be dangerous to my way of life. Wondering what she'd say if I turned up some night and bought a drink from her.

What would she think of me? If there was no manipulation involved, would she be attracted to me? Or was I too rough? Too low brow?

So all these weeks, I've imagined a lot. But I've never done anything more than get a glimpse of her. And now ... my job here's supposed to be done but I can't leave yet.

Tonight ... tonight, I need to do more than get a glimpse. Tonight, I need something I'm not sure I know what it is ... but I'm not leaving this town until I do know. Something tells me, if Arthur's theory is right and if Dino's knowing something is what got him to get me away from everyone else for a while, then the mystery here ... with her ... is what I'm meant to solve.

I just got to be smart enough to do that.

This woman came from a different world, switched places with the Annie I knew ... and then this woman just simply dropped out of sight on us and no one ever talked about her. Why was that? What possible danger was she?

What else could prove it to me ... to me personally, I mean? I'm a pretty literal man; when it comes down to it, I like proof. Only thing is, there's this growing suspicion the longer I've been away that just maybe I should listen to this voice inside me that asks the questions.

Is Arthur right?

Could it be?

What happens if it's true?

Then everything ... everything changes.

Everything.

And I want to see this woman. I want to meet her. I want to see if meeting her is really the danger I was told it would be. Or what if she's not and it's the final thing I need to know to put the pieces in place? What then?

Do I have the balls to let my life change?

The place is dark inside; these places always are. There's a long bar against the far wall. She doesn't see me at first. I slide onto a stool and wait on her to come take my order. I watch her walk toward me. She looks so little. She moves like she's got time.

She stands in front of me, her hands on the bar. She bites her lower lip. She looks me up and down.

"Can I get you a drink?" she asks me.

"Yeah. Plain scotch." 

I watch her as she pours scotch into a short tumbler. Tonight she's wearing a black shirt with those thin little straps. It might not show a lot of cleavage but it's sexy in a way only a woman like this could make it sexy. When she puts the bottle back, I notice the shirt's short enough and the jeans are low enough that some skin shows as she moves. I'm looking at that skin too long ... she catches me. Tilts her head at me disapprovingly as she places a coaster down before me and then the glass.

Strike two.

"I remember you from the coffee shop," she says. 

"My name's Bud," I say.

She studies me for a moment, looks like she's trying hard to remember something. I want it to be me she's remembering. But it's not.

"Nobody's born with a name like Bud," she says.

That gives me a moment of déjà vu. "They stick you with a name like Wendell, you look for an alias," I say.

"Fair enough. What brings you to our illustrious city, Bud? Work?"

"I'm sorta between jobs."

"Between jobs or between women?" Her tone of voice shifts. She's waiting on my answer. Watching my reaction. Not giving me an inch.

"Between lives," I tell her.

"I wondered when you might walk in this bar," she tells me a moment later.

ANN

Somehow, I suppose I always knew one of them would show up again in New Orleans. I just never expected it to be this one ... Bud White.

It would have to be the coffee shop, wouldn't it? 

I had gotten used to the idea that maybe I'd been left in peace finally. That no one else was ever going to come down here to see me. Thought I'd effectively dropped way outta sight and was so far off their radar screens ... that's what I thought. That's what I wanted.

And now ... I should have been really angry he had found me.

But I'm just not so mad at the world anymore. Time ... and distance. Miracle cures.

Man, I was angry for a while when I first came over.

What doesn't kill you, right?

Oh, yeah. I'm not the same woman anymore. Not a matter of being better or worse, just a matter of being changed by circumstances and survival.

When I saw Bud in the coffee shop, I simply could not believe it. The Bud I'd known in my old world was little more than a thug, really. I never did think much of him after Terry told me how he treated his wife. And then to find out he's screwing around and all with Lach's wife in one room while the wedding reception's going on right across the hall? Jesus. What kind of man does that?

So he shows up here in New Orleans ... wonder why? I have to admit, it does make me curious. Just not curious enough to make it easy.

I figured if he thought I didn't know him, he'd be knocked for a real loop and not too sure what to do. And then he would leave and I'd go on with my life. That little ploy would have worked with the Bud I'd known back in my world. Not the brightest bulb in the pack, eh? But this Bud ... he had really startled me the first time I'd seen him outside the bar, watching the place. The Bud I'd known ... the only one I knew ... that would have been a very menacing thing for him to do, I think. So that's why it freaked me out a bit at first.

From what I've read of the other Ann's diaries, this Bud was different with her. She seemed to like him a lot. He seemed to treat her decent. Though why wouldn't he since she spread her legs for him so easy?

Is that harsh?

Yeah, it is. I know it is.

It's just him being around like this the last few weeks has got my defenses up, I suppose. Who wouldn't be, though, when they walk to work or leave work and see him sitting there in that car, just watching the bar's door like he's ... like he's what?

It came to me a few nights ago. He's like my guardian angel. A city like this, a girl can do worse than having a guardian angel built like him.

But ... I think it's more than that. I do. I think he watches me but doesn't approach because he wants what he pretty well knows he can't have. I've never had a thing to do with him in this world and now he thinks I never knew him at all in my world. So he must know that he can look, but he's never going to be able to touch.

