Tick Tock

SEVEN

Hundreds of houses crowded the small lots on Balboa Island, and because of inadequate garage space, both sides of the narrow streets were lined with the parked cars of residents and visitors. Shopping for a set of wheels to steal, Del had a daunting variety of choices. Rather than settle for a Buick or Toyota, however, she was attracted to a fire-engine-red Ferrari Testerosa.

They stood under the cloaking boughs of an old podocarpus, while she admired the sports car.

‘Why not that Geo?’ Tommy asked, pointing to the vehicle parked in front of the Ferrari.

‘The Geo’s okay, but it’s not cool. The Ferrari is cool.’

‘It costs as much as a house,’ Tommy objected.

‘We’re not buying it.’

‘I’m acutely aware of what we’re doing.’

‘We’re just borrowing it.’

‘We’re stealing it,’ he corrected.

‘No. Bad guys steal stuff. We’re not bad guys. We’re the good guys. Ergo, we can’t be stealing it.’

‘Actually, that’s a defence that might work with a California jury,’ he said sourly.

‘You keep a lookout while I see if it’s unlocked.’

‘Why not destroy a cheaper car?’ he argued.

‘Who said anything about destroying it?’

‘You’re hard on machinery,’ he reminded her.

From the far end of the island came the sirens of fire engines. Above the silhouettes of the tightly packed houses, the night sky to the south was brightened by the glow of the burning yacht.

‘Keep a lookout,’ she repeated. The street was deserted.

With Scootie, she stepped off the sidewalk and went boldly to the driver’s side of the Ferrari. She tried the door, and it was unlocked.

‘Surprise, surprise,’ Tommy muttered. Scootie entered the car ahead of her.

The Ferrari started even as Del settled behind the wheel and pulled the driver’s door shut. The engine sounded powerful enough to ensure that the car would be airborne if Del decided that she wanted it to fly.

‘Two seconds flat. A true master criminal,’ Tommy murmured to himself as he went to the car and opened the other door.

‘Scootie is willing to share the passenger seat.’

‘He’s a sweetheart,’ Tommy said.

After the dog leaped out into the rain, Tommy climbed into the low-slung car. He resisted the temptation to close the door before the mutt could re-enter.

Scootie sat with his rump in Tommy’s lap, his hind legs on the seat, and his forepaws on the dashboard.

‘Put your arms around him,’ Del said as she switched on the headlights.

‘What?’

‘So he doesn’t go through the windshield if we stop suddenly.’

‘I thought you weren’t going to destroy the car?’ ‘You never know when you might have to stop sud-denly.’

Tommy put his arms around the Labrador. ‘Where are we going?’

‘Mom’s house,’ Del said.

‘How far is that?’

‘Fifteen minutes tops. Maybe ten in this baby.’ Scootie turned his head, made eye contact, licked Tommy from chin to forehead, and then faced for-ward again.

‘It’s going to be a long drive,’ Tommy said.

‘He’s decided he likes you.’

‘I’m flattered.’

‘You should be. He doesn’t lick just anyone.’ Scootie chuffed as if to confirm that statement. As Del pulled the Ferrari away from the curb and into the street, she said, ‘We’ll leave this crate at Mom’s place, and she can have it brought back here. We’ll borrow one of her cars for the rest of the night.’

‘You’ve got an understanding mother.’

‘She’s a peach.’

‘How’d you get the car started so quickly?’ he asked.

‘The keys were in it.’

With the big dog in his lap, Tommy couldn’t see much of the street ahead of them, but he certainly could see the ignition, in which no key was inserted.

‘Where are they now?’ he asked.

‘Where are what?’

‘The keys?’

‘What keys?’

‘The ones you started the car with.’

‘I hot-wired it,’ she said, grinning.

‘It started while you were pulling your door shut.’

‘I can hot-wire one-handed.’

‘In two seconds flat?’

‘Cool, huh?’

She turned left onto a divided street that led to Marine Avenue, the island’s main drag.

‘We’re so soaked, we’re ruining the upholstery,’ he worried.

‘I’ll send the owner a cheque.’

‘I’m serious. This is expensive upholstery.’

‘I’m serious too. I’ll send him a cheque. You’re such a nice man, Tommy. Such a straight arrow. I like that about you.’

Emergency beacons flashing, a police car turned the corner ahead and passed them, no doubt heading toward the burning boat.

‘What do you think it cost?’ Tommy asked.

‘A thousand bucks ought to cover it.’

‘For an entire yacht?’

‘I thought you meant the upholstery damage. The Bluewater cost about seven hundred and fifty thou-sand.’

‘Those poor people.’

‘What people?’

‘The poor people whose boat you trashed. Are you going to write them a check too?’

‘Don’t have to. It’s my boat.’

He gaped at her. Since encountering Deliverance Payne, staring agape had become his most-used expression.

As she stopped at the Marine Avenue intersection, she smiled at him and said, ‘Only owned it since July.’

He managed to re-hinge his jaw to ask, ‘If it’s your boat, why wasn’t it docked at your house?’

‘It’s so big it blocks my view. So I rent that slip where it was tied up.’

Scootie thumped one paw repeatedly against the dash-board, as though expressing his impatience to get mov-ing.

Tommy said, ‘So you blew up your own boat.’ Turning left on Marine Avenue, which was the com-mercial centre of the island, Del said, ‘Didn’t blow it up. You have a tendency to exaggeration, Tommy. I hope your detective novels aren’t full of hyperbole.’

‘Okay, you set it on fire.’

‘Big difference, I think. Blow up, set on fire - there’s a big difference.’

‘At this rate, even your inheritance won’t last long.’

‘Oh, you’re such a goof, Tommy. I don’t set yachts on fire every day, you know.’

‘I wonder.’

‘Besides, I’ll never have money worries.’

‘You’re a counterfeiter too?’

‘No, silly. Daddy taught me to play poker, and I’m even better than he was.’

‘Do you cheat?’

‘Never! Cards are sacred.’

‘I’m glad to hear you think something’s sacred.’

