Telling Lies

Chapter Six

One nice thing about Los Angeles, you can never look too strange. It was very late. I walked through the lobby of the Bonaventure Hotel wearing Em’s too-big sweats, her black Burberry raincoat slapping around my ankles, a Dodgers cap over my wet hair, and red spike-heeled pumps.

Flint, who walked beside me, looked like a straight john in his suit and trenchcoat. I think the contrast should have elicited at least a leer, and would have in a hotel of this caliber almost anywhere else in the world. The desk clerk who took care of us was nothing but obsequious. He rang Uncle Max’s room, announced Miss MacGowen and a gentleman, and sent us up to the eighth floor.

“Tell me about Max,” Flint said on the way.

“You’ll meet him for yourself. Don’t be surprised by how young he is. Max is my father’s baby brother. I think he’s only four years older than Emily and Marc.”

When the elevator doors opened, Max was there waiting, pacing the hall in his stocking feet. He did a double take when I stepped out.

“Where’s Emily?” he asked, looking past me and into the empty elevator. Disappointed I think, and puzzled, his eyes came to rest on Flint. “Who’s he?”

I said, “Can we go inside?”

He looked again at Flint. “I’m not sure.”

Ordinarily, Uncle Max is a gorgeous man with dark, polished good looks. But even on camping trips, I had never seen him as bedraggled as he appeared in that hallway. He wore the re-mains of business attire, a rumpled dress shirt and suit pants with red suspenders hanging loose. But it wasn’t his clothes that made him seem such a mess. Something about his posture, his expression, his aura, if you will, was disordered. His face was pale and blotchy – stress, I thought, or too much booze. When he got around to hugging me, I could smell him, the acrid sweat of a man with something eating at him.

“Is Emily following you here?” Max asked.

“No,” I said. “Max, we have to talk. But inside, okay?”

“Without Em?” He was still bothered by Flint. He gave him another long visual going over, from the top of his short haircut to the tips of his well-waxed shoes. He asked, “FBI?”

“LAPD.” Flint showed his ID. “Detective Michael Flint.”

“Damn, Maggie.” Max pulled me aside. “Does Em know you’re bringing him?”

“No,” I said.

“It’s her party. No one gets in without an invitation.”

I invited him,” I said. We were the only people in the hall, but there were a lot of doors to listen behind. “You have a room here, Max? Or are you working the halls?”

Max threw up his hands. “Whatever you say. Let Emily’s wrath fall upon your head, not mine.”

As we walked toward Max’s room, he and Flint did a sort of parry-thrust routine, spraying off their particular legal territories.

“Emily is my client,” Max said. “I will say nothing until I have consulted with her. You know the bonds of lawyer-client privilege.”

“I know they’re not absolute,” Flint said. “When you’re briefed on the situation, you’ll want to talk with us.”

“We’ll see.” Max unlocked his door, but held up his hand for us to wait. He leaned inside and said something. The response I heard was some quick shuffling of feet, an inner door closing. Then Max waved us in.

He stopped me as I passed him and fussed with my cap. “Maggie, did I forget to say I’m glad to see you?”

“You did.”

“Well, all things considered, I am.” He took my hand and led me inside. “All rise. Our Maggot is here.”

The Bonaventure Hotel is comprised of five tall glass cylinders standing in a bundle. The roundness of the hotel is striking on the outside, but it gives the rooms inside awkward shapes, triangular like slices of a pie. In Max’s share of the pie, his rumpled bed occupied the crust end and two sofas and various tables filled the point.

Max needed to call housekeeping. At least to make the bed. Tangled among the sheets were the tumbled contents of two large briefcases and the remains of several room-service dinners. On the low table between the sofas there was a bucket of ice, half a bottle of scotch, a pyramid of beer cans, a collection of used coffee cups, all surrounded by sloppy, wet rings.

I smelled the sweet, heavy fragrance of pot hanging in the air. A familiar, nostalgic aroma in keeping with the presence of the two men occupying the sofas.

California State Assemblyman Rod Peebles and the Reverend Lucas Slaughter rose to greet me. I doubt whether I had seen either of them in the flesh for fifteen years or more. They looked essentially the same, just incongruously older: young people disguised behind the masks of middle-aged folks. Beyond the good wool clothes and the expensive, Establishment haircuts, a micro-millimeter under the surface, I knew I would find the same old radicals.

Flint was literally sniffing the air. But he said nothing. He went straight to the television, turned it on, and with the sound off, watched the screen out of the corner of his eye.

Rod and Lucas were both reaching for me.

