"They caught the guy," Chick said, not taking his eyes off the road. "Black kid named Delroy Washington with a long record of car-jacking and gang violence. Cops think it was random. He saw her car, went over and shot her so she wouldn't be able to identify him later. Took the Mercedes and ran."
"That's awful," I said.
"Y'know, sometimes I just sit and think what if she hadn't gone to the Valley to get her hair done? What if she'd canceled her appointment, which she often did? Or what if her hairdresser had moved the time, told her to come a half-hour earlier or later? What if she hadn't been in Van Nuys at that exact moment, and had never run into this angry, screwed-up kid? I keep trying to make sense of it, but what it comes down to is Evelyn was just at the wrong place at the wrong time and hit the double zero. Even so, I still can't keep from thinking, what if?"
He looked over. I couldn't see his eyes behind his wrap-around sunglasses, but I could imagine what was reflected there. I had asked all the same unanswerable, self-torturing questions. What if I hadn't gone running that evening? What if my back hadn't flared up? What if I'd decided to just tough it out with no Percocet, instead of calling Dr. Baker and getting him to prescribe Darvocet? Then Chandler wouldn't have gone out to pick up my medicine. He wouldn't have been in that drugstore parking lot, wouldn't have been crushed by the hit-and-run driver.
"There's no answer to the what ifs, or the whys," I finally told him, "any more than there's an answer for why some people get cancer and others don't. It is what it is. It's just life."
That sounded like a lame platitude even as I said it, and if he was like me, he was probably still too close to Evelyn's death to deal with it philosophically.
He nodded slowly but seemed unconvinced. "It's just… being at home without her… it's like punishment. Did you feel that way?"
"Exactly that way," I said. "But where else can you go? How do you hide from your feelings?"
"Exactly," he said. "And then, there are all the funeral arrangements. I've been trying to handle that. It's so hard to even know what to bury her in. I keep thinking, does it really matter? She's dead. Does it make a difference if she's in her pink summer dress, or the green A-line she liked so much? What about jewelry? I know it's silly, but some part of me wants it to be exactly right. It's sort of like the final communal gesture I'll ever make for us."
I was surprised at that one. Chick had never seemed very metaphysical to me. More of a business accounting type. But he was absolutely right. I'd felt all the same things he was feeling.
"Somebody actually suggested that we bury Chandler in his football jersey," I said.
"Ridiculous," Chick said. "Evelyn liked to work out. Maybe I should bury her in a sport bra."
We were both suddenly smiling-laughing at the idea of what other people thought was the essence of a person's life.
"Part of me just keeps looking for answers," he went on. "Part of me is looking for a place to stash all this anger I have for Delroy Washington. Sometimes I pray he'll get the needle and I'll be standing behind the glass watching. But I also know that's not going to help me get past this. I can't bring Evelyn back by punishing some angry kid who's just a violent product of our own societal mistakes. Suffice it to say, I'm confused. Sometimes I sit in my backyard and look at the trees, see the wind blow the leaves away, and wish I could just sail away with them, get out of here on a gust of air. Does any of that make sense?"
"Perfect sense." I reached out and squeezed his hand in a gesture of support as we were swept along in the flow of sixty-mile-an-hour L. A. traffic.
Chick pulled his hand away so he could shift into a lower gear. The Porsche growled and buzzed around a Vons produce truck.
"Is there anything I can do to help you with the funeral arrangements?" I asked.
"Just being here is help enough. Having somebody who's been through this to talk to… it's all I need."
I looked over at Chick's profile. His eyes were still hidden behind those trendy glasses. I wondered who was really inside there. I decided one way or another, I would do everything in my power to help him get through this.
Big mistake.
Chapter 28
JORDAN WEISMAN WAS ONE OF THE ACE COMPUTER programmers at bestmarket. Com before the company sold. Chick pulled a guilt trip on Jordy and he had finally agreed to hack into all the major airlines' computers to find out what flight Paige Ellis would be on from Charlotte. Jordan didn't like pulling hacks, but Chick b. S.'d him saying he was doing a new start-up and there might be a job in it for him. Jordan came through in less than thirty minutes.
After that, Chick spent the next six hours going for the perfect ensemble. Nothing seemed exactly right, so he ended up driving to Bloomingdale's and buying a cinnamon shirt and maroon tie. He already had a charcoal suit, so what it came down to was he had pretty much ended up stealing Apollo Demetrius's entire look, right down to the Aqua Velva.
Chick then spent almost forty minutes trying to select the right watch. He was a watch collector, an aficionado of world-class timepieces. Over the years, he'd bought every expensive or trendsetting chronometer available. He had Breitlings and Piagets, Rolexes and Cartiers. Over fifty watches were displayed in velvet-lined cases with glass tops in his walk-in closet. Each polished mahogany box contained six timepieces. He remembered reading somewhere once that sociopaths often had a fascination with clocks…
He wondered, Are my fifty watches trying to tell me something?
Finally, he selected the Breitling Navitimer, the same model John Travolta wore in their ads. Sporty, expensive, but not ostentatious. He snapped it on and set it.
His mind was swirling with anticipation and resolve. Only one lingering fear… if he got lucky… if he pulled this off… if he could talk Paige into it…
COULD HE GET IT UP?
He washed down a Viagra, waited twenty minutes for it to hit the old bloodstream, and then with his heart racing picked up the girls from Hustler and headed to the bathroom.
Nothing.
Not a quiver.
He was deader than an opening act at the Laugh Factory. Then, just as he decided to stop, he got a slight tingle down there. Not one of his old Chick Best blue-vein specials-but he was at least getting some blood flow. Flop-sweat gathered on his brow as he coaxed this poor wobbler up. It rose weakly, like a patient at a rest home. Finally, he was at half-mast, hanging out over the toilet seat, barely erect.
He couldn't believe this was happening. Paige Ellis was actually on an airplane, heading to Los Angeles to see him, and he couldn't get a decent hard-on. He was in the middle of a heavy dose of self-administered performance anxiety when he finally decided to give it up and stop. He zipped up, rushed out of the bathroom, and entered his den to fire down two scotch shooters. As they hit bottom, the knot in his stomach lessened.
Okay, jerking off was one thing. Making love was another. The old Love Master would grow some wood when the time came, but, to be perfectly honest, Chick was becoming sexually panicked. At the same time he was committed to this course of action, determined to push on.
So he went to the airport and stood at the Delta baggage claim, waiting, and then finally saw her walking with self-confidence up to the carousel. She was so beautiful, so slender and fine, that his heart actually clutched when he saw her. He waited while the bags began coming off, watching the way she stood as a few people talked to her, asking dumb questions like, "Is this the luggage from flight 216?"