She came back with a boom box. “Amazing the sound you can get from one of these.”
She set it up on the coffee table, next to the food. “Takes cassettes and compact discs.”
Looking like a kid on Christmas morning, she set the control on battery, pressed EJECT, and handed me the compact disc that slid out. Kenny G: Silhouette.
She said, “I know you like jazz- saxophone. So I thought this might be right. Is it?”
I smiled. “It’s great. That was really nice of you.” I popped the disc back in and pressed PLAY.
Sweet soprano sounds filled the small apartment.
She said, “Umm, that’s pretty,” and sat back down. We listened. After a while I put my arm around her. During the brief dead time between the first and second cuts on the disc, we kissed. Gently, with restraint- a deliberate holding back that was mutual.
She pulled away, said, “It’s good to see you.”
“Good to see you too.” I touched her face, traced her jawline. She closed her eyes and sat back.
We stayed locked in a lovely inertia. Kenny G did his thing. It seemed a personal serenade. After the fourth cut, we forced ourselves up and left.
We went to the galleries, taking in the newer places on La Brea, looking at lots of bad art, a few experiments that succeeded. The last gallery we visited was brand-new and a surprise- older stuff, by L.A. standards. Early twentieth-century works on paper. I found something I wanted and could afford: a George Bellows boxing print, one of the minor ones. I’d missed getting one from the same edition at an auction last year. After some deliberation I bought it and had it wrapped to go.
“Like the fights?” she said as we left the gallery.
“Not in the flesh. But on paper it makes for good composition.”
“Daddy used to take me when I was little. I hated it, all the grunting and the blood. But I was too afraid to tell him.” She smoothed her hair, closed her eyes. “I called him today.”
“How’d it go?”
“Easier than I thought. His… wife answered. She was kind of cool. But he actually sounded happy to hear from me. Agreeable- almost too agreeable. Old. I don’t know if it’s because it’s been such a long time or he’s really aged that much. He asked me when I was coming back for a visit. I beat around the bush, didn’t give him a straight answer. Even if I wanted to go back, so much else is going on right now. By the way, I confirmed your parents’ group for tomorrow. Should be a good turnout-” She stopped herself. “Ah, the toast. Viva boredom.”
“Forget the toast if you feel like it.”
“I don’t feel like it,” she said, and put her arm around my waist.
We got to the car. I put the print in the trunk and drove to a place on Melrose: Northern Italian food, seating inside and out on the patio. The night breeze was kind- the sort of caressing warmth that keeps people moving to L.A. despite the phoniness and the madness- and we chose outside. Small lacy trees in straw-covered pots separated the patio from the sidewalk. White lattice partitions had been set up around groupings of tables, affording the illusion of privacy.
The waiter was a pony-tailed recent acting-class graduate playing the part of Solicitous Server and he recited what seemed like an endless list of specials with the hubris of a memory course graduate. The lighting was so dim- just a single covered candle on each table- that we had to lean forward to make out the menus. We were hungry by now and ordered an antipasto, seafood salads, two kinds of veal, and a bottle of Pellegrino water.
Conversation came easily but we stayed faithful to the toast. When the food came, we concentrated on eating. Solicitous wheeled the dessert cart tableside and Linda chose a monumental cream and hazelnut thing that looked as if baking it required a building permit. I ordered a lemon ice. When she was halfway through the pastry, she wiped cream from her lips and said, “I think I can handle reality. Okay if we ditch the boredom pledge?”
“Sure.”
“Then tell me about the Burden girl’s home. What was the father like? Can you talk about it?”
“In terms of confidentiality? Yes. One of the conditions I gave him was that anything I learned could be passed on to you, to the kids, or to the police. But I didn’t learn anything earth-shattering. Just confirmed what I suspected.”
“How so?”
I gave her a synopsis of my visit. She said, “God, he sounds like a real jerk.”
“He’s different, that’s for sure.”
“Different.” She smiled. “Yes, that’s much more professional than jerk.”
I laughed.
She said, “See why I wouldn’t make a good therapist? Too judgmental. How do you do it, keeping your feelings from getting in the way?”
“It’s not always easy,” I said. “Especially with someone like him. While interviewing him I realized I didn’t like him, resolved to keep that in the forefront of my mind. Which is what you do. Be aware of your own feelings. Stay aware. Put the patient’s welfare first, keeping yourself in the background. Like an accompanist.”
“You consider him your patient?”
“No. He’s more of a… consulting client. The way the court would be, in a custody evaluation. Not that I’m going to be able to tell him what he wants to hear: that she was innocent. If anything, she fits the profile of a mass murderer pretty closely. So my hunch is I’ll probably get fired fairly soon. It’s happened before.”
She put half a hazelnut in her mouth and chewed. Some tension- the intensity- had returned to her face.
I said, “What is it?”
“Nothing. Oh, heck, I just keep thinking about my car. It was the first thing I bought myself when I had money. It looked so sad when they towed it away. They say it’ll live, but surgery will take at least a month. Meanwhile, I’ve got a rental. If I’m lucky, the district won’t hassle me when it comes time to divvy up.”
She pushed her fork around on her dessert plate. The thing that keeps bugging me is: Why my little clunker? It was parked on the street with all the others. How’d they know who it belonged to?”
“Someone probably saw you in it.”
“Meaning someone was watching me? Stalking me?”
“No,” I said quickly. “I doubt we’re talking about anything that sophisticated. More likely someone spotted you, knew you were associated with the school, and decided to strike out.”
Opportunism. I knew why the word had leaped into my mind. All this exposure to politics. Ugliness.
“So you think it was someone local?” she said.
“Who knows?”
“Stupid punks,” she said. “I won’t let them dominate my life.”
A moment later, she said, “So what’s my next step? Start toting a gun?” She smiled. “Maybe not such a bad idea after all. Like I told you, I’m a crack shot.”
“Hope I stay on your good side.”
She laughed, looked down at what remained of her dessert. “Want any of this? I’m full.”
I declined, called for the check, and paid Solicitous. As we got up from the table I noticed simultaneous movement from a table on the other side of the lattice. As if we were sitting next to a mirror. The synchrony was so strong that it actually gave a second look to make sure we weren’t. But it was two other people- the vague outlines of a man and a woman. I thought nothing of it as we headed toward the car, but as I drove away from the curb, another car pulled out right behind us and stayed on our tail. I felt my chest tighten, then remembered the similar fantasy I’d had just a few days ago. The paranoia that had caused me to pull off Sunset into the service station.
Brown Toyota. What appeared to be two people. A couple. Absorbed with each other. Now another couple, right behind us, but from the spacing of the headlights, this car was larger. A midsized sedan. No flicker.
Okay. Definitely not the same car. Nothing odd about two couples leaving a restaurant at the same time. And heading this way on Melrose was the logical route for anyone living west of Hancock Park.