Wayfaring Stranger (Holland Family Saga 1)

“Where’d you get that?”

“I just made it up.”

“I’m sorry for all that I’ve done to you, Hershel,” she said.

“When people make mistakes, there’s usually a reason for it. These pork chops are something else.”

She knew at that moment that Hershel Pine was probably the best human being she’d ever known. She also knew that others aside from her had done terrible damage to her husband and their friends. She determined then that they would pay for it, one way or another, starting with one person in particular.

EARLY THURSDAY MORNING Linda Gail drove downtown to a photography store and had multiple copies made of the typed note and the photos of the four female mental patients. Then she drove to the post office and sent two airmail manila envelopes to Los Angeles.

When she got home, Hershel was working in the yard, repairing the damage he had done to the St. Augustine grass and the flowerbeds. She went into the kitchen, her pillbox hat still on her head, and drank a cup of coffee at the drain board. Then she called Roy Wise­heart’s house. A maid answered. “May I speak to Mrs. Wiseheart, please?” Linda Gail asked.

“She’s taking a nap, ma’am.”

“This is Mrs. Pine. Wake her up, please.”

“She don’t like to be woke up, ma’am.”

“It’s in regard to her appearance at the meeting of Daughters of the American Revolution. It’s quite important.”

“I’ll go look in on her and be right back.”

Linda Gail waited for two minutes, staring out the window. Hershel saw her and waved. She heard someone pick up a second receiver, scraping it out of the phone cradle. “What do you want, Mrs. Pine?”

“I received the photos and note you or one of your assistants sent me. I wanted to thank you personally for being so concerned about our friend Rosita Holland.”

“What photos?”

“Of the lobotomized women. Hershel and I showed them to Weldon and also to Roy, which I’m sure is what you wanted us to do.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“You didn’t send them?”

“Why would I send you photos of any kind? We share nothing in common. We have no kind of relationship. Because you slept with my husband doesn’t give you access to my private life. I think you should talk to a psychiatrist.”

“I felt it was only appropriate that I alert you to some phone calls you’ll be receiving. You’ll be receiving an appreciable degree of media attention, not the kind that impresses members of the DAR. I saw in the newspaper that you’ll be their guest of honor at the River Oaks Country Club next week.”

“What phone calls?”

“I sent the photos and the note special delivery to Louella Parsons and Hedda Hopper.”

“Why should either of them care about photos of mental patients? Mrs. Pine, I’m convinced you’re impaired. Why Roy decided upon a dalliance with you is beyond me. He usually likes Hispanic girls he finds in the Islands.”

“I attached a statement about my affair with Roy and made it as detailed as possible, including the places where we had our trysts, down in Mexico, at the Shamrock Hotel, wherever or whenever it was convenient,” Linda Gail said. “I mentioned as many Hollywood names as I could. I also mentioned that Frankie Carbo was a guest in your home and that Roy was on a first-name basis with Bugsy Siegel. I explained to Louella and Hedda the retaliatory means you’ve taken to get even for your husband’s ongoing infidelity. In short, I wanted them to know what a vicious, hateful, anti-Semitic witch you are, Mrs. Wiseheart. You have every right to despise me, but to do what you’ve done to Rosita Holland takes a special kind of woman. Good-bye, and I hope you stay germ-free the rest of your life.”

Chapter

29

THURSDAY MORNING I w

oke at sunrise in a room on the fifth floor of a brick hotel in Wichita Falls. From my window I could see a drugstore down below, with a Coca-Cola sign hung like a large red button over the entrance. I could also see a diner and a Western Union office and a five-and-dime store and, down the street, a mechanic’s shop with a sign that said WE FIX FLATS. Each of these things was somehow emblematic of both modernity and tradition, or perhaps simply an echo of the 1920s, which was probably the most prototypical decade in our history and the one for which we are forever nostalgic. I was gazing down on the America of Norman Rockwell. It was the America all of us grew up in and believed in and fought for. Now all my thoughts were dedicated to fleeing it, with my wife, in whatever fashion we could. It was a strange way to feel.

I had eight thousand dollars in cash, the clothes in the suitcase, the German Luger and a box of ammunition, and no car. I also had no plan. The pilot who had flown me to Wichita Falls had said his plane would be available in three or four days. He asked if I would be returning to Houston. I told him I didn’t think so. I didn’t mention that when I left Wichita Falls, I would have someone with me and would probably be in a hurry.

Entering Mexico wouldn’t be difficult, I thought. There were still dirt roads that led to wooden bridges over the Rio Grande, with indifferent border security on both sides. The Mexican government never discouraged the presence of gringo dollars in its huge culture of prostitution and narcotics and pornography and police corruption along its northern rim. And the illegals we called wetbacks, who went back and forth across the river with regularity, had been a welcomed source of cheap labor since the Mexican Cession. The challenge was getting out of the state without being arrested.