Clea's Moon

by Edward Wright

  “Not bad,” Sykes said, and Horn thought he could hear respect in his tone. “Soon as Mr. Fairbrass started having trouble, she stepped right up, started taking care of him. I think she’s got what it takes.”

  “Good,” said Horn. “Here’s what’s next: I’ll take you to a safe place in San Bernardino, but we need some help. I’ve got a friend coming over to drive with us—the same one you laid out with your little gun barrel today.”

  Sykes chuckled. “He’s not going to be very happy to see me. I don’t always fight fair.”

  “We’ll worry about that later. He’ll be here inside an hour, and we’ll go.”

  “All right,” Sykes said, and descended the steps. “I’ll go down to the road and watch, just to make sure nobody surprises us.”

  Inside, Horn found Clea sitting on the couch. “He’s in the bathroom,” she said. “His face felt hot, and I thought he should splash some cold water on it.”

  “Are you all right? You look pretty chipper for somebody who’s been through all this excitement in one day.”

  “I suppose,” she said slowly, sitting head down. “I was really afraid when somebody shot at our car, and there was glass everywhere, even in my lap. Then Mr. Sykes was driving us really fast, and that was scary too.” She leaned forward, hands clasped, her body drawn inward protectively. “And sitting in the car, I was thinking how much time I’ve spent in the last few days being afraid. There was the funeral, when I saw the man and he saw me. Then there was Tommy and what happened at his house.” She raised her head to look at him. “I’m really tired of being afraid. It’s the worst thing I can imagine, being afraid all the time. Don’t you think so?”

  “I sure do.”

  “Well, I told myself I’m going to stop it.”

  “Just like that?”

  “Yes. Bad things can happen—maybe even will happen—but I’m not going to waste my time worrying about them.” In the partial light from the table lamp, he saw some of Iris’ features in her face.

  “Well, I’m with you, girl. Hope you don’t mind if I take some lessons from you.”

  “You? You’re not afraid of anything.”

  He started to answer that, then thought better of it. “Honey, how do you feel about being with him? Tell me the truth.”

  “You mean Paul?” He was happy she didn’t call him Daddy. “I think I’m all right now. I know he loves me. All the way down to Long Beach, he told me how worried my mother has been. I suppose I shouldn’t blame her for anything bad that happened to me when I was little. But I needed somebody to blame. Does that make sense?”

  “Perfect sense. You know Iris divorced me, and I’m not happy about that. But I won’t let anybody tell me she doesn’t love you. When we get all this straightened out, you belong back with her.”

  She nodded soberly, and he noticed for the first time how tired she looked.

  “Did you tell Paul about seeing the man at the funeral?”

  “I tried to, in the car. But he didn’t seem to want to hear about it.”

  The worm was stirring in his mind again. He had the feeling that when it finished nibbling away all the excess underbrush that clogged his memory, something important would stand revealed.

  As he tried to form another question, Fairbrass came out of the small bathroom. His face was damp and pale. “That’s better,” he said, smiling ruefully at her. “I’m sorry I was such a handful.”

  “Don’t be silly,” Clea said.

  “We’ll be leaving in less than an hour, soon as Joseph Mad Crow shows up,” Horn told them. “Clea, I’d take it as a personal favor if you’d use the time to lie down and rest. Paul and I can talk outside.”

  They stepped onto the porch, and Horn closed the door. “Are you all right?” he asked.

  “I suppose,” Fairbrass said. “I don’t respond well to stress, and you might say today exceeded my quota. I wasn’t in the war. I envy anyone like yourself who could stand up to combat.”

  They sat on the steps. “Don’t envy what you don’t know about.”

  “Now that I’ve complimented you, I want you to know I think it was despicable of you to hide Clea from us.”

  “I had my reasons,” Horn said. “They had to do with protecting her. Nothing else. And while I had her, she was safe. That’s more than you could say down in Long Beach. So don’t lecture me.”

  Fairbrass sighed. “Anyway, soon we’ll be someplace where we can draw a breath.”

