‘Have you called the police?’ asked Season.
Carl took a mouthful of cold tequila, and grimaced. ‘The police lines are permanently busy. We’ve been taking turns dialling Maria’s mother’s house, too, but we can’t get any reply. I expect she’s okay. She’s a sensible girl. But, my God, I never thought I’d live to see the world like this. Just look at those damn fires.’
Season walked across to the breakfast table and sat down. There were two burned-down joints in the ashtray, and two empty plates with the greasy remains of bacon and scrambled egg on them. She looked up at Vee, and she had to half-close her eyes against the winking reflections from the pool.
‘Vee,’ she said, ‘I’m thinking of trying to make it back to South Burlington.’
Vee stared at her. ‘Are you crazy? What do you want to go back to South Burlington for?’
‘For Ed. If he’s going to go anyplace at all, he’ll go to his farm.’
‘But why, Season? You came out here to get away from Ed. You came out here because you couldn’t take Kansas any longer. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten how bad you were just a week ago? You were in pieces! And now you want to go back?’
Carl put in, ‘Apart from that. Season, think of the danger. There’s no way you could possibly take Sally along with you, for starters. And you couldn’t fly. They said on the news this morning that all flights out of LAX and Burbank have been cancelled, at least until the weekend, and private flying has been restricted to essential flights only. Come on, Season – the freeways are jammed solid by day, there are curfews in almost every single state at night – you’d never find anyplace to stay, or anyplace to hide.’
‘Carl—’ began Season, but Carl raised his hand to quieten her.
‘There are vigilantes out there. Season. Looters, hoodlums, rapists, you name it. And if they don’t get you, the police or the National Guard probably will. I’m telling you straight, you wouldn’t only be ill-advised if you went, you’d be dead, and I don’t want to see Sally without a mother or Vee without a sister. Or me without a sister-in-law, if it comes to that.’
Vee squatted down beside her and said earnestly, ‘He’s right, honey. You can’t even think of going. If Ed wants to get back to you, you’re going to have to leave it to him.’
‘I feel like I’ve deserted him, just when he needed me most,’ said Season. ‘Didn’t you see the way he looked on television on Sunday? He looked so sincere, so straight. He was saying what he believed was right, and that’s the way he’s always been.’
‘I know he has,’ argued Vee. ‘But think about it. Sincere and straight may be the breakfast of champions, but they may not be what you really need in your man. There is so much else required in a one-to-one relationship apart from sincere and straight. What about alluring? What about devious? What about irritating? Provoking? Expansionising? Season – you can’t stand there like some suburban housewife from San Fernando and tell me that you and your female identity don’t require more out of a marriage than sincere and straight? Can you?’
Season lowered her eyes. She looked at the joints in the ashtray and the egg scrapings on the plates. ‘No,’ she whispered. ‘I guess I can’t. I guess I do need more than Ed can give me.’
‘So you’ll stay?’
‘What about food? Things are going to be pretty lean from here on in. I can’t take the food out of your mouth. Nor yours, Carl, whatever you say.’
‘We’re pretty well stocked up here,’ smiled Carl. ‘Vee never did like marketing, so I guess we’ve got ourselves enough steak to last us through till Christmas.’
‘We’ve even got a turkey for Thanksgiving,’ said Vee. ‘I bought two last year, and froze one of them.’
‘Let’s hope we still have something to give thanks for,’ Season said, and the tears that blurred her eyes were only partly provoked by the sunshine that skipped and dazzled on the pool. She was thinking of Ed, too, and even though they’d only been apart for a week – even though she’d begun to find a strange new energy in herself through the sexual and emotional stimulation of Granger Hughes – she missed Ed badly. She could just picture Ed raising his eyes from a copy of one of his tedious agricultural magazines and smiling at her with that amused, warm expression that meant I love you, and nobody else.
She wiped her eyes with the heel of her hand. ‘I guess I’d better go see what Sally’s doing,’ she said. She attempted a smile. ‘You’re very good to me, both of you. I don’t know what I’d do without you.’
‘You’re family,’ said Carl, as if that explained everything.
