Way Down on the High Lonely

2

Neal woke up between the cool, crisp sheets of a king-size bed. He opened his eyes and looked through the sliding glass door where the sun sat like a fat orange in the haze of a southern California morning. The air conditioner was humming happily, a cheerful reminder of the comfort that came with wealth: it may be getting hot outside the hotel, but in here it’s any temperature you want it to be.

A similarly welcoming voice lilted from the corridor, “Room service.”

Neal wasn’t quite sure that this was all real, but if it was a dream, he was willing to go along with it.

“Come in!” he called back.

A young waiter in a starched white uniform rolled in a stainless steel cart, flipped up a folding panel, opened the side doors, removed a white linen tablecloth, and laid it over the panel to form a little dining table. He placed a narrow vase with a single yellow rose on top, then the silverware wrapped in a linen napkin, then the silver coffee service, then a little silver container with slivers of butter in a small bowl of ice.

“I’m Richard,” he said. “Are you enjoying the Beverly, sir?”

“So far,” Neal answered, although he could barely remember even arriving at the Beverly. He sat up against the cushioned headboard.

“Do you want me to serve you now, sir?” Richard asked. “Or would you like to shower first?”

A shower? The closest thing Neal had come to a shower lately was a freezing waterfall.

“Shower, I think.”

“But may I pour you some coffee first?” Richard asked.

You bet, Richard, if it means that much to you. “Please,” Neal said.

Richard took out a heavy, cream-colored cup and saucer and carefully poured the coffee.

“Cream and sugar?” he asked.

“Neither.”

“All right,” Richard announced, “you have the Beverly Breakfast-coffee, grapefruit juice, scrambled eggs with bacon, and the basket with a selection of wheat toast, muffins, croissants, and Danish. I’ll keep it in here over the heater, so be very careful when you take it out, okay?”

“Okay.”

Richard placed two folded newspapers on the foot of the bed. “LA Times, New York Times…”

God bless you, Richard.

“… and if there’s anything else, you will please call and let me know. Now, sir, if you wouldn’t mind just signing here…”

Richard approached his bedside and handed him the check and a pen. Neal signed, added a tip to the already substantial service charge, and handed it back.

“May I ask you a question, Richard?”

“Of course, sir.”

“Where am I?”

Richard didn’t even blink. He was used to serving breakfasts on many mornings after the night before.

“The Beverly Hilton, sir.”

“Keep going.”

“Beverly Hills… Los Angeles…”

“Yeah?”

“California.”

“I just want to hear the words, Richard.”

“The United States…”

“Of…”

“America, sir.”

“Beautiful, Richard.”

“Far out, sir.”

Far out, indeed, Neal thought as he took his first sip of coffee. Black coffee, strong coffee. His caffeine addiction came back like an annoying old friend.

Richard left and Neal took his coffee into the bathroom, which was larger than his cell back in China. He looked at the telephone on the wall, within easy reach of the toilet, and decided that the people who stayed in this place must be busy people. He turned the shower on and reveled in the smell of clean, hot water. He opened the little cardboard box of designer soap, took the little bottle of designer shampoo, and stepped into the shower.

He scoured himself with the soap, scrubbed his hair with the shampoo, and then stood under the steaming jet for a good five minutes longer than necessary. In China he had been treated to a weekly bath in a shallow tub full of lukewarm water that had been used by at least three other men before him, so this shower was a treat.

He stepped out reluctantly, lured by the scent of coffee, the image of scrambled eggs and bacon, and the thought of a newspaper. He found a white terrycloth robe in the closet, slipped it on, and went back into the main room to investigate breakfast.

Joe Graham was munching on his toast.

“How did you get in?” Neal asked.

“I could get used to this,” Graham mumbled. “A very clean place. I got an extra key from the front desk. Can I warm that up for you?”

Neal held his cup out and Graham filled it.

“You don’t mind if I eat, do you?” Neal asked.

“Careful with the plates, they’re hot. And you have a fine selection of croissants, Danish, and muffins.”

Neal took the hot plate out of the tray’s warmer, set it on the table, and lifted the cover. The smell alone brought him close to tears, but then again, he’d breakfasted on rice gruel for the past few years, except on holidays, when he’d been allowed to add peanuts to the gruel.

“Is your bacon nice and crisp?” Graham asked. “Mine was.”

Neal slipped a slice of bacon into his mouth. It crunched between his teeth. “I’ve dreamed about this,” he said.

“You’re a sick puppy.”

Neal selected a plain croissant, spread a sliver of unsalted butter on it, took a mouthful, and then dug into the rest of his breakfast. He didn’t even look up until all that was left on the plate was a shiny residue of grease.

Joe Graham watched in awe.

“You eat like you’re condemned,” he said.

“Let me see those Danish.”

Neal picked out an apricot pastry and devoured it in three bites.

“Now for the newspapers,” he said. “I don’t even know who’s president.

“Ronald Reagan.

“No, seriously…”

Neal tore into the papers while Graham wandered out onto the terrace and checked out the early morning swimmers in the pool below.

“Exercise is a wonderful thing,” he observed as the two young lady swimmers stretched limbs and torsos.

The doorbell rang.

“It’s for you!” Neal yelled, absorbed in The New York Times. He was on serious sensory overload.

Graham tore himself away from the view and answered the door. Richard was standing in the hallway beside a luggage cart.

“It’s your clothes!” Graham shouted to Neal.

