It reads, John Davalos.
I feel a wave of disappointment. The name means nothing.
“Ring a bell?”
I say, “No.”
I say no. But, on a hunch, I take the book from her tight little fingers.
And wish her a fine day. I leave too quickly for her to try to take the book back.
I have the thought it might come in handy.
I do try, at first, to forget about the address book, too. What, after all, do I really know? But it keeps bumping up against me, shoving itself in front of my face like a carnival huckster trailing after you as you hurry past, avoid eye contact, resist the spiel, the hot, fast patter of infinite and gaudy persuasion. Somehow, it lingers with me even more than the dirty playing card. That photo seemed part of Alice’s ancient past, but this is Alice’s—and Bill’s—present.
It is with a vague twitch of guilt that I begin watching her. Before I know it, I find myself watching her everywhere. At Sunday dinner, at social events, at the new school year’s first department meetings, I keep waiting to see a connection, a clue. A clue to what, though, really, after all.
There is a string I am pulling together, a string of question marks so long they are beginning to clatter against each other, and loudly.
I count them on my fingers, beginning to feel the fool: the missing credentials, the unexplained absences, the playing card, the postcard, and now the address book. And perhaps most of all, Alice herself. Something in her. The hold so tight over my brother, and suddenly it appears more and more as though she is this brooding darkness lurking around him, creeping toward him, swarming over him. Her glamour like some awful curse.
“Mr. Standish is on set right now. If you’ll wait.” The receptionist with the silver fingernails gestures toward a long row of chrome-trimmed leather chairs.
Guests of publicists and press agents don’t rate too highly with the front office staff, or so I’ve come to learn in recent months. I sit down, back straight, as awkward as I always feel anywhere near the studio.
I watch the top of her foamy blond head tilt this way and that as she answers calls on her headset, fingers tapping the earpieces with each turn and swivel of her chair.
I look over at a rough-hewn boy seated four chairs down. He has a scar like a lightning bolt over his left eye and wears a sweater and gymnasium shoes.
When he spots me looking at him, he nods, straightening in his seat. Reaching into his pocket, he pulls out a packet of cigarettes, gesturing toward me.
“No. Thank you.”
He nods again and slides one into his mouth. “Do you mind?”
I shake my head and smile slightly.
Blowing a shallow stream from his mouth, he looks back toward me. “You in that college movie? The one with all the football scenes?”
“Pardon?”
“Sorry. I just know they’re shooting this afternoon and I thought I seen you over there before.”
“No.” I shake my head. “I’m just visiting someone.”
“I did a few stunts over there,” he says, leaning forward. “Those pretty boys in the letter sweaters can’t take a tackle to save your life.”
I smile. Sensing he expects a reply, I say, “Did you get that scar from doing stunts?”
He touches his forehead self-consciously, and I feel bad. I assumed he’d be proud of it, like a battle wound.
“No, I got this a long time ago. Old bar fight. But I’ve been working here for a while now.”
He looks at me expectantly, and I can tell he is waiting for a response.
“How did you get into stunt work?” I offer, hoping Mike will show up.
“Oh, I was knocking around, trying to find a way to make some money for taking punches, rather than taking them for free,” he says. It sounds like he’s said it many times before, to great effect.
I try to stop the conversation politely with a closing smile.
“I been doing it for four years now.”
He takes another drag. “I did a stunt for Alan Ladd once. Frank Sinatra even.”
“Well, well.”
Suddenly, the foamy blond head of the receptionist pops up, and her nasal voice rings out, “Teddy, Mr. Schor is through with him. Mr. Davalos is on his way out. He wants you to bring the car around.”
The boy jumps up, suddenly flustered.
“On it,” he shouts, dancing on the balls of his feet for a second before nodding his head toward me and heading to the door.
Mr. Davalos. Suddenly, I see the arched brow of the woman at Deau Stationers as if she were right before my eyes. Mr. Davalos. Could this be the owner of the address book in my sister-in-law’s bed? No. I must have misheard. The name has occupied my thoughts so much in the last few days that I must have imagined hearing it aloud.
