Telling Lies

by Wendy Hornsby

  When a picture of me in my school uniform appeared in the early television newscasts, my father had sent Emily to fetch me from school. We made our escape from St. Catherine’s Academy, to the principal’s great relief, directly after the swim meet. I remember little about the ride up the Peninsula in the car beside Em, except that my hair was still wet and I couldn’t stop shivering.

  At home, we found the usual undecorated Christmas tree in the living room, and the accumulation of lights and ornaments stacked in boxes beside it. Mother always waited to decorate until we were all home for the holidays. That year she had defied tradition and hung a snapshot Marc had sent from Vietnam. We never got around to hanging anything else on that tree.

  For the rest of the afternoon, we had sat silent vigil. There was nothing safe to say. Sometime during the evening a detachment of officers arrived from the Presidio across the Bay, bearing the official message. They had filed in and stood in our living room, ramrod straight, all starched and pressed and spit-polished, as my parents crumbled. It had been brutal.

  And now it was my turn to deliver the message. There was no way, in the end, to soften the truth except to tell them in person. But I could not leave Emily.

  I thought that the best thing would be to call on my father’s brother, Max, impose on him as I had so often before, persuade him to prepare the ground.

  Everyone in the room was watching me, half a dozen pairs of tear-filled eyes. Their sadness made me feel better for Emily, knowing there were so many people who cared about her. Em, always on a crusade, didn’t always spend enough time nurturing friendships. Or little sisters.

  Father Hermilio finished his prayers, anointed Emily, blessed her, blessed the rest of us, then knelt quietly at the bedside. Michael Flint touched my elbow and I moved with him toward the door.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “I’m upright.”

  “Can I ask some questions?”

  I shrugged. “Can I stop you?”

  He smiled. “Not likely.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “The name Aleda Weston mean anything to you?”

  “Of course.”

  “She made some deal with the FBI in New Hampshire. She’s coming to L.A. to surrender.”

  I looked up at Detective Flint, but his face gave away nothing. “You know about Emily and Aleda Weston?”

  “I told you, Emily and I go back a long way. When I was a rookie, she was one of the first famous people I arrested.”

  “A feather in your cap,” I said.

  “Where are you staying in town?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  “Emily’s apartment key is in that bag Bronk brought in. You’d be close by if she needed you. She wouldn’t mind.”

  “You know this for a fact?” I said.

  He smiled, a full, tooth-showing smile. “I know this for a fact.”

  Flint picked up the white plastic bag. “This is the personal property Emily had with her when she was brought to the hospital. We’ve finished with it, so you can have it, if you want it. I’m warning you, it isn’t real pretty.”

  “Thank you,” I said, taking the bag. It felt heavy, and I could see moisture beading inside. I could also see a khaki field jacket and a pair of white Reeboks. The rest looked like more clothes.

  Dr. Song tucked his stethoscope into his pocket. “It’s settled? You’ll be at Emily’s?”

  “I think I should stay here.”

  He shook his head. “Emily’s okay for now. You get some rest while you can. You’re in for a long haul.”

  I didn’t want to leave Emily. But there was no way to avoid it. I’ll never forget how hurtful it was to learn about Marc, and to grieve for him, under the public gaze. I wanted to buy my parents as much time and privacy as I could. From Emily’s apartment I could speak with them alone. I planned to be away from Emily for no more than an hour.

  I went over to Emily and kissed her cool cheek. I turned to Dr. Song. “Do you have the number at Emily’s apartment?” A chorus of four responded, in unison, “Yes.”

  “You have a car outside?” Bronk asked.

  “She walked,” Flint said. He took the bag from me and reached for the door. “I’ll take you home.”

  He was pushy, and I don’t like to be pushed. But it was still raining outside and my feet were still cold. So I went with him. Why not? If Flint felt better carrying Em’s bag and holding doors for me, let him.

  Father Hermilio walked out with us into the crush of people hovering outside Em’s room. The two men fended off queries from the crowd and I walked quietly, as if in a cocoon, between them, noting faces, attitudes, separating the morbidly curious from those genuinely grieving. I figured the two categories were about evenly represented.