  “Why didn’t you call the police in on this?”

  Fairbrass looked surprised. “They’ve been looking for her for weeks.”

  “No, I mean the shooting.”

  The other man shrugged. “I don’t know. It all happened so fast.” He pulled a cigarette from a flat box and offered one to Horn, who shook his head. When Fairbrass struck a flame with his lighter and touched it to tobacco, an aromatic scent drifted over the porch and out into the trees.

  “Do you have any idea who shot at you?” Horn asked.

  “I hope she can’t hear us,” Fairbrass said. “This talk might trouble her.”

  “Don’t worry. The door’s closed.”

  “All right. Well, I just assumed it had something to do with this Tommy character. We know he’s dangerous. Now it looks like he has dangerous friends. I wish I’d known enough to keep her away from him at the very beginning.”

  “You don’t have to worry about Tommy. He’s dead.”

  “Really? How do you know?”

  “I saw his body.”

  “Well. . . I’m glad to hear it. But I thought he was still a menace to her, and that’s why I wanted to get her away.”

  “I suppose that makes sense,” Horn said. “I’ve been thinking about a lot of things lately, trying to make sense of all of them. You’re going to think some of them are really unimportant. Like where you used to live.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Before you met Iris and married her. Where did you live?”

  “Long Beach. My father wanted me near the plant. After he died, I stayed in the same house until Iris and I decided to buy the place in Hancock Park. Why on earth does that matter?”

  “I’m not sure it does. By the way, you remember that photo of Clea you gave me? I didn’t realize you took it until Iris told me. It’s very nicely done, almost professional.”

  “Thank you,” Fairbrass said curtly. “It’s just a hobby.”

  “Do you have a darkroom?”

  “Yes, I have a darkroom. In the garage. Again, what does this have to do with anything?”

  “You know, I think I will try one of those cigarettes of yours, if you don’t mind.”

  “Of course.” Fairbrass opened the flat cardboard box, and Horn took one out. “They’re Turkish,” Fairbrass said, lighting it for him. “An expensive habit, I suppose, but my father used to smoke them, and I got to like them too. There’s a cigar store on Wilshire that stocks them.”

  “They’re different,” Horn said, exhaling. “I’m not sure everyone would enjoy them. Why, just the other day I met a man who told me he didn’t like the smell of them.”

  “Who was that?”

  “Maybe I’ll tell you his name later.” Horn stood up and stretched and remained there, looking down on Fairbrass. “You asked what these questions of mine have to do with anything. Well, I’ve been looking for a man who fits a description. A man who was a good photographer. Who smoked an unusual cigarette. Who would have had to travel a long distance to get up to a hunting lodge in the San Gabriels, maybe all the way from Long Beach.”

  Fairbrass sat motionless, his cigarette a tiny glow in the dark, not even looking up.

  “When you started fitting that description, I wouldn’t believe it, because it was too crazy,” Horn went on. “The idea that Iris would be
married twice to scum who abused her little girl. It would never happen like that. The odds were too long. Unless. . . . unless someone set it up that way.”

  His chest felt tight, and he strode to the end of the porch, then back. The worm had cleared away most of the leaves and branches now, and Horn could make out the shape of something. He sat down heavily in the rocker and regarded Fairbrass’ back. Across the canyon a nightbird called.

  Finally Fairbrass spoke. “It was Arthur Bullard’s sick sense of humor,” he said in a voice so faint Horn had to strain to hear him. “When he introduced us at that party, I thought he was just being a good host. Then I fell in love with Iris and couldn’t believe how lucky I was. I loved her daughter too—I didn’t recognize her, of course, because by then she was much older. Iris and I married. And then that awful day came when she described her first husband to me. Although she wasn’t specific, she hinted at the reason their marriage ended, and as she talked about him, I realized I had known him. And. . . and Clea.”

  She told this bastard Fairbrass more about Wendell Brand than she ever told me when we were married, Horn thought resentfully. Maybe because she knew I wouldn’t have handled it very well.

  “You called him Heart, didn’t you?”

