“Nobody yet,” Tremaine said.
Evelyn didn’t respond; she just sipped her tea and looked down the hill at the other estates. Tremaine turned and looked, too. You could see lots of them, just sitting there, still and small in the distance.
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Tremaine pulled the Cutlass onto Rialto in Venice. He was going to Nina’s, this time with an invitation. There was still some light left in the sky, he was getting a better look at Nina’s block. He’d been down this street a million times before, but only now was he looking at it through the filter of knowing someone, of working for someone, of being intrigued by someone, who lived here.
Tremaine parked between a beat-up ’71 VW Beetle and brand-new silver Maserati.
Tremaine knocked on Nina’s door. It opened.
“Donald, thanks for coming by,” Nina said as she ush-ered him in.
Tremaine realized now more than ever how pretty Nina was. Looking more casual than the first few times they had B O D Y C O P Y
met, standing there in jeans and a T-shirt, but somehow looking even better.
“Can I get you a beer?” she said.
“Yes.”
Tremaine had that feeling you get when someone invites you to their house, that good feeling, that feeling where the chemistry is just a little better, a little warmer than when you see someone in a neutral place. One person has reached out to the other and the other has accepted. Tremaine was glad to be there. He could even detect a little spark that she was glad that he was there. Not in a romantic sense, just in the way that says, we could be friends, it’s good to see you, have a seat, have a beer, let’s catch up.
Tremaine filled Nina in, sort of. Moving forward with Tyler Wilkes, with Evelyn Gale, just giving her brushstrokes, no details really. There weren’t any yet. The speculation?
That was only for Tremaine at this point. Nonetheless, he knew it was good to give a progress report, even if he hadn’t yet made much progress.
Yeah, that’s why he was over here. Not because he kind of missed her. Not because she was the type of woman his wife had been, the type that he wasn’t able to make it work with. Smart, sexy, deep. Hey, she’d invited him. After he’d called and said let’s get together.
But who’s counting?
Tremaine took a swig of his beer and looked around her house. This time he could take it in, he wasn’t rushing, wasn’t guided by the fact that she might come home any minute and say, What the fuck are you doing here?
He looked at all the books, really able to see her collection now. Man, there were some good ones, ones you 103
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wouldn’t necessarily expect to see on the same shelf. Robert Pirsig and Charles Bukowski. Toni Morrison and John D.
MacDonald.
“You’ve got some good books in here,” Tremaine said. “
Ham on Rye
. Bukowski. One of my all time favorites.”
“Me too,” she said. “He was a brute, but he had a heart.”
“I love the scene where Chinaski is walking down the street with his face covered in gauze because he’d had his bad skin worked on.”
“Yeah,” she said. “And at that moment he felt better than ever, because he didn’t have to face the world.”
“And he felt so good that he lit up a smoke and strutted down the street, gauze and all.”
They both laughed, enjoying that memory, that image.
Nina said, “He could be so vulnerable and so tough at the same time. It’s a good combination.”
“Yeah. And he’s funny. He says stuff that’s so bleak, but it’s somehow hilarious. I always wondered how he did that.”
“Found that tone.”
“Right.”
They stood there with their beers. Silent, for a moment.
Wonder what’s on her mind?
He said, “Did you always want to be a teacher?”
“Yeah. I haven’t been at it too long, but I like it a lot.
Lately, though, I’ve been concentrating on my book.”
“How’s it coming?”
“Slowly. But steadily enough.”
Tremaine wanted to say, “I’ve read some of it, it rocks.”
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But he knew that would probably get him fired. So he said,
“It’s about your divorce . . .”
“Nope. It’s about an ex-surfer who’s now a P.I.”
“You should consult with me. I might be able to help.”
Then she said, “Yeah, it’s about my divorce. But it’s really about any divorce. I think. I hope.”
“Like I said, you should consult with me.”
“I’ve got myself for that one.”
“Right . . .”
They had another drink and chatted more about her book and some of the other books she had on the shelf and she asked Tremaine about being a P.I. and he told her some tales from the job.
Then he said, “So, what’s Darryl like?”
Nina, looking at her bookshelf, yanked her head around and said, with some terror in her eyes, “How’d you know about Darryl?”
“Because he’s right here. I read his tag.”