  Father Hermilio talked to me as we walked, but I hadn’t been listening.

  “So you will come?” he said.

  “Where?” I asked.

  “Midnight mass at La Placita. The community will offer prayers for your brother. Emily arranged it. Now, of course, we will pray for her, too. It would be nice for you to speak for the family.”

  “I’ll come,” I said. “But I can’t speak. I could never get through that.”

  “I understand,” he said. “But you will come?”

  “Yes.” I was trapped again by my upbringing. And puzzled. “She set up this service for my brother, Marc?”

  “Si,” he said. “Por toda la familia.”

  For the whole family, he said. More likely, for Emily. The years my brother was in Vietnam were tough on all of us, but especially tough for Emily. It was embarrassing for her, one of the nation’s leading antiwar rabble-rousers, to have her twin in the Marines. She gave him incredible grief for dropping out of Stanford and enlisting. When he signed up for his second tour of duty, one would think, listening to Emily, that he had done something criminal.

  Marc and Emily were close, as twins are. But they always fought. They couldn’t help it; they both had exceedingly strong personalities—that is, egos. Their battles were more wars of domination, one over the other, than expressions of independence. They could never successfully separate from each other. Even when Marc died.

  As we entered the lobby, the crowd rose for us. That’s when it hit me, the purpose of the flowers and candles, the neighborhood people crowded in the hospital. It was all for Emily. I had been so preoccupied with looking for Emily that I hadn’t put it all together before. Word about Emily had gotten out through the community grapevine very quickly. Again, I thought it was nice so many cared for her. At the same time, I began to feel very uneasy.

  Sometime after Em had been found in that alley, she seemed to have undergone a transition from Emily, doer of good things, into Saint Emily. Mythic, heroic, martyred Saint Emily. I didn’t like it very much. Emily would hate it. For her, I would not enable the myth makers. I would not become the keeper of Emily’s flame, as she had been the keeper of Marc’s.

  The crowd pulled at me with their sad faces, as if by their concern they could will from me better news than I had to give them.

  Father Hermilio leaned his head close to mine. “Will you stay for a moment and share their prayers?”

  “Please, I can’t do it now,” I said. I walked the narrow path that opened for me through the crowd, acknowledging their murmured blessings, touching the hot hands that reached out for mine. There was a general sighing, low like wind in your ears when you’re running very fast.

  “I will see you at mass tonight, my child,” Father Hermilio said. He made the sign of the cross over me, and I bolted.

  It was a short run for freedom. When I saw what was waiting for me outside, I stopped so abruptly that Flint nearly collided with me.

  Poised among the flowers and candles in the covered entry, a three-person TV news crew lay in waiting: a reporter, a cameraman and a soundman-gofer.

  I didn’t know the reporter’s name, but I recognized the hairdo. When she caught sight of me, I saw her check her refle
ction in the end of the camera lens and plump the lacquered hair.

  I didn’t want to go through this new ordeal. I might have backed out, except that I was on foreign turf, and I might need a few favors on account. I plumped my own hair, or tried, and took a handful of Flint’s gabardine-upholstered elbow.

  “Call your mother,” I said to him. “Tell her you’ll be on the eleven o’clock news.”

  He chuckled and pushed open the door.

  The camera was already rolling on us.

  I held my hand in front of my face. “Hold it a sec,” I said. “I’ll do this for you, but a couple of requests first.

  “Sure,” the reporter said. “Pause it, Tony.”

  She came over to me with her hand extended. “Inez Sanchez, KABC news. What can I do for you?”

  “I need some time. As far as I know, my parents haven’t heard about Emily yet. Can you hold the story until eleven? Promise me, no news breaks?”

  “I think so.”

  “And keep it low key?”

  “Sure.”

  “Now, what can I do for you?” I said.

  “If you don’t mind, just stand here with me while I do the set up.” She looked closely at me. “My makeup kit’s in the van. We’ll wait for you.”

