“Not yet.”
“She’s monkey-dancing you. Pulling a string. This may not be about money.”
“What else could it be?”
“Revenge.”
Dylan stared at him, the chill of that word working its way up his neck.
“Do you trust your ex-wife?” Garner said.
“Of course.”
“You got divorced.”
“That had nothing to do with trusting her. Why are you saying that?”
“I did a job for a guy once. His ex-wife was the sweetest little thing you ever saw. Two years after the divorce she claimed he was a rapist and wife beater. Almost went to trial. Turned out she was mad about the prenup, that he wouldn’t modify it in any way. If I hadn’t managed to get a recording of her talking to her boyfriend about it, she might’ve ruined the guy’s life.”
“There’s no way,” Dylan said.
“Just covering all bases,” Gadge Garner said. “Think about it, though. Revenge, I mean. Somebody with something against you.”
“I’ve tried.”
“Try harder,” Garner said.
21
Erin was about to get into bed when her phone buzzed. The number was private. Normally she would let it go. But things were not normal.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Erin!” A man’s voice.
“Who is this, please?”
“Somebody who really, really wants to help you.” A tense excitement in the tone, like somebody operating on too many cups of coffee.
She took a chance. “You’re the one who left those notes for my husband.”
“Your ex-husband.”
“What game is this you’re playing?
“I am very good at games,” the man said, with a lilt that was almost childlike. “You should see me. You know, I think you will.”
“What does that even mean?”
“Listen, I’m here to help. Really. You’ve got to believe me, Erin. I need you to.”
“How do you know my name?”
“Listen! Your husband—I mean your ex-husband—may be about to do some stupid things, because he’s a man and men do stupid things when a woman begins to wrap them around her little, painted finger. Just so you know. But I am going to look out for you. Both of you.”
“What do you mean, both?”
“You will soon know.”
“What is it you want?” Erin said. “Money?”
“Money is as money does,” the man said. “No, this is the deal. I’m going to call you again. When I do, you may be tempted to try to record the call or something like that. Don’t. Please don’t. I want to help you. If you do something like that I’ll know. I have ways of knowing. I have—”
“Do you have my son?” Erin said.
“Get a good night’s sleep, Erin,” he said. “You need your sleep.”
There would be no sleep. She knew that. She walked around her condo for ten minutes, twenty. Put on music. Poured a glass of red wine. Sipped it outside on the balcony.
When she came back in she was more awake than when she’d received the call.
Games. He was in her head with his games.
Control your thoughts.
Like you told Kyle to do that one time, when he said he couldn’t sleep because he kept thinking about a monster. And you sat on the bed and told him he could think a new thought, and he should try to think of the beach and the ocean, because they’d been to a beach house in Ventura that September. Kyle loved the ocean, standing in the wet sand as the waves came up.
Think of the ocean, you told him. Standing there in the sand and hearing the waves. Close your eyes and imagine it. Smell the smell, remember? And the waves, gentle waves, one after the other.
You sat there until his breathing got steady, and soon he slept.
Control your thoughts.
She tried. She even thought of the same beach, the vision of Kyle, but the sound of the waves was interrupted by another sound, and try as she might she could not drown it out.
It was the sound of his voice saying, “I am going to look out for you. Both of you.”
22
In the morning, Dylan drove to the Valley to see Erin. She’d called last night wanting to get together. Something she wanted to talk about, but in person. He found himself glad to be seeing her again so soon.
It was Sunday and traffic was light. If only L.A. could always be this way. That’s how Angelenos thought when their freeways actually moved. No accidents. No slowdowns.
Unlike life, Dylan mused. He was coming through the Cahuenga Pass, toward Universal Studios and all the overpriced distractions up there. That was the way you did life now, wasn’t it? Put up enough lights and rides and food courts and movie houses and merch stores and you won’t have the time or the quiet to think about how relentless life is.
Driving by the exit for Universal he saw a billboard, and lost breath. A big, new, splashy ad for the latest attraction at the Harry Potter world. Something about night and lights and Hogwarts castle.
The smiling face of the flying boy-wizard loomed, seemed to be staring right at Dylan.
How long had the sign been there? Of course he knew about the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal. It was one of the biggest SoCal attractions in recent memory. It staggered him when he first read about the plans. Another place he would never get to take Kyle. A place that would have lit up his son’s face, even at age twenty. It would have been one of those nostalgic trips—Remember how you loved that Potter Lego set as a kid? You wouldn’t play with anything else. Let’s go see what they’ve got at Universal. You, me and Mom. I’m buying.
He got off at Vineland and drove to Erin’s street, found a place to park. Erin buzzed him into her complex. She was waiting for him upstairs at her open front door.
She was dressed in weekend casual—blue jeans and a long-sleeve Dodgers T-shirt. Her hair and makeup were, as always, attractive. But the face muscles underneath were tight.
