Skin Deep

'There were five little Peppers to begin with. Bobby, two sisters, Mommy, and Daddy. Daddy Pepper was apparently someone who, in a larger town, would have been confined to a small white room relatively early in his career, minus his belt and shoelaces. He just loved to knock the shit out of women.'

'I know some of this already,' I said. 'In L.A. or New York, he would have been classified as a psychotic, probably irreversible. In Crooked Elbow, people just thought he was mean.'

Bernie looked across the desk at me. 'This is pretty sordid stuff.'

'I'll survive,' I said. 'Just tell me about the Peppers.'

'Daddy clubbed the two girls until they ran away,' Bernie said distastefully. 'Nobody in town knows where they went, apparently they were pretty careful about that. They covered their tracks and went, about a year apart. That left Bobby and Mommy to take whatever Daddy wanted to dish out.'

'Poor Mommy,' I said. 'So what happened?'

'Bobby finally ran away. Nobody would have looked very hard for him, Mrs. Sprunk said. But Jack was gone, too, and him they were worried about. It was winter, and there'd just been a blizzard. They were afraid he might have lost his way and frozen to death. They went around checking snowdrifts and looking down wells. About three days later, they found out that the Pepper farmhouse had burned down.'

'No,' I said.

'Because they lived so far from anything or anyone, and because of the storm, no one went out there until someone suggested that's where Jack might be. Even then it took them a day to get there. Roads were bad, cars wouldn't start, the wind chill factor was around absolute zero. Real frontier days, you know?'

I nodded. I was even more tired than I had realized, but I'd forgotten about my headache. Now that I thought about it, it came back.

'Well, the house was gone. Just two walls standing and part of one room. The room that was left was the whole original house. It had been built out of sod about a hundred years before. The rest of the place was wood, and it caught like cellophane.'

'Who was in the room that was standing?' I said, knowing the answer.

'Mrs. Pepper. Simeon, she'd been tied up. She was partially burned, but they could see that she'd been tied hand and foot. Like a heifer, Mrs. Sprunk said.' He swallowed.

'With clothesline,' I said.

Bernie flipped through his notes. 'Gee,' he said. 'I didn't ask what kind of rope it was.'

'It was clothesline,' I said. 'Take my word.'

'Does that mean something? Obviously it does.'

'Is there more? Are we finished, or is there more?'

'Sure there's more. If there weren't, your boy would be in jail. The house had been doused with gasoline. Halfway between the house and the garage, up to his shoulders in snow, they found Daddy Pepper. He was as frozen as most fresh fish. They had to break his fingers to get the gasoline can out of his hands. Mrs. Sprunk said he got lost in the snow in his own backyard. Whiteout or something. Case closed.'

'The clothesline had been taken down,' I said. 'He needed it.'

'What's all this about clothesline?'

'Skip it,' I said. 'After I leave, shut the door and forget about it.' I stood up and reached into my pocket. Trying to keep my hands from shaking, I peeled off three hundred dollars of Stillman's and Toby's money. Then I added another hundred.

'What's that for?' Bernie asked. 'It was only three hundred, actually two eighty-five. I had my watch running the whole time.'

'Use it to clean your clothes. Clean your desk. Send the phone to the cleaner's, if you like. Clean everything you used or touched while you were working for me. I'm sorry, Bernie. I shouldn't have gotten you involved. Apologize to Joyce for me. Next time, we'll all go to Anna Maria's for Italian.'

'Great,' he said. 'And what about you? What are you going to do?'

'Me?' I said. 'I'm going for a run.'

I ran six miles, maybe the fastest six miles of my life. The Sunset Boulevard uphill, about six-tenths of a mile at a grade of about roughly forty percent, was the hardest. I skipped the sauna but made up for it with an extra- long shower. Then, with a towel wrapped around my middle, I called the High Velocity set at Universal and talked to Dolly. Toby was there, she said. They'd been there since eight-thirty.

'Has he been out of your sight?'

'Not since last night.'

'What about the big guy, the stand-in? John,' I added, since Dolly's silence indicated a certain level of confusion.

'He's here. He's across the stage from me now. They're setting up a shot.'

'Has he been there all day?'

'Gosh, Simeon, I don't know. You didn't say anything about watching him.'

'Forget it. Try to talk Toby into keeping John with him for the rest of the day. Maybe even after work.'

'Sure, but why? Has he got something to do with it?'

'Yes,' I said. Dolly was asking another question when I hung up.

I dialed my house and got my answering machine. After my idiotic message was over, I said, 'Nana, it's me. Pick up the phone, would you?'

'H'lo, Simeon,' she said. She sounded drowsy. 'What time is it?'

'A little after two. How are you doing?'

'I fell asleep in the sun. It's nice up here. Somebody named Eleanor called.'

'Shit,' I said. 'Did you pick up the phone?'

She laughed. 'You peckerhead. Of course not. I just listened after the machine picked up.'

'Good. Keep doing that. I don't want you to talk to anybody but me, not even if somebody asks for you. Especially not if somebody asks for you.'

'Nobody knows I'm here,' she said a trifle anxiously.

'Don't be silly,' I said to reassure her. 'We're just being extra careful.'

'Okay. What if there's a call for you that sounds important?'

'Listen to the machine and write down the name and number. I'll call in from time to time to check. Pick up the phone when you hear me.'

'What are you going to do while I work on my tan lines?'

'I'll tell you after I do it.'

'You're not going to be silly, are you? I mean, you're not going to stick out your big thick neck or anything.'

'My neck is not thick.'

'I'd like it even if it weren't. Take care of it for me.'

'At last,' I said. 'A reason to live.'

'What time will you be home? I could make something to eat.'

'Don't plan on it. I'll be there when I get there, but I'll keep in touch. Go back into the sunshine.'

'Maybe I'll work on getting rid of my tan lines instead. Nobody can see me.'

'I like tan lines,' I said, visualizing hers.

'Your kind always does. When you get back I'll model them for you. Front and back.'

'Good-bye, Nana.'

She kissed the mouthpiece and hung up. I readjusted my towel in front and strolled back through the locker room, hoping that no one would get the wrong idea. At any rate, no one whistled at me.

20

Out Of Order

'What do you mean, another one?' Dixie said. 'You mean dead?' He looked terrified. We were on the set,