“I’m glad to hear that. I was actually a bit puzzled why Donovan had called him. What’s their inclination? Do you mind if I ask?”
“I guess it depends on what he says to them. Ultimately, of course, this is probably something for the lawyers to discuss. I think they want to be honorable. On the other hand, five million dollars might distort anyone’s sense of what’s fair.”
“Ain’t that the truth.”
TEN
I pulled over to the curb in fron of the Faith Evangelical Church the next afternoon at three. Guy had called me at 2:45 and I’d left the apartment shortly thereafter, taking a few minutes to put gas in my car. The sun was out again and the day felt like summer. I wore the usual jeans and a T-shirt, but I’d traded my Reeboks and sweat socks for a pair of openwork sandals in honor of the sudden heat. The grass on the church lawn had been recently cut and the sidewalk was littered with fine green at the edge. The turf itself featured a pale dun-colored haze where the cut blades had browned in the sun. A number of gullible daffodils had taken these balmy temperatures as an invitation to pop their green shafts into view.
There was no sign of Peter, but Guy was standing on the corner with a backpack at his feet. He spotted my car and pretended to hitchhike, holding his thumb out with a smile on his face. I confess when I saw him I could feel my heart break. He’d had his hair cut and his face was so freshly shaved he still sported a dot of toilet paper where he’d nicked himself. He wore a navy blue suit that didn’t fit well. The pants were baggy in the butt and slightly too long, the backs of his trouser cuffs brushing the sidewalk. The jacket was wide across the chest, which made the shoulder pads look as exaggerated as a 1940’s zoot suit. The garment had probably been donated to a church rummage sale or maybe he’d bought it from someone weighing forty pounds more. Whatever the explanation, he wore his finery with a self-conscious air, clearly unaccustomed to the dress shirt and tie. I wondered if my own vulnerability had been as apparent during my lunch with Tasha. I’d approached my personal grooming with the same insecurity, perhaps netting myself the same sorry results.
Guy reached for his canvas backpack, clearly happy to see me. He seemed as innocent as a pup. There was a softness about him, something guileless and unformed, as if his association with jubilee Evangelical had isolated him from worldly influences all these years. The reckless element in his nature was now tamed to a gentleness I’d rarely seen in a man.
He slid into the front seat. “Hey, Kinsey. How are you?” He held his backpack on his lap like a kid on his way to day camp.
I smiled in his direction. “You’re all spiffed up.”
“I didn’t want my brothers to think I’d forgotten how to dress. What do you think of the suit?”
“The color’s good on you.”
“Thanks,” he said, smiling with pleasure. “Oh. By the way, Winnie says hi.”
“Hi to her'” I said. “What’s the deal on your return? When are you planning to go back to Marcella?”
Guy looked away from me out the car window on his side, the casualness of his tone belying its content. “Depends on what happens at the house. Donovan invited me to stay for a couple of days and I wouldn’t mind that if everything works out all right. I guess if it doesn’t work, it won’t make any difference. I got money in my pocket. When I’m ready to leave, someone can give me a ride to the bus.”
I was on the verge of volunteering my services and then thought better of it. I glanced over at him, making a covert study of his face in profile. In some lights, he looked every one of his forty-three years. In other moments his boyishness seemed a permanent part of his character. It was as if his development had been arrested at the age of sixteen, maybe twenty at the outside. He was scanning the streets, taking in the sights as if he were in a foreign country.
“I take it you don’t get down here that often,” I said.
He shook his head. “I don’t have much occasion. When you live in Marcella, Santa Teresa seems too big and too far away. We go to Santa Maria or San Luis if we need anything.” He looked over at me. “Can we do a quick tour? I’d like to see what’s going on.”
“I can do that. Why not? We have time.”
I circled the block, coming back out onto State Street. I turned left, heading downtown, a short three blocks away. The business district wasn’t much more than twenty blocks long and three or four blocks wide, terminating at Cabana Boulevard, which parallels the beach. For many years, the stores along upper State attracted the bulk of the downtown shoppers. Lower State was considered the less desirable end of town, the street lined with thrift stores, third-rate eateries, a movie theater that smelled of urine, and half a dozen noisy bars and run-down transient hotels. Lately, the area had undergone a resurrection, and the classy businesses had begun to migrate southward along the thoroughfare. Now it was upper State that featured deserted storefronts while lower State had captured all the tourist trade. In warm weather, pedestrians drifted up from the beach, a ragtag parade of sightseers in shorts, licking ice-cream cones.
“It’s grown,” he remarked.
With a population of eighty-five thousand, Santa Teresa wasn’t big, but the town had been flourishing. I tried to see it as he did, cataloging in my mind all the changes that had taken place in the last twenty years. Time-lapse photography would have shown tree trunks elongating, branches stretching out like rubber, some buildings erected while others vanished in a puff of smoke. Storefronts would flicker through a hundred variations: awnings, signs, and window displays, the liquidation sales of one business flashing across the plate glass before the next enterprise took its place. New structures would appear like apparitions, filling in the empty spaces until no gaps remained. I could remember when the downtown sidewalks were made wider, State Street narrowing to accommodate the planting of trees imported from Bolivia. Spanish-style benches and telephone booths had been added. Decorative fountains had appeared, looking like they’d been there for years. A fire had taken out two commercial establishments while an earthquake had-rendered others unfit for use. Santa Teresa was one of the few towns that looked more elegant as time passed. The strict regulations of the Architectural Board of Review imposed an air of refinement that in other towns was wiped out by gaudy neon, oversized signage, and a hodgepodge of building styles and materials. As much as the local residents complained about the lengthy approval process, the result was a mix of simplicity and grace.
At Cabana, I drove out along the wharf, wheels thumping along the length. I turned at the end until we were headed back toward town. I motored north on State, seeing the same sights again from the reverse perspective. At Olive Grove, I turned right, driving past the Santa Teresa Mission and from there into the foothills where the Malek estate was tucked. I could sense Guy’s interest quicken as the road angled upward. Much of the terrain in this area was undeveloped, the landscape littered with enormous sandstone boulders and prickly cactus with leaves as large as fleshy Ping-Pong paddles.
The Malek estate sat close to the borders of the backcountry, an oasis of dark green in a region dense with pale chaparral. At irregular intervals, fires had swept across the foothills in spectacular conflagrations, the blaze advancing from peak to peak, sucking up houses and trees, consuming every shred of vegetation. In the wake of these burns, species of native plants known as fire followers appeared, dainty beauties emerging from the ashes of the charred and the dead. I could still see the occasional black, twisted branches of the manzanitas, though it had been five or six years since the last big fire.
Once again, the iron gates at the entrance stood open, the long driveway disappearing around a shaded curve ahead. Somehow the Maleks’ evergreens and palms looked alien set against the backdrop of raw mountains. Entering the estate, I sensed how the years of careful cultivation and the introduction of exotic plants had altered the very air that permeated the grounds.
“You nervous?” I asked.
“Scared to death.”
“You can still back out.”
“It’s too late for that. Feels like a wedding where the invitations have gone out-you know, it’s still possible to cancel, but it’s easier to go through with it than make a fuss for everyone else.”