Shephard thought back to the first and only time that Wade had told him about the death of Colleen. It was early evening and he was in his room, thinking of the next day, his first day of school. He was counting dust specks in a shaft of sunlight that slanted through the window. Wade came in and sat quietly on the bed, his face grave and dark. He held a newspaper clipping, which he stared at for a long moment before he spoke. Then he told Tom that his mother was dead, as he knew, and that she had been killed by a man with a gun. The man’s name was Azul Mercante and he had broken into their house when Colleen was alone. He had tried to take advantage of her in a way that men could do to women. But his father had come home and fought with Azul, who used the gun on Colleen before Wade could stop him. Azul had gone to prison, and would be there for many years. Fingering the news clipping with a trembling hand, Wade had showed it to his son. Too young to read, Shephard had merely looked at the pictures, one of his mother and one of his father. Wade explained that Colleen was safe and warm in heaven, where good people go. If other children in kindergarten talked of their mothers, then Tom would have to understand that he could not. This was nothing to be ashamed of. All he needed to know was that Colleen had loved him more than anything else in the world and she always would. Shephard had nodded and understood: after all, it was rather simple, wasn’t it? His father hugged him, and hid his face as he walked out of the room and shut the door behind him.
He had happened across the news article and photos a year later, but shut the drawer quickly when he saw what was in it. His father’s explanation was enough. She was safe and warm in heaven where good people go. Besides, he had thought of her from time to time, and built an image of her, a voice, a feeling. At times, he knew she was nearby, looking in through a window perhaps, or somewhere under the bed, making sure that he was all right. And as warm and substantial as Wade was, when Shephard cried with the pain or humiliation that only the young can feel so desperately, it was always Colleen’s breast that took his tears. She was there, he knew it. She just was not the kind of mother you could see.
And twenty-five years later, as he sat in the living room of his naked apartment, he felt her presence still. A sensation from something no longer there, from a phantom limb, from the ghost who had given him life.
He had nearly dozed off when the phone rang. It was Jane Algernon.
“I didn’t mean to be short,” she said quietly. “I didn’t mean it that way. You made me look at myself. You made me feel something again. Thank you, Tom Shephard. And I want you to know I’ll do what I can to help you. I owe it to whoever else might be next. Maybe I even owe it to you.”
“Don’t try to do too much. You can get too close to things sometimes.”
“I’ve spent most of my life trying to stay far away.”
Shephard pondered her words. What a strange, fine thing it was, to be called on the telephone. He wondered what to say, and had just settled on sleep well tonight, Jane, when she put the phone back in its cradle.
Seventeen
He had almost passed the darkened booth in Kano’s when a cigarette lighter clicked and a long orange flame coaxed the face of Dorothy Edmond from the shadows. Shephard sat down and found himself surrounded by the smell of smoke and lilac perfume. Her face was made up cadaverously. The deep lines that had shown up so clearly in the sunlight were now buried in powder; the red-rimmed gray eyes were framed in a glittery makeup that caught the light of the table candle; her full lips had been painted an unnatural violet. And the gray-black hair that had dangled nearly to her shoulders on the Surfside dock was now hidden beneath a lavender scarf that was pinned on one side by a diamond cluster. Shephard settled into the overly luxuriant booth. The restaurant seemed barely living: a man in a dark suit hunched over a drink at the bar, while near the window a young couple sat with their backs to the lounge, silently watching the ships bobbing in the harbor.
A waitress appeared. Dorothy Edmond tapped her empty glass with a pale, jewel-heavy hand, and Shephard ordered a beer. As she turned to watch the waitress leave, Shephard noted the handsome profile of her lined face. Beautiful, he thought, and corrupted. Like obscenities in Spanish. Her black dress was cut low enough to reveal a withering, sundried cleavage. She brought her hand to her mouth and quelled a rattling, phlegmy cough.
“That cough is my best friend, detective. We go everywhere together.” As she studied him, Shephard felt like a slave being inspected by a prospective buyer.
“Joe wasn’t too happy to see us talking,” he said finally.
“Joe isn’t happy about anything he can’t control,” she answered, as if it were an aside to be dispensed with quickly. “You probably noticed that he plays tennis without a partner. Fewer surprises, and only one winner.”
The drinks arrived and Shephard reached for his pocket, but Dorothy cut him off. “We’re on a tab,” she said. “I’d wear a hole in that pretty young hand of yours if we weren’t.” The waitress laughed with the forced enthusiasm reserved for good tippers. When she had gone again, Dorothy sipped her drink — Shephard noted that it was straight gin — then coughed into her hand. “Are you happy?” Her voice was raw and low and she asked the question as if everything that would follow depended on his answer.
“Reasonably. I got divorced last summer and pistol-whipped last Monday, but I’m a strong finisher.”
“Trifles,” she decided after a long pause. “It doesn’t really matter because you’ll be less happy when you leave here, and less happy than that later. Welcome to the club.”
“Are my dues current?”
Dorothy Edmond set down her glass and shot him an inhospitable glance. “Don’t be glib, young man. And understand two things before we go any farther. One is that I’ll tell you nothing that isn’t true. The other is I’ll tell you nothing I don’t want to. We can get along as two people helping each other, or you can heave your bureaucracy at me. But it won’t work. I don’t mind hell, I’ve been there.”
Before Shephard could form a reply, the woman’s face contorted and her hand shot up with a handkerchief in it. The cough exploded as she turned her head away.
“Bless you,” he said.
“Yes, God bless Dorothy.” She pulled a long cigarette from a silver box on the table and Shephard lit it. “I’m going to tell you a little story, detective. When it’s over, I might entertain a question or two like you did on TV last night. Until then, you just listen.
“It begins with a young man named Joe, who was one handsome devil and a good tennis player. He served his country in the war, then settled on the coast along with a million hopefuls like him. His family was in Georgia, living on a rather large estate that wasn’t theirs. His father was the groundskeeper, his mother a maid. Young Joe picked up his tennis on the estate courts, made love and proposed marriage to a bitterly ugly daughter, and was ejected from the scene with dispatch. Poor man, it must have been like sitting in a restaurant where you can’t afford anything on the menu.” She drew heavily on the gin.
“And young Joe was a dreamer. He dreamed of his own estate; of registering the name Datilla on the society pages; of money, class, power. A common enough dream. But Joe knew that to dream is to sleep, and he was no sleeper. He fell in with some rich friends in Newport Beach — Pasadena wealth summering in Orange County. Mostly the women. In Newport Beach you are society if you look society and act it. Joe did, and some friends pulled strings for a nice loan to start a club. A tennis club, ritzy and exclusive. His meager capital required a partner. Call him Burt. And together they bought a hunk of the California coast so cheap you’d laugh if I told you how much. The first courts went up a few months later, with a small clubhouse and a lounge.