Point Doom (4 page)

“Well, I’ll make it a point to catch that preacher’s act on TV. I need better clothes and a new apartment.”

Southbay Bill didn’t reply. He had hung up.

AFTER I FINISHED
my call with Bill, Mom and Coco entered my room, each holding a cat. Mom asked about my job interview. I told her that I got the gig. A faint smile crossed her lips until she saw my coffee-stained clothes, then she made a face. “What happened there?” she asked, pointing at my ruined shirt and pants lying on the bed.

“My coffee spilled in the car,” I said. “A stupid accident.”

“Mercury retrograde,” she hissed. “I warned you, didn’t I? At least twice.”

Then Mom shook her head and she and Coco left the room. In a couple of minutes she was back, carrying her purse. She handed me her ATM card. “You can’t start a new job and not look respectable,” she said. “Go back to Santa Monica and buy some decent clothes. And bring me the receipt.”

As she was turning to leave the room, she stopped. “Need I remind you that you now owe me over three thousand dollars in personal loans? I’ve written it all down, not including the outlay for that preposterous so-called treatment program. Another five thousand dollars down the waste pipe, as far as I’m concerned. As you know, James, I keep accurate accounts. Every penny. And now that you have a new job, I fully expect you’ll be finding your own place again and making a beginning at a repayment plan.”

“I’m doing my best here, Ma. I’m trying to turn things around.”

“Really? Apparently you’ve forgotten that you lost a successful business and disgraced yourself and our family name. You call that doing your best?”

ON MY WAY
back to Santa Monica to buy new clothes, on the Coast Highway, I had to stop for a red light at Cross Creek Road. It had been an hour and a half since my visit to Guido’s Restaurant.

Looking over at the parking lot, thirty yards away, I caught sight of a white tow truck. Hooked to the back of the truck was a yellow Porsche convertible. The truck driver was writing something up on his clipboard while a woman still dressed in sunglasses and a black hoodie and jeans stood with her hands on her hips, looking on.

A moment later she turned her head and her attention wandered in the direction of the highway. Her eyes came to rest on Mom’s tomato-colored Honda, then on me. There was no mistaking her expression.

FIVE

H
e loved the California coastline. Over the years he had made the spectacular drive from San Diego to San Francisco no less than a dozen times in his elegant Millennium motor home. Until last week those drives had always been recreational and rejuvenating. Then suddenly, one of the young female charges who worked on his estate had gone missing and, on a tip from her jilted boyfriend, he had driven to Ensenada to find the girl and reassert his authority. Sadly, when the child had resisted and refused to return with him, he had had no choice but to kill her.

It was early afternoon on day three of his Highway 1 tour when he reached Santa Barbara. The girl’s body had been washed and dissected and was now stored in plastic bags in the cargo area of the motor home. The day’s outside temperature was a perfect seventy-two degrees and above him the sky was blue and faultless. After a less than enjoyable luncheon with a former female TV star at the Four Seasons, he refueled the motor home, returned several phone calls, then continued his drive north to enjoy the exquisite coastline.

The sun was beginning to set as he approached the Buellton–Solvang exit on Highway 1. From behind his vehicle a California Highway Patrol trooper’s flashing lights caused him to pull over. The tall woman who got out of the cruiser and approached his motor home wore mirrored sunglasses beneath her wide-brimmed hat. He noted that her tan uniform appeared tailored and fit her well.

As she rounded the front of his vehicle, he pressed his dash button, heard the hiss, and watched as the automatic door popped open.

He stood at the top of his carpeted steps as they began to speak. From six feet away he was able to read the lettering on her gold nametag. It spelled out the name, Trooper Spivak.

After handing the officer his driver’s license, vehicle registration, and insurance card, he was informed that he had failed to use his turn signal when exiting the highway and that she would be issuing him a summons for that offense.

He felt himself becoming annoyed and decided to speak bluntly to the woman. This was patent nonsense, he said. There had been almost no highway traffic behind him for several car lengths. Why then would he need to use his directional signal?

Trooper Spivak’s posture stiffened behind her sunglasses but she said nothing.

Then, as she was looking over his vehicle documents, she paused. “I smell something strange coming from inside your motor home, sir. Something smells funny,” she said.

Spontaneous killing had never been his métier. In fact he’d always considered it unrewarding and risky. Yet, quite suddenly, his options were limited.

Trooper Spivak set his license and registration documents on the carpeted steps of the motor home and began boarding. “I am ordering you to stay where you are, sir,” she said. Then she unholstered her service weapon.

His reaction was spontaneous but a bit sloppy. As she moved up the steps he kicked the woman in the stomach. She fell backward and her gun went off. The bullet entered her leg below the knee.

