Adjourned (7 page)

People on the street, who were still recovering from five days of pounding rain, were caught by surprise and were tossed around like leaves by their wind-opened umbrellas. Tourists must have thought they were watching a sadistic
Mary Poppins
sequel in the making.

The merciless weather, along with a merciless editor, kept Jessica Mordente away from her desk at the
Los Angeles Times
and out on the street for most of the day. Her Thomas Brothers street map was her bible as she raced around the city interviewing the victims of Mother Nature's wrath.

She talked to an irate starlet in Beverly Hills whose pink Rolls-Royce was crushed by a tree. Then Mordente sped west to the Santa Monica Pier, where the wind had kicked one of the city's notorious vagrants into the sea. After two more hours of on-the-spot reporting, Mordente shoved her three full reporter's notebooks into her purse and headed downtown for the Times building.

Mordente remained in front of her computer terminal for the rest of the afternoon, piecing together a story from her notes and frequent telephone interviews. It was nearly 7 p.m. before she was able to switch off her screen, relax, and grab a bite to eat. She left the newsroom and wearily trudged down the hallway to the elevator, taking the jolting ride to the cafeteria.

Her stomach growled, Get me food!, all the way up to the tenth floor. She strode into the cafeteria, bypassed the salad bar, and zeroed in on the grill. The gangly Mexican cook, dwarfed by a white hat resembling a mushroom cloud, greeted her with a cheerful grin.

Mordente placed her order hurriedly in Spanish, asking him for two grilled turkey and cheese sandwiches. While he prepared her sandwiches, she whirled around the circular buffet, snatching a handful of chocolate chip cookies, a bag of Doritos, and a tall paper cup full of black coffee.

She took her sandwiches with a thankful smile, rushed through the cashier's line, and settled down to eat at a table by a window. The moment her rear end touched the seat and her nose took in the aroma of the hot food, she could feel herself beginning to unwind. Outside, she could see the red numbers on the Times building clock glowing against the dark backdrop of the Civic Center buildings. Today, she realized, had felt like a week.

Her stomach took control of her body now, ordering her to grab a sandwich and wolf it down in six hungry bites. She did. Mordente had learned long ago how to handle her body. She knew she could occasionally put her stomach on hold for an entire day, but when the food was on the table, she had to let her stomach call the shots. That was the deal she had struck with her stomach. She understood her body and had worked out agreements with her bowels, hair, bladder, teeth, uterus, and, most important, her lower back.

The quick consumption of sandwich number one had taken the edge off her hunger, and her stomach allowed her to approach the rest of the meal in a more relaxed manner. Sipping her coffee, which was so hot it nearly scalded her tongue, she folded open the paper to the Metro section.

She scanned the narrow story running down the first column about the robbery of another bank by a gang who hid their faces with rubber Halloween masks. This bank was robbed, it seemed, by Yoda, Jimmy Carter, and a werewolf. She glanced at a feature photo of an elderly woman in a wheelchair rolling down the street, a duck on a leash following along.

Midpage, just under the fold, she found her lengthy roundup of southland wind damage. She read it with a sense of mild achievement and a renewed feeling of fatigue.

She was about ready to follow the story to the jump when she saw the tiny boxed article below hers. It was just a glorified filler, so unimportant that no by-line was attributed to it, but she looked at it anyway. Sometimes these short stories were interesting.

VENICE—A Hollywood nurse was killed Wednesday morning by an exploding bomb rigged to the ignition system of her boyfriend's car.

Cheshire Davis, 32, was leaving the home of 35-year-old Brett Macklin at about 6 a.m. when the blast occurred. Police say she triggered the bomb when she tried to start his car, a vintage 1959 Cadillac.

The blaze resulting from the explosion was quickly contained by firefighters before it could do more than superficial damage to Macklin's home.

A police spokesman said there is no apparent motive for the bombing and, refusing to venture an explanation of any kind, noted an investigation is under way. Macklin is owner and operator of Blue Yonder Airways in Santa Monica and has no history, according to police sources, of any "criminal associations."

The early morning blast jolted residents living as far as two miles away from Macklin's home, police say.

