“Paper or plastic?”
Iris had taken the plastic and felt guilty. A plastic shopping bag dangled from each handlebar of her bicycle. The bike was unsteady as she rolled it down the carpeted corridor to her condo.
Her front door was open.
She put her key in the lock and the door just pushed open. She knew she hadn’t been that scattered, too scattered to forget to lock, to remember to even close the door.
The automatic timer on the lights had already lit the room. The drapes billowed back and forth through the open sliding glass door. She hadn’t left that open either. She also hadn’t done what had been done to her place.
Everything was everywhere.
She carefully took the grocery bags off the handlebars, slowly set them on the floor, pulled down the kickstand with her foot, and balanced the bicycle, operating in a sort of surreal hyperspace. She looked at the billowing drapes and started to walk toward the terrace, stepping through the albums and CDs strewn across the floor. The terrace was a mile away and she walked on legs that weren’t hers, walking to the gates of hell.
Midway across the room, she bolted and fell on the drape pulls, whimpering while she fumbled for the right one. The drapes rose and fell. She finally found the pull and let the world in.
The terrace was empty.
She sighed in relief.
Then she stood stone still and listened. She heard her heart beating and the blood rushing in her ears and the rolling ocean outside and they were the same noise. She wished they’d stop. She needed to hear better. She stood still for a long time—longer, she figured, than anyone else there could possibly remain quiet. Then she stood quiet even longer and didn’t hear anything and decided that whoever had done the dirty deed must have left.
She walked into the kitchen, rolling the little round bottles from the splintered spice rack out of the way. She wasn’t cleaning that rack now. Some of the cupboards were scraped clean, their contents covering the counters and floor. Others looked like the stuff inside had just been moved around. She thought it looked like the work of two creeps—one neat, one frenzied.
The smash-master must have done the china hutch. Most of the china and crystal was on the floor, most of it broken. It must have made a wonderful clatter.
Iris was pragmatic. Now she wouldn’t have to worry about the earthquake doing it.
The empty champagne bottle from her Saturday night party for one poked up through the mess. She lifted it by the neck. The base was broken. She held it in front of her, business end out, saw a bloody image of someone using it on her, but took it anyway.
Now armed, she walked assertively toward the hall, flipping on the hall light without stopping, marching into the bedroom, jumping when she saw a figure silhouetted against the bedroom window, relieved when the light turned it into her bathrobe.
Her goose down comforter had been thrown off the bed, her Laura Ashley sheets slashed, the mattress stuffing pulled out in tufts and scattered across the room.
The walk-in closet was three feet deep in clothes, shoes, purses, belts, hats, and luggage. Quelle soirée. Her new Anne Klein suit lay on top of the pile. She held her breath as she picked it up. It wasn’t slashed. At least they hadn’t been sick enough to slash her new Anne Klein.
They had been sick enough to play with her lingerie. All of it was pulled out and displayed on top of the other mess. She looked through it, lifting each piece by her fingernails, thinking maybe they’d left behind a surprise wadded inside.
At least they weren’t perverts.
Then she saw the sign scribbled on the bedroom mirror with a lipstick, her new shade.
NATSY, it said.
“Natsy?” Iris said.
The police arrived in eight minutes. It was Sunday night and the action in the neighborhood was slow. Iris put her lingerie back, then called John Somers’s house after she’d called the police, then threw the telephone across the room when she heard some hokey music click on and his voice over it. She retrieved the phone and called his office. He wasn’t on that night. It wasn’t their business to keep track of him.
She threw the phone across the room again.
She put the couch back together, sat on it cross-legged, and watched the police poke around. They’d asked her if anything was missing. She did a quick inventory. Nothing was.
Well, why was her place trashed?
How the hell did she know?
She sat with arms crossed and legs crossed and sulked.
Then Paul Lewin came in. Just breezed in, wearing a plaid short-sleeved shirt buttoned over his belly and jeans that were too baggy in the seat.
“You don’t knock?” Iris asked.
“This is a crime scene, ma’am,” Lewin said.
