Your Son Is Alive

by James Scott Bell

  How much of this was a lie? How could she ever tell?

  And yet he did have her son!

  “Plus, I’ll show you a lot of great movies! The silent ones are the best. Garbo and John Gilbert. The chemistry. We’ll have that, you wait and see.”

  He leaned his face so close to hers that she could smell his breath. It had a strange acrid odor tinged with wintergreen. Like acid mixed with the scent of a forest. Poison and freshness.

  “You have to eat,” Petrie said.

  Erin turned her head away from him to avoid the smell.

  “One of the things I do very well,” he said, “and one of the things—of which there are many—that will earn your trust and yes, even love and devotion, is my cooking. I am a killer cook, if you’ll pardon the phrase. So I am going to make you an honest-to-goodness Caesar salad. Absolutely to die for—oops, again you’ll pardon the expression. Sound good?”

  Erin fought to keep her breath steady. “What are you going to do to my husband?”

  “Ex-husband,” he said.

  “For God’s sake, tell me what this is leading to.”

  “Never for God’s sake. She doesn’t exist.”

  “I don’t find you funny or clever or the least interesting.”

  “You will, I promise,” he said. “But first the salad. You will love it. You won’t be able to help it. And the freshness of it will be the start of my promise to you, to make your life a pleasure, as long as we both shall live.”

  92

  The late afternoon traffic on the 605 was thicker than usual. According to his Google Maps app, it would take him an hour and fifty-eight minutes to get to the 7-Eleven.

  If nothing changed, which of course it always did in L.A. Accidents waiting to happen. Millennials testing the limits of texting. Road ragers puffing their chests and blaring their horns. Distracted realtors closing deals on phones. And the standard buzzed drivers who would tell the cops they only had “a couple of beers.”

  Dylan tried to keep from too much emotion as he drove. He put on the local oldies station. He actually wanted the distraction of the commercials.

  Frankie Valli was workin’ his way back to a girl he called Babe, with a burnin’ love inside.

  The clock on the dash read 3:57.

  No time for slow-downs, which were completely out of his control.

  Dylan heard himself say something.

  “Help me, help me, help me.”

  93

  Petrie had wheeled in a serving cart, as if he were a waiter at a high end restaurant. He placed it in front of her. It had a couple of wooden bowls on top, one of them filled with lettuce. There were wooden salad forks, too, and several small serving bowls with ingredients of some kind, and a couple of bottles. One of them was Worcestershire sauce.

  He rubbed his hands together as he spoke. “Now, there are very few places anymore that make a real Caesar. Did you know it was invented in Tijuana? By a guy named Caesar? Yeah, funny, isn’t it? Most people think it was named after Julius. That idiot Paul Newman has a wreath on his head on the label of his awful dressing. I’m glad he’s dead. Fake Caesar dressing drives me nuts.”

  You’re already there, Erin thought.

  “What you need is fresh, crisp romaine, but you don’t want to bruise it. You have to cut it up, but it must be done carefully.”

  “I don’t care. Please don’t talk anymore.”

  “No, you’ll love this! Now, you need a wooden bowl to mix the dressing. If you use glass or steel, the flavors won’t meld properly. What I’m going to do is put in freshly minced garlic, finely sliced anchovies, some dry mustard … there.”

  She tried to concentrate on something, anything that wasn’t him. She found herself picturing Kyle at four in his bedroom, in his PJs, just as she was about to sing to him.

  “I take half a lemon and squeeze it through a linen napkin, so we don’t get any seeds. Good.”

  Long years ago …

  “And a coddled egg yolk. That’s what most people miss. They use a raw egg yolk or, worse, no yolk at all. Well, the yolk is on them! So here we go.”

  He took an egg from a small bowl and cracked it, then poured between the halves a couple of times. Then he plopped the yolk in the salad bowl.

  “A little mixing.”

