by Phoef Sutton
Hence that elephant in that particular room.
Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Bad Moon Rising” was booming through the speakers in Donleavy’s Suburban. “Could you turn the radio to another station?” Angela asked.
“It’s not the radio,” Donleavy said. “It’s my playlist. On my phone.”
“Could you switch to another playlist?”
“It’s only got one playlist. CCR. All day, all the time.”
“Could we turn it off?”
Donleavy gave Angela a sidelong glace. “You ride in my car, you listen to John Fogerty.”
“I thought this was the kind of car they used in presidential motorcades? If I was the president, you’d turn it off for me.”
“If you were the president, you’d know that this music is a national treasure.”
“Stop arguing,” Noel said from the back seat. “You’re interfering with my train of thought.”
“What are you thinking about?” Donleavy asked.
“Those pits,” Noel said, looking out the window of the moving car. In the dwindling twilight, the massive, empty gravel pits of Irwindale loomed around them, a hundred feet deep in places, looking like craters on the moon. “They’re reminders of what it takes to build a city,” Noel said. “Sand and gravel from those pits is what built the roads and freeways throughout LA. Every street and subdivision in Los Angeles County has a little bit of Irwindale in it.”
“On second thought,” Angela said, “turn the volume up so I can’t hear Noel’s inner monologue.”
Instead of laughing at this quip, Donleavy took a quick breath and swung the steering wheel far to the right, but not quickly enough to avoid the impact from the SUV that came upon them suddenly, going the wrong way down the 605.
The crash sent the Suburban spinning, but Donleavy was a good wheelman and just about had things under control when another car hit them from behind, sending them off the road and careening into the depths of one of Irwindale’s craters.
The paint on the Greene & Greene house was peeling. Ivy was growing over it, and one of the windows was boarded up. It looked like it was decorated for Halloween, but it was late December, and the neighboring houses still had their Christmas lights up.
“It doesn’t look very inviting,” Zerbe said.
“When was the last time you saw your Aunt Valerie?” Crush asked.
“I haven’t been to many Thanksgiving dinners for the past few years, what with the prison sentence and all,” Zerbe said. “I think I saw her about ten years ago.”
“How did she seem?”
“Who’s that crazy lady from that Charles Dickens book? Miss Havisham?”
“I never read it,” Crush said.
“She was like that,” Zerbe said.
Gail pressed the doorbell, and the same majestic chime sounded. Crush felt déjà vu, but this time the door opened and a careworn face greeted them with a wary stare. “Yes?”
Crush pushed Zerbe to the front of their little group and nudged him. “Hello, Aunt Valerie,” Zerbe said, with a stupid grin.
Her face relaxed and she grinned. Her grin was prettier. “Noel, how are you?” she said, in a slight and very lovely French accent.
Zerbe’s grin turned into a grimace as he thought this through. On the one hand, he never liked to be mistaken for his twin brother. On the other hand, he was supposed to be in a loft on Wilshire Boulevard, and if anybody knew he was out wandering around on his own, he might get sent back to prison. “I’m fine,” he said, deciding to go with it. “I just wanted to wish you a happy holiday.”
“Well, that’s very nice. Who are your friends?”
“This is Catherine Gail and Caleb Rush.”
Valerie didn’t seem to be listening, but she invited them in anyway. She said she didn’t have much to offer them but coffee and a little Bundt cake. They said that would be just fine.
They sat in the front parlor. The curtains were drawn, so the room was dark and felt oddly moist. The furniture was musty, and Crush could see actual cobwebs in the ceiling corners. Valerie was dressed in a bathrobe and slippers, despite the fact that it was 6 p.m.
“I can’t remember the last time I had visitors,” she said with a laugh. It was a surprisingly cheerful laugh considering the circumstances. Valerie finished pouring them all coffee in Fiestaware mugs and sat down on the edge of the sofa. The group fell into awkward silence.
Gail raised her mug in a toast. “Well, happy New Year.” When she saw Valerie’s face fall, Gail realized she’d committed a terrible faux pas.
