Westlake, Donald E - Novel 50 (14 page)

 
          
O
Connor looks at Jack Pine's closed eyes. They've been closed for some time,
down beneath his palely gleaming forehead. When they first went to half-mast,
and then all the way shut, O'Connor was worried, expecting the actor to pass
out again, but in some ways he's been more coherent since the hatches were
battened, speaking with a kind of pathetic vivacity about his religious period,
moving right along in sensible sentences, almost totally free of non sequitur
and silence.

 
          
Until now.
A silence has now arrived and is lengthening.
O'Connor wants the star to tell the story himself, all the irrelevant stuff
just as much as the stuff that has a bearing on the case, so he's been giving
the fellow his head, letting him ramble on. But silence doesn't help, doesn't
explain what happened here last night. At last, O'Connor leans forward, softly
says, “Mr. Pine? You're at the ranch. The Reverend Cornbraker is a fake.”

 
          
A
long low sigh escapes the actor's lips. In equal and opposite reaction, he
settles back and to the left, listing slightly, like a ship suffering a small hole
below the water line.

 
          
“Mr.
Pine?"

 
          
His
voice slurring, sleepy, hoarse, Jack murmurs, “I was happy, then ... on the
ranch . . . with God." And he folds over and down onto the slate, on his
left side, curled into fetal position.

 
          
“Shit!"
O'Connor says, and looks around, wishing there was somebody else to take over
this duty. It's like pulling teeth, for Christ's sake. “Mr. Pine?" he
says, then louder, calling, “Mr. Pine? Mr. Pine?"

 
          
No
reaction. The actor’s breathing seems shallower, more ragged. His forehead
seems even paler and gleams less.
Beginning to feel concern,
O'Connor looks toward the house, calling, “Hoskins!"

 
          
And
that faithful servant appears at once, moving at an ungainly but rapid trot
from the house, holding up in one hand a hypodermic needle. When he arrives, he
nods at O'Connor. “You called," he says.

 
          
“You
see," O'Connor says, gesturing at the unconscious actor.

 
          
“Yes,"
Hoskins says, nodding. “I thought it might be time for dire measures."

 
          
Dropping
to one knee beside his recumbent employer, Hoskins deftly pulls up the
unconscious man's pale blue terry-cloth robe, revealing a buttock as high and
round and pale and vulnerable as that sleeping forehead. With practiced
economy, Hoskins jabs the hypodermic needle into that buttock.

 
          
“George!"
exclaims Jack, in his sleep, in playful mock surprise, as his limbs quiver and
are still.

 
          
Steadily,
Hoskins depresses the plunger. Steadily, the clear fluid in the syringe flows
into Jack Pine's bum. Withdrawing the needle, Hoskins restores the robe to its
former position and rises, saying, “He'll be right as rain in no time now,
sir."

 
          
“For how long?"
O’Connor asks. The pages of notes
inexorably filling his notebook seem—at least at this stage—mostly useless,
with no more than hints and faint clues as to what led to the dreadful finish
last night in this house. Nevertheless, this still seems to O'Connor the best
way to get at the truth, unless it's going to take forever. “How long can I
have him?" O'Connor asks. “How long can he operate at all?"

 
          
“Hard
to say," Hoskins says, studying the fallen actor. He
shrugs,
his manner brisk. “Call when needed," he suggests, and strides away again
toward the house, empty syringe held high.

 
          
O'Connor,
remaining in his canvas chair, leans toward the unconscious man. Was that
movement just
now,
or merely the play of light and
shadow as a small cloud crossed the sun? “Mr. Pine?" O'Connor calls. “Mr.
Pine?"

 
          
“I
left my homework on the bus," comes the murmured answer.

 
          
“Mr.
Pine! Dammit, wake up!"

 
          
Jack
Pine twitches, all over his body, then rolls out flat onto his back, eyes wide
open, staring upward, drawing the pale ashiness of the summer sky deep into
those eyes, so that they seem ancient and blind, consumed with gray fire. “It
all goes back," he croaks, in a voice that echoes as though emerging from
the deepest pit of Hell, “it all goes back—I remember—"

 
          
Screams, screaming, engine roars, flashing
lights in red and white reflecting from the bumper chrome, slicking on the
heaving trunk of the car, madness, danger, movement, peril, speed . . .

 
          
“No!”

 
          
I
roll over onto my face, nose rooting deep into the cool hard slate; pain is
good, it distracts, it drives the thoughts away. Reaching down and back behind
myself, I grab handfuls of terry-cloth
robe,
pull it
up over my head, hiding from the sky and the past and everything. Cool air
soothes my bare behind, where one spot tickles and stings; a mosquito must have
got me while I was napping. (Good, an irrelevant thought. Keep ’em coming, for
Christ's sake!)