“I don’t have any clothes,” Neal answered as he tried to figure out the changes in the Yankees’ roster from the box score.

“You do now,” Graham said. “Bring them in, kid.”

Richard rolled in the cart and started to hang up the clothes bags and put the boxes of shirts, underwear, socks, and shoes into a bureau.

“I don’t need any clothes,” Neal said. “I’m going to stay in this robe, in this room, for the next couple of months, eating and reading newspapers.”

“You got about an hour,” Graham said. “We have an eleven o’clock meeting.”

“Let’s meet on the terrace. I’ll bring the iced tea.”

“I don’t think so,” Graham answered. “We’re going to Hollywood.”

“They’re remaking Rumpelstiltskin and you got the part?”

“We’re going to meet Mommy.”

Neal looked up long enough to grab a blueberry muffin.

“What happened to Thurman Munson?” he asked, pointing at the Yankees’ batting order.

“Will you hurry up and get dressed?” Graham said. “The limo will be here in less than an hour.”

“The limo?”

“Short for limousine,” Graham explained.

“We are going to Hollywood, aren’t we?”

Neal felt a little stiff in his new clothes-khaki slacks, blue shirt, olive jacket, and cordovan loafers. He also felt a little stiff sitting in the backseat of the stretch limo, Joe Graham beside him and a fully stocked bar, a television, and the back of the uniformed driver in the front seat.

Neal found a club soda, filled a glass with ice, and sipped at it as he watched the scenery on Sunset Boulevard. “I’m into consumption these days,” he explained.

“I can see that.”

“You look good, Dad,” Neal said.

Graham glared at him.

Graham did look good, though, Neal thought, although somewhat awkward in a blue blazer, white shirt, gray slacks, and those black leather shoes with the little pinholes in them. A big change from his usual plaid jacket, chartreuse trousers, and striped tie.

“Levine made me go shopping with him at Barneys,” Graham explained grumpily.

“I like the look,” Neal said.

“You also like English poets,” Graham accused. True.

The limo pulled onto a side street and up to the gate of a film studio. Neal looked at the crazy quilt combination of nineteenth-century building facades, Quonset huts, and enormous movie billboards on the other side of the gate.

“I’ve seen movies about this,” he said.

The security guard at the gate approached the driver’s window.

“They have a meeting at Wishbone with Anne Kelley,” the driver said with no discernible effort at courtesy.

The guard gave him a placard for the windshield and opened the gate.

“Building Twenty-eight,” he said.

“No kidding,” the driver snapped, then steered the limo through the narrow streets of the studio, edging past a group of young men dressed as 1920s gangsters and a small platoon of harried production assistants carrying clipboards. He eased the big car into a slot marked guests-limo across from a big Quonset hut and opened the back door.

“Wishbone Studios, right through that door.”

“Oh boy,” Neal said.

The driver rewarded him with a wry smile. He had delivered any number of cocky screenwriters to this door and picked them up half an hour later when they weren’t so cocky, when that Oscar-winning screenplay in the briefcase had turned to just another pile of paper. If they didn’t hit the limo bar on the way in, they’d sure enough hit it on the way out.

Neal saw the big Hollywood sign on a hill behind the studio. It seemed less real than it did on television or in the movies, but maybe that was the idea. He followed Joe Graham into Building 28.

He’d expected the polished, plush setting of the stereotypical Hollywood mogul, but he didn’t get it. Wishbone Studios was stripped for speed. A utilitarian metal desk defined the edge of a small reception area. Posters of Wishbone’s latest films decorated the walls, which were colored in cheap blue industrial paint. The yellow carpet was worn with frenzied foot traffic. A small couch, a couple of chairs, and a coffee table littered with trade papers were set across from the desk to form a waiting area. On the other side of the reception room an open door revealed a small kitchen, where a Braun coffee maker struggled to meet the energy needs of the chronically undercaffeinated.

Graham went up to the desk.

“Joseph Graham and Neal Carey to see Anne Kelley.”

The receptionist looked like she belonged in a suntan oil commercial but was remarkably cheerful about sitting behind her desk. She checked her log book.

“Right, you’re her eleven. I’ll let her know you’re here.”

She got on the phone. Never releasing the dazzling smile she had fixed on Graham, she said, “Jim, Anne’s eleven is here.”

“Please have a seat. Someone will be here in just a moment,” she said to Graham. Graham sat down across from Neal, who already had plopped himself down on the sofa and was looking over a copy of Film Weekly.

“Joseph?”

“Shut up.”

“Yes, Joseph.”

A tall, thin young man came hustling down the corridor into the reception room. Open white shirt, jeans, immaculate tennis shoes. California blond hair, big smile.

“I’m Jim Collier, Anne’s assistant.”

He offered his hand to Graham, blinking for only a second at the sight of his artificial arm.

“I’m Joe Graham, this is Neal Carey.”

“Neal, hi, welcome. Come on down the hall. Anne is ready for you.”

Terrific, Neal thought. But am I ready for her?

They walked down to the end of the narrow hallway and into a room labeled simply kelley.

Anne Kelley sat behind a big desk that was stacked high with scripts and books. The office floor was likewise covered with piles of papers, books, magazines, and film reels. The ubiquitous coffee table was covered with papers, as were the chairs and the sofa. Ashtrays seemed to be everywhere, and they were all overflowing. Neal wasn’t at all sure that a good search of this room would not turn up the missing Cody McCall.

