California Fire And Life

39

Which the wind blows into their eyes.

They're standing in the driveway looking at the house. It's against Jack's better judgment, but Letty wants to see it and he figures it's better if he's along.

"What they're doing now?" Letty says. "They're taking the boat out in the ocean to scatter her ashes. He doesn't want any part of her around."

Which has been true for years, Letty tells him.

After Michael was born.

The son.

A Valeshin.

I thought I was a princess, Pam had told her. What I am is a broodmare.

She's still in the hospital with Michael when Nick nails a waitress at the Salt Creek Inn. She hears about it from a friend who comes with flowers and spite.

Not to like stress you, darling, but…

It doesn't end there.

Nick has God knows how much tied up in leveraged real estate. Balloon payments looming, then the bottom drops out. Orange County goes bankrupt and you can't get a construction loan at any price. Even money can't buy money.

First real estate, then the furniture. People can't make their mortgages, they're not going to buy George II side tables, so what was an investment becomes a collection. Nick gets his ego wrapped up in it. The damn furniture become his possessions. Even on the rare occasions when he gets an offer, he won't part with them.

And they need the money, they're so stretched out.

He mortgages the house, at God knows what psychic cost.

Prime interest and his balls.

He takes it out in coke and fucking, Letty says. The money goes up his nose and out his dick.

Pam becomes the quintessential lonely South County wife and starts to drink. First it's liquid lunches; after a while she's already primed by the time lunch rolls around. Sobers up in the afternoons for the kids, gets them dinner, bathes them, puts them to bed, then drinks herself to sleep.

"Letty…," Jack says.

"I know," Letty says. "But I'm telling you she was sober."

"Maybe not that night," Jack says. "You know, Nick has the kids, he's going to divorce her…"

Letty shakes her head. "She was divorcing him."

"Oh."

Pam finally gets tired of it, Letty tells him. Tired of his fucking around, his coke, his lying, his smacking her when the real estate deal falls through or when she objects to him buying a five-thousand-dollar sculpture with money they don't have.

Tired of herself, too. Tired of the way she feels and looks. And horrified that she's starting to see her kids through the long-distance smoked lens of pills and alcohol.

So she checks herself into rehab.

I don't know what went on in there, Letty says, but Pam went in a faux princess and came out a real woman. She must have dealt with stuff there, because she comes out, she's different. More real, somehow. Warmer.

She starts calling, inviting me over. Even introduces me as her half sister. We speak Spanish together, which makes Nick crazy. I spend time with the kids – take them to the beach, take them to the country "What do you know about the country?" Jack asks.

"I live there now," Letty says. "I bought a little place up along the Ortega Highway, Cleveland National Forest. Are we talking about me or Pam?"

"Pam."

Pam comes out of rehab warmer.

And strong.

Gives Nick an ultimatum: Straighten up or the marriage is over.

She hauls him into counseling. That works. Three weeks later she comes home to find him in their bed with some coke whore from Newport Beach. She tells Nick to pack his bags and get out.

Nick storms out and comes back an hour later with a head full of blow and beats the crap out of her. Princess Pam would have taken it, but this Pam goes into court the next day and gets a restraining order, throws his ass out.

He runs to Mommy. She calls Pam and tells her that she'll never, ever get the kids. She's an unfit mother. The Vale lawyers will take her apart.

You'll take my kids, Pam says – get this, Jack – over my dead body.

Set on fire, Jack thinks, melted into their bed, cremated again and scattered over the ocean.

"He was terrified of a divorce," Letty says. "He's already up to his ears in debt and she's going to take half. And the house, and the kids…"

Daddy says Mommy is all burned up.

"You have motive," Jack says, "but-"

"He told her he was going to kill her," Letty says. "He'd break into the house when she was gone and take things. Leave her threatening notes. Call her on the phone late at night and tell her he was going to kill her."

"Jesus Christ."

"She called me the morning before she died," Letty says. She starts to cry as she's telling this.

He came over to pick up the kids, Pam had said. And he whispered in my ear, I'm coming back tonight. I'm coming back and I'm going to kill you.

"I begged her to come out and stay with me that night, but she wouldn't," Letty says. The tears pour down her face now. "I should have made her. I should have come and stayed with her. I should have-"

"Letty-"

"He has the kids, Jack," she says. "That rotten bastard and that bitch are going to raise her kids."

"Looks like it."

"Over my dead body," Letty says.

Then she starts to cry. Breaks down right there and would maybe collapse except he holds her. Asks her, "Do you want to come home with me?"

She nods.

As they're pulling out of the driveway, Jack notices a car parked on the street.

Two guys stand by the car.

Same guys who were in the church.

Nicky's hired security.