Los Angeles Noir 2

TALL TALES FROM THE MEKONG DELTA

BY KATE BRAVERMAN

Bel Air

(Originally published in 1990)

It was in the fifth month of her sobriety. It was after the hospital. It was after her divorce. It was autumn. She had even stopped smoking. She was wearing pink aerobic pants, a pink T-shirt with KAUAI written in lilac across the chest, and tennis shoes. She had just come from the gym. She was walking across a parking lot bordering a city park in West Hollywood. She was carrying cookies for the AA meeting. She was in charge of bringing the food for the meeting. He fell into step with her. He was short, fat, pale. He had bad teeth. His hair was dirty. Later, she would freeze his frame in her mind and study it. She would say he seemed frightened and defeated and trapped, “cagey” was the word she used to describe his eyes, how he measured and evaluated something in the air between them. The way he squinted through hazel eyes, it had nothing to do with the sunlight.

“I’m Lenny,” he said, extending his hand. “What’s your name?”

She told him. She was holding a bag with packages of cookies in it. After the meeting, she had an appointment with her psychiatrist, then a manicure. She kept walking.

“You a teacher? You look like a teacher,” he said.

“I’m a writer,” she told him. “I teach creative writing.”

“You look like a teacher,” Lenny said.

“I’m not just a teacher,” she told him. She was annoyed.

“Okay. You’re a writer. And you’re bad. You’re one of those bad girls from Beverly Hills. I’ve had my eye on you,” Lenny said.

She didn’t say anything. He was wearing blue jeans, a black leather jacket zipped to his throat, a long red wool scarf around his neck, and a Dodgers baseball cap. It was too hot a day for the leather jacket and scarf. She didn’t find that detail significant. It caught her attention, she touched it briefly and then let it go. She looked but did not see. They were standing on a curb. The meeting was in a community room across the boulevard. She wasn’t afraid yet.

“You do drugs? What do you do? Drink too much?” he asked.

“I’m a cocaine addict,” she told him.

“Me too. Let’s see your tracks. Show me your tracks.” Lenny reached out for her arm.

“I don’t have any now.” She glanced at her arm. She extended her arm into the yellow air between them. The air was already becoming charged and disturbed. “They’re gone.”

“I see them,” Lenny told her, inspecting her arm, turning it over, holding it in the sunlight. He touched the part of her arm behind her elbow where the vein rose. “They’re beautiful.”

“But there’s nothing there,” she said.

“Yeah, there is. There always is if you know how to look,” Lenny told her. “How many people by the door? How many steps?”

He was talking about the door across the boulevard. His back was turned. She didn’t know.

“Four steps,” Lenny said. “Nine people. Four women. One odd man. I look. I see.”

She was counting the people on the steps in front of the meeting. She didn’t say anything.

“Let’s get a coffee later. That’s what you do, right? You can’t get a drink? You go out for coffee?” Lenny was studying her face.

“I don’t think so,” she said.

“You don’t think so? Come on. I’ll buy you coffee. You can explain AA to me. You like that Italian shit? That French shit? The little cups?” Lenny was staring at her.

“No, thank you. I’m sorry,” she said. He was short and fat and sweating. He looked like he was laughing at her with his eyes.

“You’re sorry. I’ll show you sorry. Listen. I know what you want. You’re one of those smart-ass teachers from Beverly Hills,” Lenny said.

“Right,” she said. She didn’t know why she bothered talking to him.

“You want to get in over your head. You want to see what’s on the other side. I’ll show you. I’ll take you there. It’ll be the ride of your life,” Lenny said.

“Goodbye,” she answered.

Lenny was at her noon meeting the next day. She saw him immediately as she walked through the door. She wondered how he knew that she would be there. As she approached her usual chair, she saw a bouquet of long-stemmed pink roses.

“You look beautiful,” Lenny said. “You knew I’d be here. That’s why you put that crap on your face. You didn’t have that paint on yesterday. Don’t do that. You don’t need that. Those whores from Beverly Hills need it. Not you. You’re a teacher. I like that. Sit down.” He picked the roses up. “Sit next to me. You glad to see me?”

