I showered and shaved and found good clothes. On my way out the front door I stopped at the hat rack in the foyer and put on my Carlos Santana shantung fedora, a gift from Justine, which she told me was lucky. For you, Just. I checked my look in the mirror, set the angle of the brim. White straw, cool band, pure luck.
—
Laguna was an hour’s drive north for me. Daphne Hickman’s Pacific Coast Highway home sat on a bluff overlooking the beach at St. Ann’s Drive. I parked in the cobblestone drive under a canopy of king palms and stepped from my truck into the sweet Laguna air.
Daphne was tall and blond, a lithe, younger version of her mother. She welcomed me inside her home wearing blue jeans, a white halter, and no smile. The tops of her bare feet were tan and she wore a silver ankle bracelet on the left leg. I knew from her emails to Clay that she was thirty, two years older than he. The living room was white and sunny and hung with cheerful land- and seascapes of local scenes. All signed Daphne. I stood there, hat in hand, taking it all in. Sliding glass doors and a patio. An easel outside with a painting of Laguna Canyon taking shape. Beyond the painting, drooping telephone lines and palms and eucalyptus and blue ocean for as far as my eyes could see.
“I have water or iced tea,” she said.
“Water, if it’s not too much trouble. And I’d love to see some Hickman family pictures, if you have any.”
She filled a coffee cup from the sink tap and even brought it over to me. She disappeared down a hallway and came back a moment later with a bulging plastic supermarket bag hanging from her index finger. We sat facing each other, Daphne giving me the ocean view. I thought of Paige Hulet’s twenty-seventh-story view of the same body of water. Body of Paige, too.
“How was your brother yesterday when you saw him?”
“Okay. Enthused but not agitated. Maybe stopping all the meds was a good idea. He looks fit and sane and tan. And he’s got a darling young companion.”
I nodded. “Did she seem okay?”
“Fine. Very stuck on Clay, by the way she looked at him.”
“And all he said about his next destination was ‘back south’?”
“Just like I said on the phone. The girl—Sequoia?—seemed pleased with that, since her trailer is there. Isn’t that delightful, the great Hickman male hooked up with a girl who lives in a trailer?”
I said nothing, instead picturing a map of California in my head and drawing a bold black line from Arcadia, south to San Diego’s Waterfront Bar and Grill, then north two hundred miles to Ojai in Ventura County, then north another three hundred miles to Redwood Valley in Mendocino. Since then, his known destinations had been farther and farther south—San Francisco and Laguna Beach. So, could “back south” from Laguna mean La Jolla and Briggs Spencer? Was Clay ready to bring him the white fire?
“Had you communicated with him since he escaped from the hospital? Before yesterday?”
“Of course. Text messages and email.”
“What did he say?”
“He said he’d taken a leave of absence,” said Daphne. “It was tongue in cheek. We both know that Arcadia is as much a prison as it is a hospital. He said he wasn’t ever going back. He said he was on a mission, and when it was over he would come see me.”
I asked if I could read the message chain with Clay but she said she’d deleted it, out of habit. She was not a message-chain saver. Her phone notified her of something. She checked it and set it back down on the table. “Gotta run soon.”
When I asked her why she communicated with Clay but never visited him at Arcadia, she gave me a sharply disappointed look.
“I saw it once,” she snapped. “Haven’t you? It’s a medication-fueled playground for dysfunctional members of the one percent. It angers me that Rex and Pat have put him there. What they really want is for Clay to go away. This big hero who Rex lived his fantasies through? Now he’s just a shame to them. I’m fond of Clay. We used to laugh. We are both painters. In our different ways, we are both free. I don’t consider myself a Hickman. Don’t want to be. Maybe that’s why Clay and I get along.”