‘I think a lot of things are sacred,’ she said.

‘Like the truth?’

With a coy look, she said, ‘Sometimes.’

They were reaching the end of Marine Avenue. The bridge across the back channel to the mainland lay less than a block ahead.

He said, ‘Truth - how did you start this car?’

‘Didn’t I say? The keys were in the ignition.’

‘That’s one of the things you said. How did you start the fire on the boat?’

‘Wasn’t me. Was Mrs. O’Leary’s cow, kicked over a lantern.’

Scootie made a weird chuffing, wheezing sound. Tommy could have sworn it was doggy laughter.

Another police cruiser appeared on the arched bridge ahead of them, entering the island from the main-land.

‘Truth - where did the birds come from?’ Tommy asked.

‘Well, it’s the eternal mystery, isn’t it: which came first, the chicken or the egg?’

The oncoming patrol car stopped at the foot of the bridge and flashed its headlights at them.

‘Thinks we might be bad guys,’ Del said.

‘Oh, no.’

‘Relax.’

Del stopped beside the cruiser.

Tommy said, ‘Don’t turn him into a cat or a crow or something.’

‘I was thinking - a goose.’

The electric window purred down.

The cop had already lowered his window. He sounded surprised when he said, ‘Del?’

‘Hi, Marty!’

‘I didn’t realize it was you,’ the cop said, smiling at her from behind the wheel of his cruiser. ‘New car?’

‘You like it?’

‘A real beauty. Yours or your mom’s?’

‘You know Mom.’

‘Don’t you go breaking any speed limits.’

‘If I do, will you personally paddle me?’ Marty, the cop, laughed. ‘I’d be delighted.’ ‘What’s all the hubbub?’ Del asked innocently. ‘You won’t believe this. Some fool rammed a big damn boat high speed into the sea wall.’

‘Must’ve been having a great party onboard. Why do I never get invited to the great parties?’

Apparently uninterested in Tommy, Marty said, ‘Hi, Scootie.’

Craning his burly head to look past Del, out the side window, the Labrador grinned, tongue lolling.

To Del, Marty said, ‘Tell your mom we’ll be watching for her in that car.’

‘You might not see her,’ Del said, ‘but you’ll sure hear the sonic boom.’

Laughing, Marty drove away, and Del continued onto the bridge, over the back channel, to the main-land.

Tommy said, ‘What happens when he discovers the yacht on the sea wall is yours?’

‘He won’t know. It’s not in my name. It’s registered to our off-shore corporation.’

‘Off-shore corporation? How far off? Mars?’

‘Grand Cayman, in the Caribbean.’

‘What happens when this car is reported stolen?’ ‘It won’t be. Mom’ll have it brought back before it’s missed.’

‘Scootie smells.’

‘It’s only his wet coat.’

‘It better be,’ Tommy said. ‘Truth - was it just chance that you happened to be driving by that vacant lot when I rolled the Corvette, or did you know I was going to be there?’

‘Of course, I didn’t know. Like I said, though, we’re clearly each other’s destiny.’

‘God, you’re infuriating!’ Tommy said.

‘You don’t mean that.’ ‘Yes, I do.’

‘Poor confused Tommy.’ ‘Infuriating.’

Actually, you mean to say interesting.’ ‘Infuriating.’

‘Interesting. In fact, you’re enthralled with me.’ He sighed.

‘Aren’t you?’ she teased. ‘Enthralled.’ He sighed again.

Aren’t you?’ she insisted.

‘Yes.’

‘You’re so sweet,’ she said. ‘Such a sweet man.’

‘Want me to shoot you?’ ‘Not yet. Wait till I’m dying.’ ‘That’s not going to be easy.’

DeI’s mother lived in a private guard-gated community on a hill overlooking Newport Beach. The guardhouse was finished in mottled pastel stucco with cast-stone wainscot and cast-stone coins at the corners, and it stood under several enormous, theatrically lighted phoe-nix palms.

Because no resident sticker adorned the Ferrari wind-shield, the young guard had to open the gatehouse door and lean out to ask whom Del was visiting. He was slack-faced and sleepy-eyed when he first appeared, but the moment that he saw her, his face tightened, and his eyes brightened.

‘Miss Payne!’

‘Hi, Mickey.’

‘New car?’

She said, ‘Maybe. We’re test-driving it.’

The guard came out of the gatehouse, into the rain, and stooped beside Del’s open window to be at her level. ‘Quite a machine.’

‘My mom could make it go to the moon.’

‘If she had this,’ the guard said, ‘the community would have to put in speed bumps the size of garbage dumpsters to slow her down.’

‘How’s Emmy?’

Although Mickey was not wearing a raincoat, he seemed to be oblivious of the downpour, as though Del so completely commanded his awareness that he simply didn’t have the capacity also to notice the inclement weather - or anything else, for that matter. Tommy knew exactly how the poor guy felt.

‘Emmy’s great,’ Mickey said. ‘She’s in total remis-sion.’

‘That’s wonderful, Mickey.’

‘The doctors can’t believe it.’

‘I told you not to lose hope, didn’t I?’

‘If the tests keep coming back clear as they do now, they’ll probably release her from the hospital in about three days. I just pray to God she’ll never… never have to… go back.’

‘She’ll be fine, Mickey.’

‘It’s so nice of you to go visit her the way you do.’

‘Oh, I adore her, Mickey. She’s an absolute angel. It’s no trouble at all.’

‘She thinks the world of you, Miss Payne. She sure loved that storybook you brought her.’ Looking past Del, he said, ‘Hi, Scootie.’

The Labrador chuffed.

Del said, ‘Mickey, this is my friend, Tommy Tofu.’ Mickey said, ‘Glad to meet you, Mr. Tofu.’

Peering between Del and the dog, Tommy said, ‘Like-wise. You’re getting soaked, Mickey.’

‘Am I?’

‘Yes, you are,’ Del said. ‘You better get back inside, dear. Tell Emmy I’ll see her the day after tomorrow. And after she’s been out of the hospital a while and put on a little weight, maybe she can come to my studio on the peninsula and sit for me. I’d like to paint her portrait.’

