Mike brushed bran-muffin crumbs off the spread and reclined on the bed beside me with his chin resting on my knee. He was as close to me physically as it is possible to be, but as soon as he restarted the tape, I lost him to the image moving across the screen.
Concentration drew his face into a deep frown as he listened to Pisces run through her line. He watched the entire tape through once, then rewound it and started it again. At the point when Pisces invited me to a motel, Mike picked up the remote, pushed the slow-motion function, and went over to the TV. Pointing to a red smear on the right edge of the frame, he said, “See the Corvette here?”
“Yes.”
He fast-forwarded, hit play, and pointed as the Corvette cruised up to us a second time.
“How many passes did he make?” Mike asked.
“I don’t know. I was concentrating on her. Whenever I bring out a camera, an audience gathers. Bunch of jerks trying to get famous. You know, they wave, mouth ‘Hi, Mom.’ I don’t pay any attention to them unless they screw up my scene. So when I first noticed the car, my only worry was what he was doing to my sound levels, not what the driver was up to.”
He nodded thoughtfully. We watched the entire tape in slow motion, tracking the red car, which was for the most part a glossy blur at the edge of the frame. Now and then I had caught some of the windshield. I strained to see the driver’s face. Because the streetlights reflected against the tinted glass, the driver was nothing more than a stationary pale spot behind moving reflections.
At one point I had turned the camera full on the driver. I remembered having felt annoyed at him because the man was a pest.
Now and then in filming there is a serendipitous moment, like Mr. Zapruder’s moment in Dallas in November 1963. My moment was certainly on a lower rung, but it made my palms sweat and my heart pound. I couldn’t see it except in slow motion: at the instant the driver was in the center of my viewfinder, the car passed into the gulf of darkness between two streetlights. For a fraction of that instant, the windshield was black. Behind it I could discern features on the driver’s face.
“I think I got the bastard, Mike. Did you see that?”
“Yeah, but it goes by so fast. Will the lab be able to make a decent still from that short bit?”
“You mean the police lab?”
“Any lab.”
“If you’re asking my professional advice, I’ll tell you to take the tape to Guido. A, he’s a genius. And B, he has access to the right equipment.”
“The tape is evidence, Maggie. We have to be careful with it. I’m real damn sure that Guido can do better things with it than our guys, but I’ll still have to get authority to release it to him.”
“I haven’t been served with anything like a subpoena,” I said, trying to remember what I had done with the wrappings addressed to Mike. “Until I release the tape to you, sweetcakes, it’s still my tape. Right?”
He laughed. “I really love the way your mind works, Maggie. What do you want to do?”
“Take this to Guido, get him to dub a copy for us to play with. Then you can have the original back.”
“Not strictly kosher. But expedient.” He kissed my knee and got up. “When are you going to do it?”
“If Guido’s home, as soon as I get a shower and get dressed. His house is only fifteen minutes from here. I’ll show you how to dub.”
“The thing is,” Mike said, “it’s Sunday. I always spend Sunday with my son. I was thinking maybe the three of us could go to breakfast together. It’s about time you met him.”
“Mikey Junior?” I said, feeling my palms start to sweat again.
“It’s Michael. When you’re seventeen, it’s Michael.”
“You two go ahead with whatever you had planned, Mike,” I said. “I don’t want to interfere. Besides, I have a lot of work to do.”
“Maggie,” he said with sudden heat, “what’s the big deal? Just meet him. He’s a great kid. You’ll like him. He’ll like you.”
“Later,” I said. “Okay?”
“If you say so.” He slid a pair of Dockers off a hanger and put them on. I could see that he had something more to say. But he just sighed.
I walked over and put my arms around him. He resisted me for a moment before he put his arms around me, too.
“Mike,” I said, “we’ve been over all of this. I know I’ll love Michael; he’s your son. So, what if he and I get to be really close? And Casey develops something with the two of you? Then you and I don’t work out in the end? What happens to the kids?”
“Maggie…
“Or you and I do work out, but Michael hates me? What do you do then? Casey can’t stand her father’s new wife. We can’t expect the kids to turn their feelings on and off to suit us. They can be so easily hurt.”
“Dinner,” he said with some force, holding me away by the shoulders. “Just dinner. Could you commit to dinner?”
It was my turn to sigh. “If it’s that important to you.”
“Meet you back here around six?”
“Fine.”
He smiled. “Fine, then.”
I watched him as he walked over to his closet, pulled out a shirt. I thought he looked terrific without one. That was in large measure where the problem lay. The physical thing between us had been atomic from the beginning. But beyond that, the gap between what either of us was ready for was enormous. In some ways, my divorce was still a bleeding wound. Mike didn’t want to live alone anymore.
Mike turned around and caught me staring.
“I’ll stop by the station and see what juvenile records has come up with,” he said. “Whether she’s identified as Hillary or not, we still have to address the Amy angle. I’ll start a birth-certificate search.”
“I need a car,” I said.
“Take mine. I’ll use my official poh-leese vehicle. You have my pager number. Call me if anything comes up.”
“I will.” I walked over and zipped up his fly. “But if anything comes up with you, how will you contact me?”
He smiled wickedly. “What? You think you’re the only woman in town?”
I laughed as I turned away toward the bathroom. “Honey, after last night, you won’t pose much danger to the female population for a long, long time.”
“Says you,” he called after me.
“Damn right,” I said. I pulled off the sweatshirt and tossed it to him on my way through the bathroom door.
Mike left while I was still in the shower. I dressed quickly in jeans and a sweater, repacked my duffel, and stowed it in a corner of his closet. I called Guido, who told me he would be happy to help if I could hang loose for a couple of hours. He had a tennis date.
I hadn’t spoken with Casey since Friday night, when she had called to tell me that she had arrived in Denver safely. It was eleven o’clock Denver time when I dialed her father’s number.
Casey answered.
“Have you been to the church yet?” I asked her.
“Just got back.”
“How did it go?”
“Baby Scotty cried when the priest got his head wet.”
“Babies always cry,” I said. “Did you make a little speech, godmother?”
“Sort of. It’s so weird, Mom. Linda has me promise to look after Scotty’s moral education, but she says I’m still too young to baby-sit him. She hardly lets me touch him. Or Dad. She is such a bitch.”
“It isn’t easy to be a stepmother.”
“Sure. Defend her,” Casey snapped. “Like it’s any fun being a stepchild? You know what I figured out?”
“What?”
“When I was born, Linda was eight years old.”
“Definitely too young to baby-sit,” I said.
“It’s not funny, Mom.”
“Lighten up, Casey. You’ll only be there a few more hours.”
“Thank God.” I heard her let out a long breath. “I gotta go.
All these people are coming over for lunch and I’m supposed to help Linda. I can’t baby-sit, but I can peel carrots.”
“Go to it,” I said. “I’m back in L.A. for maybe another day or two. Lyle will pick you up at the airport tonight. Call me when you get in.”