Season went back inside the house. Carl had switched off the air-conditioning, in response to a plea from the Mayor to save as much energy as possible, but there was a crosswise wind blowing that morning from the ocean, and it was tolerably cool. She called, ‘Sally? Are you dressed yet? Auntie Vee wants to know if we’d like some breakfast.’ There was no answer. She called, ‘Sally? Sally, are you upstairs?’
Again, there was silence. She frowned. She had seen Sally only a few minutes ago, taking off her pyjamas and laying out her new blue-chequered sun-dress. She said, ‘Sally?’ more quietly this time, and walked slowly towards the stairs.
She was just about to put her foot on the first stair when Sally’s voice from the kitchen said, ‘Mommy!’ in such an odd and off-key way that Season froze. She felt as if someone had slowly poured a carafe of ice-cold water down her back. Her hair tingled and even her nipples rose.
‘Sally?’ she asked, in a trembly voice. Then she was rushing along the corridor into the kitchen and screaming, ‘Sally! Sally – what’s wrong?’
She burst through the white louvred kitchen door and there they were. Five of them – tall, greasy-haired, dressed in black leather jackets, with chains and studs and pointed insignia – all of them except for the one who was holding Sally, who was blond and almost angelic-looking, and who was wearing a pale blue denim two-piece suit, and a white shirt, and a pale blue bootlace tie. He was twisting Sally’s arm around behind her back, and gripping his forearm against her throat, and he was smiling.
‘Don’t do anything silly. Mommy,’ he grinned. ‘I shouldn’t like to have to waste your baby. She’s too pretty to die, don’t you think?’
Season stood where she was, shuddering, cold. ‘My God,’ she said, in a voice as splintered as pieces of broken mirror. ‘My God, if you hurt her—’
One of the angels snorted in amusement. ‘Kind of touching, hunh, Oxnard?’
‘Oh, very,’ said Oxnard. His face was white, much whiter than any of the others, and so the grime on his cheekbones where his motorcycle goggles had been was far more pronounced. ‘A really moving example of motherly love.’ Season stared at Sally in horror. The wide-open eyes, the same straight nose as Ed’s, the softness around the mouth that was hers. In her blue-check dress she looked as innocent and vulnerable a a baby bird.
‘Mommy,’ appealed Sally. ‘Mommy, he’s hurting me.’ Season looked at the Angel called Oxnard. ‘What do you want?’ she asked, in an intense whisper. ‘What is it you want?’
Oxnard kept on smiling. Another Angel, with frizzy hair and a faceful of red zits, started to mime the actions of playing a violin, and humming a sentimental tune. The others shuffled their feet and laughed.
Oxnard tugged his forearm a little closer under Sally’s chin. ‘What I want and what I need are two different things,’ he said, in that sly, smiling voice. ‘I need food. That’s what I need. You see, most of our friends have left LA, all lit out and left nothing. And there isn’t a single café or diner or hamburger stand left open in the whole festering city. So, I’m hungry; and so are my associates here, and we need food. That’s what we’ve come for, and that’s what we’ll be satisfied with. But… if you’re talking about what I want… that’s different. What I want is to shove seven inches of stiff intellectual pecker right down your gorgeous throat.’
Season stood rigid, the muscles in her cheeks pronounced, her thin fingers clenched into
narrow fists.
‘My sister and her husband are outside,’ she said. ‘In a minute or two they’re going to miss me. They’re going to come looking, and what are you going to do then?’
Oxnard looked around at the rest of the Angels and then snorted. ‘You think we’re cowards? You think we’re scared of your sister and her husband?’
‘You’re cowardly enough to frighten a little girl,’ snapped Season.
‘Oh now, come along,’ said Oxnard, softly. ‘You know festering well why we’ve got your little girl. Nothing to do with cowardice. Just practicality, seeing as how every smug middle-class canyon dweller who’s afraid of being molested by real people has gotten himself a gun these days. And the best protection against the wild shooting of canyon dwellers is a child hostage, don’t you agree?’
Season said, ‘You’ll have to talk to my sister’s husband. He’s got the key to the freezer. If you want food, that’s where it is.’
Oxnard, still holding Sally tight against him, held out his free hand towards the Angel standing on his left. The Angel, unshaved, with the oddly flat face of a boxer, reached into his leather jacket and dragged out a huge black revolver. Oxnard took it, hefted it in his hand, and then pointed it directly at the top of Sally’s head.
