8

ROSE MARIE DROVE HER RED Subaru, and Farrell sat in the passenger seat. He didn’t want to stutter in front of the kids, and so he swallowed once and then again. Still, he took the card from his pocket and looked at the bear and then the message.

“What’s that?” said Rose Marie.

“A postcard,” said Farrell. “How old are your kids? Teenagers, right?”

“That’s right,” said Rose Marie. “What’s on your mind?”

He put the card back in his pocket. He rolled a shoulder.

“I don’t want to stutter,” he said.

“They won’t mind,” she said. “They’ve got other things to worry about.”

* * *

And, she considered her own worries. Or at least she confronted a mysterious sensation, which was that the edges of her sense of self had become a little fuzzy, and at the same time, in that haziness, she discovered a desire or maybe it was already a fact that this was a matter of blending with the warm understanding of the man who sat next to her. How could there be any awakening, since she had thought she was beyond anything like that. She didn’t know if the need for that warm comfort and the fact of melding with someone else was more surprising or terrifying. Or the terror came from not being sure that he felt it, too.

* * *

In her warm, inquisitive glance, Farrell considered the search for the British girl, the trash he saw at the side of the road, used condoms and their foil packages, empty pints of vodka, candy bar wrappers, cigarette butts, and empty baggies that had still had the dust of marijuana inside.

The sprawl of the UCLA medical center had the appearance of all such vast institutions, not quite as ominous as prisons, but not completely reassuring. The clutter of buildings made Farrell aware of how alone he was. Their haphazard arrangement suggested the unleashed forces behind such things, the arrival of money, the advancement of technology, as though these developments were alive and not necessarily interested in specific people. Things that you couldn’t control, or that just happened to you. LA all over, Farrell thought.

One building with a flat roof, boxlike and made of aluminum, already pitted by the salt air from the Pacific, had taken a hard to define but still noticeable hit from an earthquake. Still usable but not perfect, as though something weighed on it.

A new parking lot was in front of the buildings, the lot surrounded by orange netting as a temporary fence, and at the entrance sat a guard in booth who issued parking tickets and took money. He wore dark glasses and reminded Farrell of the scent of formaldehyde. Beyond the booth sat a backhoe with the teeth of its bucket against a new pile of dirt. Rose Marie licked her lips, checked her makeup in the rearview mirror, then kept her eyes on the distance. Outside the car they stood in air that had a hint of the Pacific, which was only a few miles away.

“So, it’s glamour you work with,” Rose Marie said.

“Not glamour, no, not exactly,” he said.

“But fame, the movies, things like that,” she said.

“It may not seem like it, but Hollywood is still like a mill town. A lot of people in town work there. From electricians to seamstresses to hairdressers.”

“But that’s not your part, right?”

“No, that’s not my part,” he said.

In the parking lot she was so quiet that she seemed to be a sponge for sound. Farrell took her hand, and she squeezed back. Something new. They were holding hands. She said, “I’m counting on you.”

“I get it,” he said.

“I bet you do,” she said. “That’s what’s strange.”

The revolving door of the hospital moved a visitor into the lobby with a mechanical shove. This way, my friend, it seemed to say. Here you are.

“You’re going to have to perform,” said Rose Marie.

He nodded.

“Okay,” he said.

He swallowed.

The room, on the fifth floor, was a school of sorts. A window looked over the clutter of the medical center, the buildings for surgery, oncology, tropical disease research, brain research (Farrell thought he could hear the banging of MRI machines), chronic pain management, and others.

The kids’ room had a whiteboard, and on it earlier in the day a teacher had drawn shapes for geometric theorems, side angle side, angle side angle, and a right triangle with boxes at each leg and the hypotenuse.

“What?” said Rose Marie.

Trigonometry… Hubcap, humbug, lemon…tight fit…tight.

“Trigonometry,” he said.

“You can leave, if you want,” said Rose Marie.

“No,” he said. “I’ll stay.”

The classroom had the lingering odor of a place where kids got sick, like dirty socks mixed with Lysol.

“Do the kids get sick here?” he said.

“Sometimes,” she said. “Not just throwing up, but they can have a seizure, too. Have you ever seen one?”

“I’ve dealt with epilepsy,” said Farrell.

They walked into the middle of the room.

“Gerry, Catherine, Ann, and Jack,” Farrell said. “Are they coming soon?”

“You’ve got a good memory,” said Rose Marie.

Like tracks left in the dirt of the shoulder off Mulholland. Something left under some brush.

“I wish I had a surprise for them,” Farrell said.

“That’s one of the things these kids never get. They know what’s coming. They’ve given up on surprises.” She kept her eyes on his. “I guess you’ll be all right. You don’t look like you scare easily.”

Not until recently, he thought.

