Chasing the Dime

34

Pierce took the California Incline down to the Coast Highway and then north to the mouth of Santa Monica Canyon. He turned right on Channel and parked at the first meter he found open. He then got out of the BMW and walked back toward the beach, looking over his shoulder and about him every ten yards for followers. When he got to the corner he looked around once more and then quickly went down the stairs into the pedestrian tunnel that went under the highway to the beach.

The walls of the tunnel were a collage of graffiti, some of it recognized by Pierce even though it had been at least a year since he had walked through the tunnel. During happier times with Nicole it had been their routine to get the paper and coffee on Sunday mornings and take it all down to the beach. But over the last year Pierce had been working on Proteus most Sundays and didn't have time for the beach.

On the other side the tunnel branched into two separate staircases leading up. He knew the further staircase came up on the sand right next to the drainage channel that emptied surface water runoff from the canyon into the ocean. He chose this stairway and came up into the sunlight to find the beach deserted. He saw the yellow lifeguard stand where he and Nicole would have their coffee and read the paper. It looked as abandoned as their Sunday ritual had become. He just wanted to see it, to remember it, before he went up the hill to her. After a while he turned back to the mouth of the tunnel and went back down the stairs.

A quarter of the way back through the sixty-yard tunnel Pierce saw a man coming down the opposite staircase. Because of the light from above him, the man was in silhouette.

Pierce was suddenly stricken with the thought of a confrontation with Renner in the tunnel. The cop had followed him and was here to arrest him.

The man approached, moving swiftly and still unidentifiable. He now seemed big. Or at least bulky. Pierce slowed his step but knew that their meeting was inevitable. To turn and run would be a ridiculous show of guilt.

When they were twenty feet apart the approaching man cleared his throat. A few feet later he came into view and Pierce saw that it wasn't Renner. It was no one that he knew.

The man was in his early twenties and looked like a burned-out surfer. He incongruously wore a heavy ski jacket that was unzipped and open to reveal he had no shirt on underneath. His chest was smooth and tan and hairless.

"Hey, you looking for some -what happened to your face, man?"

Pierce kept moving past him, picking up his stride, not answering. On prior occasions he had been solicited in the tunnel. There were two gay bars on Channel and it came with the territory.

Pulling away from the curb a few minutes later, Pierce checked the mirrors of the BMW and saw no followers. The tightness in his chest began to relax. Just a little. He knew he still had Nicole to confront.

At the intersection where the canyon elementary school was located, he turned left on Entrada and took it down to Amalfi Drive. He turned left and Amalfi climbed up the north bank of the canyon, winding in a hairpin pattern. As he went by his old home he glanced down the driveway and saw Nicole's old Speedster in the carport. It appeared she was home. He yanked the wheel and came to a stop next to the curb. He sat still for a moment, pulling his thoughts and courage together. Ahead of him he saw a beat-up old Volkswagen idling in a driveway, blue smoke pumping out of the twin exhaust pipes, a Domino's Pizza sign on the roof. It reminded him that he was hungry. He had only picked at his catered lunch because he had been too keyed up from the presentation and the anticipation of making a deal with Goddard.

But food right now had to wait. He got out of the car.

Pierce stepped into the entry alcove and knocked on the door. It was a single-light French door, so Nicole would know it was him the moment she stepped into the hallway. But the glass worked both ways. He saw her the moment she saw him. She hesitated but knew she couldn't get away with acting like she wasn't home. She stepped forward and unlocked and opened the door.

But then she stood in the opening, not giving him passage. She was wearing washed-out jeans and a lightweight navy blue sweater. The sweater was cut to show off her flat and tanned stomach and the gold ring that pierced her navel. She was barefoot and Pierce imagined that her favorite clogs were somewhere nearby.

"Henry. What are you doing here?"

"I need to talk to you. Can I come in?"

"Well, I'm expecting some calls. Can you -"

"From who, Billy Wentz?"

This gave her pause. A puzzled look entered her eyes.

"Who?"

"You know who. How about Elliot Bronson or Gil Franks?"

She shook her head like she felt sorry for him.

"Look, Henry, if this is some kind of jealous ex-boyfriend scene, you can save it. I don't know any Billy Wentz and I am not trying to get a job with Elliot Bronson or with Gil Franks. I signed a no-compete clause, remember?"

That put a chink in his armor. She had deftly deflected his first attack so smoothly and naturally that Pierce felt a tremor in his resolve. All his turning and grinding and looking of an hour before was suddenly becoming suspect.

"Look, can I come in or not? I don't want to do this out here."

