by David Gordon
“A problem?” I wondered lightly. Like she’s not dead, perhaps?
“Yes, sir.” The white one consulted his pad again. “As part of the normal postautopsy processing, the deceased’s fingerprints were added to our federal databases. Well, it took a while but we got a hit. From the INS actually. That’s why it didn’t pop right away.”
“So?” I was relaxing a bit. I didn’t see what this had to do with me or the girl cowering in my house.
“Well, the match in the INS computer had no connection with any Mona Naught. Apparently, these prints belong to a Mexican national who was reported missing by her family some years ago. Her name was… Maria… Consuela…”
Dante stepped in as whitey began torturously overenunciating the Spanish. “Maria Consuela Martinez Garcia, from Tepic, Nayarit. Does that name ring a bell?”
“No, not at all,” I said. Another girl? Another name? How many were there?
“Seems she first entered the country back in 1990 on a student visa.”
“Sorry.” I shook my head, answering honestly for once. “I have no idea what this means.”
“OK. No problem. Since her death has already been ruled a suicide, and no one else claimed the body, the coroner went ahead and released it to the family in Mexico.”
“I see,” I said. To them the case was closed. It didn’t matter who the dead girl was, as long as they could file her away under something and shut the drawer.
“Hey, you know what?” I added, in a casual tone. “I didn’t really know the woman, but still, after all, I’d like to send her family a card. Do you mind if I get that address from you?”
“Certainly, sir.” Dante smiled his approval and Northing printed carefully into his notebook and tore out the page. “Here you go. I’m sure they’ll appreciate the thought.”
62
STEPPING BACK THROUGH my own door was like stepping into space. Perhaps the house would be gone completely, leaving only a green hill. It all seemed equally possible. My wife might even be back, sitting on the sofa, complaining about the mess.
Nic, it seemed, was real, so far. Or at least she hadn’t changed into a cat or anything. Still, rather like a cat, she poked her head out of the kitchen as soon as I shut the door.
“Is it safe to come out?”
“Not really. But come on anyway. We have to go see someone.”
She stepped away, shoulders back. “Who?”
“My boss. The one who hired me to follow you. He’s a detective. He can help.”
She narrowed her gaze, figuring the odds. “Why should I trust him?”
I shrugged. “Don’t trust anyone. I wouldn’t. Especially not you. You’re the biggest liar of all. I’m just a schmuck.”
She seemed to find this reassuring. She removed my meat cleaver from where she had been concealing it under her skirt and laid it on the counter. “OK. Let’s go see the boss.”
I opened the door and made sure the cops were gone before ushering her out. “Actually, I thought this guy was a total nut job up till a few hours ago. Now I think he might be a genius.”
63
MRS. MOON LET US IN. Lonsky, regarding Nic without shock or surprise, heard our story in the study while his mother made an egg salad sandwich for “the girl,” who admitted, when Lonksy asked, that she had not eaten anything but Tic Tacs for a day or more. As was his wont, he settled deep in the brown leather armchair, listening like a log until she finished her tale and then lapsed into uneasy silence, awaiting his response. He sighed. A finger twitched. She gave me a look. I nodded reassuringly. Roz came in with a sandwich and a glass of ice tea.
“Here you go, hon,” she said. “I put sliced cuke and tomato on the sandwich. Hope that’s OK.”
“Oh yes, thank you.” Nic sat up eagerly and balanced the plate on her knees.
Perhaps sniffing the food, Lonsky raised his lids. “Even with sliced fruit, that is hardly a sufficiently nutritious meal.”
“I know what you’re going to say, Solly,” Roz said, wiping her hands on her sky blue slacks as she left, “but to me cukes and tomatoes are still veggies. Have been for as long as I’ve been alive. Never mind what modern science discovers.”
“It’s hardly a question of scientific discovery,” he told Nic, who nodded, wide-eyed, and wiped a bit of egg from the corner of her mouth. “They have seeds. They grow on vines. Hence, they are indeed fruit.”
