For this reason, an un-native hue of resolution fell over the afterparty.
People drank less than usual, but smoked more cigarettes and pot, which entailed walking to the far end of the soundstage and cramming onto a sliver of patio. It got so popular out there that the caterers peeled the tent back as much as possible without causing it to collapse on itself.
Bob Semel sat near the bandstand with his division heads, projecting grosses. Reviews were only a minor consideration, but if the earthquake was a dud, they were in deep shit. This picture should have opened a month ago, and Semel knew it. Now all he could do was airlift the studio to Tucson, Arizona, and hope for the worst.
Around the room, the talk was earthquake, earthquake, earthquake. “Look for a slew of movies about ’em,” Sterling Caruthers told a pair of actresses.
“You a producer?” a bobbed redhead asked him.
“Among other things, yes. I helped produce this film.”
“Really?” the other one asked.
“I’m director of the Center for Earthquake Studies.”
“A producer and a director!” The redhead made a joke.
“The truth is”—Caruthers took her hand—“I like the movies. I just signed with Warners to consult on scientific matters, with a first-look deal on projects of my own.”
“Exciting!” the redhead said.
“Listen,” Caruthers continued, “I’m leaving in five minutes, and thought you might like to come with me.”
“Uh … where?”
“To a press conference, briefly. Then, hopefully, to a nice supper.”
The redhead looked over at her friend.
“I just need to leave, that’s all,” Caruthers said, and smiled gently.
“Sure,” she looked back at him. “That sounds fun.”
Charlie Richter sat in a cab driving down La Cienega toward LAX. Beside him on the back seat was a rucksack containing some clothes, a laptop computer, a surveyor’s compass, and nasty-looking drill bits designed to cut through volcanic rock. In his hand, he held the photo of Grace he’d stolen so many months ago, her face as unreadable as the first time he’d seen it.
Charlie didn’t regret telling Grace about the retroshock, nor about the trip to Lui. He also didn’t regret what happened after they’d finished talking, although it had complicated things. Now, on his way out of town, he felt as if he were leaving a little piece of himself behind. For the first time since he was a boy, he felt like Los Angeles was home. At the same time, he was more than a little worried: L.A. could become a very dangerous place in the next few days.
The cab’s AM radio spilled a litany of panic into the air. Every flight out of LAX, Burbank, Ontario, and John Wayne had been booked through Thursday night, and all four airports would be closed on December 29. It was impossible to find a seat anywhere — even on a bus or a train. The freeways, too, were overloaded: If you took the 10 east from La Cienega, it would take two hours to reach downtown. All across Southern California, entire neighborhoods had become modern ghost towns. There were isolated reports of looting, and clusters of small fires dotted the night sky.
At the airport, the gridlock was impossible. So Charlie paid the driver and walked around the terminal buildings until he found Hawaiian Air. Wherever he looked, young men and women in white robes walked in wide circles, chanting and holding up signs: “The End Is Near” and “Welcome to the Apocalypse.”
Charlie had heard about these people, these apocalyptics, who, in the last week or so, had actually begun arriving in L.A. And who knows: they could be right. But Charlie knew, if everything worked out as planned, they would once again be denied the chance to glimpse the face of God. It was not his intention to interfere with their faith but, in the end, faith was such a tenuous thing. Charlie’s was in the perfectibility of science, the way everything, if examined properly, could be codified and explained.
At a quarter to seven on Wednesday morning, the sun was barely a rumor, daylight gray and streaked with purple, silent but for a tentatively squawking bird. In the driveway of 1939 Topeka Drive, Emma Grant stood wiping her hands on her sweatpants, staring at the house.
It had all happened so quickly. One minute, she’d been sitting at the kitchen table, staring at the bill of sale; the next, Henry was standing over her, transfixed by the sight of that twenty-thousand-dollar check. She hadn’t heard him come in, but Frank Baum sure had, and within half an hour, the paperwork had been signed, the money turned over, and Henry was talking, talking — always talking — about how they were rich.
Emma shook her head. Twenty thousand dollars. It wouldn’t last long, she thought. And yet twenty thousand dollars was what her whole life was worth. She’d walked through every room in the house that night, trying to memorize the details of her past. But as soon as they took the check, the past started to dissipate. Standing here now, it was hard for her to remember anything but their decision to leave.
Henry came out the front door carrying two suitcases, which he threw in the back of his pickup. The truck bed was stuffed to the point of bulging; throw in anything else, Emma thought, and the suspension would give way.
“That’s it,” Henry said, and lit a cigarette. The smoke was invisible against the early morning sky. “All set?”
Emma nodded. Henry acted as if they were merely going for a spin. She looked up and down Topeka Drive and saw a forest of “Sold” signs. Last night, she passed the park where Dorothy played. The trees had been uprooted, and a team of FEMA workers were frantically constructing a tent city on the newly cleared land. It was so much like January 1994 that she pulled the car over to catch her breath.
When she got home, she had begun packing immediately, losing herself in an attempt to forget. The news contained reports of more looting, and Emma felt tears welling in her eyes. She had ridden her bike on this street, and watched her daughter do the same. She wondered if they’d ever come back to this place, and if they did, what would remain. Would the ordered pattern of houses and streets survive, or would they all be shaken away?
Henry went around to the pickup’s cab and climbed inside. After a moment, the tinny voice of a traffic reporter alerted them that the 405 was backed up all the way from the 101 to the 5. Henry took a drag off his cigarette and squinted at the sky.
“It’s getting late,” he said. “Why don’t you wake the little girl?”
In Honolulu, Charlie met a leathery-faced man who sold him sixty pounds of plastic explosives — enough to sink a battleship. Then he chartered an amphibious plane that could land in the small natural harbor of Lui and coast toward the shore. Fifty yards from the island, he lowered an inflatable raft into the warm Pacific waters, threw down his gear, and told the pilot when to pick him up on Thursday. Then the plane took off, and Charlie realized he was utterly alone.
On the beach, Charlie took inventory: food, water, flashlight, drill, generator, laptop, and explosives. He began to trek inland. The ground was hilly, with outcroppings of volcanic rock rising in irregular formations, and lush, overhanging growth so dense it obscured the sun. Humidity made the whole place feel like a sauna, and before he’d gone half a mile, Charlie stripped down to his underwear. Grace’s presence, like an invisible spirit, hovered at his hand, and he imagined what it would be like if she were there, running naked with him in and out of the sea.
But there would be plenty of time for vacations. Briefly, he was struck by the old familiar doubts — that what he was trying to do was absurd, a small man’s attempt to tamper with the forces of nature. Then Grace’s face returned to him. She was in Los Angeles, he thought, and he appreciated the fact that it meant he had no choice but to succeed.