Leave It to Me (23 page)

Apparition, “narrow fellow,” blackmailer: it spoke. “That silly woman, what’s her name, Betty Lou? Betty Nan? Airport janitors will find her when they clean women’s rest rooms. Meantime, Miss Media Escort! Do your escorting job and drive me to your boss’s foxhole. I got a score to settle with that bitch.”

“Are you planning to settle scores in the buff?” Ready whenever you are, Mr. Hawk.

Romeo Hawk costumed himself leisurely. Cream-colored silk shirt with French cuffs, vanilla double-breasted suit, pink silk jacquard tie, blue sapphire cuff links and tie pin. Snakeskin boots with narrow toes and stacked heels. A man who has spent time in Asian prisons values style. He was Valentino and Nureyev and Adonis.

He said, admiring himself in the hotel’s flattering mirror, “You find me irresistible?” He had his back to me. “Every woman does.”

“You’re not my type,” I snapped. I hoped I meant it.

“I don’t have to be.” He grinned. “I’m your father. I didn’t come empty-handed, daughter.”

He didn’t contain his excitement; he didn’t even try to. I braced for his gift—a burst of Saturday night special?—as he ran to the closet. He chucked the satchel-sized pocketbook and a flea market hatbox to the closet floor, then came to me holding out the carry-on I’d shifted on the shelf so I could ease down the traveling kettle. A green vinyl carry-on. The leather-panted Eurasian in the allnight
diner where I hadn’t paid for my Pepsi. No convergence is coincidental.

He read my mind. “The first time was accidental.” He unzipped the carry-on. Cheap metal zippers need a lot of curses and tugs. “The rest perspiration.” He dangled the carry-on just out of my reach. It looked light, hanging limp from his flat, wide hands. Karate-hardened hands. Flash hands. Killer hands. “The only gift you’ll ever want, daughter.”

I tore the carry-on out of those cruel hands and upended it on the rug. Five passports, that’s all that fell out of the cheap vinyl bag. Five to be exact. Five passports issued to five separate names, but each carrying a photo of Jess’s guileless face. I studied those thick, embossed and stamp-smudged official pages like a palmist reading life-routes and loveroutes.

Jess, too, was a ghost. She had inhabited five other bodies than the one I knew.

Bio-Mom’d paid her footloose way through hot, smoky Asia dealing in passports as well as dope. That, too, made sense.

The woman Fred Pointer had dug up as my biological mother and whom he had courted as Jess DuPree, successful Bay Area businesswoman, was also
Jeanne Jellineau
, b. 2/5/38, a citizen of France, the holder of a valid passport issued to her by the French embassy in Ankara. And she was
Sigrid Schlant
, a West German, b. 8/8/42, with a replacement passport issued her in Bangkok, where the original had been stolen. Also,
Veronica Alexandra Taylor
; born in Johannesburg, South Africa, on
6/7/44;
Magda Lukacs
, born on 3/9/43 in a German camp for displaced persons; and
Margaret Rose Smith
, a British citizen, born on 1/29/41 in Port of Spain, Trinidad.

“You want to take the first shot, daughter, it’s yours. We’re on the same side.”

“ ‘Zero at the bone.’ Dad?”

A vain man, he preened in front of the full-length mirror. “Whaa?”

“I’m on nobody’s side.”

Romeo slicked down a stray strand of his hair. He liked what he saw in the mirror. “Same as being on everybody’s side.” He shoved the mirrored closet door shut. “Don’t elevate yourself to something you are not.”

Like god or demon? Like a snake-thing?
I took a swing at his face. He bounced back, grinning. “Dad forgives. Hello, daughter! Jolly good!”

Larry’s old
I
MY ARSENAL
sign was stolen off his apartment door soon after he vanished. I suspect Emad, but have no proof. The sign he painted especially for me I keep hanging above my futon. It reads:
THE WORLD ACCORDING TO LIBERACE: TOO MUCH OF A GOOD THING IS SIMPLY WONDERFUL
. Larry communes with me through the sign. The things you can see and touch aren’t the
things
you should dread, he still mentors me. In that zombie hour of each night when I am not sure if I am dead or simply asleep, Larry and Liberace merge, sequined and giggling. Fear of the invisible is a good thing because it keeps you alive. Too much fear of ghosts is better, is simply wonderful, because it might also save your soul.

I didn’t drive Romeo Hawk to Jess and Ham’s floating love nest because of the 9mm he pointed at my head. I drove him because he was the scatterer of seeds from which I’d sprouted. Nature has no prodigality, no psychology, no sympathy. I drove him because he was
that place, the over there
, he was my poem of night, light and leaves. I was gambling on finding the maze’s exit. Romeo did fancy twirls with the 9mm as we headed for the Golden Gate Bridge. He had the widest, surest hands I had ever seen.

He caught me staring at those hands, and said, “Don’t get any funny ideas. These are my waste disposal units. They take care of expendable people. And the nosy.”

“Like Jess’s friend? Did they take care of Fred Pointer too?”

“Never inform, and never explain. That’s the way I’ve always lived.” He grinned. We could have been talking about a misdemeanor. “Jess’s friend was. Now he isn’t.”

“Fred Pointer didn’t start this,” I fumed.

“There is no start, and there is no finish. Only process, you get the picture? I learned that from my trusted friend the warden, a Hindu.”

“Fred shouldn’t have had to die.”