“So, crooks and cops own my privacy.”
“Just conducting my business, Ms. Thorne.”
“No bodies here, Detective.”
“The station said you called for Somers. Thought I’d follow up.”
“Where is he?”
“On police business, ma’am.”
“What business? Isn’t this his case?”
“I can’t discuss it, Ms. Thorne.”
“Please stop calling me ma’am and Ms. Thorne.”
“They’re terms of respect.”
“Somehow you don’t make it sound that way.”
“I’m sorry you feel that way, ma’am.”
Iris blew out air and shook her head. She scraped the polish off a fingernail with the thumb of her other hand. “Doesn’t matter. Guess he didn’t believe me.”
“Ma’am?”
“John. Something I told him.”
“I followed up on your Disneyland lead.”
“He told you?”
“We’re partners, ma’am.”
“What happened?”
“I can’t discuss a case in progress.”
“But I’m the one who told John.”
“How did you come across that information, Ms. Thorne?”
“What information?”
“Ma’am, this isn’t a game.”
“You know who Joe Campbell’s father is. Tell me.”
“I suspect you already have that information, Ms. Thorne.”
“Who is Joe Campbell’s father?”
Lewin put his hands on his hips and looked around the room. “It’s police business. Judging by the looks of this place, I’d advise you to stay out of it.”
“Why don’t you like me?”
“Ma’am?”
“Is it because of John?”
“I’m doing my job. Whether I like you or not doesn’t have a thing to do with it.” He left the room.
Iris sank her head down lower. She started scraping another nail.
After a few minutes, Lewin strolled back into the room.
“Ms. Thorne, are you involved in any political organizations—” he searched for the right words—“any… movements?”
“Movements?”
“Abortion, whales, skinheads…”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“They’re calling you a Nazi.”
“Who is?”
“On the mirror, in your bedroom.”
“Nazi?” Iris was incredulous. “That doesn’t say Nazi.”
Lewin put his hands on his hips. “Why don’t you tell me what it does say? Ms. Thorne.”
“It doesn’t say anything.”
“What’s it doing there?”
“You’re the detective, Detective.”
He looked out the open glass door at the phosphorescent white caps on the rolling sea. He turned to face her.
He stared.
She stared back.
“Ms. Thorne, what have you got that someone’s looking for?”
She stared. “Nothing.”
“Who are you protecting?”
“No one.”
“Teddy Kraus?”
“No one.”
“Joe Campbell?”
“Seriously? No.”
“Yourself?”
“You’d love that, wouldn’t you?”
“You’re only endangering yourself.”
“You hung Alley out to dry.”
“This doesn’t look good for you, Ms. Thorne.”
“My condo gets trashed and I’m the bad guy.”
“This is no coincidence. Is Alley worth it?”
She didn’t say anything.
“Sleep well, Ms. Thorne. And don’t leave town.”
Steve stood in the open doorway and watched Iris iron. It was after midnight.
“Iris, why is the door wide open?”
“Everyone in the world’s coming through anyway. Why make it hard on ‘em?”
“Look at this place.”
“Yeah, look.” She smashed the iron against a blouse draped over the board.
“What are you doing?”
“Ironing something to wear to work.”
He picked his way through the clutter, took the iron out of her hand, set it on its base, and put his arms around her.
She sank into them.
They managed to put enough stuffing back into the mattress to sleep on it. She set the alarm for 4:25 in the morning. She watched Steve sleep, his eyes fluttering beneath his lids, his face calm. What was he dreaming? Of her? Of another woman? Or was he just at peace with himself?
She picked up the gold-and-midnight-blue velour Crown Royal whiskey bag from her nightstand and took out the handgun that was inside. Steve’s gun. Protection from pirates. He thought she should have it. Steve had taught her about guns, first at sea, then at a shooting range. She held it up and aimed it at the NATSY message, then at the Rodeo Drive shopping bag with the two hundred thirty-eight thousand dollars in it, then at her own head, just to see how it felt. Then she put it away and lay down and did not sleep.