He took an exit ramp off the freeway past a café that catered to truckers. It made him think of Gunther. Gunther loved truck stops, claiming that they must serve the best food in town or so many truckers wouldn’t stop there. He was probably parked at one right now, eating a hamburger oozing grease and bleeding ketchup and drinking a cup of dishwater coffee. He would sit quietly at the counter, looking completely absorbed in his own thoughts. No one would suspect that he was listening to several conversations simultaneously and would finally settle on one as a target and focus his ears on it, filtering out the other voices and sounds, the rattle of dishes and pots and pans, the local radio station transmitting the hysterical screams of rock singers and the nasal three-chord self-pity of cowboys riding guitars.
Gunther was a gifted eavesdropper. In addition to his acuity of hearing, he had a genuine interest in other people, a detached interest unclouded by approval or disapproval. Just as surely as his ears focused on one thing so did his mind. He had tunnel vision, tunnel hearing, tunnel thinking, and he would eat the hamburger without tasting it and catch the odor of onions and garlic and cologne over sweat without smelling any of them.
Donnelly was irritated that he was thinking of Gunther, but Gunther would not be thinking of him. (“Donnelly? Donnelly who?”) The fact that Gunther would not be thinking of Lucy either offered some solace.
The Donnellys lived in the house built by Zan’s grandfather. It was in an old, established section of the city, off limits to nouveaux riches because no more land was available for construction and the existing houses were sold under restrictions that were illegal and hence never publicly acknowledged but were strictly adhered to. A property seldom changed owners, and when it did, the new owner would be basically the same as the old. Rich white Republicans were replaced by rich white Republicans. It was the kind of neighborhood the district attorney would like to live in and Donnelly hated. But he needed its protection as well as Zan’s protection. No one questioned his background, position in life or the way he voted, although some people were surprised at the kind of client he chose to represent.
The iron gates opened at the touch of a button under the dashboard of his car and closed again behind him. He drove around the side of the house to the garage, which had once been part of the stables for the family’s horses. The horses were long since gone and had been replaced by Zan’s two Jaguars, a golf cart, a sailboat and the housekeeper’s VW convertible.
The old three-story house was spangled with lights. Donnelly knew this was not intended as a welcome home for him but was simply the result of no one’s caring enough to turn the lights off, certainly not Zan and almost as certainly not the housekeeper, whose contract stated that she didn’t have to lift a finger after eight o’clock at night.
He turned off the lights in each room as he went through the hall and up the stairs. Zan’s bedroom door was partly open. This was not a welcome home any more than the lights had been. She’d simply forgotten to close it.
Zan was asleep in her four-poster canopied bed, lying on her side, her hair falling across her face. She looked unreal, a wax profile on a pink satin pillow, and under a pink blanket was a collection of bones not yet assembled. (Assemble this yourself! No tools required! Amazingly lifelike! Batteries extra. Money-back guarantee!)
Her breathing was labored and irregular, fast, slow, stopping completely for two or three seconds, then hurrying to catch up.
“Zan?”
A tortoiseshell cat curled up at the foot of the bed began to purr at the sound of a voice. But the purring was purely reflexive and no more a welcome than the lights left on or Zan’s door left open. If he touched the cat, it would get up, arch its boneless back and move away. If he touched Zan, she would wake up moaning.
On the table beside her bed was a glass half filled with water and a bottle of capsules. He picked up the bottle and read the label. “Nembutal 1½ grains, Dr. Casberg.” Dr. Casberg’s office was in Westwood, and he had issued the prescription to Sarah Killeen, the name of the Donnellys’ housekeeper.
Donnelly had no way of knowing how many capsules Zan had swallowed, but obviously it was enough to counteract the amphetamines. Zan was no longer a human being. She had become a battleground in a war between amphetamines and barbiturates, and the battleground was already strewn with dead and dying cells.
He stood looking down at her, feeling the terrible responsibility of doing something he was incapable of doing, saving her life.
“Zan, don’t,” he said in a whisper. “Don’t kill yourself like this. I never meant to hurt you in any way. I wanted to love you. I don’t know what happened. But please don’t do this to yourself.”
He put the bottle of Nembutal in his pocket. Then he began a systematic search of her bureau and desk drawers, looking for other containers of pills and capsules, not sure what the names would be either of the drugs or of the doctors who’d prescribed them.
Zan’s drawers were as confused as her life. The housekeeper and maids had probably been instructed not to touch them. Panty hose and nightgowns were entangled with slips, pieces of costume jewelry, bottles of perfume, golf socks, handkerchiefs, keys, letters, bras, cachets. He found twenty-nine containers of different drugs prescribed by a number of different doctors. There were also two soiled unlabeled envelopes containing capsules which were probably street drugs. He put them all in the pockets of his jacket, Dexedrine, Desoxyn, Plegine, Percodan, Valium, Tenuate, Seconal. He had no plan what to do with them except check out the various doctors named. The only name he recognized was that of Zan’s own doctor, who had prescribed the Percodan. The checking would have to be done by either himself or Gunther since he couldn’t afford to let the office staff start any further gossip.
He began walking across the room, and with each step he took, the plastic bottles clicked against one another in his pockets. He felt like a burglar. He had, in fact, committed an act of burglary. He refused to think of the consequences of his act or to consider putting the stuff back in her drawers and letting her go on her way, undisturbed. He felt he must make an attempt to stop her destructiveness. Talking did no good. Self-control, willpower, discipline, these words had never meant much to her; now they meant nothing. Direct action was necessary. Her sources of supply must be dried up. It would be easy enough to contact the doctors whose names were on the labels and give them a warning. The street drugs in the envelopes were another matter. How had she gotten hold of them? She avoided even driving through those sections of the city where drug transactions were routine. In fact, she seldom left the house, so her supplier must be someone who could deliver them to her, a maid, a gardener, a mechanic at the foreign car service garage, an operator at the beauty salon where she had her hair and nails done, a clerk in one of the dress shops, a grocery deliveryman.
He closed Zan’s door and went back down the stairs, past the library with his collection of lawbooks, the formal dining room, where the bouquets on the long mahogany table were changed daily though no one had eaten there for years, the family dining room, the kitchen and, at the end of the hall, the housekeeper’s quarters, a bedroom, sitting room and bath.
He knocked on the door. A dog barked and was ordered to be quiet.
“Who is it?”
“Charles Donnelly.”
“It’s after eight o’clock.”
“I know.”
“I’m off duty. My contract specifically states that I am not obliged to perform any services after eight o’clock.”