Children of Light (6 page)

“I’ve recently had the opportunity to visit Mount Palomar,” the voice declared with a dreadful earnestness, “and was devastated by the sheer beauty I encountered there.”

Such a sound, Walker considered, could only be made by forcing the breath down against the diaphragm, swallowing one’s voice and then forcing the breath upward, as in song. He listened in wonder as the voice blared on.

“Everywhere I travel in California,” it intoned, “I’m—utterly dazzled—by the vistas.”

He’s raving mad, thought Walker.

“Don’t you find your own experiences to be similar?” the voice
demanded of the young woman at the bar. It was a truly unsettling sound, its tone so false as to seem scarcely human.

To Walker’s astonishment, the woman smiled wider and began to stammer. “I certainly … yes … why, I do. The vistas are ravishing.”

“How pleasant an experience,” brayed the voice, “to encounter a fellow admirer of natural wonders.”

With as much discretion as possible, Walker turned toward the speaker. He saw a man of about fifty whose nose and cheekbone had been broken, wearing a hairpiece, a little theatrical base and light eyeliner. Returning to his drink, Walker cringed; he had feared to see a face to match the voice and that was what he had seen. It was a smiling face, its smile was a rictus of clenched teeth like a ventriloquist’s. The thought crossed his mind that he was hallucinating. He dismissed it.

“So few,” the man enunciated, “truly see the wonders nature arrays before them.”

How true, thought Walker.

The man eased himself between Walker’s stool and the lady’s, taking possession of her company and presenting a massive shoulder to Walker, his defeated rival. Walker moved his stool slightly so that he would still be able to see her.

“I know,” the woman said, with an uneasy laugh. “The average person can be blind to beauty. Even when it’s right in front of them.”

Walker sipped his drink. The neighboring dialogue was beginning to make him unhappy. Abandoning his observation of the two newly friends, he turned to see that Shelley had come in. She was standing in a doorway that opened to the windswept terrace; she was smiling, she had seen him. A tan polo coat was thrown over her shoulders, she was wearing pants to match it and tall boots. Under the coat she wore a navy work shirt and a white turtleneck jersey. Her dark hair was close-cropped.

She waved to him and he watched her make her way through the bar crowd. When she was by his side he stood up and kissed her.

“You look pretty tonight, Shell,” he said into her ear.

“You look pretty too, Gordo.” She cupped her hands around her mouth and croaked at him. “Why are we whispering?”

Walker put a finger across his lips and moved his eyes toward the couple on his right. Shelley peered at them, then looked at Walker with an expression of anticipatory glee. Her black eyes were so bright he wondered if she had been doing drugs.

“Do I discern a visitor to our shores?” the big man inquired in his awful voice. “Great Britain, perhaps?”

The young woman, who spoke with the accent of southern Indiana or Illinois, hesitantly explained that she was not a visitor from abroad.

“What a surprise,” the man had his voice declare, while his heavy face did surprise. “Your impeccable pronunciation convinced me you must be from across the water.”

Walker looked away. Shelley was hiding behind him on the stool, resting her chin on her hands, grinning madly at the bottles behind the bar.

“Let me see,” sounded the man through his morbid grin. “The eastern states, perhaps. I have it. I suspect Boston is the key to your refinement.”

“No,” said the woman. “Illinois is my native state.” She giggled. “I hail from the central region.”

Walker glanced at Shelley. She was batting her eyes, doing an impression of goofy cordiality.

“Ah,” honked the big man. “How charming. The land of Lincoln.”

They listened as he introduced himself as Ulrich or Dulwich or something close. “May I offer you a cocktail?” Ulrich or Dulwich asked gaily. “The night is young and we seem kindred spirits.”

Shelley put a hand on Walker’s arm. She had seen a free table. They got up and went over to it.

“How come you never say anything like that to me, Gordon? How about offering me a cocktail?”

He called a waitress and ordered Shelley a White Russian, which was what she claimed she wanted. Before the waitress could leave with the drink order Shelley called her back.

“Do you see that man at the bar,” she asked the girl, “the big one with the blond lady?” The waitress followed Shelley’s nod. “We’d like to buy him a drink.”

“Cut it out, Shelley,” Walker said.

“When you give him the drink,” Shelley said, “tell him we’re putting assholes to sleep tonight. And we got his number.”

