Night Warriors, page 4
Susan numbly and shakily allowed Daffy to lift her up, and half carry her out of the bathroom. They encountered her grandmother as they came down the hallway, and for one split-second the old lady was going to protest about Susan’s wet feet on the carpet, until she saw how white and distressed Susan was, and how determined the challenge was on Daffy’s face.
‘What on earth’s the matter?’
‘She fainted, that’s all. Her period.’ For some reason Daffy was reluctant to tell Susan’s grandmother about the body on the beach. Between them, they helped Susan into her bedroom, and quickly dried her off. Susan’s grandmother searched through the untidy heaps of clothes in her closet drawers, until she found a striped nightshirt, which Daffy pulled over Susan’s head.
‘Maybe I ought to call Dr Emanuel,’ said Susan’s grandmother, anxiously.
Susan opened her eyes. Her fragmented thoughts were beginning to slide back into place again, like the film of a car-bomb explosion being played slowly in reverse. She found that she could focus again, and that sounds coagulated into words. She recognised Daffy, sitting on the end of the bed smiling at her. She recognised her grandmother, peering at her from a safe distance through her gold-framed spectacles, as if she were worried that whatever she was suffering from might be contagious.
‘Did I faint?’ she asked, with a dry mouth. ‘I thought I was someplace else.’
Daffy squeezed her hand. ‘You’re okay now. You’ll live. But you gave me a scare, I can tell you. Would you like some coffee?’
Susan nodded. ‘That would be great.’
Her grandmother said, ‘I’ll fix it,’ pleased to have something to do that didn’t actually involve nursing. She fretted endlessly about her own ailments, but she was totally squeamish when other people were sick. She wobbled off to the kitchen in her bright pink tracksuit, leaving the door open.
Daffy told Susan, ‘Get under the blanket. You need to keep warm.’
Susan said, ‘I’m okay now. Really.’
‘It must have been shock, you know, from seeing that body.’
Susan shook her head. Her hair was tangled and wet. ‘It was kind of like shock, but there was something else too. I don’t know how to describe it. I thought I could hear somebody’s voice, very loud and echoing. Then I was travelling very fast; it was like I was in a helicopter or something, speeding over the surface of the sea. It went so fast that I couldn’t keep my balance, and I fell down. The next thing I knew, I was back here with you.’
‘Shock,’ Daffy pronounced. ‘Now, will you keep warm? The Pink Panther’s going to be bringing you some coffee in a second.’
It took Susan a little over a half-hour to stop shivering. Then she dressed slowly, in a green tee-shirt and white pedal-pushers, and combed out her hair.
‘You’re sure you’re going to be okay?’ Daffy kept asking her. ‘I mean, you don’t have to come to the barbecue if you don’t want to. I won’t be offended.’
‘Daffy, I want to come. I’m not an invalid.’
‘You just take good care of yourself,’ her grandmother instructed her.
‘Yes, you take good care,’ her grandfather echoed.
They left the house and walked down the sloping driveway in the hot mid-morning sunshine. Daffy lived ten minutes’ walk away, in one of the new houses on Jimmy Durante Boulevard. Usually she borrowed her mother’s Seville to drive around in, but this morning her mother had gone to her beautician in La Jolla to have her face jacked up another inch, as Daffy put it.
They had almost reached the intersection with the main road when a clear man’s voice behind them said, ‘Pardon me, are you Susan Sczaniecka?’
Susan and Daffy turned around. It was the man who had been sitting on the wall outside Susan’s grandparents’ house. He was tall – taller than Daffy had imagined – with dark wavy hair. He took off his sunglasses and both girls had to admit to themselves that he was undeniably good looking. Thin faced, brown eyed, with one of those slightly amused faces that can make you feel both excited and at ease – at least if you’re a seventeen-year-old girl.
‘Didn’t I see you sitting on the wall?’ said Daffy, in a tone that meant the man ought to establish his credentials before either she or Susan would start talking to him.
‘Sure you did. I was waiting for you to come out.’
‘Why didn’t you call at the door?’ asked Susan. She had to close one eye against the bright sunshine.