“It was his time, dear. And that bitch deserves serious attention from me. All those years in prison in India, how many deaths is that worth?”

“You’re crazy!”

That’s when Romeo raised the handgun to my neck level, and caressed my throat with it. Kept caressing the whole, slow length of the bridge.

Karma is groping your way out of a maze. You know there’s an exit.

“You’re not doing so badly yourself, little Devi. I always say genes will win out.” Romeo was in a chatty mood.

Beg not for justice, and you won’t end up straitjacketed in a padded cell or drowned in shallow water in Land’s End. Make it happen!

Being stuck with an armed and crazy bio-parent in the rush-hour Marin-bound traffic organized my priorities. I
didn’t give a damn if I never found out details like the exact time of birth and name of birthplace. Go with the flow, as Fred Pointer’d counseled, keep your identity—your only asset—liquid. Breathe deep, relax.

“Take in the view,” I said to distract Bio-Daddy. “We’re proud of it.” That “we” had slipped out, startling me.

“Nice Jag,” Romeo agreed.

The Jaguar ahead of me had a bumper sticker that said
IT’S NEVER TOO LATE TO HAVE A HAPPY CHILDHOOD
.

“I myself prefer a Bentley,” he went on. “Benzes are vulgar, Beamers prosaic.”

“How about Alfa Romeos?” If it hadn’t been for that Spider Veloce cutting me off that August day at the border, I’d probably not be chauffeuring my father to Marin this February evening.

“Too moody.” He grinned. “Not worth the dough you have to shell out for it. Even as a kid keeping books for my father—hey, I forgot,
your
late grandfather; he owned a pedicab fleet—I could see myself in a white Bentley.”

“White?”

“Snow white. Why? I’ll tell you why.” The handgun on his lap, he launched into the Hawk family history. “Because my father, Yves Haque, ran the Snow White Pedicab Company of Saigon. Our surname—your name—was spelled H-a-q-u-e by then. H-a-q to H-a-q-u-e was strictly an economic decision. A penniless man makes his way out of Peshawar or someplace equally filthy, and peddles cigarettes, chewing gum, dirty cards in
Indochine
cities. Ib Haq was an okay moniker for that man. His son upgrades Haq to Haque, buys himself a Eurasian whore for a wife, and
makes what living he can driving pedicabs on the crowded streets of Saigon. Haque’s son, yours truly, Americanizes his name to H-a-w-k, and procures for GIs to-die-for dreams. A procurer is not, repeat not, a pimp. We’re talking imagination on the grand scale, Miss Dee. If you can supply satiety, there’ll always be appetite. I could have been a millionaire. The war was good, very good, and damn your Berkeley peaceniks. The war was
great
, especially since Vietnam wasn’t my real homeland. And then boom! my number one Bar-dolly decides to moonlight as the Cong’s number one Tigerlady. You ever see American and South Vietnamese interrogators do their multicultural interrogation thing? Ever see a bargirl acupunctured with sharpened bamboo sticks? I got out fast.”

“You turned her in?”

“Why not? A procurer’s goal is profit. Patriotism and personal loyalty are strictly for the naive. Your boss knows that. She bought her way out of jail by turning ‘approver’ on me. That I could forgive. I’d have done the same in her place, but stupidity? She thought I’d rot to death in jail or, better still, get killed. The only peace of mind she’s had for twenty years is thinking I’d never get out. Cads have more lives than cats.”

“No one says ‘cad’ anymore.” Frankie Fong said “cad,” but he was imitating British actors in white silk scarves and paisley silk dressing gowns.

“Three life sentences still leaves me plenty.” He pulled a letter or document out of the inner breast pocket of his stylish white jacket. The size and quality of the sheets of paper reminded me of the transcripts Fred had shown me
when I was cocktail waitressing at poor Beth’s club. I hadn’t murdered Fred, but I’d killed him.

I kept my eyes on the Pollyanna Jag while Romeo Hawk read aloud portions from the court transcript. He said, “ ‘
BARRISTER:
You are claiming that the defendant bought five Kingfisher beers for the deceased female at Shakti Bar, which is known to be frequented by prostitutes and hippies. Five quart-sized bottles would be enough to fell a habitual alcoholic. Is your claim supported by personal and visual witnessing?
APPROVER
: I was there at the Shakti that night. I have twenty-twenty vision.
BARRISTER
: Can you deny that you also were heavily imbibing?
APPROVER:
That’s irrelevant. He got her drunk so he could steal her passport and valuables, rape her, then garrote her. Garroting was a signature method with him.
BARRISTER:
You have this knowledge of theft, carnality and murder because you were present in the room and therefore you are not merely a witness to these deeds but also an accessory.
APPROVER
: Yes, I was present when he choked her to death. No, I wasn’t an accessory. He cast a spell over me with that body, that smile … I saw him kill Astrid, I mean the deceased female, I saw him kill her and I did nothing.’ What do you think, Devi? Is she guilty of accessorizing?”

Mother wore her guilt the way other women wore hats, scarves, earrings. The madman in my passenger seat didn’t know how right he was.

I crossed the Golden Gate Bridge.

Jess must have thought it was Ham coming back with hummus and pita when Romeo and I clambered on board
Last Chance
. She popped out on deck through a narrow doorway, very smart in white jeans and white sweater, shouting, “Sweetheart, did they still have the whole wheat we like?”