She hesitated again but then moved back and motioned him in. They walked into the living room, which was to the right off the hallway. It was a large dark room with cherrywood floors and sixteen-foot ceilings. There was an empty spot where his leather couch had been -the only piece of furniture he had taken. Otherwise, the room was still the same. One wall was a vast floor-to-ceiling bookcase with double-depth shelves. Most of the shelves were filled with her books, two layers on each. She put only books she had read on these shelves, and she had read a lot. One of the things Pierce had loved most about her was that she would rather spend an evening on the couch reading a book and eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches than go to a movie and Chinois for dinner. It was also one of the things he knew he had taken advantage of. She didn't need him to read a book, which made it easier to stay in the lab that extra hour. Or those extra hours, as it more often was.

"Are you feeling all right?" she said, trying for a level of cordiality. "You look a lot better."

"I'm fine."

"How did it go with Maurice Goddard today?"

"It went fine. How did you know about it?"

Her face adopted a put-out expression.

"Because I was working there until Friday and the presentation was already scheduled.

Remember?"

He nodded. She was right. Nothing suspicious there.

"I forgot."

"Is he coming on board?"

"It looks like it."

She didn't sit down. She stood in the middle of the living room and faced him. The shelves of books rose fortress-like behind her, dwarfing her, all of them silent condemnations of him, each one a night he didn't come home to her. They intimidated him and yet he knew he had to keep his anger sharp for this confrontation.

"Okay, Henry, you're here. I'm here. What is it?"

He nodded. Now was the time. It dawned on him that he really had no plan at this point.

He was improvising.

"Well, what it is, is that it probably doesn't matter anymore in the scheme of things but I want to know for myself so maybe I can live with it a little easier. Just tell me, Nicki, did somebody get to you, did they pressure you, threaten you? Or did you just flat-out sell me out?"

Her mouth formed a perfect circle. Pierce had lived with her for three years and believed he knew all her facial expressions. He doubted she could put a look on her face that he hadn't seen before. And that perfect circle of a mouth he had seen before. But it was not the shock of being found out. It was confusion.

"Henry, what are you talking about?"

It was too late. He had to go with it.

"You know what I'm talking about. You set me up. And I want to know why and I want to know for who. Bronson? Midas? Who? And did you know they were going to kill her, Nicole? Don't tell me you knew that."

Her eyes started to get the violet sparks that he knew signaled her anger. Or her tears. Or both.

"I have no idea what you are talking about. Set you up for what? Kill who?"

"Come on, Nicole. Are they here? Hey, is Elliot hiding in the house? When do I get the presentation from them? When do we make the trade? My life back for Proteus."

"Henry, I think something's happened to you. When they held you over the balcony and you hit the wall. I think -"

"Bullshit! You were the only one who knew the story about Isabelle. You were the only one I ever told. And then you used it to do this. How could you do that? For money? Or was it just to get back at me for messing things up so bad?"

He could see her starting to tremble, to weaken. Maybe he was cracking through. She raised her hands, fingers splayed, and backed away. She was moving back toward the hallway.

"Get out of here, Henry. You're crazy. If it wasn't hitting that wall, then it was too many hours in the lab. It finally made you snap. You better go check into a -"

"You're not getting it," he said calmly. "You're not getting Proteus. Before you even wake up tomorrow it will be registered. You understand that?"

"No, Henry, I don't."

"What I'd like to know is, who killed her? Was it you, or did you have Wentz do it for you? He took care of all the dirty work, didn't he?"

That stopped her. She turned and almost shrieked at him.

"What? What are you saying? Killed who? Can you even listen to yourself?"

He paused, hoping she would calm down. This wasn't going the way he had thought or hoped it would. He needed an admission from her. Instead, she was starting to cry.

"Nicole, I loved you. I don't know what is wrong with me, because, fuck it, I still do."

She composed herself, wiped her cheeks and folded her arms across her chest.

"Okay, will you do me one favor, Henry?" she asked quietly.

"Haven't you gotten enough from me? What more do you want?"

"Would you please sit down on that chair there and I'll sit over here."

She directed him to the chair and then she moved behind the one where she would sit.

"Just sit down and do me this favor. Tell me what has happened. Tell me as though I didn't know anything about it. I know you don't believe that but I want you to tell me like you do. Tell me it like a story. You can say whatever you want to say about me in the story, any bad thing, but just tell it. From the start. Okay, Henry?"

Pierce slowly sat down on the chair she had pointed him to. He stared at her the whole time, watched her eyes. When she stepped over and sat down across from him he began to tell the story.

"I guess you could say this started twenty years ago. On the night I found my sister in Hollywood. And I didn't tell my stepfather about it."