Erin had coffee brewed and handed Dylan a cup. She’d remembered he took it black. Then he watched as she poured herself a cup, added a dollop of Half-and-Half and tablespoon of sugar, and stirred. Just like she had virtually every morning when they were married.
They sat on the balcony, and Erin said, “I got a call last night. I’m sure it’s the guy who sent you that note.”
“There was another one,” Dylan said.
“What did it say?”
Dylan hesitated.
“What?” Erin said.
“I don’t want to upset you.”
“I’m already there,” Erin said. “What did it say?”
“It said Kyle’s favorite toy was Lego Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.”
Erin gasped. She put her coffee cup on the table. Then she interlocked her fingers and squeezed her hands together.
“He has him,” she said.
“Or just knew us back then,” Dylan said.
“He said he was good at games. And then something about you. He said you were going to do something stupid. With a woman.”
Dylan tried to get his thoughts in order.
“Is there a woman?” Erin said.
“A woman I started seeing, yes.”
“So what’s this stupid thing he’s talking about?”
Dylan said, “It’s some kind of con. I think in the end it will be about money. I met this woman, her name’s Tabitha, through a dating site. She set me up somehow. She seemed nice and all, then hit me between the eyes. She told me if I wanted to see Kyle again I’d have to do exactly what she said. That she could be so cold about it. I’ve never met anybody like that.”
“You don’t deserve that,” Erin said.
At that moment Dylan wanted to hold his ex-wife, as if they had never been apart, as if all the pain of the last fifteen years was gone and Kyle was with them, visiting from college. The thought flashed through him like a butane flame and went out almost immediately.
“So there’s two
of them,” Dylan said. “This woman I’m seeing and the guy who called you, who sent those notes. He’s working you, she’s working me. We can’t just sit here and let them do it. Do you still have that box of Kyle’s clothes?”
A year after Kyle’s kidnapping, Erin had carefully folded all of Kyle’s clothes and put them in three plastic boxes, with sealing lids. They’d stayed in the garage until the divorce.
“They’re at my mom’s house,” Erin said.
“Did you ever open them since you packed?”
Erin shook her head.
“I’m working with a security guy Jaquez Rollins set me up with.”
“The Laker?”
“The biggest Laker,” Dylan said. “His guy is Gadge Garner. He thought if we could get DNA maybe it would match from one of the national databases.”
“How do you access those?”
“Garner will do it,” Dylan said. “But we have to be careful. We have to assume they are tracking us somehow. Seeing if we go to the police or FBI.”
“So what are we supposed to do?”
“Go over to your mom’s,” Dylan said. “See if you can smuggle those boxes of Kyle’s clothes into your trunk.”
“Smuggle?”
“Exactly. Like you were a drug dealer trying to fool a stakeout.”
“You think it’s really that bad?” Erin said.
“I don’t want to take any chances with these people.”
Erin put out her hand. Dylan took it. They said nothing for a long time.
23
Dylan decided to take the 134 to the 5 and avoid downtown. He’d seen enough of that hub. The 5 would take him past Dodger Stadium, another memory of Kyle. It was on his fourth birthday that Dylan and Erin took him to his first major league baseball game. It was against the Cincinnati Reds and it went into extra innings. The Dodgers won in the bottom of the 14th, by which time Kyle, filled with a Dodger Dog and copious amounts of peanuts, was asleep on Dylan’s lap.
It was just after he passed Stadium Way that Dylan got a call on his Bluetooth system.
He punched connect without speaking.
Tabitha’s voice was measured and cool, like a jealous girlfriend. “Did you have a nice visit with your ex-wife?”
He was in his car, almost home. The day was murky with low-level smog.
“The one thing I cannot take,” Tabitha said, “is disloyalty.”
Dylan wanted to throw his phone out of the car, into a rain gutter, where it would fall and smash and be nibbled by rats. He wanted the phone to turn into Tabitha before the rats finished eating. He wanted to go full Stephen King on her.
“Are you still there, dear?” she said.
“Talk,” he said.
“I know you’re very upset now, and that going to your ex you probably tried to come up with some sort of plan of action. Am I right?”
Dylan stayed silent. How could she know all this?
“You’re going to have to answer me, honey.”
“No,” he said. “It’s over.”
“Excuse me?”
“You can have him.”
Silence.
“You can keep him,” Dylan said.
“Ah,” she said, “you are calling my bluff, as they say.”
“Whatever. Good-bye.”
“I suppose you want proof he’s alive and well?”
“I don’t care anymore.”
“I think you do.”
“Think anything you want.”
“I don’t like this game you’re playing with me,” Tabitha said. “I don’t like it one bit.”
“Tough.”
“And you shouldn’t like it either, because I can take it up a notch.”
“Don’t bother calling me again, dear.”
Dylan killed the call.
He was breathing hard. But there was freedom in the breath.
She called again.
He didn’t answer.
She left a voice message.
He didn’t listen.
Until five hours later.
