They had always had such a reliable relationship, loving in the way a mother and son had to love, superficially distant with an understood undercurrent. Now, the real nature of their relationship nagged at him like sinister whispers. What went on in her heart? What went on in his?
He tried to put himself in his mother’s position. He had risen up like a cobra hiding behind tall grasses, awaiting the right moment, attacking, determined to tear to bits her hard-won privacy. He had been very hard on her recently, denigrating the effect of all those years of love. Regret stabbed at him.
Afraid, he picked up the phone and called the house on Close Street in Whittier. She didn’t answer. He would have to drive over there, but he was too damn tired.
He left the shirt and the peanut shells in the trunk of the car and lay down just for a second on the living room couch.
And then it was Monday morning.
Esmé still didn’t answer.
He called the office. “Denise, my mother’s ill.”
“You have Mr. Antoniou at one!”
“Yeah, okay. Can you take the group of drawings on my desk and get them copied this morning? I made a few last-minute changes. Sorry.”
“Oh, man. That’ll cost extra for a rush job. You’re coming, though?”
“I’ll be there.”
“Because Martin’s here and he’s had a bad night and he’s rampaging around waiting for you.” She lowered her voice. “But screw him. I’ll take care of him.”
“Thanks, Denise. You’re a real-”
“Friend. You have quite a few here, Ray.”
He took twenty minutes to shave and get dressed, then called Detective Rappaport.
“Been trying to call you,” Rappaport said. “What’s wrong with your cell phone?”
“Why?”
“We checked on your bank account and found an ATM withdrawal, Mr. Jackson. From nine days ago.”
“Yes. I got the statement. That’s one of the things I wanted to tell you.”
“We have the videotape from the ATM machine for that date.”
“Is it Leigh?”
“We can’t tell. You may be able to help.”
“What do you mean, you can’t tell?”
“Don’t shout, Mr. Jackson. It’s hard to identify the person. The tape is not the best quality.”
“I guess this is a case now.”
“An investigation has been opened.”
“I found some things at the cabin at Idyllwild. They’re in the trunk of my car.”
“What?”
“I’ll bring them in.”
“I’m sending a car over to get you. What have you got?”
“Don’t send a car. I’ll get there as soon as I can.”
Back inside the Porsche with its candy wrappers on the passenger side floor and the scent of Kat’s floral cologne, he decided that if this kept up he would need a bigger car, since this one had somehow become familiar as a second home. Unfortunately, the amount of time he had spent cleaning up his living room forced him into competition with every commuter on the planet earth, or so it seemed.
The Boxster crawled through a long morning’s heat.
An hour and a half later, when his mother still did not answer her doorbell in hot, smoggy Whittier, he used his key to get into the house.
He looked around in astonishment. She obviously hadn’t lifted a finger to clean in days. Wine bottles, several, sat or lay on the kitchen counter and floor. Lipstick-edged glasses decorated most of the tables she usually kept dust-free and gleaming.
A wretched scenario played itself out, unfurling like a movie in his mind. Tipped over the edge by Ray’s investigations into their past life, she had waited into the night, driven to his house over the limit, then drawn out her misery with alcohol when he did not appear.
He checked out the bathroom and glanced into the darkened bedroom. She had dropped a glass there and had not bothered to pick up the pieces. She wasn’t home.
This late on Monday morning, Esmé must be at her cash register at Granada ’s, although how in the world she dragged herself in considering the state she must be in was beyond him. He set to work restoring order to her kitchen and living room, moving glasses into the sink and finding a paper bag in which to put the wineglass shards.
He found bread and made himself toast, then cleaned up the crumbs, emptied out old milk, and wiped down the refrigerator, which also appeared neglected. Checking the time, he tried to estimate when she might finish her shift. He knew they constantly jockeyed around on shifts; she complained about it sometimes. He had arrived at about ten a.m. She worked six to eleven a.m. on Mondays.
Fishing out his cell phone, he called the market. Glenn, a coworker, said, yes, Esmé was scheduled for that shift. He hadn’t seen her, but that didn’t mean anything because he’d just arrived. Did Ray want him to find her and put her on the phone?
He hung up, needing to decide what he wanted to say.
Laying his hands on the old Formica surfaces, he considered Esmé’s stubborn refusal to let him upgrade the place. It looked the same as it had when they had moved there when he was twelve. She had painted the back wall of her main room mauve, and mauve it remained. The gold wall-to-wall carpet had experienced different looks, as she did not seem opposed to using new area rugs here and there, but even the Danish modern furniture she liked because it was light and easy to move stayed roughly in the same place it had been in when Ray had learned to play chess on that very same glass-topped, rounded, wooden-edged coffee table so many years ago.
He sat for a few minutes, numb. His mind turned, like a mole digging toward air, toward the old houses, the tapes, the voice on the tapes. The model of the house on Bright Street, unfinished in his basement.
The thought struck him: I will never get it right, never get any of it right. The dark stain on the shirt in his trunk seemed to spread out through a crack in the trunk, spread along the driveway and into Esmé’s house, into his heart. At this rate, he’d never get through the day, and he had chosen to keep going, for a while at least. He needed something to occupy him while he waited for Esmé.
