Then there were the skulls. Abby found them in the alcove that constituted the base of the L—a long series of human skulls receding down both sides of the room like images in a hall of mirrors. Here the lighting was especially dim, the effect far more hallucinatory.
These images—if they were images—did not appear to be bound to the plane of any holographic plate. They did not merely extend into space from a flat background. They hung in space, connected to nothing, life-size, glowing in different shades of red, blue, and green.
She moved through the room. As she got closer to the nearest display, she understood what she was seeing. Each skull hovered inside a clear cylinder, and the cylinder was mounted on a black table that blended with the darkness. A low-wattage bulb shone down upon the cylinder from the ceiling.
The booklet, readable in the glow of her penlight, explained that these were cylinder-format holograms. The holographic plate, instead of being laminated onto a flat surface, was attached to a transparent cylinder. When illuminated from above, the plate focused an image in the center of the cylinder, an image that could be viewed from any angle.
She walked around the nearest skull, which, like the rest, floated at eye level. She could see it from front, sides, and back—even the crown of the head, if she stood on tiptoe.
The other skulls passed by as she made a circuit of the room. She’d assumed Hoagland had used the same skull over and over, but no, each was different, with its own peculiarities of wear and structure. Only the eyes were the same—or the eye sockets, rather. Dark ovoid holes that seemed to stare back at her as if taking her measure.
She was glad to get out of the skull room. She retraced her steps, holding her little cup of cheap wine and pretending to inspect the exhibited masterpieces, but actually looking for Faust’s stalker. Of course, she had never laid eyes on him, and her clients had provided a description that was only marginally more helpful than a Rorschach inkblot. Even so, she would know him when she saw him.
He would be the other person in the gallery who was pretending to look at the so-called art, while actually scanning the crowd.
Finally she stopped in the exhibition room nearest the foyer, where Piers Hoagland himself was holding court before a rapt throng of culturati.
“Holography,” he was saying in a voice clipped with a German accent, “is a metaphor for reality. The hologram is an image, but possessing the three-dimensional properties of the tangible. An illusion, yet seemingly real. Just as reality, in turn, is only a shared illusion, or perhaps I should say a shared delusion. An image collectively agreed on, ostensibly authentic, yet receding into mists and vapors when we approach too near.”
Abby surveyed the audience and saw one person who didn’t belong. A man alone, who was only pretending to listen, while actually watching the entrance.
Her man, of course.
Faust and Elise were right. He was nondescript. Average height, average build, hair neither dark nor light, no distinguishing facial marks. And he had none of the squirrelly energy she usually saw in these guys. He was calm and controlled, even as he awaited his quarry’s arrival.
He wore a charcoal blazer and an open-collared shirt. Though she saw no bulge of a firearm beneath the jacket, it was a safe bet he was armed. He might be wearing an ankle holster.
She estimated his age as mid- to late forties. A little old for a stalker. Most of them developed their obsession earlier in life.
Abby joined the group, standing near the man. She waited for an opportunity to initiate contact.
“The world,” Hoagland was saying, “is a projection, a false front, what your writer Melville called a pasteboard mask. ‘If man will strike,’ he wrote, ‘strike through the mask.’”
Abby tuned him out and studied Faust’s stalker on the periphery of her vision. The guy was edging closer to her. She forced herself to look away. She couldn’t risk letting him sense her scrutiny.
The vibe she got from him was slightly worrisome. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but she was now certain, with no room for doubt, that this was no ordinary nutcase. This was a man with experience, with skills. A pro, maybe. Could be a PI, a bounty hunter, a hit man ...
“You look skeptical.” A voice in her ear. His voice. He had come up alongside her so stealthily that she hadn’t noticed his proximity.
She glanced at him, taken aback and trying not to show it. She was always the one to initiate contact. Most stalkers were so antisocial, so introverted, they wouldn’t dare make the first move.
“Do I?” she whispered. “I guess I’m old-fashioned enough to think that reality is something hard and tangible.”
“So you’re a realist.”
She smiled. “Been called worse.”
“I’m a realist, too. If you can’t see it, touch it, smell it, then what good is it?”
He wasn’t quite so nondescript up close. She remembered asking Elise for the color of his eyes. They were cobalt blue, like the glass walls of the design center she’d passed on her way over. And also like those glass walls, they reflected the ambient light but afforded no glimpse of what lay inside.
He showed her a slightly crooked smile. The mechanics of smiling were of considerable interest to her. A smile, she knew, was produced mainly by the zygomaticus major muscle, which could be activated at will. But in a true smile, the muscles of the lower eyelids were also engaged, and most people could not control those muscles.
To distinguish a true smile from a polite smile, always look at the eyes.
The smile he was showing her was false. A gambler’s smile.
He was not what he appeared to be. His friendly persona was just another hologram in the gallery, an image masquerading as reality.
Of course, she was no better. The woman she appeared to be tonight was only a projected persona, no more real than his.
“That being the case,” she said, “why are you here?”
He made a vague gesture. “Friend of a friend invited me.”
“Where is he? Or she?”
He looked again at the entrance, then shook his head. “Doesn’t look like he’s going to show.”
