At the top of the hill he turned right onto Mulholland, right again onto Benedict Canyon, downhill slightly, then right onto Fox. Fox Lane was one of a cluster of short curved streets lined with fifteen-year-old houses. One of them belonged to Harvey, courtesy of Pasadena Savings and Loan. Further down Benedict Canyon was the turn onto Cielo Drive, where Charlie Manson had proved to the world that civilization was neither eternal nor safe. After that Sunday morning of horror in 1969 there was not a gun or a guard dog to be had in Beverly Hills. Back orders for shotguns stretched delivery time to weeks. And ever since, despite Harvey’s pistol and shotgun and dog, Loretta wanted to move. She was searching for safety.
Home. A big white house with green roof, trimmed front lawn, a big tree and small porch. It had a good resale value, because it was the least expensive house on the block; but least expensive is a relative thing, as Harvey well knew.
His house had a conventional driveway, not a big circular entry like the house across the street. He took the corner at a good clip, slowed in the drive, and zapped the garage door with the radio-beam widget. The door swung up before he could reach it; perfect timing, and Harvey scored a mental point with himself. The garage door closed behind him and he sat for a moment in darkness. Harvey didn’t like driving in rush hours, and he drove the rush hour twice nearly every day of his life. Time for a shower, he thought. He got out of the car and walked back down the drive toward the kitchen door.
“Hey, Harv?” a baritone voice bellowed.
“Yo,” Harvey answered. Gordie Vance, Randall’s neighbor on the left, was coming across his lawn with a rake trailing behind him. He leaned on the fence, and Harvey did the same, thinking as he did of cartoons of housewives chatting this way; only Loretta didn’t like Marie Vance, and would never be seen leaning on a back fence anyway. “So, Gordie. How are things at the bank?”
Gordie’s smile wavered. “They’ll keep. Anyway you’re not ready for a lecture on inflation. Listen, can you get away on the weekend? Thought we’d take the scouts up for a snow hike.”
“Boy, that sounds good.” Clean snow. It was hard to believe that no more than an hour away, in the Angeles Forest Mountains, was deep snow and wild, whistling wind in the evergreens, while they stood here in their shirt sleeves in the dark. “Probably not, Gordie. There’s a job coming up.” Christ, I hope there’s a job coming up. “You better not count on me.”
“What about Andy? Thought I’d use him as patrol leader this trip.”
“He’s a little young for that.”
“Not really. And he’s got experience. I’m taking some new kids on a first hike. Could use Andy.”
“Sure, he’s up on his schoolwork. Where are you going?”
“Cloudburst Summit.”
Harvey laughed. Tim Hamner’s observatory wasn’t far from there, although Harvey had never seen it. He must have hiked past it a dozen times.
They discussed details. With the Santa Ana blowing there’d be melt-off on all but the top elevations, but there would certainly be snow on the north slopes. A dozen scouts and Gordie. It sounded like fun. It was fun. Harvey shook his head ruefully. “You know, Gordo, when I was a kid it was a good week’s hike to Cloudburst. No road. Now we drive it in an hour. Progress.”
“Yeah. But it is progress, isn’t it? I mean, now we can get there and still keep a job.”
“Sure. Damn, I wish I could go.” By the time they’d driven up — an hour — and hiked in and got the gear out of their backpacks and set up camp, and got damp wood burning and their backpack stoves going, the freeze-dried mountain food always tasted like ambrosia. And coffee, at midnight, standing in a shelter out of the wind and listening to it whistle above… But it wasn’t worth a comet. “Sorry.”
“Right. Okay, I’ll check with Andy. Go over his gear for me, will you?”
“Sure.” What Gordie meant was, “Don’t let Loretta pack for your son. It’s hard enough hiking at that altitude without all the crap she’d make him carry. Hot-water bottles. Extra blankets. Once even an alarm clock.”
Harvey had to go back for his jacket and tie. When he came out of the garage he went another way, into the backyard. He’d thought of asking Gordie, “How do you feel about calling it ‘Gordo’s Bank and Kaffeeklatsch’?” From the look on Gordie’s face when the bank was mentioned, it wouldn’t go over. Some kind of trouble there. Private trouble.
Andy was in the backyard, across the pool, playing basketball solitaire. Randall stood quietly watching him. In zero time, in what must have been a year but felt like a week, Andy had changed from a boy into a… into a stick figure, all arms and legs and hands, long bones poised behind a basketball. He launched it with exquisite care, danced to catch the rebound, dribbled, and fired again for a perfect score. Andy didn’t smile; he nodded in somber satisfaction.
Kid’s not bad, Harvey thought.
His pants were new, but they didn’t reach his ankles. He’d be fifteen next September, ready for high school; and there was nothing for it but to send him to Harvard School for Boys, certainly the best in Los Angeles; only the school wanted a fortune just to hold a place, and the orthodontist wanted thousands now and more later. And there was the funny noise from the pool pump, and the electronics club Andy was involved in, it wouldn’t be long before the boy wanted a micro-computer for himself and who could blame him?… And… Randall went inside, quietly, glad that Andy hadn’t noticed him.
A teen-age boy used to be an asset. He could work in the fields — drive a team, or even a tractor. The pressure could be shared, shifted to younger shoulders. A man could ease off.
There was wrapping paper in the kitchen wastebasket. Loretta had been shopping again. Christmas had been on charge accounts, and those bills would be coming to roost on his desk. He’d already heard the stock-market report on the radio. The market was down.
Loretta was nowhere around. Harvey went into the big dressing room off the bathroom and stripped, got into the shower. Hot water beat down on his neck, draining away tension. His mind was turned off; he imagined himself as meat being massaged by hydraulic pressure. Only. If only his mind would really turn off.
Andy has a conscience. God knows I never tried to make him feel guilty. Discipline, sure. Punishment, standing in a corner, even a formal spanking, but when it’s over it’s over, no lingering guilt… but he knows guilt anyway. If Andy knew what he’s costing me in dollars and cents — and in the years of my life. If he ever knew what it does to the way l have to live, the shit I put up with to keep that goddamn job and win the bonuses that keep us afloat… What would Andy do if he knew? Run away? Get a job as a street sweeper in San Francisco to try to pay me back? He damned well is not going to know.
A voice in the roar of water. Huh? Randall came out of the internal world and found Loretta smiling through the glass shower door. She mouthed, “Hi. How’d it go?”
He waved. Loretta took it as an invitation. Randall watched her undress slowly, lasciviously, and slide through the glass door quick so the water wouldn’t splash out… and it wasn’t Wednesday. Harvey folded her in his arms. The water beat down on them, and they kissed. And it wasn’t Wednesday.
She asked, “How’d it go?”
He had read her lips the first time, but she couldn’t guess that. Now he had to answer. “I think they’ll do it.”
“I don’t see why not. It doesn’t make sense. If they wait, CBS will take it.”
“Right.” The magic went out of the shower/orgy scene, poof.
“Isn’t there any way to tell them how silly they’re being?”
“No.” Harvey fiddled with the shower head. The water expanded to a fine spray.