  I checked myself in the nearest window. My hair was flat, I had no lipstick, Stella’s makeup job was long gone. I turned to Inez. “Let’s just do it.”

  “Whatever you say.”

  The soundman dropped a cord down my back, clipped the attached power pack to my belt and found a place under my lapel for the mike. He positioned me so that the carnation spray and its message, DOLOR, made a backdrop. He moved Flint tight beside me and arranged his jacket so that his detective shield caught the light.

  “Okay, Inez?”

  “When Tony’s ready.”

  “Go ahead,” the cameraman said, and I saw the red filming light come on.

  Inez went into her spiel:

  “We’re standing outside French Hospital in the heart of Chinatown. It is sadly ironic that this institution, built a century and a half ago by French missionaries to provide succor for their countrymen, pioneers in the untamed environs of early Los Angeles, and who then stayed to give assistance to the Chinese immigrants who followed, should now offer its services to one who seems to have followed in the footsteps of the original missionary doctors.

  “Dr. Emily Duchamps, one of our nation’s leading figures in health care for the poor, was found earlier this evening, gravely wounded by an unknown assailant.

  “With me now is Dr. Duchamps’s sister, award-winning filmmaker Maggie MacGowen.” She closed toward me as the camera pulled back. “Miss MacGowen, what is your sister’s condition?”

  “She’s stable and comfortable. Out of pain.”

  “And the doctor’s prognosis for her recovery?”

  “Hopeful.”

  “The name Aleda Weston is also in the news tonight, a name once closely associated with your sister’s. Have you spoken recently with Miss Weston?”

  “No.”

  “She is due to arrive in Los Angeles within the hour. Will you be in contact with her?”

  Ms. Sanchez was no dummy, damn her. I decided I had been cooperative enough. “Detective Flint can answer more of your questions than I.”

  I backed out of the camera frame, leaving Flint in the red beam of the lens. I unhooked the mike and the power pack and handed them to the soundman on my way past.

  I had gone less than fifty yards through the drizzly prelude to another downpour when Flint caught up to me.

  “I said I’d drive you,” he said, panting a little from his sprint.

  “I want to see Aleda Weston,” I said. “Can you arrange it?”

  “Depends. I’ll try.”

  Flint’s city-issue, green four-door was at a curb marked OFFICIAL VEHICLES ONLY. He opened the passenger door and I slid in across the scratchy imitation tweed upholstery. Flint didn’t bother with his seat belt. And he didn’t bother with conversation, either.

  All the way up the hill to Emily’s apartment, I listened to the rain hammering against the car roof and the calls coming across Flint’s police radio: “Any unit in the vicinity of the southeast corner of Third and San Pedro, four-five-nine suspect in the building. Handle code two.” “Any unit in the vicinity, one-ten South Hope, see the woman, two-eleven purse snatch.” It was a dangerous world out there.

  “It’s painful, but we need to talk about Emily,” Flint said, finally.

  “Sure,” I said. “Just give me a little time to get pulled together.”

  “Whatever you say.”

  That’s when I saw the flowers in the street, a bright spill along the dark pavement in front of Emily’s building. The candles had been tossed out among them, helter-skelter, a few of them still glowing. All the little pots and jars filled with flowers and candles for Emily, all the offerings that had so neatly lined Mrs. Lim’s stoop, were smashed. Not randomly broken—every one smashed.

  Broken glass crunched under Flint’s tires as he pulled to the curb.

  “Kids,” he said.

  “Uh huh.” When I opened the car door, I could smell crushed flowers and burning wax. Behind me I heard Flint’s radio: “Any unit in the vicinity, Echo Park and Logan, assault in progress. Handle code three.”

  There were sirens in the distance, and I wondered if they were already rolling in Echo Park. It was only a couple of miles away. Truthfully, what I wondered was, how fast could they get to me?

  I can take care of myself. And Flint was only five feet behind me with his automatic holstered on his belt. Didn’t matter—what I saw scared me.

  Spray-painted on the wall beside Mrs. Lim’s front door, two feet high in a very careful script, were the words DIE FAST, BITCH.

