by Nova Jacobs
“Uh-huh.”
“The other thing is that they’re all dead.”
“Well, some of these guys are pretty old.”
“Then I guess ‘old’ makes you clumsy. This guy drowned in his bathtub; this woman took an accidental overdose of insulin; this one fell off his roof while doing some home improvement.”
“So, accidents.” He locked up his desk and stepped toward the window. “Could it be that you’re looking for a pattern where there isn’t one? What is coincidence but the concurrence of events?”
“The concurrence of events? You’re really going to give me a lecture on probability? I get it, Greg, you come from math people.”
“So, out with it. What’s your theory?”
She joined him at the window. They were silent for a moment as they looked out toward Parker Center, the old LAPD headquarters. The Glass House, as it had been known, was either destined for historical landmark status or demolition—depending whom you asked—and from time to time, you could find wistful detectives gazing in the direction of their old, possibly doomed home.
“This is serial,” she said at last, turning to face him. “The deaths will continue unless we stop it.”
Her stare was so intense, he had to turn away. “How long have you been looking into this?”
“Since the witness showed up back in September. I wanted to be sure.”
“You report this to anyone?”
“Just you.” She clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth the way she sometimes did when she was thinking. “Even if I don’t, someone else will make the same connection. Eventually.”
Gregory ran a hand through his hair. “Listen, my wife is going to have my head if I don’t get home for dinner.”
“Go. And keep this between us?”
He smiled. “Of course.”
“Love to Goldie.”
“Same to Cal.”
Gregory grabbed his jacket and headed to the elevator.
A sign informed him that the elevators were being serviced, so he continued down the hall to the stairwell. As he pushed through the door and rounded the first corner, the image of her came to him, as he knew it would. For the rest of his life, whenever he climbed or descended a set of stairs, he would think of her—it was his punishment, he supposed. Had they stuck to their original plan, to their promise to be together, she wouldn’t have fallen down those steps.
I’m leaving Jack. Just days after having written those words, Sybil changed her mind quite suddenly. She had “consulted God, prayed a lot, you know?” And instead of leaving Jack, they were going to try for another child. “We can’t do this anymore. You have to stop contacting me, Gregory.”
This is what she said as they sat together on that blanket in the moonlight. Sybil had agreed to meet him only because it would be their last time together. If they saw each other again, it would have to be as cousins. At first he didn’t respond, as if he hadn’t heard her properly. But when he finally spoke, his voice frightened her so much that she flinched. She stood up and went to the edge of the yard overlooking Hollywood, shivering in her thin coat. He followed, unfolding the note she had written him, and held it to her face. “Remember what you said? Why say it if you didn’t mean it?” She shook her head, lashes clotted with tears. She had a daughter to worry about, a daughter who could have died because her mother had been distracted. Too preoccupied with her own selfish emotions to notice that her daughter was shoving poisonous flowers into her mouth. “What kind of example is that, Gregory?” When he told Sybil he wasn’t going to give her up just like that, she called him angry and obsessive. She thumped a fist on his chest, and that’s when he realized how tightly he was gripping her. “Just let me go, let me go,” she protested. Instead, he pulled her to him with even more desperation.
But when his sweet Sybil said with uncharacteristic bile, “I’m sick to death of your anger, Gregory, and sick to death of you,” he suddenly let go. He knew the force with which she was pulling away would send her reeling backward, but as he played the scene over in his mind, the difference between letting go and pushing blurred. Had he really meant for her to tumble backward down those steps? Had he really intended for the person he loved so much to die almost instantly? Yes, perhaps in that moment, that was exactly what he had wanted.
As Gregory continued down the stairwell, he felt his stomach lurch at the memory. He slowed and grabbed the banister for fear of falling himself. At the ground floor, he threw open the door and let the cool air hit his face. It was then that he felt tears pooling in his eyes. When he reached the plaza, he blinked back at the building and saw that E. J. hadn’t moved from the window. She didn’t see Gregory pass below. She was still looking in the direction of the Glass House, no doubt planning her next move.
