by a young man with a nice touch and a voice just like whoever's song he was covering. He did not play as well as Isabella. The place was crowded, but I got a chair in a far corner. To my left was an eleven-story drop to black ocean; my right, the room; in front of me, a couple kind enough to let me share their drink table. The crowd was eclectic, as one expects in a hotel bar: middle-aged American tourists, perplexed foreigners, a few local dandies and not-so-young-as-they-looked women scavenging for the usual kinds of excitement. A couple kissed rather passionately in a corner. Two men, gay, tried to look at ease. A woman sat alone in the opposite corner fro me, smoking a cigarette in, of all things, about a foot-long holder. She had shiny straight blond hair and a truly silly pillbox hat- playing her Deco part with style.
The couple right in front of me looked midwestern, middle-aged, middle management, and, as it turned out, they were. They were gabbing away, obviously a skosh drunk. The black glittering sea stretched out through the windows beside them.
The man smiled at me when we reached for our drinks at the same time. 'You a Lagunatic?' he asked, referring to our unfortunate nickname.
'I am.'
'Nice little town.'
'It's a good place to live.'
'What do you do?'
'Word processing. You?'
'Structural engineer, back in Des Moines. Came for Disneyland, and some whale watching.'
He'd missed the whales by six months, but it was a little late to point that out. His wife smiled at me and picked up her drink. She was slender, sandy-haired, cute when she smiled. We talked a while, then the conversation dribbled off.
A moment later, they were both looking at me rather pointedly. 'Tell him, Mike,' she said, nudging her husband.
'You tell him, Janice,' he said back, not unkindly. 'You tell him.'
'Okay, I'll tell him.' She leaned a little closer. 'This is the worst place we've ever gone. By the time we book a new flight out and pay for a week's worth of a hotel room we won't use, it will have cost us over two thousand dollars. You've got sunshine, Disneyland, and a person slaughtering people while they sleep. I just felt like, since you lived here and this is a tourist town, you should know.'
I was in no mood to hear about tarnished vacation plan 'Tough luck. We all have our disappointments.'
Mike chuckled uneasily. 'You could be a little more polite about it, guy.'
'And you could get yourself thrown out this window,' said. 'So why don't you give it a rest?'
'I'll be damned,' said Janice, slapping her drink glass on the table and standing. 'Mike, let's just get the hell out of here. Killers and drunks like this guy. This is a rotten place, and you can have it.'
'Thank you,' I said.
'Hope he gets you.'
'Who's that?'
'The Midnight Eye.'
When Mike and Janice had left, I studied the crowd, observed a bearded man who wore a trim Italian jacket and a pair of expensive round glasses. He was roughly the Eye's size. He had the hair and beard. But I had him for a university type or a shrink. He was with a redhead who pouted, looking out the window.
I smiled, kind of, then turned and watched the black Pacific. The Midnight Eye as a tourism deterrent, I though hurting Disneyland and the California gray whale. And what if he goes out again tonight?
It got late and the crowd thinned. Amber, of course, did not show. I was relieved, exhausted, and deeply, furiously, sad when I thought about Isabella, which was every other second or two. Would the operation work? Would it be a disaster? On chance in ten…
The piano player did a good job on 'The Way It Is. Ponytail seemed to be pleading with the still-dour redhead.
I paid my bill, went into the men's room, and threw some water on my face. Drying off with a paper towel, I regarded myself in the mirror and saw with some alarm the weight that had settled behind my jaws, under my chin. My nose was plumper-maybe a little pink-and my eyes seemed smaller. I look like a fucking manatee, I thought. Booze. Must cut that out. I straightened my back, inflated my chest, shoulders relaxed, head erect. Better. On my way out, the blonde in the corner motioned me over. She had taken her cigarette from its ridiculous holder and now placed it between her lips, aiming it at me for a light. Sure. I bent over, instrument poised.
When my thumb went down and the flame appeared and I set the fire close to her mouth, I saw that I was looking into the eyes of someone I used to know very well.
My heart stalled. I stared into those unmistakable gray eyes, making sure.
By the time my thumb released the lighter and Amber's face returned to the bar darkness, I had already begun- tentatively, very hesitantly-to piece together what had happened.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
I drove south through the hot darkness. Amber slumped again: the far door in her utterly convincing blond wig and a pair of sunglasses across which the city lights inched like rain on windshield. The breeze whipped through her hair as she stared out the open window. Her face was pale and the shine of tears lay on her cheeks. The air smelled of ocean and exhaust and the opiate scent of nightshade-one of several sweet, poisonous beauties that blossom on our coast.
We went in silence all the way to Dana Point. I locked and unlocked my fingers on the wheel; they were governed by alternating currents of dread and hope that I could hardly identify, let alone control. I felt as if I were falling, twisting untethered through the air, careening toward an impact that promised both death and clarity. I kept glancing across at Amber.
She was crying without sound, a talent that had always amazed me. The only giveaways were the running tears and the sound of her congested inhalations.
When she finally spoke, her voice was thin and tight, stretched to cover the words.
'I… Damn.' She produced from her purse a cigarette and lighter. She leaned forward to miss the wind. From behind the blond perimeter of her head, I saw a glow, then a small cloud of smoke. She sat back up, and for the first time since we had gotten into my car, she looked directly at my face. 'I was planning to be home on the Fourth-two or three o'clock. Reuben had a morning session set up in Malibu. It was a sunblock ad, and they wanted the holiday crowds for backdrop. At first, I said fine. I doubled my rate for the holiday, so I was getting about twenty thousand for the morning. I went up the day before, got a hotel in Beverly Hills. On my way to Malibu the next day, I changed my mind. It was too pretty and hot for work, so I called Reuben, argued, and headed up the coast to Santa Barbara. I left him believing I'd make the shoot, but Reuben believes what he wants to, no matter what someone tells him. I got a room on the beach in Santa Barbara and spent most of the Fourth. There was a man involved-a friend-someone I'm just starting to know. Don't ask me his name, because I won't tell you.'
'The room on the beach was at his place,' I said. 'It was too late to get a hotel in Santa Barbara on the Fourth of July.'
'Yes. I left about eleven that night, made it home at two. I walked into my house, but Alice was gone. Oh Hell, Russell- Alice. Oh Oh.' Amber broke down finally, burying her face in her hands, tears rolling forth over her fingers, smoke from her cigarette wobbling up and out the window.
'Amber,' I asked, 'what in hell are you talking about?'
'You remember Alice, don't you?'
'Why would I remember Alice? I never met Alice. You mentioned Alice maybe twice in the two years we lived together. You said she was the only woman in the world prettier than you.'
She looked at me again-face pale, lights creeping along the lenses of her sunglasses. 'I said that?'
'You said that.'
'Hell, what a terrible person I used to be. She was my big sister, Russ. My only big sister, ever.'
I waited, saying nothing, while Amber turned away I stared out the open window. She pulled off her glasses,
