Hard Exit, page 15
After stepping back into the present, I said, “I’m going to take off. Game’s in one piece, so my work here is done.”
“True, but you still got a mess out there,” Game said.
“Thanks for that.” I stepped close to Rachelle and gave her a hug.
“You’re my hero, Jack. I owe you big time.”
“My pleasure. Anytime. Take care of yourself, Rachelle, and let’s stay in touch.” I gestured toward the front door and said to Game, “Got a sec?” I slung the backpack over my left shoulder.
“Yeah.” He followed me onto the porch and closed the door. He sat on the blue two-seat glider, above three pairs of Adidas.
I said, “I know this isn’t my world, but I think I know this much—when someone enters a gang he buys into the concept of blood-in, blood-out, right?”
“Kinda. Not as simple as that, but I know what you mean.”
“I should’ve asked the logical follow-up question the other day when you admitted you’d never killed anyone. As I meditated a few minutes ago, I realized you’ve been lying to me. You’re not in a gang.”
Game turned away from me and stared into space. He crossed his arms on his chest and said nothing.
“I’ll take your silence as confirmation. You must’ve found yourself in a no-win situation Friday night: If you ran out to retaliate against da Posse, pretending to be with a gang you didn’t belong to, you would’ve been spinning your wheels, walking around the neighborhood, trying not to be found by us.”
From the corner of my eye, I saw Rachelle pull the window curtain aside to look at us. She let go of the curtain when she saw me turn toward her.
“But if you didn’t go with me, you would’ve had to explain to your mom and Mike that you’d been lying to them, that you were in no danger because you weren’t in the MLKs.”
He shifted in the glider, turned toward me, started to say something, stopped, then looked down at my shoes.
“Is this really how you want to play this?” I asked. “You say I’ve been straight with you, but you can’t show me respect?” I waited him out.
Eventually he said, “They wouldn’t let me in.”
He was still looking at my shoes, but he continued. “They said because my mama lost Lawrence and Terrell, they ain’t letting her lose her last son.”
He hesitated for about fifteen seconds. “Told them I gotta do something ’bout my brothers. Only a buster do nothing after his brothers get killed. But they say it ain’t gonna happen, not with them, and I ain’t joining no other set. But I can’t let Mama think I okay with losing Lawrence and Terrell, so I did what she figured I’d do—joined the set—but I didn’t. And all gangs ain’t blood-in, blood-out, with killing someone. Some just jump you in by giving you a beating.”
“Thank you. I know that wasn’t easy, and I’m glad you’re not in it. You’re obviously close with guys in the MLKs”—he nodded—“because you got them to take action at Popeye’s, and they told you specifics about the drug hijacking and the messed-up white van, which means you weren’t there when it went down.” He nodded again. “Just said you were because you thought it would make me believe you were in the gang.” Another nod.
“Look, I know you think it’s none of my business, and maybe it’s not, but you should come clean with your mom. I know how difficult it is to live a lie, how debilitating. Living a lie can make us hate ourselves. Trust me.” Another nod. “Your mom has twice lived through what no parent should ever live through once. Worrying about losing you could cause her to have a stroke, or at least is making her daily life miserable, so you should man-up and tell her the truth. She may be upset you’ve been lying to her all this time, but she’ll be very happy to hear the news.”
“How you know?”
“She’ll be happy, trust me.”
“No, ’bout me lying?”
“You were on the couch when I got here Friday. If I’d been shot superficially but could still walk, I’d have walked until I found the shooters. And then you asked about LoJack. If I needed a car to make an escape, I’d have taken the car, then dumped it before the owner knew it was gone. LoJack would be irrelevant.”
“Why’d you stay quiet?” He stood up slowly.
“Didn’t put the pieces together initially. I just knew things weren’t adding up. I should’ve figured out earlier you weren’t in the gang, but sometimes things take a while to coalesce. You should tell your mother, now that you’re back home, so I mentioned it.”
“Awwight. Coach Sherwood right. You a good man. Messed up, but a good man.”
