This is a very serious bed.
Pamela Vale describes it: 'This is the pride of our collection, a neoclassical bed designed by Robert Adam in 1776. It is all the original piece — except for the mattress and box spring, because we need some creature comforts, you know — and some of the fabric, which has been replaced. This piece…'
Jack flips through the inventory to find the price.
$325,500.
For a bed which is now mostly char.
All that old wood, all that gilding, all that fabric…
… would go up like a torch.
Maybe it would blow a hole in the roof.
But it would also fill Pamela Vale's lungs full of smoke.
As would the rest of Nicky Vale's fine furniture. Even the stuff that's in the other two wings is going to be smoke- and maybe water-damaged, but right now Jack's interested in what's totally lost.
He punches the values of the destroyed items into the calculator.
$587,500.
And change.
Jack checks the date handwritten on the label: June 21, 1997.
On June 21, Jack thinks, Nicky Vale videotapes an inventory of all his precious belongings. Less than two months later they're all burned up.
Including his wife.
Who in terms of cold cash is worth another $250,000.
So before we even talk about the structure and the rest of the personal property, we're looking at $837,500. No wonder Nicky's in a hurry to settle his claim. We're talking major bucks here.
32
Hector Ruiz is pulling a rare doubleheader.
Or a double rear-ender, to be more precise, because he has a new old van in position on the Katella on-ramp onto the 57 in Anaheim. New fake license, new cargo of wetbacks, Octavio behind him, Martin in front of him, Dansky on the freeway.
A doubleheader is rare because two of these things are hard — not to mention tiring, ese — to pull off in one day, but Hector and his wife are moving into a new apartment and she has her eye on this bedroom set, so…
And Hector has never been afraid of work.
He checks his speedometer and eases it down to thirty.
Sees Martin kick up his Dodge Colt to hit the highway.
Just as Dansky's Camaro swerves into the merge lane.
Dansky hits the horn.
Martin slams on the brakes.
Hector hits his own brakes, cranks the wheel to the right, and just nicks Martin's right rear bumper.
I am sooo good, Hector thinks.
Looks into his rearview and here comes Octavio.
Hector blinks and looks again because it isn't Octavio, it's a gas tanker and he's got to be doing sixty-five and the driver is standing on the brakes and you can hear those big truck brakes compressing down but they ain't gonna make it, man.
'It's show time,' Hector says to himself about a half-second before the fuel tanker crashes into the van and both vehicles explode in a fireball that reaches high into the soft California night.
Channel 5 Eyewitness News gets lucky and has a helicopter out there doing traffic so they get a SkyCam picture of the multiple-fatality crash and lead with it on the 11 o'clock news.
It makes a hell of a teaser.
Blue Suit leans over in his chair and asks, 'Is that one of ours?'
'Could be one of ours.'
When they see Jimmy Dansky out there explaining to some blond reporter that there was 'this flash in the sky and I'm just lucky to be alive,' they know it's one of theirs.
Standing near the wreckage, the reporter says something about at least eight people dead, all appear to be Mexican Americans.
Flower Shirt looks at the burning van and says, 'Hey Refried beaners.'
'You're disgusting,' Nicky Vale says to him.
33
The funeral's a riot.
It starts off well enough.
Jack's sitting in the back of the Surf Jesus Episcopal Church, which is not the real name, of course, but it's what the locals call it because the steeple is a curved sweep of white stone that resembles a topping wave — like, Jesus is hip, Jesus is cool, Jesus can tube a twelve-foot point break in his sleep.
Pray for surf.
And surf Jesus.
Jack's a little surprised they're holding the service at a Christian church, but then he finally figures out that while Nicky's Jewish, Pamela was a shiksa, which is probably another reason the mother-in-law was not exactly transported with joy when her son married Pam.
The turnout's decent. The church isn't packed — it's a big church — but there's enough people that the place doesn't look empty. The mourners are mostly South County money. They look healthy and prosperous in that way that shows that they work at looking healthy and prosperous. They have health club bodies and tennis tans, and they all know each other, Jack thinks as he watches them greet each other and catches bits of subdued conversations.
… a shame about Pamela…
… into spinning now…
… graphite handle…
… and I've lost twelve pounds…
… Nicky is devastated…
… reclining bicycle, which doesn't put so much stress on the knees, so…
… at least there won't be a custody fight now…
… save the kids that agony, anyway…
… cardio-kickboxing…
There's fair turnout from Save the Strands. Jack knows this because a number of the mourners sport 'Save the Strands' buttons, which Jack thinks is very freaking weird at a funeral.
There are times when you just, you know, give it up.
The family comes in from a side door at the front of the sanctuary. Nicky, Mother Valeshin, and the kids. All dressed in black, the color, Jack thinks, of fire.
Nicky looks particularly — and there's no other word for it, Jack thinks — elegant. Wide-shouldered, narrow- lapeled silk jacket over silk trousers. White collarless shirt, black suede shoes. It's like Nicky has been flipping around in the special GQ Mourning Edition, 'A New Look for Hip Young Widowers,' and taken the pages into the Armani store at Fashion Island.
He has a benign, grief-stricken, but-I-have-to-be-brave-for-the-children expression on his face and he looks, Jack has to admit, just goddamn great.
