Fever City (31 page)

They figured wrong.

A king tide and luck saw to that.

He got a lift with a Mexican fisherman who loaned him a towel that smelt of calico bass, warmed him with hot coffee and a packet of Faros, and dropped him off outside a gas station on Ventura near Agora with enough change to get back. ‘
Gracias, amigo
.' The fisherman smiled, his teeth full of gold. ‘
De nada, camerado
.'

While Hastings waited for the 6
A.M.
bus from Salinas he went through the plan once more. He would go on to Dallas and save the president. He'd meet Mrs. Bannister at Big Bear Lake. And then they'd run.

But before they started running, he was adding a new detail. He was going to figure out a way to kill the Old Man.

I
look at myself in the bathroom mirror, the surface fading fast behind the blur of humidity from the shower. Just as well. I didn't like what I was seeing. I finish shaving staring into the blind fog on the glass, the contours of my face familiar to my hands, to the rasp of the well-honed blade, avoiding the more sensitive parts of my jaw. Of my trouble-inviting big mouth.

My body stings from the needles of hot water and the bruising of the last eighteen hours. I dry off and bandage myself up, then walk through to the kitchen wearing just a towel. The cat appears silently at the window, laps its milk, devours the curl of ground beef I share with it then disappears out through the rear window, back into the night. It got what it wanted: it doesn't need company. Unlike the rest of us. I switch on the radio. Billie Holliday.
The End of a Love Affair
. Too close for comfort. The pan spits and protests as meat and eggs sizzle. The last thing I ate was the omelette prepared by Mrs. Bannister. Tonight feels like the flip side of the American Dream: the beginning of
The Lost Weekend
. I uncork a quart of JTS Brown and take a bottle of Golden Velvet out of the Amana. There is a noise behind me. I spin around, knocking my fork to the floor.

‘Nick . . . ?' Cate bends down, picks up the fork. I catch a glimpse of her naked body through the neckline of her negligée as she leans forward. There was a time when we couldn't get enough of each other, making love in the shower, at the movies, on the porch at midnight, in the back of taxis, in half-open doorways. Once I pulled her into the Bradbury Building and we fucked in the darkened corner of one of the balconies. It was twilight. Deserted. Silent except for the squeak of a mop and bucket somewhere far above us, echoing in the building's empty corridors. Then the ping of an elevator. We both froze, clinging to each other as though somehow that would make us invisible. An attractive brunette stepped out, stopping when she saw us, Cate's back to her. She opened her mouth as though to scream. I shook my head. The woman was motionless, except for her eyes. They were everywhere. I started again, sinking slowly back against the railing, gently tugging an unsuspecting Cate on top of me, hoisting her dress up high above her hips so the brunette was sure to see everything. Cate rode me as I watched the brunette, spellbound, watching us. When it was over, I kissed Cate like I'd never kissed her before; it was strange, I was so proud of her. There was a fast click of heels behind us. Cate turned but the brunette was already gone. Cate and I had our own home. We were just doing it for the kicks. It was our private fever. I remembered the brunette's eyes that night when I made love again to Cate, but the next day I had forgotten them; even their colour. I only had eyes for Cate. She was the one. It was an obsession. But like all great passions it burnt faster the brighter it was. Now I can't even remember the last time we made love.

‘I didn't mean to wake you . . . ' I go to switch off the radio.

She stops me, staring for a long moment, her hands fanning my face in astonishment. ‘What happened?'

‘Drink?' She shakes her head. The glowing warmth of bourbon; the frosty awakening of the beer chaser. I sigh. ‘One too many doors slammed in my face.' There's a frown, of concern. I remember I used to love it. Before I forgot that it was ever there. ‘Don't worry, I saw a doctor . . . '

'So did I . . . ' She looks away. ‘Nick, I was pregnant.'

‘Was?' I slowly stand. She nods, looking up at me.

We had given up on the thing we had wanted so much for so long. It had been the thing that had led us into marriage in the first place. To have a family. And it had been the thing that had killed our marriage when we couldn't. We didn't formally give up on each other. It just happened, the way it always does. We just stopped loving each other, sharing confidences, living together. We drifted apart because it hurt so much when we were together. Unable to have what we wanted. Unable to even talk about it anymore. And now this. It wasn't fair. I didn't even know until it was over. It was all too fucking late.

