Claire DeWitt and the Bohemian Highway

by Sara Gran

  “Let her go,” I said.

  He looked at me and didn’t let her go. Constance looked bored. She let out a big sigh, like it was all too stupid for words. Which of course it was. It always is.

  “Get your fucking hands off her,” I said.

  He looked at me and did not take his fucking hands off her.

  “You think I’m kidding?” I cocked the gun.

  “You’ll be three,” I said. “Three dead.”

  He didn’t let go.

  “It gets easier every time,” I said. It wasn’t true. “I think I’m starting to like it.”

  Another man came from the direction of the house. Maybe he was young or maybe he was just one of those men whose face never grows up. He was thin and had blond hair to his shoulders. He looked like a gigolo.

  I kept my gun on the man in the black shirt.

  “I’ll never think of you again,” I said. “Either of you.” I thought about the two men I’d killed all the time. I dreamed about them. I felt like since I’d killed them they’d crawled under my skin and moved in with me. At night I got high to try to escape them, but it never entirely worked. Some days were like a nightmare I couldn’t wake up from. I didn’t understand at the time that by killing them I’d bound myself to them for life. This life and more to come.

  I met eyes with the blond man. “I’ll kill you and forget about you and so will everyone else. No one will remember you. It’ll be like you were never here at all.”

  I figured if I killed him I’d have to kill myself, too, because I couldn’t live with another one. Behind the blond man a llama raised his head to eat from a high hedge. Maybe it was an alpaca.

  “Go away, Allie,” the blond man said softly to the animal. “Go away now, come on.”

  I figured I’d try not to hit the llama but I wouldn’t make myself any promises. I kept my gun on the man in the black shirt. Constance rolled her eyes like she was watching a bad movie. For the first time I noticed that peeking out from the hedges behind the blond man was a white Rolls Royce, empty.

  I shot one bullet through the windshield of the Rolls and fixed my gun back on the man in the black shirt. Everyone except me jumped a little when the gun popped and the windshield shattered. The animal galloped away. The shards of the window sparkled in the sun, hard to look at.

  “There won’t even be a funeral,” I said. “Because no one will find your bodies. And in a few years no one will remember you. Except us. You’ll be our big joke. The thing we laugh about when we drink too much. The time we shot the two assholes in Vegas.”

  The blond man looked at the man in the black shirt.

  “Let her go,” he said.

  The blond man stepped toward the fence and pushed something I couldn’t see, and the gate opened. The man in the black shirt let Constance go, shoving her toward me. She stepped briskly through the gate and toward the car. When she got to the car I saw that her hands were shaking and her face was damp, and for the first time I realized she’d been scared for her life.

  I already knew I’d kill for Constance. I’d burn down the world for her if she asked.

  I raised an eyebrow at her and she gave me a quick nod. I aimed my gun and shot the man in the black shirt in his arm. He let out a scream and fell to his knees. Blood poured from his bicep.

  He screamed again. He’d be okay.

  I pointed my gun at the blond man.

  “Don’t,” Constance said quickly and softly. “We need him.”

  Constance got into the Jaguar and shut the door behind her. Gun still on the blond man, I got into the car and handed the gun to her. She pointed it at him through the windshield and kept it on him as we backed away.

  I backed up until we were on the street and then drove away hitting but not exceeding the speed limit and got on to the closest freeway. Once we were on I-15 out in the desert I pulled over and parked the car on the shoulder and threw up in the hot sun. I thought of the blood pouring out of the man’s arm, about how I had caused that, and I threw up again and knew I would never forgive myself. Never forgive myself for anything. But I would have killed him if I’d had to. If Constance had asked. I got back in the car and drove us back to Los Angeles.

  The next day Constance hired me as her assistant and asked me to move to New Orleans with her. I said yes. The first person I met in New Orleans was Mick Pendell, Constance’s other assistant and already a detective of ill repute. We were stuck with each other, siblings born into the same strange family.

  Three years later, Constance was murdered.

