Innocent Blood

Thirteen

On the six o’clock television news, anchorwoman Chris Chan announced that the LAPD Anti-Terrorism Unit had released further information about Richard Haze Abbott, the driver of the Movieble Feast catering truck.

‘Abbott was a student at Simi Valley High School but was excluded from classes at the age of sixteen for disruptive behavior. Between 1994 and 1996 he took a number of casual jobs, including painting and decorating, roofing, and taxi-driving, but he was unable to hold down any job for longer than a few weeks. According to several of his past employers, he was “argumentative”, “insubordinate”, and “downright weird.” In October of 1996 Abbott joined a commune of thirty-five people based in the mountains near Escondido, in San Diego County. The members of this commune called themselves the Air Traffic Controllers because they believed it was their mission in life to guide alien spacecraft to land on Earth.

‘During this time Abbott was arrested for a number of minor offenses including petty theft and vandalism. In 1998 he was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment at Vista Detention Facility for drug trafficking and carrying a concealed weapon. In jail he came under the influence of a well-known Islamic agitator, Ibn Athir, who was serving five years for passport forgery. Athir persuaded Abbott to convert to Islam. On his release Abbott joined a splinter group of Islamic activists calling themselves the Sons and Daughters of Iblis – SADI for short.

‘A police raid on SADI’s headquarters in Reseda in August of 2002 revealed explosive materials, firearms and a large quantity of subversive literature. A warrant was issued for Abbott’s arrest, but it was believed that he managed to cross the border into Mexico and he was never apprehended.’

The next shot was of Richard Abbott’s mother outside the family home in Simi Valley – a fat, plain woman with greasy hair and a soiled pink T-shirt. ‘Richie was a bright boy all right, but his father used to beat seven kinds of bleep out of him for no reason that I could ever tell, and he was bullied at school, too. I’d say that he was always unhappy, all his life, and what he’s done – this bombing – well, I can’t say that I was surprised. Richie was always saying that one day he was going to get his own back. He used to say people who treat you like you’re nothing, they don’t deserve nothing. They don’t even deserve to live nor breathe.’

Chris Chan said, ‘Today, police and FBI admit that they are still no closer to identifying the leaders of Dar Tariki Tariqat, although they have discovered that the explosives used in the Garry Sherman Show bombing were stolen from the Raymond granite quarry in Madera County more than a year ago. Police Commissioner Marvin Campbell said that this was a clear indication of a “cold, calculated, well-thought-out campaign of terror.”’

Campbell was shown on screen, looking harassed. ‘We shouldn’t make the mistake of thinking that these crimes were perpetrated by amateurs or crazed fanatics. These people know exactly what they’re doing, they’ve been planning this for a long, long time and so far they’re still one step ahead of us. All I can do is repeat my earlier warnings that everybody in Los Angeles, particularly those involved with the entertainment industry, must be extra vigilant. If in any doubt, call nine-one-one.’

‘Meanwhile, Charles Lasser, the owner of Star-TV, announced that Star is determined to defy Dar Tariki Tariqat by running all of its normal schedules, including its steamy daytime serial Paradise Grove and the Karen Mulcahy Show, in which guests are encouraged to confess their most outrageous sexual fantasies in front of their partners. Not to mention Star World News, which was famously described by Newsweek magazine as “slightly to the right of Newt Gingrich, and straight on till morning.”’

Charles Lasser was seen climbing out of his chauffeur-driven Rolls Royce. ‘The day I change one second of Star-TV’s scheduled programs because I’m afraid of some wild-eyed lunatics in nightgowns, that’s the day I’m going to lock myself in my office with a bottle of whiskey and shoot myself.’

Charles Lasser’s determination not to be intimidated by the terrorists had trebled his audience overnight, so he claimed, and boosted Star-TV’s advertising revenues by more than seventeen percent. ‘But I’m not doing this to make money – every extra penny of profit is going into my reward fund. I want to see these sons of bitches stamped out and I don’t care if it takes a hundred million dollars to do it.’

A news reporter asked him if he wasn’t recklessly endangering his employees and his studio audiences.

