‘You don’t love anybody, Frank.’
‘Well, whatever you say, sweetheart. But nothing that either of us says or does can change what’s happened. If Danny had arrived at school on time he would have been killed instantly like the rest of the kids. If he had arrived two minutes later he wouldn’t have been hurt at all. But he arrived when he did, and by bad fortune he was hit by a nail. If you had been with him, instead of me, you probably wouldn’t have realized that he was hurt so bad, either. Or maybe you would. But ifs don’t count for anything.’
Margot said nothing for a long time, her nostrils flared, breathing like a runner at the end of a race. Eventually, however, she flapped her right hand toward the living room. ‘So why did you deface my painting?’
‘I don’t think I defaced it, Margot. I think I made it mean something, which it never did before. I think I gave it some humanity.’
He drove to work. When he walked into the office suite at Fox, his secretary, Daphne, stared at him with her mouth open.
‘Mr Bell! I didn’t expect to see you today! I’m so sorry about Danny! It was such a terrible thing to happen.’
Mo Cohen came out of the conference room wearing a bright-blue shirt with palm trees on it and smoking a cigar. He was balding and big-bellied, with black curly hair like a clown.
‘Frank, for Christ’s sake.’ He came up and hugged him so hard that Frank could hardly breathe. When he let him go, he had tears in his eyes. ‘What can I say? Poor little Danny. I can’t even believe it’s true.’
‘No, well, neither can I.’
‘What the hell are you doing at work? You should be home, taking care of Margot.’
‘I needed to get away for a while, that’s all.’
Mo put his arm around Frank’s shoulders and squeezed him. Frank winced. ‘You OK?’ Mo asked him.
‘Bruises. Nothing serious.’
‘Come inside, take the weight off. You want a cup of coffee? Daphne, my angel, make this man a cup of coffee.’
The conference room was where they worked on the scripts of If Pigs Could Sing. It was a large, cream-painted room with three red leather couches and a long table with three PCs on it, as well as heaps of paper and scripts and felt-tip pens, an Emmy with a pink beret hanging on it, and a plaster statuette of three singing pigs. On the walls hung framed TV awards from all over the world, as well as photographs of Frank and Mo and their partner, Lizzie Fries, and all of their guest stars, like Joan Rivers and Will Smith and Rush Limbaugh.
Cream loose-weave drapes were drawn across the windows to hide the view of the parking lot. When they were writing, anything could prove a distraction – even watching Gene Wilder trying to park his BMW. High up on the left-hand wall there was a basketball hoop, and on the floor underneath it lay heaps of crumpled-up pieces of paper. If they couldn’t decide if a gag was funny or not, they tossed it up at the hoop, and if they missed, it wasn’t funny.
Mo said, ‘I would have called you yesterday, as soon as I heard, but . . . you know . . . Lizzie thought you probably needed some space.’
‘Well, she was right. I was still in shock yesterday. I’m still in shock today.’
‘It’s like a nightmare, you know?’ Mo said. ‘A total fucking nightmare. How can people deliberately kill kids like that?’
‘I don’t know, Mo. I haven’t even gotten round to thinking about what they did it for. It was absolutely the most terrible thing I’ve ever seen.’
‘You shouldn’t have come into the office. For Christ’s sake, Frank, you’re going to need a long, long time to deal with this.’
‘No, I’d rather be here. Margot’s taken it pretty badly, to tell you the truth. She . . . ah . . . she thinks that I was responsible for Danny dying, and in a way I was.’
Mo sat down next to him and took his cigar out of his mouth. ‘How could you be responsible? It was a fucking bomb, for Christ’s sake.’
Frank told him. Mo sat and listened to him and then he took hold of his hand, twisting his wedding band around and around in the way that women do. ‘It wasn’t your fault, Frank. How were you to know? It could have happened to anybody.’
‘Maybe. But it didn’t happen to anybody. It happened to Danny, and it happened to me.’
Commissioner Marvin Campbell appeared on the wide-screen television in the far corner of the room. Frank picked up the remote control and turned up the sound.
