Losing Clementine (10 page)

To the right of the piece, there was a red dot stuck to the wall. Below the dot, a card announced in perfect script:

Buyers could be so stupid.

“Jenny?”

“I'm getting the paint.”

She went to the trunk, pulled out a gallon bucket by its thin wire handle, and set it on the curb. With a small Swiss Army knife that dangled from her key chain, she popped off the lid then brought it to me.

“You don't do anything,” I said. “You're the lookout. It's all me. No arguments.”

She scowled. I didn't care.

“You have a lug wrench?” I asked.

Her eyes got big. “Okay, I'm lookout.”

“And the wrench?”

“In the trunk.”

I followed her to the car, looking in both directions. The buildings stood fifteen stories high on either side of the street, making an urban canyon that swept sandwich wrappers and plastic bags through on focused air currents. Other than trash, it was empty and silent. Not even a bum. Maybe Jesus did love Jenny. I pulled up the stiff, thin flooring and took the wrench from next to the doughnut spare.

“Start the car,” I said. “Keep it running.”

I waited for the engine to turn over. Jenny turned the key in the ignition, then climbed out of the driver's seat and looked at me. I pointed down the road in both directions, and she slowly dragged her eyes away and checked for witnesses. A car passed two blocks away. I waited and looked up at the dark windows above the gallery. It was office space, an architect. No one seemed to be working late. Nothing indicated a cleaning crew was in residence.

“All clear?” I asked, keeping my voice at its normal register. There was no use whispering. Things were going to get loud.

Jenny looked both ways. “All clear.”

The metal was heavy and shaped like an L. I choked up a little on the long end and took one last look at that piece-of-shit painting and the smug, precise lettering on the window. Then I swung like I was shooting for the cheap seats, aiming the lug wrench right for the middle of her name.

The glass shattered with a crash so loud it startled even me. Less than a breath later, the alarm went off, and the
EEE-EEE-EEE
made the breaking window sound like a whisper.

There wouldn't be much time.

I stepped over the broken shards and snatched the painting off the wall. I dropped one end onto the ground and shoved my work boot right through the center of it. I couldn't hear, but I imagined a satisfying rip of the canvas. I dropped the frame to the ground, turned around and snatched up the half-full bucket of robin's egg blue paint, and dumped it onto the ruined canvas.

There were more paintings inside, each more horrible and offensive than the last. Each just as deserving of stomping and tearing and splattering, but the one would have to do. I was out of time. I dropped the bucket and ran for the passenger-side door. Jenny saw me and threw herself behind the wheel. I didn't have the door shut yet when she jerked the car out of park and mashed her tennis shoe down on the accelerator. I grabbed on to the seat with my left hand and grunted as the door pulled hard on my right shoulder. I yanked it shut, and the sound of the alarm faded quickly behind us. I listened for police sirens but didn't hear any. Not yet.

Jenny was laughing so hard tears ran down her face.

I smiled so wide my cheeks hurt from it. “That was very satisfying,” I said.

I sat on the hood of my red '68 Corvette, the first of the Shark Generation. It still needed front-end repair. I was leaving it to Trudy's Bald Bob. Let him take it to the body shop.

The parking lot was full, and it was a few minutes to five. I was holding a piece of cardboard, which I belatedly realized made me look homeless. On it, I'd written my father's name, Jerry Pritchard, in white paint. My sign was starting to droop in the heat. Studio City is in the hottest part of the Valley, which is always twenty degrees hotter than the coast, which meant 103 degrees in the shade. If I had to sit out there much longer, the sun bouncing off the hood would slow-roast my buns.

I was tired. Jenny had been too wired to sleep and didn't want to go home. I'd climbed into the shower to wash off the splashes of blue paint, and she'd made pancakes. She didn't leave until after two in the morning. Chuckles wandered off the bed and into the kitchen to yowl his complaint like a crotchety downstairs neighbor. We didn't talk about me firing her, and I didn't know if she'd be back. Some things you just don't have a right to ask about.

So I sat there and waited for five o'clock.

The second hand had just ticked past due north when the front doors opened and the employees of The Mayers Group spilled out like candy from a ripped bag. The building was only six stories and located right next to the freeway, which was loud and carcinogenic, but it was a big enough company to have its logo on the facade, even if the directory said they only occupied three of the floors.

I held my sign over my head, and women in skirts and high heels parted around me. The men stared and poked the sides of other men, their blue and gray ties blowing in the wind like flags. They made their way to Accords and Camrys and a Lexus or two. They set their to-go coffee mugs on the roofs and unlocked doors, deposited briefcases, and tossed in purses. No one spoke to me, and I'd even bothered to find clothes without paint or food on them.

I kept scanning the crowd for gray hair, all of which turned out to be at the bottom of the spilled bag of employees. The older women, who had seen it all and sent it to college already, didn't bother to glance at me, which was fine enough. I spotted three men with varying degrees of hair loss bringing up the rear and slid down the sloped nose of the car, making for them.

One of the men wore suspenders, and all of them slowed when I approached. I let my sign drop to my side and tried to look polite. Engines were starting all around us, and cars were flowing toward the exit in a practiced ballet.

“Excuse me,” I said. “My name is Clementine Pritchard. My father was Jerry Pritchard.”

The man in the suspenders whistled. “That's a blast from the past.”

