"Hi… " I said. "Have you been waiting long?"
"Just half an hour, but it's no sweat. I love this place. Evelyn and I used to come here and go dancing when the old Ship Room was still open. That was back at the beginning of time when this was still a Sheraton Hoteclass="underline" ' He smiled.
"I'm sorry I kept you waiting. I got caught in traffic?'
"It's okay. You ready to go?"
"Guess so," I answered hesitantly. He took my arm and led me out to the parking lot, where Evelyn's gold Mercedes SL600 was parked.
I stared at the damn car.
"Everything all right?" he asked.
"Isn't this Evelyn's car?"
"Yes… " He seemed confused.
"The car she was killed in?"
"It's been detailed and cleaned out. I'm getting set to sell it."
I didn't want to ride in a car that, only a week ago, had hosted Evelyn's death.
"It's just… she was killed in this car. I mean, come on, Chick," I stammered.
"Oh yeah, right." Realization finally dawned. "I decided to drive it because the trunk's bigger than the Porsche and we'll be bringing quite a few of Evelyn's things back."
Your wife was murdered in this damn car, I thought. How can you even stand to be in it?
"Another reason I brought it was it has chains in the trunk that fit these tires and the Porsche doesn't. It could be snowing up there and we may need them?'
I couldn't think of anything to say.
"Would you rather we rented something?" he asked, a perplexed look on his face because I was still standing there, glaring at the damn car.
It was a logical explanation, I guess, but I was struggling to understand how Chick could be so insensitive. What I said, dumb-ass that I am, was, "No, it's okay. This car's fine."
"Ready?" he asked. "We'll be back by eight or nine tonight."
I didn't answer, so he came around and opened the door, and I reluctantly got in. Once the door was closed, I was engulfed by the sweet, lilac scent of car shampoo.
Chick got behind the wheel. When he looked over at me he had a wide smile on his face. He started the car and pulled out of the hotel entry.
As we turned onto Oak Knoll Avenue I looked down and saw a dark maroon speck. It was just above the carpet, on the lower kick panel. I didn't have to look long to know what it was. A piece of Evelyn's brains that the car cleaners had somehow missed was stuck in a tiny crack below the radio speaker. A little speck of Chick's dead wife. A little piece of her DNA was going on this mountain trip with us. I grimaced and pulled my eyes away.
"Paige, this is so amazing of you." Chick was still smiling at me. "I can't tell you what it means."
I nodded but didn't answer.
"You'll love Big Bear. It's beautiful up there. I always feel so close to nature in that cabin. The air is like pine perfume."
I nodded again. I was thinking that events had piled up on me too fast and had produced this situation. My own quest to get moving again, the parallel deaths of Chandler and Evelyn. This damn Girl Scout thing that I've been doing since I was nine. All of it had conspired to produce a terrible decision.
I already wanted out of the car, but I couldn't think of a graceful way to accomplish it. So instead of demanding that Chick stop and turn around right then, I started telling myself to calm down and not overreact.
But for the next five miles, I couldn't take my eyes off the little speck of Evelyn's brains that rode the door panel by my right foot.
Chapter 35
THE AFTERNOON SKY WAS DARKENING, THREATENING another storm. Chick was chatting about his house up in Big Bear, bragging about what a great real-estate deal it was and how smart he'd been to buy it. I was just trying to keep my eyes off Evelyn's brain spatter. Somewhere past San Bernardino, he moved on to his land speculation and real-estate philosophy.
"When the property market crashed with the junk mortgages last year, all the ribbon clerks panicked and started selling. There was more dirt for sale at low prices in Big Bear than in fucking Baja. All that action drove land prices down even further. Of course, I never' even considered selling. I plan a strategy, think things out carefully in advance. When I buy something, I'm making a long-term investment. It's not about short-term profit or loss, like with these other hit-and-run, get-rich-quick guys. For me, it's about looking for a market opportunity and capitalizing on it. Real estate is where the really great long-term fortunes are made, but you have to have an approach and a long-term philosophy."
I was getting very put off by all this, especially while we were taking this grisly mission to clean out his just-murdered wife's mementos.
Where was the abject grief from yesterday, the terror at the looming prospect of having to sort through Evelyn's belongings? I'd only come along to help him through that trauma, but here he was chatting me up on his long-term business goals.
"The Internet, where I work, has redesigned everything, all aspects of commerce," he was saying. "I predict, for instance, that there won't even be real-estate agents in the future. Everything, all property, will be listed and sold online. Virtual property tours, deals, negotiations in secure chat rooms, all final transactions subject to an actual viewing of the property, set up on the Web by the buyer and the seller. The ten-percenters will all be dust."
He was giving me a headache.
We had left the 210 and were on Highway 18, climbing up toward Running Springs. There were patches of fresh snow on the side of the road, and long mounds of it lay in the center of the highway where the snow plows had left it. Chick kept talking endlessly about money and how good he was at making it. The further out of L. A. we got, the more animated he became. Suddenly, he jerked his thumb at the passing scenery.
"All of the property up here is gonna be for sale soon. It's mostly parkland now but we're gonna be seeing the Fed cutting loose big parcels of this stuff. All the CC amp;Rs are going to vanish." He looked over at me. "That's Covenants, Conditions, and Restrictions. It's why I wanted you to see how beautiful it is, 'cause once that happens, I'm set to pounce."
I was seriously beginning to wonder what on earth this trip up here was really all about.
Then he actually said it. "I'm planning on taking my considerable assets from the sale of bestmarket. Com and sticking them in a longterm, high-growth project, like this raw land here. I know just about everybody who's anybody in L. A. Got a bunch of state contacts to help with zoning changes. All the serious insiders are watching me, because they want to take a ride on the Chick Best Express. Lotta people, right now, are waiting to see which way I'm gonna jump. The people who end up with me are gonna make a fortune. The people close to me, my `investment family' so to speak, they're gonna do very well."
Then he looked over and gave me what I'm sure he thought was a sexy smile and added, "That could be you if you want it to be, Paige."
My heart sank, because in that instant, I pretty much knew I'd been played. In that moment, only twenty miles or so from his cabin in Big Bear, I was absolutely convinced Chick had invited me up here to see if he could get something started. I sat there, looking at that tiny speck of Evelyn's brains, and tried to choke down my anger.
As we kept winding up Highway 18, my mind focused on how to get the hell out of this car and down off this mountain. How could I have been such an idiot? I had ignored the warning voice in my head. I had projected my own feelings onto him. Not the first time in my life I've made that mistake.
Shortly after we turned onto the highway, huge snowflakes began to fall. They stuck on the glass and drifted like large pieces of white confetti past the windows. The heavy sky was gunmetal gray, and dropping ever lower. As an army brat, I'd lived in enough cold climates growing up to know that this was the beginning of a big storm, a heavy dump.