‘None of my employees is obliged to show up for work during the current crisis if he or she feels that the risk is unacceptable. Nobody who makes this choice will be penalized in any way, and they will be welcome back at Star-TV once the crisis is over. Members of the public who come to our studios to take part in live TV shows or other entertainments will have to sign a waiver absolving Star-TV from any claim for death or injury. But our security is second to none, and the choice to be part of a studio audience is entirely theirs.’

Frank said to Astrid, ‘Isn’t that generous? Even if you’re too chicken shit to show up for work, Charlie Lasser will still welcome you back with open arms once the bombing’s stopped. Notice how he doesn’t promise that you’ll get your old job back. Vice president in charge of international syndication before the bombing; toilet attendant afterward.’

‘Have you ever met him?’ asked Astrid. She was snuggled up close to him, wearing nothing but a pink candy-stripe blouse.

‘Charles Lasser? Only once, at some TV award ceremony. He’s big, that’s all I remember. I mean, he looks pretty big on the screen, but when you meet him in real life, he’s a giant. He made me feel like Stuart Little.’

‘I think he really has something. I don’t know – charisma.’

‘That’s because he’s very large, and very wealthy, and he’s a bully, and all women are irresistibly drawn to large, wealthy bullies.’

‘You’re not a large, wealthy bully, and I’m irresistibly drawn to you.’

‘That’s because I make you laugh, which is what men do to attract women if they’re too weak and shy to be bullies.’

‘You make me cry, too. That episode of Pigs when Henry gets upset because of all the patches in his pants. That was so sad.’

Frank smiled at the memory of it, and quoted the voice-over. ‘“Our pants had so many patches in the seats that they were more patch than pant. Personally I couldn’t understand why my father’s pride meant that we had to walk to school with what looked like traditional American quilts sewn on to our otherwise gray-flannel asses, but I guess the experience taught me why pride is one of the seven deadly sins, because no man’s pride is worth two small brothers staying in a hot, empty classroom during recess, silently crayoning, because they can’t take any more taunts about their chintz and brocade behinds.”’

‘Oh, it’s so sad,’ said Astrid. ‘Poor Dusty. Poor Henry.’

‘Life is sad, period,’ Frank told her, and kissed her on the forehead.

When they went to bed that night Astrid’s love-making was ravenous. To begin with, she made him feel like a Viking, freshly waded out of the surf, eager to have any woman he came across. But as the night wore on, he began to feel increasingly scratched and bruised, and exhausted, and desperate for a few hours’ sleep. But she wanted him to take her in every way that he had ever imagined, and in some that he hadn’t, and when she reached her climaxes she made noises that he had never heard a woman make before, hissing and crowing and screaming.

She clawed him and slapped him and bit him, and they rolled together on the sweaty, knotted sheets, over and over, until Frank lost any sense of where he was or who he was or what he was doing.

When morning came, he opened his eyes to find himself looking at her feet. He raised himself up on one elbow. She was sleeping face-down, her hair sticking up in spikes. He looked at her for a long, long time, his eyes following the curves of her back, and he thought that he had never seen a woman so magical. Her skin was so silky; the back of her neck was so beautifully hollowed. He loved the smell of her, too – stale juices and faded flowers. He noticed for the first time that she had a tiny tattoo on her left hip, a figure that looked like a hunchbacked goat, wrapped in a cloak.

He eased himself out of bed and went across to draw back the drapes. She stirred and blinked at him. ‘What time is it?’

‘Five after eight. You’re not in a hurry, are you?’

‘No.’

‘I thought maybe we could have breakfast at Charlie’s. They do corned-beef hash to kill your mother for.’

‘My mother?’

‘Figure of speech. I don’t mean literally.’

‘My mother,’ she repeated, in that hoarse, smoky voice, as if she couldn’t remember that she had ever had a mother.

‘Listen, forget I mentioned it. How about a shower?’

She sat up and stretched, her back arched, her skinny arms spread stiffly behind her like wings. ‘I have so much to do today.’

‘Like what? I thought you might like to come to the office. I could introduce you to Mo and Lizzie.’

‘It’s a little too soon for that, don’t you think?’

He sat down beside her and kissed her. ‘Not at all. Mo and Lizzie are both men of the world, particularly Lizzie. But you still have time for breakfast, don’t you?’

‘No. I think I’d better go.’

‘So . . . what? I’m going to see you this evening?’

