Marked Man

53

You might think that I told Lou where to stick his bathing suits, that I charged after the inscrutable Theodore Purcell demanding answers, that I determined then and there to get to the bottom of the whole rotten mess, but you’d be wrong. I could give you all the strategic reasons for biding my time, but strategy would only be part of the reason. The other part was that it was hot and my suit jacket was sweaty and the idea of a swim, even in the murky waters of Teddy Purcell’s pool, didn’t seem such a terrible idea. It was L.A., baby, and if this wasn’t the pool at the Beverly Hills Hotel, it was as close as I was ever going to get.

With a borrowed swimsuit, a terry cloth robe tied tight like a trench coat, sunglasses on and the script in my hand, I stepped out of the cabana to the edge of the pool. The sun was hanging hot and fat over the Pacific. In the torpor of the afternoon, with the weeds and the heat and the color of the water, the deserted deck felt like the pool of a second-rate hotel in a Third World country. I looked down. My feet glowed in the sunshine like startled albino mice.

“Why is the water green?” said Monica, sidling up next to me.

“Maybe the pool boy has been taken out for cleaning, along with everything else in the house,” I said.

“Didn’t this Purcell in effect just admit that he did something to my sister?”

“He pretty much admitted that he was Teddy Pravitz and that he knew your sister. Beyond that, it’s hard to say.”

“But whatever he did, he’s not racked with guilt, is he?”

“No, not at all, though he doesn’t seem the racked-with-guilt type of guy. But he also doesn’t seem like someone who has been murdering his old pals to keep his secrets.”

“Maybe you’re wrong about him,” she said.

“I doubt it.”

“What are we going to do?”

“Swim.”

I glanced at her and couldn’t help but glance again and then to stare. Monica Adair was born to wear the little two-piece nothing Lou had given her. There was something American about her body, healthy, abundant, maybe too much of a good thing, but then what’s a little excess among friends?

“I don’t think it’s right accepting his hospitality,” said Monica. “It makes me feel dirty.”

“He seems to have a story he wants to tell. I figure we should accept his hospitality to the fullest, put him at ease, and let him tell it.”

“So this whole lounge-by-the-pool thing is part of our strategy?”

“Of course it is, Monica. Do you think I’m enjoying this?”

Just then Lou appeared, a sweating glass with an umbrella standing tall on his tray. “I bring your colada,” he said. “Made it fresh, right out of can.”

“I’ll be sitting there, Lou,” I said, pointing to a lounge chair in the shade of a canopy. “And could you put these things over there, too?” I unbelted my robe, slipped it off, and handed it to him, along with the script.

“Why not? Lou has nothing better to do than to serve you foot and mouth?”

“Thank you so much. Can you bring one of these concoctions for my friend? And, Lou, keep them coming.”

Lou huffed. I smiled broadly at Monica. She put her hand up as if blinded by the white of my smile. Or was it the white of my sun-starved skin?

“I didn’t know you were German,” she said, taking in the little Speedo that Lou had given me to wear. “I’ve worn G-strings with more material than that.”

“It’s all Lou had in stock.”

“Teddy Purcell’s hand-me-downs.”

“When you put it that way, yuck.”

“And with the color of the water, I wouldn’t go in that pool if you paid me. It’s like colonies of mutated life-forms are swimming in there. I expect the blob to crawl out of it at any moment.”

“Where is Steve McQueen when you need him?” I said as I peered into the water. I couldn’t see the bottom of the pool. Instead of diving, I lowered myself carefully until I was sitting on the edge, my legs dangling in the murk.

While I was sitting there, a young girl came out of the house, climbed onto the diving board, and leaped into the water like a graceful slip of light. She swam the length with perfect form. When she got to the end, she effortlessly lifted herself out of the pool. Clean enough for her, it was clean enough for me. I lowered myself in, keeping my head above the water as I paddled around. The water was cool and silky, more like lake water than the usual chlorinated pool.

When I pulled myself out, I walked over to my lounge chair in the shade of the canopy and toweled myself off with the robe. The white toweling took on a strange green tint. I sat down, drank a deep draft from the piña colada, and then lay back with a strange sense of contentment. Just yesterday I was in an old Philly row house, stuck with a dead man. Today I was poolside in the mountain retreat of a big-time Hollywood producer. That the two places were related, I had no doubt, but still I savored the pleasure of the juxtaposition. And then something caught my eye. It was the young girl who had been swimming in the pool. She was standing again on the diving board, her back straight, arms outstretched.

She wore a bikini, blue with yellow flowers that matched her yellow hair. Long legs, high breasts, just a smattering of acne across her prominent cheekbones. There was a radiance to her, a youthful exuberance, and yet you could see in her the woman she would soon become. For an instant I wondered if maybe she was the missing Chantal, but then I did the calculation. Chantal would have been in her mid-thirties, this girl was all of fourteen. Still, she frolicked in the afternoon sun as if the pool and patio were her own backyard. Maybe they were. Maybe she was Theodore Purcell’s daughter.

