I made an ass of myself, clapping my hands and calling,
“Here, girl! C’mon, Moose! Oooh, let’s go for a ride!” and whistling. She wouldn’t budge. At last, I hefted her, all hundred pounds of her, and carried her back to the car.
It was dark when I finally found Gideon’s house, one of those renovated barns set back a couple of hundred feet from the road. There was a small sign on a strip of barn siding that said “Friedman-Sterling,” but Friedman and Sterling had planted so much fucking English ivy that I drove past it at least five times until I spotted it.
I opened the car door, but before I could get out, Moose leapt over me, then sat, waiting, tongue dangling, for me to join her. But I couldn’t get out. I reknotted my tie, then loosened it, then took it off, took my jacket off, rolled up my shirt sleeves, then got dressed again.
Maybe she’d taken an overdose of sleeping pills, thinking I was going to marry Lynne and she’d never see me again.
I wanted to hold her in my arms. I wanted to take her over to Germy’s to watch the DiMaggio video and tell him, This is my girl.
I thought, I shouldn’t be driving my brother’s damn car, since Easton had stowed the rifle in the trunk. Now it had my prints and dog hair. The lab guys would be pissed.
My heart began to pound. She’d be in there, but she’d refuse to see me, and Gideon’s boyfriend would stand at the door, his hand on his hip, and sneer: “Bonnie’s flying to the Coast tomorrow to sell her story for a CBS Movie of the Week and she’s on the phone with her new agent and cannot be disturbed. Ta-ta.”
MAGIC HOUR / 447
Or she wouldn’t be there. She’d be on her way to the air-port, to go to Utah. She’d stay with one of her brothers for a while, until her house was sold, then buy a cabin ten thousand feet high in some mountain by a trout stream. She wouldn’t answer my letters or phone calls. I’d finally go out there and track her down, but she’d run out the back door up the mountains and wouldn’t come back until I’d gone.
The next spring, after the thaw, they’d find her. Dead. She’d frozen in February. She’d forgotten how hard winters in the mountains could be. She hadn’t chopped enough wood for the stove.
I was so upset by the thought of her decomposing body that I didn’t see Gideon until he was right next to the car.
“Is Bonnie here?” I demanded. “Is she all right?”
“She’s fine,” Gideon said cautiously. I guess I looked a little nuts. “She’s sleeping.” Moose, the town slut, had already transferred her allegiance to Gideon and was licking his hand.
“I guess she must be pretty tired,” I mumbled.
“Do you want to come in for a minute?”
For a barn, it was a nice place, with a vaulted ceiling and a lot of beams going to interesting places. Gideon introduced me to his friend, Jeff, who looked like a bouncer in a very rough nightclub. He stayed just long enough to shake hands, say “Pleased to make yo’ ’quaintance” and give me a thorough once-over; my guess was he could hardly wait for me to leave, so he and Gideon could launch into an exhaustive analysis.
A giant black iron chandelier hung from the main beam; it had cut-out sheep and cows and pigs all over it. Upstairs, there were closed doors off a landing that had once been the hayloft. “Bonnie’s in the middle room,” Gideon said, when he saw me looking up. I thought he would tell me not to trifle with her affect-448 / SUSAN ISAACS
tions or something, but he just said how sorry he was about it being my brother. I told him my mother was calling Paterno, but that my brother had already given a videotaped confession—probably less because he wanted to make a clean breast of things than that he wanted to be thought of as pleasant company. And I told him about Easton’s sick pride, that he’d planned the whole thing with Sy Spencer, big shot.
Just the two of them. Sy and Easton, partners. I said I couldn’t believe my brother had been so willing to let Bonnie take the fall for him. Gideon said, Take it easy. It’s over now.
He added that Shea had called Paterno and said they were rescinding the warrant and to tell Mrs. Spencer sorry for any inconvenience.
“Do you think she’ll be all right?” I asked him.
“She’s strong.”
“I know.”
“But it’s going to take a long time.”
“Do you mind if I go up and see her?” I asked.
“Once we knew it was officially over, after Bill Paterno called…” Gideon hesitated. “Bonnie said you might drop by.
She asked me to thank you for all you’ve done for her, but that you and she had agreed earlier that it would be best if you didn’t see each other again.”
“I want to see her.”
“And I want to protect her.” We tried to stare each other down. “It seems we’re at an impasse,” he said, “and since it’s an impasse on my territory, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.” He stood.
So did I. “I just want to tell her something.”
“I don’t think that would be advisable.”
“Fuck you, Friedman.”
“Fuck you, Brady.”
I tried to count up to ten, to think of something else to say, but I only made it to two. “Look, I love her.”
MAGIC HOUR / 449
“You love her?” Gideon repeated. “You must be a very loving man. You love the other one too.”
“If it’s any of your goddamned business, I don’t love the other one, and as a matter of fact and of law, Counselor, the other one isn’t the other one anymore and the position is vacant. Now can I go up and see
