Dead Lines, A Novel of Life... After Death

  Joseph waved his hand again. All was square.

  * * *

  MICHELLE WAS UNUSUALLY quiet as she handed Peter five hundred dollars in cash in the foyer. It was eleven oclock. The whole damned house felt sad, Peter thought.

  When are you going to use a checking account? she bugged him, a favorite topic. Peter had cut up all his credit cards and never carried a checkbook. He had a small savings account and that was it. He was now strictly cash-and-carry, paying his bills in person when he could, and having Helen write his tax and other checks when he visited to make child-care payments.

  When I deserve to be a yuppie again, he answered.

  You can be such a pill, Michelle said.

  As he left, she gave him a quick peck on the cheek and a friendly pat on the buns and wished him a good trip to Marin. Don't let it get you down, she warned.

  Peter had already put his bags in the Porsche. He descended the winding road to Pacific Coast Highway and turned left into light traffic. He had had his share and more of grief, of unbearable loss and hopeful speculation. After his lowest moment, when manic anguish and drink had almost killed him, he had come down firmly on the side of teetotaling skepticism. Put on armor, wrapped himself in blankets.

  Now, for reasons he could not fathom, people were trying to poke him through the blankets. First Sandaji, and now Joseph.

  Blow it off, he suggested. Then he glanced in the rear-view mirror, looking into eyes made cynical by the rush of warm air. He puffed his upper lip into a feline pout and said Spooks several times, mimicking Bert Lahrs Cowardly Lion in the forest of Oz.

  Fifty miles north of the Grapevine, driving north on 5, lulled by the road, he felt an oddly comforting, bluntly selective silence fill the Porsche. He could still hear the slipstream, the whine of the engine, the rumble of tires on the grooved freeway. Still, the silence was there. Sometimes that happened. He would be in a quiet room and the ambient noise would flicker, replaced by a distant, high-pitched hum that faded slowly into a new silence. He remembered listening to the whine of the air as a boy, back when his ears had been far more sensitive.

  He instinctively patted his pocket and felt the green Trans.

  His thoughts wandered as the traffic grew sparse and the freeway straight and monotonous. Someday, he mused, before all passion was spent, in this world of high-tech communications, his own final true love would call him and her voice would rise above the ambient noise of all the other women. That was Peters one supernatural quest now: the perfect woman, a beauty who watched him with cool amusement from behind his thoughts and memories, elusive and brazenly sexy.

  Peter had met only one woman that came close to that impossible ideal, a model and sometime actress named Sascha Lauten. Buxom, smart, cheerfully supportive, Sascha had been sufficiently vulnerable and sad about her life to make his heart puddle. Phil had warned him about Sascha. She sees right through you, he had said. Your charms do not soothe her magnificent breasts. Sascha had ultimately turned down his proposal and married a skinny-assed salesman with bad skin. They now lived quietly in Compton.

  He stuck his hand through the half-open window to feel the speed. Over the wind he sang, I hate this crap, burn up the road, I hate this shit, burn up the ROAD.

  CHAPTER 6

  PETER CROSSED THE Golden Gate Bridge at midnight and climbed the long hill into Marin before turning inland. Somehow, he missed a turn. Sitting at a gas station, he used the Trans to call Lydia. When she answered, her voice was like a little girls. She gave Peter the final directions to Phils house in Tiburon. The place is filled with boxes, Lydia said. God, was he a pack rat.

  Peter was tired. He thanked Lydia and closed the Trans. He had long wondered where Phil had stuck all the books and old magazines and movies that he had bought over the decades. Apparently, for some years Phil had been hauling his worldly goods north in the Grand Taiga, following through on a long-planned final escape from Los Angeles. And he had not told Peter about any of it.

  The last few miles he followed a winding, dark road beneath a black sky dusted with ten thousand diamonds. Shadowy grassland and expensive houses flanked the road. Beyond lay more hunched hills. When he found the last turn, onto a cul-de-sac called Hidden Dreams Drive, he looked south and saw San Francisco lit up like a happy carnival on the far shore of the Bay.

  The house cut three long, inky rectangles out of the starry sky between silhouettes of knobby, pruned-back trees. Peter drove up beside a new-style VW Beetle. As he set the parking brake, he saw Lydia sitting on a front porch swing, short, bobbed hair like a dark comma over her pale face. The orange bead of a cigarette dangled from her hand. She did not wave.

