The Disappearance

by J. F. Freedman

  Polly nods. “Eighteen months old.” She rubs her stomach. “They’ll be a year and a half apart.”

  “You moved fast,” he says, wishing he hadn’t said that, wanting to bite his tongue off.

  She looks him in the eyes. “I wasn’t getting any younger.”

  Her husband is standing next to her now. She turns and smiles at him. Turning back, she says, “Luke, this is Grant, my husband. Grant Tenley.” To her husband she says, “This is Luke Garrison …” She hesitates.

  “Hello,” Luke says, extending his hand. The man reaches out and shakes it. His grip is firm.

  “Grant’s a surgeon. At Cottage,” she adds, as if naming the best hospital in town confers added prestige on him. “We’re a two-doctor family,” she says, smiling.

  “I know,” Luke replies. He knows more about the new husband than he wants to.

  There’s a moment’s awkwardness, then he pulls Riva forward. “Polly, I’d like to introduce you to my—”

  In the nanosecond that elapses, his brain flashes wilder than the speed of light: Lover-mate-significant other-friend-associate-partner-mistress-companion …

  Screeching halt.

  “—my woman. Riva Montoya.”

  Her hand is gripping his fiercely. Then she releases it. She holds her hand out to Polly. “Nice to meet you. Congratulations.”

  Polly shakes Riva’s hand. Polly’s is moist. “Thanks, I guess,” she says modestly, a slight blush playing on her neck.

  “When are you due?” Riva asks, woman to woman.

  “Any day now, I hope.” Polly laughs, a nervous-friendly laugh. “I feel like a monster cow, all I want to do is spit this out.”

  “I’ll bet. Boy or girl?” Riva asks. “Do you know?”

  Polly nods. “Another boy. At my age you do an amnio.”

  Luke, watching the byplay between the two women, is surprised at his calm.

  “Do you have children?” Polly asks Riva.

  “Not yet,” Riva answers, without a trace of guile.

  “Someday.” Luke hears the word coming out of his mouth. It takes him by surprise, but it doesn’t feel wrong.

  Riva stares at him, struggling to contain her astonishment. This time he takes her hand.

  “That’s … I hope you do,” Polly says to him.

  He smiles at her. Man, she really is large. Do they all get this big? But she’s still pretty. Still Polly.

  He doesn’t love her. That’s why he’s so calm, why words about a future with someone else come so easily, so effortlessly.

  What a wonderful revelation! He feels like the weight of the world has been suddenly lifted off his shoulders. And he also realizes how, subconsciously, he’s been burdening himself with the memory of their relationship, and his fantasies about it. Which is what they were, he now knows. Fantasies. Wishes. Historical rewritings. But not the real thing.

  Standing here with her and Riva, he knows he doesn’t love her anymore, knows he’s really happy Riva is standing here with him. Goddamn, he’s lucky she stuck with him through all his shit.

  “Well …” Polly says. The awkwardness is returning now. As much from her as from him.

  Luke leans over and kisses her on the cheek. Then he touches her belly. “Good luck,” he says.

  “Thank you.”

  It’s over. The couples retreat to their respective tables.

  “Would you like to change seats?” Riva asks, glancing at Polly and her husband over his shoulder. She doesn’t know what’s happened, exactly, but she knows something has, and that it’s good for her. For them.

  He shakes his head. “I’m comfortable where I am.” Reaching across the table and taking her hand, he adds, “Very comfortable.” He lifts his still-bubbling glass of champagne. “To a fun evening,” he says, repeating her earlier toast. “To a wonderful life.”

  She has tears in her eyes. “I hate it when I get sentimental like this.”

  He reaches across the table and dabs gently at her eyes with his napkin. “Don’t worry about it. It’s sexy.”

  “You find the weirdest things sexy.” She’s forcing a smile through her tears.

  “You,” he tells her. “What I find sexy is you.”

  They lie in bed, naked, under one thin sheet. The windows are open, the breeze coming up the mountain off the ocean ruffles the curtains, stirs the sheet. Long, languid kisses, touches. He feels a glow coming off both their bodies, a heat passing back and forth. His tongue caresses her dark nipples and she moans softly, sliding in rhythm to his touch.

