"That’s a relief," she said. "Where are you now?"
"I’m just up the street from your place," he said. "The Lamplighter."
"I know it," Jackie said. "It’s a cop bar. Sepulveda and Vose Street, right?"
"Right," he said.
"I went in there one time by accident," Jackie said. "Right after my dad died. I stopped in for a drink after the funeral. I didn’t even know what a cop bar was. The only thing I remember is, every guy in the place bought me a drink."
"They’re buying me the drinks tonight," he said. "A couple of the guys invited me to celebrate my engagement. How about you? Are you still at your Industry party? I hope you didn’t catch any rare diseases."
"I did eat some raw meat and drink some homemade wine," she said. "But I left the party 20 minutes ago. I’m calling from the limo. We’re stuck in traffic on the Strip. They’ve got the new Jonas Brothers billboard up, the kind where their heads poke up above the frame, but the sign people blew it. They all have pigeons on their heads."
"Being famous must be hell," Johnson said.
"Johnson, I’m sorry for your loss. Father Larry said Jack Visio was a good man."
"Thank you, Jackie."
The limo edged its way eastward on Sunset Boulevard, traversing the toxic wasteland of lust and lunacy known as The Strip, a level-5 containment-zone of rock palaces, booze joints, strip clubs, restored rococo apartment buildings, luxury car washes, hookers, pimps, junkies, tourists, luxury hotels, movie star bars, restaurants shaped like hot dogs, $300,000 Bentleys and upscale boutiques.
The whole scene seemed bound together in a cyber-tribal funk, with everybody who hung out there of one mind in the belief that this irresponsible utopia, like the fat, sticky buds of grass they all smoked, would somehow blossom skyward from its pit of urban slime into the ether, to evolve and grow to fruition.
"How’s Heinz?" Johnson said.
"Heinz is my friend," Jackie said. "I’m starting to appreciate that."
"Jackie," he said, "they kicked Viktor Bout loose a few minutes ago. His fancy pants lawyer had a connection with the judge. They got the driver's licence suppressed."
"Johnson," she said. "Do me a favor. Don’t ever mention Bout to me again."
"You got it," he said.
"I need you," she said.
"It’s mutual," he said. "I was kind of excited about the church wedding, but now I’m not. Father Larry said to forget it. There’s always Las Vegas."
"No, she said. "I made a connection at the party. The Archbishop himself is going to cut through the red tape. We’ll probably get married next week."
"Really."
"Really. But I’ve just done something really stupid," she said, "I can’t tell you what it is. Let’s just call it an unholy communion. I’m beyond scared and afraid. Because of what I just did, I now have a secret I’ll have to carry with me to my grave. And according to Father Larry, I’ll also probably go to hell, unless an Archbishop trumps a simple priest."
"We’ve all got secrets," he said. "Myself most of all. It’s okay to have a dark secret or two."
"I need you, Johnson," she said. "I’m tired of maintaining this distance between us. All my life, I’ve maintained a middle ground. I’m tired of it. I’m ready to toss the boundaries."
"Me too."
"Will you meet me at the house?" she said. "I’m ready to unlock the door to the cage. Although I should tell you, Father Larry strictly forbids what I’ve got planned. But I’ve got to find out if I can still be a woman with a man. I need to use you, Johnson. If what I have planned doesn’t give us both a heart attack, maybe we can go to confession afterwards."
"I’ll be there for you, Jackie," he said.
"I’ll be about an hour," she said. "I have to see my sister about something first and then I’ll be over."
"Jackie?" he said.
"Yes?"
"Do I have to say it?" he said. "The words, I mean."
"No," she said. "Not tonight. Don’t say them tonight. You can say them after we get married, if you want to. But tonight, we’re not going to say anything. Tonight, we’re just going to ride the wave."
Chapter 34
The limo slid to a stop in front of Spring Oak Drive. The red MG sat in its usual spot in the driveway, the cooling metal ticking under the hood, the tacky blue tarp pulled half-heartedly over the cockpit. The night was warmer than the night before. There was no fog, but the hiss of sprinklers up and down the street provided sufficient mist to keep the magic going.
