‘Water’s fine.’
‘Would you get Seymour a glass of water, hon?’
‘Sure,’ Maxine says.
Barry sits on the couch beside Seymour and tosses the dish towel onto the table.
‘She helps out around the house?’
‘That’s right.’
Seymour clears his throat. ‘That’s all?’
‘If I’m not mistaken, Seymour, you’re here to ask a favor.’
‘Of course. You’re right.’
‘What is it you need?’
‘I have an appointment tomorrow with Leland Jones. I’m to give him money, he’s to give me the last, uh, compromising photograph he has. I’d like — and I know this is a big favor — I’d like you to search his place while he’s out with me, make sure he doesn’t have any other photographs. I want this to be the end of it.’
‘Seymour, this goes well beyond-’
‘I know that, Barry. I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t think it was important. And, of course, if my career moves forward I’ll bring you along with me.’
‘Can’t it be someone who-’
‘I need it to be someone I trust. You’re someone I trust, Barry.’
Barry sighs, scrapes a bit of shrimp out from under his fingernail, wipes it on the dishrag. He stares thoughtfully at nothing. Finally: ‘Okay.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Just give me the address, Seymour.’
‘Of course.’
Maxine returns with a glass of water.
SEVENTEEN
1
Candice has the evening off and wishes she didn’t, but the funeral’s tomorrow and she couldn’t imagine trying to sit through it on four hours’ sleep, so here she is, sitting in the corner of the room, looking at the place where her couch used to be, wishing she was somewhere else. The couch is now curbside and will be until someone who doesn’t know its history makes off with it. She hopes it happens soon. She’d like to look out the window and see the damned thing has vanished.
Tomorrow she’ll go to Sears amp; Roebuck to look for a new one, because right now it’s the mental equivalent of a missing tooth. Her eye keeps going to the spot where it should be, looking, looking, looking, while her mind plays over the reason it’s gone.
She doesn’t want to be here.
She gets to her feet and walks to the telephone on the wall. On the counter below it, a telephone book. Stacked on top of the telephone book, business cards and scraps of paper. She picks up the paper with Detective Bachman’s phone number on it. She knows she shouldn’t call. She hit him and screamed at him and told him she would never forgive him for taking her son away. She called him a bastard and a motherfucker. But he told her he understood what she was going through, understood her loss, and there was something in his eyes that made her believe him. And she can think of no one else who might know what she’s thinking and feeling.
Vivian’s her friend, has done more than anyone to help her, but she’s probably at work, and wouldn’t understand anyway. And even if she did understand, there’s something about talking to a stranger that appeals to her, that feels safer. A stranger can’t judge you, and if he does judge you it doesn’t matter. You can simply walk away.
She picks up the telephone and makes the call.
A woman picks up.
‘Hoffman Boarding.’
‘Is Detective Bachman in?’
‘Hold on.’
The telephone is set down. This is followed by a knocking sound, the woman saying call for you, Bachman, are you there? Open the door. And then silence.
After a while the woman’s voice in her ear: ‘He isn’t in.’
‘Can I leave a message?’
‘Okay.’
‘Can you tell him Candice Richardson called?’
‘Candice Richardson?’
‘Sandy’s mother.’
‘Does he have your phone number?’
‘Trinity nine five one fifty.’
‘Would you like to say what it’s regarding?’
‘No,’ she says, ‘thank you.’ She sets the phone down.
She wonders if he’ll call back. Part of her hopes he doesn’t.
2
Evelyn steps into her dress and pulls it up over her shoulders. The fabric is smooth and delicate and feels good brushing across her skin. She zips up the back of the dress, feeling inexplicably nervous. She tells herself it’s not going to be a real date; it’s work. Speaking of which: she walks to her suitcase and in one of the side pockets finds a black-handled switchblade knife. She presses a button. The spring-loaded blade flips out, and she examines it a moment, looking at her distorted reflection in its steel. Then she folds the blade into the handle and slips the knife into her purse.
Lou has a second knife, identical to this one, which he’ll use elsewhere when the time is right.
She walks to the bathroom, picks up a lipstick from the bathroom counter, smears it on her lips. She rubs her lips against one another, liking the slightly grainy feel of the lubrication the lipstick supplies. She blows herself a kiss.
She’s ready.
Eugene isn’t due for half an hour, and when he arrives she’ll still make him wait ten minutes, simply sit up here flipping through a magazine, but she wants to look good, needs to look good.
Needs him to fall for her.
3
Carl steps from his car, slams the door shut, and walks toward the boarding house. He’s covered in oily sweat and disgusted by his own stink, a sour smell like curdled milk. He spent his last two hours at work doing nothing but watching the clock, refusing to let himself leave early. If he left early that would mean he was no longer in control. Things have been slipping lately. He found a way to use at work every day this week — once while locked in a toilet stall, hoping against hope that no one would walk in and smell that distinctive smell and know. Every day this week he’s used at work. Every day but today. He realized he was losing control. He needed to prove to himself that he could regain control of the situation, of himself. And he did. He made it. He made it through the work day without using. True, the last two hours it was all he thought about, getting into his room at the boarding house and unfolding his bindle, but thoughts are not actions. Only actions are actions.