Anne Kelley was on the phone, and she didn’t look happy. Her long face was drawn further down in a frown. Her short hair was not quite blond, not quite silver, not quite brown, not quite combed or brushed. She wore a silk shirt under a denim jacket. A cigarette in the comer of her mouth puffed like a smokestack from a factory.

“I don’t care,” she was saying into the phone. “I don’t care… . So let her… Fine. We’ll get somebody else.”

She hung up the phone, took a drag on the cigarette, and then snuffed it out.

“Could you be a real lifesaver and get me a Diet Pepsi?” she said to Collier. “You guys want anything?”

An oxygen tank, thought Neal.

A vacuum cleaner, thought Graham.

They shook their heads.

Jim Collier sprang up to get the soda. Anne came around from the desk and shook hands with Neal and Graham.

“I’m Anne Kelley, head of Creative.”

Nice work if you can get it, thought Neal.

Anne dropped into a chair across the coffee table from them. “You don’t mind if we don’t start until the Diet Pepsi comes, do you?”

Lady, I don’t mind if we don’t start at all, Neal thought.

“Take your time,” Graham said.

Jim came back with the soda, opened it, handed it to Anne, and took a chair in the corner. He flipped open a pad and had his pencil poised, ready to take notes.

In case Anne said something creative? Neal wondered.

Anne took a long gulp out of the can, sighed with relief, then turned her attention to Neal and Graham.

“So pitch,” she said.

Graham looked at Neal and shrugged.

“So give me the ball,” Neal said to Anne.

Jim coughed rhetorically. “Anne, these are the detectives.”

Anne Kelley blushed. “Oh, shit. Shit! I’m sorry! I’m so sorry! I thought you were writers, pitching a project!”

Something the cat dragged in.

“I’m Anne Kelley,” she repeated. “Cody’s mother.”

“And head of Creative,” Neal said.

“You’re the guys that Ethan Kitteredge sent,” she continued. “You’re going to find Cody.”

“We’re going to try,” Graham said.

“Ethan said that you’re very, very good.”

“Probably just very good,” Neal said as Graham gave him a dirty look, “but maybe not very, very good.”

“I’m really sorry,” Anne said. “I didn’t mean to mistake you for writers.”

“That’s all right,” Graham said charitably.

“So where do we start?” Anne asked.

Jim started to write.

“Hold on, Boswell,” Neal said. “No notes.”

“Jim memorializes all my meetings.”

Memorializes? Neal thought. “That’s nice,” he said, “but notes have a funny way of showing up in funny places, like newspapers.”

Anne stiffened. “I trust Jim implicitly.”

Neal looked over at Jim. “No offense. I’m sure you’d never deliberately betray the queen here-”

“Neal, shut up,” Graham said.

“-but unless you have a shredder, or unless you take your notes on single pages on a hard surface, it’s better not to take them. I can’t tell you how many cases I’ve made-unfortunately-going through someone’s trash, or sneaking into someone’s office to look at the impressions left on a notepad or a desk blotter-”

“Neal…” Graham warned.

“Well, you taught me all this stuff, Graham,” Neal answered. He turned back to Jim. “Besides, you don’t need notes. I need the notes, and I keep them in my head. You want anything ‘memorialized,’ give me a call and I’ll recite it to you, okay?”

Jim closed the notepad.

So much for burnout, thought Graham.

“You’re being rather hostile,” Anne Kelley said to Neal.

“Right, which is what your ex-husband will think about me when I find him. Now, do you want to throw a little tea party, or do you want your kid back?”

“I want my kid back.”

Neal sat back in the sofa.

“So pitch,” he said.

Harley McCall was a cowboy. They met on a film shoot in Nevada. He was working as a wrangler-a horse handler-on the movie she was producing, one of the last of a brief resurgence of westerns.

He was tall, lanky, and bowlegged and spoke with a slow drawl that she found charming, especially contrasted with the affected inflections of the Hollywood men she’d been seeing. His dirty blond hair had natural streaks in it, his mustache was bronze, and his tan stopped at the level of his rolled-up sleeves, a tan he got from working outdoors, not frying himself in oil on a Malibu beach or poolside at the Beverly.

He ate chicken-fried steaks, eggs and bacon, and wicked hot burritos, and never-ever-queried the waiter about where the sun-dried tomatoes were grown. He liked his beer cold and his women warm, and he touched a warm spot in her all right, a warmth as soft and fine as a summer afternoon.

They’d walked out on the desert one night, away from the horrid little motel that was their location headquarters, away from the director, and the actors, the crew, and the business types, out onto the open desert under the stars and she’d seduced him there… or maybe he’d seduced her into seducing him… but she wanted him-badly-so she took him.

The sex was fantastic-that was never their problem-and she felt that he’d changed her life, turned her into the natural woman they all seem to sing about. He brought desert flowers to her trailer, took her out on long rides, called her “ma’am” everywhere except in bed, and one afternoon they’d jumped into his pickup and rode to Vegas, went to one of those tacky chapels, and actually got married.

She got pregnant right away, maybe that very night. They wrapped the shoot, and she headed back to LA with a film in the can, a baby in her belly, and a brand-new husband in tow. Queen Anne, happy at last.

They would have named the baby Shane, after their favorite movie, but that seemed a bit much, so they settled for something almost as good. Cody was a golden child, with his dad’s rugged good looks and his mother’s soft beauty, and they were both crazy in love with him.