‘Oh, she’d love that, Miss Payne. Getting her portrait done - she’d feel like a princess.’

Dripping, Mickey returned to the gatehouse, and Del put up the car window.

In front of them, a massive iron gate ornamented with gilded balls rolled out of the way, admitting them to the private community.

As Del piloted the Ferrari through the open gate, Tommy said, ‘Who’s Emmy?’

‘His little girl. Eight years old, cute as a button.’

‘She’s in total remission from what?’

‘Cancer.’

‘That’s tough - eight years old and hit with can-cer.

‘She’ll be absolutely fine now. Won’t she Scootie—wootums?’

The Labrador leaned over to nuzzle and lick her neck, and she giggled.

They cruised along winding streets lined with enormous houses behind deep and lushly landscaped grounds.

‘I’m sorry we have to wake your mother at three-thirty in the morning,’ Tommy said.

‘You’re just so delightfully thoughtful and polite,’ Del said, reaching over to pinch his cheek. ‘But don’t worry yourself. Mom will be awake and busy.’

‘She’s a night person, huh?’

‘She’s an around-the-clock person. She never sleeps.’ ‘Never?’

‘Well, not since Tonopah,’ Del amended. ‘Tonopah, Nevada?’

‘Actually, outside Tonopah, close Mud Lake.’

‘Mud Lake? What’re you talking about?’ ‘That was twenty-eight years ago.’ ‘Twenty-eight years?’ ‘Approximately. I’m twenty-seven.’

‘Your mother hasn’t slept since before you were born?’

‘She was twenty-three then.’

‘Everyone has to sleep,’ Tommy said.

‘Not everyone. You’ve been up all night. Are you sleepy?’

‘I was earlier, but-’

‘Here we are,’ she said happily, turning a corner and driving into a cul-de-sac.

At the end of the short street stood a grove of palm trees and behind them a stone estate wall illuminated by landscape lighting so subtle that Tommy couldn’t always discern the source.

Set in the wall was a tall bronze gate with two-inch- square pickets. In an eighteen-inch-deep cast header across the top of the gate were what appeared to be hieroglyphics. The massive portal made the main gate to the community look, by comparison, like a tinfoil construction.

Del stopped, put down her window, and pushed a call button on an intercom box set in a stone post.

From the speaker came a solemn male voice with a British accent. ‘Who’s calling, please?’

‘It’s me, Mummingford.’

‘Good morning, Miss Payne,’ said the voice on the intercom.

The gate rolled open ponderously.

‘Mummingford?’ Tommy asked.

As she put up her window, Del said, ‘The butler.’

‘He’s on duty at this hour?’

‘Someone’s always on duty. Mummingford prefers the night shift, actually, because it’s usually more interesting here,’ Del explained as she drove forward through the gateway arch.

‘What’re those hieroglyphics on the gate?’

‘It says, “Toto, we’re not in Kansas any more.”

‘I’m serious.’

‘So am I. Mom has a whimsical side.’

Looking back at the gate as they passed through the wall, Tommy said, ‘What language is it written in?’

‘The Great Pile,’ Del said.

‘That’s a language?’

‘No, that’s the name of the house. Look.’

The Payne mansion, standing on perhaps three acres of grounds behind the estate wall was easily the largest in the neighbourhood. It was an enormous, sprawling, wildly romantic Mediterranean villa with deep loggias behind colonnades, arches upon arches, lattice panels dripping with the white blossoms of night-blooming jasmine, bal-ustraded balconies shaded by trellises groaning under the weight of red-flowering bougainvillea, bell towers and cupolas, so many steeply pitched barrel-tile roofs hipping into one another that Tommy might have been looking down on an entire Italian village rather than at a single structure. The scene was so cunningly and romantically lit that it could well have been the most insanely ornate stage setting in the most maniacally extravagant Andrew Lloyd Webber musical that the singular British genius of Broadway kitsch had ever created.

The driveway descended slightly into a spacious stone-paved motor court at the centre of which stood a four-tiered fountain featuring fifteen life-size marble maidens in togas, pouring water from vases.

As she drove the Ferrari around the astonishing foun-tain to the front door, Del said, ‘Mom wanted to build a more modern place, but the community’s architectural guidelines specified Mediterranean, and the architectural committee had a very narrow definition of the word. She became so frustrated with the approval process that she designed the most ridiculously exaggerated Mediterranean house the world had ever seen, thinking they’d be appalled and reconsider her previous plans -but they loved it. By then it seemed a good joke to her, so she built the place.’

‘She built all this as a joke?’

‘My mom’s nothing if not cool. Anyway, some people in this neighbourhood have named their houses, so Mom called this place The Great Pile.’

She parked in front of an arched portico supported by marble columns featuring carved vines and bunches of grapes.

Warm amber and rose-coloured light seemed to glow behind every bevelled pane of every leaded-glass window in the house.

‘Is she having a party at this hour?’

‘Party? No, no. She just likes the place to be lit up like, as she puts it, “a cruise ship on a dark sea.”

‘Why?’

‘To remind herself that we’re all passengers on an endless and magical journey.’

‘She actually said that?’

‘Isn’t it a pretty thought?’ Del said.

‘She sure sounds like your mother.’

The limestone front walk was bordered by inlaid mosaic patterns created with terra-cotta and yellow ceramic tiles. Scootie raced ahead of them, tail wag-ging.

The ornate surround at the twelve-foot-high door consisted of sixteen highly embellished scenes intri-cately carved in limestone, all depicting a haloed monk in different poses but always with the same beatific expression, surrounded by joyous crowds of smiling and capering animals with their own haloes - dogs, cats, doves, mice, goats, cows, horses, pigs, camels, chickens, ducks, raccoons, owls, geese, rabbits.

‘Saint Francis of Assisi, talking to the animals,’ Del said. ‘They’re antique carvings by an unknown sculptor, taken out of a fifteenth-century Italian monastery that was mostly destroyed in World War II.’

‘Is it the same order of monks that produces all those Elvis paintings on velvet?’