“Is that all you have to say?” I blurted, losing my cool after urging calm on Nic. “Jesus fuck, Solar. This is her! The mystery girl. Someone clearly hired her to fake Mona’s death. So it was murder, like you said. Now they killed Kevin. And I guess Doctor Parker too. Who’s next? Me? They broke into my house. If I wasn’t out, watching my friend’s goddamn store burn down by the way, I might be dead too. This whole thing is a nightmare, that you got me into, and the only insight you can offer is that cucumbers are fruit? Hey genius, guess what? Fruit is fucking nutritious! Maybe you should eat more of it yourself, you crazy fat bastard!” I stopped and caught my breath. My hands were shaking. Nic stared in amazement, chewing, her eyes and cheeks wide. Lonsky considered my statement thoughtfully, as shame flowed in over my anger and fear.
“Look,” I said. “I’m sorry.… You’re not fat. I mean, well…”
He waved a finger. “Not at all.” He spoke in his normal, even, round tones. “You are quite right. The matter of nutrition is secondary. You will eat on the way to Mexico.”
“Mexico?”
“Certainly. Although you might have phrased it with greater aplomb, in essence your assessment of the case thus far is correct. As I suspected, Mona has been murdered, and you and I have been used to make it appear a suicide. Now all loose threads are being cut, I’m afraid. The questions you raise as to the underlying purpose of their enterprise are also quite valid. We must ascertain the motive. And the answer, I suggest, lies to the south.”
“This is nuts. You’re going to get me killed. I say we go to the cops.”
“Not wise at this juncture, I’m afraid. As Miss Flynn indicates, our adversaries seem to have a great deal of influence with the police and we have little evidence on our side. We can’t even offer a suspect.”
“Well, I’m not going to Mexico. I quit. I’ll go to Canada instead. It’s a lot safer. And cooler this time of year.”
He shrugged. “I believe you already quit yesterday.”
Stalemate. There was a long pause while Nic swallowed her sandwich and sipped her tea. “You’re a detective, right Mr. Lonsky?” she asked. “A private eye?”
“In a manner of speaking, yes.”
“Very private,” I muttered.
“Well I want to hire you.” She reached into her bag and took out an envelope. “I have five thousand dollars cash right here. I want to hire you to figure this out, and to protect me.” She put the envelope on the desk. “And I want to go to Mexico, with you,” she told me. “I’m not safe here anyway. Neither are you. You know they’ll find us eventually. And also, I feel… bad. I want the people who killed that girl to be caught.”
Lonksy nodded. “I will accept your case, Miss Flynn. But I require an assistant to do the legwork.”
They both looked at me. I sighed deeply and rubbed my eyes. The exhaustion of these last two days suddenly washed over me. Nightmares unfolding without sleep. I nodded. “How may I be of assistance?”
“Good,” Lonsky said, lifting the envelope. “I shall take one thousand as retainer and return the rest.” He removed his dough, and handed her back the envelope. “Now Kornberg, go home quickly and pack a few things. Don’t tarry, it might not be safe. And if you have anything of special value, take it or bring it here.”
“You might want to change too,” Nic said. “No offense. I like what you have on. But they’re kind of old-fashioned down there.”
“Good point, Ms. Flynn.” Lonsky nodded. “Do put on something more appropriate.”
“Look who’s talking,” I said, and explained to Nic. “He dressed me
in these clothes. These are his mom’s pants.”
She shrugged. “Hey, whatever. I don’t need to know.”
Lonsky went on: “Then proceed south to the border. Stop to eat, drive safely, don’t be foolish, but make sure you are in Mexico by nightfall.”
64
SOLAR HAD SAID TO TAKE anything of special value. I thought about that as I changed and threw some clothes in a bag. Was there anything? I couldn’t take the TV or computers. Pictures? Treasured mementos? Not really. This was Lala’s house, I realized, and I stayed in it like a long-term guest, though I wouldn’t admit that to a divorce judge. Just that one little room was mine, the office. I lived in there with my only real possessions, my books, in a kind of fort built inside the larger home. And my own novels? To say they were personal or important was to miss the point completely: I hated them. They had ruined me. I was nothing, and it was all their fault. I loved my books like a sober alcoholic loves a case of twenty-year-old Scotch or a man in prison loves the cash he stole, but would I save them from a sinking ship? I decided to grab the copies from my bottom desk drawer, if only for symbolic value. I’d leave them in the trunk.