The movie came out a little later and was a hit, and they bought the place in Malibu.

But somehow the film came to be known as the last great western, a nostalgic farewell to a classic genre, and in that weird Hollywood way, everyone was saying it because that’s what everyone was saying. Pretty soon the only horses in the movies were the ones pulling carriages through Central Park, and Harley McCall found himself with a lot of time on his hands.

There just wasn’t a lot for a cowboy to do in Malibu.

For a while they thought he could be a big help at Wishbone, a fresh eye, an honest voice, that sort of thing. But he picked the dumbest projects-unfilmable books, remakes of old flops, stories that were pitched by writers he went out for beers with… it didn’t work out.

And she discovered, to her immense sorrow, that West Hollywood was a lot different from the West, and all the qualities that she’d found so fresh and exciting out on the desert became old and grating at the lawn parties, studio meetings, and premieres. And if “Harley doesn’t say a lot” was something she had originally said with a measure of pride, she found herself saying it as an apology more and more, especially as Harley’s reticence changed from quiet confidence to sullen despair.

There just wasn’t a lot for a cowboy to do in Malibu.

But what there was, he found. He started drinking his cold beers for breakfast. He found that a joint or two made the afternoon pass in a pleasant torpor, and that high-stake poker games gave him his balls back, win or lose. Mostly it was lose.

And he found the women. None of her friends, thank God, or her competitors, but the would-be starlets and country-western singers who found him witty and handsome and who were content with afternoons.

She heard about them, of course-Los Angeles is a small big town-and she felt surprised and a little ashamed that she was relieved. She didn’t find him witty, his handsomeness didn’t travel well, as they say, and she was too busy in the afternoons to try to think of things for him to do.

He was good with the baby, though, always that. Always sweet with his little cowboy. Worried about him growing up “in this atmosphere,” as he always called it, to her annoyance. Worried about his values. Talked about how they should get a little ranch somewhere, go there summers, teach the boy to ride and rope, let him breathe some fresh air for a change. All while Harley was drinking more and smoking more dope.

He got disgusted with himself, finally. Woke up one morning, put the cork in the bottle, gave his stash away to a local surf bum, told the dollies adios, and asked her to leave with him. Sell this play toy house on the beach, get that ranch, do some honest work, and live a real life.

She told him that her life was quite real, thank you very much, but if he felt that’s what he had to do, he had better go do it. The marriage was pretty much over by that point anyway.

What wasn’t over-what’s never over-was the fact that Harley McCall had a child, a son, whom he loved more than he loved anything. More than the open prairie, more than the blue sky, more than his freedom. And so the greatest joy of his life was also its tragedy-he was shackled to the hated LA by a chain of love, by the every-other-weekend and one-month-in-the-summer visitation the judge had awarded him, like it was some kind of game show, which it kind of was.

Ironically, now that they weren’t married anymore, Anne could reach down the status ladder and find him some work. She got him a gig as a stunt cowboy for one of the studio’s tours. So, twenty-five times a week, real-life cowboy Harley McCall put on a black hat and vest, stood behind the railings of a saloon facade, fired his blank six-shooter at the sheriff, got shot, and tumbled down onto the grain sacks of a wagon conveniently parked below. All to the delight of the tourists watching from a grandstand.

It was boring, humiliating, low-paying work, but it paid the rent on a little bungalow in Venice and put gas in the pickup for the every-other-weekend drive to Malibu to pick up his son.

He tried to stick it out, he really did, but then one day he got shot by the sheriff, grabbed his chest with one hand, teetered at the edge of the balcony, and lifted the middle finger of his right hand in a pointed gesture at the sheriff. He managed to hold it there about halfway down to the grain sacks, but the tourists in the grandstands were not impressed, and he got fired.

It was one cruddy job after another after that, each shorter lived than the last. His cowboy sweetness turned as stale and bitter as the gas fumes that hung over the Sunset Strip. He started getting edgy and then mean. He quit more jobs than he was fired from, each time taking away another resentment along with his last day’s pay. He took offense at almost anything, adding more and more items to the lengthening list of things he “just wouldn’t take from any man.”

It was a wonder Harley could even stand up straight, he was carrying so many grudges. Film producers, film critics, studio executives, executives in general, landlords, bankers, bill collectors, cops, grocery store owners, bar owners, women, Jews, blacks, Mexicans, Koreans, whores, kikes, niggers, spies, and gooks-they had all combined to make his life hell and keep him from raising his son the way a man should raise his son.

He went back to the bottle, and it treated him the way a wife treats a philandering husband-it took him back in and punished him on a daily basis. He started to become a character on Venice Boulevard, a sidewalk cowboy with a three-day stubble on his face and an incoherent diatribe spurting out of his mouth. He got himself tattooed one bad night, got one of those nifty “Don’t Tread on Me” numbers with the flag and the snake on his left forearm.

But Anne Kelley trod on him hard when he showed up drunk one Friday night. She told him that there was no way eighteen-month-old Cody was getting into that truck. Harley tried to kick the door down and then succeeded in smashing a window before the cops got there. They whaled the shit out of him, he got thirty days for disturbing the police, and Anne got a court order preventing him from taking Cody for the month that summer.

Harley disappeared. Anne didn’t know where he went or what happened to him, but about six months later she got a call from him. He sounded calm and composed. Gentle, like his old self. He asked if he could come over and talk to her. She met him at the office and it was like meeting a chastened version of the man she’d first met. He was clean, neat, and almost painfully sober. He apologized for having been such a jackass, explained that he’d cleaned himself up, got himself a job maintaining center pivot irrigation systems in East Orange County, and asked if he could see little Cody.

