The dozen or so divorcees in the crowd are doing everything but actually moaning, Jack thinks, and if Nicky doesn't get laid right after the coffee cake, Jack's missed his bet.
The kids look like something out of Masterpiece Theatre — perfectly costumed, exquisitely mannered, ineffably sad.
The minister lays a kindly hand on the kids and then takes the pulpit. Waits for the organ music to fade and then smiles at the congregation.
Jack thinks he recognizes him from television. He has the official television minister combed-back pompadour of silver hair, except this isn't one of your cracker-southern greased-back jobs, this is a seventy-five-dollar styling from Jose Ebert. He has the official minister sky-pilot eyeglasses, the black robe edged in purple, and the white collar that looks weirdly like Nicky's.
Anyway, he finishes smiling then says, 'We're here to celebrate a life…'
Then gives the usual God is a great guy but your loved one died anyway and I have no explanation for the seeming contradiction so let's not talk about death, let's talk about life and didn't Pamela have a wonderful life and a loving husband and two beautiful children and wasn't she a wonderful wife and mother and life is beautiful and now Pamela is with my buddy God in a better place than even south Orange County and we're going to scatter her ashes over the ocean that she loved so much, by the Strands that she loved so much, and every time we look at the ocean and the Strands we'll think of Pamela, and Jesus loves her and God loves her and Jesus loves you and God loves you and we must all love each other every day because you never know when God is going to toss the banana peel under your foot and bang you out like that, and of course the minister doesn't actually say that last bit; it's what Jack is thinking.
No, the good doctor what's-his-name — I know I've seen him on the tube begging for bucks — goes on about how we must all form a community to help Nicky and the kids, it takes a village, and thank God they have a loving grandmother to help care for them and Jack's looking in the rack in the pew in front of him for a barf bag and he hears the woman across the aisle from him sort of snort, and then the minister looks up at the tongue-and-groove red cedar ceiling and says, 'Lord Jesus, we pray…'
Followed by a long prayer for the soul of Pamela Vale, and that the healing process begin for Nicky and Natalie — and for the first time Jack realizes that's Mother Valeshin's first name — and the children, and then the organ plays some horror movie background piece and when Jack looks up Nicky is at the pulpit asking people to share memories of Pamela.
And they do. One by one, about ten or so mourners stand up and tell about a day they spent with Pam at the beach, how Pam loved the sunset, how Pam loved her kids… One woman gets up to tell about a shopping spree she and Pam went on, and another about a whale-watching trip they went on…
But nobody wants to tell about Pam drinking, about Pam throwing up at a party, about Pam driving the Lexus into the big pine tree by the driveway, about Pam so zonked on Valium they find her passed out in her car outside a garden party. Nobody wants to talk about the screaming fights she and Nicky had, about the flying goblets, about the time she threw her drink in his face at that party on the boat, about Nicky tapping every willing divorcee, bored wife, and ambitious cocktail waitress on the south coast…
All of that has faded into the sunset that Pam loved so much.
So everything is going just skippy, Jack thinks, when there's a lull and Nicky — misty-eyed but gently, bravely smiling — asks if there is anyone else who would like to say anything.
Which is when a woman's voice from behind Jack yells, 'YOU KILLED MY SISTER, YOU SON OF A BITCH!'
This is pretty much when the riot starts.
34
'You killed my sister!'
Nicky's jaw drops to where the collar would be on his collarless shirt and Jack thinks, Well, you asked.
The minister looks frantically around to see if there are any reporters there, especially with cameras, as the woman yeils again,
'You killed my sister, you son of a bitch!'
Stands there in front of Surf Jesus and everybody and literally points the finger at Nicky.
The other mourners freeze in their seats. They don't try to stop her or calm her down or anything because this woman is clearly intent on mayhem and no one's going to risk a ten-thousand-dollar nose job getting in her way.
Two security guys do.
Jack didn't notice them before, these two guys in black suits who come down from the back of the church to like quell the situation. They reach the woman just before Jack does.
'Get your damn hands off me!' the woman yells as one of the security guys lays a thick hand on her shoulder. She knocks his hand off her, and then both of them grab her and start to pull her into the aisle.
The woman looks at the crowd in the church, points at Nicky again, and says, 'HE KILLED MY SISTER! HE KILLED PAM!'
The heavyset security guy clamps his hand over her mouth and locks his forearm across her neck.
'Let her go,' Jack says to him.
'The lady needs to leave.'
Guy has a Russian accent.
'She's leaving,' Jack says.
The other guy — tall, thin but wired — turns to Jack. 'You want to get involved here?'
Same accent.
'Whatever,' Jack says.
The guy wants to stroke him one, it's in his eyes, but there's something else that's saying best behavior, so he backs down. Jack can see him memorizing his face, though, for future reference.
Jack looks at the heavyset guy and repeats, 'Let her go.'
First guy nods and the other muscle releases his grip. Jack says to the woman, 'Come on.'
'He killed Pam.'
'Everybody heard you.'
He reaches out his hand and takes her arm.
'Come on.'
She comes with him.
Jack can still hear the children in the background yelling for their aunt. Looks down there and sees Michael in tears. Mother Valeshin's face set in stone. Nicky looking like he could kill.
So does the boss muscle guy. He gives Jack a badass look.
'Yeah, it's okay with me,' Jack says.
'We'll see.'
'Yeah.'
Jack walks the woman out of the church.
Into the front seat of his car.
'Jesus, Letty,' Jack says. 'You could have told me she was your sister.'
I shouldn't be telling you this but I thought someone should know, the autopsy showed no smoke in her lungs.
35
She's still a looker, Jack thinks.
Shiny black shoulder-length hair, dark Mexican eyes, a body that won't quit. Makeup perfect, just enough