 
          
“Mr.
Pine? Mr. Pine?”

 
          
I
thrash with my ankles in protest, wanting no one to be here, wanting to be
called from nowhere, wanting oblivion, dear sweet oblivion, dear God
oblivion.

 
          
“It's
me, Mr. Pine,” the maddening voice says. “Michael O'Connor.”

 
          
I
stop kicking with my ankles, stop stubbing my toes against the patio slate. I
lift my head, wearing the terry- cloth robe around my face like a pale blue
monk's cowl. I gaze away across my gray-green lawn beneath the gray- blue sky,
past my gray-white house. I become thoughtful. “Michael O’Connor/' I say,
judiciously, hefting the name, contemplating it. “A good name,” 1
decide
.
“Very solid.
Td
like
to be
Michael O’Connor for a while.
Several days.
Drive a
Volvo.’’ I twist around to look past my pale blue cowl and my pale blue
shoulder and my pale white ass at this person named Michael O'Connor, whoever
or whatever else he might be. I see a neat dull man, nondescript, and yet
somehow familiar. Am I going to be expected to
remember
something? Ignoring that idea, I say, “Do you drive a
Volvo?’’

 
          
“As
a matter of fact,’’ he said, “no.
A Saab.''

 
          
“Damn,”
I say. “Wrong again.’’ Then I become more aware of that gleaming ass of mine,
down there beyond my blue shoulder. I'm
naked
in front of this guy! A wind must have come up, blown my robe up over me while
I was deep in contemplation of, of, of something or other.

 
          
I
pull the robe back down over myself, roll over, continue the robe adjustments
for some little
while,
and at last sit up, barely even
noticing how easy it
is
to sit up. I
must be in better shape than I thought. I look at Michael O'Connor, a neat and
self-contained man, if drab, seated with knees
together,
pen in right hand, some sort of memo pad on his lap. He looks familiar, in a
kind of a way. Memory stirs. (Not
that
memory.
This
memory.)
I say, “Aren't you the guy I was talking to the other day?’’

 
          
“Just
now,'' O'Connor tells me. “
Right here.
We've been
talking right here.''

 
          
“I
thought you were the guy,'' I say, smiling with easy familiarity, covering a
certain embarrassment. “Remind me,’’ I say, “
fill
me
in.
Insurance?''

 
          
“Actually,''
O'Connor says, with a charming diffidence, “I wanted to know about Buddy Pal. You
were telling me your life story.’’

 
          
Then
it comes rushing back.
(That
doesn’t.
This
does.) I slap my forehead, I
wave my arms around, I kick my legs,
I
do every
silent-movie how-dumb-I-am move I can remember. I say, “The interview!
Of course!''
Then, confidentially, man to
man, bringing him aboard, making him a member of the team, I say, “Pal, you
gotta forgive me on this.
My schedule's very complex. I'm just off a
picture, you know, the
Gone with the Wind
remake, and I just . . ." I wave hands.

 
          
“I
understand,'' O'Connor says.
Sympathetic guy.
I could
get along with this fella.

 
          
I
open my heart to him even more. “I was straight for weeks, Mike, and then—
Is
it Mike or Michael?''

 
          
“Usually
Michael," he says.

 
          
I
might have guessed. There's something prissy about this guy, uptight, not loose
and relaxed. Well, anyway, let's befriend him just the same. “I was straight a
long time, Michael," I say, “and then something happened, upset me, I
fell— . . ."

 
          
“What
was that, Mr. Pine? What upset you?"

 
          
“Doesn't
matter, Michael," I tell him, waving it away with a carefree hand. “That's
ancient history. That's archives, Michael. The point is
,
I
wasted
myself. I'd been taking a
taste here, a hit there, a pop somewhere else, you know what I mean?
Maintaining.
That's my idea of being on the dope wagon,
Michael, maintaining that nice balance, that easy lope through life." And
I wonder
,
am I using his name too often? Do I risk
moving beyond manly camaraderie to starrish condescension? Best back off; keep
on the good side of the press, that's the name of the game. “Where were
we?" I ask him. “Did I tell you about Marcia, my first wife?"

 
          
“Yes,
sir," he says.

 
          
“Pow!"
I tell him, taking a poke at the air. “Right in
the kisser, you know?"

 
          
“You
were at the ranch," he reminds me. “Buddy Pal had just told you the
Reverend Cornbraker was a con man."

 
          
“And
child molester," I say.
“Oh, yeah.
Things got
kind of grim at the ranch around then. Meantime, life wasn’t so hot down at the
beach, either."

