“You were the off-duty policeman,” I said, remembering the story I’d read in the news clippings. “You were the one who shot him.”
“Shot him dead.”
“You couldn’t have known what was going on in that sick man’s mind,” Angela said. “Nobody did. Everybody thought he had a knife.”
“It’s my job to know. I was trained to see the difference between a knife and a doll. A doll!”
“He tricked you,” I said.
Ben’s eyes caught the glare of the porch light like veined neon. He didn’t ask what I meant, except by look, but I suspect he knew where I headed with the remark.
“He wouldn’t be the first to commit suicide by cop,” I said,
Arlanda placed her hand on my arm to hold the conversation. “You mean he wanted Ben to shoot him?”
“He wanted to be shot. Didn’t matter who did it.”
“Yeah, I thought about that.” Ben cocked his head back and gulped his drink down to the ice. I’d seen him pour three ounces of vodka into the glass. The wall loomed in front of him and he intended to hit it full speed. “It makes sense that’s what he was trying to do. But know what? Doesn’t matter. I still made the wrong decision. Angela thought so too. Never told me. Didn’t have to. The man bled to death right on top of her. Her screaming under him. Out of her mind with fear, screaming.” He wiped his face with the broad palm of his hand, said, “Oh, shit.” The vodka hit him in waves and he staggered back against the railing, gripping it with both hands behind him like a fighter on the ropes.
Arlanda kicked out from the table to catch him but he wasn’t going down, not yet, and he stopped her with an angry swagger of his head. “Sit down. I don’t want your comfort now.”
“Go ahead and fall on your damn head, then.” She wasn’t so steady on her feet either and sat down hard.
He tried to smile, liking it that she stood up to him, but rage burned the crescent from his mouth, driven by some pain within that neither love nor vodka could solace. “There’s one other thing. Something I never told her. Never told nobody. But she was curious about her father, so maybe she hired somebody, found out. Why she never talked to me again.” His chin dipped to his chest, and I thought for a moment he was passing out, but his head jerked up and his eyes when he opened them looked seared blind. “You see, the night her father went on his last drug run? I told the sheriff about it. The local deputy. I didn’t want to see Pete running with a drug gang, not with a pregnant wife at home. This deputy, he said he’d arrest the others. Let Pete go free. He was just a kid, right? Scare him good and send him home, the deputy said. I was pretty stupid then. Stupid in the way only a self-righteous eighteen-year-old can be. What I didn’t know until a few years later? That pig-fucking son-of-a-bitch deputy was deep in drug money. Pete was running on somebody else’s territory. So he got his head blown off.”
Ben’s knuckles, white from gripping the railing, relaxed, and he took a tentative step forward. On the next step he lost his balance. He braced an arm against the table, and I caught his shoulder, and somehow his legs held.
“I’m okay. I’m fine,” he said, though clearly he was not.
I let him go. He passed through the door to his trailer unassisted, and once inside he steadied himself with a hand to the frame. “And you know the pig that pig-fucking deputy fucked the most?”
He stared at us, drunk and defiant.
“You,” I said.
“That’s right,” he said. “Me.”
Dawn woke me on the window side of a sagging fold-out sofa bed, Arlanda curled on my left side and the Rott down low between us. I’d experienced worse hangovers before, and knowing this wasn’t going to be an epic one gave me some comfort as I swung my legs over the bed. Sitting up was going to take some effort and I didn’t think I was quite ready for it so I worked at keeping my eyes open, which was work enough. Arlanda had insisted I join her on the sofa bed rather than go out to sleep in my car, and Baby, who was well behaved enough to sleep on the floor at home, couldn’t resist sneaking between us. It hadn’t helped that Arlanda encouraged him. She’d been drunk, of course, and alcohol released the wildness in her, just as it unleashed Ben’s pain. She asked if what she’d heard about prison was true, that most women became lesbians. I talked about that for a while, and then she asked if I’d done that too, if I’d slept with women there. She snuggled against me when she asked it, and had she not been half asleep I might have thought the question was more than just curiosity. I preferred men, I said.
When I sat up my brain swirled like a goldfish in a plastic bag. I leaned forward, elbows braced against knees and palms cradling forehead—the classic fear-of-nausea position. Did I have any sisters, Arlanda had wanted to know. Just one, I’d said. Moved away when I was six. Don’t remember much about her. Just the fights with my dad. The shouting. The dull thud of her head on the coffee table when he knocked her down one night. The next day she was gone, dead now for all I knew. The nausea subsided and I knew I’d have to sweat the alcohol out of my body. “You need a sister,” Arlanda had whispered. “I need a sister, too. I’m all alone now, except for my kids. Maybe that’s what we can be for each other. Sisters.”
