Pulling up in his driveway at two in the morning, he noticed that the gate to the backyard was open. He latched it shut, then went around to the veranda and unlocked the front door. As he stepped inside, he felt his heart sink.
Where the new CD player had been, there was now empty shelf space. Someone had broken in. He surveyed the living room in a daze. All of the other equipment had been stolen, too. Even the Billy Joel CD was gone. Whoever it was had entered through the back porch, smashing the window and leaving the floor littered with glass shards. The gear must have been carted out the porch door, which was ajar, and loaded into a truck or van waiting in the driveway. He called the police, then his insurance company. His policy covered him. Still, he was devastated.
Two police officers came by that Sunday. They took pictures and notes, asked him if he had any idea who the thief or thieves might be. He didn’t. They told him there wasn’t much they could do and promised to be in touch if there were any developments. One of them gave him a card. He called Crystal four or five times before the afternoon was out. He tried again in the evening and late at night. Nobody picked up, no answering machine kicked in.
She didn’t answer her phone on Monday, either, and didn’t show up at work. Toni said she’d called in sick and that her boyfriend had called, asking if she was there. He’d sounded upset.
“I thought they broke up,” Jonah said.
“I did, too,” Toni said. “She’s been staying with me. She needed to get away from him. Give herself space so she can decide what she really wants to do.”
He looked at Toni in surprise. “She’s at your place now?”
Toni shook her head. “She was going to head home today. She might be there already. I hope she’s okay.”
“So do I,” he said.
He wondered what was going on between Toni and Crystal, how close they were, then told himself to stop imagining things, that for all he knew Toni was only being a supportive friend.
But he couldn’t help feeling a pang of envy.
As soon as he got off work he drove to Crystal’s apartment. A rusty, battered van with a guitar painted on its side occupied the parking space he’d used over the weekend. He parked in the adjacent slot. Walking past the van, he spotted her sunglasses on the dashboard in front of the passenger seat. So she had company. Was it her boyfriend? Were they staying together? The feeling she’d been putting on an act came over him. He pressed his face against the van’s heavily tinted rear window, couldn’t see beyond a couple of discarded beer cans.
Rather than buzz her in the lobby, he followed the footpath to the back of the building. Her unit was on the ground floor, the curtained living-room window overlooking the path. Approaching the glass, he heard muffled noises. There was a slight gap between the curtains. He peeked through it.
Crystal and a twentysomething guy with shoulder-length hair and tattoos on his arms were standing in the middle of the room, talking animatedly. Jonah couldn’t make out what they were saying, only that they were agitated. On the cluttered coffee table was a small plastic case partially obscured by a heap of white powder, next to what looked like a razor blade and a curled-up paper bill. The case, he realized, was a CD container. He could see just enough of the cover to recognize Billy Joel’s 52nd Street album. And in the cabinet behind the table, its fluorescent display panel illuminated, was a familiar-looking CD player.
He drove back to his place, narrowly averting a collision after he missed a stop sign. By the time he found the card one of the police officers had given him, the initial shock had faded and rage was setting in. His promise was the furthest thing from his mind when he called the number printed on the card.
It took another day for the authorities to confirm that Crystal’s boyfriend had stolen the gear and sold it to buy cocaine—except for the CD player, which he’d decided to keep. And yes, the movie date with Crystal had been part of the plan. A way of making sure Jonah wouldn’t be home to interfere with the robbery.
This information had come not from the boyfriend, who was now in custody, but from Crystal herself. She was in Toronto General, recovering from a concussion and lacerations to her face. According to the cop Jonah spoke with, she was claiming that she’d tried to talk her boyfriend out of the robbery, that they’d gotten into a heated argument after he’d gone through with it. And then he’d hit her. Were they still together? The officer couldn’t or wouldn’t say. He did point out that abusive relationships could be addictive.
“Sometimes the victims find it impossible to break free,” he told Jonah. “Sometimes the emotional bond with the abuser is too strong. Crystal never gave you any indication she was stuck in that situation?”
“She’s a good actress,” Jonah said.
He didn’t think to ask if she’d be charged as an accessory, or if he could get the charge waived. Not right away.
Instead he brooded over how she’d betrayed him, how her once pretty face must look now. Had she really been opposed to the robbery? Had that triggered her boyfriend’s violence, or had jealousy set him off? Jonah desperately wanted her story to be true but couldn’t let go of his anger, couldn’t trust her any more than he’d trusted his cheating ex.
He debated whether it was too late to keep his promise.
The keys were still in his hand, his mind still not made up. Maybe a little music would calm him down, help him see things clearly.
He put the keys back on the rack, powered up the aging stereo receiver he’d inherited from his parents and kept in his bedroom, connected to a turntable and bookshelf speakers of the same vintage—the system was what might euphemistically be called forgiving, a far cry from the high-resolution rig that had replaced it in the living room. He plunked the first disc of the Resurrection Symphony onto the automatic turntable’s platter, pressed the button to play the opening movement, and collapsed on the bed.
The stormy bass strings startled him, just as they’d startled Crystal. No, this wasn’t what he wanted. He switched discs, and when the tonearm was in position over the Urlicht track he lay down again and closed his eyes. Listening to Helen Watts lamenting mankind’s need and pain, he felt the sorrow and desolation in her voice, and as she sang of a light showing her the way to heaven he found himself wondering if he would ever see such a light…had his parents seen it? That led him to think of Crystal and her estranged parents, and during the brief silence between the end of the track and the beginning of the symphony’s final movement he vaguely remembered a conversation he’d had with her, something involving her friends and a hackneyed old saying.
A fresh outburst of stormy bass filled the room, followed by a clash of cymbals and an explosion of brass and shrieking strings. The Resurrection and Last Judgment were at hand. He opened his eyes, squinting at the light in the ceiling fixture, and for a crazy moment he was convinced it was the light that was going to guide him to heaven. The next moment he was on his feet.
He turned the equipment off, didn’t bother putting the record away. The keys were where he’d left them, beside the envelope with Crystal’s room number. He grabbed them, hurried out of the house and locked the door. Even before he knew which route he would take to the hospital, he was starting his car, anxious to get moving.