“Shut up,” Walker said. “Forget it,” he told the waitress. The waitress was tall and dark, with a long melancholy face. One side of her mouth twitched in a weird affectless smile.

“You,” she said to Shelley, “you used to work here, right?”

Shelley wiggled her eyebrows, Groucho Marx-like.

“That’s right,” Walker said.

“So,” the girl asked, “you don’t want me to …?”

“Of course not,” Walker said.

“I myself hail from Tougaloo,” Shelley said to Walker. “May one inquire where you yourself hail from?”

“It’s so gruesome,” Walker said. “It’s like a wildlife short.”

“What animal is he, hey, Gord?”

“I don’t know why we come here anymore,” Walker said.

“I bring you here to listen to dialogue,” Shelley said. “ ’Cause I’m your agent’s gal Friday. It’s my job.”

“It’s so fucking depressing.”

“Slices of life, Gordo. That’s what we want from you.
Verismo.
”

“Do you see that guy? Does he really look like that? Is it something wrong with me?”

“No,” she said. She spoke slowly, judiciously. “It’s a wildlife short.”

“She doesn’t see him.”

“She doesn’t seem to, no.”

“It’s loneliness,” Walker said. He shook his head. “That’s how bad it gets.”

“Oh, yeah, Gordon? Tell me about it.”

“I hope,” he said, “you didn’t get me down here to pick on.”

“No, baby, no.” She patted his hand and smiled sadly. She shook her head vigorously and tossed her hair, and made mouths at him.

He watched her, wondering if she were not on speed. Of course, he thought, it was difficult to tell with Shelley. She was a clamorous presence, never at rest. Even quiet, her reverie cast a shadow and her silences had three kinds of irony. She was a workout.

“What are you doing with yourself, Shelley?”

“Well,” she said, “sometimes I have assignations in crummy ocean-front hotels. Sometimes I get high and go through the car wash.”

“Going to open your own shop soon?”

She was watching the man with the voice and his companion. She shrugged.

“I’m not sure I want to be an agent, Gordon.”

“Sure you do,” he said.

“Look,” Shelley said, raising her chin toward the man, “he’s gonna light a Virginia Slim. His balls will fall off.”

A squat man of sixty-odd passed by their table, carrying an acoustic guitar.

“Hiya, Tex,” he called to Shelley. “How you doin’, kid?”

“Hi,” Shelley replied brightly, parodying her own Texas accent. “Real good, hey.”

The older man had stopped to talk. Shelley turned her back on him and he walked away, climbed the Miramar’s tiny stage and began to set up his instrument.

“That fuck,” she told Walker. “He thinks he’s my buddy. When I worked here he practically called me a hooker to my face.”

“I can’t remember how long ago it was you worked here,” Walker said.

“Can’t you, Gordo? Bet that’s because you don’t wanna. Eight years ago. When I left Paramount.” She sipped from her drink and turned toward the picture window. The last light of the day had drained from the sky but no lights were lighted in the Miramar Lounge. “Yes, sir, boy. Eight years ago this very night, as they say.”

“Funny period that was.”

“Oh, golly,” Shelley said. “Did we have good times? We sure did. And was I fucked up? I sure was.”

“Remember gently.”

“Clear is how I remember. I had little cutie-pie tights. Remember my cutie-pie tights?”

“Do I ever,” Walker said.

“Yep,” she said. “Little cutie-pie tights and I wanted to be an actress and I wanted to be your girl. High old times, all right.”

The elderly man with the guitar began dancing about the little stage. He struck up his guitar and went into a vigorous rendering of “Mack the Knife” in the style of Frank Sinatra.

“That rat-hearted old fucker,” Shelley said. “I don’t know if I can take it.”

“How come he called you a hooker?”

“Well shit, I guess he thought I was one.” Her eyes were fixed on the singer. “So I called him on it. So he cussed me out and fired me. Now I’m his old friend.”

“And you a rabbi’s daughter.”

“Yeah, that’s right, Gordon. You remember, huh? It amuses you.”

“The rabbi’s raven-haired daughter. Makes a picture.”

She blew smoke at him. “My father was a social worker in a hospital. He was a clinical psychologist but he had been ordained. Or whatever it’s called.”

Walker nodded. “You told me that too, I guess.”

“I told you it all, Gordo. The story of my life. You’re forgetting me, see?”

He shook his head slowly. “No.” He was aware of her eyes on him.

“Hey, you don’t look too good, old buddy. You looked O.K. in Seattle.”