“I don’t think so.” She sat down. Lenny handed the roses to her. She put them on the floor.

“Yeah. You’re glad to see me. You were hoping I’d be here. And here I am. You want me to chase you? I’ll chase you. Then I’ll catch you. Then I’ll show you what being in over your head means.” Lenny was smiling.

She turned away. When the meeting was over, she stood up quickly and began moving, even before the prayer was finished. “I have to go,” she said softly, over her shoulder. She felt she had to apologize. She felt she had to be careful.

“You don’t have to go,” Lenny said. He caught up with her on the steps. “Yeah. Don’t look surprised. Lenny’s fast, real fast. And you’re lying. Don’t ever lie to me. You think I’m stupid? Yeah, you think Lenny’s stupid. You think you can get away from me? You can’t get away. You got an hour. You don’t pick that kid up from the dance school until four. Come on. I’ll buy you coffee.”

“What are you talking about?” She stopped. Her breath felt sharp and fierce. It was a warm November. The air felt like glass.

“I know all about you. I know your routine. I been watching you for two weeks. Ever since I got to town. I saw you my first day. You think I’d ask you out on a date and not know your routine?” Lenny stared at her.

She felt her eyes widen. She started to say something but she changed her mind.

“You live at the top of the hill, off of Doheny. You pick up that kid, what’s her name, Annie something? You pick her up and take her to dance school. You get coffee next door. Table by the window. You read the paper. Then you go home. Just the two of you. And that Mex cleaning lady. Maria. That her name? Maria? They’re all called Maria. And the gardener Friday afternoons. That’s it.” Lenny lit a cigarette.

“You’ve been following me?” She was stunned. Her mouth opened.

“Recon,” Lenny said.

“I beg your pardon?”

“In Nam. We called it recon. Fly over, get a lay of the land. Or stand behind some trees. Count the personnel. People look but they don’t see. I’ll tell you about it. Get coffee. You got an hour. Want to hear about Vietnam? I got stories. Choppers? I like choppers. You can take your time, aim. You can hit anything, even dogs. Some days we’d go out just aiming at dogs. Or the black market? Want to hear about that? Profiteering in smack? You’re a writer, right? You like stories. I got some tall tales from the Mekong Delta for you, sweetheart. Knock your socks off. Come on.” He reached out and touched her arm. “Later you can have your own war stories. I can be one of your tall tales. I can be the tallest.”

The sun was strong. The world was washed with white. The day seemed somehow clarified. He was wearing a leather jacket and shaking. It occurred to her that he was sick.

“Excuse me. I must go,” she said. “If you follow me, I shall have someone call the police.”

“Okay. Okay. Calm down,” Lenny was saying behind her. “I’ll save you a seat tomorrow, okay?”

She didn’t reply. She sat in her car. It was strange how blue the sky seemed, etched with the blue of radium or narcotics. Or China blue, perhaps. Was that a color? The blue of the China Sea? The blue of Vietnam. When he talked about Asia, she could imagine that blue, luminescent with ancient fever, with promises and bridges broken, with the harvest lost in blue flame. Always there were barbarians, shooting the children and dogs.

She locked her car and began driving. It occurred to her, suddenly, that the Chinese took poets as concubines. Their poets slept with warlords. They wrote with gold ink. They ate orchids and smoked opium. They were consecrated by nuance, by birds and silk and the ritual birthdays of gods and nothing changed for a thousand years. And afternoon was absinthe yellow and almond, burnt orange and chrysanthemum. And in the abstract sky, a litany of kites.

She felt herself look for him as she walked into the meeting the next day at noon. The meeting was in the basement of a church. Lenny was standing near the coffeepot with his back to the wall. He was holding two cups of coffee as if he was expecting her. He handed one to her.

“I got seats,” he said. He motioned for her to follow. She followed. He pointed to a chair. She sat in it. An older woman was standing at the podium, telling the story of her life. Lenny was wearing a white warm-up suit with a green neon stripe down the sides of the pants and the arms of the jacket. He was wearing a baseball cap. His face seemed younger and tanner than she had remembered.

