by M. M. Mayle
He dares make an estimate of what the total could be, a figure that would scare him if he weren’t starting to believe he deserves this windfall, no matter how dangerous it might be to possess. He eyes the plastic-wrapped package—the most dangerous of all to possess—and would flush the dope down the john if he could be surer than sure he wouldn’t have use for it later on.
Like he told himself back there on Old Quarry Court, luck calls for responsibility. He has to take care of this luck; he has to protect and be mindful of it if he expects to hold on to it in the regular sense as well as the spirit sense. That means he’ll have to come up with a better way of storing it because no way is all that unpacked money going to fit back into the slit-open shoebox. And that’s only for starters.
The package of dope is leaking where he stabbed it and the garbage bags holding Cliff Grant’s stuff are stretched and strained to the limit. The bail on the paint bucket’s come loose, the sundry stuff picked up along the way is scattered in too many places, and the heavy metal tool chest is a nuisance to haul around those times when he wants only the one tool.
Thought of the paint bucket makes him wonder if he shouldn’t have a look inside before he tries to fix it. He lugs it over to bedside where the light is better and gives it some more wondering.
“Why not?” he says after a while. Wasn’t he ready to show her to Cliff Grant before Grant badmouthed her? Wouldn’t he have worked out a way to show her to Gibby Lester if Lester hadn’t made the same mistake?
With a screwdriver taken from the open tool chest, he pries up the sealer tabs on the bucket. When they’re all lifted, the embalming fluid smell sets his eyes to watering; when he lifts the lid a ways, the smell burns his nose and throat and gives him a coughing fit. But that doesn’t stop him; he didn’t let it stop him when he first encountered the smell and sucked in so much of it he had a hangover the next day.
With a threadbare towel brought from the bathroom, he covers his nose and mouth, figures he has less than a minute to have a look-see or risk another hangover. And if he’s going to have a hangover, he’d just as soon it was brought on by something he drank.
He’s not that worried about what she’s going to look like when he plunges his hand into the bucket and lifts her up by a thick rope of skanky hair. But he nearly drops her when he sees how worried he should have been about her appearance. She’s nowhere near as smooth, white, and well preserved as that Russian guy they show off over there in Moscow. Even the pickled privates kept behind the bar at Kings Tavern are more lifelike looking than she is.
He twirls her around to see that nothing about her is the same as it was when he sealed her away. Her face has a different shape, swelled out on one side and half caved in on the other; her skin has darkened and blotched so that it’s impossible to make out the bruises on her throat—the bruises Cliff Grant was supposed to get excited about—and the stump end of her throat is raggedy, trailing strings of muscle, ligament, and artery where it was clean-cut before.
There’s no point beating himself up over botching the embalming job and maybe making it worse by hauling her cross-country and back. What’s done is done and no amount of wishful thinking or prayerful chanting will change anything.
And there’s even less point looking for the little red dots that show up after death by strangulation and would have sealed Elliot’s fate. There’s no sign of them at all when he holds her higher and closer to the light. So now it’s only his word against carloads of fancy lawyers that the rock star had already killed Audrey-Aurora before he drove her off an embankment.
At the limit of his ability to abide bad smells and worse sights, Hoop sinks the ruined evidence in the bucket, closes and reseals the lid, and hurries to the bathroom to scrub his forearm and hand.
“Pe-tech-i-ae,” he tries out the word he wanted to use on Cliff Grant. “Hy-pox-ic . . . endo-the-li-al,” he mouths the other peculiar words he never fully understood beyond them relating to what he saw on Audrey’s neck while her dead body was still warm.
Returned to the neighborhood of the paint can where the fumes are still strong, he pretends they don’t bother him while calling up words that won’t make her seem to blame for his failure to preserve and protect her the right way. He crouches down next to the can and gets off to a halting start like he always did when he went to see her at the Paradise lunch counter. He explains in fits and starts that plans may have to be changed, but he won’t desert her, he won’t give up. He bends close to the can to whisper his pledge to bring the rock star down no matter what it takes.
There’s a lot more to say after he gets the hang of it. He tells her how his life changed after she crossed over, how his life changed again when he found out the rock star was back in business. He talks about the trip to Los Angeles, what he had to eat at the Farmers Market there, what all he saw on the wooden walkway at Venice Beach, and how he managed to get into the rock star’s room and swipe the pocket photo album and the queer aspirin powder. He tells her that going by the pictures in the pocket album, her boys look a lot like her, even though that’s not altogether true. To that he adds more compliments—as close to sweet talk as he dares go—and jaws on and on like a woman, with empty mention of this, that, and every other thing. He leaves out mention of his doings with Cliff Grant and says nothing of the run-in with Gibby Lester. Audrey doesn’t have to hear about the rock star’s new girlfriend either. That all will keep for a time when it has more meaning—when it’s brought him closer to the prize.
