Freaky Deaky

Greta smiled, watching him. He was performing, aware of her and maybe a little self-conscious. It reminded her of last night: still talking, high, walking back from Brownie's, but quiet riding up in the elevator, quiet coming into the apartment, neither of them saying a word as they turned out the lights in the living room. Then in the hall Chris telling her there were towels laid out for her in the bathroom. Greta asking if he was sure he didn't want his dad's room. No, all his stuff was in the other bedroom-where she'd looked at family photographs earlier and picked him out at different ages, recognizing Chris as the young boy with the blond crew cut squinting at the sun, trying to smile; the teenager with darker hair to his shoulders, not smiling. He stopped at the door to the room with the pictures. They were both so well-mannered in the hall saying good night after all the God's Owns and the bottle of Piesporter, after looking at each other in that warm boozy glow and knowing something was going to happen. So carefully polite closing their separate doors. Greta undressed, listening. In the bathroom she washed her face and hands, stared at herself in the mirror as she brushed her teeth, turned the water off and stood listening. She got in the king-size bed and lay there in the glow of the lamp, listening. Until that was enough of that and she shouted,

"Mankowski!" Paused and yelled, "Are you coming or not?"

He came.

And now he was saying to Maureen, "Okay, will you let me know?"

Listening and then saying, "Because I know more than any of you and if I can help, why not?" Saying, "Good. I'll see you. Maureen? Call me… Right." He reached over to hang the phone on the wall and came back to Greta smiling.

"Where were we?"

"They found Robin," Greta said.

"We know where she lives. It's a start. You know what else we know?

She did time, thirty-three months, for destruction of government property. With a bomb."

Greta said, "Robin?" and saw the older woman with the braid at Woody's, perfectly at ease with her shirt off that night; saw Robin and was aware of Chris saying, "We know," still a working cop in his mind.

Greta said, "You only found out what her last name is yesterday."

Chris said, "Yeah, but also the kind of life she was into, going back to the seventies. If she associated with guys like Donnell, a Black Panther, that's a pretty good lead. Maureen didn't find Robin in the computer, so she checked with the Bureau, the FBI office here, and the agent Maureen happened to talk to knew all about her. Also this guy."

Chris's gaze dropped to the newspaper.

"Emerson Gibbs."

Greta looked at the two names he'd written on the front page.

"Who's Marilyn Abbott?"

"Her mother. Maureen's gonna call her, see if she knows where Robin is. This guy, Emerson Gibbs, was convicted with Robin on the same bomb charge and did three and a half years. Both, it turns out, were heavy-duty political activists back at that time." Chris paused.

"You know what I mean, back during the hippie days?"

"I was in grade school," Greta said.

"But I was in Hair when I was going to Oakland University. I went two years."

She sang then, in a soft murmur, "

"This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius…"

" stopped and said, "Were you a hippie?"

"I'm not sure what I was," Chris said.

"I was sort of on the edge of it. I took part in a couple of peace marches, a big one in Washington, and I went to Woodstock…"

"Really?"

"And then I went to Vietnam."

"You did?"

"For a while. I came back they were still marching, but"-Chris shook his head-"I didn't."

Greta reached across the table for his hand, looking at his serious expression. She said, "Here we are playing house and I find out I barely know you." That got a little smile.

"You have a lot to tell me about."

"I'll tell you where we are right now," Chris said.

"Maureen looks for Robin as a possible witness in a sexual assault case. But all of a sudden Robin becomes a suspect in a homicide investigation. Which wouldn't have happened if you hadn't seen her there Saturday night. But now, you understand, Homicide will have a priority, first dibs."

"It's okay," Greta said.

"If Maureen talks to her at all, it could be in the Wayne County jail."

"Really, it doesn't matter," Greta said.

"I don't see any reason to go to court if I'm gonna lose."

"Yeah, but at least you get to accuse him in public."

"I thought it over while I was taking a shower. I'm considering Mr.

Woody's offer."

There was a silence. Chris stared at her across the table. Then shrugged.

"It's up to you."

"You think I'm wrong?"

He took his time.

"If you look at it as an out-of-court settlement for mental anguish, or for injuries received, something along those lines-" "I like mental anguish," Greta said.

"Remember the TV preacher who went to bed with a twenty-year-old girl?

He did it once about seven years ago and lost his ministry and his theme park."

"I read something about it," Chris said.