Except for the Bones

by Collin Wilcox

  Nothing but suspicion that had turned to certainty.

  Nothing but disaster, the end of everything.

  Silence. A terrible, empty silence, each of them avoiding the gaze of the other. Finally, with great effort, he looked directly at Kane. The moment held, tightened; finally drew unbearably taut, forcing him to say:

  “It was an accident. She came at me. I had to hit her. She fell, hit her head.”

  “Like Weston. That was an accident, too.”

  “Yes …” Gravely, he nodded.

  “But then—” Kane hesitated. “Then you—you did something with her. With her—” He cleared his throat, blinked. Finally saying: “With her body.”

  “I didn’t have a choice. It was either that, or see everything blow up.”

  “You’d beat it, though. Tell the truth, and you’d beat it. You’d never go to jail.”

  “I’d be ruined, long before I went to trial. Millicent would have to get a divorce. She wouldn’t have a choice. So she’d take hers. So then the credit would go. And that’d be it. The whole thing, gone.”

  “That’s hard to believe.”

  “In real estate, finance—credit—is what it’s all about. No credit, and it’s all over.”

  “Didn’t you have a prenuptial contract?”

  Wearily, he raised a hand, let it fall. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “So you wouldn’t be a billionaire anymore. But you’d never go broke. I know you’d never go broke.”

  Mirthlessly, Daniels allowed himself to smile. “There’re different definitions of disaster.”

  “If Farnsworth starts putting all this together,” Kane said, “that’s one definition. Right?”

  “Right.” It was a heavily laden monosyllable. This, he knew, was the preamble to the ceremony of surrender. The minions were taking over.

  “By the way,” Kane said, “speaking of money …” Delicately, he let it go unfinished.

  Daniels withdrew an envelope from an inside pocket of his dinner jacket; negligently, tossed the bulky envelope onto a nearby table.

  Kane looked at the envelope. A week ago, he would have thanked Daniels. Now he only nodded. Saying: “I guess that’s a down payment. Another down payment.”

  Daniels nodded in return. “Exactly.”

  “Diane.”

  “Yes. Diane. There’s nothing else to do.”

  THURSDAY,

  August 2nd

  8 P.M., PDT

  “HOW LONG’LL YOU BE staying in San Francisco, Mr. Carter?” As he asked, the night clerk offered a registration form and a ballpoint pen.

  “Two days,” Kane answered, writing “William Carter” on the form, followed by a Los Angeles address.

  “And what credit card’ll you be using?”

  “That’ll be cash.” Kane took out his wallet and began counting the bills out on the counter. The plate-glass countertop was cracked. The night clerk’s knuckles were bruised, as if he’d been in a fight. The lobby smelled of disinfectant.

  8:30 P.M., PDT

  “WHAT D’ YOU THINK? Should we order another one?” Bernhardt held up the empty bottle of cabernet sauvignon.

  Paula shook her head. “Not for me.”

  He nodded, then caught the waiter’s eye, at the same time pointing to their basket containing only one piece of French bread. Carrying three steaming plates of Italian food, harassed, the waiter nodded as he edged between two nearby tables.

  “You take the last piece,” Paula insisted. “Sop up your white clam sauce. That’s the best part.”

  “You sure? I doubt that he’ll be right back.”

  “Sure I’m sure. I’ve got lasagna. There’s nothing to sop up.” As she spoke she took the piece of bread, placed it decisively on his plate. Then, equally decisive, she said, “I’d like to meet her, Alan. I—” Expressing a puzzlement at her own determination, she frowned, then shook her head. “I don’t know what it is, but I’ve got a feeling about her.”

  Considering how best to respond, Bernhardt wound linguine on his fork, successfully conveyed it intact to his mouth.

  “Maybe you should talk to her father,” she urged. “Cutler. Maybe if he knew the whole story he’d come up with enough money for you to go to Cape Cod.” She smiled. “Maybe we could both go. Business and pleasure.”

  He grimaced. “Cape Cod in the summertime. Unless you’ve got a ton of money, it’s a zoo.”

  “Still, I think you should talk to her father.”