And he acted like a man in control.
He was a man in control. Barely in control, perhaps, but in control.
He pushes through the front door and hurries up the stairs, tripping on his way, hurting his wrist and cursing under his breath, but not stopping, scrambling on all fours up the last few steps, and then into his room. He locks the door behind him. He walks to the dresser sitting against the back wall and pulls open the top drawer. He removes the brown paper bag, walks to the bed with it, sits down. Then his eye catches something on the floor, a white piece of paper. Mrs Hoffman must have slipped it under the door. He wonders for a moment if he’s late on rent, but rent is due on Mondays and he knows he already paid this week. He should pick it up and see what it says. If he’s in control of himself he’ll pick it up and see what it says. A normal person would do that, and he’s a normal person. Things have been slipping lately, but they’re under control. He’s under control. He wills his fingers to let go the bag and sets it on the bed. He picks up the slip of paper and looks at it. Someone named Candice Richardson called for him.
Who the fuck is Candice Richardson?
He closes his eyes and tries to think. First he thinks of nothing, just the itch at the back of his brain, then her face appears in his mind, and then other images float forward, as if emerging through a fog. A 1948 Chevrolet with a man lying beside it. A zip gun made from a car antenna. A comic book. The mother of the boy who killed his stepfather. He should call her. He told her to call him if she needed anything and she did, despite the fact she told him she never would, despite the fact she told him she would never forgive him for taking her boy away from her. She called because she saw it on him, or smelled it on him: death. He’s someone who understand
s.
He should call her back.
But not now. After. He made it through the day. He deserves this.
He picks up the paper bag and one by one removes the items from within it, setting them out on the bed in a neat row, in a tidy line, almost enjoying the discomfort of his need now that it’s about to be satisfied, enjoying the ritual.
He’ll call her back after.
4
The elevator doors open. Evelyn emerges from within, like some creature hatched from an egg, and sways toward Eugene, svelte and fluid and serpentine. A smile touches her lips as she walks toward him, and her eyes are alive with humor and sensuality. He called up to her room over ten minutes ago, but it was certainly worth the wait. He gets to his feet and takes a step forward to greet her. Seeing her is almost enough to make him forget the envelope he opened this morning and what he found within it. Almost. But even though the worry floats around the back of his mind he knows he can do nothing about it. He must simply wait, see what happens.
He leans in and kisses her cheek. He can smell clean sweat on her, the kind of sweat you want to lick off, and soap, and that soft flowery perfume that’s so unlike the woman herself.
‘You look beautiful,’ he says into her ear.
‘I know,’ she says.
5
The knock at the door comes sooner than expected. He only called her back fifteen minutes ago, and she wasn’t sure when they got off the phone that he’d actually show up. He seemed distant and strange during their conversation, halting in his speech, but despite this she is inexplicably looking forward to seeing this man who helped to arrest her son. She walks to the door and pulls it open. Detective Bachman stands on the other side in a wrinkled gray suit and scuffed shoes, his weathered face hanging there dead till he sees her and puts a smile on it. He removes his fedora and holds it in front of his chest as if she were the national anthem.
‘Mrs Richardson.’
‘Candice.’
‘Candice, then. Are you ready?’
His eyes seem glossy and far away, and much of the emotion that was evident on his face the night she met him appears to have vanished, is completely absent. She wasn’t herself that night. Perhaps she misjudged him. Perhaps her memory of him was distorted by what she was going through. She hesitates, wondering if this was a bad idea, wondering if she should just stay home.
She glances back over her shoulder and cannot stand the sight of her empty house. It feels oppressive, the emptiness, and she wants to get away from it. At least temporarily.
‘Yeah,’ she says. ‘I’m ready.’
‘Good,’ he says, and steps aside.
6
The restaurant is dimly lit. A chandelier hangs from the ceiling, lighting the center of the room, but Evelyn and Eugene are sitting at a small two-top in a back corner, in darkness but for the flickering light of a guttering candle. It makes it difficult for her to read his expression.
He takes a swallow of his beer.
‘Is that really so bad?’ she says.
He remains silent for a long time. Finally he shakes his head and says, ‘I just don’t know how anyone can not like Humphrey Bogart.’
‘I didn’t say I don’t like him.’
‘That’s what it sounded like to me.’
‘I like him fine when he plays scoundrels. He was perfect in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. But his teeth are disgusting. Every time he kisses a woman onscreen all I can think about is what his breath must smell like. I see him with Lauren Bacall and I simply don’t believe it.’
‘But they’re married.’
She shrugs. ‘They say love is blind. Maybe it doesn’t have a good sense of smell, either.’
Eugene laughs.
She smiles and sips her wine.
7
Carl and Candice sit across from one another at the Brown Derby on Wilshire Boulevard. He watches her eat a bowl of chili and sips his coffee, good and bitter and hot. The place is busy and filled with the sounds of people talking, of forks and knives scraping against plates, of chairs being scooted in and out. He likes the sounds; they blend together, creating a cloud of noise that’s almost as peaceful as silence.
