Chapter 15

“You haven’t been yourself, Dylan” says Isabella.

“Yes,” says John. “You’ve been distracted.”

My boss and his lovely wife are concerned. They think I’m unhinged. That may be too strong a word, but they, in their tender, elliptical way, in a dinner out at my favorite restaurant—the one Isabella introduced me to when I first arrived in Los Angeles—believe I need mending.

“Is this an intervention?” I say, laughing. “Get me out in public where I can’t make a scene. Boo.”

They smile uncomfortably. The candlelight is gauzy. An evening rain sweeps the street and disappears. Voices, the snap of a napkin, the rattle of silverware. It’s good to be out. It’s been a rough week. (Do I even register irony anymore?) I do feel out of sorts, a kind of unraveling. I must stay composed. Pull myself together. Am I biting my nails? Is my hair okay? My clothes are fine. Skirt, matching top, smart jacket, shaved legs, and I can see in the window that my face is right. I look good. I say that with humility, but I do. Yet still … two men down. A toll. I expected it to be hard.

There were moments when it felt almost glorious to be so powerful. A force. Oh, yes. That rush of things colliding in me, all of it sacred, animalistic. But hours later, when it fades, when the pulse slows, there are these things inside, images and thoughts, not loud but echoing. Maybe that’s what John and Isabella see. Maybe what’s inside slips out into the world if we’re not careful. Breathe. Breathe. Slow the heart, allow no betrayal on the face. Smile. Notice things. An old man pulls a chair out for a lady. The waiter is handsome, buttoned up in his white shirt. Calm. Calm. Let the minutes tick; calm. I can do this.

“Do you still see that producer?” says Isabella. “What’s his name?”

“Jacob. That’s not a steady thing. Jacob’s my diversion. My loyal, misbegotten terrier. He calls and takes me places I like, but no, Jacob is not a keeper. I do like his company, though, at times. He’s like one of those white-noise machines when you can’t sleep.” I smile at the metaphor, but John and Isabella, I suppose, are not here for laughs. “We saw a movie the other night. Nocturnal Animals. Have you heard of it? It opened with fat ladies dancing naked with sparklers.”

“How fat?”

“Obese. Like fleshy mountains.”

“Why?”

“I never figured it out.”

“Jacob’s not your type,” says John, steering us away from the sparkler ladies.

“What is my type?” I say, playing their game, sipping Shiraz in soft light. They are so good, John and Isabella, so pained and worried. I tell them they shouldn’t be. My work has been fine; my designs never better. John said so the other day. If they only knew, but why should they? Even my detective doesn’t know; he’s getting close, though. Jensen is the key. What shall I do with him? I always knew he’d be the toughest one. The chink. Jensen and his African queen wife, Wanita. What’s behind her regal mask? I’d like to know. I have seen them together. I have spied. Poor Jensen, not like the other two. He is … I don’t know how to say it, but Jensen is delicate, a man-boy almost. You can see it in his eyes, warm and fascinated, like beekeepers’ eyes. He got mixed up in it. But still he made choices. Yes, he did. We are as accountable for our weaknesses as for our strengths. I wish it weren’t so, that a measure of absolution could be given, but it can’t. He made choices. Choices. Choices. Choices. The word ricochets. Maybe I’ll discuss it with my detective. One day. But Jensen is the rub. That’s why he’s last. Isabella and John are looking at me.

“I’m fine, really,” I say. “It’s lovely of you to care. Maybe I’ve been a little distracted. There’s so much to do. Some days, I’m full of energy; other days, overwhelmed. I’m sure you both feel that, from time to time. You have moods. The good days and the bad. Even you, Saint Isabella.”

Why did I say that? That was mean. Unnecessary. She looks at me, hurt. I reach for her hand, whisper, “Sorry.”

“Of course I do,” says Isabella, recovering and determined to keep eyes on me. “It never stops at the shelter. Homeless women, abused women. They come every day. How to fix them? That’s what I tell John at night. How to fix them? It’s the world, isn’t it? How far we’ve let things go. What we accept. The gallery is a headache too. Artist egos. Haggling over prices, and even a few small tragedies. The other day, a glass sculpture by a Korean artist—you’ve never heard of her, but one day she’ll be big—tumbled off its pedestal and shattered across the floor.”

“You have insurance?”

“Yes. But every work is irreplaceable. Like a life, you know. What is that word? Ah, yes, ‘singular.’ Every piece exists only once. I called her, and she cried for hours. I felt terrible.”

John touches his wife’s shoulder. They look at one another, then at me.

“We’re worried about you,” says Isabella. “Is it like the time before?”

