Chapter 19

Under a brisk wind, a plume of smoke danced above the ravine where he lived, but the smoke quickly dissipated and Hugh was not concerned.

But as the paved road turned to dirt and potholes, the flames became visible. Hugh floored the gas pedal, racing up the last one hundred yards and tumbled out of the car leaving the door open. A line of flames danced along one eave of his house, and gray smoke seeped from the front door and windows. He ran to the spigot, unhooked the coiled hose and turned on the water. The hose thickened and squirmed. Opening the brass nozzle, he played the jet stream over the roof. He blasted the flames along the eave, which erupted in a white cloud. There was a loud crack like a splintered bat.

Hanna’s rooster, wings afire, sat embedded in a wreath of glass shards. It’s dreadful black eyes settled on Hugh’s as the flames spread around its neck, flashing on the glass shard penetrating its throat.

“Hanna!”

Hugh drew out his keychain, found the house key. Stepping forward, he sprayed the front door. The water sizzled on the hot wood and spattered his face. He aimed at the doorknob for a few seconds and then inserted the key. He grabbed the doorknob, twisted and kicked the door. Dense white smoke hung slovenly in the doorway.

“Hanna!”

He shuffled blindly across the room until he collided with the ottoman. He fell forward, fingers groping the couch. His hand slipped beneath a warm wet cushion.

Flames sprung from the bookcase like headlights in the fog. He dropped to his haunches, spraying upward and burying his face in the stink of burned hair as he duck-walked toward the bedroom. He got two yards before the hose tightened. He yanked once, twice. He retreated and snapped, hoping it had just snagged a chair leg. He heard the fowl’s skin pop and smelled the obscene mouthwatering odor. He snapped the hose again and felt it loosen but remain weighted. Dragging the reluctant hose, he crawled down the hall.

“Hanna!”

In the bedroom, the smoke was thin, there were no flames and the bed was empty.

A deep low sound rose to a wail.

By the time, he’d backed out of the house, a half-dozen fire trucks had roared up and numerous firemen in bunker gear were rolling out their hoses. A half-dozen silver streams slapped down the flames. Water poured off the roof. Hugh soon stood in a puddle, muddy water slopping at his ankles.

As the firefighters doused the blaze, others had gone inside and were throwing out smoldering furnishings. The fringed tasseled ottoman tumbled into the now muddy backyard, plastic fringes curled up into themselves like tiny fists. Books and magazines, smoky tendrils rising from blackened pages, lay in a heap. Hugh bent down before the pile, sorted through the damage. He pulled Deadpan All The Way from the bottom. The glossy dust jacket was a breath away from turning into ash, the back and spine were scorched, interior threads showing through, but the front cover was intact. Hugh peeled away the jacket and ran his thumb across the burned spots.

Not more than a quarter hour had passed when a voice summoned Hugh into the house.

Hugh was surprised to see that aside from the bookcase and furnishings not much had been consumed by the flames. Some of the wooden floor was scorched and the ceiling blackened, but the structure looked intact.

Two firefighters were examining the north window in the living room. “Do you normally keep this window open?” asked one of the men.

“Yes. A couple of inches.”

“You see the screen.”

“Yeah.”

“Was it ripped like that?”

The firefighter pointed to the floor where a dark streak ran across the hardwood, ending at a stack of half-burned newspapers. “Looks like somebody ripped the screen, played a little lighter fluid over your hardwood and tossed in a match.”

Hugh recalled Kyle’s neon-colored lighter.

“You had any problems with neighbors lately?” asked the cop. Hugh noted the policeman’s nametag: Escher. He had a wad of cotton on his freshly shaven throat. Hugh thought of Kyle’s smirk. “No . . .”

“Does anyone else live with you?”

“I live alone.”

“No guests?”

“There was a woman here the day before, but she . . . left.”

“Did you have an argument with her?” asked Escher, pressing the cotton ball, which exuded a red spot.

“No. She wouldn’t have done this.”

“Not on purpose?”

“No.”

“By accident?”

Hugh glanced at the broken screen. “She was here when I left. She wouldn’t have to—”

“No, that’s right,” said Escher. “What’s her name?”

“Hanna.”

“Last name?”

Hugh shook his head.

“But you know her?”

“I don’t know her last name.”

“Local . . . ?” he asked insinuatingly.

