Mystery Girl: A Novel (36 page)

He seemed totally stunned by what he’d done. He kept crying. I pretty much expected him to go mad or confess or take his own life. Imagine my shock a few years later when he directed a hit movie. I guess he got over it. He moved on like the sociopath he really is and after that his fame and wealth just grew. But we were safe. We had him by the balls and he knew it. The money went into our accounts, no questions asked. But I did feel sometimes, like maybe he really had sacrificed poor Tommy in exchange for fame and success, that he had sold his soul to the devil or been some demon in disguise all along, that he’d tricked us all and stolen our souls. When he struck the deal that bought his own success, he doomed the rest of us in the bargain. That’s how I feel anyway, because while Buck went up and up, America’s sweetheart, we all went down and down. Not at first. At first it seemed like we might just make it, get away with everything and start again together. I was twenty. We traveled around Mexico for a while, the jungle, the beach. It cleared your head out and made you feel clean. Then we got a house and settled in. We lived by the ocean in a small village full of smugglers where no one cared who we were and asking questions about the past or how you got your money was considered rude. I went surfing and learned Spanish. It was like college for me. I read all the books that other people read in school. I spoke some Spanish already, from growing up in LA, and Maria had taught me more, we’d speak it at home so Zed couldn’t understand, but now in Mexico I got fluent, not enough to fool the Mexicans of course, but good enough to fool white people with my dark skin. I fooled you too, my love. And I took care of Zed. He set up a studio and started painting. Really I think he had talent, and if he had dedicated himself to it the way he had to film at the start, he could have had another whole career, as a reclusive Mexican painter. Anyway that’s my opinion, but he didn’t have it in him. I couldn’t see it at the time, but he was done, burned out. He painted, but only in spurts and only pictures of me. Most days, he smoked weed instead, standing waist-deep in the pool. He went drinking with the locals, the
fishermen and smugglers and Indians, who would dump him off drunk at our door. Five years went by. Zed’s depression got worse. He had a lot of guilt about Tommy. He felt like he was being punished, like he was cursed. He even went to the church and prayed, though he was drunk at the time. He sought help from the Indians and their healers. He would go on long rituals with them, out in the jungle and in the desert, taking medicine and whipping his back to chase out the demons. It didn’t work. A shrink probably would have helped more. Then he lost his sex drive, and though I tried to reassure him, he felt like this too was a punishment. His talent and his libido, the two engines that drove his life, both ran out on him. Suddenly he was the old impotent fool with the sexy young wife he was terrified of losing. And then at last I realized I really did have to leave him. It was what he had always feared and predicted, but not for the reasons he’d thought: not for new sexual or artistic adventures, just the opposite. I was a twenty-five-year-old woman. I wanted to go to school, to have a job, a life, maybe even a family someday. I wanted to be single for a while, to be on my own, and then I wanted another marriage maybe, with a real partner. I had been Zed’s lover, then his muse, his mistress, his caretaker, and at last his nurse. Had I ever really been his wife? The other thing that happened was my mother died. She’d become a big-time alcoholic years before. She was in and out of rehab, Promises Malibu, Betty Ford, only the best for her of course, but it never worked and finally she smashed her car up on Mulholland Drive. I didn’t go home for the funeral, how could I, but I swore I was not going to watch Zed do the same, drive off the cliff drunk or drown in our pool. Finally I told him and he understood. He wasn’t even mad. He said he’d help me. With his shady local connections, we got a fake ID and a Mexican passport and then applied for a student visa under that name. I packed and we spent a last night together, hugging and crying and apologizing and thanking each other. Then in the morning, he drove me into town to the airport and I left. I flew to New York and spent a winter there, taking classes and working in a clothing shop,
then returned to LA. I suppose that might seem like a foolish choice. But there was no one left to recognize me, really. I never had normal friends, or any family besides my mom. Plus, Maria had come back, and she was in bad shape. She’d had some sort of breakdown in Europe and was in a psych ward in Pasadena. I went to see her, to see if I could help and also to find out what she was saying about us. It was a rough visit. After pretending to be me for so long, she finally believed it herself. In her mind, she was Mona, and I was her. So I just hugged her and went along with it. She would be Mona and I would be Eulalia Natalia, the new me. After that her doctor, this guy Parker, said it was better if I didn’t come back, that seeing people from the past just upset her. But the trip home brought back good memories too. I missed the sun, the hills, the food. I just stayed. I got a job doing something I actually liked and was good at. I made friends. I got my own little studio apartment. And I met you. I want to say that no matter what, those next years with you were the best of my life and I will always be grateful for what you gave me. Real love, real happiness. You showed me what those were. But it didn’t last, did it? Something happened. We wore each other down. We gave up on each other. Or maybe our expectations were wrong all along. In the end, you are not responsible for anyone else’s unhappiness. And no one else can save you from your own. But I didn’t know that and I got angry, so angry. I felt trapped in that house with you, like a cage. I felt like it was all wrong and it was all your fault. I felt like I had to make you change, or else be done. And then Zed wrote to me. I’d given him an email address when I left, for emergencies only, and honestly I’d forgotten about it, didn’t even check it for months and months. But when I began to separate from you emotionally, to have secrets, it seemed natural to use that account and there it was, his note. He told me he was dying. He told me he was sending the film. It felt like a sign. It was like the old me, Mona, getting back in touch. Suddenly I had a way out. I could take that money and disappear again. I could be free. So I ran away from home, one more time. But of course I didn’t get far.
Buck had been keeping tabs on us all along. He had people watching, in Mexico, in Europe, in LA. When Maria fell ill he made her a prisoner in that hospital. But he couldn’t touch Zed or me because of the film. Then he found out about Zed’s cancer, and he knew he had to make a move. He couldn’t trust what a dying man would do, or leave the film floating out in the world. So he had his people snatch me up. Since then I’ve been here, alone, locked in this room. He says he will trade me to Zed for the film but I know he won’t. He can’t leave me alive. Once he has the movie, I am the only loose thread and he will cut me off. This is the end. I do feel some small comfort in knowing that by leaving I kept you out of this, that you are safe from Buck. I am glad that even though you will probably always hate me, you will never know the whole ugly truth. You won’t even know my real name. Because you will never even read this, my good-bye letter. Because there is no letter. I am not writing it. There is no pen, no paper. I am handcuffed to a bed in a cabin in the desert, waiting for someone to come kill me, lying in the dark and talking to you. There is no one here to hear my voice when I talk. I am not even talking. It is silent. There are no words at all. Love always. Your Lala.

