Margot didn’t answer at first. Ruth came forward and took hold of her hand, giving Frank a smug proprietorial look, as if to say, you’ve lost her now; she’s mine. We’re sisters together, look at our hideous clothes and our tied-back hair and our unplucked eyebrows. We don’t need to look attractive to men because we don’t need men.
‘Frank,’ said Margot, ‘I know what you’re saying, I know how sorry you are. But I really need much more time.’
‘All right,’ Frank agreed. ‘I’m prepared to be generous. How much do you want? Two weeks, a month? A year, maybe? How about a decade?’
Then they finally looked at each other and they both knew that it was over.
Frank said, ‘I’ll have my horologist get in touch with your horologist, OK?’
When he returned to the Sunset Marquis, he called Nevile.
‘Signor Strange, he leave town,’ said his maid.
‘Do you know when he’s going to be back? This is Frank Bell. I needed to talk to him urgently.’
‘He no say. Maybe you try his cell-a-phone.’
‘OK, thanks.’
He dialed Nevile’s cellphone number but the phone was switched off. It was late now, after all – well past 11:30 P.M. He left a message and that was all he could do. For some reason he was beginning to feel panicky, as if something bad was going to happen, even though he couldn’t think what it was. He had been very disturbed by Danny’s appearance in Nevile’s hallway, all bruised and bleeding. What did it mean? Had Danny been trying to show him that he had been indifferent as a father, neglectful to the point of cruelty? He had always been pretty strict, he admitted that, sometimes too strict. But he thought that he had always been fair, and caring.
Maybe the bruises had been a metaphor for something else. After all, if Nevile had been right, then it hadn’t been Danny at all, but a much more powerful spirit masquerading as Danny. But if it was a much more powerful spirit, why had it allowed itself to be flung across the hallway, and then dragged away?
He stared at himself in the mirror. His hair was wild and there were dark circles under his eyes. ‘Portrait of a lunatic,’ he decided.
Friday, October 1, 3:26 P.M.
He was sitting on his balcony, his legs propped up on the railings, when he thought he heard a bang toward the north-east. Other people must have heard it, too, because they stopped splashing and laughing around the pool, and stood still, listening.
‘Hear that?’ said the musician with the long hair and the beaky noise. ‘That was a bloody bomb, that was.’
Frank went inside and switched on the television. He flicked through the channels until he found CNN, then waited. After less than five minutes, a newsflash came up on the screen.
‘Reports are coming in of a massive explosion at Walt Disney Studios on Buena Vista Road in Burbank. Eye witnesses are saying that “scores” of people have been killed and injured, and that over half of the main administrative block has been demolished.’
He stayed in front of the television for the rest of the afternoon. Gradually it emerged that a car bomb had killed forty-five Disney staff and that more than a hundred had been maimed by blast and shrapnel. Offices had collapsed and fires were still raging through the building, destroying millions of dollars worth of irreplaceable artwork and cells. Only three of the Seven Dwarf figures, which held up the roof, remained intact.
Police Commissioner Campbell appeared on the screen. ‘Los Angeles has again lost precious lives. The whole world has lost its innocence.’
Fourteen
Two hours after the Disney bomb went off, Frank’s producer, Peter Brodsky, called him.
‘Now they’ve bombed Disney? Jesus.’
‘They’re not going to stop, Peter. They’re not going to stop until there’s no Hollywood left.’
They shared a moment’s silence, but then Peter said, ‘I thought you’d better be the first to know. Pigs has been canceled until further notice.’
‘Well, I can’t say that we haven’t been expecting it.’
‘You know that it’s absolutely no reflection on you or the show. We have to think about the safety of everybody involved in it, that’s all. Just as soon as they’ve caught these goddamned terrorists—’
‘Peter, I totally understand.’
‘You’re OK, are you, Frank? Marcia was wondering if you’d like to come over for brunch on Sunday morning.’
‘Well, that’s very thoughtful of her, please say thanks. The thing is, though, I’m going down to Rancho Santa Fe to spend the weekend with some friends.’
‘Good, good. So long as you’re not alone.’
He called Nevile again, but he was still away. He left a message on his voicemail asking him to call back as soon as he could.
‘I’m feeling spooked . . . I don’t exactly know why. This bomb at Disney hasn’t made me feel any better, either.’
Mayor Joseph Lindsay was being interviewed outside the archway of Disney Studios. Behind him, Alameda Avenue was still crowded with fire trucks and ambulances, their red lights flashing. The mayor was saying, ‘I think I speak for everybody in the city of Los Angeles when I say that Disney cartoons were a precious part of my growing-up. When somebody attacks the Disney studio, they’re attacking not only my freedom of speech as an adult, they’re attacking my childhood, too. They’re attacking my memories and my values. They’re attacking my cultural heritage.’
Part bored, part edgy, Frank drove round to see Mo, who lived in a split-level house on Lincoln Boulevard in Santa Monica. Mo was obviously hosting a party because there were cars parked all the way along the street and colored lights in the trees outside. Mo came to the door in a voluminous gold kaftan, drunk, with a large glass of whiskey in his hand.
‘Frank! In the nick of time! Look here, everybody! The ship may be sinking fast but the captain’s on the bridge!’
‘Sorry, Mo. If I’d known you had guests . . .’
Mo flung his arm around him. ‘Baloney. It’s the end of the world as we know it, Frank. It’s Armageddon. Everybody’s welcome.’
The hallway and the living room were crowded with people, most of them shouting and arguing, while almost unheard, a gingery-headed man who looked like an overweight Art Garfunkel, played Irving Berlin favorites on the piano. Mo’s wife, Naomi, was in the kitchen serving up tuna knishes and challah sticks and barbecued chicken legs, assisted by seven or eight of her friends who all knew more about serving up food than she did.
‘You should never serve barbecue chicken on a paper napkin,’ he heard one say. ‘It sticks – you want your guests spitting out bits of tissue?’
Mo found Frank a very cold Coors out of the fridge. ‘This is my mother’s seventy-ninth birthday party. I guess I should have invited you, but then I thought, no, I like Frank too much to have him meet my family. Look at them. The Cohens. I’ve seen hyenas with Alzheimer’s behaving better than this.’
Frank was introduced to the birthday girl, a withered woman in a red silk gown, with a mahogany suntan and diamond-encrusted claws. ‘Mo’s told me so much about you. I imagined you taller.’
‘Well, I expect you were sitting down at the time.’
Mo breathed whiskey in Frank’s ear. ‘She doesn’t understand humor. Only discomfiture. The last thing that made her laugh was Naomi’s kugels.’
Frank was introduced to several other Cohens, one of whom owned a local Oldsmobile dealership, another who played cello for the Santa Monica Symphonia, another who was big in tomatoes. Each of them paused for long enough in their arguments to say to Frank, ‘You lost your boy, didn’t you? What can I say?’