“So there’s nothing particular on Eric’s mind.”
“His mother destroyed herself, his father got hauled in by the gestapo. Now, what could be on his mind?”
He resumed staring at the TV screen. “What’s the problem here? Do you resent us because we’ve made it? Did you grow up poor? Do you resent rich kids? Does having to deal with them day in and day out because
they’re the ones who pay your bills piss you off? Is that the reason you won’t help us?”
My sigh was involuntary.
He said, “Okay, okay, sorry, that was out of line, it’s been a … rough time. All I’m asking for is some help with Eric and Stacy. If I wasn’t so close to the situation, I could deal with it myself. At least I have the insight to know my limitations, right? How many parents can you say that of?”
Footsteps sounded from above. Someone walking. Pacing. Stopping. The kids on the second floor …
I said, “No stonewall, Richard. I’m here for Eric and Stacy. Are you in any state to answer a few questions about Joanne?”
“What about Joanne?”
“Basic history. At what hospital did she take her medical tests?”
“St. Michael’s. Why?”
“I may want to look at her medical records.”
“Same question.”
“I’m still trying to understand what was wrong with her.”
“Her medical records won’t tell you a damn thing,” he said. “That’s the point, the doctors didn’t know. And what does Joanne’s illness have to do with the current situation?”
“It may have something to do with Eric and Stacy,” I said. “As I said, I run on information. May I have a release from you to look at her records?”
“Sure, sure, Safer can give it to you, I signed over power of attorney to him while I was indisposed. Now, how about going up to talk to my kids?”
“Please bear with me,” I said. “After Joanne died, you called Mate, but he never called you back—”
“Did I tell you that?”
“No, Judy did when she made the referral.”
“Judy.” He swiped at his brow with the back of his hand. “Well, Judy’s correct. I did try. Not once, several times. The bastard never gave me the courtesy.”
“He didn’t throw a press conference regarding Jo-anne, either.”
His eyes slitted. “So?”
“Publicity seemed to be a motive for him—”
“You’ve got that right,” he said. “He was a scum-sucking publicity hound. But don’t ask me to explain what he did and didn’t do. To me he was a name in the papers.”
Easy to erase?
I said, “One other discrepancy: by the time Joanne contacted Mate, he’d already shifted from motels to vans. Yet Joanne died in a motel. Would there have been some reason for her to insist upon that? Some reason for her to travel to Lancaster—”
“She was never there,” he said.
“Never at the motel?”
“Never in Lancaster.” He laughed. Sudden, bitter, incongruous laughter. “Not till that night. It was a thing between us. I was out there all the time, did several projects there, building shopping centers, turning shit into gold. Used to copter from the Municipal Bank Building to Palmdale, drive the rest of the way. Spent so many goddamn hours there I used to feel I was made of sand. Joanne never saw any of it. I used to ask her—beg her— to drive out, just once in a while. Join me for lunch, see what we were accomplishing. I told her the desert could be beautiful when you looked at it a certain way, we could find some good, cheap eats, go casual—goddamn Pizza Hut or something, like when we were broke and dating. No way. She always turned me down, said it was too far to drive. Too much traffic, too dry, too hot, too busy, there was always a reason.”
He laughed again. “But she ended up there.” Turning to stare at me. For once, not a combative glare. Sad, pitiful, seeking an answer.
“Oh Jesus,” he said. An abrupt, suppressed sob made him choke. He bounced once in the sofa, as if levitated by pain and slammed back down by fate.
“Goddamn her,” he whispered. Then he lost the fight and the tears gushed. He punched air, punched his knees, attacked his own chest, his shoulder, knuckled his eyes. Hid his face from me.