Snowstorms in a Hot Climate (20 page)

“That’s not the word I’d use to describe it.”

“Maybe not,” he said deliberately. “But that’s all it was.”

“What do you mean? I don’t call a poisonous snake under my pillow fun.”

“The snake wasn’t poisonous. It was a rattler, all right, but its fangs had been removed. It was meant to scare you, not kill you.”

I remembered again the lightning flash of the head. “Says who?”

“Your friends in the canyon. When I left you at the bar, I went and got Tyler out of bed, and together we paid them a little visit. They even showed me the box they bought it in. It came from a pet shop. Born and bred. When you pulled back the sheet, the little critter was probably more scared than you were.”

“I doubt it,” I said sourly.

“Well, whatever, they won’t cause you any more trouble. They broke camp tonight. I watched them go. They won’t be back.”

So that was it, the whole story. All that fear and panic over a couple of bully boys and an emasculated snake. Full stop. The end. Except for the pages I wasn’t allowed to read. Secret documents. It’s a historian’s job to uncover them.

“What about Lenny? What happens to him?”

He shook his head. The silence grew.

“Why won’t you tell me?”

“Because you don’t need to know. That was the deal, remember? It still is.”

“Why? Because you’ve betrayed him?” I picked the cruelest word I could find, to goad him. He did not rise to it.

“It’s none of your business. Your business is to take her home. Get on with it.”

“Except it’s not that easy, J.T. You were right. I can’t simply tell her what you’ve told me. We both know what she’d do. March straight up to Lenny and demand to know if it was true. And where would you be then? She may want to leave him, but you know Lenny. Things happen only if he wants them to, wasn’t that what you said? Well, according to Lenny he doesn’t want to split up. In fact, according to him, he’s out for a reconciliation. He’s already arranged a trip for them to take together—a surprise second honeymoon. To England of all places. And when—”

“Wait a minute.” This time I had touched a nerve. His attention crackled across the table. “What did you say about England? What do you know about that?”

I explained. He never took his eyes off me.

“And did you?”

“Did I what?”

“Tell her about it?”

“No, I didn’t. But not out of any favor to him. I thought if she knew it might soften her feelings toward him.”

“My God, he doesn’t miss a trick, does he?” But the words weren’t really directed at me. I recognized admiration mixed in with the anger.

“You mean it isn’t true?”

He looked up at me, as if he was almost surprised to find me still there. He frowned. “Do you think you can persuade her not to go with him—without making him suspicious, that is?”

I shook my head. “Not unless you tell me why. I’m not doing your dirty work until I know what it’s about.”

“Christ, you’re stubborn.” He growled in anger, slamming his fist down on the tabletop. The glass slab jumped, and a small avalanche of white crystals shimmered onto the wood. “I told you already, this isn’t a game. Don’t you understand? You can’t know any more than you do. You know too much already. Catching Lenny is like trapping a fish. If he senses anything, anything at all, he’ll be gone so fast you won’t see him move. And if he goes, then Tyler’s gonna be casting around for someone else to try his revenge fantasies on. You’re a liability as it is. Got that?”

I stared at him. “Just why is she so important to you? How come you’re willing to risk so much to get her out?”

He sighed angrily, as if it was a question he had already answered a hundred times before. But when he spoke his voice was quiet and patient, the adult to the child, making sure that this time she understood. “Because she just fell into it all, that’s why. He never really told her the truth, and she believed the lies.” He paused. “And because somewhere along the line I guess you get out what you put in. Sure I would like to have met her first. Maybe next time I will.”

Love on the cocaine trail. True confession. I wondered if I believed it. In light of the facts, this didn’t really sound like a love story.

“And maybe she’s just an excuse for you to get back at Lenny?” I said quietly.

