by Tim Baker
‘Why the hell did he run?’
I’d been in Roselli’s home earlier that day. I knew exactly what made Deckard do it. The same thing that made the rest of them crawl through ancient pipes, struggle up through soil. Crash through windows; fall through air. Race across highways. Panic. Flee. Do anything to avoid the gods of cruelty: Roselli and his pizza oven; Old Man Bannister and his riding crop; the Frost Moose Hunter of Hoover’s renegade agents. The knowing ice pick of Boris Landis.
It was as if Los Angeles were no longer a city but a sepulchre; a mausoleum metropolis where the only signs of movement were the rigor mortis contraction of locking muscle. And the lisp of smoke from the funeral pyre, caught in the Santa Ana winds.
CHAPTER 40
Dallas 2014
The restaurant is low-ceilinged and dark, the kind of discreet place you’d steal into with your mistress, only to discover your wife in a corner booth with her lover. Evelyn reaches across the table and takes my hand, nursing it palm up, as though trying to get in a fast reading. ‘You’re hungry,’ she says, with clairvoyant-like authority.
It’s an easy assumption. We’d spent half the night and most of the morning making love and then walked for two hours through the historic centre. Who wouldn’t have an appetite? ‘I thought New York was the only city left where people still walked.’
‘San Francisco. Savannah, of course . . . But a Virgo like you would prefer European cities. I can imagine you walking for hours in Rome.’
‘You’re right, only I’m not a Virgo . . . ’
Evelyn runs a red fingernail across my palm. ‘But that’s impossible . . . ’
‘Want to see my birth certificate?’
She laughs. ‘There must have been some kind of exceptional celestial event that occurred at your birth. Were you premature?’
‘I know I was precocious.’ It’s time to come clean with her. ‘To tell you the truth, Evelyn, I don’t believe in any of that stuff . . . ’
‘You should open your mind. Your life changes when you have the courage to follow your Zodiac.’
I’m not one of those people who call credulity courage. ‘The only Zodiac I’ve ever paid attention to is this one,’ I say, pulling my sleeve back to display my watch.
‘Very retro . . . ’
‘It was my father’s. He gave it to me just before he died.’
‘I’m sorry . . . ’
‘Don’t be, it’s a good memory.’
Evelyn unclips her pocketbook, taking out a deck of tarot cards. She sees the look in my eyes and smiles. ‘Indulge me,’ she says, dealing five tarot cards facedown: anonymous yet somehow accusatory. With the speed of a stinging wasp, she turns them over.
I’m not crazy about my hand.
She taps the Fool. ‘You.’
‘Thank you very much . . . ’ I crane my head to look in detail at the card. The Fool is teetering on the edge of a cliff, a dog barking a warning at his heels. ‘Cute dog.’
‘In this arrangement, the Fool also signifies the son. The son who’s condemned to search for the Truth denied.’ Her finger glides across the surface of the card, pointing to the abyss beyond the cliff. ‘This then is his Quest.’ She nods to the Hierophant. ‘Which leads here, to the father.’
‘He doesn’t look very happy.’
‘His authority is being challenged. But it’s not only that. The Fool is looking forward, but the father is focused on the past, for he is also the judge.’
‘What crime has been committed?’
She points to the next card: Death. ‘Murder.’
‘Most foul . . . ’
Her eyes flash with annoyance. ‘This is serious.’ Before I can say anything, Evelyn continues, touching The Hanged Man. ‘The judgment has already been made.’ She looks up at me, her eyes luminous with professional exhilaration—like a medical scientist who has just made a major discovery. The person sitting opposite me is transfigured; I don’t know her anymore. It’s as though I’ve been seated at the wrong table. I feel like calling the waiter over and asking him to explain this mistake.
‘That’s one interpretation. They could mean anything.’ They could mean nothing.
‘There’s no “could” with the Tarot.’ She pushes the last card, which shows a tower being struck by lightning, towards the Fool. ‘The Tower is your domain in every sense of the word. Where you come from; what made you. Your hardships and successes.’
She goes to draw another card. ‘I wish you wouldn’t.’ But it’s too late, she’s already turned it. She stares at me.
‘I knew it.’
‘Knew what?’
Evelyn is trembling as she gazes at me. ‘You’re the Magus.’