  “I’ll be right back,” she whispers, tonguing his ear. She starts to push the sheet aside so she can get up and go into the bathroom, to put in her diaphragm.

  “Stay.” He pushes her back down onto the mattress. The mattress is moist, their bodies are moist and salty.

  Her eyes, dark, large, stare at him with intensity. “Are you sure?”

  “I am. Are you?”

  “You’re not reacting to tonight?” she asks.

  “I am reacting to tonight. That’s why I want to. With you.”

  She pulls his face to hers and kisses him fiercely, kisses him with a freedom that comes with love and the assurance, finally, of being loved, and knowing they’re going someplace new and where it will take them she doesn’t know or care but she wants to go there, she wants to go there because he wants to, because he’s able to.

  The private detective, who’s from Houston and has a well-earned national reputation—his fees match those of top lawyers, and he has clients lined up months in advance—has been in Santa Barbara for three weeks. Doug Lancaster hired him because he’s the best in the business, and because he isn’t from Santa Barbara or anyplace close. This detective, Paul Bowie by name, is known for getting results without leaving any footprints. When his job is done he’s gone, and his quarry is none the wiser.

  Doug meets with Bowie in a private cabana at the Coral Casino, a swanky exclusive beachfront swim club across Channel Drive from the Biltmore Hotel. The media mogul has just swum a mile in the pool; he tries to swim thirty to forty minutes every other day, in the pool or the ocean, as part of his workout regimen. Bowie has information for Doug. It’s contained in an oversized manila envelope. They wait to discuss business while the white-jacketed waiter serves them lunch. Bowie hands Doug the envelope. Doug opens it, slides out the contents.

  There’s a written report, and photographs, eight-by-ten color glossies.

  The photographs were taken with a long lens. They show Luke Garrison with Huerta, the car attendant from the Santa Monica hotel; Riva with Hillary, Emma’s friend; Luke and Nicole Rogers in the entranceway of her law firm; Luke talking to the old couple who were Joe Allison’s landlords; Luke’s trashed motorcycle.

  Luke Garrison’s been covering the waterfront, Doug can see that at a glance.

  Bowie picks up the report. It’s about twenty pages thick. “He’s interviewed the police, whose work was sloppy, because they were under the gun. Nothing should come of it, but he might make some noise. And he has the phone number of the, uh, lady you’re seeing down there in Malibu. He hasn’t contacted her yet, because the phone’s registered in her husband’s name—a business acquaintance of yours, if I’m not mistaken.”

  “You’re not,” Doug says curtly.

  “Yeah. Well, like I said, he hasn’t pursued that angle yet, but if he does, you’ll be embarrassed.”

  “I can handle that. I want to know what Garrison knows that could put Allison’s conviction in doubt.”

  “Your daughter’s pregnancy.” He shakes his report, holding on to a corner. “That’s in the record, in the autopsy report.”

  Doug looks stricken. “That was supposed to be sealed,” he says. He lays the pictures down, increasingly annoyed. “Ray Logan was supposed to keep a lid on that.”

  Bowie, in turn, is getting annoyed with his client’s naivete—a man of this caliber should be hipper. “There’s no way Logan could do that,” he tells Doug. “It’s part of the r
ecord. The defense has the right to see everything in the record, sealed or not. Anyway,” he continues, “the prosecutor’s going to use that at trial, you’ve always known that. It’s the most important part of his case.”

  “They’re going to crucify my daughter. Desecrate her memory.” Doug grips his iced tea so hard, Bowie’s fearful he’s going to shatter the glass. Taking a deep breath, he collects himself. “But why would Emma’s being pregnant help Garrison help Allison? It should sink them, shouldn’t it?”

  Bowie leans forward, tapping his large fingers on Doug’s knee. “I hate to be the one who breaks this to you, Mr. Lancaster, but sheltering you from the truth isn’t what you’re paying me for.” He wolfs down the last of his fries. “Your daughter was not the sweet little girl you’re remembering. Rumors are starting to fly around town that she was involved with more than the one guy who got her pregnant.”

