by Phoef Sutton
“Is he all right?” Angela asked.
“He’s fine. A little shook up is all.” He didn’t tell her about the guy Zerbe had shot. What she didn’t know.… “I’m bringing him back to the loft.”
“Fine,” she said. “I’ll let everyone know. They’ll be so relieved.”
“Some of them will be,” Crush said, ending the call, tossing his phone into the passenger seat, and rubbing his head.
When she saw him do that, Gail remembered she really shouldn’t have let him drive. “How’s your head, Crush?”
“Fine,” he said. “How’s yours?”
“Did you hurt your head?” Zerbe asked.
“A little.”
“How?”
“In a car accident,” Gail said. “He was chasing that truck. The one you stole back there. After it delivered a bomb to your house.”
“A bomb?” Zerbe asked.
“But it was only a fake bomb,” Crush said, brushing it off. “A reminder. To goose your father into doing what they want.”
“Right,” said Zerbe.
“Do you know what they want him to do?” Crush asked.
Zerbe nodded. “The kidnapper talked to me for a little while. I didn’t want him to. I couldn’t see his face and he used that stupid voice distorter. He said they want my father to stop building the train.”
“Who are ‘they’?” Crush asked. “A group? An organization?”
“I don’t know. He didn’t say.”
Crush shook his head. That was not a good idea; his world started to spin around him. He gripped the wheel to stop from seeing double and got back to the point. “I don’t get it,” he said. “All this just to stop the construction of a damn train? Why?”
“He talked to me,” Zerbe continued. “I tried not to listen, but he kept talking. He said Victor knew. And Renee found out after that.”
Crush drove in silence for a moment. “Is that why they killed her?”
“They didn’t kill her,” Zerbe said. “They want to avenge her. And Victor.”
“So Victor was murdered, too?” Crush asked.
“Yes. At least that’s what he said.”
“Then who killed them?” Crush asked.
Zerbe hesitated. “He said it was my father. I didn’t believe him.”
“Of course,” Gail said. “Your father would never do anything like that.”
“No, I could totally see him doing it. It was just the reason he gave. My father’s motivation.”
“Let me guess,” Crush said. “Nazis.”
“How did you know?”
“It’s been going around.”
“He said my father doesn’t want it to come out that he worked for the Nazis. That doesn’t make any sense. My father was born in 1947. Germany surrendered in 1945. Unless he was a time traveler, my father couldn’t have been a Nazi.”
Unless he was a time traveler, Crush thought. Unless.…
“We have to go to Irwindale,” Noel said, standing in the front parlor of the Zerbe mansion.
“Why?” Donleavy wanted to know.
“We have to go to Irwindale,” Noel repeated. “To ride in the float. In the Rose Parade tomorrow.”
Emil, who was sitting by the fireplace in his wheelchair doing a jigsaw puzzle with Angela and Samantha, growled, “Your float is magnificent, but I’m not climbing onto it and waving at the crowd like a king or a goddamned queen. I’m not going to let people see me like this.”
“But it’s your triumph, Dad,” Noel said. “You finally succeeded in pushing the bullet train through. Revel in it.”
“Zerbes don’t revel,” Emil grumbled.
“Well, I have to go anyway. To put the finishing touches on the float. I’ll be driving it tomorrow.”
“No, you won’t,” Donleavy said. “Have somebody else drive it. Your father’s perfectly right to stay off it. It’s not secure. Have Kagan here drive it.” She pointed to one of her men. Kagan looked startled.
Noel made a sour face. “You can’t just put anyone behind the wheel of a float. It’s not like a Honda. It requires experience. I know that float. I designed it. I built it.”
“It’s not secure,” Donleavy reiterated. “Cancel it if you have to. It’s only a float in a parade.”
Noel stared at Donleavy as if she had just said there was no Santa Claus. Noel turned to his father. “Did you hear what this woman said?”
“I heard,” Emil said. “And you’re going. The float is too important. I’m not going to let these pranks scare us.”
Donleavy grimaced in frustration. “Pranks? Then what did you hire me for?”