“Just charm the kids,” said Rose Marie.

The kids hung at the door for a moment, dressed in street clothes, jeans and shirts and flip-flops, Gerry with red hair and freckles, like an advertisement Farrell thought for Boy Scouts and merit badges. Although here, close up, Gerry’s eyes swept over Farrell with a piercing awareness. And just like that, Farrell thought, What the fuck is wrong with me? Why so vulnerable? Why on the verge of tears?

He smiled.

Catherine was a little more thin than in the pictures, far along in the heroin chic look, and when she came in she gave Farrell that same knowing glance, as though she had an advanced understanding of what people really struggled against, or that she had spent time in some demanding discipline, as in a monastery where residents take a vow of silence. It’s not that she knew anything about what he had been looking for off the shoulder of Mulholland, but she recognized the mood that came from it. Hope mixed with terror and anger. Farrell was more certain about the need to find the British girl than ever.

Jack wore a baseball cap to the side, just like the young men in South Central LA. He glanced at Farrell and came in with a sort of swagger, as though he was going to be able to bluff his way out of glioblastoma multiforme by sheer attitude and defiance, which, Farrell guessed, was about all he had. Ann was on edge, and the least friendly of the lot. Her dark eyes didn’t greet him.

“This is my friend Quinn Farrell,” said Rose Marie. “I thought he might talk to us about the movie business.”

The kids nodded, although Catherine dared him to look into her eyes. It wasn’t so much that she was distant as above Farrell in some way. If you made a fool of yourself in front of a kid this sick it’s not something you were likely to forget.

Catherine seemed to exist with pure awareness. Farrell was comforted by this, since at the moment, in the presence of the mood here, fatigue seemed to drop on him like a net. It came from lies, distortion, and nonsense that he had to deal with. Here, at least, there would be none of that.

“Let’s sit down,” said Rose Marie.

The classroom chairs had been arranged in a sort of semicircle with two in the middle, one for Farrell and one for her. She got some boxes of juice out of the small refrigerator and passed them out, giving one to Farrell with a straw sticking out of it. He thought this was the kind of straw they probably used around the mirror at Terry Peregrine’s house.

Rose Marie glanced at Farrell as though to say, All right. You’re on. Charm them.

“So,” said Catherine. “I know something about Hollywood. My parents had a neighbor in Woodland Hills. Before they dumped me here.”

“What did the neighbor do?” Farrell said.

“Pretty sketchy stuff, it seemed to me,” she said.

“Like what?” he said.

“He was a kind of host for people who came to town, you know, a new actress from Germany, a director from Poland, a film distributor from Argentina. He showed them the sights.”

“Sights?” he said.

“Yeah, you know. Do I have to spell it out?”

“No,” he said. “No. You really don’t.”

“So, you know,” she said.

“Yeah,” said Farrell. “You can say that. What was the neighbor’s name?”

“You think you know him? Gerald Stiller. Ring a bell?”

He shook his head.

“So, is that kind of thing you do?” she said.

“No,” he said. “Other things.”

“Like what?”

Her eyes were violet and blue, and Farrell recalled the eyes of Mary Jones.

“Let’s get to know one another,” he said.

“Sure,” said Catherine. “Let’s get to know each other. But don’t think we are going to let you off the hook about it.”

“Sure,” he said.

“Give him a chance,” said Rose Marie.

“We’ll give him a chance,” said Jack. A scar, as though made of pink bubble gum, ran below his turned around baseball cap.

“Turn on the charm,” said Ann.

“Do you think you can charm us?” said Catherine. “Go ahead.”

“Try,” said Gerry. “Yeah. See what you can do.”

“You’re double teaming me,” said Farrell.

“We do it all the time,” Catherine said.

“Let’s talk about animal sounds,” Farrell said.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” said Catherine. “You want to talk about that?”

“Yes,” Farrell said.

“So, what about animal sounds?” said Gerry.

“I knew a woman who spoke Russian,” Farrell said.

“Who was that?” asked Catherine.

Rose Marie kept her eyes on him. After all, they hadn’t known each other for very long. But to Farrell the time didn’t seem brief at all.

“Just a friend,” Farrell said. “So, I asked her what sounds animals make in Russian.”

“Aren’t they the same?” said Ann, her golden curls bouncing a little as she turned from the window and looked at Farrell.

“Well, in America, what noise does a pig make?”

“Oink, oink, oink,” she said. “Isn’t it the same?”

“In Russia, it goes, khriu, khriu, khriu.”

“What about donkeys?” said Catherine. “Here they go eee-ah, eee-ah.”

“Not in Russia,” Farrell said. “In Russia it goes ooah, ooah.”

“Seriously,” said Ann.

“Yes,” Farrell said. “That’s what they say.”

