About Face (23 page)

He cut through an opening in the bushes. We crossed a small lawn and turned a corner to where we could stand unobserved in the shadow of a buttress.

“I need to talk to you about Alissa,” he said.

“Why? So you can report back to Rupert?”

“I've quit. I'm not on their side anymore.”

“That's what Rupert told you to say, right?”

His lips puckered in a combination of sulk and anger. Maybe he really had left SG. “I heard what Mrs. Plush said. I believe you, not her.”

“All I said was I knew where Alissa was. I didn't say she was alive.”

“She
is
alive.”

He said it with such force it was hard to tell if it was a wish or a fact. I watched his face. “You
do
have the hots for her, don't you?”

He rolled his eyes. He was still part teenage boy. “That's an old thing. I'm telling you, we checked it out. The death is a fake. You should get together with us.”

“Who's this ‘us'?”

He hesitated, licked his lips, and then said, “Me and Wendy. She went to Arizona and now she's back. She wants to talk to you.”

I tried to hide my surprise. Brendon and Wendy? I didn't care what his motives were, I just wanted Wendy in front of me. “When?”

He fingered the hem of his jacket. “Now, if you can.”

“Let's go.”

» » » » »

I followed Brendon in his SUV to Highway 101. We went a few exits before he got off the freeway and turned in at a new apartment complex. The buildings, all cute angles and misplaced windows, had been plopped on the site in no discernible order. We parked and I went with Brendon through an overly elaborate front door into what I assumed was his pad. The furniture was new, sleek, and modern, but there wasn't quite enough of it to fill the living room. Bedding was folded and stacked on one end of
a long sofa. The sofa faced a giant television, from which a daytime talk show bleated. No one was watching. Two framed posters decorated the walls, one showing a famous model, one Tahiti. The door to the next room was closed. In the kitchen, dishes were piled high.

Brendon knocked tentatively on the closed door. “Wendy?” he called. A voice came from inside. He turned to me and said, “She'll be out in a minute.”

I sat on the sofa. The initials BW were monogrammed into a corner of the bed linen. Brendon paced in front of the TV. His suit was stylish, but a knockoff. The Louis Vuittons appeared real. I asked him for a glass of water. He washed a glass for me and brought it out.

“So what happened between you and SG?” I said.

He waved dismissively. “They're crooks. They want to control your whole life. It's like—who were those people in Russia?—the serfs. I got sick of it.”

“What happens when you leave? How do they make sure you stay quiet?”

“I've got confidentiality up the wazoo. Soon as I say a word, their lawyers are on me. Or probably Gary has his way with me first and the lawyers get the leftovers.”

“Do you figure that's what happened to Alissa?”

He stopped and, for the first time since we'd arrived, gazed at me. His face showed a mixture of distaste and curiosity, as if I were a fish that had washed up on his sofa. “That's why we brought
you
here.”

“We might be able to work together on this. But first I want to hear everything about Rupert and Trisha. They sent you to spy on Erika in the store?”

He turned away from me and looked at the TV as if it had asked the question. He punched it off and said, “Yeah. Yeah, they
wanted me to harass her. I don't get it, bro. They acted like they don't know where Alissa is or who killed Rod, when they're behind the whole thing. They were just pushing my buttons, I guess.”

“What specifically did they tell you to do?”

“Just, you know, keep an eye on her.”

“They didn't tell you to grab her by the hair?”

He hesitated, then said, “Well, yeah. We thought she knew where Alissa was. I was just trying to get Erika to tell us.”

“Who threw the chemical in Erika's face?”

“Not me. Must have been Gary or someone like that.”

“What about the other two thugs?” I described the guys who'd cold-cocked me.

“That sounds like Larsen and Terry. They were in Vegas last I knew. Trisha sent them down for a whole month. They must have just got back.”

That was interesting. “They were down there a week ago?”

“Yeah. Definitely.”

“What happened with you and SG?” I asked.

“I couldn't get with the program. I was, like, over it.” He stopped and looked at the bedroom door. His ears were more attuned to it than mine. The door opened and Wendy made her entrance.