Grinning at him, she said, ‘Mom’s going to like you.’ The massive mahogany door swung open as they reached it, and a tall silver-haired man in a white shirt, black tie, black suit, and mirror-polished black shoes stood just beyond the threshold. A fluffy white beach towel was folded precisely over his left arm, in the manner that a waiter might carry a linen bar towel to wrap a champagne bottle.

With a reverberant British accent, he said, ‘Welcome to The Great Pile.’

‘Is Mom still making you say that, Mummingford?’

‘I shall never tire of it, Miss Payne.’

‘Mummingford, this is my friend, Tommy Phan.’

Tommy was surprised to hear her say his name correctly.

‘Honoured to meet you, Mr. Phan,’ Mummingford said, half bowing from the waist as he stepped back from the doorway.

‘Thank you,’ Tommy said, nodding in acknowledge-ment of the bow and almost giving the words a crisp British accent.

Scootie preceded them through the doorway. Mummingford led the dog aside, dropped to one knee, and began to dry the mutt and blot its paws with the beach towel.

As Del closed the door, Tommy said, ‘I’m afraid we’re as soaked as Scootie. We’re going to make a mess.’

‘Alas, you are,’ said Mummingford drily. ‘But I must tolerate Miss Payne to an extent I’m not obliged to toler-ate the dog. And her friends enjoy sufferance as well.’

‘Where’s Mom?’ Del asked.

‘She awaits you in the music room, Miss Payne. I’ll send his nibs along to join you as soon as he’s presentably dry.’

Scootie grinned out of a cowl of white cotton, enjoying his rubdown.

‘We can’t stay long,’ Del told the butler. ‘We’re on the lam from a doll snake rat-quick monster thing. But could we please have coffee and a tray of breakfast pastries?’

‘In a trice, Miss Payne.’

‘You’re a dear, Mummingford.’

‘It’s the cross I bear,’ said Mummingford.

The grand hail, at least a hundred feet long, was floored with highly polished black granite on which their wet rubber-soled shoes squeaked with each step. The white walls were hung with enormous unframed canvases: all abstract art full of motion and colour, each piece illuminated precisely to the edges of the canvas by projector lamps in the ceiling, so it seemed as if the art glowed from within. The ceiling was panelled with bands of polished steel alternating with bands of brushed steel. A double cove provided indirect lighting above, and additional indirect lighting flooded out at floor level from a groove in the black-granite baseboard.

Sensing Tommy’s amazement, Del said, ‘Mom built the outside of the house to please the community architec-tural committee, but inside it’s as modem as a spaceship and as Mediterranean as Coca Cola.’

The music room was two-thirds of the way along the main hall, on the left. A black-lacquered door opened onto a room floored with polished white limestone speck-led with gracefully curved marine fossils. The sound-baffled ceiling and walls were padded and then uphol-stered in charcoal-grey fabric, as if this were a recording studio, and indirect lighting was tucked behind the baffles.

The chamber was huge, approximately forty by sixty feet. In the centre was a twenty-by-thirty custom carpet with a geometric pattern in half a dozen subtly different shades of taupe and gold. In the centre of the carpet were a black leather sofa and four black leather armchairs arranged in a conversational grouping around a solid rectangular-block coffee table veneered with a parquetry of faux-ivory squares.

Although a hundred music lovers could have been seated in the room for a piano recital no piano was pro-vided. The music - Glenn Miller’s ‘Moonlight Serenade’ -didn’t issue from a state-of-the-art entertainment system with. surround-sound speakers, either. It came, instead, from what appeared to be a small, table-model, Art Deco radio that stood in the centre of the faux-ivory coffee table, in a cone of light from a tightly focused halogen lamp in the ceiling. The tinny and static-spotted quality of the sound suggested that the radio was act-ually a cassette or CD player loaded with one of those authentic as-recorded-live-on-dance-night-in-the-forties radio programs.

Del’s mother sat in one of the chairs, eyes closed, smiling as beatifically as Saint Francis in the limestone carvings around the front door, swaying her head from side to side with the music, keeping time by patting her hands against the arms of the chair. Although only fifty, she looked at least ten years younger: quite a striking woman, not blond like Del but olive-skinned with jet-black hair, delicate features, and a swanlike neck. She reminded Tommy of the elfin actress in that old movie, Breakfast at Tiffany’s …Audrey Hepburn.

When Del lowered the volume on the radio, Mrs. Payne opened her eyes. They were as blue as Del’s and even deeper. Her smile widened. ‘Good heavens, dear, you look like a drowned rat.’ She rose from the chair and regarded Tommy. ‘And so do you, young man.’

Tommy was surprised to see that Mrs. Payne was wearing an ao dais, a flowing silk tunic-and-pants ensem-ble similar to those that his own mother wore at times.

Del said, ‘The drowned-rat look is simply the latest thing, very chic.’

‘You shouldn’t joke about such things, darling. The world is ugly enough these days, as it is.’

‘Mom, I’d like you to meet Tommy Phan.’

‘Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Payne.’

Taking his offered hand in both of hers, Del’s mother said, ‘Call me Julia.’

‘Thank you, Julia. I’m-’

‘Or Rosalyn.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘Or Winona.’

‘Winona?’

‘Or even Lilith. They’re all names I quite like.’

Not sure how to respond to her offer of four names, Tommy said, ‘That’s a beautiful ao dais you’re wearing.’

‘Thank you, dear. It is lovely, isn’t it? And so comfort-able. There’s a charming lady in Garden Grove who hand sews them.’

‘I think my mother may buy from the same woman.’

Del said, ‘Mom, Tommy is the one.’

Julia Rosalyn Winona Lilith Payne - or whatever her name was - raised her eyebrows. ‘Is he?’

Absolutely,’ said Del.

Mrs. Payne let go of Tommy’s hand and, oblivious of his wet clothes, embraced him, hugged him tightly, and kissed his cheek. ‘This is wonderful, just wonderful.’

