“I’m very sorry about your friend,” Ryan said.
“Thank you.”
“Sorry about before—startling you.” He nodded toward his business card, which she was holding by the fingers of both hands, as if it were a much larger, weightier object. “If you think of anything else….” His words trailed off.
She wondered how many times in his career he had said that.
Leaving the detective behind, Joy exited the apartment, moving on rubbery legs, passing the scum-surfaced pool where little twigs and dead leaves floated. As she went out the iron gate, she turned and looked back. The light remained on in Susan’s place, as if someone were living there, and not just a cop searching the place for clues, for reasons, why someone might have wanted to murder a good-hearted, innocent soul like Susan Henderson.
Numbly, Joy returned to her car, dusk descending. Magic hour, the movie business called it. But with her friend and coworker gone, Joy could see nothing very fucking magical about it, at the moment.
She turned the ignition on and slowly eased her Jaguar out into the street. She wasn’t sure where she was going, but knew she didn’t want to go home. She drove aimlessly, swept along with the other cars, letting them dictate her path, until she found herself back in Beverly Hills.
Jack! She’d forgotten about him. He could well be back by now. She used her car phone to try his number, but only got his machine; this was his office number, which he checked fairly regularly, but she left no message. She felt like driving, like doing something, so that was where she’d go … to his house. If he wasn’t back from the airport yet, she would wait.
Only Jack could make sense of what happened; he’d make her feel better.
Joy turned on Laurel Pass, driving now with purpose, up winding Beverlycrest, peering through her windshield at the darkening homes, trying to remember which one was his.
Then it appeared on her right, the beige house that once belonged to Gable and Lombard. She pulled over to the curb, parking behind a shiny blue Ford truck, its back loaded with gardening tools.
She got out of her Jaguar and went around to the ornate beige wrought-iron gate, but found it locked. She looked for a buzzer or intercom, but didn’t see one. How was Jack to know she was there? Or anyone, for that matter? He was in the security business … but for Christ’s sake, did he have to be as paranoid as everyone in California?
Joy cupped a hand to her mouth. “Jack!” she called, her need to see him overriding how silly she felt.
A light was on in the living room, but the rest of the house was dark. Maybe he wasn’t home.
She called his name again.
Then around the right side of the house appeared a woman, long blond hair pulled back with a white scrunchy, tight navy shorts and red tube top barely covering her tanned, shapely body.
Looking very patriotic, she was dragging a garbage bag with one hand, sticks poking through one side, a hedge trimmer in the other.
The woman must be making a killing in the male-dominated landscaping business, Joy thought. Especially when husbands did the hiring.
“You want something?” the yard worker asked, her voice cordial, but with a guarded edge to it.
“Oh, hi,” Joy called out, working to put a friendly tone in her response. “Is Mr. Powers home?”
The blonde, advancing across the lawn toward Joy, cocked her head to one side. “Mr. Powers?”
“Yes. I’m a friend of his. Joy Lerner.”
The woman hoisted the hedge trimmer to rest on one muscular shoulder, eyed Joy with what seemed to be suspicion. Was the shapely blonde being protective of Jack’s property … or Jack?
“I’m an ad exec. With C.W. Kafer?” Joy said it like the woman should have known that.
“Uh-huh.” The blonde, now planted on the other side of the front gate, seemed unimpressed.
“Would you please open this, so I can wait inside?” Joy gave the gate a little impatient rattle. “Or is Jack home? If so, I promise you, he’d want you to tell him I’m out here.”
“I might,” the woman responded with just a hint of a smirk, “if somebody named Jack lived here. You must have the wrong address, ma’am.”
Ma’am? They were the same age! Or, anyway, looked it …
“What do you mean?” Joy asked. “This is Jack Powers’ place— I’ve been here! Inside….”
“Well that’s real interesting,” the blonde said, “considering who I work for.”