I take the opportunity to pick up a Modern Screen, in case the boy returns and wants to continue the conversation. Burying my head behind it, I wonder how long Mike will be and if I should really keep waiting.
A few minutes pass before I hear a quiet, faintly familiar voice. “Is Teddy out there?”
“Yes, Mr. Davalos. He should be waiting for you.”
“Thank you.”
As the voice trails away, I glance up from the magazine just in time to see Joe Avalon, resplendent in sharkskin, passing the reception desk and through the office doors.
He doesn’t see me.
I rise as he steps out. Walking to the window, my heart jumping a bit, I look out. Tugging his hat down, he opens the door of a sleek black roadster. I see a flash of deep maroon interior as he pulls the door shut behind him and the car leaps to life and drives off.
Joe Avalon is John Davalos.
Shaken out of my shock by the nervous buzzing at the reception desk, I turn around on my heel, almost losing my balance.
Foamy-head is watching me. “Mr. Standish says he’s coming.”
“Fine,” I say. Ticking my finger lightly on the window, I ask, “Who was that man? I think I know him.”
She pauses and looks at me for a moment. “That’s Mr. Davalos.”
“Does he work for the studio?”
She pauses again. “He’s not a casting agent, if that’s what you mean.”
“No, no.” I smile. “I’m not an actress. I just think I’ve met him before.”
I then add, “Maybe through Mr. Standish.”
“He doesn’t work here. He’s a business associate of Mr. Schor’s.”
“I see,” I say, just as Mike pushes open the glass doors.
“Let’s go, doll,” he says, tipping the hat in his hand to Foamy-head. “Before the gray fellows call me back. I gotta talk to a few columnists at Sugie’s.”
Joe Avalon. What more do you need, I ask myself. What more do you need to know you must do something? The next morning, as Alice gathers her sewing samples for our first day back to school, I grab her phone book and pass through it as quickly as I can. I’m not sure which number is his. There is nothing under A or D that fits. I end up looking under J, and there is a number without a name attached. In my haste, I end up scribbling it on the inside of my wrist.
That afternoon, during my prep period, I call the operator, who tells me that the name listed with the number is J. Devlin. Given the multiplying names, I feel sure that it’s Joe Avalon. And then, she actually gives me the address. As I write it down, I wonder what exactly I think I’m going to do. But something keeps telling me I’ve waited long enough, let enough strange glimmers accumulate in the corners of my eyes. It’s time to stop blinking.
After dropping off Alice after school, I drive into Los Angeles and find the house on Flower Street. I sit in my car for three hours, and he never appears.
I go back the following evening. I sit and watch. I think about Bill. I think about Joe Avalon in my brother’s bedroom. I think about Alice and what she has brought with her, what she’s carried into my brother’s world. Our world.
At a little past ten, a car pulls up his driveway. I duc
k down in my seat and then wait, watch.
Joe Avalon, in a shiny raincoat, emerges and heads for his front door. I ask myself, Could this man really be Alice’s lover? And if not that, what?
He is alone. Here is the opportunity. There is no reason to wait. I banish the strumming refrain in my head. The one that keeps asking what I think I’m doing here, after all.
As he unlocks his door and walks inside, I slide out of my car and walk to his house. There is no use thinking about it, I just have to do it, without thinking, just go . . .
I am suddenly there, knuckles rapping the pine door.
And it’s a long minute before he opens it, coat off, collar open, blast of cologne in my face. He doesn’t know what to make of it.
“Miss King, right?”
He opens the door wider. “Come in,” he says. He says, “Come in.”
I step past him and into the darkly paneled hallway of the pristine, cocoa-colored bungalow.
“I can’t guess why I’m so lucky,” he says softly. He always speaks softly, and low, so you have to lean in to hear. A trick like a southern belle’s.
