Kino (27 page)

“They were terrible parents. I grew up hearing them say ‘Let's kill ourselves.' They talked about suicide as if it were a big joke. Mom would put her knife down at breakfast and ask him, ‘How about today? Do we want to kill ourselves today?'“

“That's awful,” Mina murmured. She could believe it, could hear Penny saying those words.

“I believed her. Every day, I came home from school worried I'd find them dead. That was my childhood. It was like growing up the child of Holocaust survivors, except that they were on the wrong side. And finally, when all seemed lost, your grandfather got plastered one last time and stuck a barrel down his throat. I was at boarding school, glad to be as far away from them as possible. Mom sent a telegram telling me not to bother coming home, and believe me, I didn't.”

“You should have gone,” Chester broke in, rubbing his eyes. “She's your mother. She was suffering. You're her only son.”

“Excuse me. I am talking to my daughter. Who exactly are you?”

“My name is Chester Burwell. I am Mrs. Koblitz's personal nurse.” He stood up, but Detlef didn't shake his hand.

“I just talked to her nurse,” Detlef said. “The nurses here wear uniforms.”

“Chester and Oma live together, Dad. He takes care of her. Be nice.”

The men glared at each other.

Oma Penny's machines pinged into the silence.

“I want you to explain to me exactly what happened at the house, before she collapsed.” Detlef looked from Chester to Mina and back.

Mina nodded. “Yes, Dad. Of course. I will.”

“The doctors believe that she could be in this state permanently. If she doesn't improve soon, we have to transfer her to a nursing home.”

“You can't do that,” Chester said.

“Oh yes,” Detlef said. “I can. It's the only sensible course of action.”

“You never worried about taking care of her before,” Chester said.

“The doctors say there were controlled substances involved. If any of this is true, you might be in for some very serious trouble, Mr. Burwell.”

“I'm not going anywhere. I'm staying here with my Penny.”

“Do as you please,” Detlef said. “But my daughter and I are flying back to New York tonight. And now, we have some business to attend to.”

Mina was still thinking about the possibility that Penny would never wake up again, and it took her a moment to process what her father had said. “We are? We do?”

And without so much as another glance at Chester or his comatose mother, Detlef took Mina by the arm and led her out of the room.

“Drive. I'll tell you where to go. We've had too many shenanigans and this is where it ends.”

“Where are we going?”

“You'll see.”

“I'd like to know.”

“Don't push it, Mina.”

“I'm not pushing anything. I'm asking a question.”

There was no answer. Her father gave her directions, and she grudgingly complied. They seemed to be headed downtown. The sun had begun to heat up the day. Detlef got out of his suit jacket. Mina was sweating in Marty's cotton shirt. She realized that except for the short nap during
Pirates,
she hadn't slept all night, hadn't slept since the airplane. All of a sudden, going home to New York didn't seem like the worst thing. She wanted to rest, go out for dinner with Sam, relax. Eat pizza, drink a glass of wine, breathe. Wear her own clothes.

“Pull up here.”

They had reached a sprawling adobe-style building with a clock tower surrounded by palm trees and a parking lot. A church? A mall? No–there was a sign over the arched entrance: a train station. Mina found a spot and moved to get out of the car, but her father put a hand on her leg.

“You can call Sam while I take care of this.”

“What are we doing here?”

“Wait in the car and call your sick husband.”

“I don't appreciate your telling me what to do.”

Detlef shook his head. “You are always fighting me. Mina, the boy's heart is broken.” He held out his hand to stop Mina's protests. “I am going in here by myself, so use the time to call him. Tell him you'll be home tomorrow.”

Had he said heartbroken? Did he say tomorrow? Mina watched her father cross the parking lot and disappear into the station. She massaged her shoulders and temples and tried to work up the courage to dial Sam's number. There was no answer when she did. She tried the hospital.

“Ah, the runaway bride,” the nurse said. “We've been hoping you would call.”

“Can I talk to my husband, please?”

“That's what we'd like to talk to you about. Your husband checked himself out this morning, against our urgent recommendation. Dengue fever at this stage can cause permanent brain damage when left untreated. We were hoping that you might be able to talk some sense into him.”

Was that a migraine headache Mina felt coming on, or was she in the middle of a nightmare? Had the nurse really said the words “permanent brain damage?” Why would Sam check himself out of the hospital? He wasn't the kind of person to disregard doctor's orders. She tried his cell again but there was still no answer.

“Sam,” she said to the voice mail box. “Hey you. You're not in the hospital. What the fuck? Where did you go? I love you, you know that. This is almost over and I'm coming home. Call me, okay, call me, because I am worried.”

Mina closed her cell phone. “Damn you,” she said in the direction of the train station. What was her father doing here? Where could Sam have gone? Mina watched an overweight woman struggling with a luggage cart. She rubbed her temples some more and decided not to tell her father what the nurse had said.

Against our urgent recommendation
.

Permanent brain damage
.

Mina was hot, uncomfortable, anxious. She was overtired. She was trying to be good, trying to do what her father said, but she could not stay in the car any longer. She got out and made her way inside the train station.