And then the blond yard worker told Joy the name of a household-name female movie star, a prominent entry on their prospective list of spokespeople.
Now it was Joy who shook her head. “You must be mistaken….”
The blonde had opened the gate and was passing through, bag of refuse in tow, and quickly shut and locked it again before responding. “I’ve worked for her, oh, three or four years. And before that, I worked for her late husband.”
And now the blonde yard worker named a well-known Hollywood producer, who had been famously married to the female star previously invoked as the mansion’s current owner.
Joy looked desperately toward the house. It was dusk—could she be mistaken, could this be the wrong place?
No. This was where Jack had brought her. She remembered the front door, and the windows and the way the trees grew next to the garage….
“There was a green Lincoln….” Joy said, glancing toward the closed garage door.
The blonde, tossing the bag of sticks into the back of the truck, turned. “You mean the boss lady’s car? Yeah, she bought it after her last picture. Sure beats the hell outta this pile of junk … Look, nobody’s home.”
“Well, I guess I got some wrong information,” Joy said casually. “Sorry.”
“Sorry if I seemed a little cold.” The woman opened the truck’s cab door. “Fans are always coming around, bothering.”
Did she look like a fan?
The woman climbed into her truck. “And, of course, thanks to those stupid movie-star maps,” she remarked before slamming the cab’s door, “the gawkers know Gable and Lombard lived here.”
Did she look like a gawker?
Joy stared after the departing truck. Well, at least Jack wasn’t a total liar, she thought with disgust. Clark and Carole had lived there, at least, even if he didn’t! Joy went back to her Jaguar, got behind the wheel, and gave her own door a good slam.
How could Jack have deceived her? What a fool she’d been.
She turned her car around in the narrow, dimly lit street, wrenching the gears back and forth, tires squealing, her emotions accelerating with the speedometer, careening like the spiraling road she was driving down, as she went from disbelief to shock to despair to anger.
Magic hour had darkened to night. At the bottom of Beverlycrest she turned right onto Laurel for the trek over the mountain to Studio City. With rush-hour over and traffic light, Joy pushed her car over the speed limit, headlights cutting through the dark, as she hurried to get home where she could nurse her wounds.
Ascending the winding road, Joy was consumed with questions. Was Jack living with this actress? Did he think Joy wouldn’t find out? Then again, what if this actress was only a client of his, possibly out of town, and he was just using her home as a love nest?
Somehow the latter seemed creepier to Joy than the notion of Jack cheating on some unknown lover.
Or had Jack merely been trying to keep Joy from seeing where he really lived? After all, he was an X-Gen client, too; she had assumed—as a partner in the successful investigation agency, and as someone who’d been in the program longer than her, years longer—that he was making big enough bucks to afford the good life.
She was living a lie; and so was he—maybe, within the twisted existence of the X-Gen clientele, there was an innocent explanation … so why was she still angry?
Lost in these unanswered questions, Joy wasn’t sure just when the white compact car, a GEO, came up behind her. But it was following a little too close for her comfort.
Reflexively, she sped up, wanting to put some distance between her and it, knowing that on the twisting two-lane highway there was no way the other car could pass.
But the white compact increased its speed also, sticking right with her—how could that little bug compete with her powerful Jaguar?—which irritated her to no end. She glanced in her rear-view mirror and cursed at the unknown, inconsiderate driver.
Halfway up the mountain, taking each curve at an unpleasantly precarious speed, she considered pulling into one of the dirt driveways that appeared now and then, to let the maniac pass; but she was traveling too fast to maneuver that safely.
Instead, she hit her brakes for a second, lighting up her rear end, sending the car behind a message to back off, which it did, or risk running into her. But when she resumed her speed, it, too, sped up, once again tailgating her.
They were on a stretch of the road where a deep chasm to her left yawned into blackness. What the hell was the driver of the compact trying to do? Run her off the mountain?
Suddenly, her fury became fear.
Was this what happened to Susan? Driven off the road, robbed and murdered?
