respect the traffic laws, they made great time from the office to their
home on the east end of Orange.
On the way Bobby told her about the Calcutta roach that had been part of
his shoe when he and Frank had arrived that red bridge in the garden in
Kyoto.
“But when we pop to Mount Fuji, my shoe was okay, the roach was gone.”
She slowed at an intersection, but she was the only traffic in sight, so
she didn’t obey the four-way stop.
“Why didn’t tell me about this at the office?”
“Wasn’t time for every detail.”
“What do you think happened to the roach?”
“I don’t know. That’s what bothers me.” They were on Newport Avenue,
just past Crawford Cany Sodium-vapor street lamps cast a queer light on
the road Atop the steep hills to the left, several huge English and
French houses, blazing like giant luxury liners, looked wildly out of
place, partly because the insanely high value such upscale real estate
ensured the construction of immense houses out of proportion to the tiny
lots they stood on, partly because Tudor and French architectural styles
clashed with the semitropical landscape. It was all part of the Cali
nia circus, some of which he hated, most of which he loved. Those
houses never bothered him before, and given the serious problems he and
Julie faced, he couldn’t figure why they bothered him now. Maybe he was
so jumpy that even these misharmonies reminded him of the chaos that had
almost engulfed him during his travels with Frank.
He said,
“Do you have to drive so fast)”
“Yes,” she said curtly.
“I want to get home, get packed, to Santa Barbara, learn what we can
about the Pollard family, get finished with this whole damn creepy
case.”
“If you feel that way, why don’t we just drop it here? Frank comes
back, we give him his money, his jar of red diamonds, tell him we’re
sorry, we think he’s a prince of a guy, but we’re out of it.”
“We can’t,” she said.
He chewed on his lower lip, then said,
“I know. But I can’t figure why we’re compelled to hang in there with
this one.” They crested the hill and speeded north, past the entrance
to Rocking Horse Ridge. Their own development was only a couple of
streets ahead, on the left. As she finally began to brake for the turn,
she glanced at him and said,
“You really don’t know why we can’t bug out of it?”
“No. You saying you do?”
“I know.”
“Tell me.”
“You’ll figure it out eventually.”
“Don’t be mysterious. That’s not like you.” She swung the company
Toyota into their development, then onto their street.
“I tell you what I think, it’ll upset you. You’ll deny it, we’ll argue,
and I don’t want to argue with you.”
“Why will we argue?” She pulled into their driveway, put the car in
park, switched off the lights and engine, and turned to him. Her eyes
shone in the dark.
“When you understand why we can’t let go, you won’t like what it says
about us, and you’ll argue that I’m wrong, that we’re just a couple of
sweet kids, really. You like to see us as a couple of sweet kids, savvy
but basically innocent at the same time, like a young Jimmy Stewart and
Donna Reed. I really love you for that, for being such a dreamer about
the world and us, and it’ll hurt me when you want to argue.” He almost
started to argue with her about whether he would argue with her. Then
he stared at her for a moment and finally said,
“I’ve had this feeling that I’m not facing up to something, that when
this is all over and I realize why I was so determined to see this
through to the end, my motivations won’t be as noble as I think they are
now. It’s a weird damn feeling. As if I don’t really know myself.”
“Maybe we spend all our lives learning to know ourselves.
And maybe we never really will completely.” She kissed him lightly,
quickly, and got out of the car.
As he followed her up the sidewalk to the front door, glanced at the