The Rott lifted his head when I stood but the rest of him stayed put. The eye he cast was a reproachful one. What was I doing up so early? I washed my face with cold water in the sink and by the time I emerged from the bathroom he was waiting by the screen door. I gave him a thump on the shoulder and led him to the car. In a rare show of foresight I’d packed running clothes the previous afternoon. I changed behind Ben’s fence and attached a leash to the Rott’s collar. We followed the main road up the hill, skirted a locked gate marking the far border of the trailer park, and wound through the plush residential streets of neighboring Pacific Palisades. The eastern sky reddened above the rising sun, and a violet ring swung around the horizon line to the west. The air tasted like the sea and as I ran blew cool against my face. Later in the day the land would heat and the desert winds would blow the sea air from the coast. My head throbbed with the first mile’s every stride but by the second the blood raced through my veins like a centrifuge, forcing the poisons from the previous night out the pores of my skin. The endorphins kicked in, miracle chemicals that give every runner a sense of joy to counterbalance the pain, and I finished the run feeling almost good.
Arlanda was stepping from the bathroom as I slipped open the screen door. A towel wrapped her freshly washed hair. She smiled and whispered that the shower was free if I wanted it. I did. I found a bottle of aspirin in Ben’s medicine chest. That and the shower cleaned up the last of my hangover. When I emerged Arlanda had a breakfast of scrambled eggs, toast, and coffee waiting for me on the patio table, and the Rott was licking a plate clean. She sat on the edge of the bench, head tilted sideways and long wet hair hanging like cloth in the sun. Her face glowed, the early-morning light tinting her light-brown skin in hues of rose and gold.
“Never figured you for an early riser,” she said, her voice airy and cheerful.
“Best time to run. Sorry if I woke you.”
“Don’t worry, I’m used to getting up with the kids.”
I was hungry after the run and asked if Ben was joining us. He’d decided to stay in bed for a while, she said. I wasted little time getting to the food. She needed to get up early anyway, she said, to get to a 9:00 A.M. appointment with Angela’s accountant.
“Troy Davies mentioned him,” I said.
“Who?”
“Sorry. Your aunt’s chauffeur. He said she never got out of the car, except when they stopped at the accountant’s office.”
“He’s been taking care of her finances for over twenty years. He’s going to read the will this morning.”
“I’ll drive you out, if Ben isn’t up to it.”
She matched me bite for bite, looking like she’d spent the evening reading the Bible in her bunny slippers while sipping a mug of warm milk. I said, “You look awfully darn good for someone dr
ank as much as you did last night.”
“Was I too drunk?”
“Didn’t say that. But you were packing it away.”
“I don’t get hangovers, not bad ones anyway.”
“Lucky you.”
“Maybe it’s not such a good thing.”
“Why not?”
“If I don’t suffer much the next morning, what’s to stop me from drinking too much the night before?”
“Common sense?”
“Passes out after the third drink.”
I always counted my drinks because the final tally told me how I’d feel the next morning. Anything over eight ounces was like jumping out a second-floor window; the ride down would be exhilarating but the pain excruciating when I hit the ground. Without the threat of pain, I wouldn’t know where to stop.
I asked, “Your mom, was she the same way?”
The morning glow of her skin dimmed, and she dipped her head once. “To her grave,” she said.
Angela Doubleday’s accountant was a short, solemn-eyed man who, judging by the parade of golf trophies displayed behind his desk, had dedicated his recreational life to breaking par. He moved with the loose agility of a young athlete as he crossed the office to greet Arlanda, but up close he looked his age, a few years shy of qualifying for the senior tour, his face hatch marked by a life in the sun. He wasn’t the suit-and-tie type, not even at 9:00 A.M. on a weekday, dressing in cotton trousers and polo shirt as though he hoped to catch an afternoon tee time with no more than a change of shoes. From an accordion file on the corner of his desk he produced a legal-size white envelope and passed it to Arlanda, asking her to verify that the envelope was sealed. His manner was polite but brisk and left no doubt that even though accounting took second place to golf he was competent at his work. He’d helped Ms. Doubleday in the drafting of the will, he said, so was generally aware of the contents, but the envelope hadn’t been opened since he’d sealed it in her presence three months ago.
“She’d changed her will?” I asked. It seemed pertinent.
“She did.” He looked at Arlanda as though she had asked the question, subtly letting me know I played no significant role in the proceedings. “I’ll fill you in after I’ve read it. Agreed?”
Arlanda returned the envelope and he broke the seal. The will had been drafted by a local law firm, its language crowded with subclauses, and he read it aloud slowly, repeating key passages for emphasis and clarification. After the liquidation of all investments not including Ms. Doubleday’s place of residence, Maria Potrero and Yolanda Potrero, her housekeepers, were to receive five thousand dollars each. A total of forty thousand dollars would be placed in a certificate of deposit to help cover the college-education costs of her nephews, Aurelio Cortes and Armando Cortes. Half that sum would be donated to the retirement home of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Whatever remained of the value of her cash assets and investment accounts, not including her place of residence or anything within it, and discounting all legal and professional costs associated with settling the estate, was to go to Troy Davies, her chauffeur. Her future income, including residuals and fees from past theatrical, television, and film appearances, would also go to Mr. Davies.
