by Paula Champa
Something did. Was it the intimacy of his handwriting? The use of a single initial? His M looked almost like a W, like a child’s scribble of a bird in flight. I imagined him standing at the front desk, requesting the paper to compose the message. There was no doubt it had been delivered by a bellman, yet the directness of those strokes of ink inviting me to join him raised an inner turmoil. I did want to see Miguel, but for my own reasons. I wanted to meet him in the bar and spend the night with him, and not because of the engine. I was alone in Germany with no sick employer, and I didn’t care about some abandoned, wrecked, burned-out hunk of metal. But it was my duty to care about it, and a one-night stand was not going to get us anywhere. More likely, knowing myself, I would sabotage our only lead.
I didn’t trust myself, it was that simple. I didn’t call Emerson back either. Instead, I left my cell-phone number for Miguel at the front desk, along with the message that I welcomed his further assistance but I had an early flight.
12
IT WAS RAINING WHEN I landed in New York. In the taxi to Emerson’s loft, I listened to a message on my phone from Miguel, repeating his offer of help. Now that I’d aired out my head at forty thousand feet, I regretted leaving Germany without seeing him. There were some journalists from the party on my flight home gossiping about how Miguel had been down in the bar until the early hours of the morning. He’d had a news clipping in front of him, weighted down protectively with his glass. He never refilled his drink, someone made it a point to add; apparently, he was more exhausted than drunk. As they discussed what he’d said, jokingly imitating his accent, I pictured Miguel reading from his clipping:
“The Lighthouse. Correction—der Leuchtturm. A light of guidance and help. Also, a warning of danger. I quote: ‘In the terms of the sale, the auto giant AG committed to investment and production targets set by the British government in exchange for tax breaks and other considerations.’ They got their deal, yes. ‘A Beacon revival looked certain until last week, when, citing “economic realities,” the Board of Managers voted to meet the agreed-upon targets by reviving the derelict Beacon facility in Lugborough for use by another AG automotive brand . . .’”
In two flights over the course of ten hours, I’d convinced myself that I had correctly put Emerson’s desires above my own. Now I thought Miguel probably could have used some sympathetic company himself.
At the loft, Zandra informed me that Emerson had insisted on backing off on his morphine while I was traveling—he said it made him feel more in control. He was shaking with fatigue and suspense, staring up at me from his bed.
“You didn’t call.”
“It went so fast. Anyway, I didn’t find out anything,” I admitted, hoping to manage his expectations. I was beginning to suspect we were on a wild goose chase. “No one knew anything about Hélène Moreau or the engine. I talked to as many people as I could: collectors, journalists. But I met someone—”
He turned to Zandra and rolled his eyes. “Beth, do we have to hear about your romantic conquests right now?”
“Wait—I met the grandson. Of the founder. A guy named Miguel.”
Emerson’s face drained of its unripe color. “And was this your conquest?” he asked, his voice rising with alarm.
I looked to Zandra—in whom I had confided the unorthodox nature of my love life one afternoon a few months earlier, after she showed me photos of the X-rated birthday cake some girlfriends had presented to her.
“What have you been telling him?”
Zandra shrugged, self-consciously twirling the tiny diamond stud in her nostril. “Not as much as you think.”
“No,” I protested. “There was no conquest of any kind.”
Emerson looked relieved.
“He offered to help us,” I went on. “Well, me—he doesn’t know about you, obviously. Just that I have an employer.”
“How is he going to help?”
“I don’t know. The party was crowded and we didn’t get to finish our conversation. I need to speak with him again.”
Emerson seemed hopeful at this news. “Good. That’s good. And can you finish calling the owners from that file? Please.”
“Yes, I’ll do it this week.”
“And try to find any restorers who might have handled the engine.”
I left a new, more urgent message for Miguel, and I spoke with two former owners in the United States, starting with a man on Long Island who had owned the car in the 1970s. That is, I got as far as his personal assistant, who said there was no record of the Beacon’s engine being changed during his employer’s ownership.