‘ . . . with a coded password. This came from a group calling themselves Dar Tariki Tariqat, which in Arabic means “in the darkness, the path.” They gave us no reason for the bombing and made no demands of any kind. We are working on the possibility that they may be associated with Al Qaeda or other terrorist organizations, but as yet we have found no evidence one way or the other.’
Then it was back to the anchorwoman, Barbra Cole. ‘Eight-year-old Heidi Martinez, the daughter of Philly 500 star James Martinez and folk singer Kelly Gooding, died early this morning from injuries she received in the blast. This brings the total of student fatalities to twenty-one, while five faculty members were killed, including principal Ann Redmond.
‘FBI explosives experts calculate that the bomb was made out of approximately two hundred and fifty pounds of TNT, a favorite with terrorist groups because it is so easily obtainable and not easily traced.
‘Examination of the van in which the device was driven into the grounds of The Cedars school has shown that the driver was male and that he was carrying a female passenger. In the words of forensic specialists, however, both driver and passenger were “vaporized” by the blast and identification is likely to prove extremely difficult.
‘Police Commissioner Marvin Campbell received a telephone call shortly after five A.M. from a man who claimed to represent a group called Dar Tariki Tariqat. He said that Dar Tariki Tariqat were responsible for the bombing but gave no further details about their aims, their origins or their affiliations – if any.
‘Police are urgently seeking more witnesses to the bombing, and they want to speak to anybody who might have seen a white Ford E-series panel van parked in any unusual locations during the past few days, or anybody who might have had a white Ford panel van recently stolen. Also any dealers who might have sold such a vehicle.’
Lieutenant Chessman appeared on the screen, looking red-faced and hot. ‘Basically we need to hear from anybody in the demolition or quarrying businesses who has a large quantity of TNT unaccounted for. Detonators, too. Apart from that, we’d like to talk to any auto wreckers who might have sold two engine blocks – one from a four-point-eight-liter Northstar engine and one from a one-point-six-liter Honda V-Tec engine. These blocks were carried inside the van on either side of the bomb and when they were blown apart they caused appalling VO injury . . .’ He hesitated, as if somebody were talking to him, and then he said, ‘Oh, sorry, VO – that’s vital organ.’
Frank pressed the mute button. Mo said, ‘Terrible, appalling. They must be fucking animals, these people. Worse than animals. Did you ever hear of them? Kon-Tiki Paraquat or whatever? I never heard of them.’
Frank shook his head. ‘I just hope they find them, that’s all. And find them guilty. And gas them.’
Mo gave him a quick, disturbed look. He had never heard Frank talk like that before. Daphne came in with a cup of coffee. She was a tall black girl with beaded cornrows and big yellow-tinted glasses and lips that were, in Mo’s words, ‘like two red satin cushions just begging to be sat on.’ Frank had not employed her just because she was efficient and incredibly good-natured, considering how cantankerous they could all be when a deadline was pressing and they couldn’t think of anything remotely funny. Today, however, she couldn’t stop weeping.
‘I keep seeing little Danny. I don’t know how you can bear it.’
‘Well,’ said Frank, ‘I don’t think I can.’
‘Oh God,’ she said. ‘I hope he’s at peace.’
‘I think so, Daphne. Thanks.’
‘What are you going to do now?’ Mo ask
ed him, after Daphne had left the room. ‘You’ll have to go home sooner or later.’
‘I don’t know. I’m not sure that our marriage is going to be able to survive a thing like this.’
‘Of course it will. Margot’s in shock, that’s all, just like you are. She needs somebody to blame for what happened and you’re that somebody. You wait till the cops nab these bastards, then she’ll see that it wasn’t your fault.’
Frank sat staring at the balls of crumpled-up paper all over the floor. He had been thinking about Danny so much that he felt as if somebody had been repeatedly hitting him on the head with a heavy book. He needed to sleep but he knew that he couldn’t. He needed to talk to Margot, too, to try to atone for what he had done, but he knew he couldn’t do that, either.
‘What about next week’s show?’ he asked Mo. ‘Do you think you and Lizzie can wrap it up on your own?’