The throb of the cork at my side makes me jump. In the heightened silence between us, the tumble of wine is a cascade. I go through with the ritual, swirling the glass, breathing in the fragrances of the white wine. Notes of almonds with a hint of straw. And something I recognize but can’t quite name. Pungent; overripe. A fruit or flower . . . Some childhood memory, emphatic in its importance yet somehow disturbing. The more I try to recall it, the thornier it becomes, pushing me away until it’s lost altogether and I am back in a fancy restaurant, nodding approval to a waiter.
‘You saw it, just then. You know you did.’
‘I was just trying to recall a smell. Wines are so complex these days.’ I turn to the waiter for support, but he just stares into the middle distance.
‘It wasn’t the wine, it was you. Something from your past.’ My past feels like it ended several weeks before when my wife divorced me to marry a French teacher. Evelyn stands. ‘I’ll be right back . . . ’
The empty space left by Evelyn’s departure is filled by the restaurant’s music. I hadn’t even noticed it before. They’re playing an orchestral version of It’s A Most Unusual Day. The fact that I even recognize it is almost as disturbing as the show Evelyn has just put on. Too depressed to continue wondering whether the card reading was a result of her forgetting to take her meds, I check the Dallas Morning News on my iPhone. Cowboys. Expressways. Local weather. State weather. National weather. I can remember the time when people had better things to do than spend their life looking at weather reports. There’s something about a local murder. I feel my blood slow as my heart slams on the brakes. Even the screen on the iPhone seems to dim with shock. I read it again. A former underworld figure, LeRoy ‘Tex’ Jeetton, was found shot, execution-style, inside his car. Three to the head. Three to the mouth. The punishment for an informer. Local police figured it was a settling of accounts.
The thought occurs to me before I can block it: was Tex’s murder linked in any way with our meeting? As far as I can recall, there was no one else in the bar, except the bartender. I dropped him home, at a ratty little place in Oak Cliff, round eleven. Did someone follow us? Did they take my license plate? I make a mental note to change my rent-a-car that afternoon.
Evelyn comes back and we eat our lunch in silence. It is not the simmering hard silence that punishes a table after a fight; it is a harmonious, respectful silence; peaceful and welcome. She doesn’t mention the cards again and I certainly don’t mention what happened to Tex.
It’s always a shock to leave the artificial twilight and the air-conditioning behind, to step out into the glare of unfiltered afternoon sunlight, the pith of humid air heavy as a summer cold. In that first exit moment, when the senses strain to adjust from the camouflage of fabrication to the authenticity of reality, it feels as if anything can happen.
And it does.
Dwayne Wayne reaches out of the dazzle of sunshine, takes my arm and pulls me into the back of a large, dark limo. Before I even have a moment to register what’s happening, it has happened. I have been abducted.
I look back through the tinted windows at Evelyn, who glances abstractly after the car, then turns and walks back inside the
restaurant, as though she just remembered she had left her phone behind.
The car slows and stops for a red light. I lurch away from Wayne, yanking hard on the car door. Locked. I try the window. The same. I thump the glass, the car pulling away. Dwayne Wayne chuckles to himself. ‘Evelyn called. Told us what was happening.’ There is a disconcerting panting coming from somewhere inside the car. I hope it’s not from me. He smiles, shaking his head. ‘You didn’t have a clue, did you? Damn, we’re good . . . ’
The panting grows in intensity—like someone losing a fight against a fatal asthma attack. ‘Who’s we?’ My throat is so dry, my voice cracks. I start to slowly ease my phone out of my jacket pocket.
Wayne chuckles again, barely able to contain his mirth. His head lolls back towards the window Evelyn had disappeared from. ‘Her . . . ’ He nods to the driver. ‘Him . . . ’ The driver turns around. Adam Granston. The Man on the Horn.
‘Tex is dead,’ Granston says.
I lean forward peering into the front passenger seat. Granston’s beagle is on the floor. One mystery solved. I almost have the phone out. Wayne hasn’t noticed.
‘Did you hear what I just said? Tex Jeetton is dead.’
‘I know.’ 9 . . .
Granston shakes his head in sorrowful disbelief, talking in a soft, contemptuous rush. ‘You know he’s dead. But that’s not knowing. Knowing is understanding why he’s dead. And you don’t have a clue.’