Jackie dismissed the driver and traipsed across the wet lawn to the back gate, letting Heinz into the backyard before slipping off the wet sandals and entering the house. She trailed the smell of popcorn down the hall to the movie room. It was a familiar tableau: Donna, on the couch, all alone with the bowl in her lap, a champagne flute in hand. On the screen, the old MGM Classic, Unfaithfully Yours.
Donna, upon seeing her big sister standing in the doorway, grabbed the remote and hit the freeze-frame, catching Rex Harrison’s surprise—looking impossibly young in a polka dot robe—at being caught from behind in Linda Darnell’s bear hug, her brilliant smile offsetting an unspeakably bad perm.
"It’s been awhile since we’ve watched it," she said. "Grab a drink and take a load off your dogs. By the way, the short dress looks terrific with the short hair. Nobody can say the women in this family don’t have legs."
Jackie walked over to the sidebar and filled a shot glass with vodka, downing the liquid in one swallow before pouring another. She picked up the remote and turned off the tube. The silence was louder than the movie had been.
"Unfaithfully Yours," Jackie said. "How appropriate. Rex Harrison making a fool of himself, imagining Linda Darnell having an affair with his male secretary. That almost sounds like your life story, Donna. Except in your story, Bienenfeld has been having an affair for the past five years and you’ve done nothing about it."
Donna grabbed her flute and took a long, shaky sip. "What can I do? You’ve met Marsha. I can’t compete with that."
"We live in a smart universe," Jackie said. "Some people believe that everything in the universe has some kind of intelligence, even rocks. Somehow you seemed to have missed out."
Jackie refilled Donna’s glass to the brim.
"Drink up, honey," Jackie said. "You’ll need it. Because your big sister is back. And she’s angry."
Donna gulped her champagne.
"What I can’t understand," Jackie said, "is how in this world, in a universe so smart even a rock can think for itself, you could be so dumb as to let Bienenfeld walk all over you!" This remark, cutting the cord between them, let fall to the earth the dust of their sisterly bonds. The silence was profound; not a single rock anywhere said a thing.
"Do you love him?" Jackie said. "Donna, do you still love Bienenfeld?"
"This is going to sound horrible," Donna said. "I hate his guts, but I still love him. I shouldn’t. The day I found out about Marsha it was like somebody just reached inside me and ripped my heart out. So maybe it’s not love; maybe I hate him so much, it just seems like love. But as long as he has Marsha, I will never truly have him."
"You should leave him," Jackie said. "He’s drained the life out of you. You're waiting on Bienenfeld just like I waited on Viktor Bout. I’ll help you move out. You can move in with me. You can find somebody else. It’s not too late."
"I’m afraid of what he might do if I try to leave," Donna said.
"He’s not going to do jack," Jackie said.
"Jackie," Donna said. "I’ve needed my big sister so much these last five years. But you disappeared on me. All these months, when I was watching you die? I was dying, too. I needed you."
"I’m back," Jackie said. "It’s going to be okay. A little ugly from time to time, but okay."
"I can’t leave Bienenfeld," Donna said.
"I know you can’t. But if you stay, things have to change."
They cried together, a multitude of tissues failing to
staunch the waters flowing freely from the fountain of reborn souls.
"Underneath that tan and those great legs, you’re as burned out as I am," Jackie said. "But brace yourself. From now on, it is going to be different."
"What is, Jackie?"
"We’re getting out of the victim business, that’s what," Jackie said. "You saved me and now I’m going to save you." She stood up and raised her glass. "Here’s looking at you, kid," she said. She left the room and started down the hall. As she opened the front door and stepped onto the porch, she could hear the loud wailing cry from the den, and knew for certain no rock would be forced to break its code of silence tonight.
Chapter 35
Jackie arrived in the limo back in Van Nuys just in time to find her street bathed in an eerie glow from the flames which engulfed her home. Johnson’s van pulled in behind her about a hundred feet from the scene.