‘Call him,’ he said. ‘Call your sister’s husband. Go ahead. And tell him that if he jumps, or rushes, or does anything sudden at all, then it’s going to be cortex omelette all round. You got me?’
Season stared at him, feeling as chilled as an ice queen. ‘Why are you doing this?’ she asked him. ‘You’re educated, aren’t you? Why?’
Oxnard grinned, ‘Education, as they always used to tell me, is nothing more than a tool for getting what you need out of life.’
He paused, and then he said, ‘And what you want.’ Season asked him, in a quivering voice: ‘You want me to do something for you? Would you let her go if I did that?’
‘Oho,’ laughed Oxnard. ‘Now we’re getting into it. Can I hear you actually offering?’
‘If it means you’ll let my daughter go, yes,’ said Season, simply. ‘Let her go, and make sure she doesn’t see what happens, and then you can do whatever you want.’
Oxnard looked down at the small girl he was pressing against his chest. ‘I need the food as well,’ he said, carefully. ‘Why don’t you call your sister’s husband first, and your sister, too.’
Season was silent for almost half a minute. Then she said, ‘That’s a deal, though, is it? Can I trust you that much?’ The Angels giggled, and Oxnard slowly shook his head. ‘You can’t trust me at all, honey buns. I’ve never made a commitment yet and I’m not about to make one now. But, sure, if that’s what you want to believe, then go right ahead and believe it. Now, call your sister’s festering husband, before I start to lose my patience. You don’t want to see this kitchen redecorated with the inside of your pretty little daughter’s head, do you?’
Season backed slowly across to the kitchen door. She didn’t take her eyes of Oxnard for one moment. She turned her head slightly, without turning her eyes, and called, ‘Carl! Carl!’
Carl and Vee came together. They could hear something was wrong but they didn’t know what, and by the time they walked into the kitchen it was too late to do anything about it. Carl looked around at the Angels lounging against his pine table, and his Neff oven, and his red custom-enamel sink unit, and said, ‘What the hell do you animals think you’re doing?’
Oxnard carefully and deliberately cocked his revolver. ‘You just watch who you’re calling an animal, you half-assed canyon dweller. I’ve already explained to Mommy here what it is we need, and what it is we want, and I think we’re pretty close to a deal.’
Season said, ‘Carl – they need food – they want cans and frozen stuff I guess – I had to tell them that you had the key to the freezer.’
Carl nodded. He went to the kitchen cupboard, hesitated and raised his hands so that Oxnard could see that he wasn’t playing games, and then opened the cupboard up. He took out a keyring with two small chrome keys on it, and tossed it over. The Angel with the boxer’s face caught it, and winked in appreciation. ‘Thanks, mister.’
‘That’s it, then,’ said Carl. ‘Take the food and let the girl go. Just take whatever you need.’
‘Well, that isn’t everything,’ said Oxnard, slowly. ‘The deal was that we take the food because we’re hungry. But we let the girl go because we’re going to have some fun with Mommy here. Not to mention Mommy’s sister.’
Carl lunged forward, red-faced. ‘You lay one filthy finger on—’ he started, but Oxnard thrust his revolver right up against Sally’s head and shrieked, ‘You want me to kill her? Right in front of you? Is that what you want? Jesus Christ!’
There was one split second when they were all mad with the fear and tension of what was happening – when Season could see nothing in front of her eyes but boiling scarlet and feel nothing in her nerves but total fright. Then, with a slow breath, Carl backed off, one step at a time, until he was standing beside Vee and Season, and breathing like a man who’s run a mile in five minutes.
‘What do you want to do?’ he asked, in an ashy voice. ‘Season? Vee? Can you live with any of this?’
Season said, ‘Carl, I’m going to have to. If I don’t live with it, then Sally’s going to die with it. And that’s all.’
She hesitated, and then she said, ‘Vee wasn’t any part of the deal, though. You hear me, Oxnard? My sister wasn’t any part of the deal. You can’t ask anything of her.’ Oxnard frowned. ‘I don’t understand you,’ he said. ‘It seems to me that as long as I’m holding a loaded Magnum up against your sweet little daughter’s head, I can ask anything of anybody who cares about her.’