Daphne’s disdain for her parents was fierce. Unlikable people, I agreed, but I had read them differently. I saw decency and love behind their frustration with their son. Saw them trying to protect and even heal Clay in the best way they knew, not simply locking him away from the world. There had to be more beneath her anger than Clay being sent to Arcadia. I decided to come back to that. “Do you know anything about Clay’s time in Romania during the war? From 2008 to ’09?”
“I’m pretty sure he was in Iraq. A jet mechanic. I really do need to go.”
“Have you met Briggs Spencer?”
“I don’t even know who he is. I don’t get out of Laguna very often, Mr. Ford. It’s my cocoon. And that’s just the way I like it.”
“May I borrow these pictures?”
She stood. “You can have them. I’ve been wondering what to do with them for years.”
“Please, think back to yesterday. Did he say anything about where he was going next?”
“Only south.”
“Did he ever talk to you about Vazz and the fighting dolls?”
Daphne sighed impatiently and looked down at me with a surprised expression. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“One more question?”
“All right.”
“Why do you detest your parents?”
“I don’t. I just will not be around them. The way he treats her. The way she lets him treat her. It’s an alcohol-soaked knot they’ll never untie. They don’t want to untie it. Scenes and ‘accidents’ and dramatic apologies. Enough. I don’t have to be around it. They can’t stand my lifestyle anyway. And I’m not about to give up my right to love who I want to love.”
I bagged the pictures and stood just as the front door flew open and a husky young woman barreled in. She wore a snap-brim panama and a smile until she saw me. Then she took off the hat, dropped the smile, and gave me an assessing stare. Her hair was razor-cut, and she wore baggy trousers, a white dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and a wide floral necktie.
“Just the PI,” said Daphne, going to her.
The woman strode past her to me with her hand out. “Melinda Campbell. I own Daphne’s gallery on PCH. How do you do?” Her shake was warm and firm.
“Very well, thank you.”
“Have you found Clay?”
“I’ve practically got him surrounded.”
She smiled. “He looked good yesterday. Of course, I don’t know him as well as Daph. But he had peace in his eyes. Maybe that’s attributable to not being in a mental institution any longer.”
“Please call me if you see him again,” I said, putting on my hat.
“Nice shantung.”
“Thank you. It was a gift.”
“I’ve got one kind of like it.”
She gestured to the entryway rack, scarcely visible beneath all the hats.
“Any of them lucky?”
“All of them. But only on certain days. I’ve learned their powers over time.”
29
I headed south on PCH, pulled into a pay space, and sent a text message to Sequoia.
3:48 PM
Where are u? I need to see Clay
3:49 PM
I have changed mind. U must trick Deimos and bring HIM to ME
3:51 PM
This is new, Clay!
3:52 PM
Great ideas change. U work for him so he must trust u so easy to fool
3:53 PM
If I can do that, where and when?
3:55 PM
Must make arrangements, won’t take long
3:56 PM
What arrangements?
3:56 PM
Can Dr. Hulet come too?
3:57 PM
That is up to
her but I guess yes. Do u want me to give her this number?
3:58 PM
No. Arcadia full of evil spies. No. No.
3:59 PM
Okay. Are you still in California?
4:01 PM
In my own state of mind
4:02 PM
S, are you okay?
4:03 PM
Not just okay. In love for first time
4:03 PM
BRING ME DEIMOS!!!
4:04 PM
Okay. When and where?
4:05 PM
I will say when time and place are right.
4:06 PM
What do you want from all this, Clay?
4:08 PM
To be a hero.
4:09 PM
Dr. Hulet says you are a hero.
4:11 PM
She has always believed in me. She is the healer I always wanted to be.
4:13 PM
Heal yourself, Clay.
I waited twenty minutes. Listened to the news. A Laguna Beach meter maid came by and said she’d have to ticket me if I didn’t move. I punched the truck down PCH toward Dana Point, phone on the seat beside me, ringtone and volume pegged on high.
But Clay had gone silent again.