‘For Christ’s sake, don’t worry about the show, Frank. They’ll probably cancel it in any case.’
‘They shouldn’t. They shouldn’t cancel it. We can’t let people like that destroy everything we’ve worked for. That’s just what they want.’
‘Frank, it’s not just Pigs that’s going to be affected here. What about Philly 500 and The Fairchild Family and May To September and The Kings of Orange County? What about Ollie Peller? He’s halfway through scoring that new John Badham picture. It’s going to be total fucking paralysis. Anybody who lost a kid is not going to be able to do any serious work, are they? And everybody else is going to be far too jumpy.’
Frank slowly shook his head. ‘They sure know how to pick their targets, don’t they? American capitalism on September 11, American popular culture on September 22.’
Mo said, ‘My advice to you is go home. You have to face up to this situation with Margot. You do and she does, both. I’m talking to you as a brother.’
‘OK,’ said Frank. He looked around the conference room and gave something that was nearly a smile. ‘I can’t think of any good gags, anyhow.’
Three
He didn’t go home. He was too sick at heart and he knew that Margot wasn’t yet ready to talk to him. He called her from his cellphone but she didn’t pick up. Either she didn’t want to hear from him, or she was out seeing her friend Ruth in Coldwater Canyon.
The smog had cleared and it was a warm, clear morning. He had the impression that there were more police cars around than usual, and he saw two police helicopters in the time it took him to drive from The Avenue of the Stars to the San Diego Freeway. He didn’t switch on his car radio, though. There was only one topic of conversation on every waveband.
He reached the ocean. The water was glittering like smashed mirrors, and gulls were wheeling and screaming over the beach. He parked his car and walked along the promenade toward the municipal pier.
An old man approached him. He was wearing a long-billed baseball cap and a saggy gray T-shirt and saggy orange shorts. The veins in his legs looked like a street map of Laurel Canyon, a mass of wriggly blue roads. One of his eyes was totally white.
‘Lost?’ He grinned, showing four mahogany-colored teeth.
Frank shook his head and carried on walking, but the old man limped along beside him. ‘I can always tell when someone’s lost. They have that look about them.’
‘Really? What look is that?’
‘That lost look.’
‘Well, let me put your mind at rest. I’m not lost. In fact I know exactly where I’m going and I really don’t need anybody to help me. Particularly you.’
‘You’re misunderstanding my meaning. When I say “lost,” I don’t mean geographically lost. I mean lost in the sense that you don’t know what the hell you’re going to do next.’
Frank stopped, reached into his shirt pocket and gave the old man a ten-dollar bill. The old man took it and flapped it from side to side. ‘What’s this for?’
‘Philosophical services rendered. Now will you push off and leave me alone?’
The old man pulled his mouth down in an exaggerated expression of dismay. ‘I’m not a panhandler, if that’s what you’re thinking. I can tell when people need guidance, that’s all. I can see when they’ve reached an impasse.’
‘Well, that’s a very great gift. Now, if you’ll just . . .’ He made a toddling gesture with his fingers.
The old man stayed where he was, so Frank carried on walking toward the pier. He had only gone a few paces, however, when the old man called out, ‘It wasn’t your fault, Frank!’
Frank felt a fizzing sensation in his scalp, as if he had touched a bare electric wire. He turned around and stared at the old man. ‘What?’
‘You heard me. It wasn’t your fault.’
‘How do you know my name?’ Frank demanded, walking back to him.
‘That’s a gift, too. See that girl on the roller-skates there? Her name’s Helena. Go ask her if you don’t believe me. See that fellow with the dog? Guy.’
‘This is a scam. Get the hell out of here before I call a cop.’
‘No scam, Frank. It wasn’t your fault, and that’s the top and bottom of it. What you have to do now is forgive yourself, and move on.’
‘So why should you care?’
The old man took out a filthy crumpled handkerchief and blew his nose. ‘I care because I care because I care. What’s the point of having a God-granted gift if you never share it with anyone?’
‘All right, you know my name, or else you’ve guessed it, or you’ve seen me on TV. What does that prove?’
