The Remake (30 page)

R.J. pushed the gear lever into Park and got out.

He grabbed up the dead branch he had hauled out and wedged it under the drive wheel. The branch was sure turning out to be handy. I should carry one with me from now on, he thought.

Back behind the wheel he gave the gas slow, steady pressure. The car moved forward over the slick spot. The tires kept gripping and he inched forward.

Now he was sure. It was no reflection from the water. He had hooked something shiny.

He moved forward slowly, steadily, until the something hit the shallows and broke water. Then it lurched and bumped up onto the bank and lay there while R.J. got out and went down to look at it.

It was a Harley-Davidson motorcycle.

Big one.

CHAPTER 37

“The bike is registered to a member of the Devil Hoggs Motorcycle Club. His name is Burton Weisbrod,” Trooper Bentt told R.J. “But nobody really knows that. They call him Jingo.”

Bentt threw a folder on the desk of Schmidt’s office. “His common-law wife reported him missing last week. She thought he was skipping out on child support.”

“He is,” R.J. said. “The hard way.”

“I’ve talked to a judge,” Captain Schmidt said, still without showing any emotion. “He’s giving me a court order for an exhumation of the body of William Kelley.” He nodded one time, at R.J. or at the folder. Maybe both. “I think we’ll find it’s Weisbrod.”

“You’re a good cop, Captain,” R.J. said. “Think you can work a transfer to Manhattan Homicide?”

Schmidt shook his head and looked up at Brent. “Nope,” he said. “I like the cows.”

By the time R.J. got back to the city it was dark.

He turned in his rental car and took the opportunity to
walk the mile or so back to his apartment. New York was his city and he had missed it.

There were still crowds pushing through the streets. Going to dinner, or coming back from dinner. Trying to get in a few last-minute deals. Scrambling for a buck, hurrying to meet somebody. Hustling one last victory, for love or money, wrestling satisfaction from the city.

There was always an incredible energy in the city. Not in the California sense of
aura,
but real, literal energy. It made you feel clearheaded and tireless.

Just being here made R.J. walk faster, think harder, work a little quicker. It was why he had moved here and made it his home so many years ago. The way it made the blood pound through his veins—The first time he felt it, he couldn’t believe he’d lived so long without that feeling. It was like realizing he’d been only half alive all those years.

Something emanated from the pavement, made everybody move a little faster. And in spring it got stronger, as if the melting slush was letting it out after five months of cold storage.

You almost didn’t need to sleep if you lived in Manhattan.

R.J. didn’t want to think about going back to California. It was like being forced to take a nap when you really wanted to play baseball.

But he was going back, he knew that. He had to stop Kelley. He didn’t want to; Janine Wright had it coming, if anybody did. She’d taken away R.J.’s past with the remake, and his future with Casey.

Whatever future that might be. He hadn’t had time to think about what was going on between them, and he still didn’t. But now, working his way along the Manhattan sidewalk, he wondered what he would do if he had to choose between Casey and New York.

It could happen. Whatever happened with the remake, Casey had sipped from the big bottle of show biz. It was an addictive brew, R.J. knew. She might not want to come home.

She might decide to make her career there, in Hollywood, in a place and an occupation R.J. had left behind him forever. He’d had to leave it behind, or he knew he’d turn into something he wouldn’t want to share a bus ride with.

So what if she stayed? What then? Could he tell her so long? No hard feelings? It’s been swell, drop me a line sometime?

Could he say good-bye to her?

Could he say it to New York?

He didn’t want to choose, wasn’t sure he could. But it seemed like that was the way things generally shaped up. A month ago he’d been riding high and now—

A half second before the guy bumped into him R.J. noticed the smell. It was a cross between patchouli oil and a bus station urinal.

Then he was grunting from the impact of a shoulder in his chest and an elbow in his gut.

When he straightened up, he found an intense-looking bearded guy with matted hair, staring him down with hard, bright eyes. He was crusted over with dirt and something else that made the dirt look clean and wholesome. He looked like a walking scab.

“Now I’ve got your attention,” the guy said, “are you ready to hear the word?” And he held up a Bible almost as crusty as he was.

“I’ve heard the word,” R.J. said. “It’s
syzygy.
”

The scab shook his head. A small clot of something fell off his head and onto his shoulder. It moved.

“Don’t fight it,” he said. “Open yourself and be free.”

“I can’t open yet,” R.J. told him. “I’m still remodeling.” R.J. pushed on past, shaking his head.

The guy started preaching anyway, and his voice followed R.J. for two blocks, rising and falling and flailing at the ears of all the people on the sidewalk. The people just shrugged him off, one or two nudging him a little harder than usual as they passed.

R.J. grinned and shook his head. For a moment or two he forgot all about Kelley and Casey and California, swept away again by another of those little surprises the city always threw at you.

How could he leave this place?

How could he go back to California, to that desert where nothing could live or grow?

He wasn’t sure he could do it. He was like a junkie, and without the rush he got from Manhattan—

And Casey? Was it worth living here without her? She’d become part of what he loved about his city. In some ways, she represented the spirit of New York to R.J. Beautiful and classy and at the same time, kick-you-in-the-balls tough.

And if she stayed out there long enough, that would be gone, too. She would become somebody else. Somebody who made deals on a cellular phone from the driver’s seat of a convertible.

That wasn’t the Casey he knew. She didn’t belong there, and neither did he.

Anyway, he had to go back, for a little while. He just wasn’t going back alone.

Ilsa was glad to see him again. Or she said she was, until R.J. got a bowl of food down onto the floor for her. Then she let him know that she was deeply disappointed in his recent lack of character.

