“Two years,” I assured him. “Or three.”
“—and just yesterday, he practically creamed over it.”
Turning to Friendly, I spread my jacket open. “If I took it, where is it? Wanna frisk me?”
“The car,” said Clark, rushing out of the house with Friendly at his heels.
I took my time. In the courtyard, Clark had flung open the doors and trunk of my car, making a frantic search, while Friendly assisted with her flashlight. I watched calmly as they trashed it, secure in the knowledge there was nothing to find.
“See?” said Clark. “I told you.” And he withdrew the Hockney from underneath the Camry’s passenger seat.
And Friendly was cuffing me and phoning it in and calling for backup and dreaming of salvaging her tattered career.
And I regretted that I had been so easily mesmerized by Clark’s tight little body.
And I recalled that morning, when I came in from the pool deck, after talking to Friendly, while Clark was inside, fussing with prints, and I wondered why the front door was open.
And through the wind, I heard the first distant wail of sirens.
And now I said, “Yes, indeed. This old house has state-of-the-art electronics. Surveillance in every room. Up under the eaves too.” I pointed vaguely toward the deep, dark recesses of the roof. “Back at the office, we can just scan through all the video. We’ll see Clark planting the ‘evidence’ this morning. Then we’ll see him again, later, killing his husband.”
Clark froze, dropping the Hockney as the first cold spits of rain arrived on the wind. He hadn’t planned on video — lying would be futile. With a convulsive heave, he said, “Edison was right. I couldn’t leave, and he would never divorce me. We were stuck.”
“Till death do you part,” I said. “And I’ll bet you’re his heir.”
Clark looked blindly into the rain. Beaten by the truth, he muttered, “There was... no other way.”
Friendly released one of my cuffs and clamped it to one of Clark’s wrists, saying, “We’ll sort this out quick enough.” The sirens grew louder. A gust of wind grabbed the soggy Hockney from the gravel and tumbled it through the courtyard, sending it over the embankment.
I laughed, saying to Clark, “You idiot. There’s no surveillance. At Sunny Junket, we have a measure of respect for our guests.”
Slowly, Clark’s gaze pivoted to Friendly. With renewed fire, he stared into her eyes. “Some of our wealthier clients value their privacy and prefer cash transactions. I have forty thousand in the house. That could go a long way in the fight to get your daughter back. It’s yours — tonight — if you forget what you heard.”
Jazz Friendly, the ex-cop who’d accused me of fucking up her life, now studied my face while telling Clark, “But I’m not the only one who heard it.”
Clark reminded her, “You’ve got a gun. Use it. Self-defense — if you say he tried to grab it. Case closed.”
Her eyes darted from mine to Clark’s and back to mine.
Clark smiled. “Just do it.”
Sirens screamed nearby.
The Water Holds You Still
by Barbara DeMarco-Barrett
Twin Palms
The landline rang after midnight. It had to be my mother down in Palm Springs. She was the reason I kept the line.
I picked up. “Hi, Mom.”
“There was a noise,” she said.
I stood my brush in a jar of water. Red paint escaped the bristles, a blood cloud. I took the phone outside, the curly black cord stretched taut as a tightrope. Ferns along the patio were wet with night mist, common here on the Central Coast.
“Houses settle at night and make noises,” I said.
A few months ago, she began calling me about noises at night and the calls were coming more often.
A puff of breath and the faint strain of music — Sinatra. “Mood Indigo.” She’d become obsessed with him, more so since my stepfather Jerry died.
“A coyote was outside by the pool,” she said. “It was sniffing the water.”
“Maybe it’s bored,” I said. “No little dogs around to eat.”
“Greta, that’s not funny.”
“You’re keeping Joey Bishop in, right?” He was her little red Pomeranian.
“He’s in.” Her voice dropped an octave. “My sapphire ring is missing. Your brother was here. Every time he stops by, something else goes missing.”
“Are you sure?” Out on the highway red and blue lights whirled by.
“Last week it was my diamond earrings. I was going to give those to you.”
I took it personally. My brother knew they would be mine someday. “I’ve always loved those earrings. Has anyone other than Ben been around?”
“Repair people. Pool cleaner. Gardener. I can’t keep track.”
“So, it could be anyone.”
“Do you think your brother’s gambling again?” she asked. “People go to those pawn shops up on Palm Canyon and over in Cathedral City to sell things they steal. Or they sell them on Clubslist.”
“You mean Craigslist.”
“Make fun.”
“Look, Mom,” I said, “if Ben’s stealing from you, call the police. Turn him in.”
“I can’t. He’s my son.”
“It will only get worse.” I was afraid for my mother, brother, and me. Families weren’t supposed to be like this. Sons didn’t steal from their mothers. But she’d complained before so there must have been some truth to his thieving. “You’d be doing him a favor.”
“He’ll stop coming to see me. Then who will I have?”
“You have me.” I felt like that little girl again, competing with my brother for her love. Ours was a complicated relationship. Mothers and daughters and sons — oh my. She had that old-world Italian thing going: sons were gods, daughters... were what?
“You’re so far away,” she said.
“I’m not that far away, only four, maybe five hours. Come stay with me for a while.”
“I don’t drive anymore. My eyes.”
“Then I’ll come there.”
We made plans for me to go down in three days and hung up. Back in the studio, I studied my many unfinished canvases propped against the walls. I’d never get another gallery show if I didn’t finish already. I had done well at my first show but how could it ever happen like that again? What if I was a one-hit wonder? And was that better than becoming a follow-up failure? When Daniel and I broke up — I found out on Instagram, of all places, that he’d cheated on me with an ex-girlfriend — my confidence was rocked. Faulty female intuition. The dick-head. I lost my motivation and my creative ideas turned to mush.
By the weekend, I’d made little progress on my painting, but I had to visit my mother.
On Friday morning I threw a few things into a suitcase — changes of clothes, sarong, bathing suit — bagged a bottle of wine, got into my Mini, and headed south, Amy Winehouse crooning “Back to Black.”
Past Redlands on Interstate 10, the land yawned open. The hills were curvy, a smooth velveteen. A freight train passed alongside the freeway. Blades of wind generators lackadaisically spun.
I took the exit for Highway 111 and ten minutes later the lunar landscape gave way to Palm Springs’s green lawns and lush landscaping fed by a humongous underground lake.
Palm Canyon Drive runs through downtown and even though it was August, pedestrians milled about. My desert city no longer cleared out during the searing summer months. I liked it better back when tumbleweeds rolled down the streets as the theme song from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly played in my head.
At the stoplight near Rocky’s Pawn Shop I called my brother and left a voice mail. Just beyond the Ace Hotel I hung a right and turned into Twin Palms, named for the two palm trees planted in front of each midcentury marvel. My father had bought one of the original homes and Mom had lived here through three husbands. I pulled into the curving driveway and made a mental note to ask her where her car was.