For I want the mountain castle.
I squinted at those words, at a message that had not been there before. Blood flooded my head, and I lost all feeling in my face. Numb, I gazed at that poem, then touched the word “storm.” I plucked it off the steel door. Barely felt it between the pads of my damp fingers. I slipped “storm” between “smooth” and “hide.” “Castle” between “want” and “the.” I moved each word into a new place until no coherent message remained.
Part IV
Moving… Slowly… Moving
42
The Santa Anas had returned to Los Angeles, forcing hot, dry winds and dust across the Basin. I tried to lose myself in Anna Karenina and Tolstoy’s Russia, but any time the wind blew, any time the loosest ceramic tile on the roof jangled, I glanced anxiously at the ceiling. I had burned through ten pages of the novel, but had only comprehended two. Couldn’t focus—the wind shrieked like banshees between houses and down hillsides, carrying with it the threat of explosive fires.
I tossed the novel to the floor, untangled my legs from the blanket, and wandered to the window. No birds soared across the darkening, dirty sky. The setting sun threw purple shadows across the canyon’s face, and pewter ashes stuck in the screen’s mesh—a massive brush fire had engulfed the San Gabriel Mountains less than fifty miles away.
A door slammed.
I spun around. My eyes skipped across the empty den.
You heard that. Don’t pretend that you didn’t.
“It’s the wind,” I said aloud.
Unconvinced, I crept to the couch and pulled the machete from beneath the cushion. I tiptoed over to the door and peeked out into the hallway.
Each room’s door was open.
“Lei? You here?”
No answer.
I crept towards the staircase, stepping in puddles of water—
What the…?
I stopped and flipped the light switch.
Wet footprints trailed from my bedroom down the hallway, and down the staircase. Wet footprints that I hadn’t made since my feet were dry. Wet footprints that were several sizes larger than my feet.
I stooped and reached out to touch the water; but I stopped with my hand still outstretched.
If it’s water, what will you do?
Because how did it get there?
If you touch dry ground, what will you do?
Because what, then, was I seeing?
I lingered there for a moment, and nibbled at the ragged cuticle around my thumbnail. I muttered, “Okay,” then followed those footprints down the stairs, one step at a time, careful not to step in the… whatever it was.
The wet prints, lighter now, led to the kitchen, and stopped in front of the refrigerator. The chaos I had created among the magnetic words on the fridge door had found order.
Frantic princess lies
I want the mountain castle
With trembling fingers, I reached out to scramble the words again.
Tonite blasted behind me. DJ Quik. Truman’s ring-tone.
I whirled around—my cell-phone was sitting on the breakfast bar.
Frozen in place, I stared at the phone in disbelief until it dropped into silence. A moment later, the phone chimed. Heart pounding wildly in my chest, I grabbed it, and peered into the display.
What…?
1 NEW TEXT MSG.
I retrieved the message, but dropped the phone before I could finish reading.
43
I thrust my cell-phone at Leilani and Monica as soon as they returned to the dining room table with filled dinner plates. “Explain this,” I demanded.
“Can we eat first?” Leilani asked.
I held out my phone as the answer.
Leilani took it from my hand. Monica leaned over and squinted into the cell-phone’s screen.
I stared at the flickering candles sitting in the center of the table.
“Babe,” Leilani read, “U have something 2 tell me. Cant rest til U do.” Leilani stared at the phone with wide eyes. “What the hell is this?”
Monica cut into her steak. “It’s called a text message. You send them all the time. What’s the big deal?”
My hands shook as I refilled my glass with wine. “It was sent today.”
“Okay,” Monica said. “Again: the big deal is…”
Leilani and I glanced at each other; then, she dropped my phone as though it had stung her.
“Look at the caller’s number, Mo,” I said. “It came from Truman’s cell-phone.”
Monica studied the message again, and then shrugged. “Where’s his phone?”
I shook my head. “It wasn’t in the dive bag. Flex told me that he put it in there right after he called me that day.”
