murdered, you’re accusing him of pimping my image. You’re saying my dead brother is responsible for some asshole in ass-crack Dakota beating off to my picture every night.”
Hoffman considered, just watching me. I hated the look, because I had no idea what was going on behind it. I got out a new cigarette, lit it, blew smoke. It was like she was hardly breathing.
“What?” I finally demanded.
“I’m just trying to figure you. You go on stages around the world, and you play guitar, and you sing, and jump and run and sweat and dance, and you have thousands of people watching your every move when you do that.”
“Van,” I said. “Not me.”
“Van more often, sure, but you, too. And television, you go on television, and millions—literally millions—of people watch what you do. Those people, they’re watching your body as much as hearing the music, they’re objectifying you just as much, they’re sexualizing you just as much.”
“You’re saying that the pictures shouldn’t bother me? Isn’t that like telling me I was asking for it?”
Hoffman shook her head vigorously. “No, hell no. What’s been done to you, it’s a kind of rape, and I wouldn’t dare diminish it.”
I threw up my hands, frustrated, not getting it, not getting her.
“It’s you,” she said. “It’s you, your body, and if it were me, I wouldn’t be ashamed, even if I could afford to be. I’d sure as hell be angry, I’d be boiling, but I wouldn’t be ashamed.”
“Well, you weren’t the one humiliated.”
“It’s only humiliating if you let it be, if you give it that power.”
“You know what? I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”
“You’ve got to own it—”
“I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” I repeated, slower and clearer, to make sure she understood.
She did. “You’re used to getting your own way, aren’t you?”
“Ah, here we go. This is the part where you call me a bitch rock-princess again, is that it?”
Hoffman slid her chair back and rose, pulling her coat free. “No. You’re a bitch because you’re pretty blatantly miserable. The rock-princess part, that’s just frosting.”
“I’ve got a reason to be miserable.”
“Sure. But maybe you just like it.” She had the coat on, adjusting it. She took the cap from her pocket and set it on her head, tucking stray hair beneath it. “Hell, you’re an
“And it was going so well,” I said. “Yet here we are, back to the fuck-yous.”
“Hey, gumdrop, if this was a date, you’d have known it. Don’t get up. I can find my way out.”
CHAPTER 23
The ringing phone pulled me free from the nightmare.
Reporters and humiliations, of cameras on me at all the worst times. Flashes capturing me in bed in Montreal, not with a groupie but with a cop, and photographers pursuing me into bathrooms, finding me drunk and naked and lying in my own vomit and blood. Big Technicolor production, cast of thousands, everyone from the funeral, everyone from the press, everyone from the audience. Chapel taking notes on his legal pad, and Joan standing with dead Steven, each looking pained with disappointment. Damien asking me to sign something, even though I wasn’t Van.
So the phone was really a lifesaver, as far as that went.
“Hello?” I said. It came out more as a slurry than a word.
“This is Scanalert operator one-four-seven; is this Miriam Bracca?” The voice was male, and young, and very efficient.
I sat up, felt around for the light. It had started raining again, and there was the sound of it pattering on the roof and running along the edges of the house. “Uh, yeah?”
“We’ve registered an alarm activation at this number.”
“You have?”
“Are you alone?”
“Yeah,” I said, and then thought maybe it was a reporter being cagey. “Why?”
“If you are not able to speak freely, say the word ‘later,’ now.”
“I’m alone. There’s no alarm going off here.”
“May I have your password?”
“My what?”
“I need your password for a system reset.”
“I don’t know. Joan? Mikel? Tailhook? Telecaster?”
“ ‘Telecaster’ is the password. I’m very sorry to have bothered you, ma’am.”
“Wait, that’s it?”
His efficient yap disappeared, and now he sounded slightly exasperated. “If there’s no audible going off there must be a malfunction in the system. We’ll run a diagnostic and send someone out later tomorrow to see if we can’t isolate the problem. Once again, sorry for the inconvenience. Thank you for using Scanalert.”
I rubbed my eyes and listened to the dial tone, then put the receiver back in the cradle and got out of bed. It was cold, and I put on my robe and my slippers. The cable box on the television was reading 3:48.
I went out to the top of the stairs and listened.
Nothing but rain.
The steps creaked when I descended, and I hadn’t noticed how irritating that was until now. It was stupid, too, because that, more than anything else, made me feel nervous. Creaking stairs and rain on the roof, and a phone call in the dead of night. Maybe it had just been some reporter with a clever way of trying to find out if I was sleeping with someone. Hell, maybe it was a reporter who knew Dyke Tracy had paid me a visit, and was hoping she’d stayed. Clearly a chunk of my subconscious had done the same.
The alarm panel was showing red lights when I checked it, armed. The LCD said that we were safely in “Stay” mode, with “all portals secure.”
Not a bad title for a song, maybe. All portals secure. No way in. No way out.
I went back upstairs and found my notebook in the nightstand, wrote, “All Portals Secure!” in it, then underlined it. I left the book out, so that I’d see it in the morning. I probably wouldn’t even remember why I thought the line was so intriguing when I woke up.
I took off my robe and my slippers and got back under the covers, clicking out the light. I listened to the rain overhead, to the layers of sound. One instrument, many notes, I thought.
When I fell asleep, I didn’t have any more nightmares.
The next time the phone woke me it was day. The cable box said it was 10:12 , and the voice on the phone said it was Fred Chapel.
“I heard from Detective Marcus this morning,” Chapel told me. “He informs me that the Portland police are not pursuing you as a suspect in your brother’s murder.”
“Oh, goody,” I said.
“They’re going to want your help. They’ll most likely come by in the next few days for a follow-up interview, to see if they missed anything, and they’ll have questions about the pictures as well as your brother. I’d still prefer it if I were with you should that come to pass, but for now, you’re off the hook.”
I didn’t tell him he was a day late and a dollar short, and that I’d already tried being helpful to the cops, and it hadn’t gone very well.
“Does that mean I can go back to the bottle?” I asked.
He didn’t think it was a joke. “If that’s your thing, go ahead.”
Showered and dressed and with a fresh cup of Peet’s blend in my hand, a cigarette cornered in my mouth, I