“Yes, if you mean from the canyon.”

“What’s her address?”

“I . . . I don’t know. I met her down at the beach.”

“So you just invited her for the night.”

Another cop entered. He was carrying something. He took Escher outside. The two came back a moment later.

Escher asked, “How old was Hanna?”

“What’s going on?”

“Take it easy. How old?”

“Twenty-five, twenty-six . . . I don’t know.”

“How old are you?”

“What does that matter?”

“Fifty?”

“Forty-nine.”

“Is this Hanna?”

Escher held out a clear plastic bag that held a photo of a young woman. It sucked the air from Hugh’s lungs. It was Anna.

“Where did that come from?” Hugh finally managed to ask.

“Found it in your car. Your door was open, windows rolled down. Maybe it blew in from Chatsworth.”

“Like hell,” said Hugh. “That was not in my car.”

“This isn’t the girl that stayed with you.”

He dredged up a monosyllable. “No.”

“You’re certain?”

“Ab—absolutely.”

“Absolutely. Okay. Sounds firm. Hanna was twenty—”

“Twenty-five or twenty-six, maybe a year or two older.”

“So, older than this girl.”

“Considerably.”

“This girl looks fourteen or fifteen.”

“Yes.”

“Have you seen this photo before.”

Hugh glanced at the slim, provocatively posed, naked body. “No.”

“But you know this girl?”

“She’s . . . a student,” said Hugh, his heart in his throat.

“Your student?”

“She was in one of my classes in the spring semester. She graduated.”

“Was this the girl that was here?”

“No.”

“That was Anna?”

“Hanna.”

“The thirty-year-old.”

“I think I need a lawyer.”

“We just want to get things straight. Anna, Hanna. It’s confusing. This is a photo of—”

“Anna.”

“Anna? Got a last name?”

“I don’t . . .” but he did. “Mendez. Anna Mendez. She was a student in one of my classes.”

“Did you know her outside of school?”

“No.”

“No?”

“I’d seen her at the beach. I was swimming at Topanga. She was there the other day with another student.”

“Another young woman?”

“No. A boy. Aaron.”

“How long ago was that?”

Hugh thought. “Three days ago. Look. They were hitchhiking. I gave them a ride home. She had a purse. It must have fallen out of her purse.”

“The photo?”

“Yes.”

“You didn’t take it? She didn’t pose for you.”

“Of course not. What the fuck do you think—”

“Take it easy,” said the cop.

“I gave them a ride and it must have fallen out of her bag. She was putting on her dress . . .”

One of the firefighters laughed.

Hugh glared at the man. “She was coming back from the beach,” he said in a rush. “She was putting the dress over her bathing suit.”

Escher snatched off the cotton ball and tossed it. “Where did you take them?”

“Van Nuys.” No. Studio City. But he did not correct himself.

“So the picture may have been left in your car accidentally?”

“That must be how it happened.”

“When did your relationship with her begin?” The fire trucks cut their engines. The rearrangement of his furniture ceased. The voices quieted. They had been transported into outer space. Vast and still and silent.

“I was her teacher.”

The firemen had disappeared. It was just Hugh and the cops.

Oh, Jesus. From a quarter mile distant, a blue grass band that practiced twice a week tuned up their banjos. He had tried to kill himself, he thought, which should take the edge off anything anyone else would want to do to him, but he felt weak anticipating the whirlwind of accusations.

“I’m not speaking without a lawyer.”

“We haven’t charged you with anything,” the second cop said.

“It must have been the boy who took the photograph.”

“Hanna’s friend?” asked Escher.

“Yes, no. Anna’s friend. Aaron.”

“Have you ever been charged with anything of a sexual nature?”

“No, no fucking way.”

“Anything with children?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Child endangerment perhaps?” asked the second cop, smiling slyly.

Hugh looked away, shook his head.

“Do you have a family?”

“I—no, I don’t.” Would it have been better to say, “I did, but now I don’t”?

“You shouldn’t go too far until we clear this up. We’ll need to do a formal inspection of your house, but other than the living room, there doesn’t appear to be much damage. You can probably get back in a day or two. Will you be staying with anyone, a friend?”

“I have—no. I’ll get a room.” They stared as if waiting for him to make the reservation in front of them.

