Sole Survivor

The caller hung up.

After all, there wasn’t going to be a pleasant get-acquainted chat over coffee.

According to the business hours posted on the glass door, the bookstore closed on Sundays at six o’clock. It was a quarter past six. Through the big display windows, Joe saw that the fluorescent panels toward the front of the store were dark; only a few at the back were lighted, but when he tried the door, it was unlocked.

Inside, a single clerk waited at the cashiers’ counter. He was black, in his late thirties, as small and wiry as a jockey, with a moustache and goatee. Behind the thick lenses of his horn-rimmed glasses, his eyes were as large as those of a persistent interrogator in a dream of inquisition.

‘Biographies?’ Joe asked.

Coming out from behind the counter, the clerk pointed to the right rear corner of the store, where light glowed beyond ranks of shadowed shelves.

As he headed deeper into the maze of books, Joe heard the front door being locked behind him.

In the biography aisle, another black man was waiting. He was a huge slab of ebony — and appeared capable of being an irresistible force or an immovable object, whichever was required. His face was as placid as that of Buddha, but his eyes were like Kansas windows with views of tornadoes.

He said, ‘Assume the position.’

At once Joe knew he was dealing with a cop or former cop.

Obediently, he faced a wall of books, spread his legs wide, leaned forward with both hands against the shelves, and stared at the spines of the volumes in front of him. One in particular caught his attention: a massive biography of Henry James, the writer.

Henry James.

For some reason even that name seemed significant. Everything seemed significant, but nothing was. Least of all, the name of a long-dead writer.

The cop frisked him quickly and professionally, searching for a weapon or a transmitter. When he found neither, he said, ‘Show me some ID.’

Joe turned away from the shelves and fished his driver’s license from his wallet.

The cop compared the photo on the license with Joe’s face, read his vital statistics and compared them to the reality, then returned the card. ‘See the cashier.’

‘What?’

‘The guy when you came in.’

The wiry man with the goatee was waiting by the front door. He unlocked it as Joe approached. ‘You still have the phone?’

Joe offered it to him.

‘No, hold on to it,’ the cashier said. ‘There’s a black Mustang parked at the curb. Drive it down to Wilshire and turn west. You’ll be contacted.’

As the cashier opened the door and held it, Joe stared at the car and said, ‘Whose is it?’

From behind the bottle-thick lenses, the magnified eyes studied him as though he were a bacterium at the lower end of a micro­scope. ‘What’s it matter whose?’

‘Doesn’t, I guess.’

Joe went outside and got into the Mustang. The keys were in the ignition.

At Wilshire Boulevard, he turned west. The car was almost as old as the Suburu that he had gotten from Gem Fittich. The engine sounded better, however, the interior was cleaner, and instead of pine-scented disinfectant masking the stink of stale cigarette smoke, the air held a faint tang of menthol after-shave.

Shortly after he drove through the underpass at the San Diego Freeway, the cellular phone rang. ‘Yeah?’

The man who had sent him to the bookstore now said, ‘You’re going all the way to the ocean in Santa Monica. When you get there, I’ll ring you with more directions.’

All right.’

‘Don’t stop anywhere along the way. You understand?’

‘Yes.’

‘We’ll know if you do.’

They were somewhere in the traffic around him, in front or behind — or both. He didn’t bother to look for them.

The caller said, ‘Don’t try to use your phone to call anyone. We’ll know that too.’

‘I understand.’

‘Just one question. The car you’re driving — why did you want to know whose it was?’

Joe said, ‘Some seriously unpleasant bastards are looking for me. If they find me, I don’t want to get any innocent people in trouble just because I was using their car.’

‘Whole world’s already in trouble, man. Haven’t you noticed?’ the caller asked, and then he disconnected.

With the exception of the cop — or former cop — in the book­store, these people who were hiding Rose Tucker and provid­ing security for her were amateurs with limited resources com­pared to the thugs who worked for Teknologik. But they were thoughtful and clever amateurs with undeniable talent for the game.

Joe was not halfway through Santa Monica, with the ocean still far ahead, when an image of the book spine rose in his mind — the name Henry James.

Henry James. So what?

Then the title of one of James’ best-known works came to him. The Turn of the Screw. It would be on any short list of the most famous ghost stories ever written.

Ghost.

The inexplicable welling of the oil-lamp flames, the flashing of the numbers on the clock, the jangling pots and pans now seemed as if they might have been linked, after all. And as he recalled those images, it was easy in retrospect to discern a supernatural quality to them — although he was aware that his imagination might be enhancing the memories in that regard.

