As did—though they were dried and shrunken, like a couple of dried garbanzos inside his parchment-like scrotum—that mummy out in the desert.
Love Is a Heart Attack
Gina and I spoke to Aricela on the phone half a dozen times over the next couple of weeks. They finally let us see her early on a sunny Thursday afternoon. She was doing fine, it seemed, and it was clear she had the staff at the shelter wrapped around her little finger. We expected her to ask when we were going to take her away from there, but she never said a word about it. I don’t know if she realized we wouldn’t really be fit parents, or if she was just biding her time, knowing sooner or later things would work out for her. They did, eventually. But that’s another story.
We were on the Hollywood Freeway, driving back to Gina’s from the shelter, when the DJ on KLOS said that John Entwistle had died, on the eve of yet another Who comeback tour. I had to pull to the shoulder.
Over the next several days they kept referring to him as the group’s founding bassist. I guess that was as good a term as any, for the world at large. To me he was a hero, one of the ones who survived and was still kicking out good music thirty-five years down the road. I loved watching him. While Pete would wreak havoc on his guitar, while Roger would swing his mic like a buzz-bomb, while Keith would savage his drum kit, John—The Ox—would stand like an anchor, with his fingers flying up and down the fretboard, playing the most astounding bass anyone had heard before or since.
First George, then The Ox. With George, we’d at least had some warning. We knew he was sick. And when he left us, it was easy to believe he was simply going on to a higher plane.
But John … John was fifty-seven when he died. He’d had a heart condition, we found out afterward, but it wasn’t that serious. It shouldn’t have been enough to kill him.
Fifty-seven, for Christ’s sake.
That night, after we were settled in bed, Gina said, “I put the condo on the market.”
I’d made half a dozen runs over there for clothing and her computer and interior design paraphernalia. She hadn’t been back. “Oh?”
“After what happened, I’ll never be able to live there. I gave myself enough time to see if I’d feel different, but I don’t.”
“Where will you live?”
“I was kind of hoping I could move in here.”
We’d never discussed it. There never seemed a reason to.
“You hate this place,” I said.
“I think ‘hate’ is too strong a word.”
“Dislike with a passion, then.”
“That’s closer.”
“So how could you live here?”
“Real estate market’s way up.”
“You’re suggesting I sell this place and we buy one together?”
“You can’t.”
“Of course I can’t.”
“No, I mean you can’t. You don’t own it. Your father does.”
“Right. I knew that.”
“Anyway, I’d never ask you to leave. I know how much you love it here.” She leaned over, licked my ear, said, “I was thinking home improvement.”
I shivered. “Explain, please.”
“I’ve got a ton of equity in my place. We could use it to add on. There could be a Gina area and a Joe area and an us area. The bedroom would be in the us area.”
“This is pretty overwhelming.”
“Think about it.”
I thought about it.
“Okay,” I said.
“Okay? Just like that?”
“Just like that,” I said. “Things change. We’re changing. The house can change.”
“I didn’t expect an answer so soon.”
“Only one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“Your mother.”
“You want her to live here?”
“Of course not. Yick.”
“My feelings exactly.”
“What I meant was, I don’t want to upset her. By having her daughter live in sin.”
Several seconds floated by. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”
“Think about it.”
She thought about it.
“Okay,” she said.
“Okay? Just like that?”
“Just like that,” she said.
Acknowledgments
My sincere thanks to:
UglyGuys Tom Fassbender and Jim Pascoe, for letting Joe make a comeback, for giving me a long leash, and for being the future of crime fiction publishing.
John Shannon, for letting me borrow the character of Jack Liffey. If you haven’t read John’s books, please do. He captures Los Angeles better than anyone.
D.P. Lyle, MD, for information on mummification, and especially for the raisins.
Sean Doolittle, for his most excellent comments on the manuscript.
The folks at the Guitar Center, for the use of the cover shot gear and site.
Janet Manus, the best agent a guy could have, for standing behind me no matter how many wrong alleys I’ve wandered down.
Andrea Cohen, my wife, who has indulged my moods, nudged me when I needed it, and been my compass over the last couple of very strange years.
One Last Hit (Joe Portugal Mysteries) Page 27