  “What do you mean?” Doug asks slowly, his voice chilly.

  “Your daughter Emma was screwing around before she met the stud who knocked her up,” the man says bluntly.

  “How could she have been?” Doug blurts out, his voice rising. Conscious of his surroundings—the cabana’s walls are made of canvas—he lowers his pitch. “We would have known!”

  Bowie’s philosophical about Doug’s behavior. He’s seen worse. He’s also used to the scorn and anger that comes with the information he dispenses; he’s the messenger, the blame falls on him. “It happens, Mr. Lancaster,” he says calmly. “You’re going to have to come to grips with the fact that her history is going to be part of the trial.”

  Doug composes himself. He slips the pictures and report into the manila envelope. “Thanks for your effort. Have your office send me a bill.” He opens the cabana door-flap, escorts Bowie out. People are scattered about the sides of the pool, reading in deck chairs and reclining on chaise lounges, mostly middle-aged women but a few lookers, Bowie notices appreciatively, young housewives and teenage daughters.

  “I’m sorry I was the bearer of the bad news about your daughter, Mr. Lancaster,” he says. “But you needed to know.”

  Doug, a father aggrieved, stares at him. “I didn’t want to. I didn’t want anyone to.”

  The call comes to the office late, when Luke’s wrapping his work up after a long day. Classes are finished for the evening, the building is dark; down the hall, through his open door, he can hear the vacuuming of the cleaning crew. He still has material to read, but he’ll take it back to the house, even though it’s Friday night.

  He picks up the phone.

  “Luke Garrison, please.” A woman’s voice, an efficient secretary. His own part-time secretary leaves on the stroke of five; this is a high-powered executive secretary who works at her boss’s beck and call and is paid well to do so.

  Hedging, he asks, “Who’s calling?”

  Too late to duck the call—she’s already made the connection, as soon as she heard his voice.

  Doug Lancaster comes on the line. “Luke? Luke Garrison?”

  He doesn’t need this now. Not this late at night, or any night, or any day for that matter. “Yeah?” he mutters.

  “Can we talk?”

  Luke sighs. “Go ahead, Doug. But make it short. I’ve had a long day and I have work yet to do.”

  “Not over the phone. I want to talk to you face to face.”

  Luke holds the speaker away from his ear for a moment, contemplating. Then he brings it up again. “We’re on opposite sides of a legal action, you know that.” Suddenly paranoid, he asks, “Are you taping this call, by any chance?”

  “No, of course not,” comes the immediate, irate answer. Almost too immediate, Luke thinks.

  “What about your secretary? Is she listening in? Taking notes?”

  “No one’s listening in, or taking notes, or anything else,” Doug tells him.

  Was that a click Luke heard, someone replacing an extension phone on the cradle? “Okay,” he says. “But you did hear me, right? If you want to talk with me, have your attorney or Ray Logan’s office contact me so we can set this up through official channels. Now, good night, Doug. Have a pleasant weekend.”

  “Wait!” The plea comes so fast he doesn’t have time to move the receiver from his ear.

  A long sigh. “What? We can’t talk, don’t try to force this.” A thought comes to him—start taping your calls, for your own protection.

  “The autopsy report,” Doug says hurriedly. He can’t not keep talking. “My daughter was not a tramp.” The man’s voice is rising, he’s definitely losing it.

  Luke says nothing. But he can’t bring himself to hang up, either. His morbid curiosity about where this is going overwhelms his better judgment.

  “She was a sweet, young, wonderful girl.” Doug isn’t yelling—it’s almost as if he’s pleading. “And you can’t drag her through the mud. You can’t drag this girl’s reputation through the gutter for everyone to see.”

  The voice breaks; he’s almost crying, Luke realizes.

  “I don’t care what the D.A. says or does, or what he has to do. You don’t have to, Luke. You don’t have to destroy the little that’s left of her. She’s dead, man. Isn’t that enough? What more do you and your pedophile client want?”

  There’s a click on the line. Luke’s day is over.

  Leisurely cruising west out of town in the old glasspack pickup, heading up Highway 101. The truck’s handling is harsher than normal—he needs to get the brakes and shocks attended to. He drives slowly, giving himself plenty of space between the truck and other traffic on the road.

