NINE
Madeleine waited until we reached my car before turning to me.
“What was that?”
“This is an incredible opportunity,” I said. “Reading through these journals might give me motive, and it also might shed some light on how Theo planned to kill Eleanor.”
Madeleine looked at me like I was crazy. “How long do you think Heather has been holding on to those journals?”
“No idea.”
“Don’t you think she might have already looked through them? They’re clearly worthless, Hailey. Heather hasn’t found anything, so why would you?”
I hadn’t considered this, but I wasn’t willing to admit defeat. “Well, they might give me an upper hand on Theo,” I said. “Maybe I can find something in here that will convince him to confide in me.”
“Oh, Hailey.” Mad sank her head into her hands. “I know you don’t like taking advice, but damn. You played right into her trap. Do you even know what happened back there?”
“It’s cute when you explain my job to me.”
“Don’t be an asshole,” she snapped. “Thirty thousand is Heather’s annual hair budget. That money means nothing to her. Her assistant probably spends more than that on drugs. Heather thinks she owns you now. You’re never going to get that article.”
“You know what?” I snapped. “I’m not hungry anymore. You can eat lunch by yourself.”
“That’s mature.”
“I didn’t ask you to come along so you could Madsplain things to me.”
“She was patronizing you,” Madeleine said, exasperated. “You work for a progressive, quasi-queer online magazine. You might as well have walked into her house wearing a rainbow flag and a T-shirt that reads CLIMATE CHANGE IS REAL. Any deal that you make is going to be to her benefit, fuckwit.”
“You wanted to come here, remember?” I retorted, trying to hide my hurt feelings. “You said that Heather was a legend for history nerds.”
“She was,” Madeleine said. “But I got a bad feeling, Hailey. Right off the bat, she made some racist comment about my conservation society. Oh, the Jewish one. What a bitch.”
“You’re imagining things.”
There was a click and then a pressured release as the front gate opened. A moment later, Heather’s gate retracted, and a sleepy black MG convertible rolled on through. Madeleine and I watched as the car drove past us and parked in front of Heather’s front door.
A man with thick silver hair climbed out, adjusted his jacket, then glanced over at us. He looked like an age-progressed Bruce Wayne. The man raised an eyebrow, then walked toward the door. Before he could knock, the door opened, and he vanished inside.
“I know him,” I said.
“Who?”
“That guy,” I said. “I’ve seen him somewhere.”
“Been attending a lot of black-tie orgies lately?”
“His name is on the tip of my tongue,” I said. “Oh my God, it’s going to drive me crazy.”
“Whatever,” Madeleine said. “Let’s go. I’d like to get away from here.”
We drove back into Los Angeles, and the car was silent all the way to Madeleine’s house. When I finally reached Los Feliz and pulled up in front of her house, she turned to me.
“You’re one of my best friends,” she said. “But honestly, Hail, fuck you. Don’t drag me into your schemes anymore.”
It wasn’t until almost an hour later, when I had pulled up in front of my own house, that I realized who the man at Heather’s house was. I had seen pictures of them talking at Heather’s fundraising gala, and when I remembered that, the man’s name came back to me.
Linus Warren. Billionaire developer and notorious capitalist. His name was attached to half the new developments in Santa Monica and Malibu. I dug into my memory to see what else I could recollect about him, but the worst thing that came to mind was the fact that he had ousted a colony of pied-billed grebes. The reason that he had looked familiar to me was that even in a photograph, he looked like a gay, off-duty superhero.
I had more important things to think about, namely Theo’s journals, and I put Linus Warren out of my mind.
I didn’t bother going into my house; I went straight to the backyard and set myself up inside my office. After carefully unpacking all six notebooks from the box, I reached in and pulled out the collection of photographs that had sifted to the bottom.
The photos showed the other side of a life lived in public. These were the private moments that had managed to stay encapsulated in film but protected from the outside world, rare moments of solace in a world of chaos.
I stopped when I found a photo of Eleanor leaning against the shoulder of a handsome young man with dark hair. Neither one of them was looking at the camera, and they weren’t looking at each other, but their heads were bent toward each other in the suggestion of intimacy. I tucked the photo aside and made a mental note to find out the young man’s identity later.