  “As far as I know,” he said, “Diane hasn’t even seen him yet, much less told him what’s happening. And if she hasn’t told him, then I’m not going to tell him. That’d be just plain dumb.”

  “But where else’ll we get the money?”

  He put his fork aside, sipped his wine, drew a long, elaborately patient breath. “Paula—listen—you’ve got to cut me some slack on this thing. You might not realize it, but I’ve got three open cases right now. All of them, as it happens, working for law firms that pay very, very well. They also pay promptly, and often. Bread-and-butter accounts, in other words. Now, you keep saying you want me to arrange my life so I can have time to write plays. And that’s fine, I’m all for it. But I can tell you that taking on someone like Diane Cutler and her problems is no way to operate a profitable P.I. business. In fact, it’s—”

  “But that’s why I’m saying that you should contact Cutler. You should—”

  “Please. Paula. Give it a rest.” He pointed. “Eat your lasagna.”

  “Like a good girl, eh? Is that what you’re saying?”

  “That’s what I’m saying.”

  9 P.M., PDT

  IF THE PHONE WENT to four rings, she’d decided, and the answering machine came on, she would—

  “Yes? Hello?”

  The voice cut like a knife. Phoebe Randolph Cutler, wife number two. The lady account executive, six-figure income. High style, hard as nails. Nine years younger than her husband. Both of them earning six figures each.

  Did Phoebe ever sweat, when they were screwing? Did—?

  “Hel-lo.” Audibly irritated. Strike one.

  “Th—this is Diane. Is my—”

  “Just a second, Diane. Your father is anxious to talk to you.” The plainly audible message: You’re bothering your father. You’re bothering all of us. You’re an inconvenience.

  “Diane.” Breaking in, her father’s voice. Warm. Welcoming. “How’re you doing?” Her father, trying to sound like her father. Trying too hard, Ozzie and Harriet.

  “I’m okay.”

  “So how about lunch? Tomorrow. One o’clock. Okay?”

  “Yes. Fine.”

  “I don’t suppose you packed a skirt.” Still warm. Still imitating the All-American Dad.

  She sighed. “No skirt. You’re right.”

  “Just kidding, Diane. See you tomorrow. I can’t wait.”

  “Yeah.”

  FRIDAY,

  August 3rd

  10:30 A.M., PDT

  “I’D LIKE A SHORT length of three-quarter-inch galvanized pipe,” Kane said. “About eighteen inches long.”

  “Do you want it threaded or plain?” the clerk asked.

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “We’ve got it both ways.”

  “Then I’ll take it plain.”

  1:15 P.M., PDT

  ACROSS THE SMALL, ELEGANTLY set table, Diane watched her father as he handed their menus to the waitress. He was smiling politely. It was, she realized, yet another difference between the two men, her father and her stepfather. Daniels looked through servants. Straight through.

  Now, she knew, it would come. They’d done the small talk, done the father-daughter smiles, gotten through the first small silences. Now came the hard part:

  “I guess you know,” Cutler said, “that as soon as you called, Monday, I called your mother.” Ruefully—yet another good-guy try, Ozzie and Harriet—he smiled. “It was almost midnight, New York time, when I called. She wasn’t too pleased. At leas
t, not until I told her why I was calling.”

  Leaving her to say what? Do what? Pretend what?

  She lowered her eyes, sipped her coffee. When she raised her eyes she saw that, yes, his smile was gone. As, yes, she saw his mouth tighten, saw the shadow of pain behind his eyes. Could he see the same shadow in her eyes, sense the same pain?

  “Diane, I—I don’t pretend to know what’s happening. I mean, I know you and your mother are having problems. And Daniels, too—I know you and he are having problems. And I know that, according to your mother, you don’t want to go back to college next year.” As he spoke, he searched her face. Then, a shift, a lawyer’s change of pace, keep them guessing, he experimentally sampled the salad. Saying: “This is good, a great dressing. Have you tried it?” Followed, yes, by the smile. But was this a lawyer’s smile, no longer a father’s smile?

  In silence, she picked up a fork, ate some of the salad, put the fork in the salad plate.