  Fairbrass half-turned, but in the weak light from the front windows his profile was almost invisible. “Oh, Lord, you know it all, don’t you? After what Iris told me, I should have given you credit for being smarter. Yes, that was the name we called him. I didn’t learn his real name until the moment Iris began talking about him. The only person we knew by his real name was Bullard; he didn’t want the rest of us to know anything about the others.”

  “So Iris told you about Wendell Brand,” Horn prompted him.

  “And I realized just how manipulative Arthur Bullard could be, holding the strings and making people dance like puppets. Seeing me marry Iris, become a father to Clea, must have seemed like the ultimate joke to him. I almost could have killed him for trying to play God with me. Except for the fact that his terrible joke also brought me so much happiness. So maybe the final joke was on him.”

  Just what Iris said, Horn thought, but he didn’t want to give Fairbrass the satisfaction of hearing the words spoken.

  “That was when I told Bullard I’d had enough of his games and his string-pulling,” Fairbrass went on. “Heart—Wendell Brand—had dropped out long before then. When I left the group, there were just those two.”

  “Spade and Club,” Horn mused. “You didn’t know who Vincent Bonsigniore was at the time?”

  Fairbrass shook his head. “I found out later. One day I saw his picture in the paper along with a story, and I understood how dangerous he could be. And then there was that day at Bullard’s funeral, when Clea and I both saw him at the same instant. She took my hand and squeezed it so hard. . . . He looked at both of us, and I could see it all in his face. He knew she had recognized him, and I knew she was in danger.”

  “Why didn’t you protect her?”

  “I tried,” he almost shouted. “I went to the man, begged him to leave us alone, told him she was no threat. He just sat there, playing with those enormous rings. He told me one of his men had been keeping an eye on Clea, and soon he would have to decide what to do about her. Such arrogance! As if he had the power of life and death, and the rest of us had no appeal. I tried to think of something else to do, but then Clea disappeared, and I suppose I panicked.”

  “You came to me.”

  “Yes.

  “And told me just what you thought I needed to know.”

  “What I told you was mostly true—that I thought she was with this man who was calling himself Tommy. For a long time, I even thought that was his real name. What I didn’t tell you was that I suspected that he worked for Bonsigniore.”

  “Did you tell Sykes that? The guy who got his face cut up while he was trying to do a job for you?”

  “No,” Fairbrass said, his voice sounding tired again. “I could have been more honest with him. I was trying to keep things secret. A lot of things.”

  “Just for the record, Tommy—Anthony Del Vitti—was trying to protect Clea when Bonsigniore had him killed. Did you know that?”

  “No, I didn’t,” Fairbrass said. “If that’s what happened, I’m deeply grateful to him. I couldn’t love her more if she were my own.”

  Horn laughed out loud. There was no mirth in the sound; it could have been a hangman’s laugh. “You self-righteous piece of—”

  “Please lower your voice,” Fairbrass said urgently. “I don’t want her to hear.”

  “This is the little girl you molested, over and over,” Horn said, trying to choke back the rage.

  “We never touched her.”

  “I know, I know. You just took her picture. You left it to Bonsigniore to rape some poor little girl with Clea watching.”

  “We. . . we tried to stop him.” Horn could hear the surprise in Fairbrass’ voice. “Did she tell you about that?”

  Horn chose not to answer. “She’ll always have nightmares about it.”

  “Yes,” the other man said, almost in a whisper. “I wish I could change that.”

  “And what about the other girl? I suppose Bullard threw in a little extra money for her parents. And what about all the others? Do you wish you could change what happened to them too? Or are you just concerned about your daughter?”

  When Fairbrass didn’t answer, Horn pressed ahead. “And I suppose you never laid a hand on her, all the time she was living under your roof.”

  “As God is my witness,” Fairbrass said. “I don’t expect you to understand, but. . . . Look, I have certain urges. Wendell Brand shared them. In my case, it’s purely visual, connected with my photography. I just enjoy the sight of. . . you know. Whatever else went on in that place, that was the work of the other two.”