  He began to mix it with a fork. It made a shook shook shook sound in the wooden bowl

  “Anchovies,” he said, picking up a small bowl. “Without anchovies, it is not a Caesar, I don’t care what they say.”

  He finished putting in the fish and then began the fork work again. And without a change in tone or cadence, said, “My dad killed himself. Shot himself. Took a gun and put it to his head in the dining room and blew his brains out.”

  Shook shook shook …

  “Didn’t leave a note, didn’t say goodbye. He was beaten down by life. Actually, by the people in his life. He worked as an accountant in a construction firm. Big development guys. That put him around a lot of these big macho movers and idiot hard hats who have no hope in life but the next paycheck and round of beers at the sports bar.”

  Shook shook shook …

  “I was a kid, but I saw it. I saw what a guy said to him and how it affected him. It didn’t help when my mom started sleeping with one of the foremen on a job site. I saw that too. My dad didn’t do anything about it. He just figured … well I don’t know what that loser figured. Except in his mind and in his little body he accepted the role of victim.”

  He stopped.

  “I need you to know all this, Erin.”

  She didn’t want to engage him in any way. But it was hard not to with him standing right there.

  “It’s important to me,” he said. “And so is this part. Virgin olive oil by sight. That’s the artistic part. Not too much or too little.”

  He poured in the olive oil from a bottle.

  “And now Worcestershire.”

  He dashed some in.

  “And I like a dash of hot sauce. Most people use Tabasco, but I’ve found Tapatio to be a better mix with the acids. It doesn’t compete, it complements. Like you and me.”

  The acids in her stomach reacted to his words. If she’d had any food in her, she would have thrown it up.

  94

  Dylan crawled through Pasadena. Traffic had definitely slowed.

  It was 4:55 p.m. when he passed Lake Avenue. The flow as at about ten miles an hour, not a good sign. But when he followed the 210 heading north, his speed inexplicably picked up. This was the main artery from Pasadena to Santa Clarita, where homes were more affordable. A good thing for young families but hell on a freeway system that was never built for massive commuting.

  Still, if speeds kept at this level, Dylan estimated he could make it to the appointed spot with ten or so minutes to spare.

  A minute later, car taillights blended into a blood-red stoppage.

  Now he was crawling at a stop-and-start pace.

  That could only mean one thing—an accident.

  And, indeed, he saw the flashing lights of an emergency vehicle in the distance.

  Unbelievable.

  No, too believable. L.A. was once again a living and driving cliché, a virtual parking lot on the freeway system.

  Nothing you can do.

  One hour to get there.

  Not at this rate.

  It didn’t help that on the oldies station Ricky Nelson was singing about a poor little fool.

  He turned it off.

  A Lexus cut in front of him, as Lexi were wont to do in L.A. It almost clipped him.

  Can’t let that happen!

  The shadows of twilight were turning into the curtains of night.

  He found himself biting the insides of his cheeks. Just like he used to when he was a kid and felt powerless to influence his world.

  The flashing lights got closer, and from the movement of the cars Dylan could tell there was at least one lane closed. His only solace then was belief in the physics of urban traffic—just after
the accident, things would greatly speed up.

  When he reached the accident scene he saw a downed motorcycle crushed up against the median. A Toyota SUV was sitting in the number one lane, almost sideways. A CHP vehicle was parked in front of the mess, along with a red Fire Department medical van, and two patrol officers were assisting two medics with a gurney.

  Whoever was on the gurney was completely covered, including the head, with a black blanket.

  A movie director couldn’t have larded on more symbolism. Dylan almost laughed at the way Los Angeles could imitate art. But the laugh got stuck in his throat.

  95

  With a set of wooden salad servers, Petrie tossed the Caesar in the large wooden bowl.

  “Not too harsh with the romaine,” he said. “Just enough to show it who’s boss.”

  He paused, picked up another small bowl, and sprinkled on what looked like grated cheese.

  “You must use fresh Romano,” he said. “Parmesan is too salty.”