Tommy wasn’t sure what was happening. Releasing him, Mrs. Payne turned to her daughter, and they hugged, laughed, all but jumped up and down like a couple of excited schoolgirls.

‘We’ve had the most wonderful night,’ Del said.

Her mother said, ‘Tell me, tell me.’

‘I set the yacht on fire and crashed it into the Balboa Island sea wall.’

Mrs. Payne gasped and put one hand against her breast as if to quiet her heart. ‘Deliverance, how exciting! You must tell me all about it.’

‘Tommy rolled his new Corvette.’

Wide-eyed, apparently delighted, Mrs. Payne regarded him with what might have been admiration. ‘Rolled a new Corvette?’

‘I didn’t plan to,’ he assured her.

‘How many times did you roll it?’

At least twice.’

And then,’ Del said, ‘it burst into flames!’

All this in one night!’ Mrs. Payne exclaimed. ‘Sit down, sit down, I must have all the details.’

‘We can’t stay long,’ Tommy said. ‘We’ve got to keep moving-’

‘We’ll be safe here for a little while,’ Del said, plopping into one of the commodious leather armchairs.

As Mrs. Payne returned to her chair, she said, ‘We should have coffee - or brandy if you need it.’

‘Mummingford is already bringing coffee and pas-tries,’ Del said.

Scootie entered the room and padded directly to Mrs. Payne. She was so petite and the chair was so wide that there was room for both her and the Labrador. The dog curled up with its massive black head in her lap.

‘Scootie-wootums have fun too?’ Mrs. Payne asked as she petted the mutt. Indicating the radio, she said, ‘Oh, this is a lovely number.’ Although the volume was low, she could identify the tune. ‘Artie Shaw, “Begin the Beguine.”

Del said, ‘I like it too. By the way, mother, it’s not just burning yachts and cars. There’s an entity involved.’

‘An entity? This just gets better and better,’ said Mrs. Payne. ‘What sort of entity?’

‘Well, I haven’t identified it yet, haven’t had time, what with all the running and chasing,’ Del said. ‘But it started out as a devil doll with a curse note pinned to the hand.’

To Tommy, Mrs. Payne said, ‘This doll was delivered to you?’

‘Yes. I-’

‘By whom?’

‘It was left on my doorstep. I think Vietnamese gangs- ‘And you picked it up and brought it into your house?’

‘Yes. I thought-’

Mrs. Payne clucked her tongue and wagged one finger at him. ‘Dear boy, you shouldn’t have brought it into your house. In this sort of situation, the entity can’t become animate and do you harm unless you invite it across your threshold.’

‘But it was just a little rag doll-’

‘Yes, of course, a little rag doll but that’s not what it is now, is it?’

Leaning forward in his chair, agitated, Tommy said, ‘I’m amazed that you just accept all of this so easily.’

‘Why wouldn’t I?’ Mrs. Payne asked, clearly surprised by his statement. ‘If Del says there’s an entity, then I’m sure there’s an entity. Del is no fool.’

Mummingford entered the music room, pushing a tea cart laden with china, a silver coffee urn, and pastries.

To her mother, Del said, ‘Tommy suffers from an excess of scepticism. For instance, he doesn’t believe in alien abductions.’

‘They’re real’ Mrs. Payne assured Tommy with a smile, as though her confirmation of Del’s stranger beliefs was all that he needed to embrace them himself.

‘He doesn’t believe in ghosts,’ Del said.

‘Real’ said Mrs. Payne.

‘Or lycanthropy.’

‘Real.’

‘Or remote viewing.’

‘Real.’

Listening to them made Tommy dizzy. He closed his eyes.

‘Though he does believe in Big Foot,’ Del said teasingly.

‘How odd,’ said Mrs. Payne.

‘I do not believe in Big Foot,’ Tommy corrected.

He could hear the devilment in Del’s voice as she said, ‘Well, that’s not what you said earlier.’

‘Big Foot,’ said Julia Rosalyn Winona Lilith Payne, ‘is nothing but tabloid trash.’

‘Exactly,’ said Del.

Tommy had to open his eyes to accept a cup of coffee from the apparently imperturbable Mummingford.

From the old-looking radio on the faux-ivory cof-fee table came an announcer’s voice identifying the broadcast as originating live from the fabulous Empire Ballroom, where ‘Glenn Miller and his big band bring the stars out when they play,’ followed by a commercial for Lucky Strike cigarettes.

Del said, ‘If Tommy can stay alive until dawn, then the curse fails, and he’s okay. Or at least that’s what we think.’

‘Little more than an hour and a half,’ said Mrs. Payne. ‘What do you suppose are his chances of making it?’

‘Sixty-forty,’ Del said.

Flustered, Tommy said, ‘What? Sixty-forty?’

‘Well,’ Del said, ‘that’s my honest assessment.’

‘Which is the sixty? Sixty percent chance that I’ll be killed or sixty percent chance that I’ll live?’

‘That you’ll live,’ Del said brightly.

‘I’m not comforted.’

‘Yes, but we’re steadily improving those odds by the minute, sweetheart.’

‘It’s still not good,’ said Mrs. Payne.

‘It’s terrible,’ Tommy said, distressed.

‘It’s just a hunch,’ Del ventured, ‘but I don’t think Tommy is scheduled for unnatural extraction. He feels as if he has a full-life destiny with a natural departure.’

Tommy had no idea what she was talking about. Addressing him in a reassuring tone, Mrs. Payne said, ‘Well, Tommy dear, even if the worst were to happen, death isn’t final. It’s only a transitional phase.’

‘You’re sure of that, are you?’

‘Oh, yes. I talk to Ned more nights than not.’

‘Who?’

‘Daddy,’ Del clarified.

‘He appears on the David Letterman show,’ Mrs. Payne said.

Mummingford passed a silver tray of pastries to Del first, who took a plump cinnamon-pecan roll, and then to Tommy. Although Tommy initially selected a sensible bran muffin, he reconsidered and asked for a chocolate croissant. If he only had an hour and a half to live, worrying about his cholesterol level seemed pointless.