“Maybe he’s wrong,” Monica suggested. “Maybe somebody’s messing with you cuz they know that Truman’s… That you’re… Someone on the boat could’ve found the phone.”
“I don’t know,” Leilani said as she rubbed her arms. “This is just weird. Reading that message… It sounds just like my brother.” She shivered, then pushed the phone back to me with the tip of her finger.
“And what about the art?” I asked.
Monica and Leilani glanced at each other, then gaped at me.
“The mola and the mandala that I found hanging on the walls?” I said. “I didn’t nail them there.”
“Maybe Truman did,” Leilani offered.
“When?” I screeched.
Monica peered at me with narrowed eyes. “You think that he hung those after the accident?”
“I’m saying that they weren’t hanging there before the accident,” I shouted. “And now, I’m getting a text from his cell-phone?”
“Calm down, Nic,” Monica warned. “Repeat after me: Occam’s Razor.”
Leilani frowned. “Monica, what the hell are you talking about?”
“The simplest explanation is most likely the correct one,” Monica explained to her, then turned back to me. “Nicole, do y’all have Sprint? Because Truman could’ve sent that message six weeks ago, and you’re just getting it now.”
Leilani nodded, brighter now because of Monica’s explanation. “Their service sucks. That’s why I switched to T-Mobile…”
As my friends continued to complain about Sprint’s service, I heard faint music playing in another room.
You know the way that things go
When what you fight for starts to fall
And in that fuzzy picture
The writing stands out on the wall
I cocked my head: Peter Gabriel’s voice. “Do you guys hear that?”
Leilani and Monica continued to compare their cell-phone plans.
I left the table and stood in the dining room’s entryway.
Wipe out the noise
“Hey,” I said, “did either of you turn this on?”
“We’ve been sitting here all this time,” Monica said with a lifted eyebrow. “How could we—”
“How did it come on?” I asked. “It’s one of Truman’s favorite songs.”
Monica said, “Maybe it came on by itself. Don’t stereos have timers now? Don’t you guys have that fancy audio system or whatever?”
Footsteps pounded above us. Running. A door slammed.
“What the hell?” I shouted.
Leilani screamed, “Somebody’s in here!”
I darted out of the dining room and ran up the stairs, stumbling and hitting my forehead on the next step. I wobbled some, but crawled to the landing.
Ohohoh!
Wet footprints glistened on the hardwood floor.
My gaze followed those prints until…
Truman stood in the middle of the hallway, in a pool of sea water. His back was turned to me, but I knew that wet Body Glove T-shirt and those wet khaki shorts. Threads of water coursed down his calves—calves that sagged and melted into his muddy Vans.
I flattened my body against the stairs. “Shitshitshit.”
Leilani and Monica huddled behind me
. Leilani whispered, “Who is it?”
I nodded in Truman’s direction. “Look. Just… See.” I don’t know if my friends looked—I couldn’t take my eyes off the man standing just a few feet in front of me.
“Umm…,” Monica said. “What am I seeing? Other than a hallway?”
“It’s Truman,” I said, gawking at her. He’s right…” I turned back.
Truman was gone. The floor was dry.
“He was right there,” I said, weakly. “I swear he was. I know I sound crazy, but…”
But there was no good way to finish that sentence without sounding crazy.
“Someone’s here,” Monica said. “Even I heard that door slam.” She jogged down the stairs and disappeared into the kitchen.
Leilani, wide-eyed and pale, inched down the steps.
Monica burst back into the foyer with a meat cleaver in her hand.
Leilani shrieked and said, “What the hell are you doing with that?”
“I’m going outside,” Monica said, opening the front door.
I rushed down the stairs, and said, “What if he’s out there?”
But Monica had already disappeared.
Leilani looked spooked as she stared out the open door. “I probably shouldn’t say this but…” She turned to me, her mouth fixed into a grim line.
“Say what?” I said.