She invited him over to the house. She had to admit that she cried when she saw Cody wrap himself around Harley’s neck. Harley was as gentle and sweet with that boy as he’d ever been, and she retreated into the kitchen while father and son got to know each other again.

The visits were just at the house for a while, always with Anne within earshot. Harley stayed for supper a few times and once or twice spent the whole evening watching videos of old westerns with them. The Searchers, Shane… it was after The Magnificent Seven that she agreed to let him resume the weekend visits.

The first one was in May. Harley picked Cody up at seven on Friday night and said they were just going to spend the weekend at his place down in Venice. That was three months ago, and she hadn’t seen her son since.

“During these three months,” Neal asked, “what have you done?”

“Harley was supposed to have brought Cody back that Sunday night around seven. About eight o’clock, I guess, I started calling his place. No answer. Around ten I went over there and leaned on the doorbell. Nobody home, no lights on, no TV, no stereo. I called the police, who told me that I needed to go to the sheriff’s department. I went to the sheriff’s department and they told me that they’d check his last known address, which they did, and he wasn’t there. They’d put a warrant out for him but couldn’t give custodial cases much priority, because it wasn’t a ‘real kidnapping.’ I got my lawyer out of bed at around two in the morning and he told me he’d start filing papers. As far as I know, he’s still filing them.

“But we can’t find Harley to serve him the papers. We’ve gone through social service agencies, private investigators, a couple of dozen police and sheriff’s departments. Then my lawyer said he’d found a new detective agency that specialized in custody cases. They were a lot better at finding creative expenses than they were at finding my son. Finally I called Ethan. I heard that he didn’t feel-how shall I say this-constrained by the narrowest limits of the law.

“How do you know Mr. Kitteredge?” Neal asked.

“His bank put up money for a couple of my films,” she answered.

Natch, thought Neal.

“I’d heard rumors that he offered certain services for his best customers,” Anne continued. “You live by rumors in this town, so I checked it out. He told me I’d be hearing from somebody. It couldn’t have been twenty minutes when your Mr. Levine called. I’m sure you know the rest.”

Neal was about to tell her not to be so sure when Graham interjected, “Your attorney should keep up his efforts, though, Ms. Kelley.”

“At his hourly, I’m sure he will,” Anne answered. “What happens now?”

“We start looking for your son and you take your eleven-thirty,” Neal answered as he got out of his chair.

“I love my little boy, Mr. Carey.”

“I’m sure you do, Ms. Kelley.”

“I’m not a bad mother.”

“Nobody said you were.”

“You were thinking it.”

Neal stepped over to the window and looked out at the studio lot, where the 1920s gangsters were heading to the cafeteria to beat the early lunch crowd.

“No,” he said, “I was thinking that you’re used to getting the story rewritten when you don’t like it the way it is. But this time it’s not a movie, it’s your son, and it’s not a story, it’s all too real. I’m thinking what a bitch these custody cases are, because while the law is on your side, it’s really on the sidelines. What it basically says is that once you get your child back, you can keep him. And while you’re handcuffed by the law, your husband does any goddamn thing he wants. And I was thinking about how frustrated, angry, and scared you must be.”

Anne drained the rest of her soda and lit another cigarette. It was a nice try, but it didn’t stop the tears from coming to her eyes. “I’m terrified,” she said. “I know Harley would never intentionally hurt Cody, but now… with what you’ve found out about these people…”

What people, Graham?

“… I’m afraid that I’ll never see my little boy again.”

“We’ll get him back,” Neal said. He was surprised to hear himself say it, surprised at the commitment in his voice.

“We’ll call you the minute we know anything,” Graham said as he stepped to the door.

“I’ll leave word that you’re to be put right through,” Anne answered.

Jim Collier hustled to shake their hands.

“A real pleasure to meet you,” he said.

“Yeah,” Neal said.

“I do know the difference between movies and real life,” Anne said to Neal.

“Yeah? Well, maybe you can teach it to me sometime.”

On the way out they passed Anne’s eleven-thirty, two nervous screenwriters clutching a couple of notebooks and a pile of dreams.

“So what have we found out about ‘these people,’ Graham? And what people are we talking about?” Neal asked when they got back in the limo. It was as much an accusation as a question.

“Well, we found out what accounted for Harley’s cleaning up his act.

“What?”

Graham told the driver to go to the corner of Hollywood and Vine.

“What’s at Hollywood and Vine?” the driver asked sullenly.

“What’s it to you?” answered Graham.

Neal perused the bar, found a little bottle of Johnny Walker Red, and poured it into a glass as the limo eased out of the lot onto the street.

“What’s going on, Graham?” he asked.

Neal tossed back the whiskey. It was like sitting by a fire on a winter’s day. He noticed that Joe Graham was rubbing his artificial hand into the palm of his real one. It was something he did when he was nervous, when he had something on his mind that he wanted to get off. Neal finished his drink and waited.

“So,” Graham asked, “are you on?”

Neal didn’t want to be on. God, he didn’t want to be on. He wanted to be off in the world of old books, sitting in a quiet room taking orderly notes. But if this was just a simple custody case, they wouldn’t need him. Graham would track Harley down, call in muscle if he needed it, and take the kid home. So there was something else.