“How about ducks?” said Catherine. “Don’t they go quack, quack, quack?”

Rose Marie kept her eyes on him.

“In Russia, a duck goes krya, kyra, kyra.”

“Krya, kyra, kyra? Not quack, quack, quack . . . ?”

A man in green scrubs went by the open door, and he glanced at Rose Marie as though to say, If you need help, I’ll be right down the hall.

“Are you making this up? I bet you make a lot of stuff up,” said Catherine.

“What about a rooster?” Farrell said.

“Everyone knows that,” said Gerry. “It goes cock-a-doodle-do.”

“In Russia it goes ku ka ryeh ku.”

They laughed, and Rose Marie’s gaze finally came across. Just wait, it said, until I get you alone.

Jack had been quiet, but the animals in the barnyard pulled him in, too.

“All right,” he said. He looked right at Farrell, as though he had him dead to rights.

“I’ve got you. What about a cow. It goes moo, moo, right?”

“You’re right,” Farrell said. “The same.”

Jack looked around as though he had just set things right. See, he seemed to be saying. Just listen to me. But all of them laughed, and then they laughed harder because they were laughing, and Rose Marie was so glad to see them laughing she laughed, and then Farrell did, too.

“Krya, kyra, kyra,” said Ann. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

“What about a coyote?” said Catherine.

“Like when?” said Farrell. “They make different sounds.”

“How about when they are searching for something?”

“For instance?” Farrell said.

“Roadkill, something like that.”

“Or something that died in the brush. Deer are always dying in the hills.”

“Sometimes it’s roadkill,” said Catherine.

“Yeah,” said Gerry. “But they don’t leave a deer in the road.”

“What happens?” said Ann.

“Someone drags it to the side of the road or pushes it into the brush,” said Catherine. “You have to report it to the cops and all of that.”

“Not always,” said Gerry. “Not always. Sometimes they just leave it there.”

“What do you think?” said Catherine to Farrell.

“Maybe someone drags a deer to the side of the road and sticks it in a bush because they don’t want any trouble. As you say. Better to hide it.”

“Maybe the birds show you where it is,” said Catherine. “You can see them circling, can’t you?”

“You could watch for the birds if you were trying to find the deer,” said Gerry.

“But you know, sometimes they just drive over it until it’s flat. Like a smear,” said Catherine.

“There’s a phrase for that,” said Farrell.

“Yeah?” said Catherine. “Like what?”

“A s-s-sail cat,” said Farrell.

“A sail cat?” said Catherine. “A sail cat?”

The kids laughed and Rose Marie did, too.

“Well,” said Catherine. “It will never be the same. If I ever get out of here and see one of those . . . sail cats.”

“I’ll keep an eye out for birds,” Farrell said. “When they are looking for something, they seem to spiral around, like water going down the drain.”

“Yeah,” said Catherine. “Like little bits of ash. In the water.” She went on looking at him. “Are you looking for something?”

Those eyes lingered on his face and he felt it almost like a slight breeze. Farrell thought of the sky along Mulholland. He hadn’t seen any birds but he would be careful later, this afternoon or tomorrow.

“No lies,” she said.

He nodded.

“Sure I’m looking for something. Isn’t everyone?” Farrell said.

Catherine kept her eyes on him.

“What about your stutter?” she said.

“I do some exercises,” he said. “Sometimes it seems like a little man is there. I can’t shut him up.”

“We’ve all got some problems here. And they aren’t sometimes.” Catherine said. She pursed her lips as she thought.

“People come in here all the time and they think they know about our problems. They don’t. Not until you are in the spot I’m in. They can go fuck themselves,” Gerry said.

Outside in the hall a man polished the floor with a machine that had a large, circular brush, and it made a little whisper as he moved it back and forth.

Farrell took the postcard out of his pocket, the picture side held to the kids. The bear’s face was turned to the camera, the expression utterly blank, as though it was peering from some other world.

“What’s that?” said Gerry.

“Let me see it,” said Catherine.

She took it with a slight, haunting tug.

“Good looking bear,” she said.

“Where is it postmarked?” said Gerry.

“Alaska,” said Catherine.

“I’d like to ask you about it,” said Farrell.

“What do I know about bears?” Catherine said.

“It’s not the bear,” said Farrell.

“Or what do I know about Alaska,” said Catherine. “Lot of trees and fish and caribou, right?”

“I guess,” said Farrell. “But look at the message.”

Catherine flipped the card over, glanced at the loopy script, then held it up for the others. They passed it around, as in some kind of parlor game, and then it came back to Catherine.

“What do you think?” said Farrell.

“Phony,” Catherine said. “Too many smiley faces and hearts. No one uses both. And this T-ster thing. No one says that. It’s so ten years ago. You know what I mean?”

