by Karen Hall
“No, thanks.”
She tore his check out of her pad and laid it on the counter in front of him. He watched her as she went back to refilling saltshakers. She was spilling a lot more than she had been before. She glanced up and their eyes met. She quickly turned and busied herself checking coffee filters. Jack watched her with growing anxiety. A hazy suspicion was trying to form, but he pushed it away.
Suddenly Sherry was in front of him again. She crossed her arms and sighed as if she was disgusted.
“This is so dumb.”
“What?”
“Darlene telling me how to run my life.”
Jack relaxed a little. This was just some tiff between a couple of waitresses. He reached for his coffee cup and Sherry dropped the bombshell.
“She thinks I shouldn’t talk to you.”
Jack felt the muscles in his stomach contract as his dark fears were confirmed. Something in Sherry’s eyes triggered an old anger. He caught it, turned it off.
“Fine.” His voice was calm and quiet. “Don’t talk to me, then.”
“So is it true? What she said?”
“I don’t know what she said.”
“You know. About your family.”
“What about them?” He’d be damned if he was going to make this easy for her.
“You know.”
He stared at her, unflinching. She looked around to make sure no one was listening, then looked back at him and spoke quietly.
“She said you had a brother who was executed.”
It had been a while since Jack had heard those words. They went through him like a cold wind. He didn’t answer.
“She said it was a few years ago.”
Ten. A decade. Another lifetime.
“She said it was in Alabama.”
“Well, Darlene is handier than the World Book Encyclopedia, isn’t she?” His voice was calm and steady, but it was an effort.
“He musta done something terrible.”
Jack stood up and dropped more than enough money on the counter.
“You mean she left that out? Get her to fill you in. I’m sure it’d make her day.”
Heading back down the road, he told himself it was his own fault. He never should have let himself get drawn into that. He could hear Tallen’s voice from long ago: “Why do you talk to them? They don’t care about us. They’re just looking for gossip. We’re their entertainment.”
No matter where they’d lived, the Landrys had always been the family in town whose name was never spoken without the word those in front of it. Actually, Will Landry’s name was usually spoken alone, in a tone that said all anyone needed to know. And most people felt sorry for Lucy, for all she’d had to endure. But the boys were those Landrys. A blight on the community. The kids everyone warned their kids to stay away from.
Jack couldn’t even remember, really, how he and his brothers had first come to be disenfranchised youth. He remembered the earliest deeds, but not the compulsions. Maybe it was as simple as the fact that “juvenile delinquent” was an identity within their reach, and a negative identity was better than none at all. Or maybe it was because they’d inherited Lucy’s pride, and they simply couldn’t stand the way people looked at them. Maybe they’d provoked people’s ire to be spared their pity.
This notoriety had not been easily won. In rural Georgia, adolescent wildness was given a wide berth before it was looked on as anything other than good-old-boy-in-training behavior. Smoking and drinking and poaching a deer or two were hardly enough to raise any eyebrows. Drugs were a right step in the wrong direction—a step that all of them had taken as often as they could afford to. Upon realizing that the Landry brothers hurting themselves was not going to keep anyone up nights, they began to go that necessary extra mile. They hot-wired cars for joyrides, leaving them wherever they happened to get bored. They vandalized property. (Turning over the Coke machine in the basement of the courthouse was one of their favorite pastimes.) They committed all sorts of petty thefts and burglaries. Nothing hard-core in those early days. They’d left themselves room to grow.
None of this, of course, applied to Saint Cam. It wasn’t like he openly sided against them, or ratted on them when he knew something. He mostly stayed in his room and ignored them. But whenever he’d have occasion to meet their eyes, he’d give them a look that left no doubt as to the degree of his scorn. They’d made his path difficult, and he made sure they knew he hated them for it. Meanwhile, he studied hard, kept his nose clean, and walked around with his put-upon attitude, as if nothing short of some great cosmic blunder could have landed him in a house with these people.
The truth was, Cam knew better than that, he just chose to ignore it. He was too bright and too close to the source to be able to write them all off the way the rest of the world did. He couldn’t look at them and say “white trash, lowlife, end of story.” He knew damned well that wasn’t the end of the story. It wasn’t even the beginning.