“As a bodyguard,” Emil said. “To guard our bodies. Not to keep us locked away in the house. I could have done that. Do your damn job, Donleavy.”
“All right,” Donleavy said, “but we’re going in my car.”
“That hearse?” Noel objected.
“It’s a Chevy Suburban with protective armor and bulletproof glass. The kind they use in presidential motorcades.”
“It still looks like a hearse,” Noel said, sulking. “I want to take my Tesla.”
“You’ll go in the Suburban and you’ll like it,” Emil said.
Noel grumbled but agreed. Then Samantha spoke up. She didn’t often speak, but when she did, the family listened. “Angela, why don’t you go with him?”
“Why?” she asked.
“To make your brother listen to Ms. Donleavy. And not do anything foolish.”
Angela sighed. “Maybe I can make him listen to Donleavy. But I don’t know if I can stop him from being a fool. It’s in his DNA.”
“We share the same genetic makeup,” Noel said. “So if you’re calling me a fool, you’re calling yourself one, too.”
“I believe the phrase is, ‘I’m rubber; you’re glue.’” Angela said.
Emil Zerbe shook his gray head and muttered, “What did I do to deserve this?”
Samantha stared at him. “You tell me.”
The sun was setting as Crush drove down Lake Avenue through Pasadena. They were taking a detour on their way home, because Zerbe asked to stop at Pie ’n Burger. It wasn’t that he was particularly hungry, not after that orgy of food at the Dairy Queen. It was just that he realized he was going back to be trapped in his loft-prison and he hadn’t been able to enjoy his involuntary freedom. He thought he owed himself at least one carefree excursion while he was in the outside world.
Crush parked on California Boulevard, and they walked up to the tiny hamburger joint. He could smell grease from the griddle that had been there since the place opened in 1963.
“Take a breath!” Zerbe said, loving it. “Can’t you just feel your arteries hardening?”
“I’ll have a salad,” said Gail, not sharing his enthusiasm for the joint.
“You’re really not entering into the spirit of this place,” Zerbe said, sliding into a greasy booth. “I’ll have the pie. With extra ice cream.”
“Do you know what all that sugar does to your body?” Gail asked, wiping the table clean with a threadbare napkin.
“Hey, I just had a gun pointed at me,” Zerbe said. “I was kidnapped and tied up in a van, and I killed a guy. I can take whatever sugar can throw at me.”
They ate. Crush had a burger, fries, and an iced tea. Zerbe had peach pie with vanilla ice cream and also a piece of chocolate cake. Gail had a tossed green salad. She tried not to feel superior, but it wasn’t easy.
While they ate, Crush kept flipping through his phone. This wasn’t like him at all. He used his phone only when absolutely necessary.
“Whatcha looking for?” asked Zerbe.
“An address. I’m trying to find somebody.” He put the phone away. “I found her.”
“I’ll bite,” Zerbe said. “Who are you looking for?”
“Renee’s mother,” Crush said.
Zerbe paused, a spoonful of ice cream just inches from his mouth. “Why?”
Crush dipped a french fry into the pool of ketchup on
his plate. “This whole thing goes back to New Year’s Day, 2001. The day your uncle committed suicide in that damn parade.”
“And you think she’ll be able to tell you…what?” Gail asked.
“Why he did it. Or if he did it,” Crush said.
“I don’t think…” Zerbe tried to think of a tactful way of saying it. “I don’t think she’d want to talk to you.”
“Why not?” Crush asked.
“She might still blame you. For…” Zerbe left the rest unsaid.
Crush thought this over. “Okay. But she’ll talk to you. You’re family. She lives in San Marino. Just about a mile from here. We have to go.”
“Now?” Zerbe asked.
“Yes. I don’t think this thing is over. I think your kidnapping was just the beginning. I think you were supposed to be killed. I think others are going to die.”
“My family?”
