“Okay, so you’re not the best actor in Hollywood. You’re not the worst either.”
“No. I grant you, there’s worse.”
“A lot worse.”
“All right, a lot worse. Still doesn’t make me a good actor.”
He obviously wasn’t going to be moved on the subject, so Tammy left it where it was. They drove on in silence for a while. Then he swung the mirror round, and checked out his face. “You know I’m nervous?”
“Why?”
“In case there’s anybody at Maxine’s place.” He went back and forth between studying his face and checking the road.
“You look fine,” Tammy told him.
“I guess it’s not so bad,” he said, assessing his features.
“You just look a little different from the way you used to look.”
“Different enough that people will notice?”
Tammy couldn’t lie to him. “Sure they’ll notice. But maybe they’ll say you look better. I mean, when everything’s properly healed and you’ve had a month’s vacation.”
“You will come in with me, won’t you?”
“To see Maxine? My pleasure.”
“Mind if I smoke?” He didn’t wait for a reply. He just rolled down the window, pulled out a battered pack of cigarettes, and lit up. The rush of nicotine made him whoop. “That’s better! Okay. We’re going to do this. You and me. We’re going to ask Maxine a lot of very difficult questions, and figure out whether she’s lying to us or not.”
They had reached the Pacific Coast Highway, and the roar of the traffic through the open window made any further talk impractical for a time. They drove north for perhaps five miles, before coming off the PCH and heading west. The area wouldn’t have been Tammy’s idea of idyllic. Somehow she’d imagined Malibu being more like a little slice of Hawaii; but in fact it was just a sliver of real estate two or three houses deep, with the incessant din of the Pacific Coast Highway on one side and a narrow strip of beach on the other. They’d scarcely driven more than a quarter of a mile when they came to the Colony gates. There was a guard-house, and a single guard, who was sitting with his booted feet up beside a small television. The set went off as soon as they drove up, a broad smile appearing on the man’s face.
“Hey, Mr. Pickett. Long time, no see.”
“Ron, m’man. How goes it?”
“It goes good, it goes good.”
The guard was clearly delighted that his name had been remembered.
“Are you going to Ms. Frizelle’s party?”
“Oh … yeah,” Todd said, throwing a panicked glance at Tammy. “We’re here for that.”
“That’s great.” He peered past Todd, at the passenger. “And this is?”
“Oh, this is Tammy. Tammy, Ron. Ron, Tammy. Tammy’s my date for the night.”
“Good goin’,” Ron said, to no one and about nothing in particular. Just a general California yea-saying to the world. “Let me just call Ms. Frizelle, and tell her you’re on your way down.”
“Nah,” Todd said, sliding a twenty dollar bill into Ron’s hand. “We’re going to surprise her.”
“No problem,” Ron said, waving them by. “Good to see you, by the way — ”
It took Tammy a moment to realize that Ron was talking to her.
“It’s always good to meet a new friend of Mr. Pickett’s.” There didn’t seem to be any irony in this: it was a genuine expression of feeling.
“Well, thank you,” Tammy said, thrown a little off-kilter by this.
“Fuck. She’s having a party,” Todd said to her as they left the guardhouse behind them.
“So.”
“So there’ll be lots of people. Looking at me.”
“They’ve got to do it sooner or later.”
Todd stopped the car in the middle of the street.
“I can’t. I’m not ready for this.”
“Yes you are. The more you put it off the more difficult it’s going to be.”
Todd sat there shaking his head saying: “No. No. I can’t do it.”
Tammy put her hand over his. “I’m just as nervous as you are,” she said. “Feel how clammy my hand is?”
“Yeah.”
“But we said we’d get answers. And the longer we take to ask her the more lies she’ll have ready.”