  Chapter Five

  Em’s landlady, Mrs. Lim, must have been lying in wait for me while I said goodbye to Flint. She was out of her apartment and rushing down the hall in my direction before I had rebolted the front door behind me. Mrs. Lim grasped my free hand and pressed it against her bony chest.

  “Emily, Emily,” she wailed. With her gray bun disheveled, the gaps among her teeth, the shocked pallor of her face, she was scary to behold.

  I didn’t know whether she had seen the mess that had been made of the candles and flowers, or the graffiti painted on the front of her building. Maybe she had heard it all happen. She was certainly frightened.

  Not knowing what else to do, I put my arm around her thin shoulders. She was so tiny, it felt like holding a child. I tried to sound reassuring, “The doctors are taking good care of Emily. They’re doing everything they can.”

  She started talking at me in a rapid-fire, high-pitched mono-tone. I couldn’t understand much of what she said. It may have been Chinese, it may have been despair. Whatever it was, she kept it flowing all the way up the stairs to Emily’s third-floor apartment. I nodded or tsk’ed when it seemed appropriate.

  As I read it, the gist of her anguish was deep guilt that she had not somehow better protected Emily. In other circumstances, the notion was ludicrous of Mrs. Lim, maybe five feet tall if she stretched, physically shielding the gigantic Emily. Unless physical protection wasn’t what she was talking about.

  I had Em’s keys in my hand, but Mrs. Lim was faster with her passkey. She opened Emily’s door and kept up her stream of talk. I needed to be alone for a while and didn’t want her to follow me inside. To my relief, though she kept talking while I slipped past her, she came no further than the threshold.

  “You tell me,” she demanded. “Doctor call, you tell me.”

  “Absolutely,” I nodded. “I’ll let you know as soon as I hear anything.”

  She brushed the sleeve of my wet coat. “You change. I get eggroll.”

  After the intimate tone of our conversation all the way up the stairs, by the time she padded away down the carpeted hall, I was almost sorry to see her go.

  I went into Emily’s empty apartment and closed t
he door. I stood there for a moment, hesitant, thinking about Emily, listening for her voice. All that I heard was rain falling on the tile roof above me. A desolate sound, a solo drum tattoo.

  I had never spent much time in Emily’s apartment. From what I saw, she hadn’t either. She certainly hadn’t gone to any pains to make the place comfortable. Her rooms had a Zen simplicity. They were small, sparsely furnished, efficiently proportioned. The entry, where I stood, served as a sort of hub, with a bath to my left, the bedroom Em had converted into an office to the right, and through the double doors ahead a combination kitchen and sitting room where she slept, when she slept, on a sofa bed.

  The bulb in the entry ceiling fixture was out, so there was very little light, only the general city glow coming through the sitting-room windows and a small night light plugged into a socket beside the bathroom door. Feeling like an intruder, I picked up the only familiar object I saw, a framed photograph of our brother, Marc, and carried it into the sitting room with me.

  Still hugging Marc’s picture against me, I closed the curtains, switched on a lamp and looked around.

  The house I had left in San Francisco was a mess. I live in the Marina District, a block behind the block that was leveled by the big earthquake a couple of years ago. I lost some very good neighbors, as well as the back wall of my restored wood-frame Victorian.

  Under normal circumstances, reconstruction on the house should have been completed, the frame bolted to a reinforced foundation, and all of it painted a bright new color. But the year of the earthquake had also been the year of my divorce.

  Scotty and I had invested our time, more money than we had, and a few layers of skin in that house. I suspect that we lavished so much energy and affection on the place because we had nothing left to give each other. By the time the big quake came, the house was a showplace, the marriage was a shambles.

  At the present, I have two-thirds of a house, two-thirds of a family. And debts stretching into the millennium.

  The contrast between my house and Emily’s could not have been greater. I had left carpenter’s dust, tools, construction debris everywhere. Emily’s apartment, in contrast, was absolute order. Her place wasn’t merely clean, it bordered on being sterile.