Ten minutes later, after gagging Trooper Spivak and restraining her on one of his motor home’s two facing leather recliners, he used her uniform’s thick belt around the injured leg to stop the blood flow. Following that he made his way to her vehicle, shut the motor off, then removed the car keys and a dash-mounted shotgun. In the cruiser’s trunk was the woman’s purse and a long-barreled stainless steel flashlight. He took these as well.

Heading north on Route 1, an hour passed before he reached the Bescara Resort Inn. It was dark now. He rounded the building’s registration entrance and then pulled his motor home into the rear parking area. It was a weeknight and the lot was nearly empty.

Trooper Spivak was conscious and struggling though her leg wound continued to ooze. The bullet had entered and exited through her calf but was not serious. He used a sedative injection to calm her, then retightened the belt on her leg.

After registering in the lobby and getting his room key he returned to the motor home. Spivak was still alert but more docile.

Putting on his plastic gloves he cut away her clothing with a pair of thick shears and replaced the tourniquet on her leg. The last items he clipped from her body were her boots, police bra, and pair of white Kmart panties. The panties had small pink roses rimming the waistband.

He decided against removing the officer’s mirrored sunglasses. To him the glasses symbolized the irony and absurdity of the situation she had put them both in.

After laying out his surgical tray he covered the motor home’s carpeting and the facing of the recliner with plastic sheeting and cleaned up the bloodstains as best he could. He then selected an appropriate musical accompaniment:
Mel Tormé’s Greatest Hits.

Leaning close to the woman, jostling her to make sure that she was conscious, he untied each arm separately and, with deft motions, broke them both at the shoulder joint.

After resecuring her he picked up a scalpel and reclined her chair. The facts were these: This police person had jeopardized his freedom and was, he felt, annoying and inappropriately aggressive. The decision was simple; her death would be a slow and painful one.

He elected that his initial cut would be fairly wide, a six-inch opening just beneath her rib cage. While she looked on he would remove her intestines and place the coiled mass on her naked chest.

He was about to make the first cut when he saw that his hand was trembling. He realized that he had allowed himself to become genuinely upset. The incident had thrown him off center.

Setting his scalpel down he leaned back and took several deep breaths. He needed to reassess his relationship to this person. He chided himself. He should, at the very least, at a minimum, be objective.

A minute passed and then he leaned closer to Trooper Spivak’s face, gently removing her mirrored sunglasses. He began stroking her cheek with the back of his hand. Spivak, whose eyes had been clamped closed, reacted to his touch by turning her head away.

Now he made a study of the woman before him. He observed that without the glasses, she was not displeasing. She was a big woman, certainly, wide-hipped, with acne scars on her face and jawline, but not unattractive—except for her nose.

He unfastened the clips that held her hair tightly in place against her head. In doing this the thickness of it fell to her shoulders.

Wanting to know more about her, he reached down and picked up her purse from the floor. From it he removed her lipstick, a makeup compact, her wallet, a postcard, a pack of Marlboro Lights, and a blue plastic lighter. He spread these across her naked chest and stomach and then dropped the purse back onto the carpet.

Trooper Spivak opened her eyes briefly, then clamped them closed again.

The postcard was the first thing he examined. It had a photo of the Atlantic City Boardwalk on the front. Turning the card over, he saw that it was signed by a person named Simone. According to what Simone had written, she and Willy were having a great time.

Setting the card down he opened Trooper Spivak’s gold-toned lipstick. He tasted it by drawing an X on his tongue. After deciding that the flavor pleased him, he dropped the lipstick into his shirt pocket.

He then opened her compact. It was plastic and white. He smelled the powder, then closed the lid. He put the compact back on Trooper Spivak’s chest, covering her right nipple.

Her California driver’s license gave her full name. Marta Denise Spivak. Her birthday was August 4. She was six feet two inches tall. She weighed one hundred and sixty-three pounds.

There was an assortment of photographs in her wallet’s plastic inserts, perhaps twenty in all. Most of them were of the same two women, both apparently Trooper Spivak’s sisters—they all shared the same flat nose. There was a picture of a bulldog as well. The animal was huge, with a brown spot over one eye. Toward the back of the photos there were several of children: a boy of about seven and two preteen sisters who had brown hair. Absent, he noted, were any pictures of a man—a husband or boyfriend.

Marta Spivak had twelve dollars in the wallet—a five and seven singles—plus loose change. She had one credit card, a Visa.

As he was dropping the coins back into the purse’s change slot she opened her eyes again and seemed to want to speak. The sock he had inserted into her mouth was her own filthy sock.

He removed the tape from her face and extracted the sock.

Spivak cleared her throat and spoke in a near whisper. “Take it all,” she said. “Whatever you want. Take it.”

