Aaron caught up with him at the fountain. “C'mon, you can't be that touchy.”
Moe race-walked to his car.
Aaron kept pace. “You're that much of a diva that you're willing to hurt her because you're feeling all pissy? After all she's been through?”
“What's she been through?”
“Life.” Aaron touched Moe's sleeve. Moe grabbed his brother's hand and flung it off, hard enough to throw Aaron off balance. Aaron stumbled back, caught himself. Brushed nonexistent dirt off his gray silk trousers. “Fine, be an asshole.”
“I learned from the best.”
“You learned nothing from me, that's your problem.”
Moe felt his face turn to oak. “Didn't. Know. I. Had. A. Problem.”
Aaron mimed a bell-press. “Mr. Reed? FedEx delivery. Carton full of insight being delivered to your door.”
Moe groped for his car key.
“You are an utter and complete baby,” said Aaron. “Talk about arrested development and dogmatic dysfunctional syndrome.”
“Now you're a shrink?”
“Don't have to be to know your rigidity is getting in the way of the job. I called you four times today, what else could I-”
“So you collude with Mom?”
“I didn't collude, I-”
“Boys!”
Both men swiveled to see Maddy, standing in the doorway, holding two plates heaped with sausage.
“Dinner's served! Come and get it!”
“Moe's not hungry,” said Aaron. “I'll stay.”
Moe muttered, “Oh, sure, and make me the bad guy-fuck off. One second, Mom, I just had to get something from the car.”
“Look, let's forget the personal shit. I'm here because of the job. As in, I might have a lead for you.”
Maddy called out, “Hurry, boys! I bought ice cream for dessert.”
“What kind of lead?” said Moe.
“Later,” said Aaron. “And for the record, I didn't collude. Mom called me and suggested we all get together soon. It made her happy to think about. She said it's been two months since she's seen you, so I figured-”
“When's the last time you were here?”
Aaron didn't answer.
“Need a calendar?” said Moe.
“Boys?” Maddy walked toward them, balancing the plates with aplomb. All those hard-times waitress shifts at Du-par's not wasted.
“The food's getting cold, boys. The rabbis wouldn't approve.”
Dinner was brief, but seemed long. Maddy faked ebullience-or maybe she really was that self-centered-doling out affection to each son with obsessive equality.
As if love, like any other medicine, could be calibrated in doses.
It was the same blithe, painfully fair approach she'd taken when they were young. Seemingly oblivious to her losses, the money problems that forced her to double-shift. The acid stares and mutterings of neighbors each time she moved her curious multiracial family into a newly rented dump.
When they lived in Crenshaw, it was the black folks who derided. In the Valley, the Puritans changed skin tone but not intent.
Maddy had been raised by racist hypocrites, knew all about mindless resentment. She went about her business, wrapped in an imaginary blanket of righteousness and self-determination. That worked, but it took its toll. So did constant laying on the love to her two little hooligans.
If Aaron and Moses had been able to crawl into her head, they'd have found a surprising, alarming place crammed with dark corners, shadows, dead ends. The decaying memorabilia of a lifetime of adventure and misadventure that had tapered to boredom.
Now she was set up financially, with the house, the travel, the hobbies du jour.
Empty space in the king-size bed.
Could she take twenty, thirty more years of this torpor? No challenges, nothing to rebel against?
Two kids who looked like men but had never grown up?
Was the psychic abyss dividing them somehow her fault? She didn't think so, she'd always been so-
Stop. No way would she introspect and get all dopey-mopey about their issues. She deserved better than that.
Her therapist agreed with her.
She said, “Ready for dessert, boys? Vanilla cherry for Aaron, chocolate ripple for Mosey. You two are nothing if not ironic.”
When the table was clear, she took them to her second-story studio and showed them the huge, bicolor canvases she'd been working on. Variations of light/dark. If either of them got the joke, they didn't let on.
Mosey said, “Nice, Mom.”
Aaron said, “Really nice, Mom.”
Maddy noticed a thin spot on the edge of one of the paintings. Squeezing pigment onto her palette, she sat at her easel, began filling in.
The boys stood around as she daubed, stood back to gauge, painted some more. The paint was not sitting right, bad-quality acrylics, she'd noticed a definite change in the last few batches…
Squeeze, moisten, lift brush, lay it down…
When she looked up, half an hour had passed and the house was blessedly silent.
CHAPTER 16
Moe said, “So what's this big-time lead?”
The sun was down and the courtyard cobbles were a strange, deep purple. A sad color. Moe wanted out of there.
Aaron kept his reflexive reply to himself. What's this big-time attitude? He recounted Rory Stoltz's Hyundai adventures.
Moe said, “So?”
Aaron tamped down frustration by touching the fabric of his sport coat. Super 200s from Milan, silky-smooth, nothing better. He'd bought the jacket in three shades.
“You looked at Stoltz early on, but he came across clean-”
“He didn't come across, he had an alibi.”
“Stayed behind at Riptide even after Caitlin left. But that doesn't mean he couldn't have met up with her later. But he's not top of my list. I hear Riptide catered to celebs back then. I don't know who got Rory into ColdSnake but it had to be a VIP, I'm still working on that. That means Rory has an attraction to that world. What if some famous type did Caitlin and Rory protected him?”
Moe thought: Mason Book was skinny, made perfect sense. “Rory allegedly loves this girl but he allows her killer to go free so he can run dope errands?”
“Dope errands and maybe more, Moses. He was still in that house until well after three. Maybe sleeping in. That says he's wormed his way into a higher income bracket.”
“As a gofer.” Who wants to be an entertainment lawyer or an agent. Makes perfect sense.
Aaron said, “He thinks it's a start.”
Moe said nothing.
“You're not impressed by any of this.”
“You saw Stoltz chauffeur two club-rats. We don't know if they're in the Industry.”
“How about this, then? The house he drove them to belongs to Lem Dement.”
Moe's arms folded across his chest. “You're letting info out in dribs and drabs?”
“I need you to be interested before I waste my time, Moses.”
“I'm busy. Spit it all out.”
Aaron forced himself calm. “One: Dement owns the place. Two: I have a source says Dement beats his wife. Neither of the two guys was Dement, but he does have a slew of kids. Seven to be exact, and five are sons. Boys learn how to treat women from their daddies.” Or from having no daddy. “I worked the Web, found photos of three junior Dements. The two oldest fit the build of the heavier guy I saw.”
Moe pulled out his pad. “Names?”
“Japhet and Ahab.” Aaron grinned. “Japhet is twenty-five and Ahab's twenty-eight. Ahab used to be a heavy-metal dude, goes by Ax. If you find a criminal history on either of them, I'd appreciate hearing about it.”
“Meaning you didn't turn up anything.”
“If they're bad boys, they've avoided the press. All I found were a couple of party photos with Ax trying to get his face in the shots.”