Hugh watched Escher walk to the Volvo and open the door. The interior light revealed a woman’s face. The uniformed officer glanced at Hugh through the rear windshield. Her eyes were as yellow as a cat’s.

In the house, under the watchful eyes of a CSI team, he gathered his clothes and shaving kit.

Hugh drove slowly through Topanga. At Abuelita’s Restaurant, the parking attendant scrambled to deal with a rush of cars. The attendant appeared hemmed in by the vehicles. At the restaurant’s door, a brightly garbed waitress served margaritas to the blossoming line of waiting patrons. Hugh considered stopping at the bar. His blood pressure felt astronomical, and his head ready to crack. He had twice cheated death to go through all this shit? Death had cheated him. The radio played a song about the body as a cage. He smelled the tequila, but didn’t stop, turning left on Old Topanga.

On the old road, Hugh accelerated, his tires squealing on the turns, the headlights glancing off the granite walls and the occasional fugitive house behind the trees. The road straightened and the houses grew more substantial. He drove past the school with the paddock, where globular brown eyes looked up under the curious headlights. He remembered walking down the aisle and seeing Anna’s notebook. The hard, drear words. Older than his boys, but a child still. He wondered if the photo had just slipped out of Anna’s purse. Surely they hadn’t planted it? Hugh had refused to take them to their destination, but they wouldn’t be that vindictive—would they? The road ascended then, climbing at every turn. There were several hairpins where it would have been easy enough to twist the wheel, left or right and go sailing into the night. At the peak of the road, he pulled into the turnoff, rolling until the bumper tapped the chain like a key turning in a lock. There was no possibility now of staging an accidental death. He remained in the car a moment, remembering a summer night when the universe seemed to radiate from his fingertips, as if he had thought it all up himself.

Not bothering to lock the car, he scuffed along the shadowy horse trail that wound between the hilltops. The air was sweet with jasmine. Where the trail split, the valley spread out in a sheet of innumerable lights until it collided with the San Gabriel Mountains, icy black against the inky sky. An animal scurried past. Hugh walked to the edge of the cliff. Not quite ninety degrees but close enough to do the job. He would just run for the lights. Would the pole-vaulting coyote eat his corpse? Would he be the one that landed with a puff?

Gazing out at the sea of lights, he saw something huge floating east across the valley. He thought it a cloud, but then its lights became clear. The Goodyear blimp, or was it now named for a foreign corporation?

He followed the blimp’s slow smooth flight above the earth; he had seen it a hundred times, yet it seemed impossible floating there, something out of H. G. Wells, something out of a future that was always a fiction.

As he walked back to the Volvo, he looked west and saw a car parked tight against the roadside. The Camaro? The lights of an oncoming car lit the driver’s head in outline. The long hair gave no clue as to whether it was a man or woman.

Hugh walked toward the parked car and then sprinted as the engine started, the whine rising to a roar. It’s headlights shone, flicking to high beam and blinding Hugh as he got within fifty feet of the vehicle.

“Hey!” shouted Hugh. “Hold on!”

Its tires burning, roadside dust swirling in the headlights, the car sped toward Hugh, veering into the center of the boulevard and quickly disappearing around the bend. Hugh caught a glimpse of the taillights.

He bent down, picked up a stone and hurled it after the vanished car.

“Fuck. Who are you?”

It was ten P.M. by the time Hugh had checked in to the motel across the street from the café. After dropping his gym bag in the room, he crossed the raging boulevard with his laptop, dodging twenty-something Persians in sports cars, windows down, hip-hop blasting from their speakers. He walked toward the café entrance accompanied by the random notes of the trumpet player serenading a man in a parked van, in the back of which a goat chewed straw and stared contentedly at a group of helmeted motorcycle riders standing beside their pocket rockets. The bikes could go two hundred mph. While standing still, the bikes appeared in motion, appeared like the blimp from the future.

“Can I help you?” one of the group asked as Hugh approached.

“Your motorcycle,” said Hugh, smiling. “I was admiring the design. What do they call the design?”

“Twenty thousand dollars,” responded the man.

The others laughed.

“Thanks. Real helpful,” snapped Hugh, gazing once more at the bike.

