“Oh really?” she said. “Well that’s kind of you. It’s not the sort of thing Arnie used to say.”
“Well then, Arnie was a fool,” Maxine said, recovering a little of her old edge.
“Are you ready to go back inside now?” Tammy said, a little embarrassed by Maxine’s compliment.
“Yeah. I guess so.”
They made their way through the dead to the steps, and started to climb. As they did so it occurred to Maxine that in laying the leaves on the dead, and offering up a prayer on their behalf, Tammy had brought the idea of forgiveness into Katya Lupi’s loveless domain. It was probably the first time the subject had been broached in this vicinity in three-quarters of a century. Katya hadn’t seemed too big on forgiveness. You erred against her, you suffered for it; and you kept suffering.
“What are you thinking about?” Tammy asked her.
“Just this place.” Maxine looked up at the house, and turned to take in the rest of the Canyon. “Maybe the tabloids had it right.”
“About what?”
“Oh you know: the most cursed piece of real estate in Hollywood.”
“Bullshit,” Tammy said.
“You don’t think that room downstairs was made by the Devil, or his wife?”
“I don’t want to know who made it,” Tammy said. “But I know who fed it; who made it important. People. Just like you and me. Addicted to the place.”
“That makes sense.”
“Places can’t be good or bad,” Tammy said. “Only people. That’s what I believe.”
“Did that make you feel better, by the way? What you did out there?” Tammy smiled.
“Bit crazy, huh?”
“Not at all.”
“You know, it did make me feel better. Much better. Those poor things didn’t have a hope.”
“So now, we can go look for Todd?” Maxine said. “And if we don’t find him in — ” Tammy looked at her watch “-shall we say, fifteen minutes, we give it up as a bad idea? Agreed?”
“Agreed.”
“Where do you want to look first?” Tammy said. “The master bedroom,” Maxine replied. “Whenever things didn’t go well, he used to go to his bedroom and lock the door.”
“Funny, Arnie would do the same.”
“You never told me anything about Arnie,” Maxine said, as she led the way through the chaos of the kitchen to the hallway.
“There wasn’t that much to tell. And there’s even less now he’s gone.”
“Do you think he’ll come back?” “I don’t know,” Tammy said, sounding as though she didn’t care that much. “Depends on whether his new woman puts up with him or not.”
“Well, put it this way: do you want him back?”
“No. And if he tries to make nice, I’m going to tell him to go fuck himself. Excuse my French.”
They stepped out into the hallway. “You want to go up there first?” Tammy said. “He was your friend, or client, or whatever.” Maxine looked doubtful. “Go on,” Tammy urged her. “You go on up and I’ll try downstairs.”
“Okay,” Maxine said, “but stay in shouting distance.”
“I will. And if I don’t find anything down there I’ll come straight up and find you.”
Maxine started up the stairs two at a time. “I’m not spending another hour after dark in this Canyon,” she called as she went.
She watched Tammy descend as she ascended, and then, when the turn in the stairs put them out of sight of one another, she concentrated her attentions on the doorway in front of her. The landing she was crossing was creaking with every footfall: no doubt the damage the ghosts had done up here was as thorough as it had been below. God knows how profoundly they’d affected the sub-structure of the place. Another reason-if any were needed-to be out of here quickly. She’d read her Poe; she knew what happened to houses as psychotic as this had been. They came tumbling down. Their sins finally caught up with them and they collapsed on themselves like tumorous men, burying anyone and everyone who was stupid enough to be inside when the roof began to creak.
“Tammy!”
“I can hear you.”
“The place is creakin’ up here. Is it creakin’ down there?”