THEN something happened that was beyond comprehension.
Barbet had her mom’s Jil Sander coat, he brought it to the dry cleaners, emptying the pockets beforehand, and that was when he found the LOVE IS AROUND THE CORNER fortune with 03 15 25 36 38 18, and the lottery ticket Marj got at Riki’s on the day of her assault, the ticket with those very numbers. She must have bought it right before she took the bus to Long Beach, and Barbet checked, for the hell of it — she’d won. No one had come forward in 3 weeks and for the hell of it he checked and they were the numbers that won. He told Joan and she thought he was kidding. They drove down to Riki’s and doublechecked, and it was true, no one could believe it, there was the widow and son, they checked the numbers in the machine while Joan reminded them who she was (of course they remembered) — Marjorie Herlihy was her mom. They knew that something bad had happened to the wonderful old lady, they knew about the beating and the fire but not the recent calamity, and Joan just said Mom had been ill, and staying with her, and would be so happy about this, the widow and son were happy too, they were waiting for the person to come with the ticket and now here it was — their friend, their neighbor — now here was the daughter of the woman who had treated them so well. They loved her mother, and were going to get lots of money for having sold the winning ticket, a 173,000,000 dollar Super Lotto with an immediate cash payout, if you so chose, of about half, something in that area, all too much to take in.
On the way back to the hotel, they were giddy yet still somehow doubtful so Joan called the PI who by now had become a kind of friend-on-retainer, and he said Jesus, he would do some checking, then phoned right back, Jesus, oh Jesus yes! it was true, absolutely, and they called Joan’s lawyer and everyone examined the development like wide-eyed kids finding buried backyard treasure, it was true, a lump 93,000,000 after taxes or something like 10,000,000 a year for 20 years if they so chose (they didn’t) and still no one could really believe it. No one. They soon gathered in Century City and got the lottery folks on speakerphone, told them the situation because the attorneys were mindful of what had happened and didn’t want Joan to dissemble, no reason, it could definitively be proven, regardless of Mrs Herlihy’s current mental state, that she was the daughter and rightful heir. Plus, she had POA. The widow and son confirmed that Marj had been a fixture there (lately supplanted by emissaries, added Joan), choosing numbers from a ragged fortune cookie paper strip (the one she got at the end of her dinner with AKA Lucas Weyerhauser, though not quite the same since she had altered the very last digit, a detail that no one would ever trace as a commemorative of the year Marj went to Bombay with her father; otherwise many would have won, having selected that particular computer-generated sequence, which had been dispersed to Chinese restaurants state-and nationwide, that explained the solo win, the changing of the last digit, because the lottery people said otherwise they would have seen a pattern, there had been mass fortune cookie — selected winners before) and the lawyers wanted to confirm there would be no problems linked to Mrs Herlihy’s current physical or mental health, and the State said, with what seemed to Joan, some whimsy or State Fair abandon, that Marj was “a winner,” but they might want or need a photograph of the “lucky girl” for publicity purposes — of course respecting her current delicate situation — Joan’s lawyers didn’t assent to anything right away, though their client said it might be fun to bring in “hair and makeup” to Golden Grove and make a big to-do, her mom might like that, the lawyers didn’t immediately assent, trained not to do or say anything with undue speed, yet also trained not to be heavyhanded, especially when clients expressed warm or playfully harmless desires, all very friendly, in the outrageous spirit of what had happened the lawyers wanted everything kept amenable, which it was, and would remain, courtesy of AKA Lucas Weyerhauser, whereabouts unknown — Det Whitsell especially got a kick out of the development — AKA Lucas Weyerhauser, whose trail was being eagerly followed by all manner of high- and low-priced dicks. Nobody was ever to learn that the numbers from the cookie he gave her that very special night (she hadn’t been out to dinner with a man in God knew how long) were the very same Marj had fixated on; everyone thought the sweet treat came from local delivery. Marj was known to order in. No one would ever uncover the source of her insanely macabre windfalclass="underline" a final, maddening, karmic reversal of fortune.
(Chester was already gone and would never know any of it.)
SHE went with the lawyer to Golden Grove.
Marj was in high spirits.
She’d just been given a shower — Joan was paying for private nurses, night and day — and Cora came to visit too. The former neighbor brought over a special pillow her “Steinie” was marketing called the Hug, shaped like a cushioned torso.
She left behind a brochure. The Hug was covered in velour, embedded with thermal fibers and tiny motors. It could be programmed like a cellphone so if you happened to be out of town, you could “dial” the pillow and it would hug whoever was on the other end. It even generated heat. The pillow could store “hug messages” that could be picked up later if the recipient missed a call.
Joan tried it out — the Hug trembled against her, and she said, “Sign me up!”
I have to tell Barbet about this. If Amma the Hugging Saint ever goes on disability…
Her mother was more together than Joan had seen her be in a while, which was heartening. Marj said that Cora got a new dog, another King Charles, she couldn’t remember what she had named it but Cora promised to bring him next time. (Golden Grove was pet-friendly.) Joan said, Hopefully we’ll be in a house by then. She was really starting to show and drew Marj’s hand over her belly. Mom slowly began to accept the pregnancy. She shared that for the longest time, she thought Joan was making it up and they had a laugh. It gratified her that such a good thing, a lovely thing, a positive and a plus, was finally sinking in, something that might give her mother fresh hopes and dreams — and joy.
They didn’t speak of the trip to India anymore.
Marjorie had her portrait taken by the “Super Lotto,” after being primped and fussed over by a squad of Hollywood stylists. Joan supervised the session and had a ball. But the winner didn’t seem fully aware of what it meant. Joan knew there was brutal irony in even telling her mother that she was suddenly worth nearly a hundred million dollars — those professional criminals had said nearly the same thing. She began to wonder if it was a mistake to have told her. Every time Joan brought it up — hoping Mom would grow used to it, as she had the advancing pregnancy — Marj smiled a rictus of puzzled agonized frivolity, fascia taut, clamping Cora’s Hug machine to her bony breast and asked Joan what was she planning to wear to
LXXXVIII.Chester
arrive at 10 PM, hair-raising cab ride hilariously perilous, zillions of lamps and lanterns, and it wasn’t until they reached the hostel, which took 2 whole hours from the airport (Laxmi’s dad, Mr Reliable, said it would take only 30 minutes), in that entire time never abeyance or cessation of the hundreds and hundreds of thousands of thousands of lights and people, Chester realized this was India, its heart and spirit and energy, India multitudinous and hydraheaded, he would never have the luxury of space again, or at least not the kinky bad faith luxury of American space, space one could buy, all space had its price, even the air above Manhattan buildings was for sale, not that space was something he’d had his fill of, but rather he’d had his fill of everything American, all things America, the trademarked quality of such space was no longer necessary for his well-being — it wasn’t until they reached the hostel that they learned about Diwali, how the lights were a celebratory manifestation of Rama’s return, and her namesake the goddess Laxmi! a delirious festival of lights and firefly phosphorescence. The pair thought that of great portent.