A long moment went by. Then he said, “I wasn’t judging you. I was just…a little awed. That’s all. I’m trying to help, okay?”
I watched people strolling past me. A group of teenagers, laughing through orthodontic-perfect smiles, sauntering in distressed jeans that probably cost two hundred dollars a pair. Men whose faces bore the marks of nothing worse than overstretched mortgage worries beat back by too much Botox. Women with bare liposuctioned midriffs and Herculean plastic breasts. A river of well-fed selfishness, a contagion of insecure conceit. I hated them. I hated all of them.
“You there?” I heard Kanezaki ask.
“Yeah.”
“If you don’t mind my saying, and you probably will, you seem like you’re on a short fuse lately.”
“You’re right, I mind.”
“I’m only bringing it up because…”
“Because what?”
“Never mind.”
“What? Just say it.”
He sighed. “Don’t push away the people who are trying to help you. You can’t afford it. And neither can our friend who’s in trouble.”
“Oh, now you’re trying to help me. Not use me. Help me.”
“Look, there’s something I want out of this, yes. I’ve been upfront with you about it. But that doesn’t mean…”
“That’s exactly what it means,” I shouted. “Exactly. When are you going to grow up and realize you can’t fucking have it both ways?”
I slammed down the phone and clenched my hands into fists, fighting the urge to smash something. A sound rumbled up out of my throat. It might have been a snarl.
I looked up and saw three husky college kids watching from five yards away. White, dressed like gangsta wannabes. I realized they had stopped because of my outburst.
“Chill, dude,” one of them said.
I stood perfectly still. Inside, a war raged: the need to avoid trouble so I could focus on Dox; the overwhelming urge to slaughter the three creatures looking at me like I was an animal in the zoo. I imagined myself tearing into them like a lawn mower up on its back wheels, slashing, ripping, gutting. I could almost hear their high-pitched wails of terror and surprise, could practically smell the hot blood pouring out of them. I gritted my teeth into an insane smile and stood staring at them, panting with the effort of holding back, praying for one of them to say something, do something, to tip the balance and make me lose control.
One of them smacked Mr. Chill on the back of the head and gave him a shove. “Let’s go, man,” he said. And Mr. Chill, perhaps guided by some reptile-brain recognition of the image of a predator just before it pounces, nodded and silently complied. The three of them walked away, and somehow I managed to let them.
I glanced around. A few other people in the area were studiously looking elsewhere. Goddamnit, I’d drawn attention to myself. Stupid. I pulled out a handkerchief and wiped down the phone receiver, obscuring the act with my torso, then walked away, keeping my head down.
I found another pay phone and called the toll-free number for Hilton hotels. Their property in Beverly Hills had a room available tonight, did I want that? I told them I did, and would be there shortly. One night was fine. I was just passing through.
I had the car for a week anyway, so I decided to hold on to it. It beat figuring out the bus system, or trying to get around by cabs. I had nowhere to go for two days. I might as well stay here.
The nav system took me onto the Santa Monica Boulevard and east toward Beverly Hills. I drove through alternating patches of feeble yellow light and serene urban darkness, the interior of the Mercedes strobing weakly with each passing lamppost. Fragments without were illuminated, revealed, then gone again: a shuffling homeless man, glancing up at me as indifferently as a sea creature outside a passing bathysphere. Shuttered storefronts, graffitied walls, construction sites suffocating under profusions of slapped-on posters. A homeless woman, sunk to her side in the shadows, her head in her hands, another soul swallowed up by the city.
A few miles from the hotel, as concrete gave way to palm trees and graffiti to the shiny windows of boutiques, I turned on my old cell phone to check the voice-mail account. Part of me hoped for a message from Delilah. Part of me dreaded it.
What I got, though, wasn’t a message. Just a second after I fired up the phone, it buzzed. I checked the readout, surprised, and saw that Delilah was calling me right then.
I hesitated for two full rings. Then I picked up and said, “Hey.”
“You’re hard to reach,” she said. “And you don’t return calls.”
I thought of several things to say. What came out was just, “Sorry.”
“You know how many times I’ve called you, hoping I’d catch you with your phone on?”
“A lot, I’m getting the feeling.”
“Any news?”
“Some. He’s okay for now.”
“Did you meet with…”
“I met him.”
“And?”
“I learned a few things. But not enough.”
“Where are you now?”
“I…” I started to say. Then, “I don’t know where I am.”
“I want to see you. Just tell me where.”
“I’m in California. But…”
“I have some time off. Tell me where on the bulletin board. I’ll fly out.”
I wanted her, and yet I didn’t. “You shouldn’t come,” I said. “You don’t want to be mixed up in this.”
“You told me you feel tied to me. Did you mean it?”
I sighed. “Christ, you’re stubborn.”
“Did you mean it?”
I didn’t say anything for a moment. Then: “You know I did.”
“Then I’m coming to see you. Just tell me where.”
“I’ve only got two days…”
“Post it now and I can be there tomorrow afternoon.”
A dozen more protestations came to mind. But I said only, “I need to get to a computer.”
“Okay. And give me the name you’re using. I’ll make a reservation somewhere and tell them to let you in. If you show them ID, you won’t have to wait for me.”
We were quiet for a moment. I said, “What are you wearing?”
She gave me a small laugh. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
My gut roiled with conflicting emotions. I waited, wanting to say something more, for her to say something more, but she had already clicked off.
I found an Internet café in West Hollywood and told Delilah I was in L.A. Then I went to the hotel. I used their business center to check the Air France website-a safe bet Delilah would be flying the national carrier if she wanted her choice of nonstops. There were two flights she could use. One got in at 3:50 in the afternoon, the next, a few hours later at 6:55.
I lay in bed for a long time, thinking, trying to unwind. I wanted to see her, but at the same time I was afraid to. Afraid of what she’d make of me. Which was stupid, of course. Why should I even care what she thought, or anyone else? And if anyone could understand…
No one can understand. No one.
Lying in another anonymous bed in another random hotel room, back in the life as though I’d never left it, I thought I should just let Delilah go. Already my relationship with her felt improbable, inapplicable, absurd. What could I have with her, anyway? Separate apartments in a foreign city, thoughts and lives that we couldn’t discuss?
It didn’t matter. Whatever we had, it was gone, another moment alchemized to memory. I should just accept that. I should just move on, alone. It was all I was ever good for. It was all I could really trust.
18
DELILAH ARRIVED at LAX at a little before four in the afternoon California time. It was almost one in the morning now in Paris, but she’d napped on the flight and didn’t feel tired at all. Flying west was easy. It was the trip back that could be a little rough.
She was carrying only a shoulder bag, a dark brown Bottega Veneta in classic woven leather, and was in a cab less than twenty minutes after touching down. She told the driver, a twentysomething with a nice smile who she guessed was from West Africa, to take her to the Beverly Wilshire, although the reservation she’d made was in fact at the Bel-Air. Unlikely anyone was waiting at the airport to try to follow her, but she wanted a chance to confirm anyway before going on to her true destination.