I sit down opposite her, staring into her eyes. ‘Why didn't you tell me?'

She takes the cigarette out of my mouth, inhales deeply. ‘Because it wasn't yours, Nicky.'

I hadn't seen that coming.

Silence. Long and hard, broken only by the gush of smoke she exhales and the internal snare drum of my furious heart. I have to clear my throat before I can speak, and even then, my voice breaks. ‘Who?'

‘It doesn't matter, Nicky . . . '

‘The hell it doesn't!'

‘Let it go . . . ' she says, grinding out my cigarette. ‘I have.'

This had been the news I had waited for all those years, then given up on. Then forgotten about altogether. That's what felt like a cheat. Not Cate, sleeping with another man. After all, how many women had I slept with over the past two years? I wished I had known before Cate had lost it; I wished I'd had that moment of thinking it was mine. Even if it was a lie, it would have been enough.

She looks up at me, tears in her eyes. I grab her wrists, pull her close to me. ‘I'm so sorry, baby.'

I feel the tightness in her beginning to crack, the low trembling growing stronger with her sobs. A married couple, at the end of their rope. Holding each other in a crappy little kitchen with a flickering fluorescent light. Good times all forgotten. Future no longer imagined. Present just passing nods through windows as one drives away from the other. Bedside lamps no longer synchronized. The end of the road. ‘When did you lose it?'

‘Last week . . . '

‘Why didn't you tell me?'

‘I couldn't. Not without lying.'

‘You didn't lie now.'

‘Now it's too late to lie. Now it's all over . . . '

She lets go, her tears fierce as a summer storm. I hold her to me. My girl. My fiancée. My bride. My woman. We stand there, the weight of our worn history amplifying her sobs.

The phone rings. ‘Don't . . . '

‘Baby, I have to . . . ' Cate breaks reluctantly from me. I lean over, snatch the phone off its cradle.

‘Mr. Alston? You've got to come over.'

Her voice is strange—tense and distant. ‘Sorry, Mrs. Bannister, I'm off duty . . . '

‘It's my husband, Mr. Alston. He's missing.' The dial tone purrs in my ear. I hang up. Cate takes my hand. ‘Come to bed . . . '

‘I can't sleep now, baby, I got work to do.'

‘I don't mean that.'

We step into the bedroom together. It feels both strange and familiar, like running into an old friend from school. Cate kisses me gently on my lying lips. I sigh. I can't help myself; it's too strong. I have to ask: ‘Do I know him?'

‘Let it go, will you, Nicky,' she says, pulling the straps of her negligée over one shoulder, than the other, allowing it to glide down her body. She unwraps my towel, tosses it to the floor and then pulls me into her arms.

W
ayne and Granston escort me across a marble entrance. Orchestral music, majestic yet ominous, swells from somewhere beyond a curving staircase: Prokofiev.
Romeo at Juliet's Tomb
. Is someone, right now, preparing my own grave?

Wayne opens a wood-panelled door. I turn before I enter, looking back at him and Granston as though they were going to jump me. I can't imagine why they would, and yet I can't imagine being kidnapped either.

I glance around the enormous living room. Formal, lifeless; resplendent with antiques. Not so much furniture as trophies; stamps of power pressed into innocent teak and oak. I turn to Wayne, who hovers at the door. ‘I'm entitled to a phone call and a lawyer.'

He points to a phone, then catches himself, and closes the door behind him. There is the sinister rasp of a bolt turning outside. I try the door handle. Locked.

I look around the great room, but it appears empty. Then I see her, an elderly woman with a large mouth and highly amused eyes, dressed in cashmere and silk, sitting in a Louis XV armchair. Rubies glitter on her ears and around her throat. ‘All this talk of kidnapping is really unbecoming.' She gestures to a sofa in front of her. ‘If you were brought here, it was for your own safety. Besides, we have all the information you've been looking for.'

‘About the Kennedy assassinations?'