He remembered, as well, how the foyer chandelier had dimmed and brightened and dimmed repeatedly as he had hurried upstairs in response to the shotgun blast that had killed Charlie Delmann. In the fearsome turmoil that had followed, he’d forgotten that odd detail.

Now he was reminded of countless séance scenes in old movies and television programs, in which the opening of the door between this world and the realm of spirits was marked by the pulsing of electric lights or the guttering of candles without the presence of a draft.

Ghost.

This was absurd speculation. Worse than absurd. Insane. There were no such things as ghosts.

Yet now he recalled another disquieting incident that occurred as he’d fled the Delmann house.

Racing from the kitchen with the smoke alarm blaring behind him, along the hallway and across the foyer to the door. His hand on the knob. From behind comes a hissing cold, prickling his neck, drilling through the base of his skull. Then he is crossing the porch without any memory of having opened the door.

This seemed to be a meaningful incident as long as he considered it to be meaningful — but as soon as scepticism reasserted itself, the moment appeared to be utterly without import. Yes, if he had felt anything at the back of his neck, it should have been the heat of the fire, not a piercing chill. And, yes, this cold had been different from anything that he had ever felt before: not a spreading chill but like the tip of an icicle — indeed, more finely pointed yet, like a stiletto of steel taken from a freezer, a wire, a needle. A needle inserted into the summit of his spine. But this was a subjective perception of something that he had felt, not a journalist’s measured observation of a concrete phenomenon. He’d been in a state of sheer panic, and he’d felt a lot of peculiar things; they were nothing but normal physiological responses to extreme stress. As for the few seconds of blank memory between the time when he’d put his hand on the doorknob and when he’d found himself most of the way across the porch… Well, that was also easily explained by panic, by stress, and by the blinding power of the overwhelming animal instinct to survive.

Not a ghost.

Rest in peace, Henry James.

As he progressed through Santa Monica toward the ocean, Joe’s brief embrace of superstition loosened, lost all passion. Reason returned.

Nevertheless, something about the concept of a ghost continued to seem significant to him. He had a hunch that eventually he would arrive at a rational explanation derived from this consideration of the supernatural, a provable theory that would be as logical as the meticulously structured prose of Henry James.

A needle of ice. Piercing to the grey matter in the centre of the spine. An injection, a quick cold squirt of… something.

Did Nora Vadance feel that ghost needle an instant before she got up from the breakfast table to fetch the camcorder?

Did the Delmanns feel it?

And Lisa?

Did Captain Delroy Blane feel it, too, before he disengaged the auto pilot, clubbed his First Officer in the face, and calmly piloted Flight 353 straight into the earth?

Not a ghost, perhaps, but something fully as terrifying and as malevolent as any evil spirit returned from the abyss of the damned, something akin to a ghost.

When Joe was two blocks from the Pacific, the cell phone rang for the third time.

The caller said, ‘Okay, turn right on the Coast Highway and keep driving until you hear from us again.’

To Joe’s left, less than two hours of sunlight lay over the ocean, like lemon sauce cooking in a pan, gradually thickening to a deeper yellow.

In Malibu, the phone rang again. He was directed to a turnoff that would take him to Santa-Fe-by-the-Sea, a Southwest restaurant on a bluff overlooking the ocean.

‘Leave the phone on the passenger’s seat and give the car to the valet. He knows who you are. The reservation is in your name,’ said the caller, and he hung up for the last time.

The big restaurant looked like an adobe lodge transported from New Mexico, with turquoise window trim, turquoise doors, and walkways of red-clay tiles. The landscaping consisted of cactus gardens in beds of white pebbles — and two large sorrel trees with dark green foliage and sprays of white flowers.

The Hispanic valet was more handsome by far than any current or past Latin movie star, affecting a moody and smouldering stare that he had surely practiced in front of a mirror for eventual use in front of a camera. As the man on the phone had promised, the valet was expecting Joe and didn’t give him a claim check for the Mustang.

Inside, Santa-Fe-by-the-Sea featured massive lodgepole-pine ceil­ing beams, vanilla-coloured plaster, and more red-clay payers. The chairs and tables and other furnishings, which fortunately didn’t push the Southwest theme to extremes, were J. Robert Scott knockoffs though not inexpensive, and the decorator’s palette was restricted to pastels used to interpret classic Navajo motifs.