“Yeah,” said Farrell.

“So, it’s just phony.”

Farrell put out his hand.

“Thanks,” he said.

“Sure,” said Catherine. She handed it back. “No girl writes like that. This Mary Jones. Is there really someone called Mary Jones? Name sounds funny, too.”

Farrell put the card back in his pocket. For a moment the scent of the shoulder of Mulholland came back, the glitter of the torn foil packets, the sad, shrunken condoms, and the cigarette butts with lipstick on them.

“You want to hear what actors we like?” said Ann.

“I like Matt Briely, Sandra Gottfried, Billy Nash, and that new one, that French girl, Michelle Mercredi,” said Catherine.

“Yeah,” said Ann. “And Terry Peregrine.”

Farrell looked out the window at the clutter in the parking lot.

“What’s on your mind?” said Catherine. “What are you going to do if you find something . . .”

“Maybe I’ll come back to tell you about it,” Farrell said.

“Sure. But don’t wait too long,” she said.

Farrell turned to her.

Catherine crumbled her juice box and threw it in the trash.

“All we want is honesty,” said Gerry. “We aren’t just fucking with you for fun or making you feel guilty because you aren’t going to die.”

“I’m going to die,” Farrell said.

“Not so fast as us, I don’t think,” said Catherine.

“You never know,” Farrell said.

“Well, you better work fast,” said Catherine. “If you want our advice.”

Farrell thought he could smell the chemotherapy on her breath. He looked out the window. Clutter of new buildings, a crane like a prehistoric bird, that toxic California sky, and all of it combined into a physical hint, like the landscape of a dream, that things just couldn’t continue. But who was changing, him or the world?

“Maybe it’s time to call it a day,” said Rose Marie.

“Not on your life,” said Catherine. “I’ve got something to say. To him.”

“Okay,” Farrell said.

One of the kids sucked at the last of the juice in a box, and the sound was like the last pool of water going down a drain.

“I’ve got one hope. If someone promises me something now, they will keep the promise when I’m dead. That’s it,” said Catherine.

“So, what’s the promise?” Farrell said.

“I want you to promise that when the time comes, when you find what you’re looking for, I want you to think of me. And do . . . the right thing. Do you promise?”

The crane outside began a slow, sluggish movement, like some unstoppable thing.

“Yes,” Farrell said.

“Yes, what?” she said.

“That I’ll keep my promise.”

“To whom?” she said.

“To you,” Farrell said.

“No,” she said. “To all of us.”

There it was, that long, cool, and oddly moral reach from the dead to the living.

Farrell nodded, and she nodded back.

Then she started laughing.

“Just kidding,” she said.

“No, you aren’t,” Farrell said.

She looked right at him.

She started crying, the tears on her face like rain on a window.

“Good luck,” she said.

“Thanks,” Farrell said. “You, too.”

“Oh, I’m beyond luck.”

They stood and shook Farrell’s hand, which the kids liked. A lot of people wouldn’t touch them because they thought cancer was contagious.

Outside, Rose Marie and Farrell got in her car and sat there for a while and faced the hospital’s mismatched architecture, the dust from the new parking lot, and the guard in the booth. The guard’s movement was mechanical, which Farrell felt as oppressive, as though this was an outpost for disease.

“I should have warned you,” said Rose Marie.

Farrell’s hands shook.

“How do you warn someone about them . . . ?”

“That’s the problem,” she said.

“Sure,” Farrell said. “They are the only honest people in town.”

She nodded.

“Well,” she said. “There’s me.”

That smile.

“Thanks,” she said. “They liked it. I can tell.”

Rose Marie turned out of the parking lot and drove east, toward Sunset and Laurel Canyon.

Rose Marie parked in front of her house and sat with the attitude of being unsure just where she had been. She pulled on the brake with a slow consideration, and then looked at Farrell for a long time, and in that glance, he detected a promise she was making, too.

“Luck,” he said. “It’s never there when you need it . . .”

“Yeah,” said Rose Marie. “I hope you aren’t depending on luck.”

She swallowed.

“Maybe there’s more than luck involved,” Farrell said.

“What’s that?” she said.

“There’s me,” he said.

Rose Marie went into her house with that swaying of her hips, that upright carriage, and Farrell stood in the drive while she walked away.

In his kitchen, he began to put the postcard on the refrigerator with the trout magnet, but he held it for a moment to see the smiley faces, the hearts, the loopy script. Then he sat at the table in the booth by the window, where the paper was opened to that picture of Karicek, the man who had been arrested. Farrell ran his fingers over the face, the nose, the bones in the cheeks, and the eyebrows.

Of course, he knew that going to the police was dangerous, but he guessed it was time. Time to be careful, though. Charm, cunning, and patience.