Another photo of Eleanor caught my eye, but this one was familiar. I had seen copies of it in the newspaper and, more recently, on Google Image searches. It was a photo of Eleanor and a young man bending to tie his shoe while Eleanor rolled her eyes. The young man had always been identified as “Eleanor’s friend,” but I flipped the picture over to see if there was a caption. Written in an unidentified hand was Eleanor and Theo pause between games of tennis. I turned the picture over and marveled at this younger Theo and wondered what this version of Eleanor would have said if I had revealed the outcome of her life to her.
I finally turned my attention to Theo’s journals. I spent a good ten minutes flipping through the pages, admiring Theo’s consistent, dreamy script. I was almost too excited to begin reading, but I finally sorted back to the beginning and found what seemed to be the first journal. The date was in 1944, which was right around the time that Theo had started working on his first film, She’s Got Moxie!
I began to read.
May 12, 1944: Hollywood, California—
It’s a dim little place, but it’s cheap. Stanley in the art department gave me the address on a recommendation, and I moved in two weeks later. Only half the doors lock properly, the walls are thin enough to hear your neighbors breathing, and you can count yourself lucky if you don’t wake up to find strangers waltzing in your living room. On at least two occasions I’ve come home to someone sleeping in my bed, and last Wednesday I went into my bathroom to find a well-dressed stranger enthusiastically cleaning his teeth with my toothbrush.
The bungalows look like they might have been taken from a movie set, because they’re flimsy and romantic. The owner of the complex is an old movie star from the twenties, who hasn’t made a film since movies switched to sound. She’s got a thick accent—maybe Russian, I’m not sure—and you never see her without an elaborate getup, complete with makeup and jewelry.
I can’ t get a fix on my neighbors. Most of them seem to be creative—actors and clowns, some dancing girls and theater types. On a few occasions I’ve caught glimpses of some boarders who seem rather out of place, including morose businessmen and sleepy doctors, and once, a young priest.
And then there are the stars. I’ve been in Los Angeles for a month now and I can’t help staring when I catch sight of them around the studio, but Stan tells me this excitement will pass. It’s one thing to see them moving about the studio in costume, walking between their dressing room and the sets, but I don’t think I’ll ever grow accustomed to the sight of them lounging around the swimming pool of my apartment complex.
Stan told me about this when he gave me the recommendation. He told me that the Garden of Alla was a bit seedy, but it had its own reputation around Hollywood. Everyone’s lived here at some point, apparently, for a few months while they find their feet.
The arrival of even the most famous faces from the silver screen—Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Gloria Swanson—is never met with cheers or fanfare. When they come to the Garden, they’re just like the rest of us, and more often than not, people fail to notice their presence. Some of them seem to be more like obnoxious house pets than guests, asking to borrow tweezers or pens, bending to sniff our drinks, falling asleep poolside for the entire world to see.
The pool seems to be the social center of the whole complex. It’s a kidney¯shaped pit in the middle of the bungalows, and a magnet for everything: celebrities, tourists, lost crazies, drunken revelers, late¯night stargazers. It also seems to draw in lost items, from diamond earrings to gold bracelets to pairs of shoes, all of which can be seen winking up from the depths of the pool like some strange breed of fish.
When work settles down a bit, I’ll go for a swim.
August 2, 1944—
I’ve fallen head over heels in love with Hollywood. In some ways it feels like the whole town was built yesterday. It’s not so much a place as a state of mind, and it changes every single day.
I can be a cynical person, but I still can’t help admiring the geraniums and date palms on every street, the pepper trees on Hollywood Boulevard and the smell of oranges on the breeze. The world is seeping in around the edges of Hollywood, and all we have to do is catch it on camera.
When we need cowboys for a shoot, we drive over to Gower and Sunset, where all the unemployed cowboys hang out, waiting for work. They drift in from the desert between jobs wrangling cattle, because they know that film people pay a lot more money for a lot less work. The same goes for Indians and churchgoers, cops and priests—if you can’t find an actor to suit your needs, you drive around town looking for the real thing. He’ll turn up, sooner or later.
I’ve been working under Walter Thomas, one of the best producers Hollywood has to offer. He’s a generous man and everyone seems to love him—actresses, stagehands, even the studio heads. I keep pinching myself and wondering how I got to be such a lucky son of a bitch.
