Part 22 (1/2)
Not saying a word, he jerks his unshaven jaw to gesture me in, a highball gla.s.s in his hand.
Somehow-I would never understand this later-I am not afraid. Not of him. At least.
All the blinds are closed, and I sit on the edge of one of the thick leather chairs.
”Olive told me you might be by,” he says gruffly. ”I can't figure out what you're up to, Miss King. Not for the life of me. I oughta call your f.u.c.king brother and threaten you dead if he doesn't stop.”
I think of clever Olive MacMurray playing both sides, working Joe Avalon while agreeing to help frame him.
'You could call him,” I say evenly. ”But I don't think you will.”
”Why not?”
I pull my brother's pistol out of my purse and direct it toward his stomach. His smudge-circled eyes barely widen. 'You gotta be kidding me,”
he mutters. ”I've lost all instinct about you girls.”
”I want to know what happened. To Lois.”
'You aren't going to use that.” He gestures toward the pistol. ”I could get it from you in under a second.”
”Maybe.” I nod. ”But like you said, you've lost all instinct. I think you'd rather be careful. I think you're nothing if not cautious. I'm asking very little.”
He sighs, sitting on the arm of the sofa, resting the gla.s.s on his knee. He is a very tired man. All these men are so, so tired.
”I knew Schor might end up doing something like it, but Alice kept saying, Lois can take care of herself. Don't want to lose the b.u.t.ter and egg man.”
”Alice?”
He smiles. ”For toughness, I got nothing on her, honey. You don't even know. I'm a f.u.c.king ingenue. Never saw one like it, and that includes three dances in San Quentin. You have no idea.”
”But-”
”Schor did her, but Alice and I, we took care of it. Alice didn't want to stop the gravy train. She was ready to keep Schor happy.”
”Why did she do it?” I demand. ”She had everything. Why didn't she just cut ties?”
He shrugs, his eyes suddenly dreamy. ”Never could explain her. Not that one. She couldn't step out of it. And it served her. But Lois was getting too close. Talking too much. To everyone. To you.” His eyes turn harder, quite suddenly. ”Those girls, they'd have been nothing without me and they both f.u.c.ked me. Even if I slip out of this frame, I still gotta leave town.”
”And Edie Beauvais?”
”You know about that one?” He seems almost impressed. ”Alice introduced us. She had a liking for some bad stuff, had been sampling it with Alice, two housewives sitting on the patio in the middle of the day doped up to their pearl necklaces. It ended up getting the best of her. There's no darker story than that, as far as she goes. It was one long suicide.”
”I see.”
I'd never imagined Edie as anything more than the slope of her stomach, waiting to be a mother. To me, she was still Sunday dinners at Charlie's table, flitting around, arms bending under serving dishes. Somehow, that wasn't her, not really, cracked and tilted, on the bathroom floor of the bungalow apartment on Pico Boulevard. One long suicide. All these lost girls...
”Well, Alice and I were cleaning everything up. But then you, little girl.” He points a long finger at me. ”You sicced the law on us. It f.u.c.ked everything up. The cop you've been dancing with started following me. He was following Alice. I had to start playing for myself, and apparently so did she. But she had the had.A.'s office on her side. At least one member of it. Tough compet.i.tion. She told her daddy-your brother. Fessed up to a version of the truth, far as I can tell. And what do you know, he's come out guns blazing to save her skin.”
”You don't-”
”Hey.” He leans back, touching his chest lightly with his fingertips.
”Is it my fault your brother developed such a taste for trash? Too many years tunneling through it on the job and it's in him.”
I feel my knuckles shake against the pistol. It is all I can do not to squeeze the trigger. The feeling is so strong that I terrify myself.
”Should I let you out of here?” he continues, not noticing my hand, my quavering fingers. ”How do I know you're not out to f.u.c.k me, too? You don't even know how to use that thing.”
”I don't care,” I say, my voice tremulous, eerily wailing like something inhuman, trapped. ”I'll keep pulling the trigger until I get it right.”
He watches me closely. ”I think I know what you could do and what you couldn't.”
”How could you?” I say with a keening hum. ”How could you when I don't know?”
I feel an awareness nearly come cras.h.i.+ng in.
”Look at what I'm doing. Look at me,” I find myself saying, my face hot.
His eyes fix on mine. In the dark room, I can see them glistening, reading, piercing. I let him see it all. I let him see everything.
He holds my gaze for a long twenty seconds, then, with a twitch, he shakes it off. Narrowing his eyes suddenly, he barks, ”But I think you got something for me. I think this goes two ways.”
”It will all happen tomorrow.”
My brother's voice, tingling through my head, touching lightly every nerve -no, like ink spreading: ”I had to do it. Otherwise, it meant nothing.”
... like a door shutting somewhere ...
I pick up the phone and hold it in my lap for a moment. Then I take a deep breath.
”Gardenia two-five four three five.” I read the number off the small card Joe Avalon has given me.
”One moment.”
I let it ring twelve times. No answer.
I walk around my apartment three times. I wash my face and hands. I stare in the mirror, smoothing my eyebrows, my hair.
I call again.
No answer.
I walk into my kitchen and pull out a mop. I clean the floors with extra bleach. Open a window. Notice the sheen of dust on the sill. Pull out a dust rag and dust every window in the apartment.
I call again.
No answer.