  His words came out slowly and deliberately, but now there was something inevitable about them, as if they had finally found their long-awaited audience.

  “You have to understand,” he said. “The girls. . . the girls must be very young. By the time Iris and I married, Clea had grown out of that age, and my interest in her—my love for her—was strictly a father’s. It still is.”

  “How much of this does Iris know?”

  “Nothing. Absolutely nothing. If she ever found out, it would kill her. You know that.”

  Horn sat silent, almost ignoring the other man for a while. Of the many people injured in this story of weakness and exploitation, Iris’ situation was one of the saddest and most unlikely. Each of her marriages, it seemed, only took her deeper into misery. What was there about Iris that attracted men like Horn, full of rage and shame, and men like Brand and Fairbrass, possessed of some of nature’s darkest impulses? She wasn’t to be blamed for any of this. Instead, he pitied her for whatever chemistry she possessed that brought such men to her and cast such a shadow on her life. She’s had enough unhappiness, he reflected. I’m sorry some of it came from me.

  Iris would have to find out about Fairbrass, of course. Would the disclosure, as he said, kill her?

  A long time had gone by, and he realized Fairbrass was speaking to him. “What?”

  “I said what are you going to do?”

  When all this is over, I think I’ll probably kill you. The words were on his lips, ready to be spoken, when he heard a faint sound down by the road. A moment later, Sykes’ shape emerged, his shoes crunching on the gravel of the driveway. “Get inside,” Sykes said in a low voice.

  He and Fairbrass moved into the cabin, where Clea was lying on the couch. Sykes mounted the steps and paused in the doorway. “I heard a car engine for a few seconds, but it stopped. No lights, either. It’s too early for—”

  A dark red flower bloomed around the back of his head, and tiny petals spattered the doorframe just as Horn hear
d a distant sound that sounded like the splitting of a branch. Sykes’ face took on a quizzical look an instant before he pitched forward. The sound of his head and chest meeting the floor was startlingly loud in the small room.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  The next few seconds flashed through Horn’s mind like short, jerky scenes in a badly edited movie:

  Sykes lying inert, the back of his head glistening red, a shard of curiously unbloodied skull, with hair attached, perched on his shoulder. Clea’s strangled gasp, followed an instant later by a shout from Fairbrass, full of surprise and despair. Another cracking sound, almost simultaneous with the soft thud of a bullet imbedding itself in the couch near Clea’s shoulder. Her face pale with fear. The weight of the Colt as Horn grabbed it from the side table, then his backhanded blow that sent the table lamp to the floor, the bulb shattering, the room now in darkness.

  Sharpshooter with a rifle, he thought. “Don’t anybody move.” He dropped to the floor, grabbed Sykes’ sleeve, and dragged the heavy form into the room, then scuttled around the body and slammed the front door. “Let’s all get behind the couch.” He joined them there, where they huddled to the sounds of their own heavy breathing.

  “Oh, God. Dewey.” Fairbrass’ voice was a tightly strung wire. “They killed him. What do we do?”

  “Give me a minute.”

  Think. Sykes had said two or three men. At least one had a rifle and was a good shot. They’re probably down by the road now, coming up. Before long they could post themselves around the cabin to guarantee no one left, then decide what to do. They could take their time, since no one lived close enough to interfere. Gunshots after dark out here on the wild end of the canyon could be someone going after raccoon or possum. Sykes had put it well: I don’t like the situation here. They had to get out.

  He moved around the couch and swept his hand over the floor, searching for the box of shells. He found only the telephone receiver and realized the phone had crashed to the floor along with the lamp. When he lifted it to his ear, it was silent. He moved to the door, where he listened intently for a few seconds. Kneeling, he felt underneath Sykes’ body until he located the man’s gun in a holster on his right hip. It felt like a short-barreled .38, a plainclothes cop’s gun. Fumbling with the unfamiliar weapon, he managed to break open the cylinder and confirm that it was loaded. Back behind the couch, he pressed the gun into Fairbrass’ hand. “Take this,” he said.