“Thanks, Game. You’re a good man, too. I’ll be in touch soon.” He put his hand out to shake, but I gave him a hug. He returned it, stepped away, and nodded.
I walked to the car and heard him ask, “What now?”
“Have to find someplace to stay.” I intended to drive to the westside, find an extended-stay hotel, and crash there while I solved the case I’d given to myself—to catch the murderers of Chris and Big Bill and to prove those killings were connected to the park shooting.
My thoughts raced, so I drove the freeways randomly for about two hours, thinking about the murders and Jennifer and Amanda and Jami. I wasn’t sure I’d reached any conclusions by the time I took the Bundy exit from the 10 West, intending to pull over to Google extended-stay locations. My phone rang as I reached the bottom of the offramp. I hit the answer button and turned left onto Pico.
“Hello, Darling,” Jennifer said.
“Hello, Gorgeous.”
“Guess where I just came from?”
“Disneyland?”
“Better. My second meeting of the day. The 1:30 in the Palisades.”
“That’s great. Proud of you.” I crossed Centinela.
“Gonna do at least thirty in thirty,” she said. “Maybe ninety in ninety.”
“Great, but please remember you only have the present. You only have to get through the day you’re in.”
“Of course. Thank you, Jack. I feel great and hopeful and happy.”
“So do I”
“Guess who took another cake?” she asked.
“The un-sober Jason Gilson. But that’s not surprising. Guys like him are all about appearances, impressing people, showing off. Look at his clothes. He’s shaped like an inflated pear but thinks bespoke Savile Row suits and monogrammed dress shirts will convince us he’s sexy and muscular.” I zig-zagged to Olympic, intending to pull over at Memorial Park, but Jen said, “Are you coming over?”
“I want to. I’ve had to fight the urge many times to knock on your door late at night, but—”
“Now you can, but not late at night. I’m inviting you over now. You’re finished with Amanda, right?”
“Yes, but you’re in your first day of sobriety. It would be unfair to you and unethical of me because you’re extremely vulnerable.”
“You told me this morning you loved me. We’ve wanted each other for, what, about forever, but now you play hard to get? Come on, Jack.”
“I’m not playing.” I pulled into a parking space next to Memorial Park. “I don’t think I could want us to work more than I do. I’ve felt more alive today than I have since … since Jami died. Sorry.”
“I understand. It’s okay. I know she’s still with you. I’m fine with that. She was also my friend, remember, and I think I hear her voice sometimes, too. I understand she’s with us. Are you saying you don’t think she’d want us to be together?”
“No. She’d want us both to be happy. She’d have mocked us for waiting so long.”
“So, why won’t you come over?”
I hesitated, then said, “There’s no way we’re going to be able to keep our hands off each other. We both know that. And we’ll be amazing together when we get there, but now’s not the time. You’re too vulnerable, and I’m in total flux. I’m about to start looking for a place to stay.”
“You’re infuriating. Sexy as hell but infuriating. My house is enormous. You can have two floors to yourself, if you want them.”
I watched a father and son playing catch on one of the diamonds. The kid, about twelve, had a canon for an arm.
“Jack?”
“Yes. You win. I’m on my way.”
“Fantastic. See you soon, Darling.”
“See you soon, Gorgeous.”
I pulled away from the curb, filled with anticipation and self-loathing. Most of the time, we know we’ve taken a misstep only in hindsight. But I knew that Jen shouldn’t enter into a relationship immediately after getting sober. She’d probably argue that we’d loved each other for years, so only the sex aspect of our relationship would be new, but she’d be rationalizing. I’d lived in suspended animation for nearly a decade, so why couldn’t I wait the recommended year so Jen could learn who she was sober—and learn whether the sober Jen still wanted me? We wouldn’t likely hold off for a year, but Day One was a horrible idea. I continued to drive toward Jen, and I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to turn down her advances when I arrived.
