Innocent Blood

‘What is?’

‘Spiritual guidance. Warnings I give for nothing – especially dire warnings; that’s my philanthropic duty. But I’m sorry. Spiritual guidance I have to make a nominal charge for.’

Frank opened his billfold and gave him a twenty. The old man grinned and showed his four mahogany teeth. ‘You’re a generous man, Frank. Your generosity will pay you back one day. Not this year. Maybe not next year, neither. But one day, when you least expect it.’

He went hobbling off along the sidewalk and disappeared around the next corner. Frank told himself that his appearance had been nothing more than a coincidence. After all, he must spend all day panhandling up and down the coast, annoying people. And what kind of spiritual guidance was ‘put one foot in front of the other’? You could get better advice out of a fortune cookie.

Frank climbed out of the car, went across to Astrid’s door and rang the bell. There was no answer so he waited a minute and then rang it again.

‘Who is it?’ said a voice over the intercom.

‘It’s Frank. I’ve come to see Astrid.’

‘Astrid? There’s no Astrid here.’

‘Is this apartment three?’

‘That’s right, apartment three.’

‘You must be Carla. I’ve come to see the girl you share with. I think she must have given me a different name.’

‘There’s nobody here but me.’

‘You mean she’s out? Can I leave her a message?’

‘I mean nobody lives here but me.’

‘Excuse me? There has to be. I visited her yesterday afternoon.’

‘You must have made a mistake. Maybe another apartment. Nobody lives here but me.’

‘Listen – please. She has short brown hair and blue eyes. She wears rings on her toes.’

The intercom clicked off. Frank pressed the bell again, and then again, and then again, but Carla wouldn’t answer. He stepped back and tried to look up to the second story, but the dark green shutters were all closed. Eventually he climbed back into his car.

What the hell is happening here? I know I didn’t make a mistake. Not unless Astrid didn’t really share the apartment at all. Maybe she found out that Carla was away in Europe for a few days, and crashed in it without asking.

The trouble was, he had no way of contacting Astrid now. He didn’t know her telephone number. He didn’t even know her surname. It suddenly occurred to him that he might never see her again.

He drove back to Hollywood, to the Sunset Marquis Hotel on Alta Loma Road, a short, steeply sloping street that climbed from Holloway Drive to Sunset.

‘How long will you be you staying with us, Mr Bell?’ the receptionist asked him. She had tightly braided blonde hair and unnervingly wide-apart eyes.

‘I’m not sure. At least a week. Maybe the rest of my life. It all depends on . . . you know . . . fate.’

‘Fate,’ the receptionist repeated. She didn’t seem at all mystified. A lot of rock stars stayed at the Sunset Marquis.

His second-story room was sunny and painted yellow, with splashy floral prints on the wall. He opened all the windows so that the warm midday breeze could blow in, and then he took a can of beer out of the icebox and sat in one of the big stripy armchairs and closed his eyes.

Shouldn’t lose your nerve, Frank. No good ever came of losing your nerve.

He was woken by a quiet rapping at the door. For a split second he didn’t know where he was, and he thought that it was Margot rapping on the door of his study.

‘What time is it?’ he asked. But of course it wasn’t Margot, and he was still here, in his room at the Sunset Marquis.

The rapping was repeated. He heaved himself out of his chair and went to answer it.

‘Yes?’

‘Room service.’

He opened the door. It was Astrid. She stepped straight past him into the room and did a twirl.

‘Hey! Nice place! She said that I would probably find you here.’

‘Who did?’

‘Your secretary.’

‘My secretary? You called my office?’

‘I went round to your home first but your wife said that you’d packed your bags and moved out.’

‘You saw Margot?’ Or rather, he thought, Margot saw you, with your tight white T-shirt and your tan leather mini-skirt and your tan leather ankle boots with the high spiky heels.

Astrid laughed. ‘Oh, yes, I saw Margot all right. What happened between you two?’ She put on Margot’s snappy don’t-talk-to-me-like-that tone. ‘“I don’t know where Frank is and quite frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.” Or words to that effect.’

‘We had another row. It’s the shock, I guess, and the grief. It’s a goddamned mess. It’s going to take us a long time to get over losing Danny.’

Astrid looked in the icebox. ‘You don’t mind if I help myself to a glass of wine?’

‘Sure, I’ll do it.’ He took out a bottle of Chilean rose, pulled out the cork, and poured her a glass.

She lifted it up and said, ‘Mud in your eye.’ For the first time he noticed that she had a sprinkling of light- brown freckles across the bridge of her nose. She looked into his eyes while she was drinking as if she could tell exactly what was thinking.

‘I was looking for you,’ he told her. ‘I went to Carla’s place first.’

‘I thought you might.’

‘So why did you make out that you live there when you don’t?’

‘I did live there. It’s just that I don’t live there now.’

‘I see. So where have you moved to?’

‘Does it matter?’

‘No, I suppose it doesn’t. Maybe I’m just being old-fashioned.’

She sat down on the couch. Her leather skirt was so short that he could see a triangle of purple lace thong. ‘You’re not old-fashioned, Frank. Not at all. You have wings but you’ve never learned how to fly. You were successful too young, you were married too young, you became a daddy too young. All that responsibility. All that weight. You’ve never had the chance to be you.’

‘Well, that’s not so easy. How can I be me when I don’t even know who I am?’

She reached out and traced a circle around the dimple on his chin, around and around. ‘I think it’s time you found out, don’t you?’

‘It’s Danny’s funeral on Wednesday. Maybe when that’s over . . .’

‘He’s gone, Frank. I know how much you loved him, but you have to start thinking about what you’re going to do next. You.’

‘Yes, I understand that. The trouble is . . .’ He felt exhausted and confused and he was finding it very hard to swallow. They drank their drinks in silence for a while. Then Frank said, ‘We held the seance.’

‘Oh, yes? I was going to ask you about that.’

‘It worked. He did it. Nevile Strange. He actually put us in touch.’

‘You talked to Danny’s spirit?’

‘Much more than that. We saw Danny, actually saw him, standing outside the window. We all did. Margot, Nevile, me, Margot’s friend.’

‘That’s unbelievable. You’re sure it wasn’t a trick?’

‘If it was, I can’t think how the hell it was done. But the worst part about it was that Danny told me that he couldn’t forgive me.’

Astrid carried on stroking his cheek, and then she ran her fingers into his hair. ‘You shouldn’t take it to heart. Nevile Strange is probably a fraud, in any case.’