The office was worse than I thought. Almost every book was off the shelves, dumped in broken-spined heaps, my carefully ordered sections and subsections now split and piled like firewood, a bonfire ready to go. I waded in for my manuscripts, but the desk was tipped over and emptied, so I had to sort through the mass of papers and files and forgotten stolen office supplies and make extra sure before I gave in to the horrible surge of loss that I admit I didn’t expect to feel and that almost embarrassed me in its hollow, howling intensity: My books were gone. All of them. My novels. All the drafts. The clean copies, ready to be sent to interested publishers. The backup CDs. The external hard drive. All gone.
65
“I’M SORRY ABOUT YOUR BOOKS.” We were on the freeway, headed south, chewing the last cold fries from the In-N-Out Burger we’d hit on our getaway. We had the windows down, and soft air buffeted my head like a pillow fight, cushioning my ears. Cars streamed around us, four lanes each way, their forms blurred by speed and fumes, the heat from their engines cooking out and the sun blasting windshields and bumpers. Here and there a pair of running lights bled whitely in the daylight. The sky was clear but the wind smelled like poison.
“I mean,” she said, her hair jumping around in a mad scribble, “sorry about your novels. Your writing.” She pushed back her sunglasses and dipped an arm in the wind, letting a cigarette go skipping and sparking in my rearview before vanishing under some wheels. I hated when people did that. I gritted my teeth and faced forward. I didn’t want to discuss my books. She breathed smoke at me. “That really sucks.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Thanks.”
“Can I ask you something?”
“Maybe.”
“Why did you write them?”
I sighed loudly. She couldn’t take a hint. “I forget.”
“No I mean, why that kind? Why not normal stories, that people like to read? Maybe you could have sold them.”
“I don’t know. Brain damage?”
“Seriously though. Why not write regular realistic stories?”
“Are regular stories realistic? Does your life work like that?” I glanced at her, obscurely accusing, and she looked away with a frown.
“Whatever.”
I went on: “No, really. When you take a shower, do the thoughts in your head sound like a normal book? Is there a narrator saying she did this and that? What about first person? Is the I who you are now the same as the I you were at ten years old, or the I you forgot you were at three, or the I you were two minutes ago when you were thinking of something else that you can’t recall now? Where did that person go?”
She shrugged. She didn’t care. No doubt she was sorry she’d asked, but now that my mouth was open, I felt unable to shut it. “What about other people?” I demanded. “Do you really know them as whole characters, complete with backstory, motive, and quirky traits? Do they have arcs? Or are they just passing glimpses, bits and angles that you have to put together yourself and that keep changing? I thought I was learning Mona’s backstory. She turned out to be you. What about time? Do you really experience it as a single line, a freeway moving forward? Or does it jump and skip, speed up and slow down? Does the past erupt into the present? Does the future retreat or attack? Does the present escape us? Is it ever even here? Does your life have a plot?”
“It does now. So does yours.”
“Ha. True. But that’s not a good thing is it? It turns out life was more pleasant as a meaningless mess. Plot is malevolence. Closure is death.”
“So you just like hate any book with a story?”
“Of course not. I mean, Shakespeare has a plot. Greek tragedies. Stendahl and Balzac and Jane Austen. Homer. But there’s a point where things shift, with modernism, I guess. Really a similar thing happens in painting. Attention turns away from naturalistic representation as we begin to suspect that the established version of reality isn’t the whole truth. So the novel turns inward. It becomes about consciousness, language, memory, thought, and feeling. That’s the twentieth century.”
“And the twenty-first? What’s next?”