“No, no.” I shake my head. Be calm. Be calm. “That was different.”

I wanted to die back then. Took all those pills in two gulps and waited to vanish away from what Gallagher, Jamieson, and Jensen did to me. But John and Isabella found me and took me to the hospital. I told them on that long-ago night about my crazy, manic mother. I was never as bad as she. Nooo. She could be so present, though, when she was there. Full of life. A splendid, restless cartoon. Then, the next day, curled in bed, covers up, blinds drawn. I’m not like that. I’ve been good for years.

Isabella looks away and back. I think she might cry.

“We care about you,” says John.

The handsome waiter appears. Thank God. The table quiets. Lamb. Trout. Something vegetarian for Isabella. More bread. Fresh pours. An anything-else smile. He’s gone. I feel a tear coming, but I push it back. Strong. Strong. Strong. No cracks. But for a second, I think I’d like to cry in Isabella’s arms. Her warm, giving arms, her breasts, the scent of her, the Brazilian saint that she is. She has healing powers, I’m sure. I could say it all in a flood of words. Confess. Over dinner. My last supper. But no. Jensen may be weak; I am not. They made me strong, those men. They miscalculated. But here sits Isabella in candlelight, drawing me to her. Her alluring foreign accent, her giving self, her black hair falling, the glint of earrings. I almost lean in; part of me wants to. No. I stay in my seat and swallow my weakness.

“I’ll never forget that night,” says Isabella. “You had just started working with John. We stopped by your house by chance. You were stripping wood floors and we wanted to help. You were unconscious. When we got back from the hospital, I held you on the couch until dawn.”

“That’s why we’re worried,” says John. “We don’t know what happened before, so we don’t know if it’s happening again.”

“It’s not.”

“But …”

“But what?”

I’m silent. My eyes dart over them. My heart beats fast. I don’t like this interrogation. These questions. Why am I holding the butter knife so tightly? I release it, take a sip of wine. Calm, calm. They are friends. Smile.

“Why did you stop seeing your therapist?” says Isabella, so gentle in cutting to the matter.

“I was cured.” I laugh with perhaps a bit too much force. We are in need of levity, but I can see in their eyes, it’s no time for humor. I have a flashing thought, Detective: Will you look at me one day the way they are looking at me now? Oh, dear, I hope not. But I was done with therapy and dissecting childhood and adolescence. My shrink had me on too many meds. I’m better now, despite what they might think. I see the world clearly. I admit to being a little distracted, out of sorts, as they say, but it will pass. It will pass very soon. Note to self: It will pass.

“All we want is to help.”

“You are helping. This dinner, your friendship. You are the dearest people to me.”

John reaches out and holds my hand. Isabella my other. I feel their warmth. But I can go no further. I can’t tell them what led me here, what led me to that night years ago when they found me on the floor. It is a ghost, yes, a reappearing ghost. But she’s mine.

Dessert comes. Isabella and I share a chocolate cake; John has ice cream and a brandy. It’s good to be out. The hum of people. The charged air. The waiter glides along the bar. John looks up to the TV. Images but no sound. A picture of Jamieson appears with one of those cutouts like the dead-man graphics the TV uses for murder victims. John goes to the bar. The anchor speaks. The camera pans Jamieson’s building, the outside of his firm, one of his designs. Gallagher’s face pops up next to Jamieson’s. They look like two boys in a yearbook: the pretty one; the wiry, deviant one. The police chief speaks from a podium. A shot to the skyline of Los Angeles. And back to the outside of Jamieson’s building on Grand, the one where the deed was done, and dare I see, just beyond the yellow tape, you, my detective. A fleeting instant and you’re gone. Euphoria. I needed to see you. To know you are on the case. And you are. You look tired, though. Could use a haircut. But it’s you following clues. Back to the anchor. He purses his lips. We fade to weather.

John returns to the table, shaken.

“Paul Jamieson’s been murdered,” he says. “They found him naked in his apartment. A finger missing.”

The finger is irrelevant. Really. It was a whim, just happened. A sudden impulse. Like picking at a scab. It must have been in my subconscious. God knows what’s down there. But the news likes a missing finger. I can’t blame them. It is a nice tidbit, a ghoulish touch for my mystery. John sits at the table. His ice cream is nearly melted. Isabella holds his hand. He finishes his brandy and looks back to the TV as if Jamieson will reappear.

“What’s happening?” he says. “Two architects in less than a week. Something’s connected.”

“I didn’t know them well,” I say.

“They’re looking for Stephen Jensen.”

I think to myself with a sly inside smile, Oh, where, oh, where can he be?