“Did I what?”
“Tell her about it?”
“No, I didn’t. But not out of any favor to him. I thought if she knew it might soften her feelings toward him.”
“My God, he doesn’t miss a trick, does he?” But the words weren’t really directed at me. I recognized admiration mixed in with the anger.
“You mean it isn’t true?”
He looked up at me, as if he was almost surprised to find me still there. He frowned. “Do you think you can persuade her not to go with him—without making him suspicious, that is?”
I shook my head. “Not unless you tell me why. I’m not doing your dirty work until I know what it’s about.”
“Christ, you’re stubborn.” He growled in anger, slamming his fist down on the tabletop. The glass slab jumped, and a small avalanche of white crystals shimmered onto the wood. “I told you already, this isn’t a game. Don’t you understand? You can’t know any more than you do. You know too much already. Catching Lenny is like trapping a fish. If he senses anything, anything at all, he’ll be gone so fast you won’t see him move. And if he goes, then Tyler’s gonna be casting around for someone else to try his revenge fantasies on. You’re a liability as it is. Got that?”
I stared at him. “Just why is she so important to you? How come you’re willing to risk so much to get her out?”
He sighed angrily, as if it was a question he had already answered a hundred times before. But when he spoke his voice was quiet and patient, the adult to the child, making sure that this time she understood. “Because she just fell into it all, that’s why. He never really told her the truth, and she believed the lies.” He paused. “And because somewhere along the line I guess you get out what you put in. Sure I would like to have met her first. Maybe next time I will.”
Love on the cocaine trail. True confession. I wondered if I believed it. In light of the facts, this didn’t really sound like a love story.
“And maybe she’s just an excuse for you to get back at Lenny?” I said quietly.
He looked at me steadily for a long time. “Sure it’s about Lenny. I could say the same thing about you. Lenny and Elly. You don’t like it any more than I do. I wonder why not? What is it that hurts you? Makes you risk so much to get her out? See, same question. I can’t figure your fantasies any more than you can figure mine. It doesn’t matter. It’s not something I need to know. You keep your secret. But you’d do well to remember that you don’t own her. Even if you once did. She pulls people in different ways. You, me, Lenny, we’re all in her orbit. And the fact is, she doesn’t even know it. Strong stars are like that. All heat and light and attraction, pumping out energy faster than anything else in the sky. Until, that is, they burn themselves out. She’s got no protection against herself. That’s how come Lenny can fuck her over. He’s too rich for her, too similar. He speeds up the process of her own destruction. And everyone else’s. Do you know what happens when a star goes critical? It starts to scorch its own satellites. Then finally it collapses in on itself, pulling everything with it. Black holes. Attraction and destruction. A law of the universe. It applies to all things.”
He looked down at the mound of cocaine in front of him. Moma Coca: glitter in the galaxy, her own force of nature. How many had she energized and then devoured? The sermon was over. The Gospel According to J.T. We fell silent. Outside the animals were getting restless. Tomorrow had arrived. I didn’t feel ready for it. Traditionally after the bedtime story comes sleep. I needed to dream some of it out.
“You should get some rest,” he said, uncrossing his legs and standing up, the bones in his ankles cracking in protest. Unfolded again, his size surprised me. I got up to face him.
“I’ll drive you home,” he said.
“No. I’ll walk. I need the fresh air.”
He didn’t argue. On the front porch it was glorious summer, hot even in the early morning. “You going to be all right?” he asked, as if the thought had only just struck him.
I nodded, refusing to consider the question, and made my way across the deck onto the earth below. When I reached the vegetable patch, I turned back. He was still standing there, watching me, but somehow he seemed smaller than before.
“One thing, J.T. How long have I got?”
He shook his head, and I think he may have frowned. “I dunno. But not long.” He stopped, and I began to turn away. “Marla,” his voice brought me back. “Look after yourself, OK?”