As I approached Trancas Canyon, my cell rang. The caller I.D. said Amanda. I didn’t want to talk to her, especially not as I was on my way to start my new life with Jennifer. Amanda and I had a dozen topics to discuss, and we would talk about them soon, but I wasn’t in the mood to accuse each other, shout at each other, and catalogue our failings. I listened to Amanda’s voicemail, which said: “Jason Gilson’s dead. Thought you’d want to know. Pick up your stuff whenever. No hard feelings. And you were right to get rid of the blow.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Amanda could be gracious and generous and charismatic and kind, but she’d always been horrible during every crisis she and I had lived through, especially those she’d created. Therefore, I found her calm demeanor more unsettling than the news about Gilson’s death. She hadn’t said how he’d died, and it wouldn’t have surprised me if he’d succumbed to his many unhealthy indulgences. His spheroid physique and fondness for the bottle indicated that fitness and health weren’t among his highest priorities.
I drove past Zuma Beach, then did something I’d only done two or three times in about seven years of living with Amanda. Instead of turning onto Broad Beach Road at the Malibu West Beach Club, I went up the coast and turned onto Broad Beach Road at the other entrance. I wouldn’t pass Amanda’s house by going this way, in case she was outside or was looking out a window. I wasn’t ready to deal with whatever bullshit she’d spew at me.
I pulled into Jennifer’s driveway, two doors away from Amanda’s house. Over the years, I’d entered Jennifer’s house from the sand or walked from Amanda’s front door to hers, so it felt weird to pull into her driveway for the first time. I anticipated her enthusiastic greeting and looked forward to re-starting my life.
But I still had plenty of work to do to extricate myself from my old one, and I hadn’t figured out who’d killed Chris and Big Bill. Amanda’s calm demeanor after I’d dumped her and after I’d gotten rid of her coke bothered me, so I did what I did when I felt overwhelmed: I tried to meditate.
As occasionally happened while I meditated, an epiphany hit me. I’d taken the long way, entering Broad Beach farther up the Coast Highway, rather than taking the first entrance and driving past Amanda’s house and its surveillance cameras. I could gain an advantage if the guy who’d threatened me didn’t know I had moved out of Amanda’s house into Jennifer’s. If my car was on the video driving past Amanda’s, then it would be obvious I didn’t live there anymore.
And that led me to the conclusion I’d done my best not to reach: Amanda could be involved. Only she could access the surveillance footage shot by her cameras, or she could grant access to them to someone else—either way, she would be involved. As a conspirator or a patsy, I didn’t know.
I got out of the car, grabbed the backpack and duffel from the trunk, walked to Jennifer’s front door, and knocked. She opened the door, and I took a few seconds to take in the wonder of the moment. She looked tremendous. She’d had time to prepare for my arrival. She didn’t need makeup or haute couture to make herself gorgeous, so when she took the time to put makeup on, slither into skin-tight jeans, and slip into the white Chloé ruffled ramie wrap blouse I’d admired in the past, she became almost too beautiful to touch, as though my physically interacting with her would ruin a work of art. But she didn’t give me the option to stand back to admire her. She jumped into my arms and kissed me again as she’d kissed me that morning—as though she’d been dreaming about that kiss for years. When our greeting finally ended, and before it progressed into more, I asked, “You have room for my car, right?”
“Of course. Why?”
“I think it makes sense, and could be safer, if nobody knows I’m here.”
“Okay, but Amanda has to know you’re here, right?”
“She could suspect it, but she won’t know for sure.”
“Yeah. Give me a sec.” She went through the house as I walked back to the car. By the time I started the engine, the far-left garage door was rising. She had a three-car garage. I pulled in beside her black Tesla Model S, which sat next to her black Range Rover with a surfboard rack on top. I got out of the car, hit the button to close the garage door, and entered her house.
I didn’t know how Jen’s wealth compared to Amanda’s, although I thought her taste was far better. Jen had been the face of L’Oréal for more than a decade when she was younger, then she’d started her own cosmetics line that sported her initials, JP, for Jennifer Pearson. Her high-end products were worn and endorsed by celebrities, including Amanda, whose signature Flourish line was one of JP Cosmetics’ biggest sellers. Jennifer had also purchased a huge quantity of Apple stock with the money she made from modeling while she was an undergrad, back when Apple stock was just above nothing per share. So, she’d done very well.