I love the way that actors can sink into a script and warp the characters in ways that I haven’t even considered. Inspiration is everywhere if you have the presence of mind to capture it. Sometimes people outside the film industry have trouble distinguishing between reality and fiction, and I can’t blame them, because the film industry can hardly be contained within the walls of the studios. We’re a restless, wild bunch, sometimes with no more discretion than children. Traffic gets frequently interrupted throughout town by floods, fires, fireworks, exploding buildings, men running around waving swords and daggers, damsels caught high up in the branches of trees—all of which disappears as soon as the cameras stop rolling, of course.
Characters and stories come leaking out of the studio walls faster than the residents of Hollywood can slap down new laws, but they put up a valiant fight, all the same. Life explodes in every direction, and it’s hard to determine what’s real. You might go to buy milk from your corner drugstore and find Lon Chaney trying horror makeup on in the mirror, or else you might stand in line behind a family in Tyrolean garb, waiting for the pharmacist. You might go to the park on your lunch break and see a British nobleman wandering lost beneath a canopy of palm trees, only to look again and see that he has disappeared.
We design life the way we want to see it. We have the best wardrobe designers, diction coaches, language consultants, dance teachers; the best screenwriters and storytellers. If we want you to believe something, you’ll believe it. We could dress your mother up in men’s clothing and send her round, and you’d be convinced that your father had come back from the dead.
Our talents are wasted on the original residents of Los Angeles, however, who seem hell-bent on getting rid of us. There are protests every day, as the citizens of Old Hollywood try to reclaim their quiet town. Cecil DeMille, one of the top directors around, carries a gun to work, because someone once shot at him on his way home.
They call us charlatans and heathens, claiming that we’ve warped God’s creation to suit our fancy. The original residents are a dying breed, however, and they’re slowly being edged out by Hollywood’s next chapter. Even the loudest voices quickly fade into echoes, no louder than mumbled recitations as they tell us that we’ve created our own, sinful religion, and that one day, we’ll pay for it.
August 18, 1944—
This was meant to be a straightforward account of my days in Los Angeles, but even a few months in, I can see more potential here. Whenever I get a spare moment I write down everything—the snatches of conversation, the weather (report: unchanging), and even the goddamn outfits of the people walking by.
I never meant to be a novelist, per se—but is there potential for a film here? Could this be the beginning of a scenario? Either way, I want it all on record.
September 2, 1944—
I thought I was going to die last night.
The evening began like any other. I came home late from work, exhausted, prepared to drop into bed. As soon as I walked into my bedroom, however, I realized that the bed was already occupied by a young couple who proved impossible to wake up.
Frustrated, I wandered outside and headed toward the pool, hoping that someone could tell me the identity of the people in my bed, or else help to wake them up.
Someone was playing piano; I could hear them as I walked down the path. It wasn’t unusual to hear music at all times of day in the Garden. People frequently played accordions, horns, trumpets, harmonicas, sometimes banjos. All the music contributed to a strange cacophony that wasn’t altogether unpleasant, though it did make it difficult to get work done.
When I reached the pool, I saw that the piano music was actually coming from a piano that had been moved next to the pool. A young man sat on the bench, almost jumping up and down at the keys, trying to keep up with his own fingers. My attention was drawn to the young woman beside him, however, who was managing to match his tempo.
Her dark hair was loosely pinned at the base of her neck, and a few damp strands stuck to her skin. She smiled as she played, as the music climbed and tumbled over itself, stirring the energy into a near frenzy. A small crowd pressed in around the two players, but their concentration remained fixed, their melodies winding in and out of each other. The music was so beautiful and effortless that they might have been performing on a stage.
When the music was over, the crowd stomped and cheered, then pressed in to congratulate the musicians. I waited until the commotion had settled a bit before going over to introduce myself to the young woman. She smiled as though we had met before, and I couldn’t help feeling that she looked familiar.
I introduced myself and asked her if we had met.
“Don’t think so,” she replied. She had green eyes and a very pretty smile, with a slight overbite. A pair of emerald earrings winked from beneath the strands of hair that fell down to frame her face. Elegant and understated; most people wouldn’t have noticed the jewelry. The thing that really caught my attention was the fact that she wasn’t wearing any shoes.
“Are you an actress?”
“Well, mostly theater,” she said. “I’ve done a movie or two.”
“I’m Theo,” I repeated. “I live here…”
But just at that moment, a young man came over and put a hand on her shoulder.
“We’re about to hit Mulholland,” he said. “You still want to come? Oh, hullo,” he said, turning to me and offering me his hand. “I’m Jules.”
“Theo,” I said. “Pleasure.”
