Victory Over Japan (19 page)

“I haven't seen Pam since all that happened. Pam doesn't mean a thing to me. Pam's nothing.”

“Then why was I dreaming about her?”

“Don't ruin everything, Nora Jane. Let's just
love each other.”

“You want to make love to me some more? Well, do you?”

“No, right
now I want a cigarette. Then I want to take you to this restaurant I like. I want to tell you about this outfit I'm working for. I'll tell
you what. Tomorrow's Saturday and I have to take Mirium's car back so I'll take you with me and show you what's going on.”

“I've been wondering what you were up to.”

“Just wait till you meet Mirium.
She's my boss. I've told her all about you. Now come on, let's get dressed and get some dinner. I haven't eaten all day.”
Sandy had gotten out of bed and was putting on his clothes. White linen pants and a blue shirt with long full sleeves. He liked to dress up even more
than Nora Jane did.

Sandy's boss, Mirium Sallisaw, was forty-three years old. She lived in a house on a bluff overlooking
the sea between Pacifica and Montara. It was a very expensive house she bought with money she made arranging trips to Mexico for people that wanted to
cure cancer with Laetrile. The Laetrile market was drying up but Mirium wasn't worried. She was getting into Interferon as fast as she could make
the right connections. Interferon and Energy. Those were Mirium's key words for 1983.

“Energy,” she was fond of
saying. “Energy. That's all. There's nothing else.” She imagined herself as a little glowworm in a sea of dark branches,
spreading light to the whole forest. She was using Sandy to keep her batteries charged. She liked to get in bed with him at night and charge up, then
tell him her theories about energy and how he could have all the other women he wanted, because she, Mirium Sallisaw, was above human jealousy and
didn't care. Sandy was only twenty-two years old. He believed everything she told him. He even believed she was dying to meet Nora Jane. He
thought of Mirium as this brilliant businesswoman who would jump at a chance to have someone as smart as Nora Jane help drive patients back and forth
across the border.

Nora Jane and Sandy got to Mirium's house late in the afternoon. They parked in the parking lot and
walked across a lawn with Greek statues set here and there as if the decorator hadn't been able to decide where they should go. Statues of muses
faced the parking lot. Statues of heroes looked out upon the sea. Twin statues of cupid guarded the doorway.

Nora Jane and Sandy
opened the door and stepped into the foyer. It was dark inside the house. All the drapes were closed. The only light came from recessed fixtures near
the ceiling. A young man in a silk shirt and elegant pointed shoes came walking toward them. “Hello, Sandy,” he said. “Mother's
in the back. Go tell her you're here.”

“This is Maurice,” Sandy said. “He's Mirium's son.
He's a genius, aren't you, Maurice? Listen, did you give Mirium my message? Does she know Nora Jane's coming?”

“We've got dinner reservations at Blanchard's. They have fresh salmon. Mimi called. Do you like salmon?” he said
to Nora Jane. “I worship it. It's all I eat.”

“I've never given it much thought,” she said.
“I don't think much about what I eat.”

“Maurice takes chemistry courses at the college,” Sandy said.
“Mirium's making him into a chemist.”

“That's nice,” she said. “That must be
interesting.”

“Well, profitable. I'll make some dough if I stick to it. Sandy, why don't you go on back and
tell her you're here. She's in the exercise room with Mimi. Tell her I'm getting hungry.” Sandy disappeared down a long hall.

Maurice took Nora Jane into a sunken living room with sofas arranged around a marble coffee table. There were oriental boxes on
the table and something that looked like a fire extinguisher.

“Sit down,” he said. “I'll play you some
music. I've got a new tape some friends of mine made. It's going to be big. Warner's has it and Twentieth Century-Fox is interested.
Million Bucks, that's the name of the group. The leader's name is Million Bills. No kidding, he had it changed. Listen to this.”
Maurice pushed some buttons on the side of the marble table and the music came on, awful erratic music, a harp and a lot of electronic keyboards and
guitars and synthesizers. The harp would play a few notes, then the electrical instruments would shout it down. “Pretty chemical, huh? Feel that
energy? They're going to be big.” He was staring off into the recessed light, one hand on the emerald embedded in his ear.

