From the Corner of His Eye

  “Oh, bummer. That sucks. Man, I hate this war.”

  The blonde was coming on to him, just as a score of other women had done since his arrival, so Junior tried to balance seduction with information gathering. Putting his hand over the hand with which she was gently massaging his thigh, he said, “I knew her brother in Nam. Then I got wounded, shipped out, lost touch. Like to find him.”

  Bewildered, the blonde said, “Whose brother?”

  “Celestina White’s.”

  “She have a brother?”

  “Great guy. Do you have an address for her, a way maybe I could get in touch about her brother?”

  “I didn’t know her well. She didn’t hang out or party much—especially after the baby.”

  “So she’s married,” Junior said, figuring that maybe Celestina wasn’t his heart mate, after all.

  “Could be. I haven’t seen her in a while.”

  “No, I mean, you said ‘baby.’”

  “Oh. No, her sister. But then the sister died.”

  “Yeah, I know. But—”

  “So Celestina took it.”

  “It?”

  “The kid-thing, the baby.”

  Junior forgot all about seduction. “And she—what?—She adopted her sister’s baby?”

  “Weird, huh?”

  “Little boy named Bartholomew?” he asked.

  “I never saw it.”

  “But his name was Bartholomew?”

  “For all I know, it was Piss-ant.”

  “What?”

  “I’m saying, for all I know.” She took her hand off his thigh. “What’s all this about Celestina, anyway?”

  “Excuse me,” Junior said.

  He left the party and stood in the street for a while, taking slow deep breaths, letting the brisk night air clean the pot smoke out of his lungs, slow deep breaths, suddenly sober in spite of the beer he’d drunk, slow deep breaths, as chilled as a slab of beef in a meat locker, but not because of the cold night.

  He was astonished that adoption records would be sealed and so closely guarded when a child was being placed with a member of its immediate family, with its mother’s sister.

  Only two explanations occurred to him. First, bureaucracies slavishly follow the rules even when the rules make no sense. Second, the Ugliest Private Detective in the World, Nolly Wulfstan, was an incompetent dunce.

  Junior didn’t care which explanation was correct. Only one thing mattered: The Bartholomew hunt was at last nearing an end.

  On Wednesday, December 27, Junior met Google, the document forger, in a theater, during a matinee of Bonnie and Clyde.

  As instructed earlier by phone, Junior purchased a large box of Raisinets and a box of Milk Duds at the refreshment stand, and then he sat in one of the last three rows in the center section, eating the Milk Duds, grimacing at the sticky noises his shoes made when he moved them on the tacky floor, and waiting for Google to find him.

  Packed full of aftermath, the movie was too violent for Junior’s taste. He had wanted to meet at a showing of Doctor Dolittle or The Graduate. But Google, as paranoid as a lab rat after half a lifetime of electroshock experiments, insisted on choosing the theater.

  Although he related well to the theme of moral relativism and personal autonomy in a value-neutral world, Junior grew apprehensive about each impending scene of violence, and closed his eyes against the prospect of blood. He resented having to endure ninety minutes of the film before Google finally settled into the seat beside him.

  The forger’s crossed eyes glowed with reflected light from the screen. He licked his rubbery lips, and his prominent Adam’s apple bobbled: “Like to drain my pipes in that Faye Dunaway, huh?”

  Junior regarded him with undisguised repulsion.

  Google didn’t realize that he was an object of disgust. He wiggled his eyebrows in what he evidently assumed to be an expression of male camaraderie, and he nudged Junior with one elbow.

  Only a few theatergoers attended the matinee. No one sat near, so Google and Junior openly swapped packages: a five-by-six manila envelope to Google, a nine-by-twelve to Junior.

  The papermaker withdrew a thick wad of hundred-dollar bills from his envelope and, squinting, inspected the currency in the flickering light. “I’m leaving now, but you wait until the movie’s over.”

  “Why don’t I go, and you wait?”

  “’Cause if you try that, I’ll ram a shiv through your eye.”

  “It was just a question,” said Junior.

  “And, listen, if you leave too soon behind me, I’ve got a guy watching, and he’ll put a hollow-point thirty-eight in your ass.”

  “It’s just that I hate this movie.”

  “You’re nuts. It’s classic. Hey, you eat those Raisinets?”

  “Told you on the phone, I don’t like ’em.”

  “Gimme.”

  Junior gave the Raisinets to him, and Google left the theater with his candy and his cash.

  The slow-motion death ballet, in which Bonnie and Clyde were riddled with bullets, was the worst moment Junior had ever heard in a film. He didn’t see more than a brief glimpse of it, because he sat with his eyes squeezed shut.