Silence. Broken only by the gentle hum of the air-conditioner and the heartbeat pant of the dog. 1 . . .1. The soft lisp of connection. Too late. Wayne spots the phone in my hand; snatches it away with a grin. ‘All electronic devices must be switched off.’
‘What the hell is going on?’
‘We’re protecting you.’
‘Abducting me, you mean.’
‘We’re taking you to a safe house.’
‘Kidnapping me!’
‘Saving your sorry ass. As for the kidnapping . . . ’ There is the pop of unlocking doors. ‘You are free to go.’
‘Right, jump out of a speeding car—what kind of choice is that?’
‘A choice.’ Granston chimes in, his eyes in the rearview mirror crinkling in a wizen approximation of amusement.
Ever the lawyer. ‘Where the hell is this safe house?’
‘We’re nearly there . . . ’ Wayne helpfully shows me his GPS. ‘Old Preston Hollow.’
The name rings a bell. I have to keep them talking. The more they say, the less of a surprise I’ll have waiting for me when we arrive—I hope. ‘Why take me to a safe house?
‘We have information.’
‘That’s what Tex said too, but he was lying.’
‘E. Howard Hunt?’ Wayne purrs the name, like a father trying to get his child to eat his peas. I don’t respond. I don’t like peas. ‘He wasn’t lying.’
Bullshit. ‘So what information do you have that’s more original?’
‘More original than Original Sin?’
Granston’s eyes flicker doubtfully. He looks even more worried by Wayne’s bizarre comment than I do.
I nod to the front. ‘What’s in the box?’ Wayne starts to look over to the passenger seat before he stops himself. His eyes flare with anger. Not good for me but good for the situation. Anger leads to mistakes.
’You think you’re so smart and you don’t know a thing about the Bannister case.’
‘That’s enough.’
Too late. Granston’s ire confirms my suspicions. This has got nothing to do with JFK. This is about my father. Granston and Tex both knew about him. And these two clowns taking me for a ride may be carpooling but they sure as hell don’t act like they’re real partners. Wayne glares at Granston, then settles his great bulk back into his seat. He speaks in a long, raw mutter. ‘Damn, it’s more than enough. It’s all he’ll need.’
‘Need for what?’
He turns, his eyes simmering with the sugar hit of insider dope. I feel a sucker punch coming somewhere. ‘For comprehension of the situation, Mr. Alston, and believe me, we certainly have a situation here.’
‘Kidnapping. Abduction. Unlawful detention. Theft.’ That last one scores an amazed, outraged look. I nod to my phone that he’s still nursing in his great hand. He reluctantly passes it back to me. ‘You used to be a bounty hunter, didn’t you?’
‘Bounty hunter, my ass. He was a bondsman.’
Wayne shakes his head in wounded disbelief. The car bucks its way over a grille, passing the glare of private armed security, then coasts down a tree-lined driveway into unknown territory.
An enormous mansion comes into view, Gothic and brooding. ‘Well, what do you know—Hogwarts!’
A reluctant smile slides its way across Wayne’s face as he shakes his head, giving up on further communication. I catch a glimpse of a weather-worn plaque as we pass. The car glides to a stop and Granston kills the ignition.
We sit there, the dog bevelling the silence with its pant. Wayne nods to my door. I get out, look around the luxury estate. The air is humid and pressurized. I feel like I’ve just stepped into a crowded elevator. Something touches my ankle. I look down at the beagle. Was it a warning; or a territorial challenge? Granston jingles some keys in my face. ‘Let’s get this over with!’ Like an impatient hit man.
I stay by the car, making sure my phone is on. ‘Get what over with?’ Granston looks at me, shakes his head, and then palms the air away between us, as if getting rid of a noxious smell.
Wayne pats me on the shoulder. ‘The Truth . . . ’ Capitalized.
The Truth was replaced by the Real years ago, and no one has ever been able to tell the difference. ‘And what is the Truth?’
‘You’re safe now. You’re protected by Howard Hughes.’
CHAPTER 41
Los Angeles 1963
Hastings knew all about interrogation.