Finally he remembered the old albums. Where might she keep them? A tall bookcase held stacks of magazines and paper digests with short stories, her favorite reading. He began an exploration of the house, something he almost never did. Esmé liked her privacy. She demanded it, in fact, and he couldn’t remember the last time he had been in her bedroom, but he remembered a case with glass doors. Maybe she kept the albums in there? That seemed possible. In previous houses, she had kept them in her bedroom.
In the dimness, he could perceive almost nothing. The curtains in her room were closed. He flipped on the light to see everything much the same as it had been in his childhood except for fresh bedding in tones of rose, black, and beige to match the walls and new curtains. She had left the bed unmade. Incredible!
Uncomfortable at the sight, he tossed the comforter over the messy sheets. He found the bookcase, browsed the titles, these slightly more substantial, probably helpful in getting his mother to sleep on nights when she couldn’t sleep. Still no albums. He slid into the mood he went into at the old houses he had been entering. That perfume atomizer of ancient Chanel No. 5; she never used it and had kept it on her dresser for as long as he could remember.
Her closet door stood open, and up on a top shelf, six large decoupaged boxes sat in a row. They could hold shoes or-anything. He pulled them down, placing them on her bed. He opened the first one. Scarves and belts, neatly rolled. The second held tax records neatly labeled and bundled in rubber bands. With the third he hit pay dirt. Old photographs, an accumulation of memories, private ones. He had never seen these before.
“What the hell is going on here?” His mother stood in the door to her bedroom, hands on her hips.
Ray, saying nothing, plucked the pictures from Esmé’s bed, replacing them in the box neatly. He didn’t know what order the pictures originally took, so he made up an organiz
ation on the spot based on whether the pictures were black and white or faded color or brilliant color. That should constitute a kind of rough chronology.
His mother watched, saying nothing.
He placed the box neatly between two other boxes on the shelf in her bedroom, then closed the closet doors.
“All done?” she asked.
He straightened the bed, then straightened himself. “Yeah.”
“Follow me.”
He followed her into the living room where she opened a case that held many bottles of wine and poured herself a plastic tumbler. She didn’t offer him any. He didn’t sit down, though she arranged herself in her favorite chair. He had never before noticed this look she had now, a glower, like hot ash.
“You’re okay?” he said, folding his arms.
“Dandy.”
“You came to my house, and you were sick.”
She stared him down. “I’m fine now.”
“I can’t figure it out,” he said. “Just to start with: you’re drinking?”
“I drink.”
“Huh. You never have, in my experience.”
He watched in amazement and disapproval as she drank the wine down like water. It seemed to make her angrier.
“You’re here to collect the Holy Grail, aren’t you, son?”
“The Holy Grail?” he asked.
“Christ drank from it at the Last Supper. I’m guessing the imagery had to do with a holy vessel that held important information, or at the very least, holy water.” To his surprise, she went on to quote Tennyson. “‘Three angels bear the holy Grail: With folded feet, in stoles of white on sleeping wings they sail.’” She poured herself more wine and glared at him.
“Mom, nobody cares about that old stuff. I want to know why you came to my house drunk, spent the night on my couch, and are here at your house now, nose red, eyes bloodshot, wrecked, not yourself. Mom?”
“I don’t know where Leigh is. Do you believe that?”
He didn’t disbelieve her. Why should she know? He couldn’t imagine how she might. “What about the rest of what’s going on? The recordings? Our very screwy past? I really thought-well, Mom, you came to my house. I presume you have things to tell me.”
“I have only one thing to tell you.”
“Shoot.”
“I want my keys back, Ray. Give them to me. I want you out of my home right now. I don’t want you coming here without my permission ever again.”
He took the keys to her house and handed them to her. She set them somberly on a side table in a small Italian plate she had bought at a flea market, blue and orange, flowery.
“I think you ought to see a doctor,” Ray said. “Let me take you.”
“I’m fine. Go home.”
“You’re not yourself.”
He didn’t like the way she laughed. “Oh, but I am,” she said. “Go on, now. The moment has passed.”
24
O utside, climbing into his car, Ray felt his mother’s eyes on him from behind her curtains. Even though she had demanded it, he imagined she must have hated his relinquishing the keys. This left her alone. Accelerating, backing out, heading in to work, Ray thought, you couldn’t feel good about that, being entirely alone. She was definitely ill-he should march in there and have it out and make her go with him-but there was Antoniou.
He decided to check on her by phone right after the meeting. He would pretend nothing had happened. She’d like that. She’d be feeling sorry by then.
“Did you call?” Kat’s voice on the cell phone. He was approaching the big cloverleaf that led toward the beach communities. “I want to know how it went with Rappaport.”
Kat must have heard his groan over the phone. “What’s happened?”
“I haven’t seen Rappaport yet. A couple more hours. I talked to him on the phone-”
“This can’t wait! It’s been more than twenty-four hours since we turned up that shirt! I’m going to call the police myself.”
“I’m on my way. No need.” That calmed her.
“Did something else happen?”