The hallway spills into a living room, Oriental rug, teak-colored blinds, amber lamps, and a large, plush sofa in deep rose.
“Have a seat.” He buttons his collar, twisting his neck. “Can I get you a drink?”
I shake my head, but he begins pouring two glasses from the mahogany bar cart. Whiskey and two quick sprays of soda from a smooth green bottle.
He hands the drink to me and gestures for me to sit on one of the damask chairs. Opposite me, he settles on the sofa.
My hand curls around the glass, and I’m suddenly glad I have it to hold on to. I finally look at him straight on. I can’t avoid it. His eyes, glossy dark like brine, fixed and waiting.
“I couldn’t be more surprised, Miss King. I’m sitting here thinking that I don’t even know how you know where I live. Is this about our mutual friend Alice?” He says this all nearly tonelessly, only the vague lilt of someone very conscious of how he speaks, the words he wants to use.
“I have something of yours.” This is what I say. I just say it, and that’s it.
“Is that right?” he shoots back more quickly than I anticipated.
“I have something of yours.” I look him straight in the eye this time, and his right lid twitches for just a second.
“And what is that, Miss King?”
“You can’t guess?” I watch his face. I want him to admit something, confess to something, betray something.
“Miss King, I really can’t imagine.” He smiles vaguely, unreadably. “But I’d really like to know.”
“I bet you would.” How I manage to say this, I don’t know. It’s like a movie scene. This is what they say in the movies.
“This could go on forever, Miss King.” He slouches back in his seat. “Do you have a direction in mind for this exchange?”
I open my purse and pull out the address book, keeping it close to my chest.
He looks at the book and doesn’t flinch.
“Do you want it back?”
“That’s supposed to be mine?” He gestures toward it.
“I know it’s yours.”
“Let me see it. I’ll tell you if it’s mine.” He looks down at me, not making a move.
“It’s yours, but that’s not the interesting part.” I feel a strange bravado lurching up in my chest. I can’t guess where it’s coming from.
“I’m waiting, Miss King. Don’t think I’m not curious.”
“I found it in my sister-in-law’s bed,” I say squarely.
He pauses and manages a slight grin. “That’s the interesting part?”
“How did it get there?”
He leans back, setting his glass on his knee and spreading his arms along the back of the sofa.
“This is about your brother’s wife. This is about you wanting to pin something on your brother’s wife.” He can’t hide a smile.
“No. No,” I say, reacting instantly to the strange allegation. What does he mean? What could he possibly mean? “I’m just trying to find out what . . .”
My mouth inexplicably goes dry. Pin something on my brother’s wife? Why would I . . .
I hear some sound come from within me. My jaw begins shaking suddenly. It seems to be rattling.
He takes a sip from his drink, smile still suspended there. The glass has left a faint ring on the knee of his cream-colored pants. I stare at it, trying to regain my focus.
“I just want to know . . .” It’s hard to talk with my jaw doing this. I can’t make the words sound smooth.
He raises his eyebrows expectantly, waiting for me to finish my sentence.
“. . . what it was doing there. I just want to know . . .”
I wonder, can he hear that? Can he hear how loud my jaw is? It seems so loud I can barely hear myself. A horrible rattling like a dying snake.
“Why didn’t you ask your sister-in-law?” He smacks his lips ever so slightly, holding the glass with its still popping soda water. “Why don’t you?”
“Maybe I did,” I blurt, fixing my hand on my jaw to keep it in place.
“I don’t think so.” He smiles.
“No. I . . . I just want for you to tell me. I didn’t want . . .” It’s hard to answer because I don’t know what the answer could be. To tell the truth, I’d never even thought to ask Alice. To tell the truth, it is as if, lately, as everything keeps surging forward, it is as if I am seeing her through glass, through dark water three feet deep.
“You wanted something over her?” he says, tilting his head.
He watches me squirm and shake my head fervently, but then his smile slips away for a moment, as if he has just realized something.