Another cold pause. And then Vee turned pale-faced to Season, and said, ‘Season – we can’t let them kill her. For God’s sake.’
Carl growled, ‘You morons will die for this. I mean it. Every last one of you will die.’
‘He’s very dramatic, don’t you think so, Oxnard?’ one of the Angels asked, and Oxnard grinned and nodded.
‘He’s a thespian,’ said Oxnard.
‘A thespian?’ asked the Angel with wild hair and zits. “That’s right. That’s intellectual talk for over-aggressive, over-acting, worn-out, used-up, suburban asshole.’
‘Your gun makes you strong, that’s all,’ quivered Carl.
‘That’s right,’ agreed Oxnard. ‘It’s a good thing I’ve got it, don’t you agree? Now why don’t you go sit on that breakfast stool over there, and keep quiet, and why don’t you two ladies start stripping off ready? Huh?’
Season said, ‘Not in front of the child. You promised. I’m not doing anything in front of the child.’
Oxnard snapped, ‘Lady – unless you perform in front of this child – then this child is going to perform in front of you. And let me tell you one thing from personal experience – only one personal experience, mind you, but one is quite enough – dying is a very much less pleasing performance than fucking.’
‘You’ve killed someone before?’ asked Season, coldly.
Oxnard nodded. ‘That’s right. Now, strip off.’
Carl said, ‘Listen, you, whatever your name is. There’s no way. You hear me? There’s absolutely no way.’
Oxnard said, ‘They call me Oxnard, if you must know, on account of the fact that I come from Oxnard. My real name is Charles.’
‘Isn’t he too much?’ giggled one of the Angels. ‘Charles, for Chrissake.’
There was a fraught silence. Then Season, with complete dignity, unbuttoned her white broderie anglaise sundress and shrugged it off her shoulders. Underneath, she was naked, her skin still that bright bronze colour of a fresh suntan. Oxnard smiled, and the rest of the Angels whistled and laughed.
‘You can do what you want,’ said Season, tightly. ‘But you’ll have to take my daughter out of here.’
Oxnard thought about it for a while, and then said, ‘Okay. It’s a reasonable, clean, one hundr
ed per cent American request. Carlo – you want to take the gun, and Shirley Temple here, and keep her out of the living-room until I call you? But one thing. If I tell you to waste her, you waste her, and quick. Let’s not make any mistakes about that.’
The Angel with the frizzy hair took the Magnum, gripped Sally’s wrist, and pushed her out of the kitchen. He grinned at Season as he passed by, and said, ‘Nice tits, lady. Real nice tits. I’ll catch you later.’
Sally, swallowing in fear, said, ‘Mommy! Mommy – what are they going to do?’ but Season simply shook her head, and tried to smile. There were too many tears choked up in her throat for the words to come out.
Oxnard rapped to Vee, ‘Come on, honey. You too. Get it all off.’
Vee hesitated for a moment, but then she tugged her pink sundress over her head, and dropped it to the floor. She was even skinnier than Season, with a dark mahogany suntan from years in California. There were faint semi-circular scars under her breasts where she had them had lifted.
Oxnard looked appreciatively from one sister to the other. ‘Well, now,’ he said, ‘isn’t that the neatest pair of canyon-dwelling women you ever saw?’
Carl held his hand across his mouth as Oxnard stripped off his jacket, unbuckled his belt, and kicked off his pants. Oxnard nodded to the tallest Angel, who wore a soiled red rag around his head, and said, ‘Hold that flake. Hold him tight. And if he tries to make trouble, break his festering fingers.’
Then Oxnard suddenly reddened, and shouted, ‘Okay! Okay! We’re going to have ourselves some fun here! You know what I mean? Fun! You come here, Mommy, and stand in front of this fancy sink. That’s right. Facing the window. Now, spread ’em. That’s right, spread ’em. You hear me! I want to see your ass!’
Chilly with fear. Season stood by the sink, gripping the draining-board, and staring sightlessly out of the window at the flickering palm trees in the front garden. Oxnard, wearing nothing now but his shirt, his bootlace tie, and a pair of dirty white moccasins, grasped the cheeks of her bottom and fondled them with hard, searching fingers.
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