  Jesus, Peter thought. The lot alone must be worth a million dollars. He stood on the gravel at the bottom of two wooden steps. Nice night, he said.

  I'm not staying, Lydia announced. She got up from the porch swing and stubbed the cigarette into a tuna can. Then she tossed the butt into the darkness. Peter jerked, thinking she might start a fire or something. But that was Lydia.

  Should I go in? Peter said.

  Up to you. Hed probably want you to, Lydia said dryly, just to sort through his stuff. Last hands pawing what he wanted most on this Earth. He sure didnt love his ladies worth a damn.

  Peter did not rise to the bait. Lydia stretched. At forty-eight, she still had a pruny grace. Low body-fat since youthand wrinkles from smokinghad diminished her other native charms, but the grace remained.

  Peter hauled his one suitcase onto the porch. She handed over three keys on a piece of dirty twine. The twine was tied to a small piece of finger-oiled driftwood. The driftwood dangled below his hand, swinging one way, then another.

  The medical examiner found my address in Phils little black book, Lydia said. Some cops came to visit me. They said he had been dead for a couple of days. She opened the screen door for him. Did you know he had this place?

  Peter shook his head and entered the dark hallway. He set down his suitcase.

  He sure as hell didnt tell me, Lydia went on. It didnt turn up on the divorce settlement. What do you think it's worth?

  I have no idea, Peter said.

  Ancient history, Lydia said. Anyway, I got him into a crematorium in Oakland. I think maybe the mailman found him. He had been dead for a few days.

  You said that, Peter said, grimacing.

  The mortuary will bring him back tomorrow. Hand delivery. Well hold the wake in the backyard. Ive invited some folks who knew Phil. And some of my friends. For backup.

  When did you get up here? Peter asked.

  This morning. I left everything the way I found it. Peter, I hope you understood him. I hope somebody understood Phil. I sure didnt.

  Peter did not know what to say to that.

  You know, despite everything, he was the sweetest guy I ever met, Lydia said. She poked Peter in the chest. And that includes you. See you tomorrow around one. If they deliver Phil early, just put him on the mantel over the fireplace. And, oh . . . She held out her hand. I have no idea where he kept his money. I paid for everything. Donations cheerfully accepted.

  Peter removed his wallet. He pulled out the five hundred dollars Michelle had given him in Malibu. He was about to peel off several of the bills when Lydia dipped her hand with serpentine grace and snatched the whole wad.

  She counted it quickly. That doesnt cover even half the cost, she said. She patted his bearded cheek. But thanks. She walked across the gravel to the VW, her bony, denimed hips cycling a sideways figure 8.

  The car vanished into the dark beneath the stars.

  That left Peter with ten dollars, not enough to pay for the gas to get home.

  CHAPTER 7

  THE HOUSE WAS quiet and still. Outside, not a breath of air moved. A hallway beyond the alcove led past the living room, a bathroom, and the kitchen, to three rooms at the back.

  He switched on the lights in the alcove and the hall and stepped around two neatly taped boxes Magic-Markered with names and dates: UNKNOWN WORLD
S 194043, STARTLING MYSTERY 195056. Handmade pine shelves filled with paperback mysteries and science fiction covered the wall behind the door, arched over the door, around the corner, and into the living room, where more shelves framed the wide front window. Beneath the window, records and old laser discs occupied a single shelf. He could make out still more shelves marching back into the shadows of a dining room, and stacked boxes where a table might have been.

  In the living room, a single threadbare couch faced a scarred coffee table and the wide window. The coffee table, seen from above, had the outline of a plumped square, like the tube of an old black-and-white television set. In the fifties, those conjoined curves had been the shape of the future. Peter thought about Indian-chief test patterns, the Monsanto House of the Future at Disneyland, and how such curvilinear dreams had become part of the deep and forgotten past.

  Their past.

  Phil liked old black-and-white movies best. His taste in music was even more conservative than Peters: Bach and Haydn and Mozart, no rock, just big bands and fifties jazz up to early Coltrane. No Monk, even.

  For some reason, it was taking time to get used to the idea that he had the house to himself. He kept thinking Phil would show up and grin and apologize, and then show him around, pulling books from shelves, removing their plastic bags to fondle his many little treasures.