“Like how I look? I look like a lawyer on his way to tennis, right? I even got a tan. Fit right in. Chameleon Lenny. The best, too.” He lit a cigarette. He held the pack out to her.

She shook her head, no. She was staring at the cigarette in his mouth, in his fingers. She could lean her head closer, part her lips, take just one puff.

“I got something to show you,” Lenny said.

The meeting was over. They were walking up the stairs from the basement of the church. The sun was strong. She blinked in the light. It was the yellow of a hot autumn, a yellow that seemed amplified and redeemed. She glanced at her watch.

“Don’t do that,” Lenny said. He was touching the small of her back with his hand. He was helping her walk.

“What?”

“Looking at that fucking watch all the time. Take it off,” Lenny said.

“My watch?” She was looking at her wrist as if she had never seen it before.

“Give it here, come on.” Lenny put his hand out. He motioned with his fingers. She placed her watch in the palm of his hand.

“That’s a good girl,” Lenny was saying. “You don’t need it. You don’t have to know what time it is. You’re with me. Don’t you get it? You’re hungry, I feed you. You’re tired, I find a hotel. You’re in a structured environment now. You’re protected. I protect you. It doesn’t matter what time it is.” He put her watch in his pocket. “Forget it. I’ll buy you a new one. A better one. That was junk. I was embarrassed for you to wear junk like that. Want a Rolex?”

“You can’t afford a Rolex,” she said. She felt intelligent. She looked into his face.

“I got a drawerful,” Lenny told her. “I got all the colors. Red. Black. Gold.”

“Where?” She studied his face. They were walking on a side street in Hollywood. The air was a pale blue, bleeding into the horizon, taking the sky.

“In the bank,” Lenny said. “In the safety deposit with everything else. All the cash that isn’t buried.” Lenny smiled.

“What else?” She put her hands on her hips.

“Let’s go for a ride,” Lenny said.

They were standing at the curb. They were two blocks from the church. A motorcycle was parked there. Lenny took out a key.

“Get on,” he said.

“I don’t want to get on a motorcycle.” She was afraid.

“Yes, you do,” Lenny told her. “Sit down on it. Wrap your arms around me. Just lean into me. Nothing else. You’ll like it. You’ll be surprised. It’s a beautiful day. It looks like Hong Kong today. Want to go to the beach? Want lunch? I know a place in Malibu. You like seafood? Crab? Scampi? Watch the waves?” Lenny was doing something to the motorcycle. He looked at her face.

“No,” she said.

“How about Italian? I got a place near the Marina. Owner owes for ten kilos. We’ll get a good table. You like linguini?” Lenny sat down on the motorcycle.

She shook her head, no.

“Okay. You’re not hungry. You’re skinny. You should eat. Come on. We’ll go around the block. Get on. Once around the block and I’ll bring you back to the church.” Lenny reached out his hand through the warm white air.

She looked at his hand and how the air seemed blue near his fingers. It’s simply a blue glaze, she was thinking. In Malibu, in Hilo, in the China Sea, forms of blue, confusion and remorse, a dancing dress, a daughter with a mouth precisely your own and it’s done, all of it.

Somewhere it was carnival night in the blue wash of a village on the China Sea. On the river, boats passed with low-slung antique masts sliding silently to the blue of the ocean, to the inverted delta where the horizon concluded itself in a rapture of orchid and pewter. That’s what she was thinking when she took his hand.

She did not see him for a week. She changed her meeting schedule. She went to women’s meetings in the Pacific Palisades and the Valley. She went to meetings she had never been to before. She trembled when she thought about him.

She stopped her car at a red light. It occurred to her that it was an early-afternoon autumn in her thirty-eighth year. Then she found herself driving to the community center. The meeting was over. There was no one left on the street. Just one man, sitting alone on the front steps, smoking. Lenny looked up at her and smiled.

“I was expecting you,” Lenny said. “I told you. You can’t get away from me.”

She could feel his eyes on her face, the way when she lived with a painter, she had learned to feel lamplight on her skin. When she had learned to perceive light as an entity. She began to cry.

“Don’t cry,” Lenny said, his voice soft. “I can’t stand you crying. Let’s make up. I’ll buy you dinner.”