The most recent owner prior to Emerson, August Browne, also lived on Long Island. He had owned the car from 1990 to 1995. From the languid rasp in his voice, I guessed that I had woken him from an afternoon nap.
“I don’t have that car anymore. Sold it at auction. Same way I bought it.”
“Yes, I understand, but . . .”
I knew from Emerson’s files that the original engine had been replaced years before Browne acquired the car. However, the body had been fully restored in England while he owned it. There was a chance he’d saved some records. I was in the process of asking him about this when he began moaning over the ridiculously low price Emerson had managed to get the car for at auction. It was like a replay of Garrett’s first unhappy Hot Wheels trade.
“I gave the car away to that bidder. Never again!” Browne vowed, not knowing how right he was. As he recounted the humiliation he had suffered, I watched the arc of a plane outside, a white line drawn across the sky from east to west, silently willing Miguel to return my call.
It was odd to be back at my desk again. I found myself flipping through my calendar, informally tracking my personal decline. I had to admit that the daily grind of life was flatter than ever, with only my duties to Emerson to shovel into the mill. A fine sawdust covered more and more surface area inside me, muffling everything. By contrast, Miguel’s voice on the phone made me vibrate like a gong.
He explained that he had temporarily relocated to an AG facility in Los Angeles. “What have you been up to since you got back?” he asked.
I recounted my unsuccessful attempts to learn anything from the previous owners, as well as my new offensive: to contact restorers who have worked on Beacons, a much larger task. “The problem is narrowing it down to a geographic range,” I said. “The engine could be anywhere.”
“I can see why you’d be keen to check with restorers.”
“I’m an archivist,” I began, unable to remember how much I had told him at the party. “Restorers have been on my mind a lot lately. How to rehabilitate something, even a machine.”
“Getting a car restored by professionals is different to doing it yourself,” he pointed out. “You restore a car with someone to be closer to them. People do it all the time. I did it with my granddad. It’s the same if you’re modifying a car, or in a club, or racing with a team—it gives you something to work on together, like we are.”
Like I was with Emerson.
I told him the engine number, and he promised to see what he could find out.
“What are you going to do?” I asked, meaning the engine search, but he must have misunderstood, because he said he was heading out to ride his motorcycle around L.A.
“Isn’t that a waste of gasoline?”
“But I’m a beautiful driver.”
For a week after Miguel’s call, Emerson kept himself in remarkably good shape, mainly by cracking the whip at me from his pillow. An ecstatic seriousness had come over him since my return from Germany: He supervised my search for the engine with the fervor of a devout seeker, greeting me each morning with whatever requests or ideas he had dreamed up the night before, and keeping the parameters open beyond Hélène’s possible ownership, though she remained his prime suspect. In the course of those days I placed ads in the Parts Wanted section of classic car magazines and undertook questionable tasks on his behalf, including posing as a potential bidder�
�as I had legitimately done for him a few times at photo auctions in the years before he got sick—to gain access to information. Still, we’d made no real progress until the afternoon I retrieved a new phone message from Miguel:
I have news—good, I think. Give me a call.
At Emerson’s insistence, I got him settled on the extension in his bedroom, so he could listen in while I phoned Miguel from my desk in the office.
“I think it’s here in L.A.,” Miguel announced when he heard my voice. “The car is in a hangar out at the Burbank airport.”
“The car?”
“With the engine you’re looking for, I believe.”
“Really? That’s fantastic!” In my excitement, I knocked my stapler onto the floor. Emerson’s response rang back immediately from the other end of the loft, in the form of three abrupt, celebratory bangs—no doubt executed with his open palm on the headboard of his bed. Or maybe they weren’t celebratory.
“What do you mean, ‘you believe’?” I asked.
