Bones

CHAPTER 41

Seven fifty p.m., La Costa Beach, Malibu.

The world has compressed, its boundaries the black-rimmed rectangle of a nineteen-inch laptop screen.

Green-and-gray world, tinted by infrared illumination. In the background, waves roll in a lazy, almost sexual rhythm.

A man stands by the tide line, motionless.

I sit at a long table of ancient pine. My seat affords me an oblique view of the screen. Milo faces the laptop, moves his face close to it at times, then he retreats, polishing off more Red Bull.

Aaron Fox is positioned to his left. He drinks sparingly, almost daintily, from his personal bottle of Norwegian Fjord Spring Water. In between swallows, he chews cinnamon gum.

Moe Reed stands in a corner and watches the ocean.

The table is a seven-foot trestle, waxed and knotted and criss-crossed with scars that look calculated. It fills most of the dining space of a house ten lots north of the late Simon Vander’s beach escape. Like Vander’s place, this residence is a smallish two-story box on battered, creosote-coated pilings, worth eight figures. Unlike Vander’s wood-sheathed bungalow, its walls have been stuccoed whale-belly blue, its windows upgraded to copper-tinted, rust-resistant double-hungs. The interior is cozy, under a beamed ceiling, wired for concert-hall sound and cutting-edge video. The walls are dead-white diamond plaster, set sparingly with the type of art that gets people cracking wise about their kids being able to paint just as well.

The furniture’s at odds with all that, a carryover from the house’s former life as a “rural beach cottage.” Rattan and wicker and chunky easy-use wood pieces, many of which resemble the thrift-shop discards they are, are set up carelessly over faded machine-made Oriental rugs slightly soured by mold. The kitchen is barely big enough for two people to stand in. A stainless-steel Sub-Zero and purplish granite counters overachieve.

Décor doesn’t matter, tonight. I suspect it never matters much, with a western wall of sliding glass offering a fine view of the Pacific.

The doors are open, the ocean shouts, I catch glimpses of stars above the overhang of the deck.

My eyes return to the screen.

The miniature world remains inert. I touch the smooth, waxed surface of the table. Nice; maybe it really was “rescued” from a monastery in Tuscany, as the house’s current resident claims.

She’s the sister of the owner, sponging happily. Her brother is an expatriate British rock star, now on reunion tour in Europe. Moe Reed gave me credit for finding the place but the real connection was Robin, who’d worked on the star’s guitars years ago, when he had to pay her on the installment plan.

The beach house joins four other residences in his real estate portfolio: Bel Air, Napa, Aspen, a pied-à-terre in the San Remo on Central Park West.

The sister is a fifty-three-year-old self-described “production assistant” named Nonie who doesn’t bother to tell us her last name, as if we don’t deserve more than the minimum. Tall and white-blond and sun-seamed; her midriff blouse reveals a navel that should never have been pierced. She works hard at looking thirty, hasn’t labored at anything else for years. Her attitude is imperiously clear: Police work is one step above septic-scrubber and Milo and Reed and Fox and I should be genuflecting every ten seconds for the privilege of using her borrowed space.

Her brother would not approve of such frost. Terming her “an insufferable mooch” when Robin reaches him in Lisbon, he agrees readily to donate the house.

“Thanks, Gordie.”

“Sounds exciting, luv.”

“Hopefully it won’t be.”

“What-oh, yeah, of course. Either way, it’s yours for as long as you need it, luv. Thanks for cleaning the bridge pickup on the Tele. Just played it in front of seventy-eight thousand people and it sang.”

“That’s great, Gordie. You’ll tell Nonie we’ll be showing up?”

“Did it right off, told her to cooperate fully. She gives you any trouble, tell her there’s always her own pathetic dive.”

Gordie’s call notwithstanding, Nonie chooses to be cranky. Milo adopts a more diplomatic approach than that suggested by Gordie, listening patiently as Nonie drops name after name, flicks her hair, drinks brandy, struggles pathetically to bask in her sibling’s reflected fame.

When she stops to take a breath, he gets her talking about the table from Tuscany, applauds her good taste without laying it on too thick. Despite the fact that she’s never actually come out and claimed she found it.

She peers at him suspiciously, but is eventually won over by his persistence and her own need to feel important.

When the time is right, he gives her a hundred dollars and asks her to leave for her own safety, have a nice dinner on LAPD. The money comes out of his own pocket. Nonie looks at the cash. “The places I go, this might cover drinks.”

Milo peels off more bills. She accepts them with a look of great personal sacrifice, fetches her Marc Jacobs bag, puts on her Prada shawl, stomps toward the door on her slingback Manolos.

Moe Reed walks her outside to her Prius. Remains with her until she hangs a reckless right turn onto Pacific Coast Highway, narrowly avoids collision with an oncoming SUV, speeds off amid a chorus of horns.