The shock hit her system and she felt as though in a dream, observing the surreal cast of fire trucks, police cars and assorted mask-wearing, helmeted personnel working together in a well-rehearsed ballet. Groups of neighbors stood on lawns, many with video cameras, talking and watching. The news van from Channel 5 was setting up at the edge of the barricade. The fire was really ripping the place, putting on a good show for the folks. Johnson waved to her, motioned for her to wait one and walked over to the other cops.
She joined a group on the corner and watched in stupefaction as the windows in the gables blew, one by one. When the windows expanded in the heat and shattered, the oxygen rushed in, and the rooms literally exploded. There were four teams manning hose lines, but three of them were aimed at the adjacent houses in an effort to contain the blaze to the single residence. They were letting her home burn to the ground to concentrate their resources on saving the others.
She felt a hand on her shoulder. Johnson, with his cop face on, looking official. "Obviously Bout was here. The fucker's only been out a few hours. It’s like a Korean liquor store in Watts after the Rodney King verdict," he said.
"Can you get us closer?" she said.
"Watch your step," he said.
He led her through the barricades to the edge of the driveway.
"This wasn’t a regular house fire," Johnson said. "When the rescue team tried to go in, they found Bout had tacked balloons full of gasoline to all your ceilings. When the heat melts the balloons, they pop and spray the gas everywhere. The firefighters can’t operate inside under those conditions. The discovery of the balloons terminated further efforts to save your house."
Jackie saw a strange object lying almost hidden behind the ancient walnut tree at the edge of the yard, the form of the object size and shape of a large roast pig, the kind of thing that should have been laid out on palm fronds at a luau. The grisly thing was unattended and apparently unnoticed in all the excitement.
"Johnson," she said. "What’s that? It looks like a dog or something."
"Oh no," he said. "Wait here. I don't think I want you to see that."
She broke free and ran to the spot and realized immediately it was a human body. A lot of it was missing. The meat from the legs, in particular was off the bone. The face, its jaw wide open, was wrapped in skin the texture of tight, burnt leather.
She could hear the victim screaming in her mind. She knew she’d hear it always. That jaw. Wide open, as though the soul had pried it open from the inside before escaping through the victim’s mouth. She staggered into the bushes and completely emptied the contents of her stomach.
"It’s okay," Johnson said. "I’ve got a bottle of mouthwash and some clean wipes in my van."
"Johnson," she said, after she’d managed to clean up, "Is it ... is it Bout?"
"Don’t we all wish? Unfortunately, I have a strong hunch it's your realtor friend." Johnson said.
"Oh no," she said. "You mean he got her? He got another woman?"
"Maybe," Johnson said. "I only know that when the first responders arrived, her front door was wide open. Her car is in the garage. And her purse and keys are on her kitchen table."
"She was in my house rearranging the furniture or something, getting the house ready for sale. He surprised her, didn’t he? Then he raped her and set her on fire and she ran out screaming. She only made it to the front lawn."
"That seems to sum it up," Johnson said.
"We’ve crossed a threshold, haven’t we?" she said. "There are no signposts in this hideous new world. Nothing I learned in school ever prepared me for the sight of that body."
"I remember my first burn victim," he said. "Back when I was a rookie."
"I killed her," Jackie said. "I didn’t want to do the lineup. I let him out and now I have killed Sandy. I have killed my neighbor. I am going to hell for what I did. Father Larry was right. I sinned and the wages of my sin was Sandy’s death. The death of an innocent. I have been such a fool not to listen to your advice. I should have agreed to the lineup."
"No, Jackie," he said. "Not you. You can’t blame yourself when evil strikes." He took her in his arms and they held each other tight.
"You’ve spent a lifetime dealing with evil," Jackie said. "How did you ever make it this far?"
"I embraced evil in Vietnam," he said, "I had to in order to survive. When we’re faced with evil, our instincts tell us to pull back. I had to learn to put my instincts on hold and trust in myself, teach myself to move into the evil and do what I have to do, hoping I’ll somehow find my way back in one piece."
"I can’t pull back," Jackie said. "I can’t return to isolation. The only thing I can do is move forward. Everything I owned was in that house. All my pictures, all the stuff I inherited from my parents. Johnson, that was going to be our house after we got married."