I watched her perform a graceful jackknife into the water and thought about what I might end up doing to her comfortable life, and then I stopped thinking and took another long sip of my drink. For lack of something better to do, I opened the script.

Fade in.

It wasn’t very good, you could tell it right off, with its hackneyed title and too-cute dialogue that went nowhere, and it wasn’t long before I started fading out.

“Who is Chantal?”

I woke with a start when I heard the voice. It was the young girl, standing right next to my lounge chair, looking down at me. “Excuse me?” I said.

“Chantal. The name on your tattoo. Is she your mother? That’s the kind of tattoo that usually has ‘Mom’ on it.”

“It’s not my mother,” I said. “It’s just the name of a girl. I’m Victor.”

“I’m Bryce. Is she Chantal?” she said, pointing to Monica, who was asleep in the sun beside me. In the heat, and with a few of Lou’s piña coladas between us, the jet lag had taken us both down.

“No, her name’s Monica. She’s just a friend. We’re working together.”

“Do you make movies, too?”

“Hardly.”

“Then why is there a script open on your stomach?”

“Oh, this?” I sat up, put the script to the side. “Mr. Purcell gave it to me to read.”

“Uncle Theodore always has a new script he needs you to read. They’re all” – and here she roughed up her voice in an imitation – “brilliant, genius. Take a look and tell me what you think.”

“So he’s your uncle?”

“Friend uncle, not uncle uncle. I like your tattoo. The colors are still bright, and you don’t see too many hearts except on old men.”

“Thank you, I think.”

“Your friend Monica has a nice flower on her ankle. And I like the dove on her shoulder. I wanted to get a tattoo of a fish on my back, but my mom wouldn’t let me. She said I was too young.”

“Well, Bryce, I think that’s very sensible. A tattoo is easy to get and easy to regret.”

“But it was a nice fish, blue with yellow stripes. I saw it when I went scuba diving in Cabo San Lucas with Uncle Theodore.”

“Is your mother here?”

“She’s working inside,” said Bryce. “Her name’s Lena. She’s Uncle Theodore’s secretary. She’s worked for him from before I was born. Do you regret your tattoo?”

I thought about it for a moment. “I’m not sure,” I said.

“I won’t regret mine, it was a pretty fish.” She smiled at me brightly before spinning away and heading toward the hot tub. I watched as she turned on the jets and slipped into the bubbling water. She tossed back her head in the water as if the jets were giving her a deep-muscle massage.

“Who was that?” said Monica, groggily lifting herself onto her elbows and opening her eyes.

“That was Bryce,” I said.

“Who’s Bryce?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “But there’s something about her that worries me.”

“How’s the script?”

“Awful.”

“Too bad. I have an idea for a movie.”

“Why shouldn’t you? Everyone else does.”

“It’s about a girl who goes missing.”

“Why am I not surprised?”

“And she reappears decades later. But here’s the thing: She’s the same age as when she disappeared. And she wears white robes, and she glows.”

“And then she saves the world.”

“How did you know?”

“Lucky guess. So why did she go missing?”

“I’m not sure yet. Aliens, maybe, but good aliens, not bad aliens.”

“That’s a relief.”

“Or maybe there was, like, a saint involved.”

“Or a clown.”

Just then I spied Theodore Purcell charging out of his house, followed by the nastily servile Reggie and just-plain-servile Lou. Theodore Purcell was chomping on his cigar, obviously upset, when he glanced at us, stopped for a moment, and then said something out of the side of his mouth. Lou nodded and hustled our way as Theodore shucked off his robe. He sported a Speedo of his own, stretched beneath a round, sagging belly. Purcell handed his robe to Reggie as he climbed into the tub with Bryce. I could hear Theodore Purcell’s guttural mumble followed by a squeal of laughter from the girl.

“You like quail?” said Lou, who had now appeared behind my chair.

“That’s not very politically correct of you, Lou.”

“I mean bird. Roasted. With pine nuts and pineapple.”

“Sounds delicious.”

“I make special for you and pretty lady friend, you stay for dinner.”

“Is that an invitation?”

“What you think, I run restaurant?”

“Will Mr. Purcell be there?”

“Oh, yes, just three of you. He say he want private dinner. Everyone gone. Staff go home. Just Lou to cook and clean like slave.”

“I suppose he has a story to tell.”

“Either that or he want to have hot hot sex with you.”

I looked over at Theodore Purcell in the hot tub. “Let’s hope it’s a story.”

“So you stay?”

In the hot tub, in a quiet moment, Theodore Purcell patted young Bryce on the neck. Bryce edged toward his touch. Reggie looked away.

“I wouldn’t miss it,” I said.