A fortune had been spent here; and Joe was acutely aware that by comparison to the decor, he was a scruffy specimen. He hadn’t shaved since leaving for Colorado more than twelve hours ago. Because most contemporary male movie stars and directors indulged in a perpetually adolescent lifestyle, blue jeans were acceptable attire even at many tony establishments in Los Angeles. But his new corduroy jacket was wrinkled and baggy from having been rain-soaked earlier, and he had the rumpled look of a traveller —or a lush coming off a bender.

The young hostess, as beautiful as any famous actress and no doubt passing time in food service while waiting for the rote that would win her an Oscar, seemed to find nothing about his appearance to disdain. She led him to a window table set for two.

Glass formed the entire west wall of the building. Tinted plastic blinds softened the power of the declining sun. The view of the coastline was spectacular as it curved outward both to the north and south — and the sea was the sea.

‘Your associate has been delayed,’ the hostess said, evidently referring to Demi. ‘She’s asked that you have dinner without her, and she’ll join you afterwards.’

Joe didn’t like this development. Didn’t like it at all. He was eager to make the connection with Rose, eager to learn what she had to tell him — eager to find Nina.

He was playing by their rules, however. All right. Thanks.’

If Tom Cruise had undergone cosmetic surgery to improve his appearance, he might have been as handsome as Joe’s waiter. His name was Gene, and he seemed to have had a twinkle surgically inserted in each of his gas-flame-blue eyes.

After ordering a Corona, Joe went to the men’s room and winced at the mirror. With his beard stubble, he resembled one of the criminal Beagle Boys in old Scrooge McDuck comics. He washed his hands and face, combed his hair, and smoothed his jacket. He still looked like he should be seated at not a window table but a Dumpster.

Back at his table, sipping ice-cold beer, he surveyed the other patrons. Several were famous.

An action-movie hero three tables away was even more stubbled than Joe, and his hair was matted and tousled like that of a small boy just awakened from a nap. He was dressed in tattered black jeans and a pleated tuxedo shirt.

Nearer was an Oscar-nominated actor and well-known he**in addict in an eccentric outfit fumbled from the closet in a state of chemical bliss: black loafers without socks, green-plaid golf pants, a brown-chequered sportscoat, and a pale blue-denim shirt. In spite of his ensemble, the most colourful things about him were his bloodshot eyes and his swollen, flame-red eyelids.

Joe relaxed and enjoyed dinner. Pureed corn and black-bean soups were poured into the same dish in such a way as to form a yellow and black yin-and-yang pattern. The mesquite-grilled salmon was on a bed of mango-and-red-pepper salsa. Everything was delicious.

While he ate, he spent as much time watching the customers as he did staring at the sea. Even those who were not famous were colourful, frequently ravishing, and generally engaged in one sort of performance or another.

Los Angeles was the most glamorous, tackiest, most elegant, seediest, most clever, dumbest, most beautiful, ugliest, forward looking, retro—thinking, altruistic, self-absorbed, deal-savvy, politi­cally ignorant, artistic-minded, criminal-loving, meaning-obsessed, money-grubbing, laid-back, frantic city on the planet. And any two slices of it, as different as Bel Air and Watts, were nevertheless uncannily alike in essence: rich with the same crazy hungers, hopes, and despairs.

By the time he was finishing dinner with mango bread pudding and jalapeno ice cream, Joe was surprised to realize how much he enjoyed this people-watching. He and Michelle had spent afternoons strolling places as disparate as Rodeo Drive and City Walk, checking out the ‘two-footed entertainment,’ but he had not been interested in other people for the past year, only in himself and his pain.

The realization that Nina was alive and the prospect of finding her were slowly bringing Joe out of himself and back to life.

A heavy-set black woman in a red and gold muumuu and two pounds of jewellery had been spelling the hostess. Now she escorted two men to a nearby table.

Both of these new patrons were dressed in black slacks, white silk shirts, and black leather jackets as supple as silk. The older of the two, approximately forty, had enormous sad eyes and a mouth sufficiently sensuous to assure him a contract to star in Revlon lipstick advertisements. He would have been handsome enough to be a waiter — except that his nose was red and misshapen from years of heavy drinking, and he never quite closed his mouth, which gave him a vacuous look. His blue-eyed companion, ten years younger, was as pink-faced as if he had been boiled — and plagued by a nervous smile that he couldn’t control, as if chronically unsure of himself.