  Materialism, with a difference. Give me ideas, stories, music. Forget booze and diamonds, forget women. Pages filled with printed words and grooves in vinyl are a guys best friend. So Phil had once told him.

  Peter found the kitchen. He filled a plastic glass with water from the tap. The sideboard was neatly piled with clean dishes. No cats or dogs, that was a blessing. Phil had never been enthusiastic about pets. Most of the cupboards in the kitchen were stuffed with old pulp magazines, G-8 and His Battle Aces, The Shadow, thick compound issues of Amazing Stories. One small corner shelf was reserved for cereal boxes and three more plastic glasses. The refrigerator held a six-pack of cheap beer, vanilla pudding cups, yogurt, clam chowder in plastic pouches. White foods.

  Phil loved mashed potatoes.

  Peter searched for coffee or tea. He needed something warm. Finally, he found a jar of instant coffee and a mug, right next to each other on the windowsill over the sink. He put on a saucepan of water and set it to boil. Then he pulled up an old-fashioned step stool and sat with a whuff, wiping the long drive from his eyes with a damp paper towel. He did not want to sleep in the house, but there wasnt enough money left for a motel. The couch did not look inviting. Peter could not just sleep anywhere these days. His muscles knotted if he lay down wrong. Finally, cup in hand, he turned on all the overhead lights in the kitchen and hall and the back bedrooms, inspecting each one until he came to Phils. More shelves, mostly new and empty, as if waiting to be filled. It was not a mess; it was actually pretty neat. Spartan. Someone had made up the queen-sized bed.

  Phil never made his bed.

  Peter gritted his teeth. Lydia did not say where they had found Phil. The room did not smell. Still, he decided against sleeping in here. He took blankets from the hall closet and reluctantly settled on the couch. The window looked slantwise across the Bay at San Francisco, framed by two willow trees farther down the road. It was a beautiful view.

  Jesus Christ, Phil, Peter said. If you come back, I'llpunch you. I swear to God I'llpunch you right in the face. You should have told me you were sick.

  He was so tired. Against all his intellectual rigors, all his best intentions, he was still hoping to find Phil somewhere in the house. Hoping to grab one last minute together. Where are you, buddy?

  He finished the cold coffee. Caffeine had little effect on him, but he doubted he would be getting much sleep tonight. Come on, Phil, he cajoled, his voice like a small bird in the big living room. One more time. Show up and give me a heart attack. Don't ditch me.

  Peter leaned back and pulled up a small wool blanket. He kept rolling around on the old cushions, pushing his legs out as his knees felt antsy. Sleep came, but it was uneven. Finally, awake again and bladder full, he got up, stumbled around the boxes, and walked down the long hall. Never afraid of the dark. Never have been. Empty dark. He touched his way along the wall to the bathroom door and turned right.

  A small plug-in night light illuminated a claw-foot tub, a round-mouthed porcelain toilet, and a stand-alone corner sink that must have dated from the teens or twenties. He lifted the toilet lid, unzipped his pants, and peed. Sighed at the relief from the sharp incentive nag. Not as bad as some his age, but still. Jiggled the stream around with childish intent, roiling the water. The little things we do when facing the big things, the imponderables. Peter softly sang a Doors song, This is . . . the end . . . beautiful friend.

  His stream finally faltered and he shook loose a few drops, harder to get the last dribble out, a small indignity, meaningless in the face of that awesome and final one.

  My only friend . . . the end.

  Something passed the open door, black against a lesser dark. Peters last squirt splashed on the floor. Half asleep, he stared in dismay at the puddle, zipped quickly, then bent to dab it up with a folded piece of toilet paper.

  What?

  Glancing left, he lowered the lid. His fingers slipped and the lid fell with a loud clatter on the ceramic bowl.

  Crap. Tell the world.

  He poked his head through the doorway and looked up and down the hall. His eyes were playing tricks. He wished Lydia, somebody, anybody, would pop out and go, Boo! just to show him how ridiculous he looked and sounded. How much he was betraying his vows to be skeptical.

  He might be doing it again, deceiving himself, hoping beyond hope, beyond the material world, and if it kept on this way, sliding into this painful, hopeful retreat from the rational, he knew where it could all lead: straight into another case of Wild Turkey.