  Nine days previously, at Google’s instructions, Junior had rented boxes at two mail-receiving services, using the name John Pinchbeck at one, Richard Gammoner at the other, and then he had supplied those addresses to the papermaker. These were the two identities for which Google ultimately provided elaborate and convincing documentation.

  On Thursday, December 28, employing forged driver’s licenses and social-security cards as identification, Junior opened small savings accounts and also rented safe-deposit boxes for Pinchbeck and Gammoner at different banks with which he’d never previously done business, using the mailing addresses that he’d established earlier.

  In each savings account, he deposited five hundred dollars in cash. He tucked twenty thousand in crisp new bills into each safe-deposit box.

  For Gammoner, exactly as for Pinchbeck, Google had provided: a driver’s license that was actually registered with the California Department of Motor Vehicles, and that would, therefore, stand up to any cop’s inspection; a legitimate social-security card; a birth certificate actually on file with the cited courthouse; and an authentic, valid passport.

  Junior kept both forged driver’s licenses in his wallet, in addition to the one that featured his real name. He stowed everything else in Pinchbeck’s and Gammoner’s safe-deposit boxes, along with the emergency cash.

  He also concluded arrangements to open an account for Gammoner in a Grand Cayman Island bank and one for Pinchbeck in Switzerland.

  That evening, he was filled with a greater sense of adventure than he’d felt since arriving in the city from Oregon. Consequently, he treated himself to three glasses of a superb Bordeaux and a filet mignon in the same elegant hotel lounge where he had dined on his first night in San Francisco, almost three years earlier.

  The glittering room appeared unchanged. Even the piano player seemed to be the man who’d been at the keyboard back then, though his yellow-rose boutonniere and probably his tuxedo, as well, were new.

  A few attractive women were here alone, proof that social mores had changed dramatically in three years. Junior was aware of their hot gazes, their need, and he knew that he could have any of them.

  The stress that he currently felt wasn’t the same that he so often relieved with women. This was an energizing tension, a not-unpleasant tightening of the nerves, a delicious anticipation that he wanted to experience to its fullest—until the gallery reception for Celestina, on the evening that her show opened, January 12. This tension could not be released by intercourse, but only by the killing of Bartholomew, and when that long-sought moment arrived, Junior expected the relief he experienced would far exceed mere orgasm.

  He had considered tracking down Celestina—and the bastard boy—prior to her exhibition. The alumni office of her college might be one route to her. And further inquiries
in the city’s fine-arts community would no doubt eventually provide him with her address.

  Following little Bartholomew’s murder, however, people might remember the man who had been asking after the mother, Celestina. Junior wasn’t just any man, either; irresistibly handsome, he left an indelible impression on people, especially on women. Inevitably, the cops would be knocking on his door, sooner or later.

  Of course, he had the Pinchbeck and Gammoner identities waiting, two escape hatches. But he didn’t want to use them. He liked his life on Russian Hill, and he was loath to leave it.

  Since he knew where Celestina would be on January 12, there was no point in taking risks to find her sooner. He had plenty of time to prepare for their encounter, time to savor the sweet anticipation.

  Junior was paying his dinner check and calculating the tip when the pianist launched into “Someone to Watch over Me.” Although he’d expected it all evening, he twitched when he recognized the tune.

  As he’d proved to himself on his previous two visits—his first night in town and then two nights thereafter—this number was merely part of the pianist’s repertoire. Nothing supernatural here.

  Nevertheless, when he signed the credit-card form, his signature looked shaky.

  Junior hadn’t suffered a paranormal experience since the early-morning hours of October 18, when he’d drifted up from a vile dream of worms and beetles to hear the ghostly singer’s faint a cappella serenade. Shouting at her to shut up, he had awakened neighbors.

  Now, the hateful music unnerved him. He became convinced that if he went home alone, the phantom chanteuse—whether Victoria Bressler’s vengeful ghost or something else—would croon to him once more. He wanted company and distraction, after all.

  An exceptionally attractive woman, alone at the bar, stirred his desire. Glossy black hair: the tresses of night itself, shorn from the sky. Olive complexion, no less smooth than the skin of a calamata. Eyes as lustrous as pools shimmering with a reflection of eternity and stars.

  Wow. She inspired the poet in him.

  Her elegance was appealing. A pink Chanel suit with knee-length skirt, a strand of pearls. Her figure was spectacular, but she didn’t flaunt it. She was even wearing a bra. In this age of bold erotic fashion, her more demure style was enormously seductive.