‘It was my wife,’ he says, ‘the end of last year. Cancer.’
‘I’m so sorry.’
‘I moved out of our place the next day and haven’t been back since.’
‘Really?’
He nods. ‘Park on the street sometimes, look at the house, but I can’t bring myself to go inside. Too many memories there.’
Candice nods her understanding. ‘Things used to happen there, and now they don’t, and the place feels emptier because of it. Emptier and lonelier.’
‘And the worst thing is that the more full of memories it is,’ Carl says, ‘the more hollow it all seems now.’
‘It’s like that old riddle,’ Candice says, taking a bite of her chili. ‘What gets bigger the more you take away from it?’
‘A hole,’ Carl says.
8
Eugene and Evelyn walk along 8th Street beneath a bruised evening sky. Behind them, what remains of the sunset — a thin line of pink being crushed by dark night from above. In front of them, the skyscrapers of downtown Los Angeles. Automobiles roll by, headlights throwing out beams of light. Then one of the yellow streetcars heading east.
‘How far is your apartment?’
‘About five blocks.’
‘Let’s walk there, have a nightcap.’
‘Maybe your hotel room would be better.’
He doesn’t want Evelyn to see his apartment. He’s taken women there before after picking them up in bars. Drunk, they’re delighted by his milk truck. Next morning as he drives them home, however, they often seem vaguely embarrassed by the whole experience. Waking up in a small apartment furnished in yard-sale finds. Being driven home in a delivery vehicle. The fact they can’t quite remember his name. Often they ask him to drop them off at the end of the block and walk the rest of the way home.
He likes Evelyn, likes her a lot, and doesn’t want any embarrassed silences come morning. And maybe he feels she’s out of his league and his apartment will reveal that fact to her. He isn’t sure, exactly.
But Evelyn shakes her head at his suggestion.
‘No?’
‘I can’t let anybody see me take a strange man into my room. That wouldn’t look good. Besides, I want to see where you live.’
‘I’m not sure I have anything to drink at home.’
‘We’ll stop somewhere on the way, pick up a bottle.’
Eugene gives up, shrugs. ‘Okay.’
Evelyn smiles at him and puts her arm in his arm and leans her head on his shoulder as they walk. It feels strange and unnatural and new and fine.
‘Now I think of it, I probably do have a half bottle of whiskey in the cupboard.’
‘Perfect.’
After a few more minutes of silent strolling along the cracked sidewalk they make their way up the stairs toward Eugene’s front door, their feet thudding against the bare wood steps. The walls are lined with smudges, the banister black from grimy hands dragging up and down it over the years.
Once at the top of the stairs he glances to Evelyn and smiles.
‘Here we are,’ he says.
‘Here we are.’
He unlocks the front door and pushes it open. ‘Ladies first.’
‘What if there’s a burglar?’
‘That’s why I’m sending you in first. To protect me.’
‘Coward.’
She heads into the place, smiling, and Eugene follows. He closes the door behind him and turns on a lamp, illuminating the small living room.
‘Have a seat,’ he says. ‘I’ll get the drinks. Neat?’
‘Neat.’
He pours them each two fingers of bourbon, carries the glasses out to the living room, sits down. He hands Evelyn her drink.
‘Thank you,’ she says. She holds up the glass. ‘To a lovely evening.’
&nb
sp; ‘To a lovely evening,’ Eugene says, tapping his glass against hers before taking a swallow. She sips hers as well, her soft mouth smashing against the glass, her tongue teasing the lip of it. Then she pulls the glass away, and must feel him watching her, because she glances toward him, and suddenly they’re staring into each other’s eyes.
Eugene’s heart pounds in his chest. He leans in toward her, close enough that he can feel her breath on his skin, and hesitates. He feels like an adolescent boy, like he’s never done this before, his dozens of one-night stands forgotten. He feels unsure of himself and awkward and they stay that way for a long time, their faces mere inches apart, looking back at one another uncertainly.
‘Do it,’ she says.
He does.
9
Carl and Candice sit in his car in front of her house. They’re silent. Carl feels strange. He feels close to Candice and very far from her. He scratches his cheek and looks through the windshield at the dark, empty street. The asphalt is gray, houses lined up on either side of it, facing one another like formations of soldiers about to do battle. Most of the windows are closed for the evening, the curtains drawn, secret things taking place behind them. Awful things, as secret things so often are.
‘Thank you,’ Candice says finally.
He looks over at her. She looks back, smiles.
‘For what?’
‘Understanding.’
‘I wish I didn’t.’
‘I know. But it helped.’
‘I can’t imagine I said anything useful.’
‘Understanding was enough.’
She leans in and kisses him on the corner of his mouth. Then the car door’s opened and shut and she’s walking up the path to her house. The windows are black.
He watches her walk to the front door, unlock it. He watches the door open and shut like the blink of an eye. One minute she’s there, the next she’s not. In between those two states she glances back at him and smiles.
He touches the corner of his mouth where she kissed him. He blinks.
Her living-room window lights up. He can see her moving behind the glass.
The Last Tomorrow Page 13