“Make it happen.”
“I’ll do my best.”
Forty minutes later the phone rang again.
“Hello, Charles Robert.”
“You okay?”
“I’m perfect. Merle’s at the House of Blues. I got tickets at will call.”
“Pick you up or meet you there?”
“I’m outside your apartment in a rented Cadillac STS. It’s black on black and the leather’s smooth as your cheeks after a shave, Charlie. I kid you not.”
It took Hood a moment to figure how she’d gotten his home address. He looked out the window and saw the car. “You looked in my wallet at the restaurant.”
“I confess.”
“You saw the news?”
“Did I ever. I’ve been with my boys almost two whole days. Right now I’m the happiest woman on earth. I’m celebrating and I’m going to listen to Merle and drink. I rented the car, bought a new blue blouse and some tight black jeans for you. Tomorrow we’re all moving back home and things are getting back to normal. Except Ernest and I will have separate quarters from now on. He’s cool with that. I start school Monday. Can you hurry?”
“I need five minutes. Come on up.”
“We’d never get to the House of Blues.”
Five minutes later Hood came down. Before getting into the STS, he went to the driver’s-side window and gave her his best traitor’s kiss.
Merle Haggard looked seventy years old and too mean to die, which Hood figured was pretty much what Merle was. His voice was clear and honest, and his band played the sad old songs with the same lightness and good cheer that Hood had always loved.
Suzanne was beautiful, though Hood missed her brown waves. The new blouse was silk, sleeveless, cobalt blue. She wore a beat-up denim jacket over it and it looked right. She drank four whiskey sours fast then went to seltzer with lime. She kept the beat with a boot toe on the floor and a hand high on Hood’s thigh under the table.
She leaned back and caught his eye, smiling big and innocent, and Hood marveled at all she had accomplished in the last days, in the last months, in her short life.
Hood listened to Merle’s stories of heartbreak and drinking and poverty and prison, and he thought of being young in Bakersfield and how those songs had nudged him toward the right side of the law. The loneliness in them had hit him hardest-the aloneness of the drinker who calls the bar his home, or the con walking to his execution, or the released inmate who can’t get away from his past. Now Hood realized that the songs were also about Suzanne Jones and Allison Murrieta and all people who chase their own histories to the edge of their own cliffs. He saw that stories like these get told over and over because they apply to so many of us, only the names of the characters changing with time.
“You look thoughtful, Charlie.”
“Every once in a while one sneaks in.”
She held his gaze. “I thought about what you said the other morning when I was up in the tree. About us meeting when we were real young, both getting our pictures taken for the newspaper. When you said it I thought it was an unglamorous proposition but I came to like it. Very down-home. Two kids, they fall in love and ride off together. Exactly not what Merle sings about.”
“I never thought glamorously. It’s a fault.”
“Don’t act so humble, Charlie. You’re not that great. Indira Gandhi said that but I can’t remember about whom.”
Hood smiled back but felt a strong sorrow.
A little past midnight he and Suzanne came through the exit. The night was damp and warm, and Marlon and two deputies were waiting.
36
They worked it out so Hood would drive her in the STS to the Marina del Rey safe house. The safe house was Hood’s idea-a courtesy to Suzanne, who would be recognized by Sheriff’s deputies and reporters if they talked at headquarters. This was not an arrest. It was not an interview, not an interrogation.
Susan stared straight ahead and said nothing.
“They want to ask you about Allison,” said Hood.
She continued staring through the windshield.
Hood followed Marlon’s plainwrap for the freeway. The Sheriff’s cruiser had fallen in behind him.
“I know you’re her,” he said. “I know you’ll hate me for what I’ve done, but I didn’t betray you to gain something for myself. I did it because Allison is going to get you killed. I love you and I’m sorry.”
“You love me? What does that matter? You just accused me of murder and armed robbery. I want my lawyer.”
“You’re not under arrest.”
She was on her phone before Hood made the freeway. She turned to the window and spoke quietly, hung up, then resumed her wordless surveillance through the windshield. Five minutes later Hood heard a ringtone-the whinny of a horse-and Suzanne again turned away from him.
Hood caught a few phrases:
“L.A. Sheriff ’s…”
“… asinine thing I’ve ever…”
“Allison Murrieta, the…”
“… hilarious someday…”
“… right now, a safe house in Marina del Rey, on Bora Bora…”
She punched off with a flourish and flung the phone back into her bag.
“I’m starved. Hit the Jack on Lincoln, will ya? I’ll spring for all you miserable cops, don’t worry.”
Hood saw through this as a stall for Suzanne’s lawyer, but he did it anyway.
The late-night line for the drive-through window was long, but Suzanne didn’t say a word. She leaned over and glared at him and ordered four kid’s meals and one adult combo. Then she sat back, dug into her bag and tossed a twenty onto Hood’s lap.
“Thank you.”
“Fuck off, Charlie.”
As soon as they walked into the safe house, Suzanne brushed past Marlon and the two deputies and locked herself in the bathroom. Hood remembered that the window in it was high and small.
He set the food on the dinette table. He heard the bathroom fan go on.
Marlon and the deputies sat at the table. Hood stood beside it, utterly at a loss.
Suzanne came out looking at her watch. “Eat up, children.”
She didn’t look at Hood as she took the adult bag to the couch, dropped it on the coffee table before her and sat.
“You can ask your questions while I eat.”
“I take it Charlie has filled you in,” said Marlon. He gave Hood a sharp look.
“Get to the point if you have one,” said Suzanne.
“I just have a couple of simple questions. One is, have you ever met this Allison Murrieta?”
“No comment.”
“Seen her on TV?”
“Of course.”
Suzanne shook her head and bit a French fry in half and leveled her gaze on Hood. He was surprised at the voltage of her anger.
Marlon waited with a hopeful look on his face. “You might not know this, but to some people, Allison Murrieta looks like you. You with a wig. Maybe it’s ridiculous to think that you’re her. But when a really unusual idea like that gets under my skin, it’s like a splinter I can’t get out. It bothers me.”
Suzanne took a bite of a sandwich, looked at Marlon. “I’m so glad you’re bothered.”
“Ms. Jones, what do you make of that resemblance?”
“Not one thing.”
“But you do see it?”
“Don’t try to lead me. You can’t.”
“If you can tell me where you were last night, we’re pretty much done here.”
“It’s none of your business. Where were you?”
Marlon opened his kid’s-meal bag and looked in. “Home. The truth is usually simple.”
Hood heard something outside and the doorbell rang. He opened the door and a small, stout woman held his look as she walked past him into the room. She wore yellow sweats and a yellow ball cap. He recognized her. Behind her came a large young man in a sharp black suit.
The men stood. She looked at them, and at Suzanne, then once more at Hood. The young man closed the door softly, then stood with his back to it and his hands folded like a deacon waiting for the plate.