It was the first time he had called me by my name. It felt almost improper. I raised a hand in salute and headed off into the morning sun.
twelve
The house was without reptiles. I lay down to doze and fell into a fast-running sleep, a conveyor belt of images, insistent and confused. When I woke I could remember nothing, save a rasping sense of urgency and exhaustion, as if I had spent the hours in endless flight. It was almost noon. The midday heat was pressing down on the landscape, flattening the shadows, squeezing out the air. I sat and watched the grass grow. The screech of the telephone was like shattered glass. On the other end of the line, Elly had become a city girl again, bright and busy. Or maybe she just sounded that way, phoning from a room where she was not alone. She was sorry it was so late. They had talked most of the night and slept into morning. Had I been OK? Was J.T. back? Yes, she was fine, and no, she couldn’t really talk now. There had been a change of plan. Would it be all right if I came up to the city? Lenny had to be there another day or so, and then, well … she’d tell me when I arrived. It wasn’t really telephone news. Could I bring our bags? Maybe J.T. could give me a lift—Lenny would like to see him anyway. Otherwise there was always the Greyhound.
Over the hill J.T. was already up, if indeed he had ever been asleep. The animals were fed, the garden watered, today’s crops had been picked, and he was sitting out on the deck, busy doing nothing. He was not surprised to see me. I told him about the phone call. He already knew. He had spoken to Lenny and agreed to meet. Old friends, remember, touching base. We would drive into town together. The news struck ice into my soul. I conjured up an image of the four of us, sitting over cocktails in some desperate plastic decor, making conversation. Except I couldn’t imagine what we would say. For the first time I began to understand the burden of knowledge.
“It’s no big deal,” he said sharply. “Ritual, that’s all. You don’t even have to be there. Go shopping or something.”
Back at the house I rang and left a message at the hotel, then packed our bags quickly, careless of snakes and things that go bump in the night. I left the house without sentiment or sense of occasion. There was too much ahead to waste emotion on what was past. The canyon rustled in the heat, benign and empty. Too late. When I reached the brow of the hill, the truck was waiting.
We climbed down to sea level and traveled north, hugging the coast road, the ocean smashing in over rocks beside us. We drove fast and kept our own counsel. The intimacy of the dawn confession had faded with the day. But the silence was not uncomfortable, simply pragmatic. We were supposed to be strangers still. It would not do to arrive chattering like magpies. We spent the time rehearsing our separate performances. An hour and a half later, the road ran out of scenery and we found ourselves cruising urban sprawl, ahead of us a concrete runway taking off into the maze of freeways that fed into the city. J.T. drove them like a cabdriver. Back at ground level, San Francisco welcomed us, but the sharp angles hit hard after the rolling empty countryside. Paving stones over grass. It all seemed unnatural. Downtown shone, as if the place was cleaned daily, a great dusting cloth run over the mirrored skyscrapers and business blocks. And in the middle of it all the Hyatt Hotel, a monument to the marriage of art and commercialism, its huge glass frontage opening onto waterfalls and jungles which framed reception desks and coffee shops. We did not fit in. At the desk I brushed up my accent and was accepted as an English eccentric, while J.T. stood by the bags, untidying the foyer with his sandaled feet and denim shirt, a rural blot on the urban landsc
ape. It did not seem to worry him. I wondered what camouflage he had used in the Hiltons of South America. Presumably he had once practiced the art of fitting in. The man at the desk handed me the phone. Lenny answered. Maple syrup politeness: great to hear my voice; I sounded suntanned; they would be down soon.
We stood and watched the glass lifts glide up and down through the foliage in time to an invisible string orchestra. Out of the third space shuttle burst Elly, small and eager. Behind her Lenny was more laconic, confidence emblazoned in neon across those high cheekbones. Where would he be without his bone structure?
She got to me first. Over her shoulder I watched Lenny’s face as, in the same instant, he welcomed me and located J.T., lurking like some discordant Godard extra in the corner of the frame. I was trying to look in all directions at once. The two men greeted each other with a wrist grip. Then Lenny smashed his old colleague on the shoulder. He grinned, and J.T. came perilously close to a smile. We were watching a ritual, the accepted ceremony of greeting between North American males.