Nora Jane couldn't think of anything to say. She settled back into the sofa cushions. It was cool and dark in the room. The
cushions she was leaning into were the softest things she had ever felt in her life. They felt alive, like some sort of hair. She reached her hands
behind her. “What are these cushions?” she said. “What are they made of?”

“They're
Mirium's old fur coats. She wanted drapes but there wasn't enough.”

“They're made of fur
coats?”

“Yeah. Before that they were animals. Crazy, huh? Chemical? Look, if you want a joint they're different
kinds in those boxes. That red one's Colombian and the blue one is some stuff we're getting from Arkansas. Heavy. Really heavy.
There's gas in the canister if you'd rather have that. I quit doing it. Too sweet for me. I don't like a sweet taste.”

“Could I have a glass of water,” she said. “It was a long drive.” She was sitting up, trying not to touch the
cushions. “Sure,” he said. “I'll get you some. Just a minute.” He had taken a tube of something out of his pocket and was
applying it to his lips. “This is a new gloss. It's dynamite. Mint and lemon mixed together. Wild!” Then, so quickly Nora Jane
didn't have time to resist, Maurice sat down beside her and put his mouth on hers. He was very strong for a boy who looked so thin and he was
pressing her down into the fur pillows. Her mouth was full of the taste of mint and lemon and something tingly, like an anesthetic. For a moment she
thought he was trying to kill her. “Get off of me,” she said. She pushed against him with all her might. He sat up and looked away. “I
just wanted you to get the full effect.”

“How old are you?”

“Sixteen. Isn't it a
drag?”

“I don't know. I'd never have guessed you were a day over four. Three or four.”

“I guess it's my new stylist,” he said, as if he didn't know what she meant. “I've got this woman in
Marin. Marilee at Plato's. It takes forever to get there. But it's worth it. I mean, that woman understands hair….”

Sandy reappeared with a woman wearing gray slacks and a dark sweater. She looked as if she smiled about once a year. She held out her
hand, keeping the other one on Sandy's arm. “Well,” she said. “We've been hearing about you. Sandy's told us all
about your exploits together in New Orleans. He says you can do some impressive tricks with your voice. How about letting us hear some.”

“I don't do tricks,” Nora Jane said. “I don't even sing anymore.”

“Well, I
guess that's that. Did Sandy fill you in on the operation we've got going down here? It isn't illegal, you know. But I don't
like our business mouthed around. Too many jealous people, if you know what I mean.”

“He told me some
things…” Nora Jane looked at Sandy. He wouldn't meet her eyes. He picked up one of the canisters and took out a joint and lit it and
passed it to Maurice.

“We have dinner reservations in less than an hour,” Mirium said. “Let's have some
wine, then get going. I can't stand to be late and lose our table. Maurice, try that buzzer. See if you can get someone in here.”

“These are sick people you send places,” Nora Jane said. “That you need a driver for?”

“Oh, honey, they're worse than sick. These people are at the end. I mean, the end. We're the last chance they've
got.”

“They don't care what it costs,” Sandy said. “They pay in cash.”

“So what does it do for them?” Nora Jane said. “Does it make them well?”

“It makes
them happy,” Maurice said.

“It makes them better than they were,” Mirium said. “If they have faith. It
won't work without faith. Faith makes the energy start flowing. You see, honey, the real value of Laetrile is it gets the energy flowing. Right,
Sandy?” She moved over beside him and took the joint from between his fingers. “Like good sex. It keeps the pipes open, if you know what I
mean.” She put her hand on Sandy's sleeves, caressing his sleeve.

“Do you have a powder room?” Nora Jane
said. “A bathroom I mean.”

“There's one in the foyer,” Mirium said. “Or you can go back to the
bedroom.”

“The one in the foyer's fine.” Nora Jane had started moving. She was up the steps from the sunken
area. She was out of the room and into the hall. She was to the foyer. The keys are in the ignition, she was thinking. I saw him leave them there. And
if they aren't I'll walk. But I am getting out of here. Then she was out the door and past the cupids and running along the paving stones to
the parking lot. The Lincoln was right where Sandy had parked it. She got in and turned the key and the engine came on and she backed out and started
driving. Down the steep rocky drive so fast she almost went over the side. She slowed down and turned onto the ocean road. Slow down, she told herself.
You could run over someone. They can't do anything to me. They can't send the police after me. Not with all they have going on in there. All
I have to do is drive this car. I don't have to hurry and I don't have to worry about a single thing. And I don't have to think about
Sandy. Imagine him doing it with that woman. Well, I should talk. I mean, I've been doing it with Freddy. But it isn't the same thing. Well
it isn't.

