The Vanishing (15 page)

‘‘When he’’—Carrie looked behind her, lowered her voice—‘‘saw Juan?’’

‘‘No. When I get pregnant. I tell him and he disappear.’’

It turned out that she had no idea where he lived, that their trysts had always occurred in motel rooms or cars, and immediately Carrie’s opinion of him shifted. Whereas she’d been imagining the kind, cultured, handsome man described by Rosalia, she now saw a cynical user, an exploiter of innocent immigrants.

Carrie had tried to get Rosalia to give her more information about the man, explaining that he was responsible for child support and that she was going to make sure that he did right by his son, but Rosalia clammed up and would say no more, bursting into tears once again and ordering Carrie to leave her apartment.

On the stage, ‘‘Ten Musicians’’ ended. There was no speech this time, thank God. Another piece simply started just as the applause started to taper off. ‘‘The Gate,’’ according to the program. She tried to enjoy it, but the music seemed just as boring as its predecessor, and once again her mind wandered. She found herself thinking about Holly and her son—

—and the slaughter that had occurred in their slummy apartment. Even amid the heat of bodies in the crowded auditorium, her skin prickled with gooseflesh. As far as she knew, the police were nowhere on this. There were no suspects, no leads, and despite the assurances she’d received, Carrie was not at all sure that they were working as hard as they could to solve the murders. After all, the victims were only a hooker and her deformed son.

But Rhino Boy had been in the
Weekly Globe
. Press attention always put pressure on the police. So maybe they were trying their best.

Maybe the killer wasn’t human.

Carrie pushed those thoughts away, tried to concentrate again on the music. Ever since that day in the apartment, there’d been a nagging sensation in the back of her mind that she’d done her damnedest to ignore, a small voice telling her that Holly and her son—

—were connected to things that she could not hope to understand. Deep things. Dark things. She’d assumed that the feeling would fade over time, but it hadn’t, and the fear she’d experienced in that tenement building could be called up at any time, as fresh and real as ever.

‘‘The Gate’’ was mercifully short and ended just at that moment. Applause took her mind off her reverie, and the next performer, a former punk rocker from her youth who was now a balding chubby folkie, not only distracted her but kept her engaged. In fact, she remained interested and attentive for the remainder of the program.

An announcement was made at the end of the show that over $200,000 had been raised tonight for the cause, and even Carrie stood and clapped for that astonishingly good news.

The biggest benefactor by far was Lew Haskell, and before the program began, he’d stood up to give a speech about the importance of an involved citizenry and how it was incumbent upon society’s most fortunate to give back to the community and help out those who were less fortunate, especially in these days of seemingly endless government budget cuts, when elected officials thought the Constitutional reference to ‘‘promote the general welfare’’ meant cutting services for the poor in order to cut taxes for the rich. ‘‘This is our country,’’ he said. ‘‘We’re all in this together.’’ Carrie had been told in no uncertain terms that she was expected to meet with him, to convey the department’s gratitude, and at the mixer afterward, she approached the philanthropist as he stood next to a pillar at the bottom of the sweeping stairway, drink in hand. He was talking to a well-known author who’d won every literary prize imaginable for a trilogy of novels set in frontier California that contained no punctuation of any kind. She’d tried to read one but had never been able to get through it, and she was inwardly pleased to discover that the writer was just as pompous and pretentious as she’d imagined him to be. She didn’t feel guilty at all for hating his work.

Haskell’s speech had been inspiring—as those things went—and she told him so in preface to thanking him for his generous contribution to the city’s safety net, particularly the donations earmarked for Social Services. The author next to him smirked and made some sort of ironic comment, but Carrie ignored him and so did Haskell. In fact, her generic thank-you somehow turned into an honest-to-God conversation. The writer grew bored and drifted away, but Haskell spoke earnestly of transforming the way the poor were treated in America, and Carrie had to admit that she was impressed. Being in the trenches every day, she didn’t exactly have the luxury of considering grand overviews, but she was glad that someone did, and she was glad that it was someone with sensibilities that paralleled her own. It made her feel more hopeful about the future, more optimistic.