  He started tossing again.

  “Finally, and this is crucial, the croutons. Don’t use store-bought. Make your own. Choose a bread that has strength to it, not sandwich bread. Personally, I like a good, solid baguette.”

  He picked up a bowl of browned bread squares and added them to the salad, saying, “Baked to perfection with an olive oil drizzle, a little fresh garlic, and just a touch of oregano.”

  One more round of tossing, then: “And there you have it, Erin. You have witnessed the perfect Caesar. Now to taste it.”

  “I’m not eating,” she said.

  “You won’t be able to help yourself,” he said.

  He took two white plates from the lower shelf of the serving cart and put them on top. He filled them with salad.

  “You don’t remember this, I’m sure, but you smiled at me one day in English class. You need to know how much that meant to me. I know you weren’t one of the real popular girls, because I had a total knowledge of the class system at our school. You didn’t know about the inherent beauty you had. But I did. Excuse me.”

  He wheeled the serving cart to the side and went behind her again.

  Erin stared at the salad. She wanted to kick it over.

  A moment later Petrie returned, pushing a table on wheels, with a white linen tablecloth covering it. On top were two elegant place settings, minus plates, complete with two wine glasses. In the middle of the table were a candle, illuminated, and a silver bucket with a bottle of wine in it.

  Petrie rolled the table in front of Erin and removed the wine bottle from the bucket.

  “A nice, crisp chardonnay,” he said. “The best pairing.”

  He picked up a corkscrew and began to twist it into the cork.

  “I wasn’t exactly a chick magnet in school,” he said. “But I wanted to be friends with you. You didn’t want to be friends with me. You weren’t real mean about it, but I tried to talk to you once at lunch, I was so shaking when I did. Do you remember?”

  Erin shook her head.

  “I came up to you and my hands were sweaty and my voice was shaking, you were sitting there with someone on your left hand side, I came up on the right hand side, and you didn’t notice me at first.”

  Petrie pulled out the cork and twisted it off the corkscrew. He sniffed the cork, then placed it on the edge of the table. He put the corkscrew down next to the silver bucket.

  As he poured wine into the two wine glasses, he said, “It was hard for me to breathe. And when you finally did look at me, you didn’t smile this time. You looked at me like, what was I doing there? And do you know what I said to you? I said, ‘What are you having for lunch?’ Real smooth, right?”

  He stepped around the table and unshackled Erin’s right hand. His hands were cold from the wine bottle. He picked up one of the glasses of wine and held it out for Erin.

  “No, thank you,” she said.

  “You must,” he said.

  Erin said nothing.

  With a shrug, Petrie put the glass back on the table. He got the two plates of salad and served them, then pulled up a folding chair and sat opposite Erin.

  And smiled at her. Just another nice dinner with a potential lover.

  As he picked up his fork, he said, “Your reaction was to look at your friend, I don’t even know who it was because I was so fixated on you, but then your friend started to laugh and you started to laugh and I turned away and walked fast and went around to where those big trash cans were behind the cafeteria and I threw up. It just so happened that one of those brainless football players saw me and started calling people over to look. ‘Look at Weezer, look at what he’s doing with his lunch.’ Oh, I’m sorry, that’s not a pleasant thing to bring up at dinner. Go on, taste a little bit of heaven.”

  Erin didn’t move. The garlic smell was making her nauseous.

  “We are under a bit of a time constraint,” he said. “I have a very important appointment coming up. Would you like to hear about it?”

  96

  It was eight minutes past six when he pulled into the parking lot of the 7-Eleven. There were three cars in the lot, and a dull red and green light issued from the store window.

  No one was milling around outside.

  Dylan got out and went to the handicap sign, which was right where it was supposed to be. He looked around, almost expecting some cop to come up in write him a ticket or asking him what he was up to. He held his phone in his palm.

  The night air was hot and dry, no surprise in Santa Clarita. God had never intended for civilization to be here. This was where snakes and Gila monsters had made their homes for a million years or more.