“You know, I have no idea where I left my shoes,” the girl said, glancing around. “I shouldn’t have taken them off!”
“Might be dangerous to go without,” Jules said.
“Maybe I’ll find some along the way. Token.”
“Tokens are small, you’re not supposed to wear them.”
I tried to follow their conversation, but I had no idea what they were talking about. They squabbled for a while, and then the girl turned to look at me. “You coming?”
“Wait, wait, wait,” Jules said. “No newcomers. Sorry, pal.”
“Errol was new.”
“Yes, but we know him. You think he’s trustworthy?” He motioned me with a jerk of his head.
“Who’s he going to tell?”
They both turned to look at me.
“Right,” Jules said to me. “You’re riding in the trunk.”
We walked toward the street. I had a hundred questions, but I had the feeling that if I seemed to inquisitive, my invitation might be revoked.
“Are you a good climber?” Jules asked.
“Moderate to decent.”
“Are you afraid of dogs? Are you a fast runner?”
“I can run if I have to.”
We reached Sunset. Ahead of us, on the sidewalk, two men shared a flask of something. They both wore expensive suits, and when they turned to look at us, I saw that one of them was Errol Flynn, Hollywood’s most famous pirate. I did a double take to make sure that I could trust my eyes.
The other man was diminutive, with close-cropped gray hair and a black mustache. A bloody gash stood out on his forehead, and I tried not to stare at it, but I couldn’t tear my eyes away. Even more remarkable than the bloody scrape was the fact that nobody else seemed to notice it. The man’s eyes flickered up to meet mine, and he gave me a slight nod.
“Hello, hello,” Errol said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Whose turn is it?”
“Mine,” said the young woman. I still hadn’t caught her name, but I felt like it was too late in the conversation to ask; I would have to wait until someone addressed her. “There’s a place on Benedict Canyon.”
“Ah, Benedict’s boring,” Errol said. “Just a bunch of paranoid housewives.”
“Low risk is good for you, since you’re clearly drunk.”
Errol winked at her, then turned his attention to me. “Who’s this? I thought guests weren’t allowed.”
“This is Theo,” Jules said. “Nora’s friend.”
Nora. I made a mental note.
Errol fixed his eyes on me for a moment, then passed me his flask. “Take a drink,” he said. “Mandatory rite of initiation.”
I accepted the flask and took a swig.
“Okay,” Errol said. “Into the trunk with you. We’ll let you out when we get there.”
Before I could ask where we were going, I was ushered into the trunk and boxed up in the complete darkness. The car started, and I grasped about wildly for something to hold on to. I didn’t know who was driving, but by the bumps and swerves, it must have been Errol. Something kept hitting me in the head, and there was nothing to hold on to, so I held my hands over my head and hoped that it would be over as soon as possible. There were a few stops, some longer than others, which I guessed to be traffic lights. After an eternity and no small amount of quiet praying, the car stopped and the trunk popped open. Four faces peered down at me.
“There he is, still in one piece,” Errol said. “Come on, out with you. We’ve only got a few hours.”
I climbed out to find myself standing outside of a sprawling Victorian mansion. The upper gables and spires rose against the blue-gray sky, watchful and austere. A single light burned in one of the lower windows, but other than that, there were no signs of life.
The neighborhood around us was sparse and populated with the heathen scrubs that I had already come to associate with wild California. A few skeleton forms of houses yet unfinished stood on the lower reaches of the mountain, eerie in the night stillness.
I turned to find Jules arguing with Errol, who was taking another swig from his flask. The third man stood away from everyone else, and when he noticed me, he ambled over.
“It’s strange, isn’t it?” he said.
“What is?”
“All of it. This town. This world of images. We’re adults playing make believe.”
“Yes,” I said vaguely. “Are you an actor?”
“He’s Bill,” said Nora, who had come up to join us. “Bill, meet Theo.”
“Pleasure.”
“Count No-Count!” Errol called, and Bill turned to look at him.
“Yes?” he said.
“Will you be in charge of time?”
“Oh, I suppose.”
Errol handed him a pocket watch, then clapped a hand on my shoulder. “Pal,” he said. “Which studio do you work for?”
“MGM.”
“Writer?”
“Yes. How did you know?”
He waved the comment away with his hand. “Do they know your face? You have a recognizable face?”
“Not really, I’m new.”
Errol wheeled around to face the rest of them. “It’s him,” he said. “He’ll go first.”