The place was much cooler than the parking lot, and it was gorgeous. Leather armchairs lined the main hall and chandeliers hung from a tiled, cavernous ceiling, bathing everything in a warm, almost sepia-toned light. It made train travel seem a lot more appealing than the cold, white airport terminals she had been hurrying through for the past week. But it was also as crowded as any airport, and it took Mina some long minutes to find her father in a second large hall. He was waiting by an information booth, flipping distractedly through an issue of
Premiere Magazine
.

Mina hesitated for a moment, watching her father from across the hall. Since when did her Dad read movie magazines? He thought nothing was more frivolous. As Mina watched, a middle-aged woman in a sundress approached him, pointed at the magazine, and shook his hand. What was going on?

“Dad?” Mina said, striding across the crowded room.

The woman twitched and gave Mina a skittish look.

“It's okay,” Detlef told the woman. “This is my daughter. Didn't I tell you to stay in the car?”

“You were gone a long time.”

“I am so sorry,” the woman said. The skin on her face was taut in a way that made Mina think of plastic surgery. She looked pale and harried. “That's my fault. I got caught on the Santa Monica freeway.” She introduced herself as Irene Botha. She kept fiddling nervously with the strap of her yellow handbag.

“You wanted to meet here,” Detlef said.

“Yes. Thank you. I've had
visitors
, and this seemed safer. Follow me.”

Botha, of course, was the name Schnark had mentioned. This was the daughter of the man who had just died, the assistant editor of
Twenty-Twelve
. Her father hadn't come to California for his daughter or his comatose mother. He was here for Kino's last movie.

Irene Botha led them down the hallway into a side arm of the building, where rows of metal lockers stood beneath tall stained glass windows. To one side, workers on scaffolding were restoring tiles on the vaulted ceiling. Mina blinked, recognizing something she couldn't quite place. Irene Botha produced a key, matched the numbers on the lockers, and found the one she was looking for.

“The material is all here.”

“Thank you.” Detlef had an envelope ready. “This is a check for the agreed-upon sum.”

“Good.” Irene Botha glanced anxiously over her shoulders and handed him the key. While she investigated the check, Detlef struggled with the locker door.

“Did you say you had visitors?” Mina asked. “What do you mean?”

Detlef gave her a furious look. She wasn't supposed to speak. She was supposed to be waiting in the car.

Irene Botha turned to Mina. Drops of sweat were running down her temple. “Men came by the house and threatened me with lawsuits if I didn't take the auction down immediately. They implied other consequences. They offered money, but I didn't trust them. I told them they needed to talk to my husband. They watched the house, so I had the police chase them off and decided to bring everything here. I don't need any trouble. I just want to be rid of this stuff.”

“So do we.” Detlef finally got the locker open. Inside, there was a plastic crate holding two cans of film and a thick manila file folder. Detlef picked up a can:
Twenty-Twelve.
Mina withheld a gasp. Her father was holding
Twenty-Twelve
. This was what he'd come for. The canister looked remarkably like Marty's imitation. Schnark's plan might just work, if Mina could reach him to arrange the switch.

A loud bang echoed through the building. One of the men working on the ceiling had dropped a tool from the scaffolding and nearly lost his balance trying to catch it. The entire structure swayed; it suddenly seemed fragile, ready to collapse at any moment. Mina felt something like déjà vu. She scanned the entrances to the hallway for men in suits–she was suddenly certain that the agents would show up any moment.

“We've got to get out of here,” she said, pulling her father by the elbow.

Irene Botha glanced over her shoulders anxiously. “That's fine with me. Pleasure meeting you both.” She grasped her handbag, turned, and disappeared into the crowd.

Detlef threw his issue of
Premiere
magazine into a nearby trashcan and lifted the crate holding
Twenty-Twelve.
“This way,” he said, directing them to the closest exit.

“No,” Mina said. “Not past the scaffolding.”

He ignored her and kept walking.

“Dammit, Dad, you've got to listen to me for once.”

Detlef threw up his arms. “Fine. Which way?”

Mina pointed in the opposite direction, back past the information counter where she'd found him waiting for Irene Botha. Detlef shrugged and gave in. They walked so fast they were practically running. Mina stayed behind her father. She clandestinely flipped open her phone and speed-dialed Schnark's number. They had the movie. They had
Twenty-Twelve.
She couldn't believe it. But Schnark wasn't picking up. Instead, she got a generic robot voice repeating the number she had dialed.

The moment they turned the corner into the main hall, a rumbling welled up behind them, a terrible roaring, screaming, crashing noise that echoed around the building's vaulted ceilings. People stopped and turned. Detlef gave Mina a quizzical look, but she kept pulling him on toward the exit.

“Just keep going, Dad.”

The convertible's trunk wouldn't fit the crate with the movie cans, and Detlef crammed it into back seat next to his carry-on. He tapped on the dashboard while Mina hit redial one more time. Where was Schnark? Why didn't anybody ever pick up?

“Come on, Mina, we've got another appointment.”

Mina put the phone away and turned around in the driver's seat to inspect the cans. “Just a minute.”

“Mina, leave that old junk. We're in a hurry. You can look at it later. Right now, you want to get back on 101 and head north.” He checked his watch, dialed a number on his phone, and confirmed a two o'clock appointment with a Mr. Katz.