Was someone after her now?
Mulholland Drive loomed just head, at the top of the mountain, intersecting with Laurel, giving Joy a chance to maneuver.
She wondered if she should turn off. If the car behind her was just some idiot racing over to Studio City, late for an appointment with an agent or producer, she would be free of him.
But what if he turned with her? She wasn’t as familiar with the twisting Mulholland, and could see herself sailing over the cliff at notorious Dead Man’s Curve.
She had only a few seconds to decide.
Joy pressed ahead. And to her dismay the compact went with her. Now on the downward slope, she found it more difficult to keep her Jaguar under control at such a speed. At every turn the tires squealed, and once, at a particularly sharp curve, her right fender scraped the metal road guard, sending sparks flying. She gripped the steering wheel tighter, clenched her teeth until they hurt, praying she’d make it to the bottom in one piece.
Her pursuer began flashing his brights on and off, blinding her, obviously wanting to try to make her crash. She slapped the rearview mirror with her right hand, sending it of kilter, and the bright lights out of her eyes, and (she hoped) into the eyes of her pursuer.
Then around a final curve, the road straightened out, signaling she’d reached bottom—the finish line of a harrowing race— and she floored the accelerator, zooming ahead of the compact. At Ventura, she turned right on red without stopping, causing the driver of a Jeep Cherokee to slam on his brakes and honk and curse, before speeding away.
Her bungalow was in the other direction, but Joy wasn’t about to lead her stalker there. She needed the safety of lights and people … and bustling Ventura was just the right venue….
Weaving in and out of four-lane traffic, she drove only a few blocks before spotting a family restaurant on the right. She’d had breakfast there once or twice; now it would save her bacon….
Wheeling her car in the parking lot driveway of the diner, Joy misjudged and caught a back wheel on the curb, bumping over it, noisily scraping the bottom of her Jaguar, making a mother who was entering the restaurant grab for her young daughter, fearful the child would get run over.
For a moment, Joy considered abandoning her car in front of the restaurant, but then she spotted a parking place not far from the front entrance, and accelerating ahead, pulled into it. She turned off the ignition and jumped out, not bothering to lock the doors.
Heels clicking on the cement, she dashed across the parking lot, her eyes on the restaurant door, where inside bright lights burned, and people chattered … and help waited.
She was within twenty or thirty yards of safety, when the white compact tore into the lot, cutting her off, coming between her and the diner. As the car came to a screeching stop, she froze in her tracks with fear…. And astonishment.
Jack was behind the wheel.
With the car idling, he leaned out the driver’s window. His expression seemed tortured.
“Joy, what the hell’s the matter with you?”
She couldn’t believe he had the nerve to confront her like that.
“What’s the matter with me?” she shrieked. “What’s the matter with you, you fucking jerk! Trying to run me off the road!”
A gasp of disbelief huffed from his dropped jaw. “Trying to run you of the road? I was trying to signal you…. didn’t you know it was me?”
Oh, he was smooth, she thought. She’d better be good and careful….
But with the safety of the diner just yards away, and a middle-aged couple coming out, laughing, lighting up cigarettes, Joy’s apprehension dissipated. She put her hands on her hips, defiantly.
“No I didn’t know it was you,” she snapped. “I thought you drove a green Lincoln … not a white GEO. Oh, and I also thought you lived on Beverlycrest Drive.”
She didn’t wait for his reaction, instead walking around the front of the little white car, quite certain he wouldn’t dare run her over in front of the other people. Entering the diner, she said fiercely over her shoulder, “Just stay the hell away from me, Jack— stay away!”
Inside the restaurant—the decor a ’70s study in mauve and turquoise and hanging plants—Joy ignored the PLEASE WAIT TO BE SEATED sign, sliding into a booth near the cash register. Badly shaken, she slumped, eyes closed, head bowed, held in one hand, fingers massaging her forehead, the endlessly long day finally catching up with her.