“I can’t.” She didn’t look at him.

“Yeah. You can. I’ll take you someplace good. Spago? You like those little pizzas with the duck and shit? Lobster? You want the Palm? Then Rangoon Racket Club? Yeah. Don’t look surprised. I know the places. I made deals in all those places. What did you think?” He was lighting a cigarette and she could feel his eyes on her skin.

She didn’t say anything. They were walking across a parking lot. The autumn made everything ache. Later, it would be worse. At dusk, with the subtle irritation of lamps.

“Yeah. I know what you think. You think Lenny looks like he just crawled out from a rock. This is a disguise. Blue jeans, sneakers. I fit right in. I got a gang of angry Colombians on my ass. Forget it.” Lenny stared at her. “You got a boyfriend?”

“What’s it to you?”

“What’s it to me? That’s sharp. I want to date you. I probably want to marry you. You got a boyfriend, I got to hurt him.” Lenny smiled.

“I can’t believe you said that.” She put her hands on her hips.

“You got a boyfriend? I’m going to cut off his arm and beat him with it. Here. Look at this.” He was bending over and removing something from his sock. He held it in the palm of his hand.

“Know what this is?” Lenny asked.

She shook her head, no.

“It’s a knife, sweetheart,” Lenny said.

She could see that now, even before he opened it. A pushbutton knife. Lenny was reaching behind to his back. He was pulling out something from behind his belt, under his shirt. It was another knife.

“Want to see the guns?”

She felt dizzy. They were standing near her car. It was early in December. The Santa Anas had been blowing. She felt that it had been exceptionally warm for months.

“Don’t get in the car,” Lenny said. “I can’t take it when you leave. Stay near me. Just let me breathe the same air as you. I love you.”

“You don’t even know me,” she said.

“But you know me. You been dreaming me. I’m your ticket to the other side, remember?” Lenny had put his knives away. “Want to hear some more Nam stories? How we ran smack into Honolulu? You’ll like this. You like the dope stories. You want to get loaded?”

She shook her head, no.

“You kidding me? You don’t want to get high?” Lenny smiled.

“I like being sober,” she said.

“Sure,” Lenny said. “Let me know when that changes. One phone call. I got the best dope in the world.”

They were standing in front of her car. The street beyond the parking lot seemed estranged, the air was tarnished. She hadn’t thought about drugs in months. Lenny was handing her something, thin circles of metal. She looked down at her hand. Two dimes seemed to glare in her palm.

“For when you change your mind,” Lenny said. He was still smiling.

They were sitting on the grass of a public park after a meeting. Lenny was wearing Bermuda shorts and a green T-shirt that said CANCÚN. They were sitting in a corner of the park with a stucco wall behind them.

“It’s our anniversary,” Lenny told her. “We been in love four weeks.”

“I’ve lost track of time,” she said. She didn’t have a watch anymore. The air felt humid, green, stalled. It was December in West Hollywood. She was thinking that the palms were livid with green death. They could be the palms of Vietnam.

“I want to fuck you,” Lenny said. “Let’s go to your house.”

She shook her head, no. She turned away from him. She began to stand up.

“Okay. Okay. You got the kid. I understand that. Let’s go to a hotel. You want the Beverly Wilshire? I can’t go to the Beverly Hills Hotel. I got a problem there. What about the Four Seasons? You want to fuck in the Four Seasons?”

“You need to get an AIDS test,” she said.

“Why?” Lenny looked amused.

“Because you’re a heroin addict. Because you’ve been in jail,” she began.

“Who told you that?” Lenny sat up.

“You told me,” she said. “Terminal Island. Chino. Folsom? Is it true?”

“Uh-huh,” Lenny said. He lit a cigarette. “Five years in Folsom. Consecutive. Sixty months. I topped out.”

She stared at him. She thought how easy it would be, to reach and take a cigarette. Just one, once.

“Means I finished my whole sentence. No time off for good behavior. Lenny did the whole sixty.” He smiled. “I don’t need an AIDS test.”