  Why wasn’t he getting a call?

  He looked around, wondering—no, knowing—that he was being watched. Somehow, somebody had eyeballs on him.

  Another minute ticked by, and still no contact.

  Maybe this whole thing was to humiliate him. There would be no call. No, not until he drove all the way back to Whittier and the call would come in then, castigating him, mocking him.

  The insides of his cheeks were getting raw.

  A movement to his right. Dylan turned and saw a man just outside the doors of the 7-Eleven, coming toward him. The guy did not walk so much as he lumbered. In the dying light he looked to Dylan like a Hispanic male who could have been an offensive lineman for the UCLA football team.

  Dylan got ready, watching the big man’s eyes.

  Which looked down at a phone in his massive hands as he approached.

  Then he looked up, at Dylan.

  And smiled. Nodded his head. Then looked back at his phone as he walked by. He went to a black Acura, got in, pulled out of the parking lot.

  Dylan’s mouth was dry.

  Behind him a man’s voice said, “Hiya, sport.”

  Almost jumping into the wall, Dylan turned.

  Carbona, the lying witness against him, smiled.

  “Easy does it,” Carbona said. “You’re almost home with your wife and kid.”

  For a moment, Dylan couldn’t speak. What was there to say? What was there to do?

  “Unless you want to turn around and go back,” Carbona said.

  “Where are they?” Dylan said.

  “Not far,” Carbona said. “But I don’t want to be followed. Phone please.”

  Dylan didn’t move.

  “You’ll get it back,” Carbona said.

  “You expect me to believe that?”

  “I don’t have any incentive here. You want to leave now, go ahead. You’ll never see your son again. I don’t know about your wife.”

  Dylan shook his head and dropped his phone on the ground.

  “That’s not a good attitude,” Carbona said. “Step around the corner now.”

  Has to be played out. Dylan took a few steps to the other side of the 7-Eleven, watching as Carbona picked up his phone.

  “Down there,” Carbona said, nodding toward a black sedan, the only car parked on that side.

  They walked halfway tow
ard it.

  Someone got out of the car. A woman. She wore shades and a jacket, and a dark blue hat with LAPD on the front.

  “My partner,” Carbona said. “Please turn toward the wall.”

  “Come on,” Dylan said.

  “Please.”

  Dylan didn’t move.

  “Detective Peralta?” Carbona said.

  The woman in the LAPD hat pulled a gun from under her jacket.

  “Assume the position,” Carbona said. “I just love saying that.” He pushed Dylan in the back and smashed him up against the side of the building.

  And started patting him down. All over. Chest, arms, stomach, sides, legs.

  Ankles.

  “What have we here?” Carbona said. He reached into Dylan’s sock and removed the knife.

  “Look at that, will you?” Carbona said. “A real nasty, this one.”

  Dylan still faced the wall. Dirt and sand smell assaulted his nose.

  “Tracker chip right in the handle,” Carbona said. “Professional. Somebody wants to know where we are.”

  “That’s disappointing,” the woman said.

  Dylan whipped his head around as she was taking off her sunglasses.

  “Hello, darling,” Tabitha Mullaney said.

  97

  “I took good care of your boy,” Petrie said.

  He was sitting back now, legs crossed, sipping his wine. “We lived for a time in the mountains, away from people. There was a long period of adjustment, naturally, but you know what? Children are so resilient. He was only five years’ worth of clay, still moist and malleable. I began to shape him.”

  Head pounding, Erin said, “Please stop!”

  “I can’t stop now,” he said. “You need to know everything. Jimmy doesn’t know about any of this, if that’s any comfort to you. I was the one who wrote the note that said ‘Mom, I want to see you again.’ I think that was a bit cruel, honestly, and I’m sorry for it. But you had to know who is in control. Part of that is stripping away mental resistance. You’ll know what I mean soon enough.”