“Yes,” Valerie said, with a catch in her throat. “Happy New Year.”
“I’m sorry, Aunt Valerie,” Zerbe said. “She didn’t know.”
Valerie waved her hand. “It’s all right. I forget that not everyone knows. I forget that it was so long ago.” She choked back a sob.
“I’m sorry,” Gail said, stricken.
“My husband died on New Year’s, you see. Was it really so long ago? What year are we getting to?”
“I remember,” Crush said. “I was there.”
Valerie looked at Crush, trying to place him. “You were the boy. The one in the float.”
“Yes,” Crush said.
“And the one they arrested for killing my daughter.”
“Yes. But I didn’t do that.”
She smiled a little. “I know.” Then she looked at him more closely. “And the one who found me. In the tub. Was that you, too?”
“Yes.”
She sat back on the sofa. “You do get around.”
“I’m sorry.”
“What for?”
“For not…finding her.”
Valerie shook her head. “She didn’t want to be found.” Then she sipped her coffee. “I suppose I should thank you for saving my life.” She glanced away, thoughtfully. “I suppose….”
Crush didn’t want to push her, but he had to. “Do you know why he did it?”
She looked back at him. “Why Victor killed himself? Yes, I know. It was the same reason Renee ran away.”
Gail spoke up. “Do you think Renee is still alive?”
“After all these years?” Valerie asked. “I don’t know. I hope so.”
“But you haven’t heard from her?” Gail asked.
“No,” Valerie said. “Not one word.”
“Why?” Crush asked. “Why did they do it? Why did Victor kill himself? Why did Renee disappear?”
She shut her eyes. “It’s the damn bullet train. Victor was researching the SGCF. You know, the Société Générale des Chemins de Fer Français. The French railroad. We were key shareholders, and he was hoping to bolster the company’s reputation and help us get the high-speed rail through.”
She paused and opened her eyes. “Do you believe that the sins of the father can be visited upon his children?”
Crush thought of his own father and of Brighton Beach. “I hope not.”
“That’s not an answer.” She shut her eyes again and leaned back. “Victor and Emil’s father was Anton Zerbe. He ran the French railroad system during the war. You know which war is the war, don’t you?”
“World War II?” offered Zerbe.
“I only heard stories about it, of course. How the Germans came and everything changed. How our family had to…get along. How the Vichy government was formed. To hear it now, you’d think everyone was in the resistance. That everyone wore berets and planted bombs and waited for de Gaulle to come in and save the day. But it wasn’t that way. They had to…compromise.
“Victor had known that, of course. He’d known his father wasn’t a hero. He knew that the railroad was seized by the Nazis and put to use to transport Jews throughout France to the concentration camps. Seventy-six thousand French Jews. In stifling cattle cars with little food or water. All but two thousand were killed.
“Victor had known that, as I said, and it had always troubled him. That his father had been so weak, so terrified of the Germans, that he allowed that to b
e done on his watch, as it were.”
She swallowed. “But in his research, he found documents that proved that his father…that Anton Zerbe had not been an unwilling accomplice in genocide. He discovered that Anton was in charge of the evacuations. That he’d been an eager engineer in this massive commute of innocent men, women, and children to the death camps. That he’d been well paid for it. In the beginning of the war he had been well off; by the time it was over, he was a rich man.
“Their family…my family…all our wealth had been built on the corpses of fellow Frenchmen. Victor couldn’t handle it. He told me. He told Renee. He wanted everyone to know, and he couldn’t bear the thought of people finding out. He went to his brother, Emil.” She looked toward Zerbe. “Your father. He told him. He asked him what they should do. They couldn’t keep the money, he said. It was blood money. It stank of death.
“Do you know what Emil said? He said, ‘Pecunia non olet.’ That’s Latin. It’s a quote from Emperor Vespasian. When his son complained that taxing urine was unseemly, he said, ‘Money doesn’t stink.’ That’s what Emil said. ‘Money doesn’t stink.’”