As Mummingford used pastry tongs to transfer the croissant to a plate, Tommy asked Del’s mother for a clarification: ‘Your late husband appears on the David Letterman show?’

‘It’s a late-night talk show.’

‘Yes, I know.’

‘Sometimes David announces a guest, but instead of the movie star or singer or whoever it’s supposed to be, my Ned comes out and sits in the guest chair. Then the whole program freezes, as if time has stopped - David and the audience and the band all frozen in place - and Ned talks to me.’

Tommy tasted his chocolate croissant. It was delicious. ‘Of course,’ said Mrs. Payne, ‘this appears only on my personal TV, not all over the country. I’m the only one who sees Ned.’

With a mouthful of croissant, Tommy nodded.

Del’s mother said, ‘Ned always had style. He’d never settle for contacting me through a fake Gypsy medium at a sйance or through a Ouija board, nothing as trite and tacky as that.’

Tommy tried the coffee. It was lightly flavoured with vanilla. Excellent.

‘Oh, Mummingford,’ Del said, ‘I almost forgot- there’s a stolen Ferrari in the driveway.’

‘What would you like done with it, Miss Payne?’

‘Could you have it returned to Balboa Island within the hour? I can tell you exactly where it was parked.’

‘Yes, Miss Payne. I’ll just refresh everyone’s coffee and then attend to it.’

As Del’s mother began feeding pieces of a cruller to Scootie, she said, ‘What vehicle would you like brought up from the garage, Del?’

Del said, ‘The way this night’s going, whatever we drive is liable to end up on the junk pile. So it shouldn’t be one of your most precious cars.’

‘Nonsense, darling. You should be comfortable.’

‘Well, I like the Jaguar two plus two.’

‘It’s a lovely car,’ Mrs. Payne agreed.

‘It has the power and manoeuvrability we need for work like this,’ said Del.

‘I’ll have it brought around to the front door at once,’ Mummingford said.

‘But before you do, do you think you could please bring a telephone?’ Del asked.

‘Certainly, Miss Payne,’ the butler said, and he departed. Having finished his croissant, Tommy got up from his chair, went to the tea cart, and selected a cheese Danish.

He had decided to concentrate on eating and not even try to be part of the conversation. Both women made him crazy, and life was too short to let them upset him. In fact, if reliable sources could be believed, there was a forty percent chance that life was very damn short indeed.

Smiling at Del, smiling at her mother, Tommy returned to his chair with the Danish.

From the radio, at reduced volume, issued Glenn Miller’s ‘String of Pearls.’

Del’s mother said, ‘I should have had you children change into bathrobes the moment you arrived. Then we could have thrown your clothes in the dryer. They’d be dry and warm by now.’

‘We’ll only get wet again when we leave,’ Del said.

‘No dear. The rain will be stopping in another four minutes.’

Del shrugged. ‘We’ll be fine.’

Tommy took a bite of the Danish and looked at his watch.

‘Tell me more about the entity,’ Mrs. Payne said. ‘What it looks like, what its capabilities are.’

‘I’m afraid that’ll have to wait till later, Mom. I need to use the bathroom quick, and then we’d better run.’

‘While you’re in there, comb your hair, dear. It’s kinking up now that it’s drying.’

Del left the room, and for perhaps ten seconds, Julia Rosalyn Winona Lilith and the big black dog stared at Tommy as he ate the Danish.

Then Mrs. Payne said, ‘So you’re the one.’ Tommy swallowed a mouthful of pastry. ‘What does that mean - the one?’

‘Why, of course, dear boy, it means precisely what it says. You’re the one.’

‘The one.’

‘Yes, the one.’

‘The one. There’s something ominous about it.’

She seemed genuinely baffled. ‘Ominous?’

‘Sort of like a term that some lost tribe of volcano-worshipping South Sea islanders might use before they throw the virgin into the fiery pit.’

Mrs. Payne laughed with obvious delight. ‘Oh, you are precious. A sense of humour quite like Ned’s.’

‘I’m serious.’

‘That makes it even funnier.’

‘Tell me about - the one,’ he insisted.

‘Well, of course, Deliverance merely meant that you’re the one for her. The one. The one she should spend the rest of her life with.’

Tommy felt a hot blush rising faster than the mercury in a thermometer bathed with August sunshine.

Evidently Julia Rosalyn Winona Lilith saw the blush, for she said, ‘My heavens, you are the sweetest young man.’

Scootie chuffed as if in agreement.

Blushing so brightly that he was beginning to sweat,

Tommy desperately wanted to change the subject. ‘So you haven’t slept since Mud Lake.’

Mrs. Payne nodded. ‘Just south of Tonopah.’

‘Twenty-seven years with no sleep.’

‘Almost twenty-eight, since the night that my Deliver-ance was conceived.’

‘You must be tired.’

‘Not at all,’ she said. ‘Sleep isn’t a necessity for me now. It’s a choice, and I simply don’t choose to do it, because it’s boring.’

‘What happened at Mud Lake?’

‘Didn’t Del tell you?’

‘No.’

‘Well,’ said Mrs. Payne, ‘then it’s certainly not my place to do so. I’ll let it to her, in her own good time.’

Mummingford entered the room with a portable tele-phone, per Del’s request, and put it on the coffee table. He retreated without comment. He had to deal with a stolen Ferrari, after all.

Tommy looked at his watch.

‘Personally, Tommy dear, I think your chances of living until dawn are a hundred percent.’

‘Well, if I don’t make it, Rosalyn, I’ll visit you on the David Letterman show.’

‘I’d adore that!’ she said and clapped her hands to express her pleasure at the thought.

On the radio, Glenn Miller’s big band was playing ‘American Patrol.’

After washing down the last of the cheese Danish with the last of his coffee, Tommy said, ‘Is this your favourite kind of music?’

‘Oh, yes. It’s the music that might redeem our planet - if it could be redeemed by music alone.’

‘But you’re a child of the fifties.’

‘Rock-’n’-roll,’ she said. ‘Yes. I love rock-’n’-roll. But this is the music that appeals to the galaxy.’