Everyone cheered. Nora came over and linked her arm through mine. “I’ll go with him,” she said. “He has no idea what he’s doing.”
“Look, I think it’s high time that someone told me what’s going on,” I said.
There was a sustained silence, and then everyone burst into laughter.
“He’s scared, look at him; he’s so scared.” Nora smiled.
“It’s not every day you come to Hollywood and find yourself abducted by the screen elite!” Errol joined in.
Nora smiled at me. “We like to play a little game,” she said. “There are no rules, except not getting caught. If you get caught, we’re all done for.”
“What sort of game?”
She shrugged. “We break into people’s houses while they’re sleeping. Sometimes we take things.”
“That’s absurd.”
“Isn’t it!” Errol waved his flask at me, grinning wildly. “I guarantee you’ve never had so much fun in your life.”
“Whoever finds the most interesting token wins the game.” Nora started up the drive, then turned to face me. “You coming?”
I couldn’t see her face, just a flush of moonlight that stretched down the driveway and made shadows of everything.
“Yes,” I said faintly. “I’m coming.”
It was unnaturally quiet, no traffic sounds or shouts of laughter from late-night revelry. Nora was always two steps ahead of me, and I had to marvel at her lack of fear.
“Wait up!”
“Shhh!” she said, turning to put her finger to her lips.
I followed her as she tiptoed through the garden. My attention was fully riveted on the window with the light on; I could hardly focus on anything else.
“What happens if they catch us?”
She shrugged and smiled. “Hasn’t happened yet.”
I waited by a patch of hydrangeas as Nora strolled up to the front door and gingerly tested the handle. She tried it again, then turned around and shook her head. Before I could follow her intentions, she walked around the side of the house and disappeared.
There was only a moment for me to decide what to do. If I was caught in the garden alone, I would seem like a common thief. I could hardly expect a wealthy homeowner to believe that I had been talked into the act by Errol Flynn and the three others, because I could hardly believe it myself. I lingered a moment longer, then ran after her.
She was nowhere to be seen. I looked around frantically for a moment, then heard a small noise above me. Nora had scaled a latticed portico on the side of the house and was straddling an upper balcony.
“Nora!”
“Come up here!” she whispered. “This one looks promising!”
Before I could say anything else, she climbed over and disappeared once more.
It took me a good ten minutes to climb up the lattice, and by the time I had finally reached the balcony and peered through the windows, there was no sight of her. Trying to be as quiet as possible, I slipped through the balcony doors and nearly had a heart attack when I realized what was in front of me.
I was standing in a bedroom, and by the size of it, it looked to be the master bedroom. Right next to the balcony doors were two sleeping forms, and as I watched, one of them rolled over to face me.
Five minutes passed before I could fully convince myself that the man was asleep. I finally summoned the courage to tiptoe across the bedroom and into the hallway, which lay beyond an open door.
Nora stood at the end of the corridor. She looked up and smiled when she saw me. With an excited motion, she called me over, and I went to join her.
Even in the darkness, I could see that the room at the end of the hall was a nursery. It had a slanted ceiling, and a mobile hung with moons and stars. Against one wall lay a crib, and next to it, a fancy perambulator.
“He’s asleep,” Nora said. “Let’s take him with us.”
It took me a moment to realize that she was talking about the baby. “No!” I hissed, under my breath. “Are you crazy?”
“C’mon, Theo, he’s so cute.” Nora walked over to the crib and leaned on her forearms. “I’m good with babies.”
“Nora, this is too much,” I said. “I’m leaving.”
“Relax, Theo,” she whispered. “I’m joking. We’ll find a different token.”
We tiptoed out of the nursery and made our way toward the stairs. Following Nora’s lead, I placed each foot on the stairs with absolute care, not wanting to make a sound. It took forever to descend to the bottom floor, but when we finally did, I allowed myself my first real breath.
“Find something, then let’s go,” I said.
Nora gave me a sly grin. “You’re nervous, aren’t you?”
“It’s no big deal if you get caught,” I said. “You’re a beautiful young woman. You can say that you were lost. If I get caught, I’ll go straight to jail.”
“Is that a compliment?” She touched my chin, then walked past me. She peered into the dimness of the living room, then turned around and walked into the foyer. After a few steps, she turned to look at me.
“What are you waiting for?”
“I think we should leave.”
