Self-Defence

'Shut up!' Gwen screamed.

A crestfallen look wormed its way among the boy's involuntary facial movements. He began stabbing with his arms and kicking his feet. His lips twisted like an out-of-hand garden hose, and a deep, foggy noise issued from his mouth.

'Aa-nglm!'

Gwen embraced him. 'Oh, I'm so sorry, honey! Oh, honey, honey!'

I felt like surrendering my license.

Gwen said, 'He needs me. No one knows how to take care of him properly. Have you seen the kind of places they put kids like him?'

'Lots of them,' I said.

'But you'll put him in one without thinking twice.'

'I won't put him anywhere. I have no official power, other than the fact that the police sometimes ask my advice. Sometimes they even listen. I got involved in Karen's case, and I'm going to see it through.'

'But I don't know about any murder. That's the truth.'

'What do you know?'

She turned away, facing PCH.

'You know something valuable enough to get paid off for your silence,' I said.

'Why do you keep saying I've been paid off?'

I looked at her.

Travis rolled his head out from under her embrace.

She said, 'That was twenty years ago.'

'Twenty-one this August.'

She looked ill. 'All I know is she went off with some guys at that party and I never saw her again, okay? Why's that worth anything?'

'You tell me.'

She looked at the asphalt.

I said, 'Other people were paid off, too. Some of them were murdered. Now that the net's tightening, what makes you think you're safe? Or Tom, for that matter, wherever he is in Mexico?'

A new fear pierced her eyes. She'd been beautiful a long time ago, one of those lithe, laughing beach girls for whom bikinis were invented. Life had glazed her like pottery, and I'd added a few new cracks.

'Oh, God.'

A car pulled into the shopping center. As its headlights washed over us, she jumped. The car was going to the sandwich place. An old Chrysler four-door. Two pony-tailed, tank-topped men in their thirties got out. Surfboard clamps were attached to the roof, but no boards.

One of the men cupped his hands and lit a cigarette. Gwen turned her back on them. Not afraid, embarrassed.

'Old customers?' I said.

She stared at me, then at her keys in the lock.

'Inside,' she said.

39

Keeping the lights off, she pushed Travis to the back of the store and unlocked a door. Inside was a small neat storeroom: metal shelves filled with merchandise, a desk, and three folding chairs. Positioning Travis in a corner, she pulled a box down and gave it to him. A diving mask. He began turning the package over and over, working hard at holding on to it, studying a photograph of a girl snorkeling as if it were a puzzle.

She started to go behind the desk. I got there first and checked all the drawers. Just papers and pens and staples and clips.

She gave a weak smile. 'Yeah, tough old me's gonna shoot you.'

'I'm sure you can be plenty tough.' I looked at Travis.

She sat down heavily. I took a chair.

'Tell me what happened,' I said.

'Promise me they won't put him away.'

'I can't promise, but I'll do my best. If you had nothing to do with Karen's murder.'

'I keep telling you, I don't know about any murder. Just that she disappeared.'

'From the Sanctum party.'

Nod.

'You hired her to work at the party.'

'So what does that make me, a criminal? I hired her as a favor. She needed the money. Her tips weren't that good because she wasn't the greatest waitress, kept getting orders wrong. And that hypocrite father of hers didn't approve of her being an actress, so he never sent her a dime. I helped her, so now people are getting murdered and I'm being treated like a criminal?'

'When's the last time you saw her?'

'How can I remember? It was twenty-one years.'

'Try.'

Silence.

'In the middle of the party,' she said. 'I don't know what time it was. We were all working; I wasn't paying attention to her.'

'You never told anyone she was there, did you?'

More silence.

'Did the sheriffs ask?'

'They came around the Dollar, a few days after she was gone. They thought she was lost up in the mountains. They had helicopters looking for her.'

'And you didn't tell them any different.'

'Who says it was any different? She could have left the party with someone and gone to the mountains.'

'In the middle of work?'

'She wasn't the most reliable person- used to call in sick at the Dollar so she could go to Disneyland. Coming out here was a big vacation for her.'

She bit her lip. 'Look, I'm not putting her down. She was a nice kid. But not too bright.' Tears filled her eyes. 'I never wanted to see anything happen to her. I never did anything to hurt her.'

She put her hands over her face again. Travis had managed to turn himself around and was looking at her, fascinated. The box slid down his lap and landed on the floor. He reached for it but the leather belt restrained him, and he started to shout.

Gwen uncovered her face and started to get out of her chair.

I retrieved the box and gave it to him, tousling his hair.

'Aa-gaah,' he said, grinning. 'Aa-gaamnuhuh.'

Gwen said, 'It wasn't any big intense investigation or anything. A deputy just dropped in and asked if anyone'd seen her; then he sat around and had coffee.'

'What about the private eye Karen's family hired? Felix Barnard. What did he ask you?'

'He was weird. An oily old guy.'

'What did he ask you?'

'Same stuff the police did: When did we last see her?'

'And you told him Friday night, after her shift at the Dollar.'