The accountant raised his right hand while he read that provision, as though to stay the distress it might cause Arlanda. “‘My private residence, including all furnishings and personal belongings both within that residence and anywhere on its grounds, or the cash proceeds resulting from the sale of aforementioned residence, real estate, furnishings, and personal belongings upon the liquidation of the estate after my death, I will entirely to my niece, Arlanda Cortes.’” He laid the will flat and reached a practiced hand into the accordion file. The envelope he withdrew bore the image of a stag in the upper left corner. “That brings up the question of insurance. Ms. Doubleday carried a full package from Hartford, including theft, liability, and fire. Unfortunately, she only insured the house and contents for two million dollars.”
Arlanda fingered the zipper to her purse. The purse was hand-tooled in brown and black leathers. I’d first seen her carry it two nights before, when we went out to dinner. There was nothing wrong with it except that age and wear had frayed the shoulder straps and an uneven stain circled one of the bottom corners. She said, “Two million? Isn’t that a little low?”
In some areas of Malibu, two million wouldn’t buy a teardown.
“Ten years ago it probably was a fair estimate of value. This year it’s not. Estates comparable to hers are currently listing for five million, starting price, and going all the way up to seven or eight. The policy doesn’t cover the value of the land, of course, so you might want to add somewhere between one and one-point-five million dollars to the value of the insurance policy, depending on how long you want to wait to sell it. If, that is, you want to sell it.”
It wasn’t hard to do the math. I said, “She was underinsured by half, then. As her accountant, wasn’t it your job to advise her about things like this?”
“Fair question,” he said, though the crimson flush beneath his tan contradicted him, and again he refused to look at me. “I urged her to update her insurance policy every two years. She never gave me permission to go ahead and make the arrangements. Didn’t want to pay for something she didn’t think she’d need, she told me. Particularly when she’d have to economize in order to pay for the increased premiums.”
“Look, two million, three million, six million, whatever. It’s all more money than I’d probably make in my lifetime.” The crack in Arlanda’s voice widened under stress, swallowing the occasional word whole. “I know my aunt was having an affair with Mr. Davies, at least, that’s the rumor I’ve heard.” She glanced at me, the source of that rumor. “I don’t want to seem at all ungrateful to her. If she loved him, then I think that’s great. I hope she found some happiness. But to leave him almost everything but the house? It’s going to take me a little time to get used to that.”
“Your aunt was very nearly broke.” He said it bluntly and reached again into the file on the corner of his desk, this time to retrieve a thin sheaf of papers bound within report covers. A preliminary estimate of the value of Angela Doubleday’s estate, he said. “Mr. Davies stands to inherit less than fifty thousand dollars, not including future income from residuals, which runs less than twenty thousand a year. Not an insignificant amount, but not a fortune either.”
“I thought Aunt Angela was rich.” Arlanda glanced over the table of numbers representing her aunt’s assets, running a burgundy fingernail down the columns.
“She was rich, ten years ago. Not by the standards of some movie stars, but her asking price then was a million dollars a picture and she made a couple of pictures a year. Remember, your aunt hadn’t worked recently, and the cost of running an estate with four part-time employees, it adds up. Still, she should have been able to hang on indefinitely, had she not begun to withdraw significant sums of money above and beyond her normal personal expenses.”
“What do you mean? What expenses?”
“I’ll explain. As her accountant it was my responsibility to pay all her bills, everything from department-store charges to gas and electricity. Even her groceries were charged and then paid through me at the end of the month. For the last five years, your aunt was withdrawing about twenty thousand a month over and above that.”
“It was her money. I feel guilty even asking. But do you know what she was doing with it?”
“Buying art.”
“Art? What kind of art?”
“She never said and never showed me any receipts either. She might have spent the money on something else entirely. She might have gambled it away. I don’t think we’ll ever know. If she was collecting art, it burned with the house. And because it was uninsured, it doesn’t exist, not in terms we can deal with here.” He spoke indignantly, personally offended that money and assets could not be accounted for.
I said, “Troy Davies told me that you were the on
ly person Angela Doubleday visited. Do you mind telling me why?”
“Are you asking my opinion regarding why she became a recluse or why she deigned to visit me in my office?”
“The second.”
“I was her servant. Higher paid than Mr. Davies and the Potreros, but functionally still a servant.” He glanced briefly around his office. “As you can see, I run a successful practice. That gave me enough leverage to insist that Ms. Doubleday come here to do business. Don’t think for a moment she didn’t protest, and strenuously. Our relationship very nearly ended when she demanded that our meetings be conducted at her residence and I refused. But Mr. Davies is being either forgetful or disingenuous when he states I’m the only one Ms. Doubleday visited.”
“Why’s that?”
“I guarantee her personal physician didn’t make house calls, and certainly not her dentist.” He placed his hands flat on his desk, signaling he had nothing else to add, and Arlanda and I stood. He escorted us out the door of his office and into the reception lobby.
I said, “You forgot to mention—why did Ms. Doubleday change her will three months ago?”
“Her previous will was ten years old. She had two new nephews and her material circumstances had changed. It was time to update. And she wanted to write one person out of her will. She was quite adamant about that.”
“Who?” Arlanda asked, though I think we both knew.
“A man named Ben Turner.”
“Did she say why?”
“Your aunt was a mysterious woman,” he said with greater grimness than admiration. “She explained very little to me.”
Burning Garbo Page 10