She looked out toward the ocean, the Pacific Ocean lying dark green and wonderful in the evening sun. I'll
just think about the whales, she decided. I'll concentrate on whales. Tam says they hear us thinking. She says they hear everything we do. Well,
Chinese people are always saying things like that. I guess part of what they say is true. I mean they're real old. They've been around so
long.

It was dark when Nora Jane got to Freddy's house. The front door was wide open. He was in the hot tub with the stereo
blaring out country music. “Oh, I'm a good-hearted woman, in love with a good-timing man.” Waylon Jennings was filling the house with
dumb country ideas.

“I'm drunk as a deer,” Freddy called out when he saw her. “The one I love won't
admit she loves me. Therefore I am becoming an alcoholic. One and one makes two. Cause and effect. Ask Nieman. He'll tell you. He's helping
me. He's right over there, passed out on the sofa. In his green suit. Wake him up. Ask him if I'm an alcoholic or not. He'll tell
you.” Freddy picked up a bottle of brandy from beside an art deco soap dish and waved it in the air. “Brandy. King of elixirs. The royal
drink of the royal heads of France, and of me. Frederick Slazenger Harwood, lover of the cruel Louisiana voodoo queen. Voodooooed. I've been
voodooooed. Vamped and rendered alcoholic.”

“Get out of there before you drown yourself. You shouldn't be in
there drunk. I think you've started living in that hot tub.”

“Not getting out until I shrivel. Ask Nieman. Go
ahead, wake him up. Ask him. Going to shrivel up to a tree limb. Have myself shipped to the Smithsonian. Man goes back to tree. I can see the
headlines.”

“I stole a car. It's in the driveway.”

“Stay me with flagons,”
he called out. “Comfort me with apples, for I am sick with love. Nieman, get up. Nora Jane stole a car. We have to turn her in. Why did you steal
a car? I just gave you a car.” He pulled himself up on the edge of the hot tub. “Why on earth would you steal a car?”

So, first there was the night she spent with Freddy, then there was the night she spent with Sandy, then there was the night she stole
the car. Then three weeks went by. Then five weeks went by and Nora Jane Whittington had not started menstruating and she was losing weight and kept
falling asleep in the afternoon and the smell of cigarettes or bacon frying was worse than the smell of a chicken plucking plant. The egg had been hard
at work.

A miracle, the sisters at the Academy of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus would have said. Chemistry, Maurice would say.
Energy, Mirium Sallisaw would declare. This particular miraculous energetic piece of chemistry had split into two identical parts and they were attached
now to the lining of Nora Jane's womb, side by side, the size of snow peas, sending out for what they needed, water and pizza and sleep, rooms
without smoke or bacon grease.

“Well, at least its name will start with an H,” Nora Jane said. She was talking to Tam
Suyin, a Chinese mathematician's wife who was her best friend and confidante in the house on Arch Street where she lived. It was a wonderful old
Victorian house made of boards two feet wide. Lobelia and iris and Madonna lilies lined the sidewalk leading to the porch. Along the side poppies as red
as blood bloomed among daisies and snapdragons. Fourteen people lived in the twelve bedrooms, sharing the kitchen and the living quarters.

Nora Jane had met Tam the night she moved in, in the middle of the night, after an earthquake. Tam and her husband Li had taught Nora
Jane many things she would never have heard of in Louisiana. In return Nora Jane was helping them with their English grammar. Now, wherever they went in
the world, the Suyins' English would be colored by Nora Jane's soft southern idioms.

“And it probably will have
brown eyes,” she continued. “I mean, Sandy has blue eyes, or, I guess you could call them gray. But Freddy and I have brown eyes.
That's two out of three. Oh, Tam, what am I going to do? Would you just tell me that?” Nora Jane had just come back from the doctor. She
walked across the room and lay down on the bed, her face between her hands.