“Nothing’s next. It’s over. Turns out the story of literature does have an ending. It’s Facebook and reality TV. It’s video games on cell phones. No one has the attention span to read The Man Without Qualities. No one can sit still and focus hard enough to untangle Finnegans Wake or develop the patience to face Gravity’s Rainbow. Who will ever open those books again? The late great novelists. It makes sense in retrospect. They were recording the death of their own art form. As a medium disappears, there’s always a final explosion of virtuosity. A kind of decadent, baroque eruption of style that no longer has any object or audience but itself. A last flower. So even if I didn’t just completely suck, I was still born with a useless ability, like archery or taking shorthand. So it doesn’t matter if my books were erased. No one was ever going to read them. It’s like I speak a dying language, Navajo or Yiddish. And the sad truth is: I have a hard time even remembering it myself.”
On that, I felt, rather plaintive note, I fell silent and stared, steely-eyed, at the vanishing point ahead. Nic said nothing. It was a lot to absorb. I let a long pause pass while my ideas sank in. Then I heard a deep breath, though definitely not a sigh of sympathy, more like a murmur of content. I glanced over. Sure enough, she was snoozing. I’d bored her unconscious. Another reader lost.
Beckett was right: after the greatness of Proust, and Joyce, and Kafka, all that was left was a voice, talking to itself about itself, alone in the void of a skull, with no one listening, until it too ran down and stopped. From his book The Unnamable to my own pale offerings, which I might as well have titled The Unpublishable, The Unreadable, and now The Unwritable. Coming soon: The Unthinkable. The End.
66
I DROVE IN SILENCE all the way to San Diego, while the imposter slept fitfully beside me. She snored softly and scratched herself once between the legs. Tiny drops of sweat formed on her upper lip and gathered between her breasts, like warm breath appearing on a glass. Her skirt billowed softly and fell. Her nipples stiffened and softened under the fabric of her shirt, responding to some invisible caress, a breeze or a dream. Who knows what she was struggling with, there beside me? Her hands gripped each other. She drooled.
I desired and despised her in equal measure. She made me uneasy to a degree that seemed out of proportion to the compact, soft person dribbling on herself beside me. Of course she had deceived me and drawn me into this mess, and I suppose I resented her for that. She had outwitted me, proving to be far more cunning an operative than I could ever hope to become. Tricking me was child’s play for her. The hard part was pretending to fall for my own ridiculous clown show.
But then again, so what? I had never claimed to be much of a detective, and she too had been tricked and used. The deeper shame, the sore spot that mad
e me want to argue with anything she said, about books or plans or where to stop for gas, was realizing how badly I had wanted to believe her act. How deeply had I embraced her thin lies, desperately grasping at the illusion she dangled before me—the possibility, the slender, pathetic hope, that I, a foolish, aging, almost-divorced failure, an introverted, deluded, prematurely bitter, never-was and never-would-be writer, an overall total reject, could be, even for a day and a night, the hero of a true drama, a turbulent, passionate, romantic, tragic adventure, costarring a mysterious and beautiful woman: it was a kiddy story that she herself saw through in a blink, and had never believed for one second of her young life. I was the one born yesterday, the boob off the turnip truck, the sucker. She was the wise guy, the adult. So what if I wrote novels no one could understand? She read me like an open book. That was why I couldn’t stand her: just like any good writer, she told me the truth about myself.
67
WE WERE NEARLY THERE when I remembered: Buck Norman had copies of my novels. I was so happy I hit the accelerator and had to slam the brakes before I ran into the slowing cars ahead. Nic bounced forward, then jerked back, choked by her seat belt, something I secretly enjoyed.
“What’s happening?” she mumbled, her tongue thick with sleep.
“Nothing.” I honked. “Some nut cut me off. We’re almost there. I have to make a call.”
Traffic was heavy now, approaching the border, an epic slow jam of tourists, truckers, workers, and products heading endlessly back and forth. I pulled into a lot that offered long-term day rates. Nic rubbed her eyes in the mirror and sucked on her empty soda while I frantically searched for Buck Norman’s number on my phone. Finally, I got through.
“Buck Norman’s office, Russ speaking.”
“Hey, Russ. It’s Sam Kornberg.”