88

WE SET OUT THE NEXT
morning after a breakfast that only Lonsky and Milo could eat. Nic and I were too nervous, just as we’d been too keyed up to sleep, lying together and talking all night. Lonksy had pancakes, eggs, bacon, ham, and biscuits. Milo had half that then went to rest by the pool. Lonsky wanted Nic to stay behind too, but she insisted, and we still needed her to drive.

It was only seven thirty and the air was still cool. Birds called to each other from out of sight. A jackrabbit looked us over then bounced into the scrub. We headed down the highway and turned
in at the Joshua Tree National Park. No guard was on duty yet, but at Lonksy’s insistence I stopped and paid, putting the cash into the envelope provided and sliding it into a slot. The park was empty and silent in the morning, the rocks and ridges shading and shining in the shifting light, changing form and color like the depths of the sea I’m told this once was, a fresh world where everything was still alive and aware, stone, sun, wind, a world free to start again from nothing. As she drove, Nic put her hand out and touched mine. I held it tight.

Lonsky, who held the map, told us where to turn and we began a steep climb, arriving at a lookout point atop a high cliff, a flat tablet overlooking the landscape. We parked. At first we were alone. We sat in silence, as if at a drive-in, too tense to speak.

“There,” Lonsky said, just as Nic and I saw it too, a black sedan, tiny from this height, winding along the road like a bug. It vanished from view then reappeared over the far ridge. It made its way toward us, raising dust, windshield flaring in the light. We got out as it approached and stopped, facing us, about twenty yards away. The door opened. Buck emerged, holding a gun. His sunglasses flashed and his shirt flapped in the hot wind.

“I said come alone, Lonsky,” he called.

“Preposterous,” he answered. “I can’t even drive.”

“OK,” Buck said. “Send the writer with the cans. The girl waits in the car.”

“Show us the hostage first,” Solar said.

Buck opened the back door and reached inside. He pulled out a woman, dressed in jeans and a white T-shirt. Her wrists were bound behind her and a white linen sack was tied around her head.