  Those of us who Constance brought together never let each other go, not entirely. Every time we tried to walk away we remembered our promises, and the debt that we could never repay.

  Later I found out that the blond man had been Jay Gleason, Jacques Silette’s last student, he of the messy hair and bell bottoms, face still pretty.

  Those of us Silette brought together would, as the Kali Yuga went on, have a more complicated relationship.

  7

  AFTER LEAVING LYDIA at the police station I didn’t hear from her for a few days. First I heard from Paul’s sister, Emily. While Lydia was talking to the police and I was talking to Carolyn, she called and left a message. I didn’t call her back. The next day she called again. She said she was coming into town and wanted to talk to me.

  Everyone thinks their grief is the first grief. Everyone thinks their grief is primary and everyone else’s is secondary. But I wasn’t ready to be the Supportive Friend yet. I wasn’t ready to be the fucking selfless person who helps arrange the funeral. I wasn’t in the mood to be the person who says, Oh, of course you were so much closer, and Of course this is so much harder for you. Let her find someone else.

  But then I left my apartment, five days after Paul died, and a woman was standing on my doorstep waiting for me. She was white and tall and thin and didn’t look like she was from here. She wore brown leather ankle boots and blue jeans and a gray sweater.

  “Claire?” she said. “Claire DeWitt?”

  I didn’t say anything. Her face was pretty, or would have been if it wasn’t haunted. She had dark circles under her eyes, and her clothes sagged on her frame—she’d lost some weight recently.

  “I’m Paul’s sister,” she said. “Paul Casablancas. I’m Emily.”

  “I’m sorry about Paul,” I said. “I really am.”

  “Can I talk to you?” she said.

  “Sure,” I said. “Go ahead.”

  “No,” she said, looking like she might cry. “I mean, I think I want to hire you. I think someone murdered Paul.”

  “Someone did murder Paul,” I said. “I don’t know what the police told you, but—”

  “No,” she said again. “I mean, I think someone I know murdered Paul.” She dropped her voice to a whisper. “I think it was his wife. Lydia. I think Lydia murdered Paul.”

  We went to a restaurant near my house. The restaurant is run by a cult. They love, honor, and obey a lady named the Enlightened Mistress who lives in Shanghai. She advocates kindness, veganism, and meditation. Other than calling herself the Enlightened Mistress she seems okay. They run a chain of vegan restaurants in Asia and in Chinatowns across the United States, and they teach free meditation classes once or twice a week.

  We got a table by the window looking out to Stockton Street. Paul’s sister, Emily, stared blankly out the window, rigid and tense. The waitress came. I ordered chicken stew, which would be fake chicken. Emily seemed startled, as if she’d forgotten where we were. I suggested she order the beef with broccoli. She did.

  “There’s something you probably don’t know about us,” Emily said when we were done. “Paul usually didn’t tell people—I don’t know, maybe he told you.”

  I shook my head, although I knew what she was going to say.

  “We’re rich,” she said. “You know Casablanca Candy?”

  I nodded. Casablanca’s was one of the big candy companies, up there with Russell Stover and Mars. I knew Paul was r
ich. He never told me. But he never looked at prices when he ordered in a restaurant. When his car went in the shop it came out the very next day, because he went to the very best shop. He always had new shoes. And most of all, he never complained about money. Only a rich person never complains about money. Even then it’s not a sure bet.

  And, of course, as soon as we’d started dating I’d learned everything about him, from his bank account balances to his hat size. I had a file on Paul as thick as my thumb was long. I knew nearly everything about Emily: her husband’s income, her daughter’s traffic tickets, her million-dollar home in Connecticut, her overused account at Neiman Marcus.

  “That’s us,” she said. “We’re rich. When Paul got married, the lawyers told him—you know, do a background check. Sign a prenup. But Paul was never into any of that. He wanted to live like a regular person. He never told people about the money, hardly spent any of it. And when it came to getting married, he wanted to do it just like everyone else. No lawyers, no prenup. Nothing.”

  The food came. Emily stared at it like she’d forgotten what food was.