‘About the Bannister case.' Her dyed auburn hair masks half of her face as she reaches down and plucks a cigarette and lighter from the coffee table. ‘Admit it, Mr. Alston, that's why you're really here. Your father's unfortunate association with the case locked you into this obsession. A downward spiral . . . ' She smiles sadly at me. ‘You shouldn't have to do this to yourself—you're throwing your life away looking at one thing when you should be looking at another. Besides . . . ' There is the grind of flint finding flame, and the swift inhalation of combustion. ‘When it's all said and done, Jack and Bobby were such heels. Don't waste your time on them. Your father was so much more interesting.'

A plume of smoke crosses the room. I can smell its charmed breath of spices and cancer. There is a long silence. She's made her speech, and now I was expected to make mine. We stare at one another, each waiting for the other to crack. She smiles. ‘Do you know who I am?'

'Betty Bannister.'

The intake of her breath is so sharp that for a second I think she's having a heart attack. I rise to my feet, but she flags me back down. ‘The very thought!' Her laugh is warm and indulgent. Authentically amused. I realize that whoever she is, I think I like her. ‘I am . . . I was Eva Marlowe.'

‘The movie star?'

‘How very kind of you to remember . . . Sometimes I do feel like Norma Desmond.'

‘And now you're running with bounty hunters?'

She doesn't understand at first. ‘Oh, Dwayne.' Her laugh is like a reed instrument. Musical; resonant without being overwhelming. ‘He does have an active imagination. Of course everyone likes to think of themselves as a hero.'

‘Heroes don't kidnap people.'

‘You were brought here for your own protection.'

‘Where's here?'

‘Caddo. That's the name of the house. Sonny—Howard Hughes—gave it to me. He knew I couldn't stand Texas. Sonny was always like that, just couldn't take no for an answer. It'd drive him crazy, and let's face it—he was pretty damn crazy to begin with. Poisoned chalices were always his favourite type of gift . . . ' Now I remember where I knew the name: they used to call Howard Hughes “The Headless Horseman of Old Preston Hollow”. ‘On the other hand, how could any sane person refuse a place like this? Wait till you see the grounds. A drink, Mr. Alston?'

I look at the bottle of single malt she's holding. Older than me. ‘Please . . . ' I nod to the shelves of books. ‘You're a reader?'

‘I love reading, though I'm too impatient to be a great reader. I just finished
The Day of the Jackal
. I actually met de Gaulle. Appalling bore. I was living in France back then. We all were. We were tax exiles, although we pretended it was for the culture . . .' Eva Marlowe looks up at me, coming back from Paris when it sizzled. ‘What were we talking about . . . ? Oh yes, the library. Sonny was always fascinated by the esoteric. Freemasons, Ancient Egypt. The Knights Templar. Prophesy and fortune-telling. Even Ouija boards. Anything to do with magic . . . He just hated the notion that someone might know something he didn't.'

‘Meaning he was gullible?'

‘On the contrary, he was alert—always looking for an angle that other people overlooked. Sonny used to say that superstition was simply knowledge that educated people ignored. He called it his double indemnity. When he found out this house had been built on a Caddo Ghost Dance site, he was hooked. He believed there was some kind of ancient power buried under the earth. That's why he installed his library here. For its magical properties.'

I flash back to Evelyn and me in her library last night . . .

‘Evelyn uses it all the time.' Eva Marlowe mind-reads me. ‘She says it's unique. Apparently Yale would like to acquire it. There's a lot of material about Skull and Bones; material they'd prefer to keep hidden . . . ' She stands and removes a slim leather volume from a bookshelf. ‘But there's one book that shouldn't remain hidden any longer. It was given to me by two men I met in . . . unusual circumstances.'

‘What circumstances were those?'

‘I'm afraid I can't tell you. There's a third party involved who has already suffered enough.'

‘Do you know the names of the men?'

‘Even if I did, I wouldn't be able to tell you. They said they were killers. I believe they were actually spies. One of them was French. The other man, the American, gave this to me. It's a diary. You must promise, under no circumstances, to discuss it with anyone, including Dwayne and Adam. Especially Adam.'

‘You don't trust Granston?'