“How did you know it was mine, anyway?” My jaw finally settles a bit. If I clench it, I can speak.
“That doesn’t matter,” I say.
“I might decide that.” His voice turns cooler. “You’d better just spill it all, Miss King.”
Then he says, “You, honest, don’t know what you’re getting yourself into.”
Then he says, “And I think you better give me the fucking book.”
Then, finally, “It’s mine, after all.”
I stand up, my drink nearly slipping from between my fingers as I press the book to my chest. I feel foolish. If he really wants it, my little grasp isn’t going to stop him.
I set the glass down.
Things suddenly feel far more complicated.
And all the reasons for not bringing the book with me, much less coming at all, swirl through my head. I wonder exactly what I am doing here.
I turn on my heel, intending, I suppose, to get as far as I can. Thinking, I guess, that it would be too embarrassing for him to overpower a woman.
But then thinking he might overpower a woman every day.
I can feel him watching me for a moment, then I see him, from the corner of my eye as I begin to walk to the door, calculatedly break into a shrug.
“You want it, you got it, Miss King,” he says, standing, his thin-lipped smile hanging from one side of his face.
Then he adds, “I don’t need it.”
And finally, “It’s been more than an even trade.”
I open the door, and my hand is shaking like a string pulled taut and plucked hard.
• • •
On the drive home, my jaw buzzes, hums, nearly sings. I jam the heel of my hand underneath it, steer with one hand, and turn the radio as loud as it will go. The zing of the brutish jazz finally vibrates hard enough to drown it out.
My head clogged with incomplete revelation after revelation, I avoid Bill entirely. Any other time, he would be the one I would go to, would have long gone to, for help. But this time I can’t.
Instead, the next night, unable to sleep, I end up at Mike Standish’s apartment.
“You’re awful dirty, Lora King. I wonder if anybody has any idea what a dirty girl you are.”
I don’t
answer, don’t like him saying it, even if I am curled against the edge of his bed, my knees on the floor, persuaded not to put my stockings on, persuaded to stay right where I am and look up at him, straight into his laughing eyes.
I sit there and I try to frame a question. But I can’t.
“I’m going home.”
“Why go home? No one’s keeping tabs on you. Come on.”
“You don’t need me to stay.” I reach for my stockings, pull them slowly from the tangle of sheets.
“I do.” He sighs, stretching his arms above his head. “I really do.”
“You like to sleep alone.”
He seems—it is dark and hard to tell—to smirk a little before he says, “I think you should stay. You are the one I like to stay.”
I almost ask why and then I don’t ask why and my stocking, via my own slightly trembling hands, is streaming up my leg.
“Come on. I like you here and I like the way you smell. I like making you stay.” He yawns.
Here he is, the man who knows things and who should want to help me. But it is so hard to bring up things with any weight at all to a man like this. A man like this doesn’t have real conversations.
He is lying there whistling contentedly, and I just close my eyes. For weeks, I’ve been deciding whether to ask him, ask him anything about what I’ve learned, or almost learned. Now, with what I have seen, with Joe Avalon and more and more questions, it seems I don’t have anything to lose.
“I saw some pictures, Mike,” I say, biting my lip a little, snapping my belt, adjusting my collar, feeling the need to straighten myself.
“It’s all about pictures, King. Don’t you forget it. It’s my bread and butter.” He reaches over and touches my belt lightly with a finger, leaning in and sending a shot of peppery cologne to my face.
“I mean specific pictures. Bad ones. Here in your apartment.” I look at my gray shoes, pointy-toed and confident. Teacher shoes.
“I got pictures like that, sure,” he says, and I realize, with regret, that he is scrambling, dancing.
“Pictures on playing cards. One of them, it was of my sister-in-law. Of my brother’s wife. And Lois Slattery.”
He smiles. He nearly grins, but it’s an effort. “Oh, right. Yeah, I really didn’t want you to see that. Not—not because . . . Frankly, King, I thought it would hurt you.” The voice almost soft. “Because of your brother.”