Innocent Blood (15 page)

Frank opened his billfold and gave him a twenty. The old man grinned and showed his four mahogany teeth. ‘You're a generous man, Frank. Your generosity will pay you back one day. Not this year. Maybe not next year, neither. But one day, when you least expect it.'

He went hobbling off along the sidewalk and disappeared around the next corner. Frank told himself that his appearance had been nothing more than a coincidence. After all, he must spend all day panhandling up and down the coast, annoying people. And what kind of spiritual guidance was ‘put one foot in front of the other'? You could get better advice out of a fortune cookie.

Frank climbed out of the car, went across to Astrid's door and rang the bell. There was no answer so he waited a minute and then rang it again.

‘Who is it?' said a voice over the intercom.

‘It's Frank. I've come to see Astrid.'

‘Astrid? There's no Astrid here.'

‘Is this apartment three?'

‘That's right, apartment three.'

‘You must be Carla. I've come to see the girl you share with. I think she must have given me a different name.'

‘There's nobody here but me.'

‘You mean she's out? Can I leave her a message?'

‘I mean nobody
lives
here but me.'

‘Excuse me? There has to be. I visited her yesterday afternoon.'

‘You must have made a mistake. Maybe another apartment. Nobody lives here but me.'

‘Listen – please. She has short brown hair and blue eyes. She wears rings on her toes.'

The intercom clicked off. Frank pressed the bell again, and then again, and then again, but Carla wouldn't answer. He stepped back and tried to look up to the second story, but the dark green shutters were all closed. Eventually he climbed back into his car.

What the hell is happening here? I know I didn't make a mistake
.
Not unless Astrid didn't really share the apartment at all. Maybe she found out that Carla was away in Europe for a few days, and crashed in it without asking.

The trouble was, he had no way of contacting Astrid now. He didn't know her telephone number. He didn't even know her surname. It suddenly occurred to him that he might never see her again.

He drove back to Hollywood, to the Sunset Marquis Hotel on Alta Loma Road, a short, steeply sloping street that climbed from Holloway Drive to Sunset.

‘How long will you be you staying with us, Mr Bell?' the receptionist asked him. She had tightly braided blonde hair and unnervingly wide-apart eyes.

‘I'm not sure. At least a week. Maybe the rest of my life. It all depends on . . . you know . . . fate.'

‘Fate,' the receptionist repeated. She didn't seem at all mystified. A lot of rock stars stayed at the Sunset Marquis.

His second-story room was sunny and painted yellow, with splashy floral prints on the wall. He opened all the windows so that the warm midday breeze could blow in, and then he took a can of beer out of the icebox and sat in one of the big stripy armchairs and closed his eyes.

Shouldn't lose your nerve, Frank. No good ever came of losing your nerve
.

He was woken by a quiet rapping at the door. For a split second he didn't know where he was, and he thought that it was Margot rapping on the door of his study.

‘What time is it?' he asked. But of course it wasn't Margot, and he was still here, in his room at the Sunset Marquis.

The rapping was repeated. He heaved himself out of his chair and went to answer it.

‘Yes?'

‘Room service.'

He opened the door. It was Astrid. She stepped straight past him into the room and did a twirl.

‘Hey! Nice place! She said that I would probably find you here.'

‘Who did?'

‘Your secretary.'

‘My secretary? You called my office?'

‘I went round to your home first but your wife said that you'd packed your bags and moved out.'

‘You saw Margot?' Or rather, he thought, Margot saw
you
, with your tight white T-shirt and your tan leather mini-skirt and your tan leather ankle boots with the high spiky heels.

Astrid laughed. ‘Oh, yes, I saw Margot all right. What
happened
between you two?' She put on Margot's snappy don't-talk-to-me-like-that tone. ‘“I don't know where Frank is and quite frankly, my dear, I don't
give
a damn.” Or words to that effect.'