Mordente felt that annoying tingle between her shoulder blades that told her there was something more to the story than she caught at first glance.

She read the story again.
So maybe one of 'em had a jilted lover that tried to get even
. The tingle didn't fade. Mordente gave the story a third goingover, wondering what it was about the article that nagged at her.

Then it hit her. That name . . . Macklin . . . she had heard it somewhere before. She got up, her hunger forgotten, and dashed down the stairwell to the Times morgue.

# # # # # #

The smoke from the fire was trapped in Brett Macklin's house. It clung to the walls, his body, the furniture. Everything he ate or drank in the house tasted charred.

He spent the morning moving aimlessly through the house, trying to hide from it. But the smell was everywhere. And so was Cheshire. Everywhere he turned he was confronted by her presence—the houseplants Cheshire had brought over and nurtured; the dish towels she had made while they watched old movies on TV together; her makeup scattered on the bathroom countertop; her comforter, covered with broken glass, in a heap on the bed.

Macklin felt smothered, on the verge of screaming. Death was everywhere, closing in on him. Yet he couldn't leave the house. Something kept him there. He picked up the glass, shard by shard, from the bedroom and made the bed. He got down on his hands and knees and scrubbed the chocolate ice cream off the kitchen floor. He cleaned the house like a robot, unthinking, performing the tasks as if controlled by some irreversible computer program.

By late afternoon, there was nothing else to clean, nowhere to hide. He was forced to feel. He felt the coldness gradually sweep over him, numbing the dull ache of sadness as it had months before.

He paced in the living room. The coldness inside him was melting under the searing heat of a new emotion. It scorched through him, fed by his sadness. It flushed his skin, tightened his face muscles, and quickened his heartbeat.

His depression was gone, beaten. A familiar voice spoke to him again.

Make them pay.

Macklin rebounded, snapping out of his depressed lethargy. He called up a local rent-a-car place and had them deliver a full-size Chevrolet Impala. He took the Glad bag filled with Saputo's trash, put it in the trunk, and drove to Kmart, where he bought a pair of plastic gloves to examine the typewriter ribbons.

While Mother Nature drop-kicked transients into the Pacific Ocean, crushed European luxury cars, and swatted homes off the Hollywood hills, Macklin was sitting alone in the cavernous Blue Yonder hangar at the Santa Monica Airport, wading through Saputo's trash.

First, he studied everything that had been typed on the ribbons by reading them backward, following the three lines of letters in a W-shaped trail and jotting them down on a legal pad.

The ribbon contained memos to kiddie-porn distributors that promised new films within several weeks and a regular production schedule. Also, Macklin read through sales copy for the kiddie-porn films and products:

". . .
Kiddie Call Girls
,
Moppet Cock Suckers
, and
Cuddly Clit
offer the demanding man hot child sexuality at its erotic best . . ."

". . . lifelike Latex blow-up dolls with warm vaginas and budding tits that make them the best lay imaginable . . . whenever you want it!"

". . . they're young, they're wet, they're 200 glossy black-and-white pictures of the horniest sweet candy
ever
. . ."

Macklin stared down at the legal pad, then glanced at the remaining stacks of papers, photos, and film. Bile, hot and acidic, bubbled up in his throat. He dashed to the bathroom, leaned over the toilet, and vomited in deep, aching heaves that left him light-headed and shaky kneed.

Bracing himself against the sink, he straightened up and flushed the toilet. He felt as if he had puked up everything except his heart and lungs. He turned on the faucet, cupped his hands under the cool water, and splashed his face a few times. Then, his face damp, he meekly ventured a look at himself in the mirror.

His skin was chalk white. The only tinge of color came from the dark circles that underscored his eyes and gave them a sunken, empty look. Macklin splashed his face again, as if he could wash the face he saw in the mirror off his own.

Dabbing his face dry with a rough paper towel, Macklin shuffled back into the hangar and decided to forget the piles of paper for a while and see what the film strips had to offer.
Best to do it on an empty stomach,
he thought.
All I can do is gag.

