29

The young actor slashed through the Marmont’s pool like a blade, lithe chest and concave belly flashing at each turn, his legs lean and big kneed and his arms no more muscled than a young girl’s. The morning sun sparkled at the tip of each ripple and wave and as he swam his slender feet kicked up a wake of diamonds. That high above Hollywood the traffic on Sunset faded to a distant rustle and the splash of his beautiful young body drifted into the trees like music. At the near end of the pool he swung his elbows on to the ledge to rest, water streaming from his troubled post-adolescent brow and over lips so pink and full the only proper thing to do was kiss them. I recognized his face from the magazines. That season he’d made his fame as one of the networks’ premiere teen heart-throbs. In person I could see why; he was some boy, like a fruit at the peak of sweetness. In another year or two the image-makers would deem him not slim but skinny, a professional trainer would be hired and his beautiful boy’s body would be gone forever.

‘Hey, that coffee you got there?’

I had my sunglasses on – had to because of the hangover – and didn’t think he’d noticed me staring at him. I said, ‘It is.’

‘Would you bring me a cup?’

That amused me enough to pour one from the room service thermos and bring it to him. Up close, his eyes were the kind of hazel you keep staring at to see if they’re green or brown. He took the coffee and watched me over the rim while he drank.

‘Mornings, what a bitch, eh?’

The sunlight glinting from his grin just about blinded me.

‘Bitch, bastard, depends on which sex gives you the most trouble.’

‘That would definitely be a bitch in my case.’

It was hard to be offended. He was too charming. He could have said anything or nothing and charmed.

I said, ‘Both sexes give me trouble.’

‘Lucky you. You staying here at the hotel?’

‘Did last night, maybe again tonight.’

He drained the coffee, asked, ‘Want to go up to my room and fuck?’

The white deck shoes of a pool attendant clipped at the edge of my vision and in the eucalyptus branches overhead a mockingbird squawked.

‘Well, no, but thanks for asking.’

‘If you change your mind you know how to find me.’ He handed me the cup and kicked back into the pool with a splash that shot a single bullet of chlorinated water into my sunglasses. I retreated to the shade beneath the sun umbrella and wondered why the physically perfect men even as boys are most always jerks.

Midway into my reading the calendar section of the LA Times my parole officer pushed through the gate beyond the diving board and stiffly glanced about the patio. Her hand rested on her purse like the butt of an Uzi. I held two fingers out in the sunlight to show her where I sat. By the time she strode over to the table I’d folded the Times, poured her a cup of coffee and kicked out a chair. Like me she wore dark sunglasses, although hers concealed vigilance rather than a hangover.

She took the chair and swung it around to face me but her concentration drifted to the young actor doing laps in the pool. ‘A place like this must cost a small fortune.’

On the navy blue thigh of her pantsuit she tapped the hotel’s promotional brochure, a cream-coloured price list inserted between the folds. It wasn’t hard to read what she was thinking.

‘You want to see my pay stubs, make sure I’m not dealing coke on the side?’

She snapped open her purse, shoved aside what I imagined to be hand-grenades, brass-knuckles and land mines to whip out a sheet of paper that looked like a form. ‘The results of your A and T test.’

The form had numbers written on it that meant nothing to me.

‘It’s negative. You’re clean. But you have other problems.’

‘You mean problems other than a husband who got himself murdered? You mean different problems than that, like maybe, I can’t go back to my apartment because it was broken into by the same guy who killed my husband and the cops think I’m next in line for a grass blanket? That problem? Or are you still hung up about the green card thing?’

‘I checked the records. Mr Burns never visited or wrote you at California Institute for Women. Not once.’

When both players are wearing sunglasses a stare-down contest can go on for ever with no clear winner. ‘You want to take me in now? Because if the past week is what so-called freedom is like I could do with a little more time in stir.’

‘You think I’m a bitch.’

‘I didn’t say that.’

‘In this job, I have to be a bitch.’ Her lips were too thin and rigid to move much without snapping but a twitch along her cheek showed she was trying to smile or sneer, I couldn’t figure which. ‘I saw that television programme you were on, when you found’ – she rolled a different word around her tongue – ‘your husband’s body. If you were an actress you’d be making a million bucks a picture. I’m sorry. That was cynical, even for me. You weren’t acting. You looked like somebody ripped your heart out of your chest. I could see he meant more to you than a few thousand bucks for a green card. I don’t think there’s a parole officer or judge in the world who would want to ticket you back to prison after seeing that.’

‘You believe me?’

‘I believe you.’

‘Nobody in law enforcement has ever said something like that to me before.’

‘Maybe you didn’t deserve it.’

I raised eyebrows and shoulders to say I couldn’t be the one to judge that. ‘Then I’m clear?’

Her head wagged back and forth. Even when she was being soft the woman was hard. ‘I’m in contact with the investigative officers in charge of your husband’s case. Detective Harker tells me you have some ideas yourself about the way the investigation should be handled. He’s afraid you might do something really stupid, like talk to potential suspects, look for evidence, in general screw up his investigation. You wouldn’t do something that stupid would you?’

At the near end of the pool the young actor vaulted from the water and stretched his hairless chest toward the morning sun, drops glistening on his skin like rubies. His swimming suit wasn’t large or baggy and didn’t conceal that a certain part of him wasn’t as thin as his arms and not at all boyish. My parole officer’s right forefinger arrowed between her eyebrows and slid the bridge of her sunglasses an inch toward the tip of her nose. Some things don’t need shading, not a bit. She whispered, ‘Wait a minute, isn’t that –’

‘Looks like him at a distance,’ I said, ‘but if you get up close, it isn’t him at all.’