Christietown (16 page)

very day, after breakfasting in bed with the London news

papers, Agatha took the beneficial waters known as the Cure. The saline sulfur bath was good for gout, rheumatism, and

hepatic disorders. The sulfur foam bath treated obesity. The alkaline sulfur bath was used mainly for skin diseases. The alkaline sulfur electric bath featured constant, interrupted,

sinusoidal currents to combat muscle weakness and atrophy. The thermo-paraffin wax bath eased stiff and painful limbs. The peat baths addressed lumbago and sciatica. If you weren’t already half-dead, it might be enough to kill

you.

The Harrogate Massage Douche was the worst. You’d perch on a wooden stool as a continuous needle spray was directed at your spine and you were massaged by an attendant wielding a warm douche in a flexible tube. Useful for gout, arthritis, and lumbago, none of which she suffered from.

Still, one had to fill the day
.
And so she would sit, in the pleated bathing costume and ca
p

she’d ordered from town, staring down at the intricately tiled black-and-white floor, the water beating down on her back like punishment.

She accepted the punishment as her due
.
She wondered if it meant she were brave
.
No. She wasn’t brave
.
What she was was a bit of a masochist
.

C
HAPTER
2
4

hat night I had three surprises for Gambino.
The first was, I’d picked a tentative date for our wed
ding, four weeks hence. Father Joe was free. Our neighbor Butch gave me his word that the backyard would be done. Bridget wrote the date in her calendar in permanent marker, and asked if she should have a lining sewn into the sheer Greek goddess dress she’d picked out for me (yes). Lael said she and whoever she was sleeping with at the time wouldn’t miss it for the world, which was very comforting. Annie was ecstatic. Gambino’s partner, Tico, and Tico’s wife, Hilda, had no prior commitments. And my mother didn’t return my call, which made it perfect.

The second surprise was, I’d paid a visit to Trashy Lingerie. The Cherry Bomb collection worked like a dream.

The third surprise was, I’d rented
Chinatown
, which we put on once we got our second wind, around one
A.M
.

“Look at that!” said Gambino admiringly.

I rubbed my own nose. “You’re a savage.”

“Roman Polanski played the thug who cut Jack Nicholson.” Gambino shoved a handful of popcorn in his mouth. “It was a trick knife. They make ’em with special hinged blades that only bend in one direction. But if they put the blade in the wrong way—” He ran his finger across his throat.

“Ssh,” I said, grabbing his hand. “You’re distracting me.” As if anybody could resist Faye Dunaway in noir-ish widow’s weeds, with penciled-on eyebrows and Cupid’s-bow lips. Ali MacGraw, who was married to the film’s producer, Robert Evans, was supposed to play the part of Evelyn Mulwray, but she lost it when she left Evans for Steve McQueen, which actually sounded like a fair trade to me. And when you come right down to it, who wants to see Ali MacGraw in anything other than a poncho, plaid miniskirt, and knit cap? I won
dered when Bridget had last seen this movie. She’d go crazy for Faye Dunaway’s cream-colored suit with the gray trim. Anthea Sylbert was the costume designer. This was the second movie she’d done with Polanski, after their collaboration on
Rosemary’s Baby
. Anthea Sylbert had been the one who’d put Mia Farrow in baby-doll dresses, which got shorter and shorter as Satan’s minions closed in on her. But Anthea Sylbert outdid herself in
Chinatown
. It wasn’t just Faye Dunaway. It was the parched colors of private investigator Jake Gittes’s suits, which made your teeth feel sticky and your mouth dry.

Water.

Chinatown
was about water.

After getting his nose cut and following numerous false leads, Jake Gittes learns that corrupt water officials have been blowing up tanks, putting poison down wells, and diverting irrigation water to cause a drought, allowing speculators to grab valley lands cheaply pending the construction of a res
ervoir, which would pump water to those lands, driving their value back up exponentially.

Without a steady water supply, the land’s worth nothing, he explains to Evelyn.

With water, it’s worth tens of millions.

That’s Chinatown, Jake.

Which got me thinking about why exactly Ian Christie had received a message from the Antelope Valley East Kern Water Project about a “failure to perform.” Maybe Liz saw that mes
sage. Maybe she was there the day Ian’s assistant received it. Bridget said that Liz had been out to Christietown on several occasions, to prepare for her role in the play. Could she have been blackmailing Ian? Or Dov? About what? What exactly had failed to perform?

I heard snoring. It had taken Gambino all of two minutes to fall asleep. I leaned over him to get the phone and punched in Lou’s number. I knew I’d be waking him up (Lou, not Gambino, who slept like a log), but I needed to know if Liz had said anything to him that might shed some light on the situation.

Unfortunately, the line was busy, which was odd consider
ing it was three o’clock in the morning.