  Settling onto the empty stool beside this beauty, Junior offered to buy her a drink, and she accepted.

  Renee Vivi spoke with a silken southern accent. Vivacious without being cloyingly coquettish, well-educated and well-read but never pretentious, direct in her conversation without seeming either bold or opinionated, she was charming company.

  She appeared to be in her early thirties, perhaps six years older than Junior, but he didn’t hold that against her. He wasn’t any more prejudiced against older people than he was against people of other races and ethnic origins.

  Whether making love or killing, he was never guided by bigotry. A private little joke with himself. But true.

  He wondered what it would be like to make love to Renee and kill her. Only once had he killed without good reason. And that had been one of the infuriating Bartholomews. Prosser in Terra Linda. A man. On that occasion, no erotic element had been involved. This would be a first.

  Junior Cain definitely was not a crazed sex-killer, not driven to homicide by weird lusts beyond his control. A single night of sex and death—an indulgence never to be repeated—wouldn’t require serious self-examination or a reconsideration of his self-image.

  Twice would indicate a dangerous mania. Three times would be indefensible. But once was healthy experimentation. A learning experience.

  Any true adventurer would understand.

  When Renee, sweetly oblivious of her looming doom, claimed to have inherited a sizable industrial-valve fortune, Junior thought she might be inventing the wealth or at least exaggerating to make herself more desirable. But when he accompanied her back to her place, he discovered a level of luxury that proved she wasn’t a shop girl with fantasies.

  Escorting her home didn’t require either a car or a long walk, because she lived upstairs in the hotel where he’d had dinner. The top three floors of the building featured enormous owner-occupied apartments.

  Stepping into her digs was like passing through a time machine into another century, traveling in space, as well, to the Europe of Louis XIV. The expansive, high-ceilinged rooms overwhelmed the eye with the rich somber colors and the heavy forms of Baroque art and furniture. Shells, acanthus leaves, volutes, garlands, and scrolls—often gilded—decorated the museum-quality antique Bombay chests, chairs, tables, massive mirrors, cabinets, and étagères.

  Junior realized that killing Renee this very night would be an unthinkable waste. Instead, he could marry her first, enjoy her for a while, and eventually arrange an accident or suicide that left him with all—or at least a significant portion of—her assets.

  This wasn’t thrill killing—which, now that he’d had time to think about it, he realized was beneath him, even if in the service of personal growth. This would be murder for good, justifiable cause.

  During the past few years, he had discovered that a lousy few million could buy even more freedom than he had thought when he’d shoved Naomi off the fire tower. Great wealth, fifty or a hundred million, would purchase not only greater freedom, and not just the ability to pursue even more ambitious self-improvement, but also power.

  The prospect of power intrigued Junior.

  He hadn’t the slightest doubt that eventually he could romance Renee into marriage, regardless of her wealth and sophistication. He could shape women to his desire as easily as Sklent could paint his brilliant visions on canvas, easier than Wroth Griskin could cast bronze into disturbing works of art.

  Besides, even before he had fully turned on his charm, before he had shown her that a ride on the Junior Cain love machine would make other men seem forever inadequate, Renee was so hot for him that it might have been wise to open a bottle of champagne to douse her when spontaneous combustion destroyed her Chanel suit.

  In the living room, the central and largest window framed a magnificent view, and swagged silk brocatelle draperies framed the window. An oversize hand-painted and heavily gilded chaise longue, upholstered in an exquisite tapestry, stood against this backdrop of city and silk, and Renee pulled Junior down upon the chaise, desperate to be ravished there.

  Her mouth was as greedy as it was ripe, and her pliant body radiated volcanic heat, and as Junior slipped his hands under her skirt, his mind teemed with thoughts of sex and wealth and power, until he discovered that the heiress was an heir, with genitalia better suited to boxer shorts than to silk lingerie.

  He exploded off Renee with the velocity of high-powered rifle fire. Stunned, disgusted, humiliated, he backed away from the chaise longue, spluttering, wiping at his mouth, cursing.

  Incredibly, Renee came after him, slinky and seductive, trying to calm him and lure him back into an embrace.

  Junior wanted to kill her. Kill him. Whatever. But he sensed that Renee knew more than a little about dirty fighting and that the outcome of a violent confrontation would not be easy to predict.

  When Renee realized that this rejection was complete and final, she—he, whatever—was transformed from well-sugared southern lady to bitter, venomous reptile. Eyes glittering with fury, lips twisted and skinned back from her teeth, she called him all kinds of bastard, stringing epithets together so effortlessly and colorfully that she enhanced his vocabulary more than had all the home-study courses that he’d ever taken, combined. “And face it, pretty-boy, you knew what I was from the moment you offered to buy me a drink. You knew, and you wanted it, wanted me, and then when we got right down to the nasty, you lost your nerve. Lost your nerve, pretty-boy, but not your need.”