“What aren’t you telling me, Dad?”

Graham shook his head. “No. You first. Are you on?”

You owe, Neal told himself. And not just money. You were a lost kid yourself once, and the only person in the world who gave a good goddamn was Joe Graham, who’s sitting here now, wearing out his one good hand.

“Yeah, I’m on.”

The rubbing stopped. Graham palmed one of the little whiskey bottles and opened it with his thumb and forefinger. He took a sip straight from the bottle.

“I didn’t want to tell you too much until I saw you in action again. I had to make sure you were…”

“‘Okay’?”

“Three years is a long time, son.”

“So did I pass?”

“Yeah.”

“So tell me the whole story.”

“Not now.”

“When?”

“After church.”

The driver looked back in the mirror and sneered. “What the hell kind of church is at Hollywood and Vine?”

A placard board read the true CHRISTIAN IDENTITY CHURCH, REVEREND C. WESLEY CARTER, MINISTER. Its big white plastic cross loomed above a sidewalk festooned with broken wine bottles, free-floating newspaper pages, crumpled cans, and greasy sandwich wrappers. Pimps in all their sartorial splendor leaned on their Caddies and Lincoln Town Cars watching their little girls in white leather hot pants munch on doughnuts as they vamped passing cars. Pretty teenage boys dressed in tight denims and T-shirts sat on bus benches and peeked out from under their long bangs in a more subtle form of advertising, visible only to the informed.

If you took the view that a church was supposed to be a hospital for sinners, the corner of Hollywood and Vine was a great location for a church.

The church was immaculate, not in the immaculate conception sense, but in a utilitarian-, Protestant way. The highly varnished wood shone with righteous energy, the modest carpeting was vacuumed to within an inch of its life. Pamphlets had been laid out in precise order on a table in the foyer.

The congregation was even cleaner. They were mostly older people, as you would expect of a Wednesday afternoon, but there was also a significant minority of younger men. They had the deeply tanned, lined features of outdoor workers. Their jeans were pressed and they wore collared shirts with unfashionable ties. There were a few young mothers there as well, some with toddlers in tow. The kids were all neat, clean, nicely dressed, and well behaved.

From the back of the church Neal felt as if he were looking through one of those old stereoscopes, because in back of the gaggles of kids, behind the altar, was a mural of Jesus himself talking to a bunch of clean, neat, well-dressed, well-behaved little kids, and the inscription, SUFFER THE LITTLE CHILDREN TO COME UNTO ME.

The contrast between the scrubbed interior of the church and the variegated hell on the outside was, to say the least, stark. Neal had the image of one of those old western movies where the settlers had circled the wagons against the band of marauding Indians outside. The place was just so… white.

Everyone was white. The older folks, the working men, the young mothers, the kids. Jesus was certainly white, with blue eyes and long brown hair that was a day at the beach away from being blond. The kids who had come unto him were white, looking as if they’d be more at home in Sweden than Judea. Neal hadn’t seen so many blonds since the last time he’d gotten drunk enough to watch the Miss America Pageant.

“There’s a marked lack of melanin in here,” he whispered to Graham as they slid into a pew in the back.

“Whatever that is,” Graham answered.

Neal was about to answer when a tall, silver-haired man in a blue suit came out from behind the altar and mounted the pulpit. The silver hair stood up in a high brush cut, his tanned face looked like it had been fashioned with an adz, and his eyes were bluer than his suit, if not quite as shiny.

The congregation scurried into their seats and sat in silent anticipation.

“C. Wesley Carter,” Graham whispered.

“See Spot run,” answered Neal.

“Good afternoon, everyone,” C. Wesley Carter said. He had a voice like a good trumpet, clear and sharp without being brassy or harsh. It was a good voice, and he knew it.

“Good afternoon, Reverend Carter!” the congregation answered.

“Welcome to our Wednesday afternoon study session. I’m glad you all fought your way safely to our little clearing in the jungle.”

Jungle? Neal thought. Well…

“I’m very excited today,” Carter said, “because we are back to the beginning of the whole cycle in our lectures on true Christian identity, and new beginnings always fire me up. Of course, when you’ve given this lecture as many times as I have… well, let’s face it, when you’ve heard this lecture as many times as some of you have… well, I won’t be offended if some of you just want to get up and leave!”

“I want to get up and leave,” Neal whispered.

“Shut up,” answered Graham.

Reverend Carter paused for the audience to fill in the laugh. A few of the veteran listeners did, and one old man even yelled, “No way, Reverend!

Carter continued, “But I think that there are certain things we can never hear often enough, don’t you? I guess that’s one reason they wrote the Bible down, so we can read those sacred words as often as we need to. And in these troubled times-and if you don’t think they’re troubled, you just take a look outside that door-we need to hear them a whole lot. We need to remind ourselves who we are. We need to reaffirm our true Christian identity! Our true Christian identity as the chosen people!”

The congregation burst into applause. Graham politely smacked his real hand into his artificial one.

“Now, who are the chosen people?” Carter asked, presumably rhetorically. “Well, the Bible tells us, so let’s start right there. In fact, let’s begin at the beginning in the Book of Genesis.”

Carter opened an enormous old Bible on the pulpit.

“He’s not going to read the whole thing, is he?” Neal asked Graham.

“Shut the hell up,” hissed Graham.

“Nice talk, in church.”

A bunch of people in the church flipped Bibles open to the Book of Genesis.