Jack himself wasn’t really sure where it began. Maybe it had to do with the polarity of his parents: Lucy, a sensitive and delicate beauty from an old Savannah family that no longer had any money, but whose remaining forty acres allowed them to keep thinking of themselves as landed gentry. (They’d all disowned her when she’d married Will.) And Will Landry, a lone hellcat of a man whose only parent had been a mentally unbalanced daughter of sharecroppers; he’d never known anything but poverty and rejection—a fact he did not accept quietly. The two of them had been attracted to each other because of their vast differences, and then spent the rest of their lives trying to kill each other for them.
The boys had grown up caught in the middle. Lucy did everything to encourage the artistic inclinations they all seemed to have inherited from her—Cam’s prose, Ethan’s poetry, Tallen’s painting, Jack’s love of reading. Will thwarted her efforts at every turn; he was violently opposed to anything that made his sons look unmanly. He’d never managed to beat the art out of them (though God knows he’d tried), but he’d successfully trained them to sabotage their own efforts. All of them except Cam.
As far as Jack was able to figure, the difference was that Cam had used his talent to pull himself out, and the rest of them had clung to art as a source of comfort in the prison they thought they had no hope of escaping. Was it really that simple? he wondered, thinking about it now. Did it all boil down to the fact that Cam had felt hope and the rest of them hadn’t? And, if so, where had that hope come from? Was it something a person was born with, like blue eyes? Had the rest of them just been born without it? Where was the justice in that?
He chuckled to himself. Justice. What in God’s name was it going to take for him to stop considering the possibility that somewhere, somehow, the world was fair and life made sense? The truth didn’t have to be fair. The truth could be that Cam had been born with a chance and the rest of them hadn’t. Cam wouldn’t have liked that theory much; it would have deprived him of the right to feel superior.
Well, none of that mattered now. The accident waiting to happen they’d called a family had exploded. Jack and Cam had been the surviving debris, hurled in opposite directions, landing intact, but not whole. Now Jack spent his days going through the motions of living, never really sure why he bothered. And somewhere out there, Cam was busy turning his life into a quest for vindication. Maybe he’d even gotten it. Well . . . fine. Good for him.
The drizzle had turned into a steady rain, and Jack could feel the wet chambray of his work shirt sticking to his back. He’d be drenched by the time he got home. What the hell. This day had never had any intention of being on his side.
Suddenly it flashed back to him. The thing that had been different about the dream last night. He didn’t know why it had left him so upset, but he knew what was different. Last night, for the first time, Cam’s body had been lying there, too.
THREE
Randa managed to get a couple of hours of sleep before it was time to go to work. She woke with a fuzzy knowledge that someth
ing horrible had happened, but she couldn’t remember what it was. When she did remember, she had a moment of hope that it had been a nightmare. She saw the jeans and blouse she’d worn draped over the chair and that hope dissolved, leaving her with only the crushing reality.
Cam was gone. Even more gone than he had already been. She wondered how many years it would take before she wouldn’t even remember what he’d looked like, or the sound of his voice. Or the tiny scar on his chin she’d never asked him about. Or the way he crinkled his nose when she said something that annoyed him. Or the way he stared at his hands when he lied.
She wished, like she’d wished a year ago, she’d had a chance to say good-bye. The man from the coroner’s office had told her they wouldn’t release Cam’s body until after they had spent a reasonable amount of time trying to find Jack, so Randa knew there was no funeral planned. There would probably be some sort of a memorial service that she could go to if she made an issue of it, but whenever she imagined it, she could see herself alone in a corner, watching people console Nora. No thanks.
She decided to go to work, since the alternative was sitting around in her apartment making herself crazy. She showered and dressed in layers of black—black leggings, black boots, black oversized turtleneck sweater. The contrast between the dark clothes and her crop of shoulder-length wheat-colored hair might compensate for something. She stared in the mirror at her pale, sleep-deprived skin and exhausted eyes and decided any energy spent on makeup would be wasted. She brushed some peach-colored blush over her cheekbones and said to hell with it.