He mulled over those four words: Appeals to the galaxy.’

‘Yes. As no other.’

‘You’re so like your daughter,’ he said.

Beaming, Mrs. Payne said, ‘I love you too, Tommy.’

‘So you collect old radio programs.’

‘Collect?’ she asked, baffled.

He indicated the radio on the coffee table. ‘Is it a cassette player, or are they issuing those collectibles on CDs now?’

‘No, dear, we’re listening to the original program live.’

‘Live on tape.’

‘Just live.’

‘Glenn Miller died in World War Two.’

‘Yes,’ Mrs. Payne said, ‘in nineteen forty-five. I’m surprised anyone of your age would remember him -or when he died.’

‘Swing music is so American,’ Tommy said. ‘I love everything American, I really do.’

‘That’s one reason you’re so strongly drawn to Del,’ she said happily. ‘Deliverance is so thoroughly American, so open to possibilities.’

‘Back to Glenn Miller, if we may. He died more than fifty years ago.’

‘So sad,’ Mrs. Payne acknowledged, stroking Scootie.

‘Well then.’

She raised her eyebrows. ‘Oh, I see your confusion.’

‘Only one small part of it.’

‘Excuse me, dear?’

At this point, no one alive is capable of grasping the enormous dimensions of my confusion,’ Tommy assured her.

‘Really? Then perhaps your diet’s deficient. You might not be getting enough vitamin B complex.’

‘Oh?’

‘Along with vitamin E,’ Mrs. Payne explained, ‘a good B-complex supplement can clarify mental pro-cesses.’

‘I thought you were going to tell me to eat tofu.’

‘Good for the prostate.’

‘Glenn Miller,’ Tommy reminded her, indicating the radio that still swung with ‘American Patrol.’

‘Let me clear up this one little confusion,’ she said. ‘We’re listening to this broadcast live because my radio has trans-temporal tuning capabilities.’

‘Trans-temporal.’

‘Cross-time, yes. Earlier I was listening to Jack Benny live. He was an enormously funny man. No one like him today.’

‘Who sells radios with trans-temporal tuning capabili-ties, Winona? Sears?’

‘Do they? I don’t think so. As for how I got my little radio, I’ll have to let Deliverance explain. It’s related to Mud Lake, you know.’

‘Trans-temporal radio,’ Tommy mused. ‘I think I prefer to believe in Big Foot.’

‘You can’t possibly,’ Mrs. Payne said disapprovingly.

‘Why not? I now believe in devil dolls and demons.’

‘Yes, but they’re real.’

Tommy checked his wristwatch again. ‘It’s still raining.’

She cocked her head and listened to the faint drumming of the rain on the well-insulated roof of The Great Pile, and Scootie cocked his head as well. After a moment, she said, ‘Yes, it is. Such a restful sound.’

‘You told Del the rain would stop in four minutes. You were so precise about it.’

‘Yes, that’s right.’

‘But it’s still raining.’

‘Four minutes haven’t passed yet.’

Tommy tapped his watch.

She said, ‘Dear, your watch is wrong. It’s taken a lot of battering tonight.’

Tommy held the wristwatch to his ear, listened, and said, ‘Ticktock.’

‘Ten seconds yet,’ she said.

He counted them off, then looked at her and smiled ruefully.

The rain continued to fall.

At fifteen seconds, the rain abruptly stopped.

Tommy’s smile faded, and Mrs. Payne’s returned.

‘You were five seconds off,’ he said.

‘I never claimed to be God, dear.’

‘What do you claim to be, Lilith?’

She pursed her lips, considering his question, and then said, ‘Just an ex-ballerina with a considerable amount of enriching and strange experience.’

Slumping back in his armchair, Tommy said, ‘I’m never going to doubt a Payne woman again.’

‘That’s a wise decision, dear.’

‘What’s a wise decision?’ Del asked as she returned.

Mrs. Payne said, ‘He’s decided never to doubt a Payne woman.’

‘Never doubting a Payne woman,’ Del said, ‘is not just wise. It’s the prerequisite for survival.’

‘Although I keep thinking about the female preying mantis,’ Tommy said.

‘How so?’

‘After she mates, she bites the head off her partner and eats him alive.’

Mrs. Payne said, ‘I think you’ll discover that Payne women will usually settle for a cup of tea and a scone.’

Indicating the portable telephone on the coffee table, Del said, ‘Did you make the call, Tommy?’

‘What call?’

‘Your brother.’

He had completely forgotten Gi.

Del handed him the phone, and he punched in the number for the back-office line at the New World Saigon Bakery.

Leaning forward in her chair without disturbing Scootie, Mrs. Payne switched off the trans-temporal radio, silencing the Glenn Miller band in the middle of ‘Little Brown Jug.’

Gi answered on the second ring, and when he heard Tommy’s voice, he said, ‘I was expecting you to call an hour ago.’

‘I was delayed by a yacht wreck.’

‘By what?’

‘Have you translated the note?’

Gi Minh hesitated and then said, ‘Are you still with that blonde?’

‘Yes.’

‘I wish you weren’t with her.’

Tommy looked at Del and smiled. To Gi, he said, ‘Well, here I am.’

‘She’s bad news, Tommy.’

‘More like the comics pages.’

‘What?’

‘If Jeffery Dahmer were a cartoonist.’

Gi was silent. It was the silence of confusion, with which Tommy was too familiar.

Tommy said, ‘Were you able to translate the note?’

‘It didn’t dry out as well as I hoped. I can’t give you an entire translation of it - but I figured out enough to scare me. It’s not any gang that’s after you, Tommy.’

‘Who?’

‘I’m not sure. What you’ve got to do is, you’ve got to go see Mom right away.’

Tommy blinked in surprise and rose from his armchair. His hands were suddenly clammy with the sweat of familial guilt. ‘Mom?’

‘The longer I worked on the note, the more it wor-ried me-’

‘Mom?’

‘-and finally I called her for some advice.’

‘You woke Mom?’ he asked in disbelief.

‘When I told her about the note, as much as I could understand of it, she got scared too.’

