She’s statuesque, sexy, beautiful, with all the genuine human warmth of an ice sculpture.
(Except, Ben remembers, O swears that she will not melt. O has watched The Wizard of Oz, like, twelve thousand times to get tips.)
“What brings you here?” Paqu looks a little surprised, as if she either can’t understand why a friend of her daughter’s would be at the club, or forgot that they let Jews in now.
Ben catches sight of Chad’s back. “Oh, you know-Friday… the patio.”
Paqu glances at his left hand. “Yes, it can be quite the place to meet eligible young ladies.”
Subtext: you’d better not be doing my daughter.
“Is O with you?” Ben asks, aware that if she is, she’s in handcuffs and leg irons, because O would rather sip cat urine straight from the cat than iced tea with her mother on the patio.
Paqu lets the “O” reference slide. “No, I believe she’s out seeking employment.”
And I believe, Ben thinks, that bin Laden is hitting open-mike night at the West Akron Holiday Inn.
He watches Meldrun go up to someone-Ben can’t make out his face-along the railing bar.
“What do you do?” Paqu asks.
“Sorry?”
“What do you do, Ben?” Paqu asks. “For a living?”
“I’m an environmental consultant,” Ben says, still unable to get a good look at who Chad is talking to.
“What does that mean?”
It means I have to tell the IRS something, Ben thinks. “When a big building or a complex is going up, I advise the landscape architects what kinds of trees, plants, and grasses to put in.”
“That sounds fascinating,” Paqu says. “Very ‘green.’ Is that the word?”
“That’s one of them.”
“What’s another?” she asks.
That’s when Ben realizes she’s a little drunk.
“Bullshit,” Ben tells her. “It’s all bullshit, Mrs. B.”
She looks him straight in the eyes. “Ain’t that the goddamn truth, Ben.”
Yeah it is.
Because some people move out of the way and Ben sees who Meldrun is talking to.
Stan.
231
O-wearing a blue knee-length dress-walks up to the distinguished older home on Balboa Island and rings the bell. When the man comes to the door, she says, “Hi. Would you be my sperm donor?”
The man blinks and says, “Could I just take three boxes of Thin Mints, please?”
232
Brian Hennessy opens the door of his apartment to a nasty surprise.
Chon.
Who lays a shotgun stock into the base of Brian’s skull.
233
Places Ben Would Expect to See His Father Before He Would Expect to See Him on the Patio:
1. A Republican National Committee Fund-raiser
2. Dollywood
3. Wines R Us
4. A Monster Truck Show
5. Rush Limbaugh’s Small Intestine
6. Anywhere
Ben fucking reels.
Turns and walks away.
The truth always comes home, but not to his home.
234
When Brian comes to, he’s duct-taped to a chair.
Chon sits across from him.
“What did I tell you?” Chon says. “What did I tell you I’d do if you laid another hand on one of our people?”
Brian remembers the answer. “Don’t. Please.”
“Say it-what did I tell you?”
“That you’d kill me.”
“Did you think I was kidding?”
“No.”
“Do you think I’m kidding now?”
“No. Please. Jesus.”
“I’m going to give you one motherfucking chance,” Chon says. “One. To tell me the truth. If you lie, I’ll know it and I’ll kill you. Tell me you understand, Brian.”
“I understand.” His legs are shaking.
“Who pulled the trigger on Scott Munson and that girl?”
“Duane.”
“Duane Crowe.”
Brian nods.
“What did you tell the cops?”
“Nothing.”
“Here’s what you’re going to do,” Chon says. “You’re going to call Crowe, tell him you want to meet.”
“He won’t come.”
“Tell him he comes or you tell the feds everything,” Chon says. “What’s his number?”
Brian tells him.
Chon takes Brian’s phone, punches in Crowe’s number, and holds it up to Brian’s mouth.
235
“I meant ‘sperm donor’ not as in ‘would you give me some sperm, please,’” O says, “but would you be the man who made a sperm deposit with, or rather with in, my mother that resulted in, well, me?”
Paul Patterson recovers his poise quickly and says, “Come in, please.”
He ushers O into a beautifully furnished living room that looks, well, old.
Old Newport Beach money.
Photos of sailboats on the wall. Wooden models of boats in glass cases.
“Do you sail?” O asks.
“I used to,” Patterson says. “Before I got… well, before I got too old.”
He is older than he was in her fantasy.
In her fantasy he was in his late forties maybe, handsome, of course, with just a streak of silver in the temples of his otherwise jet-black hair. In her fantasy he was athletic, he’d kept himself in shape, maybe he was a tennis player or a surfer or an iron-man triathlete.
The real man is in his early sixties.
His hair is wispy, a weird kind of yellow and white.
And he looks frail. His skin is translucent, like thin paper.
Her father is dying.
“Please sit down,” he says, pointing to an upholstered, wing-backed chair.
She sits and feels uncomfortable.
Small.
“Would you like something to drink?” he asks. “Iced tea or some lemonade?”
O loses it totally blows.
All that pent-up emotional lava just freaking explodes.
236
INT. PAUL PATTERSON’S HOUSE — DAY
O
Iced tea? Lemonade? That’s it?! After nineteen fucking years, that’s it? No hug, no kiss, no it’s so wonderful to finally meet you, I’m so sorry I abandoned you before you were born and broke your heart and totally fucked up your life?
Patterson looks sad. Even sadder as he answers PATTERSON
My dear Ophelia…
Don Winslow
The Kings Of Cool
237
Patterson goes Counter Darth Vader on it “I’m not your father.”
238
Ben pulls into the driveway of his parents’ house in the canyon, gets out of the car, walks up to the door, takes a deep breath, and rings the bell.
What the fuck do they have to do with all this, Ben wonders. For all their goofy, reconstructed-hippie bullshit, they’re essentially kind, loving people. Caring therapists, good if overbearing parents.
It feels like it takes forever, but his mother finally answers the door.
She looks shaken.
“Ben-”
Stan walks up behind her. Puts his hands on her shoulders and says, “Ben, what are you involved in?”
“What am I involved in?” Ben asks. “What are you involved in?”
239
They pull into the parking lot.
A warehouse complex in the canyon.
Old C trains scattered around.
Empty. Quiet.
Crowe’s Charger is already there.
Chon lies on the floor of the van behind Brian. He pushes the shotgun barrel into the back of the seat. “You feel that, Brian? It will go right through this seat into your spine. The best you can hope for is a helper monkey.”
“I feel it.”
“Pull up beside him and get out.”
Chon feels the van slow and then stop.
The door opens.
Brian gets out.
Crowe rolls down his window
And shoots Brian in the head.
240