Some nights when he's sitting out there, I've walked out the service entrance to the bar to stare at him sitting there in his car. I know he can't see me from the alley. I wonder what makes a man like that develop an obsession about a woman he thinks is out of his reach.

I think I have a real good idea of why Bud's here and why he's lingering around, trying to figure me out. I know what they've told them. That I'm a danger to the status quo. Dino told me that was what was being said for a while now.

That hadn't mattered to me since I didn't want anything to do with it all. Frankly? I am happier being left alone.

It's been almost a year since Terry came to see me. We've never spoken since. In some ways, I feel bad about that but not that much. I still hear from Jack but that's not so hard to believe because if not for him and Stephen, I might have gone insane in the beginning. But when I decided I wanted to disappear from the radar, he was needing time and space to himself. So he moved on and has made his own way after deciding he'd had enough of games. I sure don't consider him the same as the others if I ever did.

Even though I have never seen him in this world, I do talk to Dino on a somewhat regular basis. I don't know why it is that we have ended up on friendly terms. But when he reached out to me, I was finally willing to listen. Nowadays, he buzzes me every month or two. Says it's his way of making sure I'm still alive and kicking.

First time Dino called me was about two months after Terry had dropped in on me ... which was after Jack had moved on and I was, shall we say, struggling pretty abysmally with finances. Dino asked why I hadn't accessed the account they'd set up for me. I said I didn't want any ties to any of them. He made me write down some super special phone number that I could call if I ever needed him. He said it would be our secret. He said Terry and him just wanted to do right by me. I said to tell Terry I never meant to be such a bitch to him and that he didn't owe me anything. Dino just laughed and said it was good for the old man. And then I mentioned that he didn't have to worry about me because I had taken Terry's advice and I'd gotten a new job.

That was the week before I started at the bar.

The bar's only a block in from Rampart, so it's always seemed worlds away from what goes on over on Bourbon. This is a place where people come not so much to get slamming drunk but to get slowly, pleasantly pie-eyed while talking and laughing ... or crying, depending on what you are going through ... among friends. The building's old, sagging and crusted with the defeat of time. The interior of the bar is dark, cheap wood but no veneer or paneling, with a coating of care-worn non-elegance that makes it feel rough but that's just the face it puts on to keep its character. And it does have character.

Truth is, I like working here. I've found a whole new set of friends. I'm living a whole other life. I am accepted and nurtured. No one asks me any questions about why I'm there; they just like having me there. It's one of those jobs you get into and realize it's the perfect fit at the perfect time. The money is pretty decent, the hours go fast, the owner is fair, the view is breathtaking in its ability to be flamboyant one minute and taciturn the next.

And so into this new life of mine, walks a vestige of her old life. A part of my reality that I can never talk to any of my new friends about. No one would ever believe who I really am and where I really come from.

I walked in that coffee shop that night and I saw him but I didn't really know who he was at first. It's so funny ... I saw this man standing waiting for his coffee order and thought to myself, 'why didn't I ever get customers who look like that when I worked in here?' I saw him from the back and then I walked around him to the counter. So I saw a lot of his physique. I always was a sucker for a man built like that.

It probably struck me exactly who he was about the time I was paying for my coffee. They called his order; I heard him say, "that's me" in that soft voice. Somewhere deep inside, I startled at the sound of it. And then I placed it.

The decision I made to try to fake him out took me a nano-second. I haven't survived this long in the situations I've been in since coming to this world without having the ability to just decide and act on my instincts.

God. Could he have been any more lame? His opening banter ... I felt like telling him he needed a shitload of work on chatting up a new woman.

For some reason though, I knew I needed to make a non-impression on him. I needed to be blandly nice and then leave. So I had.

And I'd hoped he would leave me alone.

But then he started watching me.

And I dreamed a nasty dream of him the other night. Of him in the dark. Of him being tough. When I woke up, my sheets were tangled and I felt like I might climb out of my skin. I went to work that night, knowing I'd see him sitting out there in his car. At my first break, I had stood in the alley and tried to picture what he'd do if I just walked over to his car.

I wondered what kind of man he really was. Dino said he was on a case; I'd called him when Bud showed up, creeping me out like he was some kind of stalker. Dino said Bud is not really a creep; you just think he is. What is he then, I had asked Dino, because he's freaking me out and I want him to leave. He's willing to believe, Dino had said, and for that you have to give him a break.

You know what I thought the night Bud White finally screwed up his courage to walk in here to my bar?

I thought, well, now we begin.

I thought about all those nights he'd been sitting out there in the dark, watching me. I thought about what it meant that he came right in there, even thinking I didn't know him, and still determined to make some connection with me.

I thought, now, isn't life interesting?

You know the most interesting thing of all? When he said that about Wendell being his real name ... he looked all of 10 years old.

It was a look that passed like a fleeting glimpse. I never saw it again the whole two hours he spent sitting at my bar that night.

But I'll tell you one thing about seeing that look of his ... it made me see something in him I never expected to see.

His goodness.