He would have to act soon with Tom. The days when he might have managed situations like this at his leisure were coming to an end. It was all coming to an end, and the end point was out of his control. All he could do was let the universal computer lead him to it.
– 21 –
The Recluse
Hazel woke the next day with what felt like a hangover, except she was sure that she hadn’t drunk anything the night before. She squinted at her surroundings, struggling against an acute sense of disorientation. She was in a tidy, unfamiliar bedroom, but it wasn’t her brother’s guest room. As her eyes fell on a Deco chest of drawers and an Art Nouveau print framed above it, it suddenly hit her. She had spent the night at the hotel. She vaguely remembered having texted Goldie that she was staying out so that she and Gregory could enjoy their anniversary together; at least she’d remembered to do that much. But she couldn’t remember having felt this terrible ever, including the time she’d gotten food poisoning in college. Then again, she knew this wasn’t physical; this was an emotional illness, which is always worse.
She didn’t have to look at the clock to know that she’d slept most of the day. Still, when she propped herself up and grabbed her phone from the bedside table, she blinked at it in disbelief. It was four fifteen in the afternoon. Hazel fell back on the pillow and draped an arm across her face to block the light edging in around the blinds. As the events of the previous day came back to her in shaming detail, she groaned aloud and turned into the fetal position. Christ. You idiot. She could feel the entire weight of her stupidity in her stomach, tightening into a nauseating ball.
Hazel shut her eyes tight, and in the darkness behind her lids, Alex’s charming smile played for her on repeat—a smile that seemed to say, “You, my friend, have been played.” Alex had most certainly exploited her attraction to him, and by getting caught in his snare, she had failed one of the only people she had loved. What a fool Isaac had been to trust her. Hazel really hoped there was no afterlife because she didn’t want her grandfather to see the magnitude of his error.
She made a feeble effort to sit up, but the pain of Alex’s deceit seemed to be pinning her down. As did Raspanti’s admonitions from yesterday. Once he had realized that Isaac’s work was missing and that the owner of the wig was responsible, he had said darkly, “You let a man into the room, let him snoop into your grandfather’s math? Isaac should never have left it to you, that much is clear.”
“Look, I needed help—”
“And did you seek this man’s help, or did he charm his way into the room?” When she didn’t answer, he said, “I see.”
“Alex isn’t some random stranger. He’s my cousin. Isaac’s grandson.”
“One with a strong mathematical background, I’m guessing, and oh so very curious about Isaac’s work?”
“That about describes my entire family.”
Raspanti had calmly picked up the phone, dialed the front desk, and requested that a cab take him to the airport. Hazel then followed him downstairs to the lobby, where she watched him pour himself some drip coffee. She did the same and trailed Raspanti outside.
He sat hunched on the front steps, blowing at steam from his cup. She knew he
was making a point of not looking at her, which only made her more angry with herself.
She sat down and took a sip of coffee. It burned her tongue, and she winced. “I screwed up. I know that.”
Still not looking at her, Raspanti said, “It wouldn’t surprise me if these people recruited a Severy mole to poke around Isaac’s things, to wait for the equation to show itself. I suppose you didn’t have a chance.”
“You don’t need to make me feel any worse. I already hate myself for failing him.”
“You think this is a simple failure? A case of family disloyalty?” He turned, staring her straight in the face. “It’s a disaster on a scale you can’t know now, but one day you will. It sounds cruel, but you will read the paper one morning, years from now, and you will know what you have done.”
Hazel set down her cup and covered her face with her hands. That familiar pressure was building behind her eyes, but she refused to cry. How could it be that Isaac had made her a custodian of such consequence?
“We could find him,” she said finally, lifting her head. “We could get the equation back.”
Raspanti removed his glasses and pushed at his eyes, as if staving off a headache. “The equation is gone. Now that they have it, it’s theirs forever.”
“So you’re just going to give up? Go back to Italy?”
“If what you say about the map is true, Isaac was killed for his mathematics. If you think they’re just going to hand it back to you, you’re delusional.”