  “So what’d you think?” Now it was the father-of-the-year smile, his specialty. Yes, he fit perfectly into the sitcom frame: a summer-weight pinstriped suit, an expensive white Oxford button-down shirt, rep tie, all very casual, all very with-it. And the face went with the clothes: an Ivy League face, slightly modified for the laid-back San Francisco scene.

  “It’s fine. Good salad.” She nodded.

  Erasing the smile. God, it was so easy to erase his smile. His smile, and all the others. All except for Daniels’s smile—the smile that never was.

  “Listen, Diane—” He laid his own fork aside, a solemn, measured signal. “If you’ll just tell me what it’s all about, I’d like to help you. Do you want to come here to live? With—” A moment’s hesitation. Then, dutifully: “With me?”

  “You mean ‘us,’ don’t you? Phoebe and you.”

  He raised his hand to his mouth, pressed his lips with is fingertips, looked at her with stricken eyes. Then, in a voice gone ragged, he said, “I—I know the two of you don’t get along, Diane. But that’s got nothing to do with us—with you and me. You know I’ve always—”

  “Are you happier now? Do you think your life’s better now, with Phoebe?”

  “It—” In denial, he sharply shook his head. “It’s got nothing to do with Phoebe, Diane. Surely you understand that. It’s—your mother and I—it just wasn’t working out. You know that. We’ve explained to you that—”

  “You explained nothing to me, Daddy. You gave me a lot of bullshit, that’s what you gave me. ‘We no longer love each other,’ you said, something like that. How about if you said something like, ‘Your mother’s got a chance to land a genuine tycoon, and I can’t stop her from doing it.’ How about if you’d said something like that, Daddy? How about the truth, for a change?”

  “The truth …” He spoke softly, bitterly. “What the hell is the truth? Who knows what the truth is?”

  “The truth is what really happens. The truth is what people think about, but don’t talk about.”

  “Diane, you were fourteen when we got divorced. You couldn’t expect us to—to—”

  “To tell me the truth? Is that what you were going to say? Well, I’m eighteen now, and you’re still not telling me the truth.” As she spoke, she snatched up her coffee cup, drained it, slammed the cup back in its saucer. Almost instantly, a busboy was there, refilling the cup from a silver pot. He was a slim, smooth-moving Latino with dark, dusky eyes.

  “How about you, Diane?” her father was saying, challenging her now. “Do you tell the truth?”

  Defiantly: “Sure.”

  “How about drugs? Do you do any drugs?”

  “Is that what Mom told you?”

  “Never mind what your mother told me. You say you tell the truth. So I’m asking you, do you do drugs?”

  A deep breath. Then, nothing to lose, let go and drop, finally fall free: “Sure I do. I smoke pot, and I drink booze and I pop pills once in a while. I’ve tried cocaine, too. But I don’t do anything else. I’m not into needles, if that’s what you’re getting at. I don’t like to have holes in my skin.” She watched him for a moment, saw the words strike, one after the other, neatly timed, neatly spaced. Slow-motion machine-gun bullets from old war movies, kicking up the dust. Power.

  Then, following up, hit them when they blink: “What about you, Daddy? Booze, and what else, you and Phoebe and your button-down friends? A little coke, on Saturday nights?”

  “I’ve tried cocaine.” His eyes were steady, his voice was firm. “But I didn’t like it much. I don’t like being that much out of control.”

  As he said it, the waitress arrived with their entrees. Truce declared.

  A truce, or a draw? Finally, a draw?

  For a few moments they talked about the food, about San Francisco, about the earthquakes: the last one, and the Big One yet to come. Finally, down to business again, her father said, “We’ve talked many times the last couple of weeks, your mother and I. As I said, she’s very worried about you, very concerned for your welfare. I’d like you to believe that, Diane.”

  She made no reply, gave no sign.

  “I didn’t tell her that Carley was living here. I didn’t think Carley would appreciate getting involved.”

  In reluctant acknowledgment, she nodded.

  “And I didn’t call Carley, either, if you noticed, looking for you.” He smiled: a small, tentative smile, almost a shy smile. “I was pretty proud of myself for that.”

  Another grudging nod. Another silence. Then, another try, the lawyer, probing, boring in, he said, “From what your mother said, from the way she talked, I had the impression that the reason you left had something to do with them—with her and Preston Daniels, with some problems they’re having.”