The man to his left, who had a close-clipped full beard and mustache several shades darker than the hair on his head, said, “Doesn't sound familiar.”

“You wouldn't know him. He was in my department at Parker, Combs, and Jimenez. God, was it thirty years ago now?”

“I knew him to speak to,” said the third gentleman, whose most notable feature was not having any notable features.

“What brings you here?” asked the man in the suspenders.

“I'm looking for him.”

The parking lot was almost empty but for a handful of cars, all of them black and dark gray and a pay grade nicer than the ones merging onto Ventura Boulevard.

Suspenders looked apologetic. “Well, none of us have seen him since we were young and handsome.”

Everyone smiled.

“I was hoping he'd kept in touch with someone.”

Suspenders looked at Nothing Notable, who shrugged. Beard had figured out this conversation did not concern him and was waiting for the earliest possible moment to extricate himself.

“You could try Martin Mathis,” Suspenders offered. “He came from PC & J after the layoffs, too. He's never mentioned anything to me, but you never know.”

“Where can I find him?” I asked.

“He's been out sick all week.”

“There's something going around,” Nothing Notable said.

“Maintenance needs to clean the air ducts,” Beard agreed, having found something to contribute.

“He'll probably be back by next week. You could call then and ask for him.”

“Thank you all,” I said in my most polite, responsible adult voice. “I appreciate your time.”

We all shook hands as though we had concluded a successful business negotiation, and the three headed for their black sedans. Beard threw a glance over his shoulder as I made toward the Corvette.

“Yours?” he called.

“Mine,” I confirmed.

“Nice.”

I nodded. He couldn't see the fender from his angle.

I had no intention of waiting until next week to call. While the other three pulled out of the parking lot, I dialed information.

There are a surprising number of men named Martin Mathis in the greater L.A. area, which has a population slightly larger than that of the Netherlands. This explains the traffic. But you had to figure in the commute and assume that none of the Mathises wanted to live too far from their cubicle. I chose the closest one, which was only three miles or twenty minutes away in traffic.

This Mathis family lived on a wide street lined with parked cars and jacaranda trees that dropped their showy purple flowers onto windshields, driveways, sidewalks, and lawn furniture the way a stripper sheds day-old glitter. They had remodeled sometime in the past fifteen years. The facade didn't match the houses on either side, which were growing old gracefully.

I parked as far away from the jacarandas as I could, because no one wants lawn debris in her convertible, and walked to the door painted the same red as the Corvette.

Martin Mathis opened the door in his bathrobe. He didn't say anything. He just stood there with his pale shins sticking out the bottom of the grayish-blue terry cloth. He was wearing a white T-shirt underneath, and he hadn't shaved in several days. Whatever was growing in the air ducts had felled him good. I didn't offer to shake hands. When you only have twenty-three days left to live, you really don't want to catch the accounting flu.

“My name is Clementine Pritchard,” I said.

“The artist?” he asked.

“Yes.” That was unusual. I normally wouldn't get recognized if I went around with my résumé stapled to my T-shirt.

“I knew your dad.”

Now we were getting somewhere.

“That's why I'm here,” I said. “Can I come in?”

He cast a worried look over his shoulder. It looked like the front door opened into a large living room that was scattered with papers and toys.

“I don't want to be rude, but do you mind if we talk on the porch? The baby is napping, and you wouldn't believe what I went through to get her down. Six months old and going through a sleep regression.” He shook his head.

I raised an eyebrow. Mr. Mathis was old enough to be my father, and I medicated my own sleep regressions with vodka and Lunesta.

“Second family,” he said.

Maybe it wasn't the air ducts that were getting the better of him after all.

“Sure,” I said. “I'll try not to take up too much of your time.”

He stepped out onto the porch and closed the screen door behind him.

“I saw an article in the
Times
about you a few years ago. I said to my wife, my first wife, I mean, ‘That must be Jerry's girl.' And it was. I only remember on account of your first name being so unusual.”

He didn't mention that infernal song, which was good. I would have had to stomp on his bare foot.

“Have you spoken with my father since he left the accounting firm?”

Martin scratched his beard growth. “Not that I remember, but that was a long time ago. You were knee-high to a grasshopper when he left Parker and Combs. It wasn't even Parker, Combs, and Jimenez yet when he left.”

“I'm trying to find him.”

“I gathered.” Martin put his hands in his robe pockets and looked down at his welcome mat. “We were all real surprised when he left like that. I don't think he even gave notice. Rumors went around that he'd packed up and left you and your mom, too.”

“And my sister,” I said. “I had a sister.”

Martin didn't comment, and I couldn't tell if he hadn't known or maybe just didn't remember because she hadn't lived long enough to be a famous anything.

“Maybe he kept in touch with someone or you heard something about where he might have gone?”

“I sure wish I had something to tell you. I'm surprised he stayed gone. I would've thought he'd send word or come to his senses.”

“I'm not sure he had senses to come to,” I said.

“I understand how you must feel that way, but I really can't help you. Jerry and I just worked in the same department, you know? We didn't have beers after work or anything. Our wives didn't know each other. Kept to himself mostly.” A baby fussed, and Martin looked in through the screen door. “All I can really tell you is that he was good at his job, if that means anything.”

I didn't know if it did or not.