Skyscape (14 page)

He struggled through the effects of the drug. “I promise.”

“You'll see someone,” she said.

His voice came as though from far away. “Someone who can help me.”

Curtis was asleep. The Thorazine was working. That, and the fatigue. She had given him the shot herself. She had felt terrible, the needle slipping into him, the plastic wrapping that had protected the disposable syringe rustling beside him on the bed.

What was it like, she wondered, to be so afraid. She gazed at him from the bedroom door, and then shut it, careful not to make a sound.

Congratulations, she told herself dryly. You just made it through another colorful night with the man you love.

Another night like that and one of us will be dead.

Teresa was waiting in the living room. The imposing woman was gazing out at the colors dawn cast onto the Golden Gate and the headlands beyond. Curiously, Curtis had never painted this view, had never done any painting at all during their marriage. Margaret felt that if she herself started painting again, the first thing she would attempt would be the wheat-bright color of the cliffs.

The television was on, the sound barely audible. Margaret did not want to hear what Teresa was about to say. She busied herself in the kitchen for a moment, pouring coffee. She filled only one cup, her own remained empty.

There was something else she was trying to avoid. The new bare spaces in the wall were disturbing. Art restorers could work miracles, she told herself. Surely the paintings could be repaired. Still, the sight of the empty spaces before her and the memory of the knife ripping through the canvases made her cringe.

There had been other bad nights, many of them, but it had never come to this. Margaret did not even want to talk. “He's all right, now,” she heard herself say.

Teresa took the cup and saucer Margaret offered her. “He's never going to be ‘all right.'”

“He's gradually getting better,” said Margaret.

“He's not—he's as sick as ever.”

“I'm helping him.”

“You're lying to yourself. We all admire you for your efforts,” said Teresa. The attorney turned to admire the view once more. “But you should be realistic.”

“You want to help arrange a divorce,” said Margaret.

Teresa half turned, as though to hear something far away. The heat from her coffee licked at the window. Teresa had a classic profile and an imposing presence. She had rescued Curtis from lawsuits and jail, and at one time, briefly, Curtis and Teresa had been lovers. “That, and a few years in a sanitarium. I still feel the same way. You shouldn't be surprised.” She left the window, putting the coffee untouched on the table.

Over the last two years, Teresa had been loyal, sure, patient. There had been no one else to turn to. “I believe in him,” said Margaret.

Margaret was surprised at Teresa's response. The glamorous attorney put her arms around Margaret. “We all know you did the best you could.”

It was a legacy from her father. Her father had been cheerfully frank about the way he viewed the world. There were people on the inside, in power, he had believed, and then there were the people on the outside. Peter Darcy, author of articles on the Catalan Opening Strategy and the little-known Hegland Defense had seen himself as one of life's outsiders.

“Leave him to me. Let me make the decisions if you can't. He's beyond what anyone can deal with,” Teresa was saying. “You can't pretend that you can control him.”

Margaret was an outsider. She was not one of those people accustomed to having their way. She felt, as her father had, that this gave her an advantage. She had fewer preconceptions, fewer debts, slimmer expectations. She could live on faith. “He does what I ask him to do.”

Teresa gave her a short, intense look: does he? “You can set up a trust for yourself, with my help. Make yourself financially secure before he starts—”

“Before he starts costing me too much money,” said Margaret, completing Teresa's thought.

“How much do you think it'll cost to repair those paintings?”

“It doesn't matter,” said Margaret quietly.

“I don't think the insurance companies will cooperate when they know what happened to them. Maybe that doesn't bother you. You can pay for the repairs. This time.” Teresa waited, and then continued. “Women can't afford to be fools, Margaret. But maybe you don't have to worry about money. You're doing brilliantly. Someone was telling me we're going to see Starr of the Yard on the cartoons every Saturday.”

“They have people working on it, in Manila. That's where they can afford to have people ink in all the pictures.” But it was a pilot, an hour-long version of her first book, and not, thank heavens, one of those rigid, aimless animated series she thought must aggravate children rather than entertain them. She had helped with the script, and while the work had not been easy she had enjoyed it. It was silly, though, to even think of her slim career at a time like this. “They had trouble with Earl.”

“Earl?”

“He's Starr's companion. The duck.”

“Yes, of course.” When Margaret was quiet for awhile, Teresa added, “What's the matter with the duck?” Somehow it was important to keep talking about something reassuring.

“He has so many feathers,” said Margaret.

“Naturally.”

“It's hard to ink them. He's semi-naturalistic. And he has so little personality. I even took him out of some of the later stories.”

“You should have picked some other sort of animal,” said the lawyer. “Ducks are overdone. But it doesn't matter—the goat is the one who matters. I saw a pack of Kool-aid with Starr on it. Business must be good.”

“I'm sorry about the Kool-aid,” said Margaret. “I don't think Starr would care for that.”

“You're a success. Enjoy it.”

Margaret turned on the remote and watched as the television picture clarified itself. It was the early morning news.

Margaret had always declined to learn chess. It was her father's game, and she knew that she could never approach mastery. She did enjoy fishing with him, though, the boat chugging down the Sacramento River, catfish fighting in the plastic bucket. And sometimes all the way out under the Golden Gate Bridge, donkey engine silent, the sail bellying, the tide running out. She had not enjoyed the fishing so much as the way the boat sliced the swells, her father squinting up from the helm.

She did not let herself think about the heat, the record-breaking temperatures of his last day. Her mother had been permanently changed by the fact that her charm, her allure, could not keep her husband alive. Margaret did not let herself think about many things, and yet she could not say that she had forgotten or suppressed them, banished them from her mind. She carried the past with her, half-known, like the feel of her tongue against her teeth.

“I'm not leaving until you've made a decision,” Teresa was saying.