She shut her eyes again. “So my husband took a gun with him and blew his brains out in the middle of the Rose Parade. I suppose he thought he was making a statement. Then my daughter ran away one rainy night and started her life over again with a new name and a new history. I hope.”
Opening her eyes, she sat forward and stared at Crush. “And I tried to kill myself, but a big man pulled me out of the water, slapped my face, and told me to live. So I’ve lived.”
They sat in silence for a while.
“Do you want more coffee?” she asked.
They said they didn’t, and got up to leave. She led them to the door and as he was walking out, Crush turned to her. “That day, when I pulled you out of the tub, you said something to me. In French. I’ve always wondered what you said.”
Valerie gave him a sad smile. “I called you my ange gardien. My guardian angel,” she said as she shut the door.
Gail drove them back to LA. Crush was too tired to argue when Gail insisted that she take the wheel.
“How ’bout that,” Zerbe said. “It was about the Nazis.”
“And how do you feel about that?” Gail asked.
“What do you mean? How do I feel about the fact that my grandfather was a Nazi collaborator? Well, I don’t feel great. But I never knew him, and the family disinherited me years ago. So I guess I’m clean. I guess.”
“It still doesn’t tell us who’s behind this,” Crush said.
“In books and movies,” Zerbe said, “it’s always the person you least suspect.”
They drove in silence for a while.
“Renee.” Gail said her name.
“Renee?” Crush asked.
“Well, we’re all thinking it, aren’t we?” Gail said. “She has a motive. And it would explain why she disguised her voice for Zerbe and all of you. She knew you’d recognize it the moment you heard it.”
Crush’s head really hurt. “But why now? Why wait till now to…take her revenge. And what does she have to do with the Targeted Individuals?”
Gail pressed on. “She’s got reason to be paranoid, doesn’t she? The Nazis were actual, real Overlords trying to take over the fucking world. And as far as ‘Why now?’ Well, I don’t have an answer for that one. Except…why not now?”
Crush’s phone rang. He was thankful for the interruption, and pulled his iPhone from his pocket. The readout said, “Unknown.”
“Fuck,” said Crush. He answered.
“Hello, Caleb,” said the Miley Cyrus voice. “Recognize them?”
On the screen he saw three figures tied to chairs in a dark room, gagged with duct tape. Noel, Angela, and Donleavy.
“We need to talk,” the Miley voice said.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Mick Kagan, Donleavy’s right-hand man, stood at attention on the front steps of the Zerbe castle and watched as the Buick came to a halt and Crush got out. Crush had always liked Kagan. He was a fellow Marine, a few years younger than Crush and with a full head of blond hair. Crush didn’t hold either of those things against him.
Zerbe, Gail, and Crush came running up the steps. Kagan stopped Zerbe. “Noel,” he said. “I thought you were going to Irwindale. Where’s Donleavy?”
“That isn’t Noel,” Crush said. “There’s no time to explain. We have to see Emil.”
Mick led them to Emil’s bedroom, where they found him sitting up in bed watching Jeopardy with Samantha. “What is it now?” he snarled.
“Hi, Dad,” Zerbe said.
Emil looked at his son with his one good eye. He was a good enough father that he could tell his twins apart. “K.C. I thought you were being held prisoner.”
“I escaped.”
“See?” Emil said. “I told you they were bluffing.”
“I had to kill somebody,” Zerbe said. “It was pretty awful.”
“Still, you’re okay. End of story.”
“Not quite,” Crush said. He looked over at Kagan. He thought of telling him to leave but figured, the hell with it. “They have Noel and Angela.”
Emil looked stricken. “Angela? What do you mean?”
“They have them Dad. It’s not good,” Zerbe said.
“Donleavy, too,” Crush added, because he thought it should be said.
“I don’t believe it,” Emil said.
Crush showed him the picture on his phone. The three of them tied up in a dark, cavernous place.
“Let me see that,” Kagan said, reaching for the phone.
“The kidnapper made new demands,” Crush said. “That you should discontinue the bullet train or he’ll kill them all.”