Pacing nervously, glancing at Del and her mother, Tommy said, ‘I really didn’t want Mom to know about this, Gi.’

‘She understands the old world, Tommy, and this thing is more a part of the Old World than it is of this one.’

‘She’ll say I’ve been drinking whiskey-’

‘She’s waiting for you, Tommy.’

‘-like my crazy detective.’ His mouth went dry. ‘Waiting for me?’

‘You don’t have much time, Tommy. I think you better get there as fast as you can. I really think you better. Fast. But don’t take the blonde.’

‘I have to.’

‘She’s bad news, Tommy.’

Tommy glanced at Del. She sure didn’t look like bad news. She had combed her hair. Her smile was sweet. She winked at him.

‘Bad news,’ Gi repeated.

‘We’ve been on this page before, Gi.’

Gi sighed. ‘Well, at least cut Mom a little slack. She’s had a terrible day.’

‘Mine hasn’t exactly been a piece of cake.’

‘Mai eloped.’

Mai was their younger sister.

‘Eloped?’ Tommy said, thunderstruck. ‘Eloped with whom?’

A magician.’

‘What magician?’

Gi sighed. ‘None of us knew she was dating a magi-cian.’

‘This is the first I’ve heard she was dating any magi-cian,’ Tommy said, eager to establish that he could not be accused of complicity in his sister’s astounding act of independence.

From her armchair, the ex-ballerina who hadn’t slept since Mud Lake said, ‘A magician - how romantic.’

Gi said, ‘His name is Roland Ironwright.’

‘Doesn’t sound Vietnamese.’

‘He isn’t.’

‘Oh, God.’ Tommy could too easily imagine the mood in which his mother would be stewing when he arrived at her doorstep with Del Payne.

Gi said, ‘He performs in Vegas a lot. He and Mai hopped a plane to Vegas and got married, and Mom only learned about it this evening, didn’t tell me about it until I called her a little while ago, so cut her some slack.’

Tommy was overwhelmed by remorse. ‘I should have gone to dinner, had com tay cam.’

‘Go now, Tommy,’ Gi said. ‘She might be able to help you. She said hurry.’

‘I love you, Gi.’

‘Well, sure... I love you, Tommy.’

‘I love Ton and Mai and Mom and Dad, I really do, I love all of you so much... but I’ve got to be free.’

‘I know, brother. I know. Listen, I’ll call Mom and tell her you’re on your way. Now get moving, you’re almost out of time!’

When Tommy hung up, he saw that Del’s mother was blotting tears from the corners of her eyes.

With a tremor in her voice, she said, ‘This is just so moving. I haven’t been so touched since Ned’s funeral, when Frank Sinatra gave the eulogy.’

Del moved beside her mother’s chair and put a hand on the older woman’s shoulder. ‘Now, now. It’s okay, Mom.’

To Tommy, Mrs. Payne said, ‘Frank was so eloquent. Wasn’t he eloquent, Del?’

‘As always,’ Del said, ‘he was a class act.’

‘Even my policemen were moved to tears,’ Mrs. Payne said. ‘I had to attend the funeral between these two burly guards, of course, because I was under arrest for murder.’

‘I understand,’ Tommy assured her.

‘I never held that against them,’ said Mrs. Payne. ‘They knew I’d shot Ned through the heart, and they couldn’t see it as anything but murder, they were so blind to the truth, but everything turned out all right in the end. Anyway, these two dear policemen were so moved by all the lovely things Frank had to say about Ned, and then when he began to sing “It Was a Very Good Year,” they just broke down and sobbed like babies. I let them share my little pack of Kleenex.’

At a loss for comforting words, Tommy could think of nothing to say except: ‘Such a tragedy, dying so young.’

‘Oh,’ said Del’s mother, ‘Ned wasn’t all that young. Sixty-three when I shot him.’

Fascinated with this peculiar family even as his per-sonal clock of doom ticked rapidly toward the fatal hour, Tommy did some quick mental calculations. ‘If he died eighteen years ago when Del was ten... you would have been thirty-two at the time. And he was sixty three?’

Nudging Scootie to the floor, rising from her armchair, Julia Rosalyn Winona Lilith said, ‘It was a May-December romance. I was twenty when we met, and he was over fifty, but from the first moment I saw Ned, I knew he was the one. I wasn’t your ordinary young girl Tommy dear. Oh, I was fiercely hungry for experience, for knowledge. I wanted to devour life. I needed an older man who had been around, who had seen it all someone who could teach me. Ned was glorious. With Elvis singing “Blue Hawaii” - the poor dear had a bad cold, but he came to sing anyway - we married at a chapel in Vegas, nineteen hours after we met, and never regretted it for one minute. On our honeymoon we parachuted into the heart of the Campeche jungle on the Yucatan Peninsula with only two sharp knives, a coil of rope, a map, a compass, and a bottle of good red wine, and we made it out safely to civilization in only fifteen days, more madly in love than ever.’

‘You sure were right,’ Tommy told Del. ‘Your mother’s a hoot.’

Smiling radiantly at her daughter, looking so unlike Tommy’s mother in her ao dais, Winona said, ‘Deliver-ance, did you really say that about me, dear?’

The two women embraced.

Then Tommy hugged Del’s mother and said, ‘I hope you’ll invite me over some night to watch the David Letterman show.’

‘Of course, dear boy. And I hope you’ll live long enough to have a chance to see it.’

‘Now,’ Del said to Tommy, ‘it’s my turn to meet your mother.’

Mrs. Payne walked them out of the music room, down the great hall, to the front door.

The Jaguar 2+2 was waiting outside in the now rainless November night.

When Tommy opened the passenger-side door and pulled the seat forward, Scootie romped into the back.

As Del went around to the driver’s side, Mrs. Payne called to her daughter from the front door of The Great Pile: ‘When you bite his head off and eat him alive, try to make it quick and painless. He’s such a nice boy.’

Tommy locked eyes with Del across the roof of the car.

Del said, ‘It’ll be over before you realize what’s hap-pening. I promise.’