“You’re a heroin addict. You shoot cocaine. You’re crazy. Who knows what you do or who you do it with.” She was beginning to be afraid.

“You think I’d give you a disease?” Lenny looked hurt.

Silence. She was looking at Lenny’s legs, how white the exposed skin was. She was thinking that he brought his sick body to her, that he was bloated, enormous with pathology and bad history, with jails and demented resentments.

“Listen. You got nothing to worry about. I don’t need a fucking AIDS test. Listen to me. Are you hearing me? You get that disease, I take care of you. I take you to Bangkok. I keep a place there, on the river. Best smack in the world. Fifty cents. I keep you loaded. You’ll never suffer. You start hurting, I’ll take you out. I’ll kill you myself. With my own hands. I promise,” Lenny said.

Silence. She was thinking that he must be drawn to her vast emptiness, could he sense that she was aching and hot and always listening? There is always a garish carnival across the boulevard. We are born, we eat and sleep, conspire and mourn, a birth, a betrayal, an excursion to the harbor, and it’s done. All of it, done.

“Come here.” Lenny extended his arm. “Come here. You’re like a child. Don’t be afraid. I want to give you something.”

She moved her body closer to his. There are blue enormities, she was thinking, horizons and boulevards. Somewhere, there are blue rocks and they burn.

“Close your eyes,” Lenny said. “Open your mouth.”

She closed her eyes. She opened her mouth. There was something pressing against her lip. Perhaps it was a flower.

“Close your mouth and breathe,” Lenny said.

It was a cigarette. She felt the smoke in her lungs. It had been six months since she smoked. Her hand began to tremble.

“There,” Lenny was saying. “You need to smoke. I can tell. It’s okay. You can’t give up everything at once. Here. Share it. Give me a hit.”

They smoked quietly. They passed the cigarette back and forth. She was thinking that she was like a sacked capital. Nothing worked in her plazas. The palm trees were on fire. The air was smoky and blue. No one seemed to notice.

“Sit on my lap. Come on. Sit down. Closer. On my lap,” Lenny was saying. “Good. Yeah. Good. I’m not going to bite you. I love you. Want to get married? Want to have a baby? Closer. Let me kiss you. You don’t do anything. Let me do it. Now your arms. Yeah. Around my neck. Tighter. Tighter. You worried? You got nothing to worry about. You get sick, I keep you whacked on smack. Then I kill you. So why are you worried? Closer. Yeah. Want to hear about R and R in Bangkok? Want to hear about what you get for a hundred bucks on the river? You’ll like this. Lean right up against me. Yeah. Close your eyes.”

“Look. It’s hot. You want to swim. You like that? Swimming? You know how to swim?” Lenny looked at her. “Yeah? Let’s go. I got a place in Bel Air.”

“You have a place in Bel Air?” she asked. It was after the meeting. It was the week before Christmas. It was early afternoon.

“Guy I used to know. I did a little work for him. I introduced him to his wife. He owes me some money. He gave me the keys.” Lenny reached in his pocket. He was wearing a white-and-yellow warm-up suit. He produced a key ring. It hung in the hot air between them. “It’s got everything there. Food. Booze. Dope. Pool. Tennis court. Computer games. You like that? Pac Man?”

She didn’t say anything. She felt she couldn’t move. She lit a cigarette. She was buying two packages at a time again. She would be buying cartons soon.

“Look. We’ll go for a drive. I’ll tell you some more war stories. Come on. I got a nice car today. I got a brand-new red Ferrari. Want to see it? Just take a look. One look. It’s at the curb. Give me your hand.” Lenny reached out for her hand.

She could remember being a child. It was a child’s game in a child’s afternoon, before time or distance were factors. When you were told you couldn’t move or couldn’t see. And for those moments you are paralyzed or blind. You freeze in place. You don’t move. You feel that you have been there for years. It does not occur to you that you can move. It does not occur to you that you can break the rules. The world is a collection of absolutes and spells. You know words have a power. You are entranced. The world is a soft blue.

