A needle of ice. Piercing to the grey matter in the centre of the spine. An injection, a quick cold squirt of… something.
Did Nora Vadance feel that ghost needle an instant before she got up from the breakfast table to fetch the camcorder?
Did the Delmanns feel it?
And Lisa?
Did Captain Delroy Blane feel it, too, before he disengaged the auto pilot, clubbed his First Officer in the face, and calmly piloted Flight 353 straight into the earth?
Not a ghost, perhaps, but something fully as terrifying and as malevolent as any evil spirit returned from the abyss of the damned, something akin to a ghost.
When Joe was two blocks from the Pacific, the cell phone rang for the third time.
The caller said, “Okay, turn right on the Coast Highway and keep driving until you hear from us again.”
To Joe’s left, less than two hours of sunlight lay over the ocean, like lemon sauce cooking in a pan, gradually thickening to a deeper yellow.
In Malibu, the phone rang again. He was directed to a turnoff that would take him to Santa-Fe-by-the-Sea, a Southwest restaurant on a bluff overlooking the ocean.
“Leave the phone on the passenger’s seat and give the car to the valet. He knows who you are. The reservation is in your name,” said the caller, and he hung up for the last time.
The big restaurant looked like an adobe lodge transported from New Mexico, with turquoise window trim, turquoise doors, and walkways of red-clay tiles. The landscaping consisted of cactus gardens in beds of white pebbles—and two large sorrel trees with dark green foliage and sprays of white flowers.
The Hispanic valet was more handsome by far than any current or past Latin movie star, affecting a moody and smouldering stare that he had surely practiced in front of a mirror for eventual use in front of a camera. As the man on the phone had promised, the valet was expecting Joe and didn’t give him a claim check for the Mustang.
Inside, Santa-Fe-by-the-Sea featured massive lodgepole-pine ceiling beams, vanilla-coloured plaster, and more red-clay payers. The chairs and tables and other furnishings, which fortunately didn’t push the Southwest theme to extremes, were J. Robert Scott knockoffs though not inexpensive, and the decorator’s palette was restricted to pastels used to interpret classic Navajo motifs.
A fortune had been spent here; and Joe was acutely aware that by comparison to the decor, he was a scruffy specimen. He hadn’t shaved since leaving for Colorado more than twelve hours ago. Because most contemporary male movie stars and directors indulged in a perpetually adolescent lifestyle, blue jeans were acceptable attire even at many tony establishments in Los Angeles. But his new corduroy jacket was wrinkled and baggy from having been rain-soaked earlier, and he had the rumpled look of a traveller—or a lush coming off a bender.
The young hostess, as beautiful as any famous actress and no doubt passing time in food service while waiting for the role that would win her an Oscar, seemed to find nothing about his appearance to disdain. She led him to a window table set for two.
Glass formed the entire west wall of the building. Tinted plastic blinds softened the power of the declining sun. The view of the coastline was spectacular as it curved outward both to the north and south—and the sea was the sea.
“Your associate has been delayed,” the hostess said, evidently referring to Demi. “She’s asked that you have dinner without her, and she’ll join you afterwards.”
Joe didn’t like this development. Didn’t like it at all. He was eager to make the connection with Rose, eager to learn what she had to tell him—eager to find Nina.
He was playing by their rules, however. All right. Thanks.
If Tom Cruise had undergone cosmetic surgery to improve his appearance, he might have been as handsome as Joe’s waiter. His name was Gene, and he seemed to have had a twinkle surgically inserted in each of his gas-flame-blue eyes.
After ordering a Corona, Joe went to the men’s room and winced at the mirror. With his beard stubble, he resembled one of the criminal Beagle Boys in old Scrooge McDuck comics. He washed his hands and face, combed his hair, and smoothed his jacket. He still looked like he should be seated at not a window table but a Dumpster.