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Uncomfortable at the sight, he tossed the comforter over the messy sheets. He found the bookcase, browsed the titles, these slightly more substantial, probably helpful in getting his mother to sleep on nights when she couldn’t sleep. Still no albums. He slid into the mood he went into at the old houses he had been entering. That perfume atomizer of ancient Chanel No. 5; she never used it and had kept it on her dresser for as long as he could remember.
Her closet door stood open, and up on a top shelf, six large decoupaged boxes sat in a row. They could hold shoes or-anything. He pulled them down, placing them on her bed. He opened the first one. Scarves and belts, neatly rolled. The second held tax records neatly labeled and bundled in rubber bands. With the third he hit pay dirt. Old photographs, an accumulation of memories, private ones. He had never seen these before.
“What the hell is going on here?” His mother stood in the door to her bedroom, hands on her hips.
Ray, saying nothing, plucked the pictures from Esmé’s bed, replacing them in the box neatly. He didn’t know what order the pictures originally took, so he made up an organization on the spot based on whether the pictures were black and white or faded color or brilliant color. That should constitute a kind of rough chronology.
His mother watched, saying nothing.
He placed the box neatly between two other boxes on the shelf in her bedroom, then closed the closet doors.
“All done?” she asked.
He straightened the bed, then straightened himself. “Yeah.”
“Follow me.”
He followed her into the living room where she opened a case that held many bottles of wine and poured herself a plastic tumbler. She didn’t offer him any. He didn’t sit down, though she arranged herself in her favorite chair. He had never before noticed this look she had now, a glower, like hot ash.
“You’re okay?” he said, folding his arms.
“Dandy.”
“You came to my house, and you were sick.”
She stared him down. “I’m fine now.”
“I can’t figure it out,” he said. “Just to start with: you’re drinking?”
“I drink.”
“Huh. You never have, in my experience.”
He watched in amazement and disapproval as she drank the wine down like water. It seemed to make her angrier.
“You’re here to collect the Holy Grail, aren’t you, son?”
“The Holy Grail?” he asked.
“Christ drank from it at the Last Supper. I’m guessing the imagery had to do with a holy vessel that held important information, or at the very least, holy water.” To his surprise, she went on to quote Te
“Mom, nobody cares about that old stuff. I want to know why you came to my house drunk, spent the night on my couch, and are here at your house now, nose red, eyes bloodshot, wrecked, not yourself. Mom?”
“I don’t know where Leigh is. Do you believe that?”
He didn’t disbelieve her. Why should she know? He couldn’t imagine how she might. “What about the rest of what’s going on? The recordings? Our very screwy past? I really thought-well, Mom, you came to my house. I presume you have things to tell me.”
“I have only one thing to tell you.”
“Shoot.”
“I want my keys back, Ray. Give them to me. I want you out of my home right now. I don’t want you coming here without my permission ever again.”
He took the keys to her house and handed them to her. She set them somberly on a side table in a small Italian plate she had bought at a flea market, blue and orange, flowery.
“I think you ought to see a doctor,” Ray said. “Let me take you.”
“I’m fine. Go home.”
“You’re not yourself.”
He didn’t like the way she laughed. “Oh, but I am,” she said. “Go on, now. The moment has passed.”
24
O utside, climbing into his car, Ray felt his mother’s eyes on him from behind her curtains. Even though she had demanded it, he imagined she must have hated his relinquishing the keys. This left her alone. Accelerating, backing out, heading in to work, Ray thought, you couldn’t feel good about that, being entirely alone. She was definitely ill-he should march in there and have it out and make her go with him-but there was Antoniou.
He decided to check on her by phone right after the meeting. He would pretend nothing had happened. She’d like that. She’d be feeling sorry by then.
“Did you call?” Kat’s voice on the cell phone. He was approaching the big cloverleaf that led toward the beach communities. “I want to know how it went with Rappaport.”
Kat must have heard his groan over the phone. “What’s happened?”
“I haven’t seen Rappaport yet. A couple more hours. I talked to him on the phone-”
“This can’t wait! It’s been more than twenty-four hours since we turned up that shirt! I’m going to call the police myself.”
“I’m on my way. No need.” That calmed her.
“Did something else happen?”
“I drove to Whittier to check on my mother. She poured herself two glasses of wine at eleven in the morning, and she kicked me out. Not to mention what she did last night at my house.”
“Tell me,” Kat said.
He told her.
“We’re all disintegrating.”
“Ah yes, Inspector Clouseau. That’s it, undoubtedly.”
Kat seemed to ponder on the other end of the line, unfazed by his sarcasm. “Does she like Leigh?”
“I think so. What has that got to do with anything?”
“You don’t know for sure?”
“I thought she did.”
“Did she love her, though? Maybe she’s suffering, too, because she’s worried.”
“I can’t understand this thing with the liquor. It’s not like her.”
“Leave her alone today,” Kat advised.
“But what if she falls? She’s all alone.”
“Jesus, Ray. Maybe you’re suffocating her with your dependency.”
“She’s the one who depends on me.”
“Really?”
“I have to go.”
“Wait. Listen, I got an idea. I want to go and talk to Mr. Hubbel again. Leigh’s father. But not with Mrs. Hubbel around. It’s all I know to do, Ray. I’m going to Whittier right after work.”
“What’s he going to tell you?”
“I don’t know. But he’s her father. Maybe he’ll remember something. Wa
“I can’t think about it right now.”
“Okay. Do what you have to do.”
Achilles Antoniou arrived promptly at one p.m., bursting through the conference room door without introduction. He looked hungover but his tan had deepened and the jeans and deck shoes were so new and so covered with fancy logos, he was still an ad for the good life after fifty.
“Where’s Martin?” was his question.
Martin had left the office at noon after another argument, so Ray just said, “Martin’s late. Let’s get started.”
Antoniou reared back as if attacked. “I need to see Martin.”
Ray tried hard not to react to the contempt in his voice. “Come on over and sit down, my friend. Have some coffee. You came to me originally because you thought I had something. You thought I understood what you wanted.”
Antoniou shuffled from foot to foot. He allowed himself to be led to the couch and took the excellent coffee.
“Let’s chat a little,” Ray said. “Drink some coffee. I’m sure Martin will be here any minute. I’ve been looking forward to showing you the playroom. The plans are right here on the table and we can look at them in a minute. I added some great new touches last night. I’m working hard for your approval, Achilles. That’s some boat you have, by the way. It’s got those clean modern lines, you know?”
“It’s a nice boat.”
“I admit I was surprised when you came back with Martin and asked for a specific design, nothing like what we discussed. I didn’t want to embarrass you in front of Martin, Achilles, but the whole Greek Mediterranean thing-save it for Greece, you know? The style is so out of it here in L.A. Spielberg’s doing modern. Weinstein’s doing modern. You know what Niarchos’s son is doing with his new place in Bel Air, Achilles?”