She dialed the paper and asked to speak to Roger Eglee, the managing editor. She had to start somewhere, and Roger was a friend. At least, he seemed to be. She no longer put her faith in things like that. “Okay,” Roger said as soon as he picked up the phone, “what creative excuse have you come up with for missing the staff meeting?”
“It’s pretty creative,” she answered in a flat voice. “Cam’s dead.”
“What?”
“He killed himself. Last night.”
“Oh my God.” In addition to writing a column for the paper, Cam was also one of Roger’s poker buddies, although he’d been quick to side with Randa when everything had blown up. “Oh, my God. Randa. I can’t believe it. What happened?”
She proceeded to tell him the whole story, including the part about the police station and the liquor store, which sounded even more preposterous as she recounted it. She asked him to spread it around the office before she got there so she wouldn’t have to go through telling it again. Told him she’d be in soon, then hung up before he could argue with her about it.
Half an hour later, Randa parked her five-year-old Volvo behind the ratty two-story building that housed the Chronicle’s offices and printing presses. The building was on the east end of Sunset, in a neighborhood where Randa definitely had to get in her car and drive if she wanted anything other than a greasy burrito for lunch. But she had always liked the old building. It wouldn’t have made sense for the paper to be in some spanking-clean, architecturally barren building on Ventura Boulevard. Creativity thrived in an underdog environment, and this old firetrap certainly provided that.
They were an odd bunch, the people who wrote for the Chronicle. Like most members of the alternative press, they thought of themselves as “real” writers. They tolerated rival journalists (barely), but looked down on their peers who sold out for the big bucks and bigger compromises of Hollywood. (The Chronicle writers thought of the screenwriters as whores, the screenwriters thought of the Chronicle writers as permanent adolescents, and neither group was entirely wrong.) For Randa’s part, the job provided her with two things she craved: freedom and respect. She knew she wasn’t likely to find either anywhere else.
There was an eerie feeling in the air as she made her way through the newsroom. There was no music blaring, no laughter coming from the offices, none of the raucous atmosphere that usually prevailed. Randa could see people looking at her out of the corners of their eyes. She stared straight ahead and walked quickly to the relative security of her tiny, cluttered office.
The call to Roger hadn’t ended up buying her much. The minute she sat down at her desk, her office was filled with people who wanted all the gory details. She’d given them a few perfunctory answers, but made it clear she didn’t enjoy talking about it. Finally the vultures cleared out, and she was left with a couple of Cam’s actual friends. Barely an improvement, all things considered.
Keith Heller, the paper’s film critic, sat in a corner and stared at the wall. Ever since Randa and Cam had parted, Keith had been actively avoiding her, wasting little energy on subtlety. He had adopted Nora’s version of the story like it was the latest software upgrade. (According to Nora, Randa’s only reason for being attracted to Cam was some bizarre fetish for the criminal history of his family. Randa supposed that made her a first cousin to those crazy women who married their death row inmate pen pals. A wimpy cousin, though, who didn’t have the guts to go for the real thing.) In truth, Keith had never liked her anyway, and now he had something concrete to pin it on. She was sure he was currently unhappy about the fact that the pseudo-wake had ended up in her office. It made her grateful for Roger, who was sitting on the corner of her desk, picking the eraser off a pencil and shaking his head over and over.
“I just can’t believe it,” he said for the dozenth time. He looked ill; but then, Roger was a man who, under the best of circumstances, looked like he was on his way to a CAT scan. “This must be awful for you,” he said to Randa.
She nodded, a bit embarrassed. Since Keith considered her grief to be psychotic, it wasn’t a topic she wanted brought up for discussion.
Keith looked at Roger as if Randa weren’t in the room. “I must have left him ten messages this week. I should have gone over there. I just never would have thought . . .”
“No one would have,” Roger assured him.
“I don’t get it.” Keith shook his head. “Why now? His career was taking off, he had finally gotten into a decent relationship—”
“Excuse me?” Randa interjected.