“Will you please let me explain.”
She looked up. Jack was seated across from her, her Jack— casual in the same brown sport jacket and yellow polo he’d worn on their last date; the same Jack—only now the rugged planes of his face twisted into a pained expression.
“You do have brass balls,” she said. “I’ll give you that much. But you know what? I want to hear it—I want to hear what you could possibly say that could undo the damage you’ve done—that might change the way I feel about you now. Which is betrayed and used, by the way.”
“I don’t blame you, Joy, I really don’t.” He gestured with both hands. “I wanted to tell you that wasn’t my house … but there didn’t seem to be an appropriate time….”
Joy leaned forward, testily. “How about when we first entered. ‘This isn’t my house, this is my girlfriend’s place.’ ”
“She isn’t my girlfriend….”
A waitress appeared to take their order, causing an awkward silence. Joy asked sullenly for a cup of coffee; Jack, politely, a Coke.
The moment the waitress turned her back, Joy continued on bitterly: “Oh, and that cute, cute story about the canes … Did you make that up on the spot, or is that something you tell all the women you bring there?”
“I’ve never brought any other woman there—just you. And a bunch of those canes were mine. I gave them to the lady of the house, ’cause her late husband collected them too, and she kind of had a thing for them.”
“For them or you?”
“Them. Not me.”
Joy smirked, unconvinced.
Jack leaned toward her across the table, his dark eyes intense. “Joy, I have a tiny apartment on Doheny Drive, but I hardly ever stay there anymore. Many of my clients are actors, like the owner of that house—and they go off on shoots for extended periods of time.” He paused, turning his palms up. “I house-sit for them. Even though they’ve got a security system, what’s better than having a real security man around? And I like the arrangement because I don’t have to spend time in my depressing apartment.”
That was what he could possibly say to undo the damage he’d done.
“But I thought you had….” Joy said.
“Money?”
She nodded. “You’re a partner in your agency….”
He looked down at his hands, then back up at her, saying, quietly, “I don’t have money for the same reason you don’t have m
oney. My company is financed by X-Gen. I work for them…. I’m one of them. One of you.”
Joy leaned back in the booth. “I know.”
He studied her for a long time; then he laughed, wryly. “How long have you known?”
“Since you fell asleep on my couch…. How long have you known about me?”
“Not long … but I’ve suspected. Hell, anybody working at Kafer might be an X-Gen client, considering the relationship between our two agencies.”
“How did I give myself away?”
“No one thing. It’s just … after we hit it off so well, your … ‘sense of history.’ I started suspecting—after all these shallow young bitches I’ve been with, none of whom I could relate to worth a damn—funny.”
“What is?”
“That was one of the things I wanted out of my ‘new’ life— younger women. What a joke. It took you to tell me what I really wanted….”
“Which was?”
“Someone I could relate to. Someone who’d lived through some of what I’d lived through. Someone with the same … values. Someone … someone I could fall in love with.”
She reached out and touched his hand.
“How did you find out?” she asked. “Sneak a look in my purse?”
“Hell, no—what if you caught me at it? Nope—I broke into Doc Green’s office one night. Had a look at his files.”
“You didn’t!” She’d never have the nerve to do that.
He nodded, eyes gleaming boyishly. “It was easy. Who do you think handles his security?”
She couldn’t help smiling. “You really are a private eye, breaking in like that….”
The waitress arrived with their coffee and Coke; set them down with a clatter, and left.
“I’m sorry I scared you tonight,” Jack said. “I was just trying to catch up with you … afraid to let you to go home.”
“Afraid?” she asked. “Of what?”
He glanced over his right shoulder, at the table behind them where a family of four were wolfing down dinner. He lowered his voice further.
“I know about Susan,” he said solemnly. “When I called your office, the girl you had filling in for Susan said you were worried about her, and had gone to her apartment….”
Regeneration Page 17