‘I know more than your name, Frank. I know what’s going to happen to you. I know the reason you’re here, even if you don’t. You’ll cross the road and you’ll never come back.’
Frank waited for the old man to explain what he meant, but he simply stood there smiling at him with his four brown teeth and a look in his one good eye that was almost triumphant. After more than a minute, Frank turned, hesitated, and then he walked away. The old man continued to smile at him until he disappeared amongst the crowds.
Frank leaned on the pier railing and closed his eyes and let the ocean breeze blow into his face. He could hear slowly moving traffic and the slurr-chunk! of skateboards and people talking and laughing. He could hear the Pacific, and the monotonous clanking of yachts. He could hear the gulls.
Inside his head, soundlessly, The Cedars was still blowing up, black smoke growing up into the air like fir trees, bits of metal and bits of brick falling all around him. And Danny’s blood-streaked arm, waggling from side to side as he ran along the street, silently screaming for help.
You’ll cross the road and you’ll never come back.
‘Hey!’ said a woman’s voice, very close to him.
He opened his eyes and blinked. A young woman was leaning against the rail just two or three feet away, although the ocean was sparkling so brightly behind her that he could see little more than a silhouette. The silhouette wore a wide-brimmed straw hat and a sleeveless white cotton dress.
‘I’m afraid I don’t know your name,’ she told him.
He thought, that makes a change. Everybody else around here seems to know it.
‘Don’t you remember me?’ she said. ‘We met yesterday. When the school was bombed.’
He shaded his eyes with his hand. It was the young woman with one sandal. She was wearing brass-rimmed sunglasses with very tiny oval lenses, and a white ribbon around her neck.
‘Well, this is one heck of a coincidence,’ he said. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I guess the same as you. Trying to clear my head.’
‘You weren’t hurt, were you?’
‘No, it didn’t hurt. How about you?’
‘My . . . uh . . . my son died. I lost my son.’
‘Oh my God, I’m so sorry.’ She reached out and touched his forearm. ‘You must be absolutely torn apart.’
‘He was hit by a flying nail. I didn’t even realize. You and I, we were talking, and all the time he was bleeding to death in the back of m
y car.’
‘That’s tragic. I don’t know what to say to you.’
‘Don’t worry, my wife does.’
‘She doesn’t blame you, does she?’
‘Blame me? The way she talks, you’d think I planted that bomb myself.’ He looked around. A suntanned young man in a blue and yellow T-shirt was standing not far away, eating an ice-cream cone. ‘Are you alone?’ he asked. ‘Or is that . . .?’
She turned, and frowned, and then she shook her head. The young man lifted his ice cream to her in salute. ‘No,’ she said, ‘I’m all by myself.’
‘Maybe I can buy you a coffee, or a drink.’
‘All right,’ she nodded. ‘A drink. I think I’d like that.’
They crossed Palisades Beach Road together, and halfway across she took hold of his hand, as if they were already friends. A woman in a soiled floral-print dress was standing on the opposite side of the road with a shopping cart piled high with old newspapers and broken lampshades and 7-Up cans. As they crossed she cackled like a chicken and called out, ‘Young love! Don’t it make you want to throw up!’ But the young woman still didn’t let go of his hand.
Frank took her into Ziggy’s, a light and airy bar with a blond wood floor and shiny stainless-steel chairs. On the wall behind the counter hung a strange painting of six women with blue faces, their eyes closed, their hair waving in the wind.
‘I’m Frank,’ said Frank, holding out his hand.
‘Hello, Frank. You can call me Astrid.’
‘What does that mean? Isn’t Astrid your real name?’
‘What’s in a name, Frank?’
Frank resisted the temptation to quote Shakespeare. That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet.
‘They do a great strawberry daiquiri here,’ he told her.
‘OK. Strawberry daiquiri it is.’
‘You said you lost somebody close to you.’
Astrid took off her hat and placed it on the table, with her sunglasses neatly folded in the brim. ‘I . . . ah . . . don’t really want to talk about it, Frank, not today. Today I came out to think about something else.’
Innocent Blood Page 4