AFTER AN hour or so, Kootie’s body curled up asleep again, and Sullivan boxed up the remaining pizza and declared the party over. They all agreed to meet again early in the morning for a walk down to the beach, and then Bradshaw and Johanna plodded away toward the main building, hand in hand, and Elizalde told Sullivan to lock the door, and went into the bathroom to take a shower. When Sullivan leaned the Houdini hands against the closed door, he noticed that the broken finger had been glued back on. Elizalde must have borrowed glue from Johanna.
Sullivan took the Alice book out of his hip pocket and leaned against the kitchen counter to start reading it. When Elizalde came out of the steamy bathroom, wearing her relatively clean jumpsuit, she switched off the living-room chandelier and lay down on the floor near Kootie.
“Will this kitchen light keep you awake?” Sullivan asked quietly.
“An arc-welder wouldn’t keep me awake. Aren’t you…coming to bed?”
He raised the book. “Alice in Wonderland,” he said. “I’ll be along after a while, when I’m done with my homework.”
She stretched on the floor and yawned. “What were your answers to my pushy questions?”
He was tired, and the paperback book was jigging in his trembling fingers. He laid it face-down on the counter. “Here’s one. We are a family, rather than a partnership, if you would like us to be.”
She didn’t say anything, and her face was indistinct in the dark living room. Sullivan got the impression that his answer had surprised her, and pleased her, and frightened her, all at once.
“Let me sleep on that,” she said finally.
He picked up the book again. “I’m not going anywhere.”
He stared at the page in front of him, but he wasn’t able to concentrate until she had shifted around to some apparently comfortable position; and her breathing had become regular and slow with sleep.
EPILOGUE: BURN RUBBER, SWEET CHARIOT
If they go faster than my machine, I will be able to go downhill as fast as they dare to and for hill climbing the electric motor is just the thing, so I will beat them there. On rough roads they will not dare to go faster than I will; and when it comes to sandy places, I am going to put in a gear of four to one which I can throw in under such circumstances, and which will give me 120 horse power of torque, and I will go right through that sand and leave them way behind.
—Thomas Alva Edison,
Electrical Review,
August 8, 1903
CHAPTER FORTY TWO
“I mean” she said, “that one ca’n’t help growing older”
“One ca’n’t, perhaps” said Humpty Dumpty; “but two can…”
—Lewis Carroll,
Through the Looking-Glass
THE morning air was raucous with the cries of the parrots that were swooping like livid green Frisbees from the telephone wires to the branches of the shaggy old carob trees along the Twenty-first Place curb, but when one of the apartment doors finally opened, the gray-haired fat man who came shuffling out ignored the clamoring exotic birds as though he were blind and deaf. He was clutching a sheaf of white business-size envelopes, and he tucked them into a rack under the bank of mailboxes out front.
The old man’s punctual in paying his bills, thought J. Francis Strube. The first of November isn’t until tomorrow, but tomorrow will be a Sunday, with no mail pickup.
Strube’s dark blue BMW was idling almost silently a hundred feet away from the apartment building, and certainly wasn’t blowing any telltale smoke out of the exhaust, but still he slid down a little in the leather seat, just peeking over the dashboard at the old man.
And he wasn’t sure. This fellow fumbling with the mail was about the right age, but Nicky Bradshaw had been athletically slim—and healthy. This man…he didn’t look well at all; he moved slowly and painfully, squinting up and down the street now with impotent ferocity. Strube slid down even lower in his seat.
The old man by the apartment building was plodding back along the walkway toward the door he had come out of; but he paused halfway there, and just stood, staring down toward his feet.
Strube’s lower back was cramping, and he sat up a little straighter in the seat.
And the old man curled one arm over his head and stretched the other out with his fingers spread, and turned on his heel in a 360-degree circle; then he paused again, let his arms fall to his sides, and opened the door and went back inside.
Strube had steamed the inside of his windshield by whispering a deep, triumphant “Hah!”
That had been the Spooky Spin, and even someone like himself, who had only seen reruns of the old “Ghost of a Chance” show, had to remember the way the Spooky character had always executed that move just before the primitive stopped-camera trick photography had made him seem to disappear into thin air.
Strube was whistling the “Ghost of a Chance” theme music—dooo-root-de-doodly-doot-de-doo!—as he punched into the telephone the Find Spooky number. Probably no one would be answering the line until nine or so, but he couldn’t wait.
It rang twice, and then, to his surprise, someone did answer. “Have you seen Spooky?” a woman asked with practiced cheer.
“Yes,” said Strube. “I’ve found him.”
“Well, congratulations. If we verify that it really is Nicky Bradshaw, you’ll be getting two complimentary tickets to the filming of the reunion show. Where is he?”
“It’s him. My name is J. Francis Strube, I’m a Los Angeles-based attorney, and I worked for him as a legal secretary when he had an office in Seal Beach in the midseventies. Also, I just this minute saw him do the Spooky Spin, if you’re familiar with the old show.”
After a pause, the woman said, “Really? I’m going to transfer you to Loretta deLarava.” The line clicked, and then Strube was listening to a bland instrumental version of “Mr. Tambourine Man.”
I should think so, Strube thought, sitting back in the seat and smiling as he kept his gaze locked on Bradshaw’s door. I imagine Loretta deLarava will have room for a quick-witted attorney on her staff.
“This is Loretta deLarava,” said a harsher woman’s voice now, speaking over background static. “I understand you’re the clever person who has found our missing Spooky! Where is he?”
“Ms. deLarava, my name is J. Francis Strube, and I’m an attorney—”
“An attorney?” There was silence on the scratchy line. Then, “Are you representing him?” deLarava asked.
“Yes,” said Strube instantly. Spontaneity wins, he thought nervously. Trust your instincts.
“Where is he?”
“Well, we want certain assurances—”
“Look, Mr. Strube, I’m on the E Deck loading dock of the Queen Mary right now.” Good God, Strube thought, she’s hardly two miles away across the harbor! “I’m doing a Halloween-related shoot about famous ghosts on board the ship today, and I had been hoping to find Bradshaw in time to at least get him in a couple of shots there, film him doing his trademark Spooky Spin on the Promenade Deck, you know?” She was sniffling. “You’re not going to take a piss, are you?”
Strube assumed this was some showbiz slang, meaning be an obstruction or something. Rain on my parade. “No, of course not, I just—”