by Matt Goldman
Jameson says, “And I figure, now that we’re even, I’ll nurse you back to health so that way you’ll owe me again. I like you being in my debt and being beholden to me, Shap. Plus there’s the best man inequity so that means you double owe me. And Nikki and her son are moving to Minnesota to live full time. So you owe her, too. That’s a lot of personal debt you’ll have to carry, Shap, so the sooner you wake up and start repaying your debt the sooner you’ll be out from under it. That’s all I got to say.”
Jameson lets go of my hand. Someone touches my forehead. The touch is soft. I hope it’s Dr. Li.
Dr. Li says, “I have to get home to my son, Nils. I will be back in the morning. Good night.”
She kisses me on my forehead. I barely know the woman. Not sure how I feel about it.
Jameson says, “All right, Shap. I’m going to sleep in the recliner. Got some blankets. Some snacks in case I get hungry in the middle of the night. Apologize in advance if there’s some snoring, but hey, my soft palate has been a little extra soft lately so I can’t help it. Might get me one of those CPAP machines but I don’t know—I’d look ridiculous and sound like Darth Vader. Oh, and I have a request: No bullshit while I’m asleep. No waking up then falling back to sleep again. And no letting go. You got that? Do not let go. Ellegaard and Gabriella will be here in the morning. I know Micaela wants to fly out with Evelyn but Evelyn’s got a bad cold and they’re worried it will hurt her ears on the plane.”
Oh, that makes me sad. I’d love to hear Evelyn say her gibberish one more time.
Jameson says, “Man, one punch. One punch and you are out. I don’t know why I thought you were tougher than that. But clearly, you are not. Kind of embarrassing. All right. Might watch a little SportsCenter to help me fall asleep. You know what I’m talking about.”
I hear the television and then I don’t and I’m sitting on the bank of a stream where a riffle empties into a pool. A limestone bluff walls the other side of the stream, and trout rise in the pool and take mayflies off the water. But most of the mayflies hatch to freedom and rise above the water’s surface slow and steady like helicopters.
It feels like a warm October day. The leaves are near peak color, and the sun’s not too high in the sky. It’s almost hot, but it’s okay because I know it’s the last heat of the season. The grasses in the marsh behind me have turned to gold.
A dog I haven’t seen in twenty-five years sits next to me. Her name is Sheila. She’s a seventy-pound golden retriever, which is a bit of a misnomer because she has dark red fur. She was hit by a car when I was fifteen. It happened right in front of my eyes. The driver didn’t stop. I reach over and pet her. Sheila’s fur feels warm in the sun.
I say, “Sorry I let you off the leash. I didn’t think you’d run away from me.”
She says, “I didn’t run away. I saw a squirrel on the other side of the street.”
“Yeah, well. I should have thought of that possibility.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Nils. I’m a dog. I’m hardwired to chase squirrels. It’s what I do. Not my fault. Not your fault. When I’m chasing squirrels, I’m at peace. I was in pursuit of a squirrel. It was a delightful way to go.”
“Really? I cried for months after you died. I still get sad when I think about you. I’ve been afraid to get another dog ever since.”
“Don’t be. I wasn’t going to live much longer anyway. I was twelve.”
I hear an airplane. I look up. There’s one right over our heads. Then another. And another. I say, “Why are there so many airplanes? Are we near an airport?”
Sheila says, “No idea. I’m a dog. Hey, you bring your rod? Maybe you could catch us some fish.”
“Remember when you used to try to catch them with your mouth?”
“I was a puppy. I didn’t know any better. But I do now. So you got to catch ’em.”
“Sorry. I don’t have a rod.”
“Well.” She sighs. It’s a dog sigh. The best kind of sigh a person could ever hope to hear. “I suppose we can just sit here. It’s kind of pretty.”
“It sure is.” I pet Sheila behind her ears. She shuts her eyes and tilts her head toward the sun.
47
I recline and look at the sky, and Sheila does the strangest thing. She lies on my chest like she did when we were young. I pet Sheila behind her ears. She feels soft like when she was a puppy. But something’s wrong. Her fur doesn’t feel like fur. It feels like hair. And the sky is gone. I can’t see anymore. All I can do is pet her.