She flicked glances at us like a queen surveying her subjects. She wore a big-sleeved, billowy blouse, cinched at the waist with an oversized belt. Above a pair of slip-on white pumps were cream-colored silk pants. Her hair was piled high, a few strands loose on her face. Lanternlike earrings swung from her earlobes. A touch or two of Alissa remained: the necklace and the color of her hair. Even so, Wendy was her own glamorous self.

Her lipstick curved into a big, sloppy smile for me. “Bill, it's so nice of you to come.”

I took her hand. It was still damp with moisturizer. Conflicting scents battled for primacy in the air around her. She glanced disapprovingly at the occupied space on the sofa. Brendon rushed to the center of the room with an armchair.

“Do you want to sit here?” he said. “Or should I move my blankets?”

She made a show of placing her rear into the chair. “This is fine, dear.”

I put mine back in the sofa and said, “I was sorry not to see you at the memorial service, Wendy. But I guess you're not sad to see Rod go.”

“Of course I'm sad, Bill. It was a terrible thing that happened to him. And then they tried to make it look like he did it to himself. Poor man. He was a little bit pathetic to begin with—no offense, you understand. Then he became delusional about my daughter. And then he was killed in that horrible way. It's too much.”

“I see you know all the details.”

She smiled again. “Oh, I keep track of things. I'm sure Rod told you all kinds of silly stories about me. It came out of his delusion. He blamed me for keeping Alissa from him. Of course, I had nothing to do with her feelings. A man like that . . .” She made a gesture of fruitlessness. “He was not a bad man. I thought he and I would be friends one day, once we understood each other.”

“He wasn't delusional. Alissa did love him.” Even if I wasn't a hundred percent sure of that, I wanted to see the reaction.

Brendon stood abruptly and whipped his tie from his collar. He'd been perched on the sofa arm and had already removed his jacket and laid it neatly on top of the bedding. Wendy halted him with a small motion with her hand. “Dear?”

He stared blankly, then got it. “Oh, right.” He folded his tie and said, “The usual?”

“That'll be fine, thank you.” She watched him walk to the kitchen with pleasure. “Don't be rude. Aren't you going to offer our guest something?”

“Bill, do you want some wine?” came Brendon's voice.

I said I already had my water, then studied Wendy as she waited for Brendon to return. Her face in the daylight looked pale and puffy, the lips and eyes a little too full, the edges of the face-lift beginning to pucker. I had the impression she was weary, not from overwork but from striving so hard to have the life she thought she should have. Brendon appeared to be providing a much reduced version of it.

She accepted a glass of white wine from him and took a sip, leaving a bruised-claret half moon on the glass, its counterpart a small smear above her lip. Only then did she return to my last comment. “You want to defend your friend, Bill, and that's very nice. I suppose it doesn't matter now how Alissa felt about him.” She smiled in a way that was meant to be charming, but her mouth reminded me of a wilted rose. “You and I want the same things: to find Alissa and to get the people who did what they did to Rod.”

“What did you find out in Arizona?”

“There's no wrecked car and no body. The editor of the paper claims to know nothing about the story. The reporters, the sheriff, the medical examiner: ignorant as logs. I found a copy of that day's edition and the story wasn't in it.”

“So the clipping was faked. Who would gain by having everyone believe Alissa is dead? I suppose Rupert could have pulled it off so that we'd stop looking for her. Which might mean she's dead, anyway.”

Brendon jumped up again, as if to attack my words. Wendy pursed her lips, quieting him with a look. She reached into her purse and extracted a pack of cigarettes and a lighter.

“Wendy . . .” Brendon entreated.

“Please,” she said in a peremptory tone, “this is no time for rules.” She waited with the cigarette between two fingers. Brendon heaved a sigh and fired up the lighter. Wendy took a long drag.

“I don't think she is,” she said to me. Her tone was brazen, ready to deal. “I think she's out there and I think you know how to find her.”

“Let's say I do—”

“Where is she?” Brendon demanded.