“Curtis must have been terrible to you,” said Margaret.

Teresa's eyes were darker for a moment.

Margaret put her hand on Teresa's arm; the woman was stiff, proud.

Margaret had become pregnant after their marriage. Not before—after, she was sure of that. Curtis had not believed it possible, and his reaction had been so emotional that Margaret had been certain, at first, that he didn't want the baby. But then she had understood. He was amazed that he, Curtis Newns, could be a father, as though fatherhood were something for other, dull, unimaginative men, commuters and consumers. Those men, she knew, faceless and boring, but they had something that Curtis felt he lacked, some essential root in life.

This had been her gift to Curtis, this voice in her womb, this sweetness that woke her with the feeling of being ill, and feverish, so feverish that the illness was a source of insight, strength.

There had been weeks of happiness. Then one afternoon she did something uncharacteristic for her—she took a nap. And as she dozed she had a dream, one of those half-aware, heavy afternoon dreams when one is still certain that sleep has not arrived.

In the dream there were steps, distant steps growing louder. Steps rasped on a front porch, the front porch of her family home. It was warm in the dream, summer, but still early in the season, the summer still rising, not yet harsh. There had been a knock at the door in her dream, an insistent but not unfriendly rapping.

And the door opened, and her feeling in the dream had been mild shock, bemused concern: how can I open the door from here? I'm on the bed, there's no way I could reach the knob from here.

Then she woke, and there was blood.

Teresa was saying that she remained true to Curtis, but a man like that belonged in a hospital. “I would manage things for Curtis, and for you,” Teresa said. “The estate would prosper. You would never regret it.”

Then they both were quiet, watching the television. The news was covering the further violence at The Blond Spike.

“I told them,” said Teresa, her voice taut, “if they ever put Curtis into a story like that again I'd skin them alive.”

Curtis looked good in the splash of light as he exited.

The story described a gun, the heroic well-known artist, and further evidence that a San Francisco night spot was attracting trouble.

Teresa was on the phone. She punched numbers, and then hung up, hard. She said quietly. “Do you see how hard it is to get anything done?”

“I know you've worked hard.”

“You don't know what work is.” Teresa punched more numbers. “I can't keep doing this. That story looks okay. He looks like a hero. But you and I know the truth.”

“Curtis
is
a hero.”

“You're pathetic,” said Teresa, slamming down the phone. She gathered up her handbag. “I'm not going to keep doing this.”

Margaret said nothing. The television news had reached the top of the hour. They were recounting the morning's top stories.

“Or maybe,” Margaret said, watching what unfolded on the screen, “there's a better idea.”

16

Patterson would never get used to feeling this way: this is the day I will die.

And then again, maybe it wasn't. It gave a sort of zen-like flatness to things, not at all the battlefield zest he had once studied as a young doctor, interviewing shattered veterans. Maybe dying was as disordered as living.

Loretta Lee was mouthing something at him. She had applied a new shade of lipstick to her full lips, a color he would have called butterscotch, a look that made her appear exotic and edible. This made her impatient kiss of the air, attempting to get his attention, all the more hard to ignore.

“You have to hang up,” said Loretta Lee in a whip-crack whisper. “You have two calls waiting and—”

He waggled his fingers at her. He was sitting in his office wasting his time: he was explaining things to an assistant producer, one of those faceless successors to Paul Angevin. These people always sounded young and sure of themselves, and they always liked the way they sounded, the inflection you hear in radio ads for banks with free checking.

The television was on, mute, in one corner. Lucy was talking to Ethel. Ethel was nodding in agreement. Lucy looked way too excited about something, classically manic. Funny how black-and-white looked so much more authoritative. Maybe if the Archangel Michael showed up on the
CBS Evening News
he'd be colorless.

“I realize that Mr. Poole is highly regarded as an expert in studio security,” Patterson was saying. “And he's a nice, nonabrasive presence in his way.” Patterson could have said that small, nervous little men were not what he needed around his studio, but that wouldn't sound right.

“We want to take every precaution,” said the young voice on the phone.

“Maybe I don't like Mr. Poole because we more or less share the same first name. Maybe he reminds me of one of those little animals you read about in story books, mice who wear cute little blue jackets. I don't want to get into all kinds of psychological explanations for why I feel the way I do.”

“No need. Not at all. We understand. You want to take a second, though, and look at this the way we see it. Not so you'd change your mind, but so you'd have some sympathy.”

Patterson couldn't believe this. This was beginning to sound an awful lot like an argument.
Sympathy
. Loretta Lee was putting one hand on her hip, and throwing the hip out and heaving a huge sigh.

The conciliatory voice mistook Patterson's silence for encouragement. “You are what matters. You know that. We only wanted to make sure you have the absolute, best we could possibly find—”

Sometimes Loretta Lee thought she was the most important person in the solar system, in addition to being about the most seductive. Patterson did not take his eyes off her when he said, “If I have to look at Steven Poole again I will personally strangle him.” He hung up.

“The cops are on line three,” said Loretta Lee. “But before—”

Patterson jabbed a finger into the button on the telephone. Loretta Lee was right. It was the police. They had a list of hundreds of possible hit men, former guests on his show. They had a list of dozens of former girlfriends, jealous husbands, ex-secretaries, former household help. Patterson was much-loved, and had a way of forgiving his enemies. Still, there were a few dry rocks above the surface of his forgiveness, people who despite their faith in Patterson might wish him harm. The police had a list so long it was a work of epic literature. The voice on the phone actually began to read this list.

Wonderful, thought Patterson, dropping the phone into its cradle.

Jeff's coffee was magic. It was always just the right temperature, and it was delicious, flavored with Kern County cream.

“There is one more phone call I think you really have to take,” Loretta Lee was saying. “You should've taken it before you wasted your time with the cops.”