“There. See. I’m not crazy. A red Ferrari. A hundred forty grand. Get in. We’ll go around the block. Sit down. Nice interior, huh? Nice stereo. But I got no fucking tapes. Go to the record store with me? You pick out the tapes, okay? Then we’ll go to Bel Air. Swim a little. Watch the sunset. Listen to some music. Want to dance? I love to dance. You can’t get a disease doing that, right?” Lenny was holding the car door open for her.

She sat down. The ground seemed enormous. It seemed to leap up at her face.

“Yeah. I’m a good driver. Lean back. Relax. I used to drive for a living,” Lenny told her.

“What did you drive? A bus?” She smiled.

“A bus? That’s sharp. You’re one of those sharp little Jewish girls from Beverly Hills with a cocaine problem. Yeah. I know what you’re about. All of you. I drove some cars on a few jobs. Couple of jewelry stores, a few banks. Now I fly,” Lenny said.

Lenny turned the car onto Sunset Boulevard. In the gardens of the houses behind the gates, everything was in bloom. Patches of color slid past so fast she thought they might be hallucinations. Azaleas and camellias and hibiscus. The green seemed sullen and half asleep. Or perhaps it was opiated, dazed, exhausted from pleasure.

“You fly?” she repeated.

“Planes. You like planes? I’ll take you up. I got a plane. Company plane,” Lenny told her. “It’s in Arizona.”

“You’re a pilot?” She put out her cigarette and immediately lit another.

“I fly planes for money. Want to fly? I’m going next week. Every second Tuesday. Want to come?” Lenny looked at her.

“Maybe,” she said. They had turned on a street north of Sunset. They were winding up a hill. The street was narrow. The bougainvillea was a kind of net near her face. The air smelled of petals and heat.

“Yeah. You’ll come with me. I’ll show you what I do. I fly over a stretch of desert looks like the moon. There’s a small manufacturing business down there. Camouflaged. You’d never see it. I drop some boxes off. I pick some boxes up. Three hours’ work. Fifteen grand,” Lenny said. “Know what I’m talking about?”

“No.”

“Yeah. You don’t want to know anything about this. Distribution,” Lenny said. “That’s federal.”

“You do that twice a month?” she asked. They were above Sunset Boulevard. The bougainvillea was a magenta web. There were sounds of birds and insects. They were winding through pine trees. “That’s 30,000 dollars a month.”

“That’s nothing. The real money’s the Bogotá run,” Lenny said. “Mountains leap up out of the ground, out of nowhere. The Bogotá run drove me crazy. Took me a month to come down. Then the Colombians got mad. You know what I’m talking about?”

“No.”

“That’s good. You don’t want to know anything about the Colombians,” Lenny said again.

She was thinking about the Colombians and Bogotá and the town where Lenny said he had a house, Medellín. She was thinking they would have called her gitana, with her long black hair and bare feet. She could have fanned herself with handfuls of hundred-dollar bills like a green river. She could have borne sons for men crossing borders, searching for the definitive run, the one you don’t return from. She would dance in bars in the permanently hot nights. They would say she was intoxicated with grief and dead husbands. Sadness made her dance. When she thought about this, she laughed.

The driveway seemed sudden and steep. They were approaching a walled villa. Lenny pushed numbers on a console. The gate opened.

He parked the red Ferrari. He opened the car door for her. She followed him up a flight of stone steps. The house looked like a Spanish fortress.

A large Christmas wreath with pinecones and a red ribbon hung on the door. The door was unlocked. The floor was tile. They were walking on an Oriental silk carpet, past a piano, a fireplace, a bar. There were ceiling-high glass cabinets in which Chinese artifacts were displayed, vases and bowls and carvings. They were walking through a library, then a room with a huge television, stereo equipment, a pool table. She followed him out a side door.

The pool was built on the edge of the hill. The city below seemed like a sketch for a village, something not quite formed beneath the greenery. Pink and yellow roses had been planted around two sides of the pool. There were beds of azaleas with ferns between them and red camellias, yellow lilies, white daisies, and birds-of-paradise.

“Time to swim,” Lenny said.

She was standing near the pool, motionless. “We don’t have suits,” she said.