“Good to see you, kid,” Lucas said. He mashed me against the packets of room service sugar and a hotel pen he had squirreled away in his shirt pocket. “Deja vu, huh? All of us waiting for Emily.”

“Where the hell is Emily?” Rod Peebles gripped my hand quickly. “We’re worried sick. We’ve been here since five o’clock.”

“She isn’t coming,” I said. I dropped the bomb: “Emily has been shot.”

Suddenly Max had no color. “How bad?”

“She’s in a coma.”

“But she’s alive?”

“Technically,” I said. “There’s a lot of brain damage. Even if by some miracle Emily survives, we’ve lost her.”

Max looked as if he would collapse. I took him by the hand and guided him to sit beside me on the sofa. Lucas clearly was devastated, speechless. Rod Peebles’s face I saw only through the bottom of his scotch glass.

Flint perched on the edge of a table facing us. He was the first to break the shocked silence. “Need anything?” he asked. Max slowly shook his head.

I squeezed Max’s hand. “What was this meeting all about?”

“I don’t know.”

“I don’t believe you. Please, for Emily, help me.”

“I wish I could.” He stood and made an attempt to pull him-self together. At least, he tucked in his shirt and pulled up his suspenders. “Where’s the goddamn coffee I ordered?”

He settled for the bottle of scotch. I gave him time to down a hefty shot before I pressed him.

“Please, Uncle Max,” I said. “I need you.”

“Uncle Max,” he repeated, slurring his words a little. He swallowed another shot. “Therein lies the problem. Uncle. Uncle sounds so dependable. They always made me babysit you three, you and Marc and Emily. I was just a kid, too, for chrissake. Whatever mess you got into, I couldn’t say no to because it was always more interesting than anything I could think up. And more dangerous. You just sucked me along in your wake. All of you. When you got into trouble, everyone thought it was my fault. I was the fucking uncle. I always had to tidy up after you. And the bigger you three got, the tougher the cleanup got.”

He glared at me, his body swaying boozily. “Don’t you sit there, little Maggot, with your eyes wide and innocent. You were as bad as Marc and Emily. No, you were worse. You never knew when enough was enough.” He pointed at me. “But I do. I’ve had enough. Your messes are too big now for anyone to fix.”

Flint, Rod, Lucas, took this in with grim-faced chagrin. I think they were all too embarrassed to look at me.

“Sit down, Max, before you fall,” I said, getting up and walking over to him. “You delivered that speech very well, sounded just like Marc. Have a tantrum when someone calls you to account, and they back off. But it’s me you’re sounding off to, and I’m inured. I also know you’re one of the most capacious drunks in town. Half a bottle of scotch shared with friends and spread over an evening is nothing for you.

“You’ve got good technique,” I said. “But save it for the uninitiated. Tell me what Emily was up to.”

Max had the grace to smile.

Lucas applauded. “God, how I’ve missed this.”

“Max,” I said. “Now that you’ve circled the camp, don’t you think it’s time to enter the breach?”

Flint gaped. “I can tell you’re related,” he said. “What’s it like when the whole family is together?”

“Noisy,” Lucas said.

“It used to be,” I said. “But it’s gotten awfully quiet. Go ahead, Max.”

He nodded toward Flint. “What about him?”

“He stays,” I said. “And no more bullshit. Emily was planning to do something dramatic today. It has to do with Marc, and the date, and Aleda, and a man I think I used to know. And that’s why she was shot. So, what was up?”

“I don’t know.” Max was back at the scotch bottle. “What did she tell you?”

“Nothing. She said to meet her at her apartment at four. She told Mom and Dad she would be bringing someone home for the holidays.”

He thought about that for a moment. “She told me to come down to L.A., get a hotel room in the general vicinity of Chinatown. She said people would be coming to see her-she didn’t say who-and that I was to keep them all fed and entertained until she arrived. She said she had a surprise. She said she wouldn’t be alone and there might be legal complications. But she was really happy.”

“And?” I said.

“That’s all. Except for mass. She arranged a midnight memorial mass for Marc and she wanted us all to go.”

I turned to Rod and Lucas. “Is that why you’re here? Emily called?”

“That’s it,” Lucas said.

“That’s enough,” Rod nodded. “But I can’t stay for mass. Previous engagement.”

“Oh, yes?” Lucas winked at me. “Don’t get the idea that our Assemblyman Rod is a heathen, Maggie. It’s just that he has persuaded himself that his constituents have forgotten about his radical origins. He doesn’t want to be seen in public with his old comrades, lest his flock are reminded that he was once the personification of the ‘L’ word-Liberal. Our Rod has changed his political raiment. I always counsel him to summon the doubters as the Lord summoned Moses, and tell them, ‘I am who I say that I am.’ And if they give him any guff, he should follow the Lord’s example and set the place on fire. Rod certainly remembers how it’s done.”