I picked up Interstate 5 south, hit the eternal San Clemente jam-up, then a wreck at San Onofre nuclear plant. Traffic inched. I pulled into the rest stop near Pendleton, walked out for a look at the Pacific, smoked a cigarette. I wondered how long Roland Ford would have to wait on Clay Hickman. Then weighed that against Clay’s desire to tell his story to Nell Flanagan. Okay, I thought. Time to pull this trigger.
I got David Wills’s burner from the glove box and sent Clay a message from Nell Flanagan’s cagey story editor.
5:23 PM
Nell loves idea in spite of government hurdles and has asked me to audition you! This is first step in process. You and I will meet, you will tell me your story (off camera), and show me any relevant material you have (the video). Please be prepared and organized. If your story is as good as I think it will be, Nell will green-light the segment! FYI: In my two-plus years with Nell, she has NEVER ONCE declined to do a segment that I have personally endorsed. I can sell Nell! Thoughts?
5:24 PM
I am absolutely prepared and organized and ready to tell you my story.
5:26 pm
I am San Diego–based and can meet at any reasonable time and place. We need privacy and quiet. Setting is not important as we will not be final taping. I will shoot some video on phone for Nell. DO NOT bring any person, as distractions ruin auditions. DO bring your A-game.
Five minutes went by, then ten more. Big rigs rolling in and out, people walking their dogs to and from the “pet stop.” I browsed through the pictures Daphne had given me. The family struck me as oddly ordinary, given the immense fortune that Rex Hickman had inherited and multiplied. Clay looked just as I’d been told and seen in other photos: sickly when young, then growing healthier and stronger through the years.
I checked my watch and I figured I’d lost him again. I thought my impersonation of a story editor was pretty good, but Clay was smart, borderline paranoid, and still coming off his meds. But no. My notifications bell chimed and the skies parted, a great light shone from above, and I read:
5:48 PM
A-game ready, David. Room 14, Harbor Palms Motel, Oceanside, 7 PM
I was right about my luck. After a week of near misses, of violence on the Hickman estate, and the murder of John Vazquez, I was now one hour and twelve minutes away from locating my missing person.
The only catch was, I didn’t know what I was going to do after I’d let him tell his story.
I could shake his hand and walk out, call Briggs Spencer, find a safe place to watch the action, and never show my face. What might that action be? In my mind’s eye I saw DeMaris knocking on the door of room 14, Donald Tice standing by with a tranquilizer gun, and the guys from the Range Rover and Charger ready for shock and awe. And of course Spencer himself, well back in the shadows, enjoying the capture.
I thought of DeMaris, ordering me to call him first when I located Clay. Why?
And Paige Hulet, Clay’s lead psychiatrist, asking me to do likewise. Over and over. Again, why?
I thought of Rex and Patricia Hickman. If I’d heard them right that day, they were perhaps willing to take their son back into their home. Maybe.
Plots in motion. Human engines. Gears within gears.
I’m old-fashioned. I believe in doing the right thing, even if it’s difficult and unprofitable. But what was the right thing? What I came up with, sitting there in my truck in the I-5 rest area, lucky white straw fedora on the seat beside me, was Clay. What was best for Clay would be the right thing.
Returning him to his family seemed both practical and ageless. Brittle as they seemed, who could know better than blood what was best for him? Arcadia was out of the question. Paige Hulet seemed genuinely devoted to making Clay better, but what could she do? Hide him in her spare room? Should I just let Sequoia stash him in her Airstream?
Personally, I had little say in the matter. I’d never known Clay, or laid eyes on him, or even heard of him until seven days ago. And yet Clay Hickman had circled us all around himself—as if he were some beautiful and endangered creature and we were collectors, each wanting to put him into a different zoo.
In the end, this was Clay’s show.
Switching phones, I called Rex Hickman.
“Ford. What do you have for me?”
“Do you want your son back?”
“Of course we do,” said Hickman.
“I’ll tell you what he decides.”