“It’s right in the beginning,” Neal whispered helpfully to Graham.

“Now, the Jews have always claimed to be the chosen people, but the Bible tells us differently, doesn’t it?” Carter asked in a voice that attempted a professorial tone of neutral inquiry. “You’ll notice in Genesis that Cain was jealous of his brother Abel, whom God favored. Now that is pretty interesting. Why would God favor Abel? The answer is simple. Because Cain was not the son of Adam, but the son of Satan! Cain was the offspring of Eve’s mating with the serpent. And so of course God favored Abel.”

Neal elbowed Graham. “So does Mia Farrow get to play Eve in the movie?”

“Now, we all know that Cain slew Abel,” Carter preached, “the first example of a Jew killing a Gentile, and this is the important part: God cursed Cain. I refer to Genesis 4:11, ‘And now art thou cursed from the earth,’ and in 4:12, ‘a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth.’ “

“Sounds like you,” Graham muttered to Neal. “What did you do to piss off God?”

“I know you.”

“And now Adam had himself another son!” Carter proclaimed. “The son’s name was Seth, and Seth-follow along now through all the begats in chapter five-was the ancestor of Noah, who, as you know, was the chosen of God. The Jews, you see, are the sons of Cain. Far from being the chosen people, they were the cursed people. Cursed by God himself!”

“Nothing like personal service,” Neal whispered.

Joe Graham just shook his head.

“Now,” Carter said, “you have to work your way through a bunch of ‘begats’ until Abraham begat Isaac and Isaac married Rebecca, and they prayed to God to have children and God answered-this is Genesis 25:23-‘And the Lord said unto her, Two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people shall be separated from thy bowels, and the one people shall be stronger than the other people, and the elder shall serve the latter.’ Amen!”

“Amen!” responded the congregation.

“And now here we go again, friends, because Rebecca had twins. The first one to emerge was Esau, and listen here to the description: Esau ‘came out red, all over like an hairy garment.’ Now what does that tell you? Esau was the spiritual descendent of Cain, son of the devil, cursed by God! And it is Esau, friends, who will be the father of one of these two nations, the weaker nation.

“Now, the younger twin was Jacob, and we will come to read that Esau sold his birthright to Jacob, and that Isaac blessed Jacob, and that Esau was jealous. It’s the same old story all over again, and sure enough, Esau plotted to kill Jacob. And Esau is described as ‘cunning’-and we sure know that, don’t we-but Jacob got away.

“And that night he laid his head down on a pillow made of stones, and he had a dream, and he dreamed that he ascended a ladder to heaven, and spoke with the Lord, and that the Lord said, ‘I am with you, and I will never leave you.’ Amen. And that spot where Jacob had this dream? It was called Bethel, and keep that in mind.

“Now, Jacob wandered as a fugitive for years, but he knew that God was with him, and Jacob became a cowboy, friends, the first cowboy, and his herds multiplied and became strong, and Jacob eventually returned to the place of his birth a rich and powerful man, and Esau came out, all alligator tears and everything, and hugged him and kissed him-now, we all know what the kiss of a Jew means, don’t we-and Jacob took his wives, and children, and cattle and moved on, he went back to Bethel and saw God again… and I’m going to read this part word for word, because it’s at the heart of everything we’re about here… Genesis 35:10, ‘And God said unto him, Thy name is Jacob; thy name shall not be called any more Jacob, but Israel shall be thy name: and he called his name Israel.’

“Jacob was the real Israel, friends. Not that phony baloney Israel that Washington gives our tax dollars to.

“But to continue, ‘And God said unto him, I am God almighty: be fruitful and multiply; a nation and a company of nations shall be of thee, and kings shall come out of thy loins; and the land which I gave Abraham and Isaac, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed after thee will I give the land.”

Carter closed the Bible and paused dramatically.

“You see, folks, Jacob, descendent of Seth, was the father of the chosen people, chosen by God to form ‘a nation and a company of nations.’ Now, what is that nation? The present-day, so-called Israel? Don’t you believe it. That’s what they’d all like us to believe, that’s the hogwash we’ve been asked to swallow, but it just isn’t true. Can’t be! Why not? Because, among other things, where is the company of nations to go along with it? All I see is that impostor Jew state and a bunch of strung-together Arab sheikdoms. The sons of Esau, the sons of Ham, not the sons of Jacob, the sons of Seth! That’s not what God had in mind, no sir, not at all.”

Neal leaned over to Graham and asked, “Do you think he’s going to tell us what God had in mind?”

“I think so.”

He did. The Reverend C. Wesley Carter, founder and pastor of the True Christian Identity Church, laid out the grand design for them. How the true descendants of Seth and Jacob migrated out of the Near East, how they took their wives, kids, and cattle and journeyed north and west, eventually coming to settle in Germany, England, Scandinavia, and the British Isles. They were the lost tribe of Israel, who finally found the promised land-America.

“But the Jew, the jealous Jew, the sons of scheming Satan, the sons of murderous Cain, the sons of cunning Esau, they crept into Eden again. We have a Jew banking system and a Jew press, a Jew government and a Jew-dicial system! We have sold our birthright to Esau! And we will have to buy it back with tears and sacrifice and blood!

“But that’s another sermon. Let us conclude with a prayer.”

“Amen,” Neal said.

Back out in the limo Neal said, “So Harley got religion.”