Keith shrugged. “His words, not mine.”
Randa winced. You vindictive ass.
Roger jumped in to help. “Do you have any idea why he would have called Randa out of the blue?” Randa appreciated the diplomatic acknowledgment of her existence.
“No.” Keith looked at her, finally. “He hadn’t mentioned you in a long time.”
It was another shot. Roger didn’t notice this time. He was lost in his own thoughts. “This whole liquor store thing is from Jupiter.”
Keith nodded. “The cops had some candy-ass case they wanted off the books, they found out a little about Cam and they just used him.”
“They said they found the gun in his apartment,” Randa offered. She wasn’t trying to incriminate Cam, but an explanation would be a nice thing to live with.
“They did?” Keith’s tone was mocking. “Well, that clinches it. The LAPD certainly wouldn’t lie.”
Randa told herself that Keith was extremely upset about Cam and held her tongue.
George Maynard appeared in the doorway. George was the paper’s insufferably conceited music critic, whom Cam had always described as “the most obnoxious person I know whom I like anyway.” Randa agreed with the first half of that.
“What the hell is going on? Is it true?”
Roger nodded glumly. “Yeah.”
“Christ. I don’t believe it.” George removed his wire-rimmed glasses in a gesture that seemed calculated. He and Cam had never been particularly close, but there was no way he was going to miss the melodrama. It fascinated Randa, the way people vied for custody of the friendship of anyone who died young or tragically. George, putting in his bid, came into the office and pulled up a chair. “So . . . what? Does anybody believe this?”
“No one believes he robbed a liquor store,” Roger answered. “I mean, come on.”
“Well, maybe he did.”
George had an endearing habit of switching positions the minute anyone agreed with him. “Maybe it was, like, Attack of the Runaway Gene Pool.”
“George.” Roger gave him a look of contempt. George ignored it and turned to Randa. “Somebody said you were there.”
“No. I mean, I was, but . . . I got there right after . . .” She didn’t know how to finish, so she didn’t.
“What were you doing there?” George asked, as if he were conducting a Senate hearing.
“She says he called her,” Keith answered.
“He did call me,” Randa said, trying to stay calm.
Keith shrugged. “Maybe it was someone else, you were half-asleep and you thought it was Cam.”
“Dammit!” She picked up a binder from her desk and hurled it at the wall, where it crashed and sent paper flying. The guys were all too stunned to move.
“He called me! I’m sorry you don’t like the narrative, but that’s what happened!”
Roger was motioning for her to calm down. “Randa, everybody is just—”
“Don’t!” Randa stopped him. “Whatever happened last night, none of you were in it! And how I felt about Cam and why I felt it was nobody’s damned business a year ago and it’s nobody’s damned business now!” She left, slamming the door behind her as hard as she could.
She sat in her car and took deep breaths. Now she’d done it. It might have felt good for five minutes, but those five minutes were not going to come cheaply. Keith was already after her scalp. Well, to hell with it. If she got fired she could go find herself a job with a salary she could tell someone with a straight face.
Truth be told, she had no idea what the fallout from this was going to be. She had no history of outbursts. To the contrary, she usually chewed her nails and internalized and planted the seeds of future ulcers.
Randa didn’t know what to do with herself. She didn’t want to go home and be alone, but being around other people had certainly not turned out well. She decided to drive. Driving always made her feel better. It was a way to have a connection to the world without having to participate. She especially loved to drive in LA, where the landscapes changed vividly from one neighborhood to the next. The lost souls wandering down Hollywood Boulevard. Overdressed agents lunching with disgruntled clients at the outdoor cafés on Sunset Plaza, all of them happy enough to see and be seen; breathing carbon monoxide was a small price to pay. Tanned, muscular guys in tight jeans strolling down Santa Monica Boulevard with their arms around each other. Beverly Hills housewives dressed in their Chanel suits, on their way to lunch at the Beverly Wilshire before the Ferragamo trunk show at Saks. The Santa Monica promenade, with its bizarre mix: yuppies; beach bums; panhandlers; an occasional schizophrenic preaching fervently to a nonexistent congregation.