“I haven’t seen it,” Miguel cautioned, “but I’m quietly confident that the engine you’re looking for is in a 135 roadster going to the Pebble Beach Concours.”
At this news, I thought I detected a groan from Emerson through the phone line.
“It’s going to what?” I asked Miguel, concerned about Emerson’s reaction.
“A Concours d’Elegance. It’s a show of classic cars. Imagine an outdoor party—like a lawn party—but with antique cars and judges awarding prizes.”
“Okay,” I said, still confused. “And when is this event?”
“Next weekend.”
Suddenly the loft erupted in a series of loud bangs. The ruckus went on steadily, like a war drum, no doubt a combination of Emerson’s forehand and backhand on the headboard—echoing with a slight delay and at a diminished volume, no less threateningly, through the phone line itself.
Miguel was yelling now: “Can you hear me, Beth?”
At once the noise stopped. But it had done its job in communicating Emerson’s anxiety. I wondered if he and I weren’t becoming telepathic.
“Sorry, the neighbors upstairs are renovating their kitchen,” I said, not untruthfully, hoping the noise sounded enough like workmen’s hammers, which were presently silent.
“If you can get yourself to Monterey for that show next weekend, you should be able to see the car there,” Miguel said.
“If I can get myself—?”
One extremely loud bang shot through the loft from Emerson’s bedroom. For a split second I was horrified that he had thrown himself out of bed. I feared that he was crawling down the hallway on his belly, until I detected his nervous breathing through the line, listening intently.
“Next weekend?” I repeated. “Next weekend is a long time away. Isn’t there some way I could see it before that?”
“Oh . . .”
He seemed to be thinking about this.
“Please.”
“Well, I suppose I could suggest that you—or your employer?—speak with the owner here in L.A. before he moves the car up to Monterey.”
“Yes, could you arrange that?”
“I’ll try to set it up.”
“Thank you,” I said, waiting for an auditory clue from Emerson that there was something more to discuss, but it was Miguel who broke the silence.
“I have plans next weekend anyway,” he said. Speaking more cautiously, he added, “But if you come out at the start of the week, I could go with you.”
A muffled cry arose from the other end of the loft. I paused, wondering if anything was wrong. Then I heard the distinct sound of skin slapping skin: what could only be Emerson’s hand connecting with Tisa’s in a triumphant low-five.
When I got back to his room, Emerson said, “I’m going.”
“I think we should ask Dr. Albas.”
“Go ahead.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “She’s not going to stop me.”
“Okay, but there are some things we have to consider. Things you’re not taking into account. Your medicines, all your supplies.” I looked up at the bookcase hopelessly, trying to envision the vast shelves of tubes and pills crammed into a suitcase.
“I just had a transfusion,” he argued. “Again. We’ll be gone for less than forty-eight hours. Tisa will come with us.”
Tisa turned to him with a look of dismay.
“I had a feeling it wasn’t Hélène Moreau,” I told him, pleased that my trust in her had been vindicated.
“What are you talking about?” he snapped.
“Well, now we know the car is in L.A. She doesn’t even live in America.”
He shook his head. “You’re being naïve. We don’t know that she’s not involved—by any means. It sounds like the owner lives in Los Angeles, but that’s all we know. She could be storing it there with someone.”
“Oh.”
I had never considered the lengths a person would go for the sake of a car—either that, or he was reaching new heights of paranoid obsession. In this parallel universe, any magnitude of absurdity seemed possible.
In any event, he would allow no clemency for Hélène. “Even if you’re right and she doesn’t own the engine, please keep in mind that she still wants my car, Beth. Very badly. Let’s not forget that.”
To my surprise, Dr. Albas agreed that Emerson could travel to the West Coast, provided that we brought along one of the nursing aides, as he proposed, and that he stay no longer than two nights. She reminded me privately that his health had become noticeably more stable in the previous weeks—and she surprised me by admitting that he had already lived longer than she’d expected.