He sat down on a stool and fed the torn strips of celluloid, which he presumed were outtakes, rejects, and damaged film, through his tiny Super 8 viewer. The same viewer he had used to edit home movies he shot of Cory. Brooke nursing Cory at the hospital. Cory walking for the first time. His father playing with Cory. Cory nearly hidden under JD Macklin's LAPD hat. Cory's seventh birthday party at Disneyland.

He spent the next two hours in front of the viewer. Most of the film was outtake footage for a good reason. The endless yards of blurry, indiscernible shots and scratched film had made Macklin's eyes stinging red. Macklin yawned, tired of the vague shapes, overexposed film, and lingering shots of genitalia.

Macklin wearily fed another three-foot-long strip of film quickly through the editor. Something bright flashed for a split second on the tiny screen, catching his attention. He pulled the strip backward, careful not to rip the sprockets on the feed. Another bright flash amidst the blur of frames. Macklin brought the film through again slowly and stopped at the bright frame.

The shot was hazy, but in comparison to the rest of the film, it was Oscar-winning cinematography. A young girl, perhaps ten years old, sat on a stool, her legs crossed, at the edge of a movie set. It must be a wild shot, Macklin thought, taken accidently and not part of their movie. Lights and rafters, as well as several people, could be made out in the background.

She looked serene, calm.

Not like she would be, Macklin thought. Not swollen and green, naked and covered in mud. Not rotting beside a rain-swelled canal.

Macklin clicked off the viewer.
Not dead.

A loud rapping at the hangar door startled him. Macklin, tearing the frame from the strip and putting it in his shirt pocket, quickly swept everything on the table into the Glad bag.

The knocking became irritated and persistent.

"Hang on!" Macklin yelled as he dragged the bag along the floor into his darkened office. He closed the office door and sprinted across the hangar. Macklin took a deep breath and opened the door.

A gust of cold wind blew into the hangar. Standing against the night, under a narrow cone of light cast by a dirty bulb above the door, was a dark-skinned woman in khaki pants, a white woven silk blazer, and a brown blouse.

She looked at him with curious green eyes that sparkled like olivine stones. "Brett Macklin?"

"Yes?"

"My name is Jessica Mordente," she said politely. "I'm with the
Los Angeles Times
."

A fucking reporter,
Macklin thought,
a vulture.

"I've got a subscription," Macklin said curtly, closing the door. She jammed her foot in the way, forcing the door open a crack.

"Good. Then you'll see the story that exposes Mr. Jury."

Macklin's stomach muscles tightened defensively as if he were preparing to ward off a blow. "Move your foot, lady, or you're going to lose it." Macklin stared into her eyes and felt a tremor of nervousness at the determination he saw there. A sense of apprehension squeezed him, viselike. He'd be damned, though, if he'd give up any ground. "I'm in no mood for journalistic bullshit."

"Come now, Mr. Macklin, couldn't we talk for just a moment?" she said with exaggerated care, as if talking to a temperamental child. It made Macklin want to throttle her. "Aren't you even a little interested in Mr. Jury?"

"Not the slightest."

Mordente shook her head and spoke evenly. "I think you are, Mr. Macklin. Very much." She met his scornful gaze. "Mr. Jury's first victims were the men suspected of killing your father. Interesting, huh?"

"He made a good choice."

"Now someone has planted a bomb in your car and killed your girlfriend." She saw Macklin's face harden. "I think Mr. Jury is going to strike again, real soon."

"And I think you're about to acquire a permanent limp."

Mordente laughed coyly. "Well, Mr. Macklin, a polite good night to you, too." She turned her back to him and walked away, waving her hand at him. "See you around."

Macklin slammed the door shut and fell back against it. His heart raced. The world was closing in on him again. Harder this time. Macklin took several deep breaths, exhaling them slowly, trying to calm himself.
I don't care if they find out who I am, what I am.

Then why are you so rattled, Macky boy?
Macklin pulled the piece of film out of his pocket and studied it.

Because I don't want anyone to stop me until I've evened the score.

Erica Tandy stretched her legs out as far as they could go and tried to touch the darkish cloud with her toes. She almost made it, but the swing resisted at the height of its climb. The swing fell back and she tucked her legs, trying to grab the air and pin it between her calves and the underside of her thighs.