Part 20 (2/2)
Mike's eyes widen and he stops short.
Out of nowhere, a hand on my shoulder. ”Is he bothering you?” And it is Bill's taut, broken voice. Before I even turn around, I feel it in the blood. I feel him straining against his own skin, so desperate for something to fix, to make right. If I'm not this, then what am I?
I turn and look up at him. Both these men and their creased white collars and scruffy faces and this is not how it is supposed to be ...
”Perfect.” Mike shakes his head.
”No, no,” I say quickly to my brother, can't manage him, too.
”Do you want me to get him out of here? I will, Lora. What do you want, Lora?” Bill stutters, unsure, never looking at me, looking only at Mike, jaw newly set. ”What has he done?”
What has he done? What have they all done to us both, Bill?
”Skip it,” Mike mutters, seamlessly lighting up a cigarette.
”I was heading out anyway. The police don't need my support these days.”
I put my hand to my mouth at the insinuation and turn my eyes away. Does he know, too? Does he know about my brother, too?
”You know, they take care of themselves now,” Mike adds- needlessly-tossing his match behind him.
As I watch, arms to my sides and mouth slightly open, he walks away, around the side of the house, disappearing into the trapped darkness there.
I turn back around even as I know Bill too is gone, swallowed up by the party, by Alice, or just not wanting to look me in the face.
Inside, everyone is dancing, waiting for Alice to take her usual position at the center, leading the group. But instead she keeps vanis.h.i.+ng into the kitchen or the back bedroom or the powder room, a cigarette always in hand, the sweat now coating her skin, seeping into the white geisha girl powder, scattering her black eye makeup.
”Alice! C'mon! Alice, are we going to mambo?”
”Let's go, Alice! We don't know any Oriental dances, unless you count the cha-cha-chopsticks!” She begs off, mouths an excuse, heads back into the kitchen.
”Bill's in there, too,” I hear Tom Moran bark to two other cops. ”Was.h.i.+ng dishes! In the middle of a party!”
Doris Day's voice belts out, ”Oh, why did I tell you it was bye-bye for Shanghai? I'm even allergic to rice ...”
”For G.o.d's sake, Alice,” someone shouts out. ”We need you.” I turn around to see that Tom Moran and Chet Connor each have one of Alice's arms and are walking her to the center of the makes.h.i.+ft dance floor.
The look in her eyes is that of a cornered animal, but she quickly rea.s.sembles, and inhaling hard, she hoists a dazzling red Alice-smile on her face.
”All right, boys, all right. You can't take no for an answer.”
”Or so Tom's girlfriends say,” Chet guffaws, grabbing Alice around the waist and into position.
All cherries and foamy milk, Doris Day prattles on, ”Why don't you stop me when I talk about Shanghai? It's just a lover's device ...”
Alice leans back and grabs a fan from the basket as Chet twirls her. Her distracted look evaporates, and as she twists her wrist and spreads the green fan out in sync with the music, I can see her pleasure, blunt and maddening.
”Who's gonna kiss me? Who's gonna thrill me? Who's gonna hold me tight? ...”
Chet laughs delightedly, and everyone steps back to let them have the floor. Eyes glittering, Alice begins singing along, the sultry counterpoint to Doris, ”I'm right around the corner in a phone booth and I want to be with you tonight!” Every line Doris belts with cheery vim, Alice matches with tantalizing venom. Everyone is clapping and cheering, packed tight together, maybe twenty-five of them, to see the show.
I feel caught between admiration, awe, and fury. Whipping around the room, fan snapping and hips swiveling in the tight dress, she's utterly alive, and even when her eyes pa.s.s over me, they practically spark with unabated energy, and then, as the last stanza begins...
She almost trips. She's looking, eyelashes shuttered open wide, past me and to the left, at the door.
Her face is sliding off.
That's what it looks like, because it is.
I jerk my head around to see what she's looking at, what has so dissembled her. Peering through the throng and smoke, I think I see - And then I see it is. There is a man standing in the vestibule. I fix on the lightning bolt scar over his left eye. It's the boy from the studio. The one who drove Joe Avalon. The tough kid seated four chairs down from me as I waited. Teddy. That is his name.
Alice's eyes fix on him for a split second. Only I-and probably Teddy-see. And she finishes the final twirl and then, trying glamorously to catch her breath, clutching her hand to her chest with all the drama of Bette Davis, she fas.h.i.+ons a breathtaking smile.
I look back at Teddy, and by the time I turn around again, Alice is gone.
Pus.h.i.+ng past the energized dancers, I try to get to Teddy, not knowing what I can possibly say to him. But he has already thrust through the other way, to the patio doors, presumably after Alice.
I squeeze through the oblivious revelers and out the doors, but by the time I'm outside I can't see Alice or Teddy or anyone.
I begin thinking. Avalon sent Teddy here to scare Alice, or abduct her, or worse. He knows she's setting him up. He will do anything he can to stop her. Alice has to have known that this would happen, that Joe would find out about the frame. What's her plan now?
In my head, flashbulbs smash in front of me, and Bill is squinting, covering his face, running down the City Hall steps. Cop Fired in Disgrace, D.A. To Prosecute His Own.
On a guess, the only guess left, I walk quickly and purposefully back through the house and into Alice and Bill's bedroom.
I have no idea what I might find. None at all.
Some part of me is sure she is too smart for this, too smart for me. There can be nothing to find. She has spent a life covering her tracks. Pa.s.sing time in one darkened hotel room after the next, peeling masks off only to expose other, still brighter masks beneath. She knows how to leave no trace.
But time is running out, and I have to take the chance that she is scared and desperate. As it turns out, I am lucky.
It is almost too easy. There in the drawer of the bedside table is an oblong envelope with a drawing of chocolate-colored natives on it, flowers in their hair.
I sit down on the bed and open it. It is the itinerary for a boat trip -the SS Tarantha-headed to Brazil. Mr. And Mrs. King. Mr. And Mrs.
The boat leaves tomorrow at six o'clock.
I feel my stomach rise. How could he go with her?
I stare at the envelope for several minutes. Then I walk over to the closet and open the top drawer of the tall highboy inside. In it is the dainty Walther PPK pistol Bill brought back from Europe. I put it in my purse.
I'd like to say I have everything planned, but I am just running by pure instinct, some throbbing voice inside me saying, Don't take any chances.
I exit the bedroom unseen and leave quickly through the patio door and the black, echoey yard. As I do, I think I might see Teddy lurking in a far corner. I half-expect to see his fleshy scar, feel his hard arms.
For two hours, I drive mindlessly, unable to think. I drive out of Pasadena and its endless, pungent groves all the way to the Sepulveda Dam, all quivering cottonwoods and glittering sycamores, and the new golf course carved in the middle, and then back through Burbank, by the blazing Hollywood Bowl. I drive and as I drive, slowly, with the radio mourning haunted hearts, I find I'm making plans.
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