waist and is flapping side to side. “He just bought a gun because of all the robberies in the neighborhood. Doesn’t that make more sense?”
She is so encouraged by the logic of her theory that I let her believe in it for a while.
“He must have been murdered because otherwise he would have used a gun. Will the FBI get involved in that part of it?”
“I don’t think so, ma’am.”
“But he didn’t kill himself!”
Gently and firmly, “It looks a lot like he did.”
She stares at me a long time as if her ability to speak has become unplugged.
On the coffee table in front of us is a tennis racquet and white sweater and a pile of mail which she must have dropped coming in. On the cover of a catalogue from Saks Fifth Avenue is a picture of Jayne Mason’s face surrounded by yellow petals and the words “Jayne Mason Introduces Yellow Rose Cosmetics. Meet the star in person at our Beverly Hills store.”
There is the image of Jayne Mason’s perfect dewy face emerging from a pool covered with yellow blossoms.
Superimpose: Randall Eberhardt’s dead blue face inside a plastic bag … and what do you get?
“I’m very sorry for your loss.” I get up and walk out.
At the far corner of the bright street, Laura and the little Chilean grandmother are coming toward the house. Laura is riding a tricycle, the housekeeper pushing the baby in a stroller. Startled to see the police, the housekeeper puts her hand out to stop the child but she is already pedaling as fast as she can toward all the excitement, a look of anticipation on her simple face.
I too was five years old that night in Santa Monica when my father left forever. I turn around and thread my way back through the curious crowd, unlocking the door to the G-ride and wondering if, like me, Laura will teach herself to forget this day and everything that goes with it, and how long that kind of forgetting can last.
• • •
Once the freeways clear the drive out to Simi Valley only takes forty-five minutes, especially when you’re doing a steady seventy-five miles an hour. It is ten at night. The top is down on the Barracuda and I don’t care anymore.
Donnato’s house is one of a hundred in some new development, tract houses of the nineties with round windows that are supposed to make them look interesting. The only interesting thing about Simi Valley is the way it is backed up against the mountains, the very last finger-scrapes of the Los Angeles sprawl clawing its way north — you can’t get any farther from urban downtown. A lot of people still keep animals out here — horse people and breeders of Abyssinian cats who like to believe in their own freedom.
Donnato’s house looks cozy and domestic with the lights on and the garage doors closed for the night. I walk up and press the chimes. His wife opens the door. She is very attractive. A scuba instructor. Smart. Going to law school. But I don’t care.
“Hi, Rochelle. Sorry to bother you.”
“Ana! What’s the matter?”
“Small emergency. Is Mike in?”
“Sure. Can I get you anything?”
“No, but thanks.”
The air conditioning is on. The place has that plastic closed-in smell of new carpeting and new kitchen cabinets with cheap veneer.
Donnato comes downstairs quickly.
“Galloway’s calling everybody in.”
Donnato catches my eyes and holds them and sees the entreaty, and I believe his decision to go with me right then, to acquiesce to whatever crazy need has driven me out there, is the single most tender thing anyone has ever done for me.
“I’ll go up and change.” He’s wearing sweats.
“You don’t have to. It’s a stakeout in Inglewood, not a dinner-dance,” I say in a suddenly hoarse voice.
Donnato takes his gun belt from a locked box in the closet and grabs a heavy parka. His wife kisses him.
“Be careful, sweetie.”
“Always.”
We head out the door. “Nice to see you, Ana, except for the circumstances.”
I smile and wave.
We are outside. The door closes. We climb into the Barracuda.
I screech away from the curb with unnecessary violence. Donnato has shrugged into the parka and placed the gun down on the floor near his feet. He knows perfectly well there is no stakeout.
“She set the doctor up in order to sell lipstick.”
I don’t say anything else until we have driven through all the blinking red traffic lights of the dark empty town and taken the first freeway on-ramp. We’re heading west, that’s all I know.
“Jayne Mason is hospitalized at the Betty Ford Center for drug addiction. It’s all over the press. She’s got a secret multitrillion-dollar contract with a major cosmetics company but they’re getting nervous — who’s going to buy makeup from a drug addict? The deal is worth ten times more than anything she can make in the movies and she’s desperate for cash. Somebody’s going to take the fall for her addiction and it’s going to be Dr. Randall Eberhardt because he’s stupid and naive and just got off the boat.”
Donnato sits there with his arms folded, a cyclone of cold wind blowing his hair straight back.
“That bitch manager is behind it.” I slam my fist on the steering wheel.
“Hard to prove.”
“I don’t care. With all the shit we’re getting from the wardrobe girl, I’m going to bust Jayne Mason, nail her on possession, Jesus Christ, who knows, maybe the family can sue for wrongful death.”
“You’re doing ninety.”
“He couldn’t take the humiliation. Offed himself with nitrogen gas. You know how? Very smart. The guy was smart. Hooks it up to a plastic bag, puts the bag over his head. He’s a doctor so he knows the buildup of carbon dioxide inside the bag would cause a panic reaction and there’s a good chance he’d pull it off in spite of himself — so he keeps on pumping nitrogen in there to displace the CO, that way he can keep on breathing until there’s no oxygen left. A little Valium to relax, a nice warm bath, death by asphyxiation.”
I pull off the freeway, fishtailing on the dusty shoulder, and brake to a stop. I don’t even shut off the engine, but jam the gearshift into park and reach for Donnato, sinking my fingers into the downy shoulders of his parka, pulling him toward me, trying to swallow his mouth.
We get out. We secure our weapons in the trunk. We are on a pitch-black road next to a pitch-black field somewhere on the outskirts of Oxnard.
We walk into the field over small dry gullies.
“What do they grow here?”
“Strawberries.”
We spread out a wool blanket from the days when I had Jake and Jasmine, two calicos, and, believe it or not, the smell of old cat piss can be terribly sad.
We can’t get close enough we can’t go deep enough we can’t connect with enough bare skin. It is freezing out there, we are naked and shivering inside our jackets, frantic in the midnight darkness as if there is no other hunger.
Donnato is above, I am crushing a handful of bleeding strawberries against his clenched teeth, he is deep inside me, holding me up under the shoulder blades so my head is hanging back and my hair is dragging in the dirt, when the helicopter passes not very far above us, slicing the air with vicious pulsing whips. I open my eyes to see the shape of its belly, I know it is a military transport because we are close to Point Mugu, but it doesn’t matter, I have passed through the realm of the rational into the amber twilight of my dreams. The roar hurts our ears and resonates inside our chest cavities and I am gripped by a primal fear, the way I was afraid of the chopper landing