As their glance met, he noticed that she had interesting eyes. Remarkable eyes, even. They radiated fear, of course, but in them there was also a dignity and a sense of what might be a quiet elegance. It made him recall the eyes and expression of the Egyptian statue of Nefertiti. He owned an original miniature from the Metropolitan Museum in New York and for years the tiny gold and black figure had been on view in a glass case on a shelf in the lower guest bathroom of his Malibu estate.

Mel Tormé was now crooning “Moon River.”

He leaned closer to Spivak. “Your first name is Marta. That’s a pretty name,” he said.

“Please. Please let me go.”

“Are your parents East European? Perhaps Ukrainian? The name Spivak means singer. Is Spivak your married name?”

“I’m not married. Look, take the money. Take the wallet. You can get more from the ATM too. I have about eight hundred dollars.”

“You have remarkable eyes, Marta,” he whispered. “In fact, you have the eyes of royalty.”

“Please—just let me go, okay?”

It was only now that he came to understand the real purpose of their meeting. No question, it was her eyes.

For him the universe was one of symmetry and order. There were, of course, no accidents. True, Trooper Spivak had been the source of a possible summons that afternoon but he had nearly squandered their coming together by his haste and destructive emotions. He had nearly lost the opportunity for this . . . intimacy.

“You’re quite tall,” he said quietly.

“I know.”

“Do you have a boyfriend?”

“Look—”

“Yes or no, Marta?”

“Yes. Okay. Sort of.”

“You don’t have his photograph in your wallet. Will you tell me why?”

“I threw it away.”

“You threw his photo away? Why would you do that?”

“We had an argument.”

“ You strike me as a by-the-book type of person. Is that accurate?”

“I don’t know. I just try to do my job.”

“Is this boyfriend employed by the California Highway Patrol? Is he also a trooper?”

“He works construction.”

“How long have you been dating?”

“Look, please listen to me. You can still let me go.”

“Tell me, Marta, have you had an energetic romantic life with this . . . boyfriend?”

“Please—I won’t tell anyone. I promise.”

“What’s the boyfriend’s name? I’d like to know it, if you don’t mind.”

“Louis. His name’s Louis.”

“Does Louis look into your eyes . . . in romantic moments? Does Louis do that?”

“I don’t know. Yes, I guess he does that.”

“Has Louis ever told you that you have the eyes of royalty, Marta—the eyes of an Egyptian queen?”

“No. He’s never said that.”

“Well, you do. I assure you that you do.”

“I don’t want to die.”

“Do you believe it possible that you and I are here today, let us say, for a purpose?”

“I just try to do my job. That’s all it is—just a job.”

“I believe that who we are is how we express ourselves in the world. If I may, I will quote Heraclitus, the ancient Greek philosopher, who said,
‘Ethos anthropos daimon.’
Character is fate.”

He looked down at Marta’s brown boots and excised clothing. Then he picked up the contents of her purse from her chest and set them on the floor with her other things. He then brought his mouth to her ear. “I apologize for my rudeness this afternoon. I admit to have behaved poorly. In fact I now believe you to be a special person. I believe that you have been selected.”

“You’re going to kill me. Is that it?”

“I broke the law this afternoon by not using my turn signal. I am guilty as charged. I will send in the money. How much is the fine?”

“I don’t know.”

“I pride myself on keeping my word, Marta.”

He picked up her mirrored sunglasses and put them back on her. Then, with his large hands, he forced her jaw open and shoved the sock back inside her mouth. Then he retaped her face.

Getting up, he crossed the carpet to a row of built-in supply cabinets made of natural mahogany. He had paid several thousand dollars extra during the construction of his motor home for natural wood instead of the standard laminate facing. Opening one of the cabinets, he removed a jar of petroleum jelly.

Returning to Marta he reached down and picked up the long-barreled stainless steel flashlight. As she looked on, he coated the tube with lubricant; then he leaned close to her ear. “It’s time to begin now, Marta,” he whispered.

It was after midnight when he punched in the number of his assistant Raoul at his Malibu estate. His call was answered on the second ring.

“Raoul,” he said, “I’ll need your help.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’m at the Bescara Inn off Route 1 an hour or two north of Santa Barbara.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Bring two cars and two of the men.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Burn the motor home after you dispose of the remains inside. The motor home should look as if it were vandalized—torn seats, stolen electronics, broken fixtures. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Burn it to the ground.”

“Yes, sir, I understand.”

“I’ll be asleep. My suite number is 125. There are two tall potted cactuses on either side of my room’s door. I believe they are
Adenia glauca
. Leave the keys to one of the cars on the floor behind the cactus. The one on the left as you face the room.”

“Will you be returning to Malibu, sir?”

“Good night, Raoul.”

“Good night, sir.”