“Something is giving him enormous motivation,” she suggested. “I’m not going to argue with it. I’ve seen people in terminal situations accomplish all kinds of things.”
In the middle of our hurried preparations for the trip, as if I wasn’t busy enough, Emerson gave me another research assignment. He wanted me to track down photographs of the interior of one of a group of Case Study houses in Los Angeles—Case Study House number 22.
“You’ve got a blow-up of it right there on your wall,” I reminded him, pointing down the hallway to where a poster-sized reproduction of the original color print hung outside his office. It was a space capsule of a house, docked in the Hollywood Hills, one of the few photos he owned with a person in it, a man in a white dinner jacket, standing with his back to the camera. The man was frozen there in his own private heaven, gazing out at the lights of L.A. in the distance.
“I want to see some parts of the interior that you can’t see there,” Emerson said.
But before I could find the photos he wanted, he shifted gears and asked me to call someone he knew from his NYU days—now a location scout for a film company—and set up a time for us to see the house while we were in California. The most absurd aspect of the request: He wanted to do it on the day we landed.
“Don’t you want to get a little rest after your flight?”
“No.”
“Why don’t we go the next day, before we fly back.”
“No way. We land at ten in the morning. I can rest all afternoon. We’re seeing it that day, and we’re getting there before sunset.”
I shook my head at his stubbornness.
“And Beth—we’re seeing the Beacon the same night.”
“Both?”
“We’ll go straight to the car afterward.”
“Don’t you think that might be too much?”
He rolled his eyes. “Just because you like being cooped up inside all the time doesn’t mean Tisa and I want to.”
Tisa bit her lip and shook her head at me apologetically.
“It’ll be fine,” he promised.
Our plane from Newark took off before dawn. Emerson was asleep in the row behind me, shrunken down into himself and wrapped in his own blanket from home. Tisa monitored him from the next seat, dressed for the occasion more officially than I had ever seen her, in the white uniform
of a professional medical escort, white shoes and a white baseball cap with the brim turned up, her arm reaching protectively toward him. In those early hours, when the sky was still inky and unreadable, I dreamed a man was coming to me out of the fog. Then he was coming to me out of the ocean, alongside a jetty where a ship was moored. He was tanned and his chest was bare. He stepped out onto a shore of black-stained sand, onto a roadway, a racetrack. He wore a racing suit, open to the waist and dripping with seaweed. A great barren coast stretched behind him, a landscape stripped of everything but a long spine of rocks and a lighthouse that stood empty and dark. In his hand, he carried a lantern . . .
I woke up hot, my neck jammed against the window.
Outside, the sky had grown clear, and a small rainbow floated beyond the wing of the airplane. Only it wasn’t an arc, I saw when I refocused my eyes. It was a complete circle of colors: a rainball. It hovered over the desert, over the sprawling mass of hard brown geometries. The parched shapes on the ground roused my thirst, and on my way to get some water from a flight attendant I checked from Emerson’s row to see if what I had observed had been an optical effect caused by some warping in my window. But the rainball was still there, riding alongside the wing. If the pieces of the rainbow could come together over the desert, I had to believe we could put something back together ourselves.
The hotel Emerson had asked me to book in West Hollywood was built in the style of a château, though my suite on the top floor was more like a prewar apartment in New York City, except for the view: In place of gray streets and taxicabs, room 76 overlooked a green slice of Laurel Canyon at the back and the grid of downtown L.A. along one side. I opened a window overlooking the hotel’s orange and yellow neon sign. On a billboard nearby, basking in the glow of the neon, a shirtless man was lounging between a woman’s legs in a fashion advertisement. He longingly stroked the woman’s ankle: an oiled pharaoh brooding over a desert valley, his dark hair spiked into points. The woman’s fingers were splayed suggestively across her mouth, and one of her legs was raised, kicking up an impossibly high heel. From my angle, her feet were the same size as her eyes.