“If you want to call it that. I just wanted you to see what we’re dealing with here,” Graham said.

“Less than a full deck, that’s for sure.”

“Funny kid.”

The driver actually turned around in his seat and looked at Graham. The driver was pissed off at having had to sit for an hour and change in the crotch of the city.

“You ready to go back to the hotel now?” he asked.

“Why not?”

Neal sat back in the upholstered seat and looked out through the tinted window.

“Okay,” he said. “Are you going to tell me the whole story now?”

“Not yet.”

“When?”

“When we get back to the hotel.”

So Neal looked out the smoky window and watched the palm trees through the haze of sunshine and smog and wondered what was waiting for him back at the hotel.

Ed Levine looked like a brown bear at the zoo as he climbed out of the swimming pool and shook off the water. He grabbed a towel off his chaise longue, wiped himself off, and stepped to the edge of the pool area to greet Neal Carey.

“I never thought I’d hear myself saying this,” Ed said as he stuck out his hand, “but it’s good to see you.”

“Good to see you,” Neal said, realizing with some surprise that he actually meant it. Ed Levine had been his boss, his rival, his nemesis for about a dozen years.

They stood awkwardly staring at each other for a few moments-Ed in bikini swimming trunks, water dripping into a pool at his feet, Neal trying to keep his new shoes from getting wet.

“So how have you been?” Neal asked.

“Divorced.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be. I’m not,” Levine said. “So how was China? Did you have a good time?”

“Terrific.”

Joe Graham asked, “Is this touching moment over? Can we get to work?”

“Is he on?” Levine asked Graham.

“He’s on,” Neal answered.

“Let’s grab a table. I’ve had lunch sent out.”

They sat down at a round, white enamel table with a crank-up umbrella. Levine put on a Hawaiian print shirt that was oversize even on him. Neal draped his jacket over the back of his chair, put his sunglasses on, and watched the beautiful people sunbathing around the pool.

“You look good,” he said to Levine. “You’ve lost some weight.”

“I’ve been working out. Running, weights, squash… the whole bit. I’m in the best shape since I was in the service.”

“That’s good.”

“How about you, Neal, are you in shape?”

Neal thought about the endless trips up the steep mountain slopes, carrying buckets of water and loads of firewood.

“I’m in shape.”

“No, I mean, are you in shape? Operational shape?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

Ed looked over at Graham. Graham nodded.

“I don’t know,” Ed muttered.

A waiter came over. Graham ordered a beer, Ed got an iced tea, Neal an iced coffee. They sat quietly with their own thoughts until the drinks came.

“We wanted you to meet Anne Kelley, hear her story, before you committed to the job.”

“We?”

“Graham and I… and The Man.”

“What’s going on here, Ed?”

The waiter came back, and with a big tray of food.

“I hope no one minds, I ordered for us.”

The waiter set down a pastrami on rye for Graham, a rare cheeseburger and fries for Neal, and a salad for Levine.

“A salad?” Neal asked.

“So?”

“Nothing.”

Ed pointed to Neal’s plate. “It isn’t the Burger Joint,” he said, referring to the little joint that was Neal’s hangout in New York.

“But what is?” asked Neal.

“Right. But if you’d rather have some rice or something…”

Neal shook his head. He was too busy eating to speak. It wasn’t the Burger Joint, but it was still pretty wonderful-food you actually had to grip in your hands.

Levine dug into his salad with an almost grim determination to enjoy it. He downed it in about ten seconds flat, wiped his mouth, and tried to convince himself he was full.

“So, Neal,” he said.

“So, Ed.”

“Here’s the deal. McCall became a disciple of the True Christian Identity Church. C. Wesley Carter has some interesting ties with groups like the Posse Comitatus, the Klan, and the Nazi party,” Levine said, eyeing the cottage fries on Neal’s plate. “Our contacts in the FBI tell us that these groups are starring to get together, trying to establish a nationwide network. The idea is to maintain their aboveground public parties while creating underground terrorist groups loosely gathered under the rubric of White Aryan Resistance. What is this?”

“A radish.”

“Jesus… to coin a phrase.”

“Could you pass that vinegar over?” Neal asked Ed.

Ed handed him the bottle and Neal poured vinegar over his fries.

“Anyway,” Ed continued, “in setting up these little cells these geeks get each other jobs, help their fugitive members hide out… a whole underground network.”

“And if Harley gets into this network we could lose him for good,” Graham added.

“Which is why we need to move fast,” Ed said, “now that we know where he is.”

That’s interesting news, Neal thought. “Where is he?” he asked.

“So,” Ed asked, “you want to do it?”

Neal just wanted to make him work for it a little more. Just to protest a little against this old bit-pretending to let you decide if you want to do the job but refusing to tell you what it is until you say you’ll do it.

Ed leaned over and snatched a cottage fry from Neal’s plate.

“Do what?” Neal asked.

Ed looked to Joe Graham.

“Go undercover, son.”

Undercover. The most exciting and scariest word in the business. The flame that attracts and burns.

“Undercover where?” Neal asked.

Ed munched on one bite of the cottage fry and gestured with the other, making small, vague circles in the air.

“You know, out there.”

Out there, out there. Well, boys, why not? I’ve been out there my whole life.

Six hundred miles out there, a shriek came up from the sagebrush flats. At first it sounded like a coyote in pain, but coyotes don’t howl in the daytime. The sound was human, a scream of agony that lifted and then died in the vast stillness of The High Lonely.