So instead I headed up the 110 toward home.
– I was getting these calls, these guys I knew my dad had a deal going with. Hed gotten involved with these truckers or something. It was a quick thing, I guess. Cash. A lot of it. And Dad, he liked the fast action, so he took it on. And now they called and I told them he was dead and they started freaking out. Threatening to go to the cops and. I dont know. I should have realized they wouldnt do that, but I was. Confused. I didnt. The cops. They would have dug into everything once they found out Dad was involved in that. I mean, these days, post 9/11, any kind of smuggling and I figured theyd dig up his whole life. I didnt want people to know. What had happened before. I didnt want them to know I had known. And that Id confronted him. And what happened after. I.
She jammed the heels of her hands against her eyes and pressed.
I took the interchange to the 10 West, the traffic loop circling, a lone apartment building jutting high enough from its center for me to be able to see into an uncovered window on the top floor, a glimpse of a woman in front of a vanity mirror, rubbing away the days makeup.
Soledad uncovered her eyes, looked around.
– Where are we?
I pointed north.
– I need to make a stop.
– Jaime stole the gun.
She was staring out the window at the gated faces of the businesses along Fairfax.
– I mean, I assume he did. He knew my dad had two. A set of them. Those pistols. They were fancy or something. Dad knew Jaime liked that kind of shit and showed them to him once. After I called and asked if he could help with the truckers and their fucking almonds and he came over, he must have stolen it from Dads desk. The one the cops hadnt taken. The one Dad hadnt used.
We passed the Silent Movie Theater just before Melrose. Her Grave Mistake on the marquee.
Soledad read it and turned and smiled at me.
– Now thats funny.
– I was with him at the motel. When I called you to clean up after Talbot. I didnt take a cab down there. I went with him to meet the guys to make sure Jaime didnt completely screw things up. I mean, by then I was a little more clearheaded. Fuck. If it had just been a matter of sending the almonds on their way, I could have done that. If it had been legal, I could have done that. But I didnt know what to do with a load like that. What precautions to take. And Jaime, hes the only, you know, shifty character I know.
She blew her nose into an already damp Kleenex.
– Except for my dad, I mean.
We crossed Sunset, climbed toward Hollywood Boulevard.
– And he screwed it up. I kept telling him to settle down, wed pay for the stupid motel room and the food and whatever. But hed been drinking. And he has to have things exactly his way. Its like he gets a picture of how it should all work, and if it doesnt work that way he freaks out. More baggage from our mom.
I took a left onto Hollywood.
– I met her first pimp.
She looked at me.
– Homero?
I stopped at the light.
– The bait dealer.
She nodded.
– Yeah. He and my dad did business sometimes. He introduced Dad to our mom. Hes a scumbag. And theres a good chance hes Jaimes dad. Still.
She rapped the side of her head against the window.
– If Id been thinking, I would have called him about the almonds.
The light turned green. I veered right and merged into northbound traffic again.
– Jaime did. It didnt seem to help.
She chewed a nail.
– Not much Jaime does ever seems to help. And he needs so much help himself. He needs something for himself. To make him, I dont know, to give him some kind of reason. Not that thats an excuse. The way he treated you that night. Web. I didnt mean to. I wasnt trying to cause trouble when I called. But that mess in the room. It would have caused problems. I was still thinking about police. And what theyd find. I wasnt thinking about. About anything. Except not wanting people to know.
I touched one of the many knots Id collected on my scalp that last few days.
– Thinking clearly doesnt seem to have been anyones specialty this week.
She nodded, pointed at the twisting road climbing ahead of us.
– Whats in Laurel Canyon?
I took us around one of the hairpins and slid into the left-turn lane for Kirkwood.
– An old man.
We were parked, the Apache pulled half onto the sidewalk to keep narrow Weepah Way open to two-way traffic.
– So, was the story as bad as you thought?
I looked at her, looked out at the sky. Here above the Los Angeles Basin floor, a sheet of stars visible.
– No, not quite.
She leaned forward to join me looking out the windshield and up at the stars.
– Not quite. You must have had some pretty fucked-up ideas about what happened.
I tapped the glass, pointing at a constellation.
– Know what that is?
– No. You?
– Thats Corvus. The Crow.
– Never heard of it. I thought there were only twelve constellations. Like the zodiac.
– No. There are lots more.
– Whered you learn?
– My dad.
I leaned back and looked at her.
– So on the subject of not thinking clearly, I thought Harris and those guys maybe killed your dad. I thought maybe you knew about it. I thought maybe you made a deal to take care of the almonds for them if they did it for you. Killed your dad for you.
I pulled the towel over my leg where it had fallen to the side.
– Still want to go home with me?
She kept looking at the stars.
– Well, Im not really in much of a position to criticize you for thinking bad things about me right now, am I?
I put that in my top ten of Most Loaded Questions Ever and ignored it.
She ignored me ignoring it, and moved on.
– You promise to teach me a few more constellations?
– Sure.
She shrugged.
– Then I still want to go home with you.
I put my hand on the door.
– Soledad.
– Hm?
– The reason we didnt have the truck, the almonds, why we had to get all tricky and, you know, all that crazy shit. That was because Customs was seizing all your dads property. So, stuff is probably gonna. You know.
She put her hand to the glass.
– Yeah. I know. Jaime told me outside the inn.
She tapped the glass.
– Is that one?
I looked.
– No. But.
I took her finger and traced a circle on the glass.
– All those, those are Vela. The Sails.
– Huh.
I got out.
– Ill be back in a few minutes.
She didnt look.
– OK.
I swung the door back and forth a little, the hinge creaking.
– Soledad, I thought maybe you had killed him yourself. Killed your dad.
She drew her finger around the circle Id traced.
– You were close enough on that one.
I closed the door and went up to see L.L.
THE ABSENT PHOTO
The house smelled like mold and whiskey.
Piled books squeezed the entryway, leaving just clearance enough to open the door and scrape through. Bindings and pages swollen and dotted with rot from the damp canyon air, the stacks teetered and listed, propped up by more books. Shelves lined the walls. Shelves that were little more than more stacks of books broken by the occasional strata of a pine plank used to create stability. The fireplace, long out of use, vomited books. The couch rested on a pedestal of them. Looking into the kitchen, I could see that the doors had been removed from the cabinets to allow more room for the spines of oversized editions to jut out. If I opened the fridge, I had little doubt Id have found paperbacks wedged into the crisper, first editions of Mailer growing ice crystals in the freezer. The only thing to challenge the rule of books were the empty bottles lining window ledges, mounded in the sink, overflowing from liquor store delivery cartons.