“Some friend.”
Something was very wrong. He had given up on spotting Faust too quickly. As if, perhaps, he knew—or guessed—that Faust would not be making an appearance.
He might be onto her. He might know that she had come here to intercept him.
How he could know, she wasn’t sure. Maybe Faust had been more careless in his cell phone conversations than he’d admitted. Or maybe this man was tapping Faust’s landline also, or bugging his house. Maybe he had followed Faust to the cafe and observed their meeting.
Or she could just be paranoid. He might not have caught on to her at all.
She didn’t think it was paranoia, though. She’d lived by her instincts long enough to establish a healthy trust in them.
“How about you?” he asked. “How’d you get dragged here?”
“Came of my own free will. Although I guess free will isn’t something you can see, touch, or smell. So maybe it’s not real, either.”
“This is getting too philosophical for me. I don’t ask deep questions. I just take what comes.”
“Not a bad way to live.”
“It’s worked for me so far. You had dinner?”
He wasn’t playing hard to get, wasn’t being coy or standoffish. He had made the first move. He was making every move.
“Only a bite,” she said.
“There’s a Cambodian place down the street that’s not too bad.”
“They don’t serve dog meat, do they?”
His crooked smile flashed again. “If they do, it’s not identified as such.”
“What I don’t know can’t hurt me.”
He took her by the arm—another unexpected development—and steered her away from the group. “That’s where you’re wrong. It’s what you don’t know that can cause the worst kind of hurt.”
“I thought you weren’
t philosophical.”
“I have my moments. You bring a coat?”
“It’s May.”
“Gets chilly at night.”
“I’m impervious to cold.”
“Me, too. Cold is good. It toughens you up. You know what Nietzsche said. What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger,”
He studied her with his opaque blue eyes. Enjoying himself. And letting her see his enjoyment. It wasn’t enough that he was playing her. He wanted her to know she was being played.
That scared her. It suggested reserves of self-confidence that ran frighteningly deep.
“Who’s being philosophical now?” she said lightly.
“I suppose quoting Nietzsche was a little over the top. You have a name, by the way?”
“Abby. Abby Robinson.”
“Mark Brody.”
As he escorted her to the door, she understood what
kind of vibe he gave off, and why she had almost recognized it. It was her vibe, her energy.
Faust had called her a jungle animal on the hunt. So she was. And so was Mark Brody.
11
The restaurant was dim and quiet, with photos of the ruined temple complex of Angkor decorating the walls. Abby ordered sautéed boneless chicken in lemongrass, a dish identified on the menu as moarn char kroeurng. Brody tried the nhorm yihoeur, which turned out to be boiled calamari. He seemed more knowledgeable about Cambodian cuisine than she was—not that this was saying much.
“So, Mark Brody,” she said between bites, “what do you do for a living?”
“Nothing interesting.”
“You one of the umpteen million Angelenos looking for that big break in showbiz?”
“I don’t think I’m exactly Hollywood material.”
He might be right about that. He had none of the boyish affability that characterized most movie stars today. In another era, things might have been different. He could have held his own against Robert Ryan or Lee Marvin—men, not boys. Dangerous men.
She couldn’t stop focusing on his eyes. Sanpaku eyes, in the terminology of Eastern medicine. Eyes that showed the whites of the eyeballs on three sides. An unusual trait. Tradition held that if you stared into sanpaku eyes, your life energy would be weakened.
She didn’t know if she believed that. Those eyes, though—they mesmerized her. They were the hooded eyes of a reptile.
“Where are you from, originally?” she asked.
“How do you know I wasn’t born and raised in L.A.?”
“Nobody is actually from L.A. It’s a city of new arrivals.”
“People grow up here. They must.”
“Do you know any native Angelenos?”
“No. But I’m sure I’ve seen them.” He waved his hand vaguely. “On the streets. You know. Children.”
“It’s true,” she said gravely. “There are children here. But when they grow up, they move away.”
“All of them?”
“Every one. I think it may be a law. Or just some sort of migratory instinct. Anyway, they leave, and their place is taken by someone just getting off the bus from Kansas City or Detroit.”
“What bus did Abby Robinson arrive on?”
“The one from Phoenix.” She really had grown up in Phoenix, or just south of there, on a ranch near the Superstition Mountains. It was always safer and easier to tell the truth about things that didn’t matter.
“Why’d you come here?”
“Job opportunity.”
“There are jobs in Phoenix.”
“There was also ... a man.” This also was true. She was on a roll.
“Isn’t there always?” Brody smiled. “He’s not in the picture anymore, though, is he?”
“He hasn’t been in the picture for years.” She didn’t want to talk about this. “You haven’t told me where you hail from.”
“Baltimore.”
“Good crab cakes there.” That was the one and only thing she knew about Maryland.
“I don’t miss them. I don’t miss anything about it.”
“Was it so bad?”
“Not bad at all. I just don’t believe in looking back. I’m a realist, remember? What’s real is the here and now. The present moment. This table.” He reached across and clasped her fingers. “Your hand.”
His grip was dry and cool. If he was nervous, he wasn’t showing it.
“You putting the moves on me, Mark Brody?”