“I expect good news.”
“You’ve had twenty-eight years to earn his trust. I can’t change his mind about you now.”
I heard an amplified scuffle, then Patricia’s voice: “Please bring him home.”
“You’ll hear from me either way.”
I punched off, checked the time. One hour, three minutes. I clicked off Alec DeMaris’s transmitter and set it back in the console.
—
The Harbor Palms Motel was on the beach side of the Coast Highway, south of the pier. It was 6:55 p.m. and the sun hung low over the horizon, spreading an orange blanket on the town. I drove past cafés, bars, convenience stores, surf shops, two exotic pet shops, a gun store, a bait-and-tackle store. There were plenty of military-specific retailers set up for the Camp Pendleton Marines—barbers, dry cleaners, used car lots, car rentals, new and used furniture—MILITARY WELCOME! Both U-Haul and Penske because the Marines are always on the move.
I passed the motel and found a parking place three blocks down. Pocketed the burner and locked my other phone in the truck-bed toolbox with my gun. Story editors rarely go to meetings armed.
I swung on my coat and headed down the sidewalk at a leisurely pace. Strolled past the motel, just another citizen doing who knew what. No sign of Sequoia Blain’s beat-up silver pickup truck. I stopped outside a tae kwon do studio, admired my hat in the window. Watched the children practice their forms. Through the glass I heard the muffled snapping of the gis. I took a hard look up and down PCH. No silver pickup. A deep breath, the kind of breath you take getting off the stool for round one. If Clay had decided to include Sequoia in his audition, and she recognized me and failed to hide it, I would have to talk fast and hope for the best. I reminded myself that Clay Hickman had mental health issues, a mission, and a gun.
30
I stood straight and knocked firmly. The door opened a few inches, and the dead-bolt chain clunked straight. A vertically cropped face—one blue eye, one hazel—with weak orange lamplight in the background.
“David Wills,” I said.
“Clay Hickman. I’ll open the door.”
The chain rattled away and I stepped in as Clay moved back. Curtain
s were drawn and the room was dim except the lamplight. I registered his face and the autoloader in the waistband of his jeans. A gun is an ugly thing unless it’s yours. “You don’t need the gun.”
“I’ll decide.”
I held my coat wide open. “Nell hates guns.”
“You’re not Nell.”
He stepped forward and tapped up and down my body with his free hand. Odd light in his eyes. Weird, the sudden closeness to a stranger who has consumed your life for an entire week. Someone you know much better than he knows you. In this small space I felt a jagged energy coming off Clay Hickman.
All in a glance: The motel room was cheap and simple and poorly lit. No Sequoia unless she was under the bed or in the bathroom. Two open suitcases on stands. Bathroom door open. A laptop computer open on a small desk. Desk lamp on. In the down-cone of lamplight, like on a stage, two cloth dolls posed in combat, swords raised. And next to them, two more swordfighter dolls locked in their own separate contest. Behind the desk was a mirror in which I could see the swordfighters and Clay looming above them. He looked no older than in the Arcadia head shots. Twenty-eight years, I thought. Still a young man, and his white forelock made him look boyish. He wore a tight gray T-shirt, the low-slung jeans, and a pair of desert camo combat boots.
“All I have is coffee and soda.”
“All I want is a good story.”
“I watched some Nell shows to see your name. You’re not in the credits.”
“I work for Nell, not the show.”
This seemed to satisfy him. “How long?”
“Two years plus.”
Clay stood lightly—arms relaxed, feet comfortably spread—a light heavyweight ready to hit and move. “Let me see your ID.”
From my wallet I produced my David Wills driver’s license, a very good forgery made by a pro down in Otay Mesa. Wills was a well-rounded individual: criminal defense lawyer, reporter, financial adviser, MLB scout, owner of a chain of Tex-Mex restaurants, trucker, public relations flack, and now story editor.
The Room of White Fire Page 18