Nearly every item in Jen’s house was expensive, but her décor didn’t scream “Look at me—I’m successful and very deserving of your love and admiration,” as Amanda’s did. Instead of the Steuben crystal and Venetian masterpieces in Amanda’s house that made visitors feel as though they were only as welcome to touch the objects as they would be in a museum, Jen’s house was filled with huge abstract oil paintings that she’d created, mostly in earth tones. If she’d marketed them, I’m sure she would’ve earned another bundle because they were very good, and because she was Jennifer Pearson, supermodel and cosmetics icon. But she painted because doing so made her feel good while doing it. The completed paintings were a bonus.
Jen’s artwork and the earth-toned furnishings that complemented them made her house feel homey, similar to the way a well-appointed ski lodge induces guests to make themselves comfortable. The books in nearly every room, many thousands of them throughout the house, made Jennifer’s home inviting. Every time I visited, I wanted to pull a book from one of the many shelves, then sit in a well-lighted place as I learned something or lost myself in another world. And I’d done so many times.
As comfortable and inviting as her home was, it was also very high-tech, being outfitted from top to bottom with Apple Homekit, which allowed her to manipulate nearly every piece of electronic equipment remotely, including the deadbolts, lights, cameras, motion sensors, and outlets. Her house had eight security cameras, as opposed to Amanda’s four. Jennifer spent on practicality, while Amanda spent on vanity.
Jen was understated and down-to-earth, as I considered myself to be, despite her many millions. Long ago, she’d established a foundation in Los Angeles that helped children of color who suffer from cystic fibrosis. Called Michael’s Breath, the foundation honored her younger brother who’d died of the disease at age twenty. She gave fifteen percent of everything she earned to the foundation.
Jennifer prepared an amazing Lebanese meal, the same multi-dish feast she’d served the year before to Jason Gilson, Mike, the woman he was dating at the time, Charlene, the guy Jen was dating, Ethan Hoffman, and Amanda and me. We had all been impressed by the meal, especially the hummus, which was far better than the packaged hummus any of us had eaten. During our first real evening together as a couple, Jennifer and I devoured delicious fattoush, tabbouleh, manakish, and hummus.
After we ate, I debated how to let Jen know I was serious about us not having sex, at least not that night. I didn’t want to start this new phase of our relationship by arguing, but I understood that we had to put Jen’s sobriety first. If that required us to argue, then that’s what we’d do. She was smart and intuitive, so I was hoping she’d understand.
The stressfulness of my thoughts must have shown on my face because she said, “You’re right, Jack. Stop worrying. They told me at the Pali meeting I absolutely should not leap into a relationship now. I’m choosing to take that limitation to mean I shouldn’t have sex right away. They can’t ask me not to love you because if that’s what they mean, they can kick rocks.” I laughed and hugged her.
We enjoyed our first evening together—snuggling, reading, watching Netflix, then reading and snuggling some more. The only hiccup was when Mike called to tell me about Jason’s death.
“Have you heard about Jason?” Mike asked.
“Amanda left me a message saying he’d died. Heart attack?”
“Hell no. His housekeeper found him hanging from his bedroom door. This is bullshit. Chris and Bill and now Jason, dead within a few days. Truly awful. How are you holding up?”
I took a few seconds to process the news. I hadn’t wanted to connect Jason’s death to Chris’ and Big Bill’s when I’d heard Amanda’s message. Natural causes seemed more likely than another murder of someone I knew, especially back to back to back. Even though I didn’t like Jason, I took this news hard because his death meant the killers were getting desperate, and no one should die in his late forties, let alone the way he had. It was possible the coroner wouldn’t connect the three murders because each ostensible suicide could believably have occurred on its own, although Big Bill standing on the edge of that barrel before jumping strained credulity.