“Ellie.” Is that Gabriella? “Ellie, come here.” I hear footsteps. Gabriella says, “Look. Oh God, look.”
Ellegaard says, “Shap?”
I say, “Ellie, I can’t see you.” I hear my words in my head but not in my ears. In my ears I hear myself groan.
“Nils!” says Gabriella. She cries. “Nils…”
I hear, “Ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba…” It’s a baby. It’s not Sheila’s fur I’m touching. It’s Evelyn’s hair. She wriggles on my chest.
A hand caresses my cheek. Gabriella says, “His eyes are fluttering.”
Ellegaard says, “I got Evelyn. Go ahead.”
I feel Gabriella’s breath near my face. I hear her breathe. She kisses me. I have three thoughts: (1) I can’t wake up right when she kisses me because that would be like a fairy tale and thus humiliating. (2) Please don’t kiss me. I have coma breath. (3) I came back from the comfortable place. I’m alive.
“Ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba…”
I open my eyes.
* * *
I was in a coma for twenty-seven days. When I’d stabilized, Ebben Mayer paid a small country’s GDP to fly me to Minnesota on a jet ambulance staffed with a team of doctors and nurses. I came out of the coma at Abbott Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis.
I’d missed the polar vortex. It got down to minus thirty-one degrees Fahrenheit. People were still talking about it. I was and still am furious I missed it.
The doctors said I recovered from my coma quickly, but I remained in the hospital for five more weeks. Most days I felt better, but other days I couldn’t get out of bed. I watched a lot of college basketball and news and read a tall stack of books. My favorite activity was walking the hospital hallways with Gabriella or Ellegaard or Jameson. Annika Brydolf, Stone Arch’s junior investigator, visited almost daily. Kenji Thao, our assistant, visited several times a week. Ebben Mayer visited me three times. My parents and siblings didn’t miss a day, as if I were still a kid. Micaela visited when she could, and she or Gabriella brought Evelyn every single day. Evelyn took her first steps in pursuit of a Winnie the Pooh in the gift shop window. She sleeps with that Winnie the Pooh every night.
One evening, Ellegaard and Gabriella brought in takeout from a restaurant called Yum which lives up to its name.
We were sharing a chocolate chip cookie the size of a manhole cover when Ellegaard said, “Do you remember when you were in Los Angeles and you said something was weird about Debra and you wanted me to run a background check on her?”
“I do remember that.”
“It took some digging, but get this: Debra’s grandmother was Beverly Mayer’s sister.”
Gabriella said, “That’s weird.”
Ellegaard said, “Frederick Fallhauser had three granddaughters. No grandsons. The oldest married a wealthy talent agent and moved to New York, leaving Beverly with her youngest sister. Her younger sister moved to Beloit, Wisconsin, and married a butcher.”
I said, “And that sister is Debra’s grandmother?”
“Yes. I spoke to Debra about it when you were in the hospital in Los Angeles. She was not happy I’d looked into her family background. I promised her it would remain our secret if she explained the connection.”
Gabriella said, “And did she?”
“Yes. Apparently, Debra’s grandmother ran off because Beverly Mayer tormented her constantly. So much so that Debra’s grandmother spent two years in an asylum. Debra said Beverly convinced Frederick Fall
hauser that her younger sister was mentally ill. When Debra’s grandmother got out, she ran away and never returned to the family. When Frederick Fallhauser died, his fortune went to his two oldest granddaughters. He left nothing to his youngest because the way Beverly had spun it, the youngest had turned her back on the family.”
I said, “Oh, that Beverly Mayer is a real sweetheart.”
“Debra didn’t hear the story of her grandmother’s family until after she graduated college.”
I said, “Does Ebben know Debra’s his cousin?”
“No,” said Ellegaard. “And she begged me not to tell him.”
Gabriella said, “So Debra was already working in Hollywood when Ebben Mayer showed up with his millions of family money?”
“Yes,” said Ellegaard. “And according to Debra, she made it her mission to manage Ebben to get some of the family fortune back. She succeeded in getting the job, but when Ebben started The Creative Collective, she felt like her side of the family was losing all over again. But then Sebastiano hired her as a top-level agent at his new agency, and that seemed to make everything right again.”