  Trying to find the one who did it. Asking for Daniella. One last conversation with my daughter, oh my God.

  Something moved again in the hall, making not so much a distinct sound as a change in the volume of air. Now Peter was sure. Someone had come into the house while he was sleepingnot Phil, of course; a burglar. He reached into his pants pocket, feeling for the knife he sometimes kept there, and did not find it. It must have slipped out in the car or on the couch.

  He pushed open the bathroom door with athis timedeliberate bang and stepped into the hall, looking both ways. Dark left, dark right. Whoever you are, get the hell out, he called, hands clenched.

  Peter had no tolerance for burglars. He had been robbed often enoughthe house four times, his car three times. People who stole deserved no mercy as far as he was concerned.

  He found an antique button switch and pushed it. The hall light came on. Empty. The door at the end of the hall, leading into Phils bedroom, was open just a crack. He stood for a moment, listening.

  Someone crying. The sound could have come from outside, from another house. But there were no houses close enough, not here at the end of Hidden Dreams Drive. Peter could feel heat rising again behind his eyes, steamy. Tropical. Such a weird sensation.

  He realized he was making little hiccuping gulps as he finished his walk toward the end of the hall, Phils bedroom. The doors closing had been blocked by wire hangers hooked over the top. He was astonished by how clearly he saw everything in the light of the hall fixture: wallpaper pastel flowers in diamond patterns, dark-stained baseboards, antique oak floor, worn oriental-design runner rucked up and curling on one side, boxes on the left stacked almost to the ceiling, WEIRD TALES 193348, the bedroom door and the hangers again, the darkness beyond the crack.

  It sounded like a woman crying, soft, silky sobs, voice like dusty honey. Not Phil, then, of course, and probably not a burglar. A lost little girl, maybe. Some out-of-it doper marching around late at night. Peter forced his breath to slow. Maybe it was someone Phil knew, a lover come back to pick up her toothbrush, her underwear, her jewelry, as unlikely as that might bePhil had kept so much to himself.


  Peter assumed a fencers position in the hall, En garde. I'm out here, and I won't hurt you, he said, hand outstretched. Don't be afraid. It's okay. He knew, could feel it as a tangible fact, that the bedroom was empty, but he could still hear the sobbing through the door.

  Slender lines of darkness gathered in the periphery of his vision like smeared ink. As he tried to focus, they blended into corner shadows like wisps of spiderweb. Still, outside his direct gaze, the smudged lines flashed toward the bedroom door, wriggling like dark, blurry eels anxious to get in.

  I'm having a stroke, just like Phil.

  But he did not feel ill. Physically he was fine; it was the house, the bedroom, that was not fine.

  It was the bedroom that was crying.

  Peter was not a coward. He knew that about himself. He could feel fear and still act, but what he felt now was not fear; it was an unwillingness to learn, and that was very different. Some things that you discoverinfidelity, the death of loved onesyou cannot turn back from. What you suddenly know changes you, chops you up into little pieces.

  He did not want to learn what was in the bedroom.

  Still, he poked the door open with a stiff finger. He leaned slowly into the bedroom and fumbled to push the button switch. The ceiling fixture slowly glowed to sterile yellow brightness. Shadows fled across the bedroom like little cyclones of soot.

  Peter grabbed the doorjamb.

  A woman stood at the foot of Phils bed. She had buried her face in gray hands, but Peter could tell who she was by the dark comma of bobbed hair and the honey-silk quality of her weeping. My God, he said, and his shoulders slumped. He let out his breath and started to smile. Lydia. You scared me.

  The womans hands dropped. She turned, head cocked, listening; slowly turned and listened some more, as if to far-off and unpleasant music.

  All of a sudden, through his relief, Peters tongue moved involuntarily, and he bit into it. His head exploded in pain. Eyes watering, gasping, he felt vulnerable and very, very foolish. Through his tears, he saw that the womans face was like a flat sheet of mother-of-pearl. Her eyes opened to quizzical hollows. Less than solid, she resembled a paper doll frayed by careless snipping. Peter could actually see her edges ripple. Trying to back out, he thumped against the door, closing it, and for an instant, felt something tug at his head, his throbbing tongue, his nerves.