In retrospect, I could have picked a different thing to say to Todd and Roger, but I wasn’t in a speech-writing frame of mind. Once I’d pounded on their door and been let back in, I blurted out, ‘I’ve just met a man,’ and then had to wait while they stopped laughing.
‘That didn’t last long,’ Todd said. ‘Want the tea tree oil?’
‘Oh, Lexy,’ said Roger. ‘You do brighten the day.’
‘Shut up, both of you,’ I said. ‘I just met a man in the next-door room to this—’
‘Handy,’ said Todd.
‘Shut it. Who overheard what I said to you, before—’
‘So, he knows you’re single,’ said Roger.
‘And silky smooth,’ added Todd.
‘Will you shut your holes de pie,’ I said, ‘and let me tell you what’s just happened? I met a man – don’t! – next door, who overheard me saying “Blaike” and “Brandeee” and came out to introduce himself. Guess who he is you’ll never guess so I’ll tell you. Lenny Kowalski.’
And they finally shut up.
‘Lenny Kowalski who doesn’t exist, Lenny Kowalski?’ Roger said.
‘Which leaves me wondering,’ I said, ‘whether I can make Blaike’s day by taking his miracle dad round to the boat and reuniting them. Or if maybe another ex-husband coming out of the woodwork when Brandeee has disappeared means that we’ve got a prime suspect for her abduction and I should call Mike. And I truly don’t know which.’
‘It would be kinda reckless to hang around town after you’d got away with killing or even just kidnapping someone, wouldn’t it?’ Roger said. ‘If you’re on the “non-existent” tariff, that’s not something to give up easily.’
‘He’s looking for his son,’ I said. ‘He told me straight out, in as many words. What will I do?’
At the knock on the door, all three of us jumped.
‘Quick, open it!’ I said. ‘It might be Blaike. We shouldn’t let that guy see him.’
‘It’s not Blaike,’ came Lenny Kowalski’s voice through the door. ‘I thought I should join the conversation.’
Todd opened up.
‘These walls are not thick,’ Kowalski said. ‘And I have a stethoscope. Sorry.’
‘You do?’ said Roger, while slipping discreetly out from under the covers and putting a robe on. ‘You a doctor?’
‘Oncologist,’ said Kowalski. ‘You?’
‘Paediatrician,’ said Roger.
‘First equal. Put your antlers way,’ said Todd. ‘Doctors are the pits.’
‘He’s an anaesthetist,’ I said. ‘I’m a marriage and family therapist.’
‘By day,’ said Todd. ‘But, by night – oh, by night, Dr Kowalski! – we run an investigation agency along with a third partner, and one of our current cases is to find your ex-wife, Brandee Lancer, who has gone missing.’
‘So I believe,’ said Kowalski. ‘As has my son. Or, at least, I thought so.’ He gave me a hard stare.
I gave him one right back. ‘As had you too,’ I said. ‘For years and years and years. What the hell happened for … how long has it been?’
‘Sixteen years,’ said Kowalski.
‘So what the hell happened?’ I said again.
‘I just told you,’ said Kowalski. ‘Sixteen years. In Folsom.’
‘What for?’ said Roger. He had squared up, just ever so slightly, and tightened the belt of his robe.
‘Kidnap,’ said Kowalski.
Todd and Roger both gasped.
‘That’s one hell of a dry sense of humour you’ve got there,’ I said.
Kowalski let go the laugh he’d been holding in. ‘No flies on you,’ he said. ‘Nah, I’ve been in Hawaii. Brandee persuaded me a clean break was the best idea. She already had the new guy lined up, and he loved kids, and what can I tell you …? There goes Dad of the Year award.’
‘Brandeee persuaded you to walk away from your kid and never see him again?’
‘She’s very persuasive,’ said Kowalski. ‘Her nickname at college was Svengalice.’ He drew a hefty sigh. I was sure I saw the ends of his big white moustache rippling in the draught from it. ‘I thought that was hilarious when she told me.’
‘And what brings you back?’ Roger said. ‘Now, after all these years.’
‘I had half a mind,’ Lenny said, ‘when they sent him up to that school. Oh yeah, I kept tabs. But then when he ran away from it and disappeared and I couldn’t get a hold of Brandee, well, I just hopped on the next plane east.’
I looked at Roger and he looked at Todd and we all looked at Lenny. It wasn’t exactly hard criminological data, but we all agreed: he seemed like a nice guy. He wasn’t even freaked by the three of us staring at him like charmed snakes while we pondered everything.
‘What’s going on?’ he said at last, but still pretty easy.
