Harry shifted in the chair.
‘Breakfast?’ she asked, opening the tin.
Harry shook his head. He tugged at his titanium finger. But it was the hand he was tugging with that caught her eye. She swallowed. Cleared her throat.
‘You’ve never said it but you’re really a dog person, aren’t you?’
He shrugged.
‘Speaking of dogs, did I ever tell you I was supposed to co-star with Robert De Niro in Mad Dog and Glory? Do you remember that movie?’
Harry nodded.
‘Really? Then you’re one of the few. But Uma Thurman got the part. And she and Bobby, Robert that is, started dating. Which was pretty unusual, given that he mostly went for black women. There must have been something about the roles that brought them together, we actors do go so very into what we do, we become those we play. So if I’d gotten the role like I’d been promised, then Bobby and I would have become an item, you get me?’
‘Mm. So you’ve said.’
‘And I would have been able to hang on to him. Not like Uma Thurman, she...’ Lucille upended the tin can onto a plate. ‘Did you read how everyone “praised” her after she came forward and spoke about how Weinstein, that pig, had tried it on with her? Wanna know what I think? I think when you’re Uma Thurman, millionaire actor, and you’ve known what Weinstein’s been up to without blowing the whistle, that when you finally step forward to kick a man when he’s down, who other less powerful and braver women have brought down, that you shouldn’t be praised. When, for years, you’ve tacitly allowed all those young, hopeful actors to walk into Weinstein’s office alone because you with all your millions, by speaking out might — might — miss out on yet another million-dollar role, then I think you should be publicly whipped and spat upon.’
She paused.
‘Something wrong, Harry?’
‘We need to find a new place,’ he said. ‘They’ll find us.’
‘What makes you think that?’
‘A private detective found us within twenty-four hours.’
‘Private detective?’
‘I just spoke to him. He’s gone.’
‘What did he want?’
‘To offer me a job as a private investigator for a wealthy guy who’s suspected of a murder in Norway.’
Lucille swallowed hard. ‘And what did you say?’
‘I said no.’
‘Because?’
Harry shrugged. ‘Because I’m tired of running, maybe.’
She placed the plate on the ground and watched the cats crowd around. ‘I’m well aware that you’re doing it for my sake, Harry. You’re heeding that old Chinese proverb about how once you’ve saved someone’s life you’re responsible for it forever.’
Harry gave a crooked smile. ‘I didn’t save your life, Lucille. They were after the money you owe, and they’re not going to kill the only person who can get it for them.’
She smiled back. Knew he was saying that so she wouldn’t be scared. Knew that he knew that they knew she could never get her hands on one million dollars.
She took hold of the kettle to fill it with water, but realised she couldn’t be bothered, and let go of it. ‘So you’re tired of running.’
‘Tired of running.’
She remembered the conversation they’d had one night while drinking wine and watching a VHS copy of Romeo and Juliet she had found in a drawer. For once, she had wanted to talk about him and not herself, but he hadn’t said much. Only that he had fled to LA from a life in ruins, a wife who’d been murdered, a colleague who’d taken his own life. No details. And she had understood there was no point in digging any further. It had actually been a pleasant almost wordless evening. Lucille propped herself up on the kitchen counter.
‘Your wife, you never told me her name.’
‘Rakel.’
‘And the murder. Was it solved?’
‘In a sense.’
‘Oh?’
‘For a long time I was the prime suspect, but finally the investigation identified a known offender. One I’d put behind bars before.’
‘So... the man who killed your wife did it to take revenge... on you?’
‘Let’s just say that the man who killed her... I’d taken his life from him. So he took mine from me.’ He got to his feet. ‘Like I said, we need a new hiding place, so pack a bag.’
‘We’re leaving today?’
‘When private detectives are looking for someone they leave behind tracks of their own. And that visit to the restaurant last night was probably a bad idea.’
Lucille nodded. ‘I’ll make some calls.’
‘Use this,’ Harry said. He placed a mobile on the kitchen counter, obviously newly purchased and still wrapped in plastic.
‘So he took away your life but let you live,’ she said. ‘Did he get his revenge?’
‘The best kind,’ Harry said, striding towards the door.
Harry closed the door of the main house behind him and stopped dead. Stared. He was tired of running. But he was even more tired of staring down the barrels of guns. And this one had two. It was a sawn-off shotgun. The man at the other end was Latino. As was the man with the pistol beside him. Both of them had prison muscles and both a scorpion tattooed on the side of his neck. Harry towered enough over them to see the cut strip of alarm cable dangling on the side of the gate behind them and the white Camaro parked on the other side of Doheny Drive. The tinted window on the driver’s side was halfway down, and Harry could just discern cigarillo smoke seeping and a white shirt collar.
‘Shall we go inside?’ the man with the shotgun said. He spoke with a distinct Mexican accent while he flexed his neck on each side, like a boxer before a match. The motion stretched out the scorpion. Harry knew the tattoo symbolised an enforcer, and the number of squares on the tail the number of people killed. The tails of both men’s tattoos were long.
6
Saturday
Life on Mars
‘“Life on Mars”?’ Prim said.
The girl on the other side of the table looked at him with incomprehension.
Prim burst into laughter. ‘No, the song, I mean. It’s called “Life on Mars”.’
He nodded in the direction of the TV where David Bowie’s voice emanated from the sound bar below it into the large loft. From the windows he had a view over Oslo’s central west side and towards Holmenkollen Ridge, glittering like a chandelier out there in the night. But right now he only had eyes for his dinner guest. ‘A lot of people don’t like the song, they think it’s a little odd. The BBC called it a cross between a Broadway musical and a Salvador Dalí painting. Perhaps. But I agree with the Daily Telegraph who named it the best song of all time. Imagine! The best. Everybody loved Bowie, not because he was a lovable person, but because he was the best. That’s why people who haven’t been loved are willing to kill to be the best. They know that will change everything.’
Prim took hold of the wine bottle standing on the table between them, but instead of pouring from where he sat, he got up and walked around to her side.
‘Did you know that David Bowie was a stage name, that his real name was Jones? I’m not actually called Prim, it’s just a nickname, but only my family call me that. But I’d like to think that when I get married my wife will also call me Prim.’
He was standing directly behind her and, while filling her glass, he stroked her long, fine hair with his free hand. Had it been a couple of years ago, even a couple of months ago, he would not have dared touch a woman like this for fear of rejection. Now he had no such doubts, he was in total control. Having his teeth fixed had helped, of course, as well as starting to go to a proper hairdresser and taking advice on which clothes to buy. But it wasn’t that. It was something he exuded, something they were unable to resist, and knowing that endowed him with a confidence which was in itself such a strong aphrodisiac it alone could have carried him, that placebo effect that was self-perpetuating with every turn as long as he kept the cycle going.