  “Try it,” I said. “It’s better than it looks.”

  She took a bite hesitantly, like a cat tasting something new, and then ate a little more. When her cheeks looked a little pinker I asked, “Why do you think it was Lydia?”

  “For the money,” Emily said. “I knew from the beginning—I mean, she’s from nothing.” A quick look of liberal guilt passed her face. “Not that I—I mean, I didn’t—”

  “No, of course,” I said. “I didn’t think that you did. And that’s reasonable. It’s a really natural assumption.” I had no idea if that was reasonable or natural, but I wanted to keep her talking. “But did anything happen?” I asked. “Anything specific or concrete to make you think Lydia . . . ?”

  Emily frowned. “No, nothing,” she said. It sounded like that wasn’t the question she’d wanted me to ask. “Just I can’t imagine why . . .”

  Her voice trailed off. Of course she couldn’t imagine why. All Emily’s life she’d imagined no one would like her if she didn’t have money. Lydia had been born with nothing or less, but she had her music and her brains and her looks to get what she needed. She didn’t need to kill Paul for his money. She could have gotten money from a hundred men without asking. She’d just have to not say no to what they offered. Besides, she and Paul didn’t live so high on the hog. Other than their house in the Mission, which had cost about a billion dollars, they lived like everyone else, except they didn’t worry about money while they did it.

  Of course, I’d considered it myself. The wife was always the first suspect, and for good reason. But it didn’t make any sense. There was no logic to it. Lydia had nothing to gain. If she’d wanted to leave Paul—and I didn’t think she did—he would have given her a divorce and plenty of dough.

  Paul hadn’t said nice things about his sister to me. Her name had come up a few times: She lived in “that fucking house in Connecticut.” She was married to “some fucking guy who works for Goldman Sachs.” Paul could be a little bitchy if you touched the right nerve. Like most people he wasn’t especially proud of where he’d come from. Lots of investment bankers and charity fundraisers, lots of women with highlighted hair and perfect teeth. Private schools and fancy colleges. The ghetto of the rich, insular and narrow-minded.

  I told Emily I’d think about it. And I didn’t say outright, but I implied that things always seem awful after the death of a loved one, and it’s natural to look for easy answers, but those answers are usually wrong. I also told her I’d be working on the case anyway. She didn’t have to pay me or try to persuade me. Paul had been a friend, a friend I was very fond of, and I was going to find out who killed him.

  I also told her I didn’t think Lydia did it. Above the counter at the back of the restaurant something called Enlightened Mistress TV played a loop of the Enlightened Mistress speaking to crowds around the world. She had bleached hair and wore a suit that looked like it was from Macy’s. The sound was turned off and subtitles in a dozen languages streamed across the bottom of the screen: The truth is yours for the taking. Life is happiness and happiness is service.

  “You know how when a kid dies?” I said. “Maybe he fell in a swimming pool or whatever? And then the next day they pass all this legislation banning swimming pools or requiring gates or lifeguards or whatever? And no one’s really safer after all? You see what I’m saying?”

  Emily looked at me, her eyes swollen from holding back tears.

  “I think Lydia killed Paul,” she said. “I think Lydia killed my brother for his money, and I—”

  She started to cry, and couldn’t talk anymore. I went back to eating and didn’t think about Paul and didn’t think about why Emily was crying. My mind shut its doors and wouldn’t let it in.

  Finally Emily left, still crying. I watched her through the window, crying on Stockton Street, confused and broken, no one stopping to help. San Francisco wasn’t so big, but people liked to pretend they were in a big city here, with no time for sympathy. Both of Emily and Paul’s parents were long gone. Paul was the only family she’d had left.

  I looked back at my fake chicken and ate it with a good imitation of appetite.

  After lunch I ate my fortune cookie and read my fortune.

  You are at the start of a great adventure, the fortune said. The road will be hard, but the world is on your side.

  Never give up.