‘That is a tough question to answer,’ I told him. ‘But we can start with this: Blaike is here. He’s round the back, on my houseboat. We found him sleeping rough – well, up a tree – and brought him home to take care of him, till we can find out what else is going on. Because—’
But Lenny had stopped listening. ‘He’s here? He’s right here? Well, what are we waiting for?’
He was off before I could explain that what we were waiting for was inspiration about how to introduce two people when one had been told the other one didn’t exist and the one that did exist after all didn’t know that. Man, he was fast. And I was barefoot in a bath towel. I managed to keep up with him, but not actually catch up, grab his arm and explain. Roger and Todd could both have overtaken me, but the path round the motel through the bushes is narrow and they couldn’t get through. Thankfully, though far from Dad of the Year, he was still a father, and he stopped at the bottom of the porch steps, composed himself and ascended at a measured pace, before throwing my living-room door open and saying, ‘Son, it’s your dad. I’m here to take you away from this bullshit. Shoulda done it years ago.’
I got to the doorway in time to see Blaike sit up straight and put his feet on the floor – which is pretty much the teenage equivalent of a star-jump-and-fist-pump combo – and say, ‘How did she get hold of you again?’
‘What?’ said Len, but he was bursting with a decade and a half of thwarted paternal instinct and he couldn’t wait for the answer. ‘Look at you! Look at the size of you! And you’re the dead spit of my old pops in his army photos! C’mere, son, and let me hug you.’
‘How much is she paying you for this?’ Blaike said. ‘Are you a model? Are you an actor?’
Todd and Roger edged round me. I couldn’t seem to get beyond the door, literally paralysed by the impossibility of unravelling any of this.
‘Brandee told him you didn’t exist,’ said Roger, which got the job done.
Lenny dropped into a chair, wearing an expression that was the pictorial-dictionary definition of gobsmacked. ‘She told you I didn’t exist?’
‘Not at first,’ said Blaike. ‘For the first fifteen years, she told me you died in an elk hunt and left me a trust fund. Then, when she had spent all the money she was going to say was in the trust fund and she didn’t have time to re … What’s the word?’
‘Amass,’ said Roger.
‘Right. She didn’t have time to re-amass it, so she came clean. Well, obviously not. She changed the story and told me you were a sperm donor. Well, not you. Some guy. No trust fund.’
‘So what did she spend all the money on?’ said Lenny.
‘All what money?’ I chipped in.
‘All my money!’ Lenny said. ‘The money I’ve been paying into the fund since the day I left, to kick in on your eighteenth birthday. Why the hell do you think an oncologist came to stay in a shithole like the Last Ditch?’ He blinked and turned to Roger and Todd. ‘Hey, why do you two …?’
‘Long story,’ Todd said.
‘It would fill a book,’ said Roger. ‘Maybe two.’
‘So what did she do with the money?’ said Lenny. ‘And where is she?’
‘Right,’ I said. ‘OK. Well, Blaike, I’m glad you’ve got someone here to support you while we tell you this. But, actually, I’m going to leave it to Todd, because I really need to go and get dressed.’
‘We’ll wait,’ Todd said. ‘It won’t take you long, Lexy. I’ve seen your look. Why don’t I make Blaike some cocoa and everyone else a margarita? Unless …?’ He looked at Lenny, who looked at Blaike.
‘How about it, kid? Can you handle a margarita, without throwing up on this nice lady’s hardwood floor?’
‘I meant, would you rather have cocoa too, Len?’ Todd said.
I went off to my bedroom, stifling giggles. I’ll never get used to the twenty-one-year-old drinking age or the wide streak of wholesomeness running through America, even California, even my pals.
It was cocoa all round when I got back to the living room. I had made a bit of an effort, stung by the disdain, choosing a pair of palazzo pants and a draped tunic, with long earrings and a messy bun.
‘What took you?’ Todd said, giving me a glance as he handed me a mug. There was no point getting offended though; he didn’t mean it. He just couldn’t look at me and see anything noteworthy. Secretly, I enjoyed knowing that about him without him knowing I knew, because he prided himself on his camp credentials and it would have killed him to know he was such a bad girlfriend, such a guy. Then, I would catch myself enjoying that and shrink a little, wondering if the whole of my life was going to feel like a school trip, with seats to choose on the bus and someone crying.
I sat down, took a slug of cocoa for courage, looked Blaike straight in the eye and said, ‘We think your mum might have been kidnapped by Nazis.’
I was ready for anything. I wasn’t ready for nothing.
‘And the money went in ransom payments?’ Lenny said, dead calm.
‘No, the money went before Mom took off,’ said Blaike, also doing a great impersonation of a millpond. ‘Or … was taken. Seriously? Who gets kidnapped? In real life, I mean.’
‘Why don’t you tell us what you know,’ said Lenny. ‘Talk us through it.’
