Part 21 (2/2)

”In love.”

”With you, my girl. I figured on a lot, but not on that.” She draws in the smoke.

”I should have,” she adds, almost kindly. The tone sets something off in me.

”Why don't you just tell me. Why don't you just tell me. Was it you? Did you kill her.” My voice is like a knot unloosing too fast, uncontrollable. Even as I say it, I don't really believe it. But I want to see. I want to see how bad it is.

”I didn't kill her.” Alice shakes her head. ”But I might have, it's true. If I had to. She knew I couldn't leave everything behind. Not everything. Or couldn't yet. I still liked the perfume of it, even if I sometimes hated myself for it.

”Walter Schor, you know all about him, I guess? She showed up at his house. She knew you were never supposed to do that. She wasn't following any of the rules anymore. Schor called us both. Said get her out of here or there's going to be trouble. He was through with her anyway.

”When Joe and I got there, his flunkies, they said they didn't know where she was. But you could feel something in the air, something awful.

”We kept looking through the entire house, walking down corridor after corridor, in and out of over a half dozen bedrooms and sitting rooms and a projection room and pantries and a room, Lora, a room just for arranging flowers.

”The longer it took to find her, the more we both saw our futures shuddering before us. He could see trouble with cops and all the bad business that comes with it. I could see worse. The end of everything.

”It was a half hour before we found her. We'd already looked at his famous salt.w.a.ter pool and hadn't seen her. But when I was upstairs in one of the bedrooms, I stepped out. On a balcony and looked down at the big kidney shape, and there was something in it, floating.

”It looked like a big black rose, like those aerial shots in old musicals, round black-stockinged chorus girl legs fanning out into big flowers.”

She spreads her blue-lit hand out over the water beneath us.

”It was her dress blooming.

”Joe and I ran down, and he kneeled over and he saw too.

”Neither of us jumped in. Isn't that strange?” She turns to me, as if wanting an answer.

I don't say anything. How can I say anything? I look down past the railing, into the surf. I look down and listen to her buzzing, relentless voice.

”And, Lora, it was so funny. Lois was leaning over herself, facedown, curled over like the top of a cane. Joe reached out and tugged her toward the pool's edge. I can still see him lifting her head up. Her eyes were wide open. I wasn't expecting that. They were beautiful.

”Before I pa.s.sed him off to Lois, I was Schor's girl for a long time, with the scars to show for it. He wasn't even as rough as they come. I've had rougher. But I knew it could have been me. In many ways, it was me: Alice Steele, folded up upon herself, and Alice King waiting there, ready to cut her losses, reborn free of old ties, old stories, old desires ...

”Joe called two of his boys and told them to dump her but first make her hard to identify. They didn't do much of a job. They didn't think they needed to. Who would stand up for Lois? Who would even look for her?”

She reaches out and grabs my face in her hand. ”You really want to know?” Her grip is cold marble on my skin. ”Listen”-she holds my chin more tightly, forcing my eyes to hers-”listen, Lora. Isn't this the kind of thing you've always wanted to know? Isn't this the kind of thing you've been touching with your fingertips since we met? Touching in the dark?”

No.

”They busted a cap together, he beat her raw, and when he was done, he pushed her in, and let her sink like a stone. Maybe he held her under, forcing all that hot dirty life out of her.

”Listen, Lora, listen.”

The way she looks at me-I remember what Mike once said: She wasn't just a B-girl, she was carrying the whole ugly world in her eyes.

Then she finishes me off. ”When we got there, Schor was reading the racing form. Drinking cognac and circling sure things with a little blue pencil.”

My hand darts out, knocks her arm away from me forcefully. Then slaps her face with a sharp crack. Her face shoots backward, but she doesn't even blink. I think she might smile.

”Just tell me. My brother-” I start, then feel all the sound rush out of me-when did he fall when did he fall so far-blood beating in my brain. It is too much.

”Of course.” She nods, and now she is smiling but softly, a streak of red seared to her cheek. ”Of course. That's what you really want to know. That's all you really want.”

She shakes her head. ”Lora, that doesn't matter.”

”I don't. I don't,” I say, shaking my head, shaking it loose.

”I came to him when I had no choice left. Bill, he ...” She starts, then stumbles.

”He was in love and he couldn't distinguish,” I say, turning away from her, eyes br.i.m.m.i.n.g. I say it not for her but for him. Only for him.

We each take a long drink from our gla.s.ses. The liqueur snakes down my throat, steeling me.

”I'm not stopping,” I say in a scratchy voice I don't recognize. ”I have to help him. He can't see ...”

Her expression turns from loose to tight, a flat mask. ”You'll bring him down. Is that what you want? That b.u.m cop you're spilling to. Joe told me all about him. You do know he'll have your brother's badge. Lock him up and throw away the key. It'll be your fault. Is that what you want?”

I've never heard her talk quite this way, quite this hard.

”Is that what you want?” she prods.

”You-you crashed into him,” I suddenly, incongruously say, then furl my brow. What am I saying? The words make no sense.

”I can save him.” I recover. He's saved me.

”Listen,” she says, brittle and dangerous. ”The only way you can save him is by letting this go. Just let it get handled and shake the cop off us.”

I feel my hand gripping the rail. I swivel toward her.

You think you can ... infect him. You think you have the right. You have no right. I can protect him from you, from it, from whatever this is that you've tried to ... pollute him with.

I think all this, my head throbbing, vein pulsing in my brain. But my only chance is in her not knowing that I found out about the plan to frame Joe Avalon and, most of all, the plan to leave the next day. I can't let her know that I learned he is risking everything and doing things he'd never, never do.

So all I say is, ”Okay. Okay, Alice Steele.”

He wouldn't tell me at all. He'd just make it go away.

The puckering anisette still in my veins, her voice still hot in my head, I drive straight to the only place where I have a chance, even though it is a slim one.

Parking my car half a block down on Flower Street, I walk quickly to Joe Avalon's house, rehearsing in my head what I will say.

He doesn't seem surprised to see me, even though it is nearly three in the morning.

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