"Jackie," Johnson said. "You’ve had a terrible shock tonight. You need to go and get some rest."
"Okay," she said. "But before I leave, I’ve got to tell you something. It may jeopardize everything we have going, but I realized tonight, when I saw Sandy lying there, that there can be no secrets between us. At the party tonight, I had an audience with Ernie Catalano."
"Ernie Catalano?" he said. "He was at your party?"
Jackie nodded. "I met with him privately," she said.
"They call him ‘Ernie the Foot,’" Johnson said. "His feet are messed up, which is why he wears the monogrammed slippers everywhere. They say damaged his feet stomping his victims to death in a wine vat in his cellar. So you met with him, huh? What’d he have to say for his sorry self?"
"He’s got no children, only an adopted niece. I asked him to kill Bout and his crew. He agreed to do it."
"Please, Jackie," he said. "You need to call that whole thing off."
"I’ll call him," she said. "But I had to tell you. I suppose now you’ll have to arrest me on conspiracy to commit murder or something."
"Get real," he said. "I'll add it to the list of my secrets. You’ve told me. You’ve cleared your conscience. We’ll have to live with it. Now I’m going to tell you something. I was going to kill Bout myself. When we let him go, we had him followed, but he gave us the slip. And I may have to kill him yet, but hopefully we will find him before that becomes necessary. Another thing. As before, you and I didn’t have this conversation. If we keep having them, we’ll have to get married in Las Vegas so we can’t testify against one another. Now take Heinz and go back to Donna’s."
"Okay." She got in the limo. He poked his head in. "I think we both deserve a kiss," he said.
Their lips met briefly, dryly, in the superheated night.
"Bout thinks he’s taken something from me," she said. But I’m in another zone. He can’t touch me anymore. I’ve lost material things tonight, and now I’ve got a death on my conscience, but at the same time, I’ve gained something."
"I am curious, though," he said. "What exactly did "Ernie the Foot" say when he agreed to take the contract?"
"Nothing really," Jackie said. "He just made me drink his homemade wine."
"Homemade wine," Joh
nson said. "That’s it?"
"That’s all he did. But there was no mistaking what he meant."
"Weird. But I’ve heard that he’s a strange old coot. There's even a rumor that he is a werewolf. But of course there is no such thing."
Johnson reached into his pocket and brought out a tiny black velvet-covered box. Jackie’s heart leaped.
"This is lousy timing," he said. "But here."
The ring. She placed it on her finger and looked up at him.
"It’s a friendship ring," he said.
"We’re totally not ready for marriage," she said.
"I know," he said. "If you want me to I can ride with you back to Donna’s. But now that you have unleashed Catalano and his minions, I think I need to work harder on finding Bout and for that I need to marshal all my resources within the department."
"It’s okay. You can have your man shadow me as before. I think I need to be alone. And I’ve got Heinz to protect me. And the gun. And Bobby and Nasturtium, who are still out there somewhere."
"Okay," he said. "Jackie, before you go, there is something I need to tell you. Again, it’s lousy timing, so I want to apologize beforehand."
"Uh oh," she said. "Here it comes."
"I made a decision today," he said. "This is my last case. I’m retiring. When this is over, I’m packing it in and heading for the dog ranch."
"But what about us? I can’t just up and move to Dos Palos. I have to stay in Los Angeles to finish my work with Dr. Black. And obviously I am going to have to join Alcoholics Anonymous before my liver turns to concrete. Johnson, it could take years. And we don’t have that many years left."
"I know," he said.
"Well what does this mean? Are we at a crossroads, or are you trying to tell me it’s over?"
"That’s why I gave you the friendship ring. You know, cops don’t make friends easily outside of other cops. But you are special. You are a true friend. The way I see it," he said, "is that it’s a 4-hour straight shot up I-5 to the ranch from your place. I can come down and you can come up. But we might as well face it, you need time and so do I. Hell, the ink on my divorce papers is barely dry."
Jackie's Week Page 16