“Fuck off, Lucas,” Rod said. He poured himself a stiff drink and drained it. “You always think you’re so damned funny. Let’s show a little respect here. Or didn’t it sink in what Maggie just said? Emily was shot.”

Lucas was puffing up for a retort, but Flint raised a hand and cut him short.

“Hang on,” Flint said. He reached over and turned up the volume on the television.

On the screen, we saw the videotaped image of Inez Sanchez standing in front of French Hospital. There was some residual grousing between Lucas and Rod, so we missed part of her set-up speech. But Flint and I had heard it before:

“Dr. Emily Duchamps, one of our nation’s leading figures in health care for the poor, was found earlier this evening, gravely wounded by an unknown assailant.”

The camera pulled back, brought Flint and me into the frame. I did my short bit, Flint did his, then the screen faded to a piece of file footage from the late sixties: the front of the Federal Courthouse in San Francisco, zoom on a cheering group on the steps, all of them with raised fist salutes-Emily, Rod, Lucas, Emily’s ex husband, Jaime Orozco, the late Arthur Fulham Dodds, Celeste Baldwin. And Aleda Weston.

The magic of television took us back to Inez, live now, at the Los Angeles airport. She wore the same coat, new makeup. She was standing on the sidewalk outside a terminal building, waiting for Aleda and her federal marshal escort to come out.

Inez was out of the rain, but the traffic around her was relentless. The effect was something like broadcasting from a freeway shoulder. Passing buses and vans regularly overpowered the sound transmission and blew her hair across her face, lifted her coattails.

Standing with Inez was Mrs. Tom Potts, Senior. I remembered her from the trial and all the press coverage. She was the mother of the graduate student who had been immolated in a lab fire during a Berkeley demonstration in 1969. He was the manslaughter on the indictment against Emily and her colleagues, the heart of the fire that had provided the backdrop for Emily’s Time cover.

To my best recollection, Mrs. Potts was a schoolteacher, and Mr. Potts was some sort of civil servant. They were a family with more hope than money to invest. And young Tom Potts was the sum of their investment.

Mrs. Potts ignored Inez’s questions to deliver her own message.

“I have waited the equivalent in years of my son’s lifetime for his killers to be brought to justice,” Mrs. Potts said. “I hear that Aleda Weston has been very ill. Maybe that’s why she’s come out of hiding. I’m here to make sure that some high-priced lawyer doesn’t convince the people of this country that the twenty-two years she spent as a fugitive from justice can in some way equate to time spent in prison. Even if she was shut off from the company of her family, at least she was alive. Because of her actions, my son was not so fortunate.”

She took a breath. “I offer my condolences to the parents of Dr. Duchamps. They also lost a son. But for the doctor herself, I am only sorry that she cannot feel pain the way my Tom did. The eternal fires of hell are nothing compared to what he suffered in that burning laboratory. My consolation is that Dr. Duchamps is about to find out for herself what the fires of hell are.”

Her bitterness stunned me. Such hatred must have needed constant tending to keep it fresh for so many years. I looked over at Flint to check his reaction. I was thinking we had watched suspect number one spill her guts. Flint wouldn’t look at me. He sat on the edge of the table with his arms folded across his chest, his face perfectly passive. Even when we caught our first glimpse of Aleda, he didn’t change his expression.

Lucas gasped. “Dear God.” He began to weep softly.

The lighting was spotty, but I saw Aleda’s face clearly. She seemed much older than her forty-four or forty-five years. She was excruciatingly thin, stooped as with gross fatigue. The flashing cameras and the jostling press seemed to confuse her. My heart ached for her. Mercifully, her escort hustled her into a waiting car and swiftly drove her away.

Max turned off the set. “Lucas, what did you say earlier? Deja vu? I look around this room, I see those faces on the tube, and hell, it’s December 1969 again.”

“There are a few faces missing,” I said. “Is this all Emily had in mind? A reunion, with a surprise guest? Who would it be, Max?”

Max shrugged. I don’t know.”

“But you must have some ideas,” I said.

I know this will sound crazy,” he shrugged. “But Emily has been behaving so strangely.”

“Strange how?” I asked.

“Happy. Think about it. Emily happy in December.”

“So?”

“So.” Max reached out and touched my cheek and looked deep into my eyes. His own eyes welled with tears. I can’t explain it, but I’ve had this weird feeling all day, Maggot, that Emily was going to bring Marc.”