She looked into his eyes as if she were trying to penetrate the darkness inside his head. ‘It depends.’

‘On what?’

‘On this and that. On whether I’m busy.’

‘Well, OK. But why don’t you give me a number, so that I can call you?’

‘I told you before. I don’t have a number.’

‘You must at least have a cellphone.’

She shook her head.

‘Jesus, everybody on the planet has a cellphone, apart from one or two stone-deaf bushmen in the Kalahari.’

She stood up and walked naked to the bathroom. Frank followed her. She sat unselfconsciously on the toilet but she still looked at him with that odd, unfocused stare.

‘I don’t understand,’ he said. ‘How can you not have a phone number?’

‘I like to stay out of touch.’

‘Even with me?’

She flushed the toilet and went to the basin, splashing water on her face and wetting her hair. Frank came up to her and touched the drips on her eyelashes and the tip of her nose. ‘Nevile did another séance for me.’

‘Oh, yes?’

‘He contacted Danny. I’m pretty sure it was Danny this time. The real Danny.’

Astrid dried her face and went through to the bedroom. She took out a comb and started to slick back her hair. Again Frank followed her.

‘Danny said that I had already met the person I was going to spend the rest of my life with. He said her name began with an A.’

‘And?’

‘Well, Astrid begins with an A, doesn’t it?’

‘Pff! You really believe this stuff? What did I tell you before? Nevile’s nothing more than a hustler. If he wasn’t running around playing psychic detective, he’d be out on the boardwalk running a shell game.’

‘I don’t think so. He knew what Danny’s teddy bear was called, and why.’

Astrid found her sapphire-blue thong under the bed and stepped into it. ‘That was his proof, was it?’

‘It was proof enough for me.’

‘Frank, I know what Danny’s teddy bear was called, too, and so does everybody else in the United States. They featured him on NBC News. “Today, a lonesome teddy bear pines for the boy who used to cuddle him.”’

‘Really? I never saw that.’

‘It was Wednesday, when you were burying him.’

She fastened her bra and put on her candy-stripe blouse. Frank did up the buttons for her. ‘All the same, I believe that Nevile got through to Danny. And Danny said that my new life started here and now, with this woman whose name begins with an A.’

Astrid slowly shook her head. ‘You think I’m part of your new life? Frank, you don’t know me at all.’

‘It’s not for want of trying, is it? But come on, Astrid. You won’t even tell me your surname, or where you live!’

She found her purse and took out her mascara. ‘Knowing a person’s name and address doesn’t mean you know them.’

‘Maybe it doesn’t, but it’s a start.’

She turned to him and kissed him, a very light but lingering kiss, the tip of her tongue touching his front teeth. ‘You were wonderful last night,’ she told him. ‘I had a fantasy that I was the Queen of Sheba and you were my slave.’

‘It felt like it, believe me. In fact I felt like several slaves.’

‘Look,’ she said, and turned him around so that he could see his back in the dressing-table mirror. His shoulders and his buttocks were criss-crossed with scarlet scratches. ‘You like me hurting you, don’t you? You know what I’m going to do to you next time? I’m going to bite you so hard that you scream.’ Her eyes widened as she kissed him again. ‘See you,’ she said. She opened the door, and then she was gone, her pink mules slip-slapping down the stairs. Frank stood in the middle of the living room, his arms by his sides, and for the first time in years he felt as if he had lost control of his life. It was like that winter three years ago when he had been driving to Portland, Oregon, and his rental car had skidded on an icy curve. He had frantically twisted the steering wheel from side to side, but he had seen the black rocks sliding toward him, and all he could do was brace himself for the impact.

He waited by the phone but Astrid didn’t call that evening, so shortly after eight o’clock he drove over to Burbank to see Margot. They were still husband and wife, after all, and he was beginning to feel guilty about leaving her to cope with her grief on her own.

Margot answered the door but Ruth was close behind her, dressed in some extraordinary hand-woven poncho with fraying edges, embroidered with a sun symbol, and baggy brown cotton pants. Margot was wearing denim dungarees and no makeup. Her face was as pale as a scrubbed potato.

‘Was there something you wanted?’ she asked him.

‘I thought we could talk.’

‘I thought you said everything you had to say when you defaced my paintings.’

‘You still believe that I did it?’