‘We had another row. It's the shock, I guess, and the grief. It's a goddamned mess. It's going to take us a long time to get over losing Danny.'

Astrid looked in the icebox. ‘You don't mind if I help myself to a glass of wine?'

‘Sure, I'll do it.' He took out a bottle of Chilean rosé, pulled out the cork, and poured her a glass.

She lifted it up and said, ‘Mud in your eye.' For the first time he noticed that she had a sprinkling of light-brown freckles across the bridge of her nose. She looked into his eyes while she was drinking as if she could tell exactly what was thinking.

‘I was looking for you,' he told her. ‘I went to Carla's place first.'

‘I thought you might.'

‘So why did you make out that you live there when you don't?'

‘I
did
live there. It's just that I don't live there now.'

‘I see. So where have you moved to?'

‘Does it matter?'

‘No, I suppose it doesn't. Maybe I'm just being old-fashioned.'

She sat down on the couch. Her leather skirt was so short that he could see a triangle of purple lace thong. ‘You're not old-fashioned, Frank. Not at all. You have wings but you've never learned how to
fly
. You were successful too young, you were married too young, you became a daddy too young. All that responsibility. All that weight. You've never had the chance to be
you
.'

‘Well, that's not so easy. How can I be me when I don't even know who I am?'

She reached out and traced a circle around the dimple on his chin, around and around. ‘I think it's time you found out, don't you?'

‘It's Danny's funeral on Wednesday. Maybe when that's over . . .'

‘He's gone, Frank. I know how much you loved him, but you have to start thinking about what you're going to do next.
You
.'

‘Yes, I understand that. The trouble is . . .' He felt exhausted and confused and he was finding it very hard to swallow. They drank their drinks in silence for a while. Then Frank said, ‘We held the séance.'

‘Oh, yes? I was going to ask you about that.'

‘It worked. He did it. Nevile Strange. He actually put us in touch.'

‘You talked to Danny's spirit?'

‘Much more than that. We
saw
Danny, actually saw him, standing outside the window. We all did. Margot, Nevile, me, Margot's friend.'

‘That's unbelievable. You're sure it wasn't a trick?'

‘If it was, I can't think how the hell it was done. But the worst part about it was that Danny told me that he couldn't forgive me.'

Astrid carried on stroking his cheek, and then she ran her fingers into his hair. ‘You shouldn't take it to heart. Nevile Strange is probably a fraud, in any case.'

‘Astrid, I saw Danny with my own eyes.'

‘You
thought
you did. But maybe he was only a projection, something like that. I mean, he might have
looked
as if he was standing outside the window, but supposing Nevile Strange was shining an image on to the glass?'

‘It was Danny. Where was he going to get hold of an image of Danny?'

‘He probably didn't. But you wanted the image to be Danny so you believed that it was.'

‘No, I don't buy that. It couldn't have been a projection. Besides, he didn't have any equipment with him, not even a briefcase.'

‘Maybe he set it up beforehand, outside in the yard. Maybe he
hypnotized
you.'

Frank got up and popped open another can of beer. ‘I know what I saw, Astrid.'

‘And Danny didn't forgive you?'

‘No.'

‘So why do you think that Danny didn't forgive you?'

‘Because I left him in the back seat of my car, didn't I? Bleeding to death. He called me and called me but I didn't come.'

‘Maybe Danny's spirit wouldn't forgive you because that was a sure-fire way for Nevile Strange to persuade you to go back for another séance?'

He slowly shook his head. ‘I thought
I
was cynical.'

‘I'm not being cynical, Frank. I'm being realistic. Before you lost Danny, did you believe that dead people could come back and talk to you? Did you believe in spirits?'

‘No, I didn't.'

‘You believed that when people died, that was it, that was the end of them?'

‘That's right.'

‘But now you've changed your mind, just like so many other people change their minds when they lose somebody they love.'

‘I know what I saw, Astrid. I know what I heard.'