Nodding to the Israeli bunch, smoking cigars and talking boisterously, Hugh entered the café, ordered his coffee and sat down at the handicapped table with its view of the parking lot. On a brown napkin he sketched the handlebar cowling of a bright yellow-and-blue Kawasaki. He erased and redrew until the napkin fell apart. He went through four napkins before he was satisfied with the drawing. With the adjustments, the Kawasaki’s cowling mirrored the boat’s pilothouse. The part determining the whole, he then drew the deck and hull.

He set the napkin beside the keyboard. He brought up yachtworld.com. On the search form, he typed in the length as forty feet minimum and seventy feet maximum. He checked powerboat and the year of manufacture as between 1960 and 2000. He hit search. There were nine thousand results. He scanned the first page, which took perhaps thirty seconds. Finding nothing close to the boat in the picture, he clicked next. The page took maybe five seconds to appear. He scanned the second. Each page had ten photos. He could browse twenty photos in a minute. That made twelve hundred in an hour. He could see every photo in the course of a night. Two hours later, there had been a half-dozen times when he thought he had found the boat, but bringing up a larger picture, he could see that each was different from the boat that had motored off the beach that day. It was already midnight, the café closing down, but he didn’t want to stop. He checked the available Wi-Fi sites and saw that the motel was equipped.

Returning to his motel room, he made a pot of coffee on the courtesy coffee maker and powered up his computer. As he watched the coffee drip into the pot, he started at a tap on the window. Bending back the Venetian blind, he scanned the parking lot, but for a cat padding across a car’s hood, it was still and silent. With a sigh, he let the blind drop and returned to work. An hour later, he found a boat so similar to his drawing that he might have traced it. He brought up a larger photo whose caption read:

GOTO, 50', Twin 3208 turbocharged Caterpillar diesel with 575 hours. Tempter Pilothouse Boat. Very Fast, 1989.

He continued to read the sales pitch until he came to a line in capitals: RARE BOAT. ONLY 100 MANUFACTURED.

“Fuck yes,” Hugh said.

This particular boat was being sold in Bradenton, Florida. He clicked through a dozen pictures showing the boat from various angles. One showed the name Magnolia on the stern.

He returned to the search form and typed in the new information. There was one response: The Bradenton boat. He Googled “yacht sales” and found a dozen sites. He searched on all twelve and found sixteen of the Tempter Pilothouses for sale. Four were in Europe, five in Asia, two in South America, one in Mexico and four in the United States. Of the US boats, the first was the one in Bradenton, the second was in San Francisco, the third in Redondo Beach and the fourth in Marina del Rey. Was it common for these boats to move halfway around the world? What could he ask? He brought up the page for the boat in Mexico. There was one picture of the boat and it didn’t show its name. Hugh thought that even the colors were the same. But if this many were for sale, how many existed that were not. Why should one of them be the boat?

He composed a generic e-mail and sent it out to all sixteen sellers.

At three A.M., he took two Lunestas, drank a beer and fell asleep.

When he awoke, he was staring at the computer screensaver. He reached across the bed to jiggle the mouse. The screen took its familiar form. The AOL mail page showed twenty new messages. He rolled out of bed and climbed into the chair, clicking on the link. The messages appeared on the screen. The first was from Zazzle. The second was from Barnes & Noble, the third was from papandokolis.J@gmail.com. The subject line was Re: Tempter Pilothouse. He clicked on the message.

Dear Mr. Mullen,

I regret to inform you that my boat has been purchased. The advertisement should have been removed. Thank you for your interest.

J. Papandokolis
Athens, Greece

Hugh clicked reply.

Mr. Papandokolis,

Thanks for the quick response. I’ve been interested in acquiring a Tempter for about fifteen years now, since I viewed one in Southern California. Just curious if that could have been your boat. Have you ever sailed your boat in Southern California?

Sincerely,
Pirie Mullen

Sent.

Without showering, he dressed and dodged the early morning traffic on the boulevard for a coffee and bagel. When he returned to his room, there were two new messages. One was from the Greek: No.

The second message was from honestabe78@hotmail.com. Subject, re: Tempter Pilothouse.

Hi Pirie,

I was pleased to hear you were interested in the Tempter Pilothouse. She’s an amazing boat, and there are very few on the market. The boat is now docked in Marina del Rey. I live aboard so it’s possible for you to view the boat anytime. Just give me an hour’s notice to tidy up. Looking forward to meeting you.

Albert

Hugh clicked reply.