She whispered, “I think Monica… I think something’s going on with her.”
I gawked at Leilani, and a strangled chuckle came from my gut.
Leilani nodded and rubbed her temples. “I know. That’s why I didn’t want to say anything, but I can’t shake this feeling, especially with everything that’s going on with her company, you know?”
I blinked—I didn’t know. “What’s going on with her company?”
Leilani glanced at the door—no Monica—then took a step closer to me. “It’s not doing well. Since the stock market’s all crazy, people can’t afford big parties, and Mo’s been racking up credit cards, taking out business loans... She told me that she had to pay, like, a shit-load of back-taxes, and there was some other weird crap that I can’t even wrap my mind around. She may have to sell her condo.”
“Monica?” I shouted.
“Ssh!” Leilani said, glancing at the door again. “You don’t have to tell the world, do you?”
“She’s the most responsible person I know.”
“And that’s why she hasn’t talked to you. You tend to get all sanctimonious and patronizing and disappointed. And with Truman gone…”
I narrowed my eyes, then asked, “But what does any of that have to do with me?”
“Money, sweetheart,” Leilani said. “You have no heirs. If you flip out and put her in charge of your estate, guess what happens? You’ll be like Britney Spears and her dad.” She waited a beat, then said, “Monica would control the money Truman left you. And she could embezzle that money to keep her company afloat.”
I shook my head, my throat now closing. “Why would she do that to me?”
Leilani shrugged. “You can take a girl out of Watts, but you can’t take Watts out of the girl. Money makes people do strange things, Nic, and you’re vulnerable right now. Near the edge, and you only need a little push to just completely... Don’t tell her that I told you about any of this.” She paused, then added, “I may be completely wrong, and really: I hope I’m wrong, but I just wanted you to—”
Monica rushed back into the foyer and closed the door. “No one’s out there. Maybe we should call the police.”
“The cops won’t do anything,” Leilani offered. “We didn’t actually see anyone. Anyone alive, at least.” To me, she said, “Maybe you shouldn’t sleep here tonight.”
“Come stay with me,” Monica said. “Hang out until all this blows over.”
“All what?” I asked. “Until all of my life blows over?”
“Nic,” Monica said, then stopped. Ellipses and redacted boxes of text hung in the air between us, creating an anxious quiet. “Well, I won’t be okay with you being here alone.”
“I’m fine,” I said. “I’m terrific. I’m cool.”
Monica shook her head. “I’ll go home, grab some clothes for my brunch with Magic Johnson tomorrow and I’ll spend the night.”
“I’m not an invalid,” I snapped. “I’m gonna have to learn how to be alone.”
“But you’re not alone,” Leilani said. “I’m here.”
“I am, too,” Monica said, then touched my shoulder.
I jerked as though I had been shocked by an eel. “I’ll be fine.” I attempted to smile. See? Would I be smiling if I wasn’t okay?
“I’m gonna give you something,” Leilani said. “You need it more than me, especially after what just happened.” She reached into her giant bag and pulled out a pistol.
I gasped, and took a step back.
Monica shouted, “Why the hell do you have that?”
“I’ve had this thing forever,” Leilani said, offering me the gun. “It’s just a .22.”
“Just?”
“She needs protection,” Leilani said.
“And you give her that?”
“What do you want her to use? A potato peeler?”
I hugged myself to resist temptation. “I have a machete.”
Leilani rolled her eyes. “You wanna be that close to whatever it is that wants to hurt you? I don’t think so.”
Monica shook her head. “This is a bad idea.”
“Spoken by someone who isn’t being terrorized day and night,” Leilani snapped. She turned back to me, and said, “Don’t worry. It’s not one of those black-market guns that blow up in your face. I got it at Wal-Mart.”
“Oh. Well. Then it’s okay,” Monica said, rolling her eyes.