When he says goodbye to Audrey, it’s for two reasons: He’s run out of things to say, and the lingering smell of formalin is giving him a headache. To escape the smell he goes back to the bathroom, taking with him the collection of renter’s and car buyer’s guides picked up at the fancy supermarket. From a seat on the closed toilet, he leafs through a couple before anything interests him and then it’s an ad for something too rich for his skinny wallet—a coupe utility vehicle of a kind he’s only ever dreamt about. He switches to a renter’s guide as less apt to stir up appetite for things he doesn’t need and can’t afford. An ad there attracts him to something he does need and maybe can afford.
The ad is for individual storage units for rent at several locations around this part of New Jersey. There’s bound to be one close by, he guesses, and tears the page from the little newsprint magazine. He tears the page that interests him from the car buyer’s guide—just for fun, just to keep his mind off the horrible disappointment—and folds it along with the other into a shirt pocket.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Late afternoon, April 3, 1987
An hour after dropping the client off at his hotel, Laurel approaches her New Jersey neighborhood with the odd sensation he’s still with her in some way—as though vestiges of his aura linger. And yes, he does have an aura, she admits; he does possess a certain something, an intangible quality that goes beyond physical attractiveness. With a gun to her head she might admit—but only to herself—that Colin Elliot is a far cry from her preconceived image of a sybaritic rock star and, as David predicted, that many of his demonstrated interests mesh with her own. Might admit. Gun to head.
An unusual number of vehicles are parked at intervals along the curb when she enters her street. They belong to the lawn service subscribed to by the majority of the residents there. She slips by the assortment of pickups, cars, and small flatbed trailers and initiates the garage-door-opening ritual seventy-five or so feet from her driveway.
Inside the garage, as always, she remains behind the wheel until the overhead door is fully closed. Then, and only then, does she shut off the engine and release the door locks. She completes that procedure now and steps out of the car, only to realize she’ll have to lift the overhead again in order to remove the picnic things from the back of the vehicle.
She reactivates the handheld remote and nothing happens. “Shit!” She squeezes it again before deciding the batteries are dead and flinging it aside.
The only window in the gar
age is obstructed by leftover pegboard and paneling from some long-ago project, so she leaves the car door open and gropes her way to the inside wall in the minimal light shed from the car interior. Halfway there she laughs at herself for not thinking to turn on the headlights.
When she tries the wall switch next to the door into the house, the overhead door does not move an inch. “Dammit!” She wonders if electric service has been interrupted, but that can’t be the case because flicking another wall switch turns on the garage ceiling light.
To her credit, she knows how to disengage the power mechanism of the garage door opener without consulting a manual. All that’s needed is a firm tug on the hang cord with the toggle on the end. While reaching for the cord she wonders if Colin’s whimsical offer to respond to household emergencies covers garage door openers and if he really would come if called.
After manually lifting the overhead garage door, she stands there for a moment, feeling the way she did in the museum when the throng of admirers threatened to overwhelm the client. The sensation is fleeting—of helpless exposure—and ridiculous because the yard workers are dispersing without paying her any attention.
She’s nevertheless quick about retrieving the hamper and ice chest and closing up the car before pulling the overhead door shut and sliding the locking bar into place. She goes into the house knowing the garage door opener cannot be repaired or replaced over the weekend without paying a premium. A lifetime of thrift will make that hard to do.
Once the picnic things are washed and put away, she sits down at the kitchen phone desk to listen to a full answering machine tape of messages. Three are from Amanda, each one more breathless than the preceding and all beseeching Laurel to report on the day’s progress with Colin Elliot. Two from David ask basically the same thing, minus Amanda’s panting impatience.
Laurel speeds through several inconsequential messages until she identifies one from former colleague and sometime suitor Ryan Walker. He again wants to discuss the invitation to attend next Thursday’s bash for Rayce Vaughn as her escort. “What’s to discuss?” she murmurs and deletes the message. The next one is from Nate Isaacs’s office requesting a time frame for her interview with Mr. Isaacs. This message is a tad worrisome because she doesn’t recall releasing her home number to anyone connected with that office.
“Whatever,” she mutters. There are several ways they could have discovered the number, starting with process of elimination. With only two other Chandlers listed in Glen Abbey, New Jersey, no one need become a career nuisance caller in order to figure out that she’s listed under Benjamin Chandler, her father’s name. And she doesn’t have to think a barrier has been broken just because an unexpected caller got through. God knows Amanda may have supplied the number to Isaacs’s office as part of the same campaign that saw her release it to the client.
As if to challenge this reasoning, the last two calls on the tape are hang-ups. While they could be investigatory, it’s easier to believe they’re from someone checking to see if she’s home yet—someone who ought to know better then hang up without leaving his name. She might have been here, after all; she might have been screening her calls and been left annoyed by this breach of etiquette.
While that premise plays out in her head, the phone rings, jarring her from the chair. She’s inclined to walk away, just let it ring and see if he hangs up again. But wouldn’t that amount to another breach of etiquette? On the third ring she picks up. Mimicking her outgoing message, she states only the number reached and still has two numbers to go when her assumption proves correct.
“Hello, Laurel,” Colin says. “Have I thought to mention that your name is lovely in the mouth? The ‘el’ sounds are very pleasing to the tongue, actually.”