C
HAPTER
2
5

_S
even
A.M
. came in the blink of an eye.
My goal for the day was to pretend that everything was normal. I fed the pets. I made a pot of coffee. I kissed Gambino good-bye. I popped two Advil. I read the op-eds, then flipped to “My Favorite Weekend,” which is at the back of the
L.A. Times
calendar section every Thursday. I am addicted to “My Favorite Weekend” mostly because I find it curious that everybody’s favorite weekend—whether they’re symphony conductors, sitcom actors, pro-ball players, or indie-band guitarists—is exactly the same. Saturday morn
ing, it’s pancakes with the kids; Saturday afternoon, it’s biking, hiking, Rollerblading, or antiquing in the Santa Monica Mountains, Venice boardwalk, Griffith Park, or Rose Bowl Flea Market; Saturday night, it’s a babysitter and Italian for dinner, followed by drinks at a funky jazz spot. On Sunday, there’s dinner with friends and family by the pool, maybe some grilled steaks and scampi. I didn’t understand why nobody ever

wanted to ditch the friends and family and hang out behind the 7-Eleven. Or gamble. Or set small fires.

Today’s subject, however, was a woman with a show on the Food Network who spent most of her favorite weekend in L.A. in Solvang, buying clogs and eating
aebleskiver
. This woman didn’t have a pool. On Sunday, she liked to visit a Hindu temple in Agoura Hills.

So much for pretending things were normal.

It seemed like a sign.

I picked up the phone and punched in the number of the Antelope Valley East Kern Water Project.

“How may I direct your call?” asked the receptionist, who’d answered before I’d had a chance to think through my story.

“Hi!” I said too loudly. “How are you? I’m calling from Christietown. I work for Ian Christie.” Not a lie.

“Yes?”

“I believe you left a message for him a couple of days ago.” Also true. I sneezed.

“Yes?”

Then I coughed. “Sorry. I’ve been kind of sick.”

“Something awful is going around,” she conceded. “Hong Kong flu or something.”

“Right! Hong Kong flu. Anyway, I’ve had this Hong Kong flu thing, and then my husband broke his leg, so I’ve been a little preoccupied and didn’t write down the message properly. It’s just that my boss is a little skittish, and I don’t want to get it wrong.”

Pause. “Why don’t I go ahead and connect you with Mr. Knight?”

There were a million reasons why she shouldn’t go ahead and connect me with Mr. Knight, but that was beside the point
because mere seconds later a man’s voice boomed, “Teenie? Harry here. How are you?”

Teenie? What kind of name was Teenie? Ian’s assistant didn’t look like a Teenie. And why were Teenie and Harry on a first-name basis anyway?

He went on, “I was just about to mail you folks the follow-up. It’s a whole report, actually. Lots of pages. Are you heading this way anytime soon? Save us the postage.”

“Actually, Harry”—the wheels were turning now—“we have a new gal working for us. Great gal. Her name is Cece. Why don’t I have her come by for them?”

“Oh,” he said, sounding disappointed. “The truth is, I wouldn’t mind seeing you, Teenie. It’s always the highlight of my day.”

I scratched my head. I had a bad feeling about this.

Harry’s voice dropped to a whisper. “What about that drink you promised me? Are we still on for next week? You don’t need to worry. Whatever happens between us stays between us.”

Don’t do it, Teenie! You’re a married woman and your hus
band has a broken leg! “Here’s the thing,” I said. “We don’t want to do anything we might regret.”

He sighed. “I was afraid you’d say that.”

“You were?”

“Yes. And of course, you’re right.”

“I am?”

“Yes.” He cleared his throat. “Guilt is a destructive emo
tion. I’m already unhappy enough. Do I really need that kind of negativity? I don’t think so.”

“It’s not that you’re not an attractive man,” I said, imme
diately berating myself for not leaving things well enough alone.

“No, no. I understand. It’s good you’re sending Cece. No need to make it any harder than it has to be.”

“It’s for the best.”

“Good-bye, Teenie,” he said, his voice breaking.

I’d missed the morning rush, so it took me a little less than an hour and a half to get there. The Antelope Valley East Kern Water Project was located in one of those soul-destroying office parks. Even the shrubbery looked alienated. It was that grayish-green Javier was always trying to talk me into. The security guard gave me a visitor’s badge and had me sign the guest register. I caught a glimpse of myself on the video moni
tor, pen in hand, and had the odd, fleeting sensation that I was watching a cop show, and the tall woman in the clingy navy blue knit dress and matching beret was about to be busted. But I hadn’t done anything. Not yet, at least.

My red suede platforms clicked loudly on the polished stone floor as I strode across the main lobby and out the rear door, in search of Building C. In the middle of the wind-whipped quad stood a lone cappuccino cart manned by a tired-looking woman in a parka. As I passed, she called out, “The machine’s broken. All we’ve got is Snapple today.” I told her I wasn’t thirsty, but thanks.

Building C faced the mountains and the heating and air equipment. The sniffling receptionist had a thick manila enve
lope waiting for me. There was an awkward moment when she looked at my visitor’s badge and noticed that I spelled my name “Cece,” whereas the name scrawled on the envelope was “Ceci.” I reassured her that surprisingly few people know that “cecis” are garbanzo beans.

Two minutes later, I was turning in my badge, signing out, and fleeing with the contraband. Of course, once I found out
what was inside, and who or what had failed to perform, I’d have to hand this stuff over to Ian with some cockamamy story about how I happened to have it, but that was my next problem.