“Are you thirsty?” Detective Carr nudges the water toward me. “Go ahead,” he says. “Trust me, we didn’t slip anything in there.”
I look at him and I am doing it again, digging my own grave. Does he know about the cactus? Was there a camera at the house? Was there a camera in the sky? A drone? He sips his water. “When did Love meet Brian?” he asks. “Did she meet him before you left town to do the movie? Or did she meet him in Palm Springs?”
He could be lying. Love could have refused to answer the question. She might be playing the same game as I am. I try to imagine that I am Love, pregnant, in love, and there is a man asking me questions and if I say the wrong thing, the man I love so much will be gone. My heart beats faster and faster, and I wish I could carry it around in a rolling suitcase. It’s annoying, the way it’s connected to my other bodily functions, the way my little motherfucker pores allow sweat to weep upon my forehead, the way my asshole pupils shrink and expand and I can’t control them. I’m not a fucking sociopath.
Detective Carr puts his feet up on the desk again. “Joe,” he says. “What was Brian’s last name? Love can’t remember. Do you remember?”
Edmund looks at me meaningfully. “No,” I say. “I don’t remember.”
I don’t remember. The magic words, according to my attorney, according to Love. If I just keep saying I don’t remember things, I will be out of here soon. I will not let Detective Carr break me. Love and I shouldn’t be playing the Newlywed Game. We’re not even married yet. I will my heart to take it easy and I sip the water and I can’t wait for this session to be over. I look forward to returning to my cage. I feel empowered when I’m in there, locked up.
Love is the key to happiness in life, and I have no doubt that it will set me free. Love, and Edmund, that’s all I need and I have it all, and I know that if I believe in Love and play by the rules—say nothing, remember nothing, say as little as possible, say nothing—I know I will be out of here soon, watching my child break out of Love’s vagina, my favorite place in the world.
If Love were here, in this room, she would wrap her arms around me and tell me why she hates Brian, what his last name is, share with me all the elaborate and specific details of when and where they met, how he offended her. I know it’s ludicrous to say such a thing. After all, Brian doesn’t exist. They never met. I invented him so I could get access to one of the boats. So because there is no such thing as Brian, there is nothing for Love to know. And yet I know she would know because that’s the thing about feeling so connected to someone, so entrenched, so attached. I believe she knows me better than I know myself, and hopefully I know her as well too.
“Joe,” he says.
“Yeah?”
“How did Love and Brian meet?”
I say nothing. What would Love say?
“What’s his last name?”
I say nothing. What would Love say?
“Why does she hate this guy?”
I say nothing. What would Love say? I know Love and I have to believe in myself right now. I have to walk out onto the plank and I have to jump. I stop sweating. My heart resets and my pores rest. This is it.
“First of all,” I begin. “I barely know that Brian guy. And the thing is, Love doesn’t hate him.”
He swallows and it’s an unmistakable sign that I passed the test. Love told the cops the same thing and I remember her exact words in the pool that day, talking about Sam the work bitch, our conversation in Little Compton about Forty. I don’t hate anyone, she said. When you love someone, you listen. You remember it all.
“Truthfully,” I say. “Love doesn’t really hate anybody.”
He clenches his jaw. “Yeah,” he says. “So I heard.”
Inside, I pump my fist. I knew it. I know her. I love her.
But most people in love face obstacles and here is ours, Detective Carr, back again, firing away: “But you told Captain Dave that Love hates this guy. Why?”
“I didn’t want to go here. Ray and Dottie have been through enough . . .” I work up some tears. My lawyer asks for a minute but I say no. “Look, Detective, I can’t stress this enough. I’d rather Ray and Dottie not know that Forty was involved in this, but well, fuck. Brian was Forty’s friend,” I say, and it’s the money shot, my would-have-been-brother-in-law saving me from the great beyond. “I just met him in Cabo. He and Forty got really fucked up and Forty didn’t want to just leave him out there, but he was too fucked up to deal with it himself.” I shrug. “I was just trying to do him a solid.”
“Why not let him crash at the party? La Groceria has more than a few spare bedrooms.” Detective Carr is the one sweating now, drumming his fingers on the table. And this is the beauty of reasonable doubt. He may suspect that I’m making this all up, but at the end of the day, he can’t prove that and Forty’s not around to tell him differently.
“Because it was our wrap party,” I say. “It wasn’t a free-for-all.”
“Who else met this Brian? Anyone alive, I mean?” he asks.
I shrug. “I don’t remember.”
I was worried I would sound sarcastic, like a senator’s son at a date rape trial, but I didn’t. I pulled it off. I took a leap of faith and made an educated guess on what Love said and I guessed correctly. I did it. We did it. Detective Carr is standing, irritated. He says it’s odd the way I know so many people who don’t fucking exist anymore and I let him rant. I don’t tell him that the last person who said that to me wound up dead.
I have my priorities in order: Love comes first, above all. She is patient and kind as the Corinthians say and I bring patience and kindness into this room as I watch this poor bastard pace. He’s older than me, more tired; he probably lives in Torrance, in some house full of Bud Light and expired coupons and firearms and soiled diapers. It can’t be easy, being a cop in California and he’s not very photogenic or articulate. I bet he never wanted to be an actor and I bet he wasn’t even in love with his wife when he proposed to her. I bet he was just with her and I bet she was dropping hints and I bet he was one of those guys who proposes because he’s thirty, because he figures it’s time to get married and settle down. I bet there was no love in his heart when he got down on one knee and asked the girl to marry him, not any more than usual, I mean.
“You can’t tell me anything else about this Brian?”
“I’m sorry,” I say. “For all I know, that wasn’t even his real name.”
“Don’t fuck with me.”
“I’m not fucking with you,” I say. “I met him briefly. He was Forty’s friend and Forty knew some shady people, you know. He did drugs, he got around.”
“It’s bad luck to speak ill of the dead.”
“I’m not speaking ill,” I say. “I’m trying to help you guys out.”
Detective Carr sits in his chair. In a way I think it would be terrible to live in LA devoid of aspirations. How would you do it? How would you put up with the traffic and the monotony of the sun, the way people use the word hella and lie so freely? How could you stand it here if you weren’t striving for something better? Oh that’s right; he liked The Wolf of Wall Street. He aspires to take someone down like me, a serial killer. But he chose the wrong guy. I am done with all that. And I will not let my past dictate my future.
He rubs his forehead. “You know, Joe,” he says. “We have all of our officers looking for Brian. You do know that we will find him. We’re gonna make sure he’s okay. We’re checking hotel records and we’re gonna find out all of it, who he was, what you did with him, why.”