  It’s Sunday morning, crack of dawn. Up at 4:30 and on the road by five. At this hour on a weekend there’s little traffic. He drives past the oil terminus at Gaviota, which operates 24 hours a day and looks, with all the polished metal and running lights and tubing, like a docking station out in space, turns off 101 at the state beach, and heads south towards the ocean. His excitement grows as he nears his destination—he hasn’t surfed Hollister Ranch for over three years.

  He’s alone. Riva flew up north yesterday to check on her business and look in on her house, she won’t be back until late Monday night. The trial is coming up in less than a month, and knowing all too well that he’ll be working eighteen-hour days, seven days a week, he’s allowing himself a day off.

  Hollister Ranch is one of the legendary California surfing spots. Originally a huge oceanfront ranch, it was subdivided generations back into 100-acre parcels; up to a dozen people can share ownership in a lot. Most of the parcel-holders don’t live there—they have the property so they can use the beach. Unless you own a parcel, or are the guest of an owner, you can’t get on the beach—it’s private, patrolled by security. If an intruder is caught, he’s unceremoniously booted out or arrested.

  The beauty of surfing Hollister, aside from the waves, is the exclusivity—you aren’t jaw to asshole with other surfers out in the water. And everything’s pristine, a piece of the world as it used to be in the good old days.

  Luke has owned a parcel for years. It’s the only thing in Santa Barbara county he held onto. About the only smart thing he did in that period of his life.

  He leaves the county hardtop and drives a short distance down an access road. There’s a guarded gate, attended around the clock. He shows the attendant his ID. The gate swings open. He gets back in the truck and drives through, the gate closing automatically behind him.

  He rides along a winding road that parallels the ocean, crossing the railroad tracks, where he parks his truck next to some nondescript sedans, a vintage ’49 Ford woodie station wagon, and another truck almost as old and beat up as his. There are also newer cars, mostly SUVs, Explorers, Range Rovers, Toyota Land Cruisers. Peeling off his T-shirt and shorts, he pulls on his wetsuit, grabs his board from the truck bed, his Igloo cooler and his daypack with his towel and other necessities from the front seat, and walks towards the ocean.

  Standing at the water’s edge, he looks out to sea. The waves are good—fou
r to seven feet, long, regular lines. Out in the water he sees half a dozen other surfers—from this distance it looks like four men and two women—spread out over a couple hundred yards. Hard-core wave riders—he was up before the sun and yet there are people already in the water ahead of him. He remembers when he was younger, just beginning to surf here, sleeping on the beach so he could roll out of his bag and hit the water before the sun was up.

  A big wave starts to form a hundred feet out from where the surfers are lined up. Two of them, about twenty yards from each other, start paddling furiously, getting into position. The wave picks up momentum, then it’s cresting, and the surfers are straining to catch it, and they do, they rise to their feet. They catch it clean, dropping and turning with the wave as it breaks towards shore, both of them riding all the way in to the beach.

  Luke’s seen enough—he needs to be out there in the water, pronto. He tosses his board into the surf and starts paddling out, pushing his way past the breakers. He hasn’t surfed for a few months, not since that time at Rincon, and he can feel the muscles straining in his chest and arms. He’ll be sore tomorrow, a good sore.

  He gets past the shorebreak into open water, leisurely paddles out to where it looks like he can catch some waves without crowding anyone else, setting up at the high end of the point, twenty-five yards from the nearest surfer. A few of them closest to him glance over as he paddles out, reserving judgment—they’ll see how he does, but unless he messes up, he gets the benefit of the doubt. This isn’t cutthroat, like down south in parts of L.A. and Orange counties, where surf gangs establish territories, breaking boards and heads if a stranger, or anyone they don’t want there, which is everyone except them, tries to surf.

  He takes it easy at first; conservative maneuvers, nothing audacious. The regulars watch him a few times until they see he knows what he’s doing, then they ignore him, which is fine with him. He wants to surf, be in the water, be left alone.

  Often, in times past, there would be people his age, or older, out in the lineup, but today he’s the oldest by a good decade.