His apartment felt strangely dead after the cold of that Connecticut river bank and the hustling crowd in the street. He sat on the sofa for a second, just trying to collect himself. Then he picked up the phone and dialed.

“Hello, Bob,” he said to the quietly hostile voice that answered. “I need to talk to Mary.”

R.J. could hear the breath hiss out of Roberta. She didn’t say anything, just hissed. But she put the phone down extra-hard and R.J. had to rub his ear to get the feeling back into it.

R.J. heard footsteps retreating, mumbling, then faster, lighter feet returning. In a moment Mary picked up.

“Hello? R.J.? Is it really you?” She sounded breathless. Maybe weary and older, too, but like she had hurried when she found out it was him.

“It’s me,” he said. “I need to talk to you.”

“Is it—anything about Mother?”

“No. But it’s something I’d rather tell you to your face.”

“Oh—I could meet you somewhere.” She lowered her voice to something just above a whisper. “Roberta doesn’t want you here.”

“That’s one of the things I want to talk to you about,” R.J. said. “Have you eaten yet?”

CHAPTER 38

He met her at Ferrini’s. He had started to think of it as
their
place, and anyway the kid knew where it was. Besides, there was no place like it in Los Angeles, and he was on his way back there, all too soon.

It was night, so Ferrini himself was at the door. He didn’t sing arias when he saw them; after all, he was the owner, and he had a big mustache whose dignity he had to protect.

But he did give R.J. a small bow and a slight smile of recognition, and he led them himself to a good table.

R.J. let Ferrini seat Mary, using the time to study her. She still looked better than any other woman in the place, R.J. thought. But she had lost some weight, and she couldn’t really afford to. There were bags under her eyes that her clumsy makeup couldn’t hide. Even her hair was slightly off. It looked a little bit like a wig that didn’t quite fit and wasn’t properly cared for.

Mary glanced up and caught him staring. She blushed; even in the dim light R.J. could see the flush spread over her face.

He smiled. “You look good, kid,” he told her.

She shook her head with a small, tight movement. “No, I don’t. I look awful. But that’s—” She fluttered a hand at him. “I feel like… I don’t know. The walls close in on me in Roberta’s apartment, but I can’t do anything about it. I just sit there with the TV on, but I don’t—I can’t concentrate on anything and—Just…trapped.”

“You need to get out of there. Get yourself to some place else, do something to get back together again.”

“I don’t—How? What?”

R.J. reached across the table and patted her hand. “I know it seems like you can’t move or do anything. But you can. And when you do, you’ll find that things will start to shape up again.” He looked at her carefully before he went on. She seemed to be a little better. “I want you to come to California with me.”

She jerked upright, nearly spilling her water glass. “That’s—What do you mean? Back to Mother?”

“No. Relax, I’m not shilling for your mother. You can stay as far away from her as you want. In fact, I recommend it. But something’s come up and I want you there for it. I may need you there.”

“What’s come up? I can’t—What kind of thing could I possibly help with?”

“I think your father’s alive, Mary.”

Mary blinked at him once. Then she fell out of her chair in a dead faint and hit the floor with a soft thump.

When a pretty girl faints in an Italian restaurant, the result is somewhere between a soap opera and a circus. For the next few minutes R.J. watched as everyone, from Ferrini himself to the cook on down to the busboy, raced around, calling out loudly and bringing dozens of glasses of water, cool wet cloths, small beakers of
grappa
—they even found some smelling salts somewhere.

And they all managed to find a moment to glare at R.J. with strong disapproval. After all, he must have done
something
to the poor girl.

In fact, the busboy, who was young and not too sophisticated, mumbled, “
Bruto,
” as he cleared away the spilled water glass.

R.J. took it all without worrying too much, once he was sure that the kid was okay. He would find a quiet moment someday soon and ask Angelo Bertelli to explain to Ferrini what had happened. It would probably be good for a free glass of wine next time he came in. Which he wouldn’t drink. But what the hell.

Either it wasn’t much of a faint or Mary was a lot more resilient than any other fainter R.J. had ever seen. It was only ten minutes later that she was propped up in her chair, sipping a glass of
acqua minerale.
She was still as pale as you can get unless you’re in a vampire movie, but she was coping.

“All right,” she said at last, taking in a big breath and closing her eyes for a second. “What’s this about my father?”

R.J. looked at her carefully before speaking.

She shook her head slightly, just enough to toss back a small wing of hair that had fallen across her face. “Relax,” she said, with a trace of her old toughness, “I’m not going to pull another flop on you.”

“That’s good,” R.J. said. “From the looks I’ve been getting, I’d say the staff here will put me under the end zone at the Meadowlands if I make you faint again.”

“My father,” she said. “You said you think he might be…alive?”

“Yeah. That’s right. I could be wrong.”

“But why do you think he is alive?”

She was starting to breathe a little too fast again and R.J. put his hand across the table and grabbed her wrist. “Listen,” he said. “This isn’t all good news. In some ways it would be better if all this was over and he was really dead.”

She pulled her hand away and shook her head. “Dead is never better,” she said.

“Sure it is,” he said. “If you want to remember a father who was a sweet and caring man, an innocent victim of your awful
mother. Because if he’s alive, he’s a killer. A bad one. And he’s getting ready to kill again.”

“That doesn’t matter. He’s my father. If he’s alive, I just want to see him.”

R.J. looked at her across the table. Even in the dim light of the restaurant he could see something in her face he hadn’t seen before. It was a look that said, as long as I get what I want, I don’t care how high the bodies stack up. It was exactly the same thing he’d seen in her mother, Janine Wright.