“I don’t know. But I’ll tell you this much…the Targeted Individuals are fighting back.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
On the last day of January 2001, not long after Renee’s disappearance, Crush waited in a bookstore for Angela Zerbe to meet him. The place stank of incense. The rainbows from a hundred dangling crystals danced over the spines of books about yoga, alien abduction, Bigfoot, the secrets of the Knights Templar, and the lost cities of Lemuria, Ur, and Atlantis.
Crush had called Angela and asked to see her, but why she had suggested that they meet here, at Alexandria II, the New Age shop on Lake Avenue in Pasadena, he couldn’t imagine. It had been weeks since they’d seen each other. Since he and his mother had found themselves locked out of the house on San Rafael and had to start their lives over again. Although those weeks had been long ones for Crush and, he supposed, for Angela, he couldn’t imagine that they had been long enough for her to find religion. To go from ridiculing her brother Noel’s mystic faith in demons and witchcraft to embracing it.
Still, Crush had learned the hard way in his seventeen years that you could never tell what people would do. The most abstinent people would turn into drunks. The most peaceful would turn violent. The most well balanced would go howling-at-the-moon insane. The most sensible would look for a faith. Crush had even found himself in churches occasionally this month. He couldn’t explain it. It just happened.
“Hello, big guy,” a voice said from behind the Cryptozoology section. He turned around and was surprised to see Evan Gibbard standing there.
Angela came out from behind him. “Hi, Caleb.”
“Hey,” he said. Crush had not expected Evan to be with her. He hadn’t liked Evan before he ran out on them that night at the dam, and he had absolutely no use for him now. “What’s he doing here?” he asked Angela.
“Well, you wanted to meet me,” Angela said. “I haven’t got a driver’s license yet and I needed a ride. So take it or leave it.”
Crush decided he’d take it. “You going to drive us there?” he asked Evan.
“Sure,” Evan said. “Anything for Angie.”
Crush knew that Angela hated being called Angie. Evan had a way of doing the things you hated.
They went out and got into Evan’s new BMW and drove into San Marino. To Renee Zerbe’s house.
Crush had never been there. He had never seen Renee’s mother, except for one glimpse when she picked Renee up at school for a doctor’s appointment. The world of teenagers was surprisingly parent-free.
He hadn’t even known her name. He’d had to look it up to learn that it was Valerie. Crush thought it was a nice name. Valerie had no other children and, of course, no husband now. She was alone in the world.
Crush wanted her to know that he was not the reason.
His mother tried to talk him out of going there. She said it would do no earthly good for her to see him. It would only cause her pain, and it wouldn’t give Crush what he was seeking. And what was he seeking anyway? Absolution? Forgiveness? That implied a sense of guilt. No, Crush wanted to be seen as innocent in the eyes of at least this one person. This one person for whom Renee’s death mattered most.
So he called up Angela and K.C. Zerbe and asked them to go with him to Valerie’s house. K.C. said he was crazy to want to go. He wanted no part of it. Angela said sure, she’d go. Angela was always good for an adventure.
Only she hadn’t said she’d bring Evan. Crush didn’t like having him with them. They should have left Evan at the bookstore and gone to see Valerie together in Crush’s “new” (stolen) Mustang. But when Crush suggested that, the two of them just laughed as if he were joking and got in the Beemer. Okay, Crush could be flexible. It wasn’t as if this was a date with Angela.
As Evan drove them into San Marino, land of large estates and open, manicured lawns, Crush rehearsed what he would say to Valerie Zerbe. He hadn’t gotten much past “Mrs. Zerbe, I’m so sorry and I didn’t kill your daughter” when they pulled up in front of the massive Craftsman-style “bungalow” that was Victor and Valerie Zerbe’s home.
An elegant Greene & Greene creation, the house was a stop on many architectural tours of the city, but Crush didn’t know that at the time. He just walked up to the front door, dreading this encounter more with each step.
Angela had called to say that she was coming, but she hadn’t mentioned whom she’d be bringing along. “It’s not too late to back out,” she said to Crush, sensing his dismay. “You can go off with Evan, and I’ll pay my visit.”
Crush shook his head. He had to do this. And he just now realized why. He did have to ask Renee’s mother for forgiveness. Not for killing her, but for not saving her. For not finding her that night in the rain. For letting her go into the darkness and disappear.