  Backing off, trying to feel his way to the foyer and front door, afraid that if he stumbled over a chair, she’d descend upon him like a screaming hawk upon a mouse, Junior denied her accusation. “You’re crazy.
How could I know? Look at you! How could I possibly know?”

  “I’ve got an obvious Adam’s apple, don’t I?” she shrieked.

  Yes, she did, she had one, but not much of one, and compared to the McIntosh in Google’s throat, this was just a bitty crab apple, easy to overlook, not excessive for a woman.

  “And what about my hands, pretty-boy, my hands?” she snarled.

  Hers were the most feminine hands he’d ever seen. Slender, soft, prettier than Naomi’s. He had no idea what she was talking about.

  Risking all, he turned his back on her and fled, and in spite of his expectations to the contrary, she allowed him to escape.

  Later, at home, he gargled until he had drained half a bottle of mint-flavored mouthwash, took the longest shower of his life, and then used the other half of the mouthwash.

  He threw away his necktie, because in the elevator, on the way down from Renee’s—or Rene’s—penthouse, and again on the walk back to his apartment, he had scrubbed his tongue with it. On further consideration, he threw away everything that he had been wearing, including his shoes.

  He swore that he would throw away all memory of this incident, as well. In Caesar Zedd’s best-selling How to Deny the Power of the Past, the author offers a series of techniques for expunging forever all recollection of those events that cause us psychological damage, pain, or even merely embarrassment. Junior went to bed with his precious copy of this book and a snifter of cognac filled almost to the brim.

  There was a valuable lesson to be learned from the encounter with Renee Vivi: Many things in this life are not what they first appear to be. To Junior, however, the lesson was not worth learning if he had to live with the vivid memory of his humiliation.

  By the grace of Caesar Zedd and Rémy Martin, Junior eventually slipped into undulant currents of sleep, and as he drifted away on those velvet tides, he took some solace from the thought that come what may, December 29 would be a better day than December 28.

  He was wrong about this.

  On the final Friday of every month, in sunshine and in rain, Junior routinely took a walking tour of the six galleries that were his very favorites, browsing leisurely in each and chatting up the galerieurs, with a one-o’clock break for lunch at the St. Francis Hotel. This was a tradition with him, and invariably at the end of each such day, he felt wonderfully cozy.

  Friday, December 29, was a grand day: cool but not cold; high scattered clouds ornamenting a Wedgwood-blue sky. The streets were agreeably abustle but not swarming like the corridors of a hive, as sometimes they could be. San Franciscans, reliably a pleasant lot, were still in a holiday mood and, therefore, even quicker to smile and more courteous than usual.

  Following a splendid lunch, having just left the fourth gallery on his list and strolling toward the fifth, Junior didn’t at once see the source of the quarters. Indeed, when the first three rapid-fire coins hit the side of his face, he didn’t even know what they were. Startled, he flinched and looked down as he heard them ring off the sidewalk.

  Snap, snap, snap! Three more quarters ricocheted off the left side of his face—temple, cheek, jaw.

  As the unwanted change pinged against the concrete at his feet, Junior—snap, snap—saw the source of the next two rounds. They spat out of the vertical pay slot on a newspaper-vending machine; one hit his nose, and the other rang off his teeth.

  The machine, one in a bank of four, wasn’t filled with ordinary newspapers, which cost only a dime, but with a raunchy tabloid aimed at heterosexual swingers.

  The slamming of Junior’s heart sounded as loud to him as mortar rounds. He stepped back and sideways, out of the vending machine’s line of fire.

  As though one of the quarters had dropped into his ear and triggered a golden oldie in the jukebox of his mind, Junior heard Vanadium’s voice in the hospital room, in Spruce Hills, on the night of the day when Naomi died: When you cut Naomi’s string, you put an end to the effects that her music would have on the lives of others and on the shape of the future….

  Another machine beside the first, stocked with copies of a sexually explicit publication for gays, fired a quarter that hit Junior’s forehead. The next snapped against the bridge of his nose.

  …You struck a discord that can be heard, however faintly, all the way to the farthest end of the universe….

  Had Junior been chest-deep in wet concrete, he would have been more mobile than he was now. He had no feeling in his legs.

  Unable to run, he raised his arms defensively, crossing them in front of his face, though the impact of the coins wasn’t painful. Volleys flicked off his