“You make it sound so calculating.”
“I’m a realist, too—remember?”
He nodded. “We have a lot in common.”
But he already knew that, Abby thought. Didn’t he?
Dinner was over, and they had ordered coffee, which Abby didn’t touch. Brody was telling a good story, inspired by the Cambodian decor, about a trip to Phnom Penh that had almost ended badly. He and a friend had come close to being arrested for disturbing the peace after a drunken romp.
“And from everything I hear,” he said, “a Cambodian prison is not a place you want to be.”
Abby wondered what sort of work had taken him to that part of the world. “How’d you avoid the hoosegow?”
“Paid off the cops. American dollars speak a universal language.”
“The experience taught you not to overindulge when abroad, I guess.”
“Believe me, we were stone sober after that. My life was almost a sequel to Midnight Express.”
“That was Turkey.”
“Brokedown Palace, then.”
“That was Thailand.”
He regarded her with amusement. “So you’re a movie fan.”
“Seen ’em all.”
“Nobody’s seen them all.”
She folded her arms across her chest. “Test me.”
He thought for a moment. “Plan Nine from Outer Space.”
“Too easy. It’s the worst movie ever made, and therefore a must-see for the serious film fan. To save you time, I’ve also seen Glen or Glenda, Bride of the Monster—in fact, the entire Ed Wood oeuvre.”
“Impressive. The Rocketeer.”
“Jennifer Connelly in her ingénue days. Retro Disney jetpack-versus-blimp movie. Seen it.”
“Under the Rainbow.”
“Chevy Chase and a cast of midgets. How could I not see something with a logline like that? You aren’t even challenging me yet.”
“The Incredible Mr. Limpet.”
“Cartoon fish fights the Nazis. Seen it.”
“Call Me Bwana.”
“Bob Hope in Africa. Seen it.”
“Showgirls.”
“The film that made Elizabeth Berkley a star. Seen it.”
“Abbott and Costello Meet the Abominable Snowman.”
She wagged a finger at him. “No fair making up movies. Abbott and Costello met Frankenstein, the Invisible Man, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and the Mummy. But never a yeti.”
“Damn, you’re good. The Scarlet Letter.”
“Demi Moore does Hawthorne. You think I’d miss that? It’s like Britney Spears doing Molière. Which she hasn’t yet, but when she does, I will be first in line. By the way, have you seen the magazine with the headline ‘Britney Spears Speaks Her Mind’? Now, honestly, how long can that really take?”
He would not be distracted. He was playing the game in deadly earnest. “I’ve got one. The Alien from L.A.”
Abby had to think about that one. “Supermodel falls down rabbit hole, discovers underground civilization. Seen it.”
He shook his head, by all appearances genuinely frustrated. “There is no way you could have seen that movie. Nobody has seen that movie.”
“Hey, it was late at night, and my only options were the subterranean supermodel or an infomercial. I went with the supermodel. In retrospect, the infomercial would have been a better choice. As I recall, it was for the Total Gym and featured a different supermodel.”
He took a long pull on his coffee, then set the cup down with a confident air. “I have you now.”
“Don’t cou
nt on it.”
“Steel Magnolias.”
She was about to say she’d seen it, then realized she hadn’t. “You’re right,” she admitted. “I took a pass on that one. But how could you possibly know?”
“It’s not your kind of thing. Too sentimental. Too ... I don’t know ... girly.”
“I am a girl, you know.”
“You’re not a girl who would sit through Steel Magnolias. Probably not Terms of Endearment, either. Or Sweet Home Alabama, or Hope Floats, or Pay It Forward ...”
“Okay, okay, I give. You’ve found my Achilles’ heel. I don’t go for soapy, sappy cinema. I’m still amazed you guessed, though.”
“Everybody has a weakness. It was just a matter of time until I found yours.”
“Congratulations,” she said sourly.
“Thanks.” He finished his coffee. “You put up a good fight. But I knew you would be mine eventually.”
There were several ways in which this remark could be interpreted. She wondered how many levels of subtext she was meant to find.
“I guess I haven’t seen literally every movie,” she said lightly, “but I’ve seen a bunch. It’s an addiction, like cocaine, only without the improved work efficiency and nasal bleeding.”
“Why do you think they appeal to us so much?”
“Movies? Escapism, I suppose.”
“Brings us back to the art gallery, doesn’t it? Illusions projected into space. They seem real. We can even get lost in them. But at the end of the day they’re just images.”
“You’re more philosophical than you let on.”
“Maybe I’ve just had too much to drink.”
But he had hardly touched his cocktail. She’d avoided hers, as well. Each of them was staying sober and alert, pretending to be jokey and casual, but actually sizing up the other. She thought of some other movies he might have brought up in his impromptu quiz. Mask, maybe. F Is for Fake. Shadow of a Doubt. Masquerade ...
“That’s the best feature of the place where I’m staying now,” he added.
She didn’t follow. “What? Holograms?”
“A wide-screen TV. High-def. Forty inches.”
“You must’ve shelled out big bucks for that one.”
“It’s not mine. Came with the place. I rented it furnished.”
Final Sins Page 8