  8

  THAT EVENING I WENT by Nick Chang’s office for a checkup. He’d been nagging me, like when the dentist sends you those little cards reminding you of a visit. Except I lived around the corner from Nick, so every time I walked by his office a random young apprentice or assistant or whatever the next pay grade was would come out and say in broken English, “Dr. Chang want to see you now! Today!” Like a human version of the dentist’s cards.

  Old Man Chang had been Constance’s doctor since they met in Los Angeles years before I was born. He taught Nick and now Nick treated me. The Chang family practiced traditional Chinese acupuncture and herbalism, among other things—some of which they told me about and some of which they didn’t.

  The Changs owned a tenement building like the one I lived in. Theirs was on Waverly Place, a kind of alley/street hybrid that ran for one block, sunny and bright on a good day. They lived upstairs, each generation in their own apartment, and practiced on the bottom floor. Their shop looked like any other in Chinatown: big wooden chest of herbs; dusty shelves of patent medicines; always at least a few people waiting around for prescriptions or to see the doctor or just hanging out smelling the good smell of Chinese medicine.

  I went in and one of the apprentices was at the counter. I knew this one. Mei. She’d been with Nick a long time and I figured they’d get married someday. She was a good girl, smart and kind and capable. Nick was close to fifty now, just about ten years older than I was. He was reaching that age even men like Nick seem to reach eventually—men who love women and love sex and don’t want to stop falling in love—when settling down with one woman started to look good. There’d been one woman who was different. Carrie. I’d met her a few times. She was Chinese American but her family had been in San Francisco since forever. They wouldn’t set foot in Chinatown. Carrie thought North Beach was slumming it. They had a kid together but it had never worked out, and soon Carrie married a rich businessman from her neck of the woods. I suspected Nick still loved her. The kid was ten now and whenever his mom wasn’t looking he hopped on the bus from Nob Hill to Chinatown. I was rooting for him.

  Mei wore a pretty black dress and a little too much makeup and black clog-ish shoes like waitresses wear. She stood behind the counter with her chin in her hand. She never seemed like she was working but I’d heard she was a genius.

  “Hey, Claire,” she said. She was born here and spoke English better than Chinese. “Nick wants to see you.”

  “So I heard,” I said.

  “Sorry to hear about your fri
end,” she said. “Anything we can do?”

  “Nah,” I said. “Thanks. How you been?”

  “Good,” she said. “Slow day.”

  “Nick gonna be a while?” I asked.

  “A bit,” she said. “He’s in with Henry.”

  That was the kid.

  “Do me a favor,” I said.

  “Yeah?” she said.

  “Gimme that can of oil under the register.”

  Mei smiled and found the can of oil and gave it to me. The door squeaked like hell, and I bet so did the big paper cutter they used to wrap up their packets of herbs. I tested it and I was right. God forbid a Chang get his hands dirty. I was like their Schneider. I oiled the paper cutter and then got up on a chair to get the door hinges. They needed a whole new entryway with better security, but that wouldn’t happen unless I did it for them. I figured some Saturday I could re-hang the door, at least.

  Mei went to the back and called out to the senior Chang in Chinese, “Claire’s here, she fixed your door. Come say thank you.”

  The old man came out smiling. He shuffled his feet and walked about one step per hour. He was older than old. I’d never seen anyone smile as much as him.

  “Claire DeWitt,” he said in Chinese. “Always a pleasure. I had a dream about Constance last night.”

  “What’d she say?” I asked. My heart strained a little: I was hoping for a secret message, a little affection, maybe the solution to the Case of the Kali Yuga.

  “Poppies!” he said. “I’m helping Mei treat a woman with tuberculosis. Constance said to try poppies.”

  He laughed some more, but then he stopped and looked at me. Really looked, the way only a Chinese doctor does.

  “What happened?” he said. He wasn’t smiling now.

  I looked away. “Someone died,” I said. “But I’m fine.”

  He shook his head and gave me that look you get from people who feel sorry for you.

  Nick came out with his little boy next to him.

  “Hey,” I said to Nick. “Hey, kid.”