Before Reed returns to the house, he gazes south, though he has no hope of spotting Detective Sean Binchy a hundred fifty yards away, stationed in an unmarked sedan in front of a shuttered pizza joint. A cheap laptop sits on the passenger seat, programmed to stream the same feed Aaron Fox has rigged into his computer. Getting the “inferior piece of crap” to cooperate has turned out to be the biggest hitch so far, with Aaron Fox cheerfully demeaning civil service “snitware” before finally succeeding. Even after the connection is made, transmission is spotty, sound obscured by the traffic on PCH.

Binchy received the laptop from Milo at six p.m., has already been watching the Vander house for an hour when we arrive at Gordie’s. No one has entered or exited and the garage door has been left open per Travis Huck’s instructions.

Huck stands in the sand.

Eight o’clock arrives. Passes.

Eight oh five, ten, twelve… we wonder if this will fizzle.

The garage door left open is a positive sign, and we cling to it.

Eight fifteen. Huck seems undisturbed. Then I remember he’s not wearing a watch.

It finally happens at eight sixteen, sudden and jarring as a heart attack.

Moe Reed is the first to notice. He points at the screen, nearly levitates from his seat.

Simone Vander has materialized on the beach. From nowhere.

The camera in Travis Huck’s button captures her willowy frame floating forward.

I think of a mermaid rising from the ocean.

As she gets closer, the bag in her hand takes shape. Large, paper, Trader Joe’s logo. Everything right on course, so far so good.

Simone’s clothes are dry, maybe a walk-on-water miracle?

So-thin girl, dry hair fluffing in the breeze. She walks along the beach. Bare feet mold to the sand. Walking with confidence, a rich girl accustomed to private silica, ambling, loose-limbed, swinging the bag, not a care in the world.

Huck stands there.

Milo says, “Where the hell did she come from?”

Aaron Fox says, “Don’t know. Camera is great for up close but past a certain point, you lose clarity in the long image.”

As if in illustration, Simone steps within fifteen feet of Huck, stares at him, stops, and her facial features clarify. Maybe a bit more tense than her easy walk had suggested. Green overtones don’t help. Bones sharper than I remember.

But still, a pretty girl.

The outfit she’s picked is SoCal Cutie 101: sprayed-on, low-riding jeans, dark middy blouse revealing a drum-tight belly, bangle bracelets, big hoop earrings.

Two pierces in her navel. The breeze blows dark hair away from her left ear, revealing a solitary diamond glinting from cartilage. The feed is that good.

Huck doesn’t move and for several seconds, neither does Simone.

“Travis.” The sound’s a bit grainy and her voice seems high, distant, muffled. As if she’s talking through a mouthful of whipped cream. Or blood.

“Simone.”

“Where will you go?”

“Not important.”

Simone smiles, steps closer, swinging the bag. “Poor Travis.”

“Poor Kelvin.”

Simone’s smile freezes. “Your little buddy.”

“Your little brother.”

“Half brother,” she says.

“Gook brother,” he says.

She gives a start, her eyes narrow, backtracking, trying to figure out where he got that.

She says, “Didn’t know you were a racist.”

“I heard you say it, Simone.” Something has changed in Huck’s voice. Deeper. Tighter.

Fox catches it. “Sounds like he’s working himself up. He goes for her, we’re too far to stop it.”

No one in the room answers him.

Simone Vander says, “You stalked me.”

“I did.”

She laughs at the shameless admission. “I fuck you four times and you can’t get over it.”

“Five.”

“Four. Loser. The first time was a joke. You have to actually put it in before you spooze to call it fucking.” She laughs harder. The tail end of her cruel mirth is softened by the fizz of an incoming wave.

She walks closer to Huck.

“You are such a dickbrain loser, Travis.”

“I know.”

His flat agreeability enrages her and her eyes turn to surgical incisions. She stops, sinks into the sand a bit, shifts position and finds higher ground. The bag swings wider. “You think you can escape your loser self by admitting that you’re a loser? What’s that, some rehab bullshit?”

Huck doesn’t respond.

“You’re a loser, a retard, a dickbrain preemie burnout. So don’t go thinking you can mess with me, Travis. Only reason I’m here is because I feel sorry for you, okay? And guess what the first thing you’re going to do when you’ve got my money?”

Silence.

“Take a guess, retard.”

Silence.

Simone tosses her hair, holds the bag in both hands. “The first thing you’re going to do-and you’re going to do it soon-is take every penny I give you and shove it up your nose or shoot it totally into your veins. Maybe we’ll both be lucky and you’ll totally O.D. What do you think, honey? Wouldn’t that be a good solution for everyone?”

Huck doesn’t answer.

The ocean rolls.

I wonder if he’s sweating. Moe Reed is. Milo is. Dark circles have spread under the armholes of Aaron Fox’s white-on-white silk shirt.

My scalp is sodden, my mouth is dry.

Another wave comes in, a big one, crashing.

Simone says, “Just do it, Travis. Like Nike says. O.D. yourself and put everyone out of their misery.”

“Why’d you do it, Simone?”

She laughs. “Why did I fuck you? Good question, Brain-Dead.”