Darryl had entered silently, had slinked across the floor, and had quietly, deftly hopped up on a stool next to Tremaine. He was sitting, almost posing, looking right at Nina.
“Oh, Darryl’s great. Does what he pleases, all the time.”
“Darryl?”
“This little girl on my block back in Connecticut named him. He was just a kitten. Sean and I, Sean’s my ex, got him from a neighbor, and we were walking home, and this little girl rode up on her bike and said, ‘You should name him Darryl.’ That’s all she said. So we did.”
Darryl looked at Tremaine with those magical, wild, 105
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beautiful cat eyes. And then one of Darryl’s eyes, just one of them, slowly closed and opened. It was a slow, strange, cat wink, that said to Tremaine, I know you, man, you’ve been here before. And then Darryl sprung down from the stool and zipped out the open sliding glass door, just as Tremaine had.
Tremaine left Nina’s feeling good, looking forward to his next report with her, even if he didn’t have anything to say.
Driving away from Nina’s, Tremaine thought about their conversation, particularly the divorce part. Thought about the passage he’d read of her book and how much he liked it, knew it. He pulled out a smoke and lit it up.
Man, it’s brave for Nina to pull out the memories from her divorce and turn them into something. He wanted to read more. Maybe he needed to read more. Tremaine knew the pain of divorce, how it hurt to think about it at all, even for a second. And how, even though he’d never be back with Susan, some of him still loved her, and always would.
He dropped down onto the PCH, the sky black now.
He couldn’t help it; he was going over the things that led to his split. He remembered, first, when he and Susan met, how it felt so right. And then as time passed, how he began to slowly shut down, almost like a dying machine. He couldn’t control it. She was always there for him, beautiful, bright, loving, everything. But he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t function as one of two. And so he, almost in a predetermined way, began to destroy it. He thought about how eventually he just turned off, trapped in a permanent 106
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state of ambivalence. He remembered how Susan had said that his inability to love her all the way was a result of the incident during his surfing days, the incident they never talked about. And Tremaine thought now as he did then that she was right. And it made him sick to think about it, how she’d said she’d do anything to help him get over it, how she’d questioned why he didn’t want to try. Questioned why he seemed to want the solitary life she had pulled him out of. And how she’d eventually began to accuse him of simply being afraid, of fearing the intimacy she’d offered him.
Bingo. Susan, hitting the target dead center. But, Tremaine thought now, as he had then, he just couldn’t see not doing what he did. Leaving. He remembered, it was crystal clear, how he’d left her, standing there, beautiful and willing to keep trying. He knew, then, now, always, that he was better off alone.
Yeah, Tremaine thought, pulling into the trailer park transfixed on the wretched memory of his divorce, Nina’s brave to dredge that up. But she’ll get something out of it.
And other people will, too.
Me, probably.
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Tremaine woke up, 7:00 a.m., feeling good, feeling rested, lying in his bed in the back of the trailer. The first thought that popped into his head: Who killed Roger Gale and why? The second thought that popped into his head: Where’s my L.A.
Times
? I’m going to crucify that goddamn Jumble. And he did. He sat there at his desk, coffee not ready yet, but that’s okay, he didn’t need its help, not this morning. The words were: ossue, purep, yathap, and kiptec. The riddle was
What the timber boss took to
work. His
“_ _ _ _ _ _ _.”
In less than a minute, he turned ossue into souse, purep into upper, yathap into apathy, and kiptec into picket. Five seconds later, he turned prhopec into chopper.
What the timber boss took to work. His “chopper
.”
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Tremaine looked at the stopwatch: fifty-five seconds.
Not bad. Not bad at all. Mind was sharp, ready to figure some shit out. After that, he walked the bulldog, hit the waves, hopped in the Cutlass. He had a meeting with Phillip Cook at the prestigious L.A. Country Club.
Donald Tremaine had never been to the Los Angeles Country Club, but he knew at the very least he was dressed appropriately because he had called and asked and said he was a guest of Phillip Cook’s and inquired as to what he should wear to have lunch at the Grill by the golf course. Collared shirt, short sleeves were fine, and pants, no jeans. He could swing that. He would even throw on a blue blazer for good measure.