“I swear to God you look more like a refugee from The Waltons every time I see you, amigo.” Lenny’s voice was loud enough for an audience. J.T. mumbled something I didn’t catch. It made Lenny laugh. “So, you’ve been hanging around with the señoritas, eh?” This time he turned to me. “What did you make of him, Marla? I bet you know now how the West was won.”
I gave him a substandard smile that was meant to say nothing at all. I felt Elly slip her arm through mine. The division of the sexes. Was this where the ladies went shopping?
“… in the wilderness?” I caught the end of another conversational sally. Lenny made a face and feigned a punch to the chest. J.T. parried it. A few heads turned. It was appalling. Amateur dramatics. Surely even a stranger would have smelled the mistrust between them. How did they used to be together? Somehow I got the impression that it had always been Lenny who had tried just a little too hard. Or was I overcompensating, seeing what I wanted to see? I glanced at Elly. But the ghosts were not visible to her. For the first time I looked closely at her face. She looked tired but not tense. Maybe it had been a night of home truths for us all.
“Come on, break it up, you guys. We’ve got better things to do than stand around in the lobby watching you two slug it out. I want to show Marla her room. Which bar are you going to drink in?”
Lenny looked at J.T., then back at us. “The Tudor room, don’t you think? We want him to feel really at home. Take your time, ladies. We’ll see you there.”
At the reception desk I filled in my registration card: “Marla Masterson, academic and private detective.” Did I look like someone carrying secrets? If so then Elly didn’t seem to notice.
Room 1064 turned out to be a small apartment with a peach bathroom en suite, filled with beauty preparations. The bellboy palmed the dollar bills Elly slipped him and faded smoothly into the hall. Behind closed doors we faced each other. She bounced herself on the bed, pushing the springs with her hands in salesmanlike enthusiasm. “You like …?” She waved extravagantly around the room.
“It’s hideous,” I said warmly.
“Great. I knew you’d get off on it.”
It was good news, I could feel it in the air. I let her get there in her own time.
“Well?” she said, smiling.
“Well what?”
“Well … I told him.”
Gently now, Marla. No celebrating before the chimes of the clock. “And …?”
“And I won,” she said softly. “The battle’s over. Elly Cameron is an independent operator again.”
I allowed myself the pleasure of sitting down. The armchair was soft and velvety. I wondered if they kept champagne in the fridge. I think I was smiling.
“Don’t you want to know what happened?”
Every detail, I thought. “Yes,” I said.
“God, I’m not even sure I know myself. But I’ll tell you one thing, Marla. Something had changed, right from the first moment we met at the airport. I don’t know what it was, and I don’t even know if I can describe it, but it was like we were more careful with each other, not taking anything for granted, more separate, more like friends than lovers. He asked me how I was, and I told him I was feeling good and that I had something to tell him. And he said—I remember his exact words because they seemed so formal—‘Well, Elly, what a coincidence, because I too have things to say to you.’ So we drove into town, to this quiet funky French restaurant where we sat and drank fancy wine and decided to part.”
“Just like that?”
“Yep, just like that. Incredible, eh? The joint, civilized decision. Or that’s how it felt. I did most of the talking. At least to begin with. Christ, I had my heart in my mouth for the first few moments—literally, it felt—I could hardly get the words out. But the longer I spoke, the more confident I got. You’d have been proud of me, Marla. I told him everything, just as I told you, only a little shorter and maybe a little sweeter. But the truth. I said I thought we were no good for each other anymore. That we pushed each other’s buttons. That loving him had got me caught up in his shadow until I didn’t know who I was anymore. And that even though I wasn’t sure where I was going, I knew it had to be away from him. And when I finished I felt OK. No, that’s not true. I felt more than OK—I felt great. As if I’d been walking round with this bloody great steel band clamped to my head, and now someone had released me. All I had to do was walk away from it. I had made the right decision. I knew it.”
Her eyes were shining.
“What did he say?” I still couldn’t quite visualize it, this torrent of words falling at the feet of His Serene Majesty. Compassion in the face of revolution. Something didn’t fit.