24
Erin’s mother lived in Sylmar. She’d moved there after Erin’s father, Frank, died of a massive heart attack at age fifty-seven. A former school teacher, Lily Peterson had spent a year in deep mourning, as his death had turned into the second shot from a double-barreled tragedy. He died only two months after Kyle had been taken.
Lily found she could not work, and so had taken time off from Melvin Avenue Elementary School, then decided she didn’t have her heart in it any more. She sold the Reseda house that Erin had grown up in and moved to Sylmar, to a smaller place, but one that left her with some equity to invest. Dylan did that for her, and the results had been enough so that Lily could work part-time and get along just fine.
If by just fine you meant walking around with a sadness that was equal to Erin’s. But while Erin had started to move upward the last few years, Lily seemed on the downslope. Now it was daughter taking care of mother time.
Except today. The visit here was for one purpose only. And to get back without too many questions.
The first question came from Lily, with the familiar tone of impending doom that seemed to have crept into all her inquiries since the death of Frank Peterson. “How are you feeling these days?” Lily said, placing her hand on Erin’s arm.
Lily was now seventy-two. Her hair, once a robust auburn, was ashen-colored and flat.
“Mom, I’m fine,” Erin said.
“You sure?”
“Absolutely,” Erin lied, and pushed inside the house. It was an odd mix of items from Erin’s childhood, like the sofa where she’d spent many an afternoon watching Happy Days (she loved The Fonz) and Chico and the Man (she loved Freddie Prinze). And the dining room set with laminate table and polypropylene chairs. These, alongside the new things that had no discernible matching qualities. IKEA by way of thrift store central.
“Let me fix you some lunch,” Lily said.
“I’m only here for a short visit, Mom,” Erin said. “I have to get back. I just wanted to see you and pick something up.”
“Oh?” she said, heading for the kitchen. “Just a snack then. What would you like to drink?”
“Honest, Mom, I can’t stay. I need to get something from the garage. Can I go out and look?”
“The garage? What is it you need?”
“Oh, just some boxes that you’ve been storing here.”
“Oh my.” The sound of Lily’s voice was not comforting.
“What?” Erin said.
Her mother faced her, and her complexion matched her hair. She had one hand on her cheek.
“Mom, what is it?”
“The garage,” she said “I had it …”
“You had it what?”
“Cleaned out.”
“Of everything?”
“I—”
“Mother, without even asking me?”
“I forgot. I mean, I didn’t know.”
“I had three boxes of Kyle’s clothes. You knew that!”
“I honestly don’t remember, honey. I mean, I do. But at the time …”
Erin cut off the words coming at her by way of a silent scream. She’d filled her head this way often in the first few years after Kyle was taken. It dulled the pain and shut out whatever it was she did not want to deal with. And now it came back to her, full volume, for with the news that the boxes were not there it was like losing Kyle all over again.
As she ran toward the door connecting washroom to garage, Erin thought she heard her mother crying. She did not stop to check.
The garage was pretty much emptied out. A few tools, a coiled hose, the water heater. Up in the rafters, nothing. That was where the boxes had been the last time she saw them.
She had a feeling of falling then, like in those old cartoons with the coyote and roadrunner. No matter what the coyote did, he always ended up dropping hundreds of feet and making a little cloud of dust when he hit bottom.
She got ready to hit bottom
.
It didn’t come. She made herself hover in the air, again cartoon-like. Hover and figure out what to do.
She went back in the house and found her mother sitting at the kitchen table, head in her hands.
Erin knelt and put her arm around her shoulder.
“I’m so sorry …” her mother said.
“Me too,” Erin said.
“I didn’t think.”
“Sh.”
“It’s been so long since …”
“I know.”
“Some poor child will have them, and they’ll do good.”
“Poor child?”
“Those boxes went to the Salvation Army.”
Erin sat back. “How long ago?”
“It was only last week.”
Erin stood. “Which one?”
“I think … Lake View Terrace.”
“I wonder if …”
“It’s possible,” her mother said. She took Erin’s hands. “Dear God, it’s possible.”
25
Silent movie night at the Bijou. Petrie still got that old feeling in his loins. Something about that world, the silents, dark and mysterious. With its great god Chaney.
Tonight he was screening Tell It to the Marines. Not his favorite Chaney. He was too human in this one. But of course he didn’t get the girl, and that was reason enough. Those looks on his face. Enough to make you watch the whole thing.
He was standing by the popcorn machine when old Mr. Weathers approached. He came to every single silent movie. He said his father used to tell him about the great silents. Now, here in Lancaster, at a theater that had been marked for demolition, they were back. With a live organist, too.
“Another Lon Chaney, eh?” Mr. Weathers said. He was in his mid-eighties, walked a little stooped over. But he always had a smile on his face.
“The greatest actor ever,” T. J. Petrie said.
“Thank you for doing this,” Mr. Weathers said.
“You’re welcome. Thank you for coming.”
“I love what you’re doing with this place. I remember when it started going downhill. When it started showing all those arty movies. Who was that Swedish guy?”
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