This drew a silent smile from Tammy; her first in days. Same old Maxine: subtle as a sledgehammer. "Okay," Tammy said, "I'm listening."
She was surprised at how much easier it was to talk once you got started. And she had the comfort that she was talking to Maxine. All she'd have to do, as Maxine had said, was listen.
"Do you remember that asshole, Rooney?"
"Vaguely."
"You don't sound very sure. He was the Detective we talked to when we first went to the police. You remember him now? Round face, no hair. Wore too much cologne."
For some peculiar reason it was the memory of the cologne, which had been sickly-sweet, which brought Rooney to mind.
"Now I remember," she said.
"Well he's been on to me. Did he call you?"
"No."
"Sonofabitch."
"Why's he a sonofabitch?"
"Because the fuckhead's got me all stirred up, just when I was beginning to put my thoughts in order."
Much to Tammy's surprise, she heard a measure of desperation in Maxine's voice. She knew what it was because it was an echo of the very thing she heard in herself, night and day, awake and dreaming. Could it be that she actually had something in common with this woman, whom she'd despised for so many years? That was a surprise, to say the least.
"What did the sonofabitch want?" she found herself asking. There was a second surprise here. Her mouth put the words in a perfectly sensible order without her having to labor over it.
"He claims he's writing a book. Can you believe the audacity of the creep—"
"You know, I did know about this," Tammy said.
"So he talked to you."
"He didn't, but Jerry Brahms did." The conversation with Jerry came back to her remotely, as though it had happened several months ago.
"Oh good," Maxine said, "so you're up to speed. I've got a bunch of lawyers together to find out if he can do this, and it turns out—guess what?—he can. He can write what the hell he likes about any of us. We can sue of course but that'll just—"
"—give him more publicity."
"That's exactly what Peltzer said. He said the book would last two months on the shelves, three at the outside, then it would be forgotten."
"He's probably right. Anyway, Rooney's not going to get any help from me."
"That's not going to stop him, of course."
"I know," Tammy said, "but frankly—"
"You don't give a damn."
"Right."
There was a pause. It seemed the conversation was almost at an end. Then, rather quietly, Maxine said: "Have you had any thoughts at all about going back up to the Canyon?"
There was a second pause, twice, three times the length of the first, at the end of which Tammy suddenly found herself saying: "Of course."
It felt more like an admission of guilt than a straight-forward reply. And what was more, it wasn't something she'd consciously been thinking about. But apparently somewhere in the recesses of her churned-up head she'd actually contemplated returning to the house.
"I have too," Maxine confessed. "I know it's ridiculous. After everything that happened up there."
"Yes. .. it's ridiculous."
"But it feels like . . ."
"Unfinished business," Tammy prompted.
"Yes. Precisely. Jesus, why didn't I have the wit to call you earlier? I knew you'd understand. Unfinished business. That's exactly what it is."
The real meat of this exchange suddenly became clear to Tammy. She wasn't the only one who was having a bad time. So was Maxine. Of all people, Maxine, who'd always struck Tammy as one of the most capable, self-confident and unspookable women in America. It was profoundly reassuring.
"The thing is," Maxine went on, "I don't particularly want to go up there alone."
"I'm not even sure I'm ready."
"Me neither. But frankly, the longer we leave it the worse it's going to get. And it's bad, isn't it?"
"Yes . . ." Tammy said, finally letting her own despair flood into her words. "It's worse than bad. It's terrible, Maxine. It's just . . . words can't describe it."
"You sound the way I look," Maxine replied. "I'm seeing a therapist four times a week and I'm drinking like a fish, but none of it's doing any good."
"I'm just avoiding everybody."
"Does that help?" Maxine wanted to know.
"No. Not really."
"So we're both in a bad way. What do we do about it? I realize we're not at all alike, Tammy. God knows I can be a bitch. Then when I met Katya— when I saw what kind of woman I could turn into—that frightened me. I thought: fuck, that could be me."
"You were protecting him. You know, in a way, we both were."
"I suppose that's right. The question is: have we finished, or is there more to do?"
Tammy let out a low moan. "Do you mean what I think you mean?" she said.
"That depends what you think I mean."
"That you think he's still up there in the Canyon? Lost."
"Christ, I don't know. All I know is I can't get him out of my head." She drew a deep breath, then let the whole, bitter truth out. "For some stupid reason I think he still needs us."
"Don't say that."
"Maybe it's not us," Maxine said. "Maybe it's you. He had a lot of feeling for you, you know."
"If that's you trying to talk me into going back to the Canyon, it's not going to work."
"So I take it you won't come?"
"I didn't say that."
"Well make up your mind one way or another," Maxine replied, exhibiting a little of the impatience which had been happily absent from their exchange thus far. "Do you want to come with me or not?"
The conversation was making Tammy a little weary now. She hadn't spoken to anybody at such length for several weeks, and the chat—welcome as it was—was taking its toll.
Did she want to go back to the Canyon or not? The question was plain enough. But the answer was a minefield. On the one hand, she could think of scarcely any place on earth she wanted to go less. She'd been jubilant when she'd driven away from it with Maxine and Jerry; she'd felt as though she'd escaped a death-sentence by a hair's-breadth. Why in God's name would it make any sense to go back there now?
On the other hand, there was the issue she herself had raised: that of unfinished business. If there was something up there that remained to be done then maybe it was best to get up there and do it. She'd been hiding away from that knowledge for the last several weeks, churning her fears over and over, trying to pretend it was all over. But Maxine had called her bluff. Maybe they'd called each other's: admitted together what they could not have confessed to apart.
"All right," she said finally.
"All right, what?"
"I'll go with you."
Maxine breathed an audible sigh of relief. "Oh, thank God for that. I was afraid you were going to freak out on me and I was going to have to go up there on my own."
"When were you planning to do this?"
"Is tomorrow too soon?" Maxine said. "You come to my office and we'll go from there?"
"Are you going to ask Jerry to come with us?"
"He's gone," Maxine replied.
"Jerry's dead?"
"No, Key West. He's sold his apartment and moved, all in a week. Life's too short, he said."
"So it's just the two of us."
"It's just the two of us. And whatever we find up there."
SEVEN
On several occasions in the next twelve hours Tammy's resolve almost failed her and she thought about calling and telling Maxine that she wouldn't be coming to Los Angeles after all, but though her courage was weak it didn't go belly up. In fact she arrived at Maxine's office twenty minutes earlier than they'd arranged, catching Maxine in an uncharacteristic state of disarray, her hair uncombed, her face without blush or lipstick.