“So, go.” She shrugged, then disappeared.
I watched her vanish into the dimness of the house. A moment later, there was the sound of creaking wood, and a soft phwoosh, and then silence once more. As I listened, a gentle, mocking melody came floating out of the silence, followed by a dizzy sequence of notes that dissolved into a lilting crescendo.
I lingered there for a moment, frozen to the spot, and then ran down the hall to find Nora. To my immediate horror, she was seated at a grand piano, playing a whimsical ballad with the effortlessness of a sleepwalker.
“What are you doing? They’ll wake up!”
She ignored me. A moment later, a light snapped on upstairs, and then I heard a voice.
“Marvin!” came a voice. “Marvin, there’s someone downstairs!”
Nora only played faster. The ceiling shook as someone heavy hopped out of bed, and the baby began to wail.
“Nora, please! I don’t want to leave without you!”
Her hands danced along the keys, scaling the high registers with precision. I could see a slow smile curling up at the edges of her mouth, and she swayed gently as her hands climbed over each other to head toward the lower keys.
“Who is that?” a man’s voice called. “You’ve been warned—I have a gun!”
I crossed the room and grabbed Nora’s shoulders. She looked up at me with a smile.
“I’m leaving,” I said. “Let’s go out through the back.”
Thunderous footsteps came down the stairs as Nora stood up from the piano. I crossed the sitting room and threw open a door. It opened into a little servant’s corridor. I could hear the man turning on lights, and I could tell that there was very little time to get out of the house before he caught up with us.
Without further ado, I grabbed Nora’s hand and pulled her down the corridor.
“I know you’re in here,” the man said. He flicked on the sitting room lamp, and light flooded in beneath the doorframe.
I could hear him stomping around the room, throwing furniture aside and bending to look behind the piano. Nora pressed up against me, and I tried not to breathe, convinced that the man would hear me if I did so.
“Marvin?” came a woman’s voice. “I’ve called the police. They should be here any minute.”
“Good, Nancy!” he called. “Stay upstairs with David.”
Nora detached herself from me and slipped backward down the hall. She motioned for me to follow, and after a moment, I did.
“You hear that, you bastard?” came the man’s voice. “The police are on their way. We’ll have you out in no time!”
I had almost reached the end of the corridor before the man threw open the sitting room door. His eyes widened when he saw me.
“Stop!” he said, and raised the gun. “Stop right there!”
I hesitated for a moment. His gun was pointed directly at my chest.
“What’s in your hand?” he demanded.
“Nothing.”
“You’re holding something; let’s see what it is.”
I slowly raised my hands, but before I could open them, the door burst open behind me.
“Say, mate, put that thing down,” came Errol’s voice. “Someone’s liable to get hurt.”
I turned around, and Errol grinned at me.
“Aren’t you… Robin Hood?” the man asked, confused.
“Defender of the poor, adversary of the rich,” Errol said, then took a small bow. “We’ve gotten lost on the way to a party.”
Before the man could respond, Errol grabbed my arm and yanked me out of the corridor. We crossed through a laundry room and had almost reached the door when a shot went off behind us.
The sound was so immediate and confusing that I thought the gun had been next to my ear. Errol crouched for a moment, throwing his hands up over his head, then leaped up. He grabbed me by the shoulders and made for the door. Bits of plaster rained down around us, and everything was reduced to a static hiss as my ears tried to recalibrate.
“Come on!” Errol yelled.
I felt the door burst open behind me, and the man nearly collided with me as he aimed at Errol.
“You’re not going anywhere!” he yelled.
I turned around to charge at him, but the man fired another shot, narrowly missing my hand.
As the man tried to regain his footing, Errol grabbed a box of detergent and threw it at his head. The box burst open and powder detergent filled the air. Another shot went off somewhere in the room, and I heard glass shatter as the bullet hit a window. I couldn’t see anything; the detergent filled my nose and eyes, and I couldn’t stop coughing.
I felt someone grab me and push me out of the room. Somewhere, someone was screaming, and the sound was more terrible than anything. I held my hands over my eyes, which burned so much I thought I might go blind.
A shock of cold air hit me as we found ourselves outside.
“We have to go back!” I yelled. “Nora’s still in there!”
“I’m right here, Theo,” she said, and I felt hands pushing me into the car.
“Everyone in? Good!”
I slammed into the side of the car as we went screeching down the driveway. In the distance, sirens split the silence.