“Then you must love saying your own name.” She makes a big production of pronouncing his name, dragging it out, exaggerating the “el” sounds and making him laugh.
“God, you never disappoint.” He laughs more than necessary producing an effect that has her sitting down again, this time on the floor.
“Is there something you forgot to tell me?” she says with wasted sarcasm.
“I wanted to be dead certain you arrived home safely.”
“I did, but you didn’t give me enough time . . . You didn’t wait long enough before you called.”
“What do you mean?”
“When you called and hung up on the machine.”
“Hold on, I didn’t ring earlier. I only just finished sparring with my manager and rang you the first moment I could, which is now.”
“Oh . . . I see. I’m sorry. I took for granted the hang-ups on my machine were you.”
“I don’t operate that way. When I ring someone I’m acquainted with I always leave my name in case they’re listening in.”
“I see.”
“There you go again with the ‘I see’ thing.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Nothing to be sorry about, I love it.”
“Very well,” she says, drawing his laughter before her second-most-overused phrase has completely left her mouth.
“What a delight you are, Laurel . . . what a fantastic day you gave me today.”
“You said that when I dropped you off and I reminded you—”
“Yeh, I’m not forgetting what you said about confusing your solicitude for something else, but bein’ the sort of bloke I am, I’m not letting it slow me down.”
So I’ve noticed, she says to herself and steers the conversation in another direction. “Did I ever think to tell you I saw a tape of your unscheduled performance at the Institute Awards presentation? I missed the telecast, so my assistant got a copy from your record label.”
“Must have been a day or two ago because the Pinnacle people wouldn’t be so obliging now.”
“Why is that?”
“I ended negotiations with them this morning. I’m done there.”
“I see. Weren’t those negotiations the primary reason for your presence in New York?”
“Yeh, that and the related business you were witness to the day we met. I’ve either scrapped or suspended everything in favor of the new priority.”
“And that is?”
“You . . . uh . . . the project with you . . . this thing we’re workin’ on together.”
“And the time being is?”
“The length of time you’re willing to give me . . . till Easter weekend, you said at the start. Didn’t I confirm that I’ve extended my stay till then?”
“I read it in the paper, but no, you never gave me direct confirmation—which is entirely understandable. There are more loose conversational threads between us than I know what to do with.”
“You too? I have the same feeling. Any one topic seems to generate six more. For example, just now I meant to ask your opinion of what I did at the award show and tripped myself up with the subject of the record label.”
“For the record—pun intended—I applaud what you did at the Icon award show. I have to be considered biased, though, because you told me why you did it before I saw the footage.”
“What would your reaction have been if you hadn’t known my motives?”
“That’s hard to say. Without knowing anything about you, I most likely would’ve written off your behavior as grandstanding with bias again a factor because as recently as Monday, I had fairly inflexible beliefs about people in your business, and they were neither fair nor flattering.”
“Thank you for the opening. You’re makin’ it easier for me to ask about the case involving the roadies.”
“You don’t have to ask. Yes, of course that case colored my overall opinion of the music industry, even though I was less than professional for allowing it to do so.”
“If I may say . . . you were only being human. We all tend to judge by lowest common denominator and you solicitors would have to know that better than most. I’m guessing there’re more jokes about your kind than any other profession.”
“No argument t
here.” She laughs on cue. “Now, before I sail off on another tangent, I asked while we were in the park this afternoon—right after you phoned home—how your boys are, and I think your answer was lost in the talk about food.”
“It wasn’t lost. I never got round to answering because there was nothing to tell over, actually. Everyone there’s a bit pissed at me because I’ll be away from home longer than planned. Anthony minds most because he remembers a time when I said I’d be back soon and didn’t return for months. Anticipating your next question, yeh, as I was telling David just this morning, I did consider bringing the lads over for a week or so and that prospect dried up because Simon has an ear infection that’ll keep him off airplanes and Anthony’s schooling’s not going so well. He can’t afford to miss any.”
“Perhaps you should find another biographer . . . someone free to travel to the UK and better accommodate your—”
“No! Absolutely not. I won’t hear of it. You are it. You’re the only one for the job and that’s the way it stays unless it’s you wanting out.”
“Colin . . . because of what I told you about my background today, I think you can understand why I’m uncomfortable about keeping you away from your children.”
“I was rather expecting you might say that and you needn’t be uncomfortable. It’s not you keeping me from my children, it’s me. And I would never deprive either one without good reason. I wouldn’t stay away unless I thought I was going to accomplish something to benefit them in the long run.”
“Are you saying that telling your life story—if you ever do supply anything concrete—is seen as a long-term benefit for your boys? Is that what you’re asking me to believe?”
“Yeh. Please. And I promise to get on with the telling as soon as I can. I could give you a load of concrete right now if it wouldn’t make you late for your dinner date. I wasn’t mindin’ the clock and I’ve only just noticed I’m probly keeping you from—”
“Wait. What dinner date? I didn’t say I had a dinner date, I said—”