“Don’t tell nobody, okay?” Lenny was pulling his shirt over his head. He stared at her, a cigarette in his mouth. “It’s private. It’s walled. Just a cliff out here. And Bernie and Phyllis aren’t coming back. Come on. Take off your clothes. What are you? Scared? You’re like a child. Come here. I’ll help you. Daddy’ll help you. Just stand near me. Here. See? Over your head. Over baby’s head. Did that hurt? What’s that? One of those goddamn French jobs with the hooks in front? You do it. What are you looking at? I put on a few pounds. Okay? I’m a little out of shape. I need some weights. I got to buy some weights. What are you? Skinny? You’re so skinny. You one of those vomiters? I’m not going to bite. Come here. Reach down. Take off my necklace. Unlock the chain. Yeah. Good. Now we swim.”

The water felt strange and icy. It was nothing like she expected. There were shadows on the far side of the pool. The shadows were hideous. There was nothing ambiguous about them. The water beneath the shadows looked remote and troubled and green. It looked contaminated. The more she swam, the more the infected blue particles clustered on her skin. There would be no way to remove them.

“I have to leave,” she said.

The sun was going down. It was an unusual sunset for Los Angeles, red and protracted. Clouds formed islands in the red sky. The sprinklers came on. The air smelled damp and green like a forest. There were pine trees beyond the rose garden. She thought of the smell of camp at nightfall, when she was a child.

“What are you? Crazy? You kidding me? I want to take you out,” Lenny said. He got out of the pool. He wrapped a towel around his waist. Then he wrapped a towel around her shoulders. “Don’t just stand there. Dry off. Come on. You’ll get sick. Dry yourself.”

He lit a cigarette for her. “You want to get dressed up, right? I know you skinny broads from Beverly Hills. You want to get dressed up. Look. Let me show you something. You’ll like it. I know. Come on.” He put out his hand for her. She took it.

They were walking up a marble stairway to the bedroom. The bedroom windows opened onto a tile balcony. There were sunken tubs in the bathroom. Everything was black marble. The faucets were gold. There were gold chandeliers hanging above them. Every wall had mirrors bordered by bulbs and gold. Lenny was standing in front of a closet.

“Pick something out. Go on. Walk in. Pink. You like pink? No. You like it darker. Yeah. Keep walking. Closet big as a tennis court. They got no taste, right? Looks like Vegas, right? You like red? No. Black. That’s you. Here. Black silk.” Lenny came out of the closet. He was holding an evening gown. “This your size? All you skinny broads wear the same size.”

Lenny handed the dress to her. He stretched out on the bed. “Yeah. Let go of the towel. That’s right. Only slower.”

He was watching her. He lit a cigarette. His towel had come apart. He was holding something near his lap. It was a jewelry box.

“After you put that crap on your face, the paint, the lipstick, we’ll pick out a little something nice for you. Phyllis won’t need it. She’s not coming back. Yeah.” Lenny laughed. “Bernie and Phyllis are entertaining the Colombians by now. Give those boys from the jungle something to chew on. Don’t look like that. You like diamonds? I know you like diamonds.”

Lenny was stretched out on the bed. The bed belonged to Bernie and Phyllis but they weren’t coming back. Lenny was holding a diamond necklace out to her. She wanted it more than she could remember wanting anything.

“I’ll put it on you. Come here. Sit down. I won’t touch you. Not unless you ask me. I can see you’re all dressed up. Just sit near me. I’ll do the clasp for you,” Lenny offered.

She sat down. She could feel the stones around her throat, cool, individual, like the essence of something that lives in the night. Or something more ancient, part of the fabric of the night itself.

“Now you kiss me. Come on. You want to. I can tell. Kiss me. Know what this costs?” Lenny touched the necklace at her throat with his fingertips. He studied the stones. He left his fingers on her throat. “Sixty, seventy grand maybe. You can kiss me now.”

She turned her face toward him. She opened her lips. Outside, the Santa Ana winds were startling, howling as if from a mouth. The air smelled of scorched lemons and oranges, of something delirious and intoxicated. When she closed her eyes, everything was blue.