“Go, you bastard, drive!” Errol yelled.
My hands were still clapped over my eyes, and I could feel tears streaming down my face from the detergent.
“Theo, I’m sorry!” Nora said. “They don’t usually have guns.”
I could hear Jules and Errol arguing in the front. I was squashed between the wall of the car and a soft, relenting mass, which I took to be Bill.
“You can’t go down Benedict Canyon,” Errol argued. “We’ll get stopped!”
“We have to get out of here!” Jules said. “Let go of the wheel!”
“This is my car, you heathen!”
“Hey!” Nora yelled. “Turn left up ahead! I know a place where we can hide out.”
I was slammed against the side of the car once again as Jules screeched off the road. We hit a rough patch of road, and I felt the car bumping over gravel and dirt.
“Where the fuck are we?” Errol hissed, and Nora shushed him.
“Jules, turn off the car.”
Jules pulled over and turned off the engine. We idled in silence, and not a minute went past before the sirens grew in volume. I held my breath, and gradually they faded away.
I rubbed my eyes, then blinked and took in my surroundings. The night sky was obscured by lofty trees, and as my vision returned, I saw that they were narrow eucalypts. The air was cooler here, and everything smelled like blue wood and something medicinal. My heart rate slowed.
“Nora, what is this place?”
“It’s an old clinic,” she said. Her voice was slightly muffled. She was chewing on her thumb. “It’s been abandoned since the twenties.”
“How long do we have to wait?”
“Until they leave,” she replied. “Stay in the car, if you want. I’m going in.”
“Nora!” Jules hissed, but she climbed over him and left the car. I rubbed my eyes once more, then climbed out after her.
“Great, now we’ve lost both of them,” Errol muttered.
“Hey, wait up!” I called. Nora turned and looked back at me. I caught up with her, and we walked toward the dark building together.
“What type of clinic was it?”
“Tuberculosis,” she replied. “A bunch of girls wearing masks and white dresses.”
The garden had gone completely wild in the years of abandonment. Chamise and coyote brush grew along the gentle slope that led up toward the hulking structure, which I could see more clearly now. It looked like it might have been a large house at one point, a gingerbread Victorian mansion complete with gables, turrets, and rounded windows.
“Why do you sneak into people’s houses?” I asked. “Not enough excitement in your life?”
“I spend all my time on a stage,” she said. “I never get the chance to watch other people. It’s the chance to be anonymous.”
“So buy a mask. It’d be a lot safer.”
“Don’t you get it? Most of these people don’t know how they ended up in Los Angeles. They’re all buying into someone else’s dream. It’s so sad.”
We reached the front door. Nora walked up and tested the doorknob.
“It’s locked,” she said. “Should we climb through a window?”
“Not tonight,” I said. “Not for me.”
“We didn’t get a token,” she said. “I didn’t have a chance to find something.”
I smiled at her, then held up my hand. She frowned and tilted her head, confused.
“Take it,” I said. “It’s yours.”
I opened my hand and revealed a brooch. It was shaped like a scarab, with a fat green jewel for the body, and gold-tipped antennae and legs. Nora was speechless for a moment, then took it from me.
“You stole this?” she said, wide-eyed.
I was confused for a moment. “I thought that was the point of the game,” I said.
“You’re not supposed to take something valuable!” she said, hitting my shoulder. “What if they called the cops or something? You want me to get arrested?”
“But—they did call the cops.”
A slow grin spread across her face. “Theo, I’m joking,” she said. “I love it. I think it’s the best thing that anyone’s ever found. Pin it on me.”
I stepped toward her and undid the clasp on the brooch. For the first time that night, I was close enough to catch a whiff of her perfume. She smelled like orange blossoms, the sharp, dazzling smell of a lost California, something that existed only between the faded pages of the old city. The smell made me think of a dusty wilderness that had vanished years ago, long before the pepper trees and oleander came to represent the city.
After I pinned the brooch to her dress, she looked down at it. I hadn’t stepped away yet, and she looked up and smiled.
“Let’s go, hey?” she said. “The cops are probably gone by now.”
I followed her back to the car, wondering what the rest of them would say when they saw the brooch. It turned out that I didn’t need to worry, because everyone was silent when we climbed into the car. There were no detours on the way back to the Garden of Allah, and when I finally stepped into my bedroom, the strange couple who had unwittingly set me off on the night’s journey had disappeared.