He remembered pulling the flap open on the captain’s tent and finding the Japanese officer groaning senselessly in a chair, his trousers pulled down to his ankles. It was February 1945 and Susan was still alive. Tommy Alston, Marine sergeant and designated rifle company sadist, had hooked up a field radio to the officer’s privates. ‘This is useless,’ Captain Harper had said in his Ivy League baritone, prodding the half-conscious prisoner, the skin between his waist and knees charred black like overcooked spare ribs. ‘He’ll never talk . . . ’
‘Sure he’ll talk,’ Tommy said. ‘Otherwise he gets more of the same.’
‘You gave him too much,’ the captain said with a mixture of pride and reproach. ‘He’s too far gone, he can’t feel a thing anymore. But the other fellow . . . ’ The captain nodded to where the other prisoner sat, staring at him through strangely opened eyes. Captain Harold Harper III—rifle company commander, USILA All-American, scion of the Philadelphia Harpers—had snipped off the prisoner’s eyelids with silver toenail scissors engraved with the initials H.H. ‘The other fellow’s seen everything. Now all we have to do is strap the wires on. We won’t even have to juice him. He’ll tell us where they’re dug in.’ Harper suddenly turned, staring at Hastings standing at the entrance to the tent with an SCR-300 strapped to his back, the antenna scrapping the top of the tent. ‘Who gave you permission to enter?’ Hastings handed the captain a field radio. ‘It’s the major, sir. He’s raising hell.’
Harper snatched the handset from Hastings. ‘Yes, sir?’
Hastings looked from the staring Japanese prisoner to the one dying of his third degree burns then back up to the sergeant. Tommy stared defiantly back at him. ‘So help me God, Hastings, if you ever breathe a word!’ Hastings looked away. The captain handed him the handset, unholstered his service revolver and shot both prisoners right there. Blood lashed the canvas. ‘The goddamn major will be here any second.’ He turned to Hastings. ‘Don’t just stand there, help the sergeant with these bodies. Get a burial duty togeth
er, pronto.’
That night they went through the last of the lower, southern tunnels, torching them with flamethrowers. Fire licked the night, sending shadows leaping across the rock. Savage screams echoed like lost souls from the lower depths. By the next morning Suribachi had fallen and everyone thought that meant the island was theirs. They were in for a surprise. Another month of fire, thirst and blood. No one understood why the brass wanted the island. All this suffering; all these casualties—for what? A dead volcano without a harbour? It was the airfield. The world’s biggest gravestone sitting there in the Pacific, just three hours’ flight-time from Hiroshima.
It was someone in 3rd Platoon who found Captain Harper at sunrise the next day. If he noticed Harper’s eyelids were missing, he never mentioned it. The captain was posthumously awarded the Bronze Star. A couple of the men griped it should have been silver but the truth was that the major never liked Harper; and neither did the men for that matter. Hastings would have nailed Tommy Alston too on the island, but a sniper hit him in the shoulder on March 1st, and bought Hastings a ticket out of the theatre of war and into the house of horror that was waiting to ensnare him back home in Adelsberg.
In the years after, his dreams were plagued by the penetrating, lidless gaze of the Japanese prisoner. Staring not just in horror, but in helpless agony. Hastings had seen detainees blinded under barbaric interrogation but never the reverse—someone inflicted with unlimited sight: ultravision. Captain Harper and Sergeant Tommy Alston had created a new, terrifying order of existence, denying their victim the last resort: the shelter of not seeing; of being able to turn away when confronted with true evil. And having witnessed this appalling new condition firsthand, Hastings had become infected by it. He too was cursed with unfiltered perception, his eyes always aware, always riveted on that which must never be witnessed.
A decade later, Hastings was walking through Beverly Hills late one night when he heard a woman’s scream and then the sudden hush of a hand across a mouth. It was a new moon; a perfect Kill Night. He followed the noise up a long pebble driveway, passing the parked squad car, seeing through the shadows what others would have missed; the drag lines, mute and accusatory. He tracked them into the estate, finding one shoe, his footsteps silent as he walked the soft, betraying lawn that rode the centre of the driveway—nature his accomplice. He silently turned a corner. Two men. Their uniforms almost indistinguishable in the dark. One was wrestling with a woman’s wrists, the other with her ankles, both struggling to hold her down. Evil acts. It could have been Susan. It could have been any woman: any woman foolish or audacious enough to dare to cross a slim space of private grass at night on her own. To dare to think she was safe even for a moment from the brutality of men.