Other people arrived, more important people, and though she wasn’t exactly dismissed, Haskell’s attention was drawn away from her, and after a polite interval Carrie excused herself and got away. She grabbed a diet Sprite from the bar, was accidentally roped into a depressing conversation with a pair of community activists, then finally managed to sneak over to the elevators and escape.

Although most of the movers and shakers were still upstairs, a majority of the people who’d come to the benefit were already leaving, and getting out of the parking garage took just as long as she’d feared. Still, she wasn’t in the mood to go home yet—besides, tomorrow was Saturday, and she could sleep in—so she drove by the arts district to check out some of the galleries.

Check out some of the galleries?

Who was she kidding? She wasn’t a frequenter of art galleries. In fact, she hadn’t been anywhere near this section of the city since she and Matt had broken up. The truth was that the only reason she was here now was because she’d seen an article in an alternative newspaper that said Matt had an installation displayed in one of the newer, hipper spaces. Did she want to see the installation? No.

Did she want to see Matt again?

Maybe.

She really
was
pathetic.

If it hadn’t been for that stupid benefit, such an idea wouldn’t even have occurred to her. She would be safely at home, ensconced in her bed, watching TV or catching up on her reading. But she was out and about, and Matt’s presence was like a magnet. She was ashamed of herself, embarrassed, but powerless to resist. The ironic thing was, their relationship hadn’t even been that great. And it hadn’t lasted that long. But it
had
been her most recent relationship, and emotionally at least, that granted it an importance that perhaps it didn’t deserve.

She lucked out and turned the corner onto Geary just as a powder-blue Mercedes pulled out of a prime parkingspot in front of the Landau Gallery. Carrie shoved her Celica into the space before someone else could get it and, after shutting off the engine, dug through her purse, looking for quarters for the meter. She had a wad of one-dollar bills, three dimes, four pennies and a nickel—but no quarters. When had parking meters stopped taking other coins? Who was the moron who’d decided that the machines would accept only a single denomination?

She finally found a quarter under the mat on the floor of the passenger seat and got out, dropping it into the meter. It gave her only fifteen minutes, but that should be enough. After all, she wasn’t going to hang out. She was just going to take a quick peek and be on her way.

And she could always get change if need be.

The Lo Fi Gallery, where Matt’s installation was on display, was a block from the Landau, and Carrie walked down the crowded sidewalk, her stomach tightening as she approached. She knew she should turn around and go home, but she couldn’t. So instead, she slowed down, looking in the windows of each shop and gallery she passed, her steps getting smaller the closer she came to the end of the block.

She looked at a boutique filled with primitive arts and crafts from Central America. She pretended to examine a group of metal sculptures made from pieces of old cars.

And in one of the gallery windows she saw a wall-sized photograph of . . .

Juan.

No, Carrie realized instantly. It wasn’t really Juan. And it wasn’t the Rhino Boy either. But the child depicted in the photo suffered from the same sort of affliction that had disfigured both children—except that this boy’s face resembled a possum’s. The picture could have been doctored, she knew. One of the artists could have combined two images to make some statement about . . . something. But, no, that wasn’t the case. This was a photograph of a real child. The art was in the lighting and composition, not in any darkroom tricks.

She stared at the bristly face with its protuberant snout. Maybe there was an epidemic of birth defects out there, attributable to chemical exposure or some other environmental factor.

Stop it,
she chided herself. She’d been searching for a rational, scientific explanation for all of this ever since the police had interviewed her at Holly’s apartment, even though she knew good and well that rationality had nothing to do with the horrors she had seen. There was something else at work here, something that defied logic. She felt like Bill Pullman in
The Serpent and the Rainbow
, who’d discovered that beneath the political mess in Haiti was an older evil filled with voodoo spirits and magic.

That was slightly melodramatic, wasn’t it?