Angela walked up to the broad, carved wooden door and pressed the doorbell, which chimed majestically throughout the house. They waited a few minutes.
“I hope she answers soon,” Evan said. “I gotta take a whiz like a racehorse, you know what I mean?”
“I know what you mean,” Angela said. “You just said what you mean.”
Still there was no answer. Evan knocked, and when he did, the door swung open.
The three of them peered into the dark house. It was dark, even though it was midday, because Craftsman-style houses had been designed to keep the inhabitants in the comfortable dimness of midnight at all hours.
Angela called out. “Aunt Valerie?”
There was no answer.
The three of them exchanged a look. “You called, right?” Crush asked. “You said you were coming over?”
Angela nodded. Then she said. “We should go.”
“Fuck that,” Evan said. “I have to pee. Where’s the bathroom?” He walked into the foyer and started opening doors until he found the guest bathroom. While he went in to do his business, Angela and Crush walked to the bottom of the broad staircase, uneasy at trespassing in this house of mourning.
Angela cocked her head “Do you hear that? It sounds like running water.”
Crush shrugged. “Well, Evan said….”
“No. It’s coming from upstairs.” She walked up the steps to the second floor. “Aunt Valerie? Are you there? I just came in because the front door was open….”
The door to the master bedroom was open, and Angela poked her head in. The master-bathroom door was ajar as well. The sound of running water was coming from in there. Crush joined Angela in the doorway.
“Aunt Valerie?” she called out.
The only answer was that rush of water. Crush craned his neck to look inside. He grabbed Angela’s arm. There was a pool of water spreading on the bedroom floor.
Angela was about to ask what to do when Crush sprinted for the bathroom. Angela hurried to catch up, and by the time she made it to the door, he was already hauling Aunt Valerie out of the water. The tub was littered with empty prescription bottles that bobbed about like lanterns in a Chinese New Year celebration. Valerie’s head was limp. Her eyes were open but drifting vaguely.
Crush carried Valerie’s naked, dripping bo
dy from the tub and across the room. “Call the paramedics.” He sat her down on the toilet and started slapping her face. “Valerie! Wake up!”
Valerie smiled at him and laughed, mumbled something in French, and slipped off the toilet and onto the floor.
“What’s going on?” Evan asked from the doorway.
“She tried to kill herself,” Angela said. “Call 911.”
“No shit?”
“Yes, shit,” Crush said. “Do it. Now.”
“All right, I’m doing it, you don’t have to yell,” Evan said, pulling his cell phone out of his pocket and stepping out into the bedroom.
Crush sat Valerie up against the clothes hamper. She seemed awake but not conscious of what was going on around her.
“Caleb,” Angela said. “You have to go.”
“What?”
“It won’t seem right. You being here. It’ll seem suspicious.”
Crush thought for moment. “No. I have to see if she’s all right.”
“She’s all right. They’ll be here in a minute. Go.”
Crush stood up, uncertain.
Evan walked back in. “Okay. I called. You happy?”
“Not even a little bit,” Crush said.
In the end, Crush left the house but he stayed across the street, watching to make sure Valerie was alive when she was taken out to the ambulance. Then he sighed with relief and started the long walk back to Lake Avenue.
As he was walking, he tried to make himself think about why Marcus Aurelius would let his obviously corrupt son Commodus take over the Roman Empire, but it was no use. He was only able to replay the events of the past two months in an endless loop.
A horn honked behind him and he jerked around. Evan’s BMW cruised up, and Angela opened the rear door. “Want a lift?” she asked.
He got in and Evan took him to Alexandria II. Evan was surprised when Angela wanted to be dropped off with Crush. He drove off in a huff.
Angela and Crush had lunch at Burger Continental and talked over the events of the day. Then they went back to the apartment Crush shared with his mother in Glendale. His mother was out looking for work, so they had the place to themselves.
They made out. Then they did more than make out. Then Crush drove Angela home, and he didn’t see her again until Zerbe’s trial three years ago.