“I been on a drunk. This is what I look like now.”

“You’re nuts, Gordon. You live like you were twenty-five. I’m supposed to be a hard-drivin’ player and I’m not in it with you.”

“It’s a failure of inner resources. On my part, I mean.”

“You better be taking your vitamins.”

“Connie left me,” Walker said.

He watched her pall-black eyes fix on his. She was always looking for the inside story, Shelley. Maybe there was more to it, he thought. Maybe she cares.

She drew herself up and studied the smoke from her cigarette. Her mouth had a bitter curl to it; for a moment she was aged and somber.

“Well,” she said, “wouldn’t I have liked to hear that eight years ago.”

“I’m sorry you didn’t get to hear it eight years ago,” Walker said. “You get to hear it now.”

She smiled, a thin sad smile.

“Actually,” she said, “Al told me.”

“Ah. So you knew.”

“Yes,” she said. “I knew.”

“Hard-ass, aren’t you?”

“Come off it, Gordon. You can’t cry on my shoulder. It’s a fucking ritual. She’ll be back.”

He turned away from her. The candlelight and the red and green lanterns were reflected in the seaward picture window, together with the faces of the customers. In the glass, everything looked warm and glad, a snug harbor.

“I hope you’re right.”

She only nodded, holding her faint smile.

“Maybe I shouldn’t take it seriously,” Walker said. “But I think I do.”

A ripple of anger passed across Shelley’s face, shattering her comedy smile. Her brow furrowed.

“Do you, Gordon? Then why the hell are you …” Her voice was trembling. She stopped in the middle of a word.

“What, Shell?”

“Nothing. I’m not getting into it.” She was facing the bar and her gaze had fastened once more on the crooning seducer and his fair intended. Her eyes were troubled. “Look at him, Gordon. He eats shit, that guy. He’s a hyena. Let’s take him out.” She turned to Walker and seized his sleeve. “Come on, man. You can do it. You would have once. Punch the son of a bitch.”

“I’m on his side,” Walker said. “He’s a
bon viveur.
He’s a sport like me.” He picked up the drink beside his hand and finished it.

Shelley Pearce shook her head sadly and leaned her head against her palm.

“Oh wow,” she said.

“I suppose we could effect a rescue,” Walker said. “We could hide her out in our room.”

“Our room?” She might have been surprised. He thought her double take somewhat stylized. “We have a room?”

“Yes, we have a room. Should we require one.”

“How many beds it got?”

“How many beds? I don’t know. Two, I guess. What difference does it make?”

Shelley was on her feet.

“Let’s go look at it. I think I want to swim in the pool.”

“The pool,” Walker said, and laughed.

She laughed with him.

“That’s right. Remember the pool? Where employees weren’t allowed to swim eight years ago tonight? Got your bathing suit?” She worried him to his feet, clutching at his elbow. “Come on, come on. Last one in’s a chickenshit.”

He got up and followed her out, past the bar. As they went by, the crooning man gave them a languid eyes-right.

“Do you enjoy great music?” he was asking the blond woman. “Symphonies? Concertos? Divertimenti?”

They rode the automatic elevator to the top floor and followed the soiled carpet to their door. The room behind it was large and high-ceilinged with yellow flaking walls. The furniture was old and faintly Chinese in ambiance. The air conditioner was running at full power and it was very cold inside. Walker went to the window and turned it off. Two full-length glass doors led to a narrow terrace that overlooked the beach. He unlocked the bolt that held them in place and forced them open. A voluptuous ocean breeze dispelled the stale chill inside.

“This is neat,” Shelley said. She examined the beds, measuring her length on each. Walker went out to the hall to fetch ice. When he returned, she was on the terrace leaning over the balustrade.

“People used to throw ice,” she told Walker. “When I worked the front tables people would throw ice cubes at us from the rooms. It would make you crazy.”

She came inside, took the ice from Walker and drew a bottle of warm California champagne from her carry bag. As she unwired the wine, she looked about the room with brittle enthusiasm.

“Well,” she said, “they sell you the whole trip here, don’t they? Everything goes with everything.” Her eyes were bright.

“You on speed, Shell?”

She coaxed the cork out with a bathroom towel and poured the wine into two water glasses.

“I don’t use speed anymore, Gordon. I have very little to do with drugs. I brought a joint for us, though, and I smoked a little before I went out.”