‘Do you care what I believe?’

Frank looked at Ruth and Ruth looked back at him with her usual slitty-eyed hostility. ‘Margot needs time to repair her emotional value system.’

‘Oh. I didn’t know it was broken.’

‘Of course it’s broken, Frank. Margot’s entire concept of conjugal weights and balances is in total disorder.’

Frank frowned at Margot as if he couldn’t quite remember who she was. In fact, he was trying to see in her face the reason why he had married her, and why they had conceived Danny together, and why they had stayed together for so long. But all he could see was the mole on her upper lip.

‘Is this true?’ he asked her. ‘Your entire concept of conjugal weights and balances?’

‘How can you make fun of me after what’s just happened?’

‘I’m not making fun of you, Margot. I’m making fun of a world that turns real feelings into meaningless jargon. I’m trying to tell you how sorry I am. But I’m also trying to tell you that we can’t turn the clock back. Either we’re going to share this grief together, and struggle on, and see what we can make of this marriage, or else we’re going to say that we’ve been holed below the waterline, and abandon ship, and then it’s every man for himself. Or woman,’ he added, before Rachel could say it.

Margot didn’t answer at first. Ruth came forward and took hold of her hand, giving Frank a smug proprietorial look, as if to say, you’ve lost her now; she’s mine. We’re sisters together, look at our hideous clothes and our tied-back hair and our unplucked eyebrows. We don’t need to look attractive to men because we don’t need men.

‘Frank,’ said Margot, ‘I know what you’re saying, I know how sorry you are. But I really need much more time.’

‘All right,’ Frank agreed. ‘I’m prepared to be generous. How much do you want? Two weeks, a month? A year, maybe? How about a decade?’

Then they finally looked at each other and they both knew that it was over.

Frank said, ‘I’ll have my horologist get in touch with your horologist, OK?’

When he returned to the Sunset Marquis, he called Nevile.

‘Signor Strange, he leave town,’ said his maid.

‘Do you know when he’s going to be back? This is Frank Bell. I needed to talk to him urgently.’

‘He no say. Maybe you try his cell-a-phone.’

‘OK, thanks.’

He dialed Nevile’s cellphone number but the phone was switched off. It was late now, after all – well past 11:30 P.M. He left a message and that was all he could do. For some reason he was beginning to feel panicky, as if something bad was going to happen, even though he couldn’t think what it was. He had been very disturbed by Danny’s appearance in Nevile’s hallway, all bruised and bleeding. What did it mean? Had Danny been trying to show him that he had been indifferent as a father, neglectful to the point of cruelty? He had always been pretty strict, he admitted that, sometimes too strict. But he thought that he had always been fair, and caring.

Maybe the bruises had been a metaphor for something else. After all, if Nevile had been right, then it hadn’t been Danny at all, but a much more powerful spirit masquerading as Danny. But if it was a much more powerful spirit, why had it allowed itself to be flung across the hallway, and then dragged away?

He stared at himself in the mirror. His hair was wild and there were dark circles under his eyes. ‘Portrait of a lunatic,’ he decided.

Friday, October 1, 3:26 P.M.

He was sitting on his balcony, his legs propped up on the railings, when he thought he heard a bang toward the north-east. Other people must have heard it, too, because they stopped splashing and laughing around the pool, and stood still, listening.

‘Hear that?’ said the musician with the long hair and the beaky noise. ‘That was a bloody bomb, that was.’

Frank went inside and switched on the television. He flicked through the channels until he found CNN, then waited. After less than five minutes, a newsflash came up on the screen.

‘Reports are coming in of a massive explosion at Walt Disney Studios on Buena Vista Road in Burbank. Eye witnesses are saying that “scores” of people have been killed and injured, and that over half of the main administrative block has been demolished.’

He stayed in front of the television for the rest of the afternoon. Gradually it emerged that a car bomb had killed forty-five Disney staff and that more than a hundred had been maimed by blast and shrapnel. Offices had collapsed and fires were still raging through the building, destroying millions of dollars worth of irreplaceable artwork and cells. Only three of the Seven Dwarf figures, which held up the roof, remained intact.

Police Commissioner Campbell appeared on the screen. ‘Los Angeles has again lost precious lives. The whole world has lost its innocence.’