He looked at me steadily for a long time. “Sure it’s about Lenny. I could say the same thing about you. Lenny and Elly. You don’t like it any more than I do. I wonder why not? What is it that hurts you? Makes you risk so much to get her out? See, same question. I can’t figure your fantasies any more than you can figure mine. It doesn’t matter. It’s not something I need to
know. You keep your secret. But you’d do well to remember that you don’t own her. Even if you once did. She pulls people in different ways. You, me, Lenny, we’re all in her orbit. And the fact is, she doesn’t even know it. Strong stars are like that. All heat and light and attraction, pumping out energy faster than anything else in the sky. Until, that is, they burn themselves out. She’s got no protection against herself. That’s how come Lenny can fuck her over. He’s too rich for her, too similar. He speeds up the process of her own destruction. And everyone else’s. Do you know what happens when a star goes critical? It starts to scorch its own satellites. Then finally it collapses in on itself, pulling everything with it. Black holes. Attraction and destruction. A law of the universe. It applies to all things.”

He looked down at the mound of cocaine in front of him. Moma Coca: glitter in the galaxy, her own force of nature. How many had she energized and then devoured? The sermon was over. The Gospel According to J.T. We fell silent. Outside the animals were getting restless. Tomorrow had arrived. I didn’t feel ready for it. Traditionally after the bedtime story comes sleep. I needed to dream some of it out.

“You should get some rest,” he said, uncrossing his legs and standing up, the bones in his ankles cracking in protest. Unfolded again, his size surprised me. I got up to face him.

“I’ll drive you home,” he said.

“No. I’ll walk. I need the fresh air.”

He didn’t argue. On the front porch it was glorious summer, hot even in the early morning. “You going to be all right?” he asked, as if the thought had only just struck him.

I nodded, refusing to consider the question, and made my way across the deck onto the earth below. When I reached the vegetable patch, I turned back. He was still standing there, watching me, but somehow he seemed smaller than before.

“One thing, J.T. How long have I got?”

He shook his head, and I think he may have frowned. “I dunno. But not long.” He stopped, and I began to turn away. “Marla,” his voice brought me back. “Look after yourself, OK?”

It was the first time he had called me by my name. It felt almost improper. I raised a hand in salute and headed off into the morning sun.

T
he house was without reptiles. I lay down to doze and fell into a fast-running sleep, a conveyor belt of images, insistent and confused. When I woke I could remember nothing, save a rasping sense of urgency and exhaustion, as if I had spent the hours in endless flight. It was almost noon. The midday heat was pressing down on the landscape, flattening the shadows, squeezing out the air. I sat and watched the grass grow. The screech of the telephone was like shattered glass. On the other end of the line, Elly had become a city girl again, bright and busy. Or maybe she just sounded that way, phoning from a room where she was not alone. She was sorry it was so late. They had talked most of the night and slept into morning. Had I been
OK? Was J.T. back? Yes, she was fine, and no, she couldn’t really talk now. There had been a change of plan. Would it be all right if I came up to the city? Lenny had to be there another day or so, and then, well … she’d tell me when I arrived. It wasn’t really telephone news. Could I bring our bags? Maybe J.T. could give me a lift—Lenny would like to see him anyway. Otherwise there was always the Greyhound.

Over the hill J.T. was already up, if indeed he had ever been asleep. The animals were fed, the garden watered, today’s crops had been picked, and he was sitting out on the deck, busy doing nothing. He was not surprised to see me. I told him about the phone call. He already knew. He had spoken to Lenny and agreed to meet. Old friends, remember, touching base. We would drive into town together. The news struck ice into my soul. I conjured up an image of the four of us, sitting over cocktails in some desperate plastic decor, making conversation. Except I couldn’t imagine what we would say. For the first time I began to understand the burden of knowledge.

“It’s no big deal,” he said sharply. “Ritual, that’s all. You don’t even have to be there. Go shopping or something.”

Back at the house I rang and left a message at the hotel, then packed our bags quickly, careless of snakes and things that go bump in the night. I left the house without sentiment or sense of occasion. There was too much ahead to waste emotion on what was past. The canyon rustled in the heat, benign and empty. Too late. When I reached the brow of the hill, the truck was waiting.