  She laughed: a short, bitter eruption. “Did she say that?”

  He studied her face for a moment. Then, putting aside his knife and fork, putting his hands flat on the table, pleading now, he said, “Diane, are you in trouble? Is that what this is all about? Are you running from some kind of trouble, back in New York? Because if you are, we can work it out. Has it got anything to do with the law? Is that it?”

  As they sat silently, each searching the other’s face for some special sign, some assurance, something hopeful, something worth saving, she realized that, yes, she should tell him.

  But, just as clearly, she knew she wouldn’t tell him.

  Why?

  She could tell Bernhardt, a stranger. But she couldn’t tell her father.

  Why?

  2:20 P.M., PDT

  “IS THAT YOURS?” CUTLER pointed to the BMW. It was a politely interested question, small talk.

  “Yes.”

  “How do you like it?”

  “It’s great. I’d rather have a Porsche. But it’s great.” Within a few feet of the car now, she began rummaging in her shoulder bag for her keys. Somehow she needed to have the keys in her hand before she turned to him, offered her cheek for a kiss.

  “Oh,” he said, “I forgot to ask. Did you connect with John Williams?”

  At the car now, no escape, she frowned as she turned to face him. “John who?”

  “Williams. Your friend from New York. He called just after you called. Monday night.”

  “I don’t know any John Williams.”

  “Well, he definitely knows you. Or at least I assumed he knew you, since he seemed to know all about your plans.” He smiled. “He sounded like an admirer. Does that help?”

  “But—”

  “Listen—” He lifted his arm, looked at his watch. “Listen, I’m sorry, pumpkin, but I’ve got to go. There’s a deposition in twenty minutes.”

  “This John Williams. What’d he say?”

  “He said he was on his way to Los Angeles, and hoped to see you here. He sounded pretty casual, just passing through. Listen—” He took her shoulders, held her, then quickly hugged her, hard. He spoke into the hollow of her shoulder: “I really do have to go. I—” His voice caught, but just for a moment. “I love you, pumpkin.
I hope you know that.”

  2:30 P.M., PDT

  “ROOM SIX-TWENTY, CHECKING OUT.”

  “It’s after checkout,” the clerk said. “I can’t give you a refund.”

  “No problem.” Kane dropped the key on the desk.

  “Was everything all right?” It was a disinterested question.

  “Sure. It’s just that something came up.” He picked up his suitcase, picked up the canvas satchel containing the pipe and some dirty clothing, and walked outside. On Powell Street, on the cable-car line, the tourists were thick, a constant stream, clogging the sidewalks, tangling traffic, jostling, laughing, calling to each other.

  The nondescript hotel he’d chosen was midway between the affluence of Union Square, up the street to his left, and the T-shirt shops and schlock camera shops and dirty-movie arcades to his right, down the hill toward the cable-car turntable. Powell Street was the eastern border of San Francisco’s Tenderloin. Just a block to the west, downhill, everything was for sale: girls, boys, drugs, guns.

  He turned to his right, walked two blocks, turned right again. He passed a dirty-book stall and a girlie bar with a top-hatted barker out front. The next storefront was a peep show parlor, open full width on the sidewalk. Leaving the suitcase just inside, then taking out his wallet, he went to the counter and changed a ten-dollar bill: a five, three ones and eight quarters. Carrying the canvas satchel, he went to the rear wall. With his back to the street he decided on a machine featuring “Fighting Girls.” As he put a quarter in the slot, he glanced over his shoulder. Yes, the suitcase was gone.

  2:50 P.M., PDT

  SHE TURNED HER SHOULDER bag upside down on the couch, emptied it, sorted through the contents. If the card wasn’t in her wallet, then it must be—yes: ALAN BERNHARDT, INVESTIGATIONS. She took the card to the phone, punched out the number. Her fingers were unsteady. Her mouth was dry. When she heard Bernhardt’s voice on the answering machine she felt herself go hollow. It was, she knew, associative, a word she’d just learned. With Bernhardt’s voice, she associated the terror remembered: Bodies wrapped in blankets. Jeff, lying beside the road, staring sightlessly at the sky.