“This is hypothetical, Brendon. Let's say I can find her. What do you have to offer?” I omitted that if I did find Alissa, I'd ask her first if she wanted to talk to Wendy.

“You can't just—”

“Quiet, Brendon.” Wendy shifted sideways, throwing her feet over the chair. She let the pumps drop, one at a time, to the floor. “I can't live on maybes. If you find Alissa, we'll talk about that. But let's say I
have
evidence of SG doing the bad stuff we know they do. What can
you
offer me?”

“What do you want?” I asked.

She let her head hang back over the edge of the chair and blew a pillow of smoke at the ceiling. “I want a chance, Bill.” She'd turned suddenly wistful. “You know, I was never given a leg up on life. Not even a toe. Everything I've gotten, I had to fight for. When I was nineteen, Alissa's father left.
Nineteen
, Bill: I never had a chance. But that's not when it started, really. No one wanted me from the moment I was born into the world. I was given nothing. You can't imagine. Now, I wanted Alissa never to have to feel the way I did. And I vowed she wouldn't. It's too bad it's taken me so long to keep my promise. But I will. Every time I've been as close as I am now, something has screwed it up. Fate has turned against me. But I've been locked out long enough. It can't happen this time, Bill.”

“I'm sorry,” I said, “I'm not following you.”

“Of course not. How would a college boy like you understand?” She leveled a look of injured scorn at me, then let her head hang back again. “You're young and handsome. Not like Brendon, but still you've got plenty to look forward to. By the time this starts happening to you, your life will be set. You'll have your car, your house, your wife. . . . When your skin starts to shrivel, when it sags and loses its shine, it'll just be part of your stupidly contented old age. The world won't see you as a crumpled-up sack.”

“You can't be talking about yourself, Wendy. You look very good.” And she did, in spite of her airs: It was only in comparison to Alissa that she had the look of the “before” picture.

Wendy came upright again. “I
work
at it. There's a man who's very much in love with me, Bill. A wonderful man, a true gentleman, generous and respectful. He lives in the hills outside of Reno. It's a beautiful spread. I've been everything he wanted and things he didn't know he wanted. But he's looking at me differently now. Do you know why? Someone said something to him, put an idea in his head that I'm a different age than he thinks. Now he inspects the back of my legs . . . my knuckles . . . my neck. He notices things. He thinks I don't know it, but I do. He was about to pop the question, Bill, and now I see the doubt creeping in. But I'm not going to let life screw me again. I'm going to take this into my own hands.”

“All right,” I said. “But I still don't see what this has to do with me.”

“You have access, Bill. There's a treatment called Eternaderm. I know you know about it.” Wendy tapped at the edges of her face where I'd noticed the puckers. “I could get rid of these forever! But I'm locked out of it, Bill, unjustly and for no good
reason. This is what has to do with you. You need to get it for me. I don't care how you get it: officially, unofficially, whatever. Just get it.”

“Have you talked to Connie?”

“Connie is the problem. Connie and Trisha. Trisha's nothing but a showgirl from Las Vegas trying to go respectable. Connie's stuck up. They scheme together—you wouldn't believe what I know about them. And I will tell it to you, if you do your job.” Wendy exhaled another cloud of smoke and said, “There's always someone, Bill, always someone out to ruin me. You'll say I'm paranoid, but you haven't lived my life. I frighten them.”

“And they frighten me,” I said. “But why Eternaderm? There are a lot of treatments available, from what I hear: lasers, peels, retinoids. . . .”

Wendy dismissed them with a wave. “I'm tired of subtracting little bits of time, Bill. It always slides back on you. I want this because it goes below the surface. It fixes the problem at its origin.”

“Yeah.” I began to see the confluence between Wendy's interests and mine. “What are Connie and Trisha up to together? Trisha's the money behind Sylvain, isn't she?”

Wendy wagged her finger. “Uh-uh. Not until I see some product.”

“Who's going to administer it? How do we make sure it's safe? And what makes you so sure I have access to it?”

She finished the last of her wine. “Those are the problems. Now they're yours.”