We climbed down to sea level and traveled north, hugging the coast road, the ocean smashing in over rocks beside us. We drove fast and kept our own counsel. The intimacy of the dawn confession had faded with the day. But the silence was not uncomfortable, simply pragmatic. We were supposed to be strangers still. It would not do to arrive chattering like magpies.
We spent the time rehearsing our separate performances. An hour and a half later, the road ran out of scenery and we found ourselves cruising urban sprawl, ahead of us a concrete runway taking off into the maze of freeways that fed into the city. J.T. drove them like a cabdriver. Back at ground level, San Francisco welcomed us, but the sharp angles hit hard after the rolling empty countryside. Paving stones over grass. It all seemed unnatural. Downtown shone, as if the place was cleaned daily, a great dusting cloth run over the mirrored skyscrapers and business blocks. And in the middle of it all the Hyatt Hotel, a monument to the marriage of art and commercialism, its huge glass frontage opening onto waterfalls and jungles which framed reception desks and coffee shops. We did not fit in. At the desk I brushed up my accent and was accepted as an English eccentric, while J.T. stood by the bags, untidying the foyer with his sandaled feet and denim shirt, a rural blot on the urban landscape. It did not seem to worry him. I wondered what camouflage he had used in the Hiltons of South America. Presumably he had once practiced the art of fitting in. The man at the desk handed me the phone. Lenny answered. Maple syrup politeness: great to hear my voice; I sounded suntanned; they would be down soon.

We stood and watched the glass lifts glide up and down through the foliage in time to an invisible string orchestra. Out of the third space shuttle burst Elly, small and eager. Behind her Lenny was more laconic, confidence emblazoned in neon across those high cheekbones. Where would he be without his bone structure?

She got to me first. Over her shoulder I watched Lenny’s face as, in the same instant, he welcomed me and located J.T., lurking like some discordant Godard extra in the corner of the frame. I was trying to look in all directions at once. The two men greeted each other with a wrist grip. Then Lenny smashed his old colleague on the shoulder. He grinned, and J.T. came
perilously close to a smile. We were watching a ritual, the accepted ceremony of greeting between North American males.

“I swear to God you look more like a refugee from
The Waltons
every time I see you, amigo.” Lenny’s voice was loud enough for an audience. J.T. mumbled something I didn’t catch. It made Lenny laugh. “So, you’ve been hanging around with the
señoritas
, eh?” This time he turned to me. “What did you make of him, Marla? I bet you know now how the West was won.”

I gave him a substandard smile that was meant to say nothing at all. I felt Elly slip her arm through mine. The division of the sexes. Was this where the ladies went shopping?

“… in the wilderness?” I caught the end of another conversational sally. Lenny made a face and feigned a punch to the chest. J.T. parried it. A few heads turned. It was appalling. Amateur dramatics. Surely even a stranger would have smelled the mistrust between them. How did they used to be together? Somehow I got the impression that it had always been Lenny who had tried just a little too hard. Or was I overcompensating, seeing what I wanted to see? I glanced at Elly. But the ghosts were not visible to her. For the first time I looked closely at her face. She looked tired but not tense. Maybe it had been a night of home truths for us all.

“Come on, break it up, you guys. We’ve got better things to do than stand around in the lobby watching you two slug it out. I want to show Marla her room. Which bar are you going to drink in?”

Lenny looked at J.T., then back at us. “The Tudor room, don’t you think? We want him to feel really at home. Take your time, ladies. We’ll see you there.”

At the reception desk I filled in my registration card: “Marla Masterson, academic and private detective.” Did I look like someone carrying secrets? If so then Elly didn’t seem to notice.

Room 1064 turned out to be a small apartment with a peach
bathroom en suite, filled with beauty preparations. The bellboy palmed the dollar bills Elly slipped him and faded smoothly into the hall. Behind closed doors we faced each other. She bounced herself on the bed, pushing the springs with her hands in salesmanlike enthusiasm. “You like …?” She waved extravagantly around the room.

“It’s hideous,” I said warmly.

“Great. I knew you’d get off on it.”

It was good news, I could feel it in the air. I let her get there in her own time.

“Well?” she said, smiling.

“Well what?”

“Well … I told him.”

Gently now, Marla. No celebrating before the chimes of the clock. “And …?”

“And I won,” she said softly. “The battle’s over. Elly Cameron is an independent operator again.”

I allowed myself the pleasure of sitting down. The armchair was soft and velvety. I wondered if they kept champagne in the fridge. I think I was smiling.