I broke off another piece of the delicious manhole cover and said, “But before Sebastiano hired Debra, when she felt cheated again … Is there any chance it was Debra who sent that caffeine overdose Ebben’s way? Is she the one who killed Juliana?”
Ellegaard shrugged. “It’s possible.”
“Thom could have had caffeine powder for another reason. Like he was trying to keep up with a woman twenty years his junior.”
Gabriella looked hard at me with her big brown eyes. I smiled. She returned the smile. And we both understood I wouldn’t go back to Los Angeles to investigate Debra.
* * *
I married Gabriella Nuñez the day I left the hospital. Our wedding, as we’d hoped, coincided with a March blizzard. Luck seemed to have turned in my favor again. Technically it was neither cold nor windy enough to qualify as a blizzard, but seventeen inches of snow fell in less than a day. It made our small wedding feel extra cozy and intimate. Everyone who survived the journey felt fortunate to be there.
Ellegaard officiated. The cake was lopsided, delicious, and topped with figures of me and Gabriella. Olivia Ellegaard had sculpted us out of fondant, Gabriella wearing her dress blues and me wearing a T-shirt and jeans. Molly Ellegaard didn’t let seventeen inches of snow stop her from filling the restaurant with flowers. Gabriella’s sister took pictures. Jameson walked around carrying a flashlight with an orange cone and wouldn’t shut up about being the usher. Dr. Li and her son already felt like family. Gabriella’s father walked her down the aisle. Her mother cried as if she’d won the lottery, as if it were a pipe dream that her fiercely independent daughter would marry. Evelyn walked our rings down the aisle, unsteady on her legs like a drunk walking on a boat in rough seas.
A delivery person showed up at the restaurant with a gift. It was a small box, about the size of a book, professionally wrapped in silvers and golds with paper and ribbons and, if I wasn’t mistaken, lingonberries.
Gabriella said, “Some jerk broke the no-gift rule.”
I said, “Should I throw it out?”
The delivery person looked at us like we were crazy. I tipped him, and he left. I handed the present to Gabriella and said, “Open it. I don’t want to put it in the car if we’re not going to keep it.”
She scrunched up her pretty mouth and ripped the wrapping off the box. It was a decorative box, all silver. She lifted off the lid and said, “It’s photographs.” She looked more closely. “Oh my God.”
Gabriella handed me the top photograph. It was of a litter of puppies. They looked like springer spaniels. I said, “What the hell?”
She looked at the next photograph and said, “This is ridiculous.” She handed the photo to me. It was of another litter of puppies. Labs in chocolate, yellow, and black.
Gabriella thumbed through the photos and said, “There’s twelve pictures in here and they’re all of a different litter of puppies. Doodles and mutts and whoa, these look like foxes.”
I said, “Is there a card?”
She pulled out a small note card and read: “All of these puppies will need a home between May 1 and June 1 and all have deposits on them in your names. Pick one or two or three or more. Sorry to break the no-gift rule. But not really. Happy wedding, Nils and Gabriella!”
My wife said, “No signature.”
I said, “Huh.”
Molly Ellegaard denied the puppies were from her. Micaela denied it, too. We questioned everyone at the wedding. They all denied gifting us puppies. And we believed them.
* * *
We’d postponed our honeymoon. Me being out of the hospital was its own honeymoon. We’d go on an official one in April before the summer travel season started. Possible destinations were Patagonia to ride horses in the Chilean autumn, Banff because it’s stunning and where we got engaged, and Paris because it’s Paris. Or we might just drive up to Minnesota’s North Shore of Lake Superior because it’s beautiful and the rest of the world doesn’t know it exists.
I looked at the clock on the nightstand: 1:34 A.M. Gabriella, my wife of less than eight hours, slept. I could not sleep. It felt like when I’d visit New York. There, the energy of the city keeps me awake. On our wedding night, it was the energy of being out of the hospital for the first time in nine weeks. And the wedding. And my new life.
But was it a new life? Yes, it was. New love. New wife. New baby. New home.
