Frank parked outside Astrid’s apartment building. He sat behind the wheel for a few minutes, trying to decide if he was doing the right thing.
He was still sitting there when the old man in the long-billed baseball cap suddenly appeared around the corner, wearing a sagging pair of maroon jogging pants and a faded yellow T-shirt. The old man hesitated for a moment, looking screwy eyed from right to left. He licked his finger and lifted it up as if he were testing which way the wind was blowing. Then he came loping over to Frank’s car and tapped on the window.
‘How’s it going, Frank?’
‘Not too good.’
‘Shouldn’t lose your nerve, Frank. No good never came of losing your nerve.’
‘I haven’t lost my nerve. I can’t decide what to do next, that’s all.’
‘Maybe it ain’t your decision.’
‘Oh, really? Then whose decision is it?’
‘Fate, karma, call it whatever you like. Sometimes we’re destined to play a part in history and we don’t even know it. In which case all we can do is put one foot in front of the other and keep on following that road and see where it takes us.’
‘I’m burying my only son on Wednesday.’
The old man laid his hand on the roof of the car. He wore a silver ring on every finger and his nails were blackened and broken. He smelled, too – of urine and alcohol.
‘There’s a reason for everything, Frank. It’s not always a reason we can understand, or a reason we approve of. But there’s a reason all the same.’
‘So what do you think I should do next?’ Frank asked him. He was being bitter, but at the same time he really wanted to hear what the old man had to say.
‘You don’t have any choice, Frank. You crossed the road. There’s no turning back now.’
Frank knew that he was right. He couldn’t go back. Yesterday was closed for business. He sat staring at the Buick emblem on his steering wheel and he could almost feel life’s rug being dragged out from under him.
After more than a minute of silence, the old man coughed and spat. ‘That’s a ten spot.’
‘What is?’
‘Spiritual guidance. Warnings I give for nothing – especially dire warnings; that’s my philanthropic duty. But I’m sorry. Spiritual guidance I have to make a nominal charge for.’
Frank opened his billfold and gave him a twenty. The old man grinned and showed his four mahogany teeth. ‘You’re a generous man, Frank. Your generosity will pay you back one day. Not this year. Maybe not next year, neither. But one day, when you least expect it.’
He went hobbling off along the sidewalk and disappeared around the next corner. Frank told himself that his appearance had been nothing more than a coincidence. After all, he must spend all day panhandling up and down the coast, annoying people. And what kind of spiritual guidance was ‘put one foot in front of the other’? You could get better advice out of a fortune cookie.
Frank climbed out of the car, went across to Astrid’s door and rang the bell. There was no answer so he waited a minute and then rang it again.
‘Who is it?’ said a voice over the intercom.
‘It’s Frank. I’ve come to see Astrid.’
‘Astrid? There’s no Astrid here.’
‘Is this apartment three?’
‘That’s right, apartment three.’
‘You must be Carla. I’ve come to see the girl you share with. I think she must have given me a different name.’
‘There’s nobody here but me.’
‘You mean she’s out? Can I leave her a message?’
‘I mean nobody lives here but me.’
‘Excuse me? There has to be. I visited her yesterday afternoon.’
‘You must have made a mistake. Maybe another apartment. Nobody lives here but me.’
‘Listen – please. She has short brown hair and blue eyes. She wears rings on her toes.’
The intercom clicked off. Frank pressed the bell again, and then again, and then again, but Carla wouldn’t answer. He stepped back and tried to look up to the second story, but the dark green shutters were all closed. Eventually he climbed back into his car.
What the hell is happening here? I know I didn’t make a mistake. Not unless Astrid didn’t really share the apartment at all. Maybe she found out that Carla was away in Europe for a few days, and crashed in it without asking.
The trouble was, he had no way of contacting Astrid now. He didn’t know her telephone number. He didn’t even know her surname. It suddenly occurred to him that he might never see her again.
He drove back to Hollywood, to the Sunset Marquis Hotel on Alta Loma Road, a short, steeply sloping street that climbed from Holloway Drive to Sunset.
‘How long will you be you staying with us, Mr Bell?’ the receptionist asked him. She had tightly braided blonde hair and unnervingly wide-apart eyes.
‘I’m not sure. At least a week. Maybe the rest of my life. It all depends on . . . you know . . . fate.’
‘Fate,’ the receptionist repeated. She didn’t seem at all mystified. A lot of rock stars stayed at the Sunset Marquis.
His second-story room was sunny and painted yellow, with splashy floral prints on the wall. He opened all the windows so that the warm midday breeze could blow in, and then he took a can of beer out of the icebox and sat in one of the big stripy armchairs and closed his eyes.
Shouldn’t lose your nerve, Frank. No good ever came of losing your nerve.
He was woken by a quiet rapping at the door. For a split second he didn’t know where he was, and he thought that it was Margot rapping on the door of his study.
‘What time is it?’ he asked. But of course it wasn’t Margot, and he was still here, in his room at the Sunset Marquis.
The rapping was repeated. He heaved himself out of his chair and went to answer it.
‘Yes?’
‘Room service.’
He opened the door. It was Astrid. She stepped straight past him into the room and did a twirl.
‘Hey! Nice place! She said that I would probably find you here.’
‘Who did?’
‘Your secretary.’
‘My secretary? You called my office?’
‘I went round to your home first but your wife said that you’d packed your bags and moved out.’
‘You saw Margot?’ Or rather, he thought, Margot saw you, with your tight white T-shirt and your tan leather mini-skirt and your tan leather ankle boots with the high spiky heels.
Astrid laughed. ‘Oh, yes, I saw Margot all right. What happened between you two?’ She put on Margot’s snappy don’t-talk-to-me-like-that tone. ‘“I don’t know where Frank is and quite frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.” Or words to that effect.’
‘We had another row. It’s the shock, I guess, and the grief. It’s a goddamned mess. It’s going to take us a long time to get over losing Danny.’
Astrid looked in the icebox. ‘You don’t mind if I help myself to a glass of wine?’
‘Sure, I’ll do it.’ He took out a bottle of Chilean rosé, pulled out the cork, and poured her a glass.
She lifted it up and said, ‘Mud in your eye.’ For the first time he noticed that she had a sprinkling of light-brown freckles across the bridge of her nose. She looked into his eyes while she was drinking as if she could tell exactly what was thinking.
‘I was looking for you,’ he told her. ‘I went to Carla’s place first.’
‘I thought you might.’
‘So why did you make out that you live there when you don’t?’
‘I did live there. It’s just that I don’t live there now.’
‘I see. So where have you moved to?’
‘Does it matter?’
‘No, I suppose it doesn’t. Maybe I’m just being old-fashioned.’