 
          
The
kitchen of the
Malibu
house was as modern and shiny as ever, still a pale symphony in white
and stainless steel and blond butcher block, but there was an indefinable sense
of laxity about the place now, an impression of disinterest, a falling-off of
care. On the shelf beneath the cabinets, for instance, the canisters were no
longer in size places. Some silverware lay about, the trash can was full, and
the pot on a back burner of the stove had a faintly grungy look.

 
          
Dad
had brought a small portable television set into the kitchen and put it on the
white table at the eat-in end of the room. He sat there now, switching his
teeth from hand to hand as he watched golf. At the butcher-block island,
Constanza sat on a high stool, looking at snapshots and drinking a glass of
milk, with the milk carton near at hand. Over by the refrigerator (fingermarks
around the handle), Mom was angrily on the phone, saying, “Whadaya mean, he
isn't there? You
always
say he isn't
there! He's my son, isn't he? He's my own goddamn son out of my own goddamn
body
, isn't he? Why can't I talk to my
own goddamn son if I want
to
"

 
          
“The
twins are gettin' bigger," Constanza said, riffling slowly through the
snapshots.

 
          
Mom
bared her teeth at the phone. “You're a lying sack of shit!'' she yelled.
“That's what you are!'' She slammed the phone onto its hook, veering away, her
hand clutching at air, her mouth snapping like a piranha. “He can't do that to
me!" she cried, and glared across the table at Constanza, who looked
warily back at her, beginning to sense that things were going radically wrong.
“Why do I have to put up with this?" Mom demanded.

 
          
“I
no know," Constanza said, trying to come up with a soft answer in an
unfamiliar language.

 
          
“How
can he treat me this way?" Mom yelled, and waved her hand, crying, “Give
me that milk!"

 
          
Bewildered,
Constanza handed across the butcher block to Mom her half-finished glass of
milk. Mom grabbed it, lifted it, and poured it on her own head. Milk streamed
down over her face and ran into her tight gray hair. She flung the glass away;
it bounced off a cabinet and smashed on the floor. Ignoring the noise, Mom
lunged forward as though somebody else were trying to beat her to it and
grabbed up the plastic carton of milk. It was about a third full.

 
          
Constanza,
wide-eyed, shaking, scrambled clumsily off the stool and backed away from the
butcher block, as Mom upended the milk carton over her head, milk splashing
down onto her head, dripping off her nose, staining the shoulders of her old
gray cardigan, gluing her hair to her scalp. Flinging the empty carton away,
Mom glared at Constanza and moved around the butcher block after her. Constanza
moved, too, keeping the bulk of the butcher-
block island
between them, and slowly they reversed their original positions.

 
          
Mom
stopped; so did Constanza. Trying to look sly, but still looking mostly enraged
and out of control, Mom said, “We got any more milk?"

 
          
“I
no know," quavered Constanza.

 
          
“You're
lying, you dirty wetback!" Mom yelled, and waved both arms around. ''Look
in that
refrigerator,
and you'd better come up with
something!"

 
          
Shaking
with fear, Constanza stumbled to the refrigerator, managed on the second try to
get it open, and brought out two full cartons of milk, which she set on the
butcher block as though they were offerings to a violent god.

 
          
"Open
them!”

 
          
The
refrigerator door snicked itself shut behind Constanza as she fumbled open
first one and then the other carton. Mom grabbed them, one at a time, poured
out great gushing white streams of milk onto her head, drenching herself,
sopping her old print dress, getting milk even into her shoes.

 
          
Over
by the television set, Dad snickered but didn't look away from the golf game.
"Pouring milk on her head again,” he told himself.

 
          
Mom
flung the first carton away, and then the
second,
and
they bounced and rolled around the room. Pointing past Constanza at the
refrigerator, she yelled, "Give me that half-and-half! I saw that
half-and-half in there!”

 
          
Constanza
nodded spastically, backing away from Mom toward the refrigerator, not willing
to look away from the older woman, but having to in order to open the
refrigerator door, search the interior,
bring
out the
nearly full small carton of half-and-half. On the other side of the room, Dad
nodded his head in satisfaction, clucking the teeth in his hands.

 
          
The
half-and-half poured more slowly through Mom's matted hair, down around her
ears, through her eyebrows, and over her hot mad eyes. She hurled the empty
carton back over her shoulder, away, away, anywhere. It barely missed Dad, who
didn't even blink.

 
          
Mom
took a deep breath, fists clenched,
knuckles
standing
out against the thin white milk-stained flesh. "Heavy cream!” she
screamed. "Give me heavy cream! I want heavy creeeeaaammmmmmm!”