Lone star

favorite book. I give copies to everyone I respect.” I took the volume from him. I’d read it a decade before, vaguely liked it-was oddly not surprised that he was attracted to it.

“It’s a lovely story,” I said.

He touched my sleeve. “It’s me, Edna. A man is stranded in the Sahara after a plane crash, you know, and he meets this alien, the little prince who comes from a planet the size of a home, come to earth to find the secret of life. When I first read it, I found the greatest line: ‘It is only with the heart that one can see clearly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.’ Think about it, Edna. That’s how to see the world: caring, love-all there inside you. You know, if you ever meet a little man with golden hair, he’s the one, Edna. The little prince. Don’t you see? The beautiful golden-haired prince has come onto Earth for a short time, the blink of an eye, and then…is gone. Don’t you see, Edna? Briefly, and then gone.”

I drew in my breath. “Jimmy.”

“Me, Edna. Me.”

I looked at him. Behind his thick eyeglasses those myopic eyes glistened with wetness.

Late at night, alone in my rooms, I sat by the window staring into L.A. nighttime. One boulevard after another of shattered lifetimes, fragile lives silhouetted against spotlighted palm trees. The slender paperback of The Little Prince lay nearby, a talisman of supernatural power. Taken from Jimmy’s hand, it seemed to possess energy. How foolish I am! A pleasant enough book, enchanting, really, but too simplistic, too ethereal. Nothing of the nuts-and-bolts of real people, my forte.

Unable to sleep, I’d ordered a pitcher of martinis, though I intended to sip but one. I sat there, the martini glass sweaty, and I made mental notes. The murder. The murder. The murder. Carisa and Lydia and Josh and Sal and Tommy and Polly and Nell and…and…Bit players suddenly writ large.

I thought about Jimmy and his gift of The Little Prince. Well, a step up from that Hoosier hack. But then I recalled Jimmy’s recitation of that pivotal, theatrical line: “It is always in the heart that one can see clearly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”

Essential. Invisible to the eye. The heart. What was invisible to the eye here? What needed to be made visible, translated into the stuff of evidence? What compels a murderer? What? What?

I sipped my martini, finding it too warm now. I put down the glass and stared across the room at The Little Prince. James Dean. JD, the monogram of the disenchanted. Juvenile delinquent. The little prince. Lost star in the heavens. Lone star in the Marfa desert.

I reached over and extracted the last of the cigarettes I’d taken from Jake Geyser, idly flipped open the matchbook I’d stuck under the cellophane-My God! I’m imitating Jimmy now-struck a match and watched it burn against the black window before me, the heat touching my fingers. I finally lit the cigarette. The last in Jake’s pack, the king-sized Chesterfields, so I crumpled and tossed it into the basket nearby. I sat there then, smoking, barely inhaling because I rarely did that anymore, and my mind suddenly focused, like reversing binoculars and seeing everything up close, etched, vivid; the distant almost invisible world now as big as a sun star. And there it was.

At that moment I knew.

Chapter 20

But the following morning I wasn’t so sure. I had a theory, a reasonable idea of what happened, but the corners of my conclusions were ragged, shifting. I lingered over coffee, bit into the cinnamon toast I’d ordered, popped a strawberry into my mouth. I needed to talk to Mercy, who knew these people. No-not these people-this world. Hollywood beliefs, the cock-eyed value structure, hermetic and glass-enclosed, that conditioned these movie folk to move to dark and ugly extremes. Worlds on celluloid: worlds in real life. Blurring perhaps? Overlapping?

James Dean, his words to me one night. We come to believe what they write about us, and then we force the others around us to genuflect in agreement.

I got confused. The strawberries were tart to the taste, and I grimaced. How is it California, perpetual sunshine and acres of lush fields, can produce such bitterness out of brilliant light and bracing air and a paintbox blue sky?

Quite simply, it does.

I dialed Mercy’s number and caught her at home. “Can we meet later to talk?”

“Edna, you sound so serious.”

“I am. I have an idea.”

I heard Mercy breathe in. “About the murder?”

“Yes.”

I found a phone book in the desk drawer, leafed through it, and found what I was looking for. I dialed the number.

“Good morning,” a deep, firm voice answered.

“Mr. Vega,” I said. “I have more questions.”

“Yes?”

“But not of you. I have a request.” I wanted to talk to his granddaughter Connie.

“But she is not here, only weekends, you know. I believe I told you that. During the week she stays with her mother.”

“Could you give her my number?”

Again, the hesitation. “My daughter works. And, well, it’s summer. Connie stays with her cousins, the beach, the outdoors, friends…”

“I’d like to try.”

“I need to reach my daughter first.”

“Of course.”

Fifteen minutes later, still sitting there, the phone rang, and I answered it on the first ring. Vega said his daughter, reached at work, deferred to his judgment. And he agreed. There was no guarantee Connie was home, though it was still early morning. Chances are she would still be in bed. “You know how young people are,” Vega said. “And it’s a hot summer.”

Connie, groggily answering the phone, had already been awakened by her mother, who told her I would be calling. The girl seemed wary, perhaps unused to conversations with older strangers. A good thing, that I approved. Much of contemporary child rearing alarmed me; children in the post-war era were coddled, indulged, foolishly flattered. They would become insolent, demanding adults in a day soon after my death. They would be, the thought did not please me, James Dean.

Connie and I spoke for a few minutes, my questions this time more directed, less diffuse. Now, truly, I had a clearer vision of what I needed to know. So we reviewed the same story, and Connie seemed irritated when I brought up the woman she had seen waiting outside Carisa’s apartment, the woman she thought was waiting for Jimmy/Tommy as he ran out of her building. I wanted Connie to describe the car. Not surprisingly, Connie was filled with details now. I smiled. Young folks know cars, especially in the car culture world of California. They might not look closely at people, perhaps, but at objects of desire, yes, indeed.

I thanked her and hung up.

Later on, sitting in the commissary waiting for Mercy, I fiddled with a napkin, jotting down words in a list, methodical, the way I take notes for my novels. My quick, inquisitive eye, scanning library archives, historical tracts, yellowing newspapers in dim, dust-choked rooms. I know how to grasp the salient point, that gold nugget of anecdote, some revelation of character. Now, pensive, I listed what I considered a concise rationale for my theory. Yes, I thought. Well, maybe.

Mercy surprised me, and I jumped. “Edna, the studio will provide you with reams of wonderful writing stationery,” she said, grinning. “A napkin?”

“There was a time when I could remember the minutest details. These days, well…”

Mercy slipped into a chair. “I have gossip for you, Edna. I was weaving my way through the Byzantine maze