She thought of the Rhino Boy’s head atop the dresser in that dingy bedroom.

Maybe not.

Carrie walked into the gallery to see if there were other photos of other children, hoping the artist was there so she could talk to him or her about the picture in the window. But of course no one was in the gallery save a smug and snotty young clerk. There
were
other photos, though, and Carrie walked slowly through the room, examining them all. Most were of the boy, showing him holding a lunchbox, playing on a swing set, riding a bike—heartbreaking juxtapositions of his grotesque physical appearance with the everyday realities of an ordinary childhood. The most disturbing shot was of the child with his mother, a young attractive Asian woman with all the accoutrements of the young and hip— two-toned hair, pierced lip and nose, multiple tattoos— and a look of sad resignation on her features that made her seem far, far older than she was.

Although the clerk arrogantly refused to answer any of the questions she put to him, the gallery’s front table contained photocopies of a review of the show from one of the local alterna-papers, as well as a bio of the photographer—John Mees. Carrie took one of each, intending to read them at home, and if possible, get in touch with the man and see if she could find out more about the boy in the photos. She left the gallery, unaware of how nervous and on edge she’d been until she was once again out in the cool evening air. The sidewalk was crowded with people, but still it felt more free and open than the empty gallery.

She’d lost the desire to see either Matt or his work, and instead of continuing on down the block, she turned around and went back to her car, where she found that the meter had already expired. Had she been gone that long? It sure didn’t feel like it. Luckily, there was no ticket on her windshield, and she quickly got in, started the engine and pulled out into traffic. Someone honked at her from behind, but she ignored the jerk and made a series of turns that allowed her to circle back the way she had come.

On the way home, her anxiousness faded somewhat, and she wished she
had
stopped by Matt’s gallery. She felt lonely and could have used a little companionship tonight. He wouldn’t have come through for her, though. He didn’t want her back; he’d moved on. And, knowing him, he would have been rude and spiteful. He knew exactly which buttons to push in order to hurt her, and he would have pushed them with glee. Things had worked out much better this way, now that she thought about it, and she was glad that the two of them hadn’t reconnected.

Besides, she wouldn’t have been able to concentrate on him or his art or anything. Not with those images from the gallery swirling through her mind.

And the images of Juan.

And the Rhino Boy.

Rhino Boy.
She wished she knew that child’s real name. It pained her to refer to him by his tabloid moniker, and she felt awful even thinking the phrase to herself.

It had been a long day, and once home, Carrie tiredly dumped her purse on the coffee table in the living room, got herself a drink of water from the kitchen, then trudged into the bathroom, where she changed out of her uncomfortable dress and scrubbed the makeup off her face before climbing into bed. She masturbated quickly and quietly, thinking of Matt, then pulled up her pajama bottoms, rolled onto her side and promptly fell asleep.

Ten

After the benefit, Haskell had his driver take him home. He glanced out the window as the limo purred through the city and across the bridge, smoked glass filtering out everything save the lights of the buildings. There’d been four or five women at the after party who would have gladly come with him—and Lord knows Suzonne wouldn’t have given a shit if they had—but he felt tired this evening, and his body needed sleep more than sex.

Home when he was in California was a spectacular steel-and-glass structure in Marin, overlooking the bay. It was his newest house and also his favorite. His friend Frank Gehry had designed it, drawing the initial rough sketch on the back of an envelope—an envelope he now had framed and hanging in his office—and it had been featured in a host of architectural magazines as well as in a PBS special.

He was proud of the house, as he was proud of all of his houses, but he also genuinely liked it. He felt comfortable here. And it was perfectly suited to the special needs of his family.

Although upkeep was a bitch.

The limo pulled to a stop at the head of the circular driveway, and he let himself out, telling the driver to be in exactly the same spot at six in the morning; tomorrow was going to be a busy day. He watched the car cruise down the sloping drive to the garage, then turned to face the house and the bay beyond. Across the water, the lights of San Francisco twinkled in the fog, subdued and softened into something almost painterly.