I reached for the weapon, and Monica said, “Nicole, you hate guns.” I took the pistol from Leilani’s grasp. I had never held a gun in my life, not even a fake one. It was heavy. Oily. Cold.
“It’s already loaded,” Leilani said. “I don’t know how it works, but the Internet probably has instructions somewhere.”
Monica muttered, “I can’t believe you did this.”
Leilani sucked her teeth. “At least I’m doing something to help the situation. Doing something besides acting like a bitch.”
Monica said something else to Leilani, but I didn’t hear. The roar inside my head had reached a deafening pitch. As though I sat inside the Staples Center during Game 7 of the NBA Finals, and the Lakers were winning. Yeah. Like that. But without the ecstasy. And with a gun.
At 8:15, it was still hot out. There was a rumor that rain would come on Sunday afternoon; but this evening sky—clear of clouds but filthy from the fire—signaled that there would be no rain on Sunday, or on any other day.
I waved as Monica and Leilani pulled away from the house.
“I’ll be back in an hour,” Monica shouted out the window.
I returned to the dinner table. Someone had snuffed out all the candles, and now, the dining room smelled of burnt cinnamon and crushed cloves. Soft yellow light from the chandelier shone down on half-full wine glasses rimmed with grease and lipstick. I fell into a chair, placed the gun on the table, and stared at the ruins of the evening.
Tonite blasted from my cell-phone.
The ringing stopped; then, after a minute, it chimed.
Maybe Monica was right. Maybe someone had stolen the phone.
I glanced at the display: 1 NEW TEXT MSG.
I jabbed a button.
Babe. How R Mo & Lei? I miss dinners w/U 3. I luv u.
Something rumbled outside, near the kitchen, then hit the side of the house.
My pulse thundered and without thinking, I grabbed the gun from the table, and muttered, “I’m ending this bullshit right now.” I stomped through the kitchen, but faltered in my step when whatever it was struck against the house again.
As soon as I opened the door, I smelled fire. Ashes drifted from the sky, and my eyes burned from the filth. A large black t
rash can now sat behind my parked cars. The container had been filled with so many trash bags that the lid could not close.
I aimed the gun towards the receptacle, and waited for it to move again.
“Nic?”
I jerked and swung the gun to my left.
Jake stood there. He saw the .22, and the newspapers he carried fell to the ground. With his arms raised and face white with fear, he tried to speak but couldn’t.
I kept the gun pointed at him and said, “What are you doing?”
“I… I…” He swallowed and his nostrils flared. “I was pulling out your trash cans.”
I cocked my head and smirked. “Do I look stupid to you?”
Arms still raised, he shook his head. “I’m just trying to help. I’ve… Nicole. Put down the gun.”
“No.”
“Then aim it somewhere else.”
“Kiss my ass.” My finger—the one on the trigger—flexed.
Jake noticed. He paled more as he realized that a crazy widow, not his thug clients, would kill him today. “Who do you think has been picking up all the old newspapers and circulars and crap around here? Me, Nicole. I’ve been paying your gardener, putting out your trash cans, washing your cars, just so that your house looks lived in.” He took a deep breath, then whispered, “I left you messages, telling you that I was doing all of this so that you’d know. I’m just trying to help. Do you hear me? Are you there?”
The gun shook in my hands and my arms wobbled with fatigue. I had never listened to his messages. I had erased them as soon as I could, as though his voice emitted poisonous gas. And I hadn’t paid the gardener since the accident. And I had walked past delivery menus on the walkway and porch without stopping to pick them up. Monica had gathered all the trash in the house and had placed the bags near the kitchen porch, probably assuming that I could handle stuffing the bags into the cans and taking out the cans once a week. But I hadn’t. The person who claimed to have done all of that stood in front of me, staring into the eye of a box-store pistol.
Unless he was lying…
Disoriented now, I let my arms fall. The gun hit my thigh.
Jake slowly dropped his hands. “Nic—”
I turned away from him and stumbled back to the kitchen.
The View from Here Page 16