‘If you say so. But Nevile Strange is a very clever man. He knows how to play on people's expectations. Even the police. Do you really believe that people leave a psychic resonance in their sunglasses?'

‘I'm very tired, Astrid.'

She knelt up on the couch and took his can of beer away from him. ‘You should rest,' she said, and she started to unbutton his shirt.

‘Hey,' he said.

She paused for a moment and stared at him. ‘You need this, Frank. You need somebody to take care of you. For once in your life, stop trying to be responsible for everything that goes on around you.'

He could have told her to stop. He could have told her to go and leave him alone. But somehow he couldn't find the strength, or the will. When she carried on unbuttoning his shirt, he didn't resist. He just lay back and watched her eyes, as if they would explain why she wanted him so much. But her eyes were as pale blue as ever, as empty as a windy sky, and they gave away nothing at all.

She unbuckled his Gucci belt and tugged out his shirt tails. She smoothed her hands over his bare chest, rolling his nipples between finger and thumb. ‘I love skinny men,' she said. ‘All those ribs. They feel like Jesus.'

She lifted him up off the cushion and pulled his shirt over his head. Then she kissed him on the forehead, three times. ‘I anoint thee. I anoint thee. I anoint thee.'

She twisted around, lifted up his legs one after the other, and took off his bright red socks. ‘You know what red socks mean? They mean you're going to travel to hell and back.'

‘I didn't know that.'

‘That's because you've never been there.'

Next she drew down his zipper and began to work his pants down over his hips. Under his white Calvin Klein shorts he was stiffening already, but she ignored it until she had taken his pants off completely and bundled them over the back of the couch. Then she sat next to him, and gently laid her hand on his erection. She looked at him and he looked at her.

‘You're not used to this, are you?'

‘No.'

‘It's about time you allowed other people to take charge of you, once in a while. You can trust them, you know.'

‘What do you want from me?'

‘If I told you, you wouldn't understand.'

‘Try me.'

She leaned forward and kissed him on the tip of the nose, and then on the lips. ‘First of all, I want you to enjoy being with me.'

‘Then what?'

‘That'll do for now.'

Without explaining herself any further, she pulled down his shorts, so that his cock rose up into the air, steadily beating in time with his pulse. She took hold of it in her left hand and squeezed it hard, so that the glans turned dark purple and the opening gaped.

‘Eve was tempted by an apple,' she said, smiling. ‘But I prefer plums.' She stuck out her tongue and licked him all around, until his glans gleamed with her saliva. She lifted her head and stared at him, and there was still a trail of saliva connecting the tip of her tongue to his cock.

Then she ran her tongue all the way down his shaft until she reached his tight, wrinkled balls. She lifted each of them up in turn, and took them between her lips, and gently sucked them. Frank slid his fingers into her hair, but she gave an impatient little shake of her head to indicate that it was
her
turn first, and that all he was supposed to do was lie back and enjoy it.

She slid her tongue upward again, then opened her mouth wide and swallowed his cock so deeply that he thought it was going to choke her. She sucked him up and down, the tip of her tongue pattering, and he closed his eyes.
God, what's happening to me? In the midst of all this grief and unhappiness, bliss.

And it wasn't just the erotic feelings that she was giving him. It was her closeness, and her flowery smell, and the fact that she was caring for him. He had never cried during love-making before, but now the tears were sliding from his eyes as he became overwhelmed with emotion. She gave him a last lingering suck, and then she sat up, still holding his cock in her left hand, her lips shining and her face bright.

‘You're crying,' she said, triumphantly. ‘I knew that you would.'

With her right hand, she wrestled off her T-shirt, revealing a lacy purple bra. ‘I'll let you do that,' she said hoarsely. He reached behind her to unfasten it and her big round breasts fell out of the cups with a deliciously complicated double sway. The areolas around her nipples were as wide as fallen rose petals, and the same faded pink color, edged with brown.