“At first nothing. Scared the shit out of me, facing this great yawning silence. I kept waiting for the anger to break. But then he smiled, took my hand over the table, and said, ‘You sound like someone I met once in Colombia.’ ” She winced.
Good old Lenny, I thought. Big city snake charmer.
“And then he told me he thought I was right and it was time for both of us to let go. And of course once he started talking, it was clear he knew it too. He said a lot of things that made sense. About the catch-22 we lived. How my independence had attracted him; how he’d gone out of his way to undermine it; but how when he succeeded it wasn’t attractive anymore. God, he knew it all. We both knew it all.” A shadow passed over her face, “It’s just we couldn’t do anything about it.”
“Wait a minute. I don’t understand. Are you telling me that Lenny had come all this way to say exactly the same thing to you?” In the pursuit of pleasure one should never forget the quest for truth. It made no sense. Where were all those promises of soft summer reconciliations amid heather and history now? Or had they always been just an elaborate lie to explain a plane he should never have been on?
“No,” she said with a sigh. “That’s the whole point. He had come to say something quite different. He had come bearing gifts. But when he heard what I had to say, he knew it would be no good … that it was already too late.” She stopped and swallowed, frowning at the carpet.
“What gifts, Elly?” I prompted after a while. “What did he offer you?”
“England,” she said almost angrily. “Can you believe it, he offered me England. Home, a trip, a way of repairing the damage. The grand tour, beginning in the Highlands and heading south for tea with a few of the family. All a big surprise. He was going to spring it on me, just get me to an airport and, hey presto, flourish the tickets. But he got cold feet. Thought it might be too much of a shock. So he came to tell me, prepare me. And do you know what he asked? If I hadn’t perhaps guessed already. Guessed! Christ, how could I have guessed? It was the last thing I could ever have imagined.”
“And did you tell him that?”
She nodded hard but said nothing. I looked at her face, the trembling lower lip. Of course the idea had captivated her. Of course she had loved him for it. I had done the right thing in not t
elling her, even if it had been for the wrong reasons. I watched her fighting back the tears. “Oh shit, I’m sorry,” she said fiercely. “I did this last night—sat dripping salt into my lemon sorbet, mourning lost chances.” She wiped her hand roughly across her eyes. For as long as I could remember Elly had never carried handkerchiefs. The Hyatt, however, like the Boy Scout movement, was always prepared. From the peach bathroom I plucked a handful of peach tissues. She blew her nose noisily, like a child, then mangled the remains of the tissue in her hands as she spoke.
“There was nothing more to say. We drank our wine and left. We’d eaten so little that even the chef came out to ask whether the food had been all right. Then we took a cab back here and went to bed.” She paused. I did not ask for details. Then she said, wearily, “And it was then, in the omnes anima tristus bit, that he asked me to go with him anyway. For old times’ sake. A way of saying good-bye. ‘Use it as a ticket home,’ he said. ‘You take the single, I’ll have the return.’ ”
I stared at a small smudge of mascara just under her left eye. A few more tears would wash it away. I waited and wondered what she was going to say next, whether if and when the earth moves it really can take with it a woman’s common sense and resolve.
She shook her head. “He made it sound so easy. But it was just a fairy tale. A magician’s last trick. I knew that really. So I told him that I already had my ticket home, via Paris with you. After that I had no plans, and could make no promises. Not anymore.”
“Well done,” I said softly. “How did he take it?”
She shrugged. “One hundred percent in character. Gold-plated Lenny. Said he understood, but that he would probably go anyway. He had always wanted to see Scotland, and there was a friend of a friend … the possibility of setting up another store in London—” She broke off with a sharp little laugh. “My God, I should have known. Always a subtext to everything. I suppose it was reassuring to discover that under all the sweet-talk Lenny was still Lenny. So we left it at that. The star-crossed lovers fell asleep for almost the last time. In the morning I called you, and here we are—two single women, footloose and fancy-free with Gay Paree on our social horizon. What could be simpler than that?”