He’d put on some khakis, grabbed a short-sleeved dark blue sport shirt, slid into the blazer, and now he was on Wilshire, finishing a smoke in the Cutlass, just about to enter the gates to the club.
His phone rang. He looked at it, at the caller ID. Nina, it said.
“Hi, Nina,” Tremaine said.
“Hi, Donald,” she said.
Donald.
He liked that.
Nina was laughing, not guffawing, just laughing, when she said, “I forgot to tell you something about Phillip. Are you already at the club?”
“Just about to enter,” Tremaine said.
“Good, I caught you in time. Phillip has a glass eye.”
Tremaine laughed.
“A glass eye?” Tremaine said. “I’ve never seen one in person before. That’s very Sammy Davis of him.”
“Yeah, it’s absurd. I thought you should know before 109
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you met him so it wouldn’t freak you out. Not that it would. I mean, I’m sure you can handle yourself.”
“Thanks for telling me.”
“Well, I know you have to go.”
“Yeah, I’ll keep you posted.”
Neither one wanted to hang up, but neither one really had anything else to add, either.
Nina said, “Okay, talk to you soon, Donald.”
“Yep,” he said. And he would talk to her soon. Because he’d call her.
The guy at the gate gave Tremaine a little look as he pressed the button to let the Cutlass enter the grounds.
“Park anywhere you want,” the guard told him. That’s when he gave Tremaine the look. The look that said, you probably aren’t going to see any other Cutlasses in the lot.
Especially ones with surf racks and a hang loose sticker on the back windshield. There was no condescension in the look, though. It was more, right on, I like your style, sky blue Cutlass and all. Glad to see a guy driving a heap like that has a reason to be at the prestigious L.A.C.C. Tremaine thought, that’s why he told me to park anywhere.
Probably wants me to pull up close to the club so all the members will have to walk by and see my blue beauty. I’ll do just that, then. Yeah, that guard has probably taken plenty of shit from the members here . . .
Tremaine said, “Thank you” to the guard and cruised through the gate, thinking, it’s a shame today’s the day my fan belt decided to scream bloody murder. Sounds like a choking squirrel underneath my hood.
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Tremaine got out of the Cutlass, straightened his shirt and blazer, and headed over to the sidewalk that brought him around to the back of the clubhouse, where you entered the Grill. The back entrance faced two sprawling golf courses to the west. Tremaine looked around. Beautiful. Magical, even. A giant stretch of lush, green land right smack in the middle of Wilshire Boulevard, in the middle of Los Angeles.
Fairways stretched out in all directions. There were thick trees and streams and perfectly manicured flowers everywhere. How many times, Tremaine wondered, had he driven down Wilshire Boulevard and not even considered what was behind that wall of foliage. That wall of trees that was hiding, at least from a purely aesthetic point of view, an inner-city sprawl of real estate rivaled by no other in Los Angeles. Just based on the location of this joint, right in the heart of town, between Beverly Hills and Westwood, this
enormous
stretch, it simply reeked of money.
Tremaine knew about L.A.C.C., a little bit anyway. No entertainment folks; that’s what Nina and Jack Sawyer had said. This was old money, white money, WASP money.
As he strolled down the sidewalk, around to a big back patio flanked on one side by an enormous putting green, he looked at the people sitting underneath the umbrellas. And boy, did they look at him. They eyed him.
Mostly older men, Tremaine noticed. Older white men with those perma-scowls on their faces. White hair, parted on the side, pink, saggy faces, khaki pants, and Brooks Brothers shirts. Not many smiles around these parts. Place was peaceful, though. No cell phones. No loud groups convened together. Some women; not many, though. The 111
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occasional trio of female golfers would stroll by, tan faces and conservative haircuts.
As nice as the place was, certainly the most prestigious golf club in town, it was understated indeed. There was no flash. It was simple. And that simplicity gave it style and grace.
Tremaine entered the Grill to see groups of men at tables eating club sandwiches and drinking drinks and playing cards. This place, too, was very simple. Some card tables, some chairs, a bar with one bartender. Big windows everywhere looking out to the courses. But in terms of decoration, it was no more than you would see in a club in a small town in Middle America. Some game tables over in the corner. Paper napkins. No flash. This was the way the members liked it. Any kind of ostentation was show-offy.