She didn’t see him at her noon meeting the next day or the day after. She thought, Well, that’s it. She wasn’t sorry. She got a manicure. She went to her psychiatrist. She began taking a steam bath after her aerobics class at the gym. She went Christmas shopping. She bought her daughter a white rabbit coat trimmed with blue fox. She was spending too much money. She didn’t care.

It was Christmas Eve when the doorbell rang. There were carols on the radio. She was wearing a silk robe and smoking. She told Maria that she could answer the door.

“You promised never to come here.” She was angry. “You promised to respect my life. To recognize my discrete borders.”

“Discrete borders?” Lenny repeated. “I’m in serious trouble. Look at me. Can’t you see there’s something wrong? You look but you don’t see.”

There was nothing unusual about him. He was wearing blue jeans and a black leather jacket. He was carrying an overnight bag. She could see the motorcycle near the curb. Maybe the Colombians had the red Ferrari. Maybe they were chewing on that now. She didn’t ask him in.

“This is it,” Lenny was saying. He brushed past her and walked into the living room. He was talking quickly. He was telling her what had happened in the desert, what the Colombians had done. She felt like she was being electrocuted, that her hair was standing on end. It occurred to her that it was a sensation so singular that she might come to enjoy it. There were small blue wounded sounds in the room now. She wondered if they were coming from her.

“I disappear in about five minutes.” Lenny looked at her. “You coming?”

She thought about it. “I can’t come, no,” she said finally. “I have a child.”

“We take her,” Lenny offered.

She shook her head, no. The room was going dark at the edges, she noticed. Like a field of blue asters, perhaps. Or ice when the sun strikes it. And how curious the blue becomes when clouds cross the sun, when the blue becomes broken, tawdry.

“I had plans for you. I was going to introduce you to some people. I should of met you fifteen years ago. I could have retired. Get me some ice,” Lenny said. “Let’s have a drink.”

“We’re in AA. Are you crazy?” She was annoyed.

“I need a drink. I need a fix. I need an automatic weapon. I need a plane,” he said. He looked past her to the den. Maria was watching television and wrapping Christmas presents.

“You need a drink, too,” Lenny said. “Don’t even think about it. The phone. You’re an accessory after the fact. You can go to jail. What about your kid then?”

They were standing in her living room. There was a noble pine tree near the fireplace. There were wrapped boxes beneath the branches. Maria asked in Spanish if she needed anything. She said not at the moment. Two glasses with ice, that was all.

“Have a drink,” Lenny said. “You can always go back to the meetings. They take you back. They don’t mind. I do it all the time. All over the world. I been doing it for ten years.”

“I didn’t know that,” she said. It was almost impossible to talk. It occurred to her that her sanity was becoming intermittent, like a sudden stretch of intact road in an abandoned region. Or radio music, blatant after months of static.

“Give me the bottle. I’ll pour you one. Don’t look like that. You look like you’re going down for the count. Here.” Lenny handed the glass to her. She could smell the vodka. “Open your mouth, goddamn it.”

She opened her mouth. She took a sip. Then she lit a cigarette.

“Wash the glass when I leave,” Lenny said. “They can’t prove shit. You don’t know me. You were never anywhere. Nothing happened. You listening? You don’t look like you’re listening. You look like you’re on tilt. Come on, baby. Listen to Daddy. That’s good. Take another sip.”

She took another sip. Lenny was standing near the door. “You’re getting off easy, you know that? I ran out of time. I had plans for you,” he was saying.

He was opening the door. “Some ride, huh? Did Daddy do like he said? Get you to the other side? You catch a glimpse? See what’s there? I think you’re starting to see. Can’t say Lenny lied to you, right?”

She took another sip. “Right,” she agreed. When this glass was finished she would pour another. When the bottle was empty, she would buy another.

Lenny closed the door. The night stayed outside. She was surprised. She opened her mouth but no sound came out. Instead, blue things flew in, pieces of glass or tin, or necklaces of blue diamonds, perhaps. The air was the blue of a pool when there are shadows, when clouds cross the turquoise surface, when you suspect something contagious is leaking, something camouflaged and disrupted. There is only this infected blue enormity elongating defiantly. The blue that knows you and where you live and it’s never going to forget.