“Here she is. Now the film canisters.”

“How do we know that’s her?” I asked. “Mona!” I yelled. Her head perked up and she began to twist around. Buck yanked her close and pushed the gun to her head.

“How do I know there’s film in those cans?” Buck answered.
“We’ll just have to have faith, and if doesn’t work out, kill each other later.”

I glanced at Lonksy. He nodded.

“Sounds good,” I called. Lonsky handed me the cans. “Be right back,” I said to Nic. I realized there were tears in her eyes. She grabbed me tight.

“Be careful,” she whispered.

“Hey, don’t worry,” I said. “I’ll see you in a minute. Don’t go soft on me now, hard ass.” She sniffed, and I whispered in her ear. “I’m glad you turned out to be you and not anyone else.”

She smiled. She kissed me.

“Let’s go,” Buck yelled. “It’s getting hot out here.”

Nic got back in the car. I held out the cans like a pizza I was delivering and started walking.

“Slow, slow, take it easy, writer,” Buck said, holding Mona in front of him, gun on me now. “You know, I hate to disappoint you, but I don’t think our film project is going to work out after all.”

“I figured that,” I said, stepping steadily, balancing the cans in my bandaged hands, trying not to tremble or let my voice break.

“I hope you don’t mind,” he went on, I was about a dozen yards away now, “I fed your manuscripts to my shredder. I’m a big recycler.”

“No problem,” I said. They were the only copies left. Three novels. A lifetime of labor. I shrugged.

“Let’s face it,” he said. “No one was ever going to read them. People need hope and comfort. Real stories that give them a sense of meaning. Boring books like yours just upset and confuse people. Life is already confusing and upsetting enough.”

He had a point. There were a thousand, a hundred thousand great books already, sitting unvisited in libraries that were closing down every day, and what did it matter? Most would soon be forgotten, crumble to dust, and blow away. How many great masterpieces were already lost, written in languages no one read any longer, for people no one remembered?

Yet one had to do something to fill one’s time on this planet. If by some chance I survived till lunchtime, what was I going to do? Paint houses? Sell cars? Cure cancer? Run for congress? Fuck it. I would really, really suck at all those things. I might as well write
Perineum.
Maybe if I was very lucky someday some heartbroken house painter or suicidal car salesman or lonely oncologist or congressman in an existential crisis, or even some angry poetry major, would come across something I wrote in a dusty, bankrupt used book shop, and recognize the message I left just for them, written in the secret tongue that you thought no one else spoke, that you almost forgot yourself, until you found it there, crushed like a whisper between the pages of a book.

“Sam, look out!” It was Nic, yelling. I turned. She was out of the car and running toward me, pointing and shouting. Russ had emerged from behind a boulder, aiming a rifle at me. I jumped as a bullet smacked the ground at my feet, throwing up a handful of dirt. Russ swerved and fired again, blowing a hole through Nic’s chest. I rushed to her side, but she was already gone, a look of wonder on her face. What did she see? I hope not just dirt and a tire. I hope she saw some angel she would never stoop to believe in, or my face, at least. I hope she heard my voice, as I whispered, I love you, only then realizing it might be true.

“Down,” Lonsky yelled, pushing me aside. He had that cannon in his hand. I dropped and he fired, one shot. The top of Russ’s skull blew away. Lonsky whirled, gracefully, like a dancer, and aimed at Buck next, but it was too late. Buck fired and a red flower burst open on the meaty part of Lonksy’s upper leg. He fell and his shot went wide, shattering the sky reflected in Buck’s windshield.

“Run, Mona,” I yelled and threw the cans at Buck, frisbeeing them toward his head. He ducked and the girl broke away, running blindly. I caught her in mid-flight and half-led, half-dragged her behind Buck’s car. “Get down, get down,” I said.

Peeking around under the car, I could see that one of the cans had popped open. Film was unspoiled in the dust, stirring like a snake
in the wind. Buck picked up the other canister. I could see Lonsky crawling, dragging his huge body through the sand like a wounded monster, like a bloody bull, but he was on the wrong side of my car to take a clear shot. I knew I’d have to try and maneuver Buck into range. Mona sat up and Buck fired, shattering the side windows as her white, covered head popped into range like a target. I threw her down in the dirt and lay beside her.