“Oh, please,” Emil scoffed. “He didn’t kill Kendrick, did he?”
“I had to kill somebody to escape,” Zerbe said. “Did I mention that?”
“He also said that he’ll release the facts, Emil,” Crush went on. “You know what facts he means, don’t you?”
Emil glared at him with his one glittering eye. “Ancient history. No one cares about that.”
“Someone does,” Crush said. “Someone wants to destroy you.”
“Let them try.”
Zerbe sat on the edge of the bed. “Dad, look at my face. They beat me up. They beat me so you could see that they were serious. They are serious.”
Emil looked at his son’s battered face. His twisted face seemed to soften. “How many of them are there?”
“We don’t know,” Crush said. “Enough.”
Emil touched Zerbe’s swollen eye. “I’m sorry, son. But you do know this isn’t my fault. I had nothing to do with it. I shouldn’t have to pay.”
“I know that, Dad,” Zerbe said. “But they don’t. They have Angela and Noel. And they’re crazy, Dad. Flat-out crazy.”
Emil looked away. “I’ve been trying to get the HSR built for thirty years. It is my life’s work. I can’t just let it go!”
“You shouldn’t,” Kagan spoke up. “You shouldn’t negotiate.”
“Then what should he do?” Crush asked.
“Go to the authorities. Let them handle it.”
“The minute you do that, they’ll kill the hostages,” Crush said.
“Then what do you suggest I do?” Emil asked.
“Give in,” Crush said. “Give them what they want. It’s the only way.”
Emil looked blankly ahead of him. “I wish I’d died when I had that stroke. Then I wouldn’t have had to live to see this day.” He gathered himself up. “All right. They win. How do I give them the message?”
Crush glanced at Zerbe. “That’s the hard part.”
They spent the rest of the night preparing. The next morning, at 7:48 a.m. on January 1st, Emil and Samantha Zerbe sat in the high throne on the very top of the massive floral train that was the California High-Speed Rail—The Future Is Now—Zerbe Enterprises float. Far below, Crush and Zerbe sat inside the massive float, encased in poly
urethane and hundreds of flowers, staring down at the pink line on the pavement at their feet. In twelve minutes six F-16s would soar overhead, signaling the start of this year’s Tournament of Roses Parade.
Getting Crush behind the wheel—well, behind the driving levers, to be exact—hadn’t been the plan. Noel was supposed to do the driving, but Zerbe was posing as Noel now, and he didn’t know the first thing about driving a float. So Kagan informed the White Suits in charge that Tigon Security was putting a man inside the float with Noel. To ride shotgun, as it were. When the hatch was closed, Crush and Zerbe performed the difficult maneuver of switching places so Crush could get his hands on the controls.
Actually, Crush had no experience driving a float either, but he’d at least ridden in one. What’s more, he’d driven most every kind of vehicle known to man. He felt sure he could handle it. With a little practice anyway.
It had taken hours to get the huge float towed into position. Now it stood in line, its streamlined Art Deco locomotive seeming to fly off into the air, with all the other floats and marching bands and equestrian groups waiting on Orange Grove Boulevard for the parade to begin.
Emil Zerbe, in position on top of the float with Samantha by his side, twenty feet in the air, looked like the engineer of a fantastic, futuristic, organic train. He seemed as glum and grim as ever. They were just behind the Lakers float and just in front of the Singapore Airlines one. Emil had hoped for a better position.
The instructions from the kidnapper were simple. Emil and Samantha were to ride on the float. They were to follow the parade to the intersection of Colorado Boulevard and Fair Oaks. Then the float was to make an unscheduled stop. To freeze the parade in place, for all the world to see. To make the entire nation see that the float representing the high-speed rail from Los Angeles to San Francisco was stopping dead in its tracks. To announce to the world that the bullet train was dead.
While they were stopped, Emil was supposed to take the microphone and speak to the crowd. To tell them that the HSR was dead and buried. And to tell them why. To tell them about his father’s Nazi collaboration. To tell them about his blood money. Only then would Angela, Noel, and Donleavy be released.