So I talked them through it. Brandeee telling Blaike his dad didn’t exist, the fire under the eucalyptus tree and the packing off to White Pines. I told them about the 3,000 dollars to PPPerfection for spa days, and Roger found the website and showed them. I told them about the lack of Christmas gifts, and I even remembered the weird Valentine’s Day gifts, even though I had no idea what Elsie—
‘Elise! Jeez!’ Todd said.
… Elise meant by ‘Addams Family’ bouquets. Then we got right down to it. Brandeee’s disappearance, the night before Valentine’s. The abduction of Mama Cuento and the leaving of the note with the toe. The appearance of a note on Bran’s doorstep, with the ripped-off acrylic. The abduction of the pregnant Hope and the chainsawed sculpture of Liberty, along with the belly button and note sent to Blaike, and the nose and note sent to the Akela of the Oregon and whatever-it-was Washington Brownies or whoever they were.
‘Assimilation is ongoing,’ said Todd to Lenny.
I ignored him and carried on telling Lenny and Blaike about the break-in at the university that helped an act of vandalism in a snobby supermarket—
‘She means upscale grocery store,’ said Todd.
I broke off to ask him if he wanted to take over and he mimed zipping his lips. So I ploughed on, telling all about the guy who slipped in through the pickup-truck window and how we followed him to the back of beyond and crawled on our bellies, getting sharp little rocks stuck in our undergarments, but eventually saw that all the cars had PPP on their number plates, and we thought that there were at least three outsize statues on the compound, swathed in tarps, which made them hard to identify, but was in and of itself suspicious, wouldn’t they say?
Blaike was still looking at the PPPerfection website when I finally stopped talking. ‘Oh, Mom!’ he said, but in a weary way, not in anguish. ‘Yeah, I can believe that. That would sucker her right in. “Perfection”? What an easy sell.’
‘But she didn’t hand over the vouchers,’ I said.
‘I didn’t mean the vouchers!’ said Blaike. ‘I meant the disappearing.’
‘But Bran knows and the cops know,’ said Roger. ‘So, it’s only a matter of time.’
‘What’s it got to do with the cops?’ said Blaike. ‘Right … Lenny?’
Lenny’s shoulders slumped a bit at that, but he didn’t say anything.
‘Right?’ Blaike asked again. ‘If my mom wants to run away with a bunch of crazy men’s-rights loons, once she’s got me safely booted up to Idaho – ha! She thinks! – what can the cops do?’
‘Wait,’ I said. ‘You think there’s a chance she wasn’t kidnapped by them? Are you saying you think she might have gone willingly?’
‘Absolutely!’ said Blaike. ‘Right … Lenny? She surrendered to Burt, you know. A surrendered wife?’
‘No way!’ I said. ‘Your mum? Seriously?’ I only knew about these seriously creepy sub-Stepfords from browsing the so-called self-help section in the bookshop to accessorize my consulting room. I hadn’t read much but the first few chapters didn’t feature anyone like Brandeee.
‘And she did something crazy in a warm tub of water with Bran, the first time they were married. Rebirthing as twins, or something? Or maybe not twins.’
‘I hope not,’ said Roger.
‘Soulmates! That was it,’ Blaike said.
‘And this is the same woman, with the perfect hair and nails and career and skin and figure, who works out every morning and frightens me?’ I said. ‘I can’t believe it.’
‘Frightens you?’ said Blaike. ‘My mom frightens you? She’s terrified of you. This European, who puts up with Bran for six months – a guy my mom’s been obsessed with for eight years – and then moves on. To a boat!’
I liked the sound of myself in this version, but there was no real reason to dwell on it.
‘Lenny?’ I said. ‘What do you think?’
‘Well,’ he said, slowly, as if he was thinking hard, ‘they sound like a cult. And handing over all your money is what you do with a cult. That’s how they get you – not by kidnapping.’ He thought again. ‘Not that it was her money. It was yours, son, from me.’
‘But how could she raid a trust fund?’ I asked. ‘What about the trustees and the lawyers?’
‘Our divorce was informal,’ Lenny said. ‘Lawyers would have had community property split down the middle, and access in exchange for child support all hammered out. We made our own deal. I thought she’d stick to it. Maybe she would have, if she hadn’t fallen under the spell of these … You really think they’re Nazis?’
‘Um …’ I said. ‘I think they’re big honking weirdos anyway. Lenny, setting the money aside, do you agree with Blaike? That this is the sort of thing Brandeee might do?’
‘She …’ Lenny said. ‘Well, to be honest, she …’ He ran dry. ‘Son? You wanna step outside while I say this; she’s still your mom.’
‘I’m good,’ said Blaike.