Hazel’s stomach seized. She realized that this was the first time someone had said out loud what she’d been fearing since the moment she’d read the word assassin in Isaac’s letter. Isaac was killed for his mathematics. There it was, stated as fact.
The taxi arrived. Raspanti stood and went to meet it.
Hazel felt desperate to stop him. She felt desperate about a lot of things: about the burden she’d been carrying around for weeks, about the implied murder of her grandfather, and about the fact that she had completely and totally failed him. At that moment, she felt she would do anything to get rid of this awful feeling in her gut.
“What if you’re wrong?” she called out just as Raspanti was climbing into the cab. “What if I can get it back?”
He paused. “If you can get it back,” he shouted, “I will personally fly you and the equation to Milan, first class, and I will teach you the meaning of great mathematics!”
“Is that a promise?”
Raspanti laughed bitterly. “Ciao, Ms. Severy.” He shut the door, and the taxi pulled away.
Hazel watched until it was out of sight, and when she stood, her legs were shaking. She took a moment to steady herself before returning to the eighth-floor room to stare at the now-empty wall. She paced the carpet, ears alert, hoping wildly that she would hear the elevator open and Alex’s footsteps in the hall. She imagined opening the door to find him standing there, shaking his head and explaining that this had all been a hilarious misunderstanding. But no one came.
When she realized she hadn’t eaten since breakfast and was starving, Hazel ordered Thai food from down the street. Gobbling it on the patio, she looked out at the lights of Hollywood and wondered how the hell she was going to right her mistake. But the more she reviewed her options, the more her situation seemed maddeningly beyond repair. Even if she wanted to run away from her problems—just get on a plane back to Seattle—there was hardly anything to go back to. She had no store, no boyfriend, no life.
Now, at nearly four thirty in the afternoon the next day—practically sunset—Hazel kicked off the covers and forced herself out of bed. Still fighting queasiness, she stumbled to the bathroom and turned on the shower full blast. She shivered as she undressed and climbed in. The cool spray felt remarkably good, and she let it beat down on her while she waited for the hot water to kick in.
What if Raspanti was wrong? What if she could find Alex? What if she could exploit his weakness and snatch the equation right back? But then, what was Alex’s weakness? She thought back to the stories he had told her that night, of his past, of his uprooted life, of his father and mother. She wondered how much of it was accurate and how much had been a ploy to get her to feel safe with him. The part about his mother, anyway, she knew was true. You couldn’t make that woman up. Wait: his mother. Even if Alex was estranged from Paige—and even if the mere thought of seeing her made Hazel sick all over again—the woman was still a possible lead.
After toweling off, she felt steady enough to dress, make a cup of tea, and eat a few bites of last night’s leftovers. She took it on faith that the Thai wasn’t at least partly to blame for her indisposition, but putting noodles in her stomach seemed to lift her nausea. Feeling well enough to venture outside, Hazel took one last look at the empty wall, grabbed her things, and headed to the door. As she made her way down the narrow hall to the elevator, Raspanti’s fatalism was still loud in her ears: “If you think they’re just going to hand it back to you, you’re delusional The equation is gone.”
The elevator doors opened. We’ll see.
* * *
It was dark by the time Hazel left the hotel and drove to Venice Beach. No one was rushing to get to the ocean on a Sunday evening, and the Santa Monica Freeway was wide open.
Paige Severy lived in a bungalow a block from the Venice boardwalk, an odd location for a cloistered intellectual who probably hadn’t owned a swimsuit in years. Yet there she was, stuck in the middle of this vibey surf community, reportedly working on a book of infinite length. Hazel found her way through an overgrown yard to the front door. The porch light was out, but she could detect an incandescent glow from somewhere within. Finding the bell painted over, she rapped on the lopsided door. Within seconds, there was the scrabbling of paws on hardwood and the barking of two dogs of very different sizes. Mild scolding followed, the sound of which set Hazel immediately on edge.