“Why’d you kill them?”

Simone doesn’t confess, nor does she deny. She appears to glance past Huck, as if expecting company.

The four of us tense.

Moments pass.

Huck says, “All of them. Kelvin. How did you get yourself to that point?”

Simone’s laughter is sudden, shrill, unsettling. “You know how neat I am, honey. Comes a time, dirt has to go.”

Huck doesn’t speak. Maybe stunned. Or smart enough-with enough experience as a therapy patient-to use the silence.

Simone swings the bag. Arches her back, appears to be flaunting whatever chest she has.

Aaron Fox says, “She never stops. First time I met her, she was all sex.”

Simone says, “Catching up’s been fun, stud, but let’s just do this.”

Huck doesn’t answer. Simone appears distracted by the ocean. “Now you’re a dickbrain dumbie, too?”

Silence.

Fox says, “Say something, dude, keep her stringing along.” His jaw is tight and all his insouciance is gone and I catch a sense of what he was like working homicide.

Simone steps closer to Huck, just out of arm’s reach. A steady button-camera says Huck remains still.

He hasn’t budged since we planted him on the sand.

“Just like that,” he says.

“Like what?”

“You pay me, you’re free of sin.”

“Sin?” says Simone. “What the fuck is that?”

“Sixth Commandment.”

“What’s-oh, thou shalt not yadda yadda yadda.”

“All for money,” says Huck, with sympathy in his voice.

“Nothing sweeter.”

“It was more than that,” says Huck. “You’re jealous of Kelvin. Always were.”

“Jealous,” she says, as if the word is foreign.

“He’s got talent. You’ve got issues.”

Simone stares into the camera. Her chest heaves. She smiles. “You know what my issue is, Travis? Being here with a dickbrain like you so I can give you money so you can go shoot it up your arm or jam it in your nose. So cut the talk-you always wanted to talk.”

“You were nice to me so you could set me up.”

“Nice to you?”

“Pretending.”

“Sweetie,” she says, “you are so set-up-able.”

“So you could clean house.”

“Sweep, mop, polish,” she singsongs.

“Your dad gave you everything, Simone. You could have everything without killing them.”

“Really?” she says. “Everything for me and nothing for her? You are retarded.”

“There’s enough to go around, Simone.”

Simone thrusts the bag at him. “Take it and shut the fuck up.”

She grows smaller in the camera’s eye. Huck has retreated a foot or so.

“Take it!”

Milo slants forward.

Moe Reed mutters, “Go, go, go.”

Huck says, “All because you wanted the gold for yourself.”

Simone smirks. “I’ve got the gold. Loser.”

“A kid, Simone. You hugged and kissed him and played with his hair. You hugged Nadine. Now they’re gooks?”

“They were always gooks-”

“You kissed them.”

Simone laughs. “Like in the Mafia-The Godfather. You get kissed before you get blown away.”

“Was it easy, Simone? Did you look in their eyes-did you look in Kelvin’s eyes?”

Simone laughs louder. “What’s the big deal? Everyone dies the same.”

“Keep talking,” says Milo.

Huck says, “You looked into his eyes.”

“The eyes change,” says Simone, and her own orbs illustrate by taking on a dreamy look. “It’s like watching the light go out. There’s nothing like it.” Arching her back again. “I watched the light go out in her eyes and I came.”

Milo pumps a fist. “Got her!”

She drops the bag on the sand. “Here’s what you want. Have a bad life.”

The camera doesn’t falter.

“What, you think I’m punking you, loser? C’mere, look.”

“What did you do with them, Simone?”

“Ate ’em,” says Simone. “With fava beans and Chianti… what did we do? We jammed dynamite up their asses-who cares? Take this and crawl like the maggot you are.”

She bends toward the bag, inserts her hand, comes up with a bound wad of bills.

Tosses it.

Huck doesn’t budge. The money lands on the sand.

Simone stares at it. “What?”

“It’s fine,” says Huck. “Leave it and go.”

Simone studies him.

“Leave it and go,” Huck repeats. “Have whatever life you think you deserve.”

“What’s that, a curse, some kind of hex?” says Simone. “From you, a curse is a blessing.”

She turns to leave. Stops, rotates. Jams her hand into the bag and comes up with something that isn’t money.

Long and thin; she holds it aloft.

“Oh, shit,” said Fox, as she charges Huck.

The camera captures her eyes, hot and frigid simultaneously. The blandness of her face as she thrusts the knife.

Huck’s hands shoot out into the camera’s eye as he grabs for the weapon.

Simone lunges, twists, grunts, blood spurts.

Huck says nothing as she continues to stab him.

Milo runs toward the deck stairs that lead to the beach, Reed races on his heels, overtakes him.

Aaron Fox gapes at the screen.

I catch the look on his face as I run after Milo and Reed.

See him right now, and you wouldn’t know he was ever a confident, elegant man.

The sounds from the screen, wet, thumping, insistent, fill my ears as my feet hit the sand and I’m well out of range and hearing is no longer relevant.