“I drove to Whittier to check on my mother. She poured herself two glasses of wine at eleven in the morning, and she kicked me out. Not to mention what she did last night at my house.”
“Tell me,” Kat said.
He told her.
“We’re all disintegrating.”
“Ah yes, Inspector Clouseau. That’s it, undoubtedly.”
Kat seemed to ponder on the other end of the line, unfazed by his sarcasm. “Does she like Leigh?”
“I think so. What has that got to do with anything?”
“You don’t know for sure?”
“I thought she did.”
“Did she love her, though? Maybe she’s suffering, too, because she’s worried.”
“I can’t understand this thing with the liquor. It’s not like her.”
“Leave her alone today,” Kat advised.
“But what if she falls? She’s all alone.”
“Jesus, Ray. Maybe you’re suffocating her with your dependency.”
“She’s the one who depends on me.”
“Really?”
“I have to go.”
“Wait. Listen, I got an idea. I want to go and talk to Mr. Hubbel again. Leigh’s father. But not with Mrs. Hubbel around. It’s all I know to do, Ray. I’m going to Whittier right after work.”
“What’s he going to tell you?”
“I don’t know. But he’s her father. Maybe he’ll remember something. Wanna come with me?”
“I can’t think about it right now.”
“Okay. Do what you have to do.”
Achilles Antoniou arrived promptly at one p.m., bursting through the conference room door without introduction. He looked hungover but his tan had deepened and the jeans and deck shoes were so new and so covered with fancy logos, he was still an ad for the good life after fifty.
“Where’s Martin?” was his question.
Martin had left the office at noon after another argument, so Ray just said, “Martin’s late. Let’s get started.”
Antoniou reared back as if attacked. “I need to see Martin.”
Ray tried hard not to react to the contempt in his voice. “Come on over and sit down, my friend. Have some coffee. You came to me originally because you thought I had something. You thought I understood what you wanted.”
Antoniou shuffled from foot to foot. He allowed himself to be led to the couch and took the excellent coffee.
“Let’s chat a little,” Ray said. “Drink some coffee. I’m sure Martin will be here any minute. I’ve been looking forward to showing you the playroom. The plans are right here on the table and we can look at them in a minute. I added some great new touches last night. I’m working hard for your approval, Achilles. That’s some boat you have, by the way. It’s got those clean modern lines, you know?”
“It’s a nice boat.”
“I admit I was surprised when you came back with Martin and asked for a specific design, nothing like what we discussed. I didn’t want to embarrass you in front of Martin, Achilles, but the whole Greek Mediterranean thing-save it for Greece, you know? The style is so out of it here in L.A. Spielberg’s doing modern. Weinstein’s doing modern. You know what Niarchos’s son is doing with his new place in Bel Air, Achilles?”
“Modern?”
“That’s it. You’re smart to know that. I’m here to save you from a serious mistake. Big money down the tubes. I’ve got a set of plans here that are gonna knock the socks off the Spielbergs and Niarchoses. Make them raze their own places and start over. They’re gonna be shit-jealous, Achilles.
“You have the opportunity on that site to make something beautiful for you and your family, something that’s going to be famous for its beauty. Why not open yourself up to the potential of the site? You’ll need a bigger gathering space. Welcome the ocean spray and a lot of movers and shakers onto your new, expansive, gorgeous deck. Hey, come on over here.
” He gestured toward the rosewood conference table. “I know you’re gonna be pleased once you really look at these plans. I don’t know anybody more open-minded than you are. Even Spielberg, he’s gonna be a step behind you now.”
Checking his watch one more time, Antoniou stepped in closer, intrigued. He studied the plans.
“I know you were impressed by what you’ve read about me, Achilles, but I’m going to tell you something. I had a revelation recently about what a home is, and we have a chance here to make it happen in a way that’s going to explode people’s ideas, not just about architecture, but about life.”
“That’s a big promise, Ray,” Antoniou said.
“Something entirely new. Your dream house, a template for the next movement in architecture. The whole world’s gonna want to see it. Movie stars, the works.”
That got him. He leaned down, studying the plans beside Ray.
“But where are the walls?” he said urgently. “Where is the line between the kitchen and the entertainment area?”
“Fluidity, you see? Walls that move wherever you need them to move, not just the inside ones, but many of the outside ones. They raise, they lower. They cuddle up to make a big space cozy for a few people. They expand space infinitely. Slate decks off each floor. Imagine waves crashing below, that salty air. This place will flow out of the landscape and the landscape will flow into it. This home will change and grow along with you and your family in the most unimaginably creative ways.”
Ray went into a place he loved, an imaginary place. Antoniou followed along.
Ray had Antoniou’s signature on the new drawings by one-fifty-five, and ushered the client out the door.
At two sharp, Martin was back from lunch.
“You got Suzanne to lie.” Martin was furious. “You said the meeting was at two, you bastard. You spent the time selling him on your insane notions.”
“No, Martin. I spent the time explaining insanely beautiful possibilities to him. Believe me, he left happy.”
“Garbage. You finessed him.”
“Like you finessed him? In my opinion, I straightened him out.”
Keeper of the Keys Page 23