“Come now, Hodge. Let’s see who it is. Podge, dial it back.”
The door cracked open, revealing half of Paige’s face as she eyed the shadowy stoop. Hazel tried to inject some confidence into her voice: “Aunt Paige, it’s me. Hazel.”
Paige pulled the door wider and peered out, her fuzzy head crowned with bejeweled reading glasses. She looked down at her niece and smiled blandly. “So it is, an orphan on my doorstep.”
Hazel wondered how many more reasons she needed to dislike this woman.
“Is it a bad time?”
“A bad time for what? Roses? Dysentery? I guess I’ll have to let you in. Hodge, Podge—hush.”
Hazel entered the house, where the cool, salted air gave way to the warm smell of wood and paper. She was greeted by a large Weimaraner of an intense gray-blue.
“That’s Hodge. The mutant is Podge.”
Yapping at the Weimaraner’s paws was a delicate thing with scant hair and confused breeding. Hazel feared it would bite, but she bent down anyway to pat its tiny deer skull.
“I found this guy outside, just before a storm hit. Yes, you’d have blown to Catalina if it weren’t for me, isn’t that so? I hope you’re a tea person.”
“Oh, don’t bother. Really.”
“You’re already a bother,” Paige snapped. “My work was interrupted the moment you put your knuckles to my door, so I may as well share my hot water.”
Hazel didn’t argue. A tea kettle was beginning to whistle, and the dogs followed their waddling mistress into the kitchen.
“You can have a seat in the back room,” Paige called above the sounds of china.
Hazel moved down the dim hallway, discerning that the living room to her left was indeed inhospitable. She couldn’t see much, but the strong whiff of boxes and mildewed paper told her that this was a repository for books. The smell instantly reminded Hazel of the Guttersnipe. It was a dark, pulpy scent she had loved for so long, but for the first time, she wanted to run from it. It seemed to hold all that had betrayed or hurt her: her store and the grueling business of peddling unwanted objects to unwilling people;
and Bennet, a man she realized only now approached the world with a kind of stylish indifference. Was it any wonder she didn’t fit into the chic lines and curves of his existence? Someday she hoped to no longer associate this smell with the ruination of her life in Seattle, and that once again the aroma of slowly rotting paper might be irresistible.
She followed the source of the lamplight to the rear of the house, where what had once been a back porch was now a den. A desk stood at one end of the room, piled high with papers and books, and a sofa at the other. The sofa looked as if it had been hollowed out at the center, no doubt from having been used as a bed. Her suspicions were confirmed by an alarm clock sitting on the floor.
“Sit there,” Paige ordered from behind her.
Hazel took a seat on one end of the sofa, careful to avoid the sinkhole. She straightened her spine a little: she was no longer going to be intimidated by this woman.
The dogs collapsed onto a rug in the center of the room, little Podge curled inside Hodge’s legs.
“So you’re here about my son.” Paige poured dark tea into both cups.
“Yes, actually,” Hazel said, a little thrown. “How did you know?”
Her aunt handed her the sugar bowl, pouring some milk for herself. “For most of my professional life, I was paid to know all the potential answers to subjective questions outside the normal bounds of statistics: Will candidate A’s smart wardrobe alienate working-class voters? Is candidate B’s corny sense of humor endearing or off-putting? Will revelations of mental illness in candidate C’s family garner sympathy or scare people off? The question here being: Why is Hazel, who has never particularly liked her aunt, paying said aunt a surprise visit on a Sunday evening? Only one answer makes sense.”
“Impressive,” Hazel said, stifling her annoyance. “Do you know how I can reach Alex?”
Paige took a seat at her desk, swiveling to face her niece. “Alex has a habit of slipping off the grid—gets that from me. You must want to find him somewhat urgently, otherwise you would’ve simply called. Have the two of you become entangled somehow? Perhaps you’ve developed some confused feelings for him. He’s not a blood cousin, after all, and you didn’t grow up together. It wouldn’t be the first time that’s happened in this family, but I suppose I’m straying into speculation.”