‘Well, that time she was born with Bran isn’t her only rebirth,’ said Lenny. ‘Let’s leave it there.’ We all waited. ‘Or not. She was also reborn into the faith of limitless lemon light, at an ashram in Los Baños, about a year before we met. Not a real ashram – offensive as hell for them to call it that. It was more like a … I don’t know what the hell it was, but they were the ones who showed her the true path. Her true path. Dentistry.’
We all tried really hard. Her son was there and he was just a kid; he shouldn’t have to experience his mum being disrespected. I would have made it, if I hadn’t been looking at Roger when Todd tried to speak.
‘L–lemon?’ he said, with a little crack in his voice.
Roger’s held breath hissed down both sides of his teeth, like a Welsh curse. I lost it next, trying to laugh quietly and ending up snorting.
‘Poor Brandee,’ Lenny said, when we’d all got a hold of ourselves again. ‘She’s never had solid taste in religion. Or men. And I’m including me in that tally.’
‘So, you think she really could have run away to join the Patriarchy?’ I said. ‘With Blaike’s money? Why not take her own?’
‘So Bran would let her go, probably,’ said Roger. ‘Community property, like Len said.’
‘And what do we do next?’ said Todd. ‘How do we find out? Even if the cops raid the place, they’re not going arrest everyone there, are they? They’ll just bring in the crew that stole the statues. One to strap it, one to cut the bolts, the guy who hooked her up and the driver. Anyway, from what Mike said, they were only going to tell the Oregon cops as a courtesy. No doubt they know all about Patriarchyville – can you believe that name? – and won’t want to go roaring in there, if they can help it. Not for a couple of statues. Unless the patriarchs get cocky and head to the Louvre next.’
‘Why not?’ I said. ‘Why wouldn’t the Oregon cops or the FBI just go in there and clean them out? If they’ve broken the law …’
‘WACO,’ said Roger. I didn’t know what that stood for.
‘Ruby Bridges,’ said Lenny. I had no clue where they were.
‘Wounded knee,’ said Todd. And now I was sure they were talking in code.
‘Huh?’ said Blaike, saving me the trouble.
‘All we’re saying is, we can see the argument for leaving them alone up there, to do whatever it is they’re doing.’
‘Like brainwashing Mom?’ Blaike said. ‘Like conning her out of my college fund and my first car? That’s so not fair.’
I wondered how Lenny would play this first fathering challenge of the last fifteen years.
‘You’re right, son,’ he said. ‘But the cops aren’t the only show in town.’
Todd had been looking at something on my laptop and now he raised his head. ‘How big would you say that place was, Lexy?’
I shrugged, having no idea what the average size of a creepy cult compound was. Patriarchyville might be a tiddler or a whopper; I had no frame of reference.
‘Because it says here that the website was set up two years ago. Say they had a little Wix website someone’s brother-in-law put together when they first started out, then they go upmarket two years back, and they’ve got a fleet of trucks, all less than two years old, right Lex?’
Like I would be able to tell how old a pickup truck was in broad daylight, if I was reading the manual, never mind in the dark, from behind a ridge.
‘I see where you’re going,’ said Lenny.
‘I’ve got a terrible feeling I see where you’re going too,’ said Roger. ‘And I’m not sure I like it.’
‘I don’t see where you’re going,’ I said.
‘Well,’ said Todd, ‘they’re expanding, right? They’re advertising for women. They’ve got a web presence that is not unsophisticated, even if some of their direct action is a little … Who trades in navels? That’s just weird. So, I’m thinking they’re probably in the market for recruits. We could … infiltrate them. We could try to join them. Go up there and see what we can see.’
‘And, when you say “we”,’ I said, ‘who are you talking about? Because I don’t want to malign these fine gentlemen who hate native women and Black women and Latinas, but I’m guessing they’re probably not mad keen on the gays either. Wouldn’t you say?’
‘I was thinking we could do a little reshuffling,’ Todd said. ‘There’s you and me, and Kathi and Roger. Two men and two women. We could go in pairs.’
‘What about me?’ said Lenny. ‘I’m as much a part of this as anyone. It’s my money. For my son.’
‘You could go stag, I suppose,’ Todd said. ‘But I’m guessing they’re OK for single guys. What they’ll need is couples and families.’
‘Sounds like what they need is single women,’ I said.
‘Absolutely no way,’ said Roger.
‘If they want families, I could tag along,’ said Blaike.
‘Absolutely no way,’ said Lenny. ‘Shame there isn’t another lady of a certain age who could be my wife for a day.’
At that moment, my door opened, after a familiar peremptory knock, and Noleen appeared, saying, ‘Here you are! I’ve been looking for you all. Do you know you’ve left your phones in your room? Hey, kid,’ she added to Blaike.
‘Hey, Mom!’ said Blaike, and cracked up laughing.