What had remained the same was me. I had changed, but the change preceded falling in love with Gabriella. Me changing is what allowed me to fall in love with her, and her with me.
I was forged in the fires of adversity like everyone else on the planet. Steel can only be reshaped when hot. No one wants an ugly, rusty hunk of steel. But put it in the fire, hammer it when it’s vulnerable, and you may just end up with something desirable.
In Los Angeles, Jameson White accused me of going soft, turning my back on justice, burying the person I used to be. And maybe I tried to do all that because, with all I had to lose, pulling back seemed the logical thing to do.
But it didn’t work. Instinct took over. Logic and common sense fell dutifully behind.
Gabriella and Evelyn made me stronger, not weaker. For them, I’d be more focused. More deliberate. Bolder. Sharper. Hungrier.
I rolled onto my side and big-spooned my wife. She pressed back into me, and I felt twenty-one years old. Reset. Rewound. Recalibrated.
This wasn’t the end. It was …
The Beginning
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
In 1987, I got in my dented Ford Escort with a few hundred dollars and a credit card and drove from Minneapolis to Los Angeles. I’d just turned twenty four and aspired to write television. I spent my days in a tiny Studio City apartment watching videotaped episodes, charting the story beats with a stopwatch, and scripting my own stories of then-popular shows like It’s Garry Shandling’s Show, Golden Girls, and The Wonder Years. I read books like William Goldman’s Adventures in the Screen Trade and Lajos Egri’s The Art of Dramatic Writing. I understood none of them. I made ends meet by telling jokes, raking in $25–$50 a night.
In 1989, Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David invited me and fellow writer/comedian Pat Hazell to write on what was then called The Seinfeld Chronicles. That was the beginning of my writing career and an on-the-job learning process that will never end. The people who taught me are writers, producers, directors, and actors. There are some wise executives, agents, and managers, too. But most of my learning happened in writers’ rooms where we’d toil through lunch and dinner and often well past midnight before heading home for a few hours of sleep so we could get up and do it again.
Those writers are too many to name, but I thank them all for their minds and spirits, their kindness, generosity, and patience.
One Los Angeles person I will mention by name is my accountant, Susie Neasi. With Hollywood’s droughts and deluges, she has kept
the farm in business, and for that I will always be grateful.
I lived in Los Angeles full time for eighteen years. I commuted there from Minneapolis for an additional twelve years. That’s significant time, and I understand why Los Angeles is such a fertile setting for crime fiction. The town attracts the ambitious and the talented. Yet Los Angeles offers few rules and little structure to achieve success. It is the Wild West.
Writing Nils Shapiro’s visit to Los Angeles felt visceral. I backed up in time. Relived my early days there. How strange the place felt to an unworldly Minnesotan. The sun shined differently. The place sounded and smelled like no place I’d known. The trees were different. The grass was different. You could pick oranges and avocados in your back yard. Wonderful and weird. And it took me five years to stop myself from thinking, every time I saw a steep hill, “How do people drive up that in winter?”
Television taught me character and voice, story and series architecture. I hope to write more television. I love and respect the medium. I miss my fellow writers. But I will always write books. Sitting alone in a room is, after all, my natural habitat.
Dead West is my fourth book. I have only scratched the surface of novel writing. Thank you to my agent, Jennifer Weltz, my editor, Kristin Sevick, and to everyone at Forge for making my transition a smooth one. For your support, guidance, hard work, and taste. For helping me up my game.
I feel terribly excited for what’s ahead.
And thank you to my wife, Michele, for her love and support. Day after day. Book after book.
—MG
BOOKS BY MATT GOLDMAN
Gone to Dust
Broken Ice
The Shallows
Dead West
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
New York Times bestselling author MATT GOLDMAN is a playwright and Emmy Award–winning television writer for Seinfeld, Ellen, and other shows. He brings his signature storytelling abilities and light touch to the Nils Shapiro series, which started with his debut novel, Gone to Dust. Goldman has been nominated for Shamus and Nero Awards and was a Lariat Adult Fiction Reading List selection. He lives in Minnesota with his wife, two dogs, two cats, and whichever children happen to be around.