‘I didn’t want to disturb your grandparents, that’s all. You know what they’re like.’
Susan frowned. ‘Sure I know what they’re like. But how do you know what they’re like?’
‘It’s my job. I’m a newspaper reporter. Here – here’s my card. Paul Springer, San Diego Tribune.’
‘You’re really a reporter?’ Daffy asked him, squinting at the card.
‘Sure. Why else do you think I’ve been staking out your grandparents’ house?’ ‘To rape us?’ Daffy suggested.
‘You don’t have to sound so hopeful,’ grinned Paul.
Susan handed his card back. ‘Is this about what happened on the beach this morning?’
Paul gave a reserved, down-and-sideways glance. ‘Kind of. That’s part of it.’
‘How did you know about that? The police said they were keeping it out of the media.’
Paul continued grinning and shook his head. ‘If the police had their way, everything would be kept out of the media. Except successful drug-busts, of course, and police baseball-team scores.’
‘I don’t really have anything to say about it,’ Susan told him. ‘I didn’t see any more than anybody else.’
‘It was pretty horrifying, wasn’t it?’ said Paul.
Daffy butted in: ‘My friend here doesn’t actually want to talk about it, you know? She was very sick this morning because of what happened. So, you know, do you mind? We’re on our way home, and we’d just like to get on with it.’
But Susan said, ‘Come on, Daffy, it’s okay. He’s not bothering me.’
‘May I walk along?’ asked Paul.
They continued northwards along Camino Del Mar, between the rustling yuccas, waving occasionally to kids they knew who were hanging out beside the bars and hotels and stores along the strip. One group was gathered around a VW Beetle which had just been resprayed in ruby metallic flake and decorated with airbrushed pictures of surfers and Western heroes. There was a strong smell of marijuana in the air, mingled with pina-colada suntan lotion.
Paul seemed incredibly straight, and yet Susan felt that there was something strange about him, something almost unreal. When he spoke, she felt that she could anticipate everything that he was going to say, and in a peculiar way she felt that she had met him before, although she wasn’t sure when. It didn’t seem to be necessary to get to know him. They talked from the very beginning as if they were long-time acquaintances.
‘I’ve been assigned by the Tribune to write a series of feature articles on young people’ said Paul. ‘Each of the articles is supposed to cover a different aspect of the way that young people think and react. I guess you might call it a kind of psychoanalysis of youth. Well, it sounds pretty corny stuff, but I think that if it’s written and researched properly, it doesn’t have to be. In fact, I think it could be really enlightening.’
‘You want to write about me!’ asked Susan, more curious than flattered.
‘Well – to come straight to the point – one of the articles has to do with death, and how young people cope with it.’
‘How do you mean?’ Susan asked him.
‘I mean, how young people come to terms with losing somebody they love. Their parents, maybe, like you did –’
‘How did you know that?’
‘I’m sorry. I thought I recognised your name when the police passed me the list of witnesses to what happened down there on the beach. I looked you up in the morgue. Your parents were killed in a car-crash, weren’t they, over at Lake Hodges?’
Susan nodded. ‘I didn’t realise I was quite so famous,’ she said, not without a touch of bitterness, although she knew that Paul hadn’t meant to upset her.
‘The thing is,’ Paul continued, ‘you not only lost your parents, you saw a complete stranger lying dead on the beach. It would be interesting for me to compare your reaction to each of these events: the death of someone you loved, and the death of someone you didn’t even know. I’d like to know how you really felt, and how you feel now.’
‘Isn’t that pretty ghoulish?’ Daffy demanded.
‘Well, maybe it is,’ Paul admitted, ‘and if Susan doesn’t want to have anything to do with it – that’s as far as it goes. But death is a part of life, and there isn’t any point in trying to hide away from it. I think that other young people – if they read about Susan and how she’s handled those tragedies – well, they may find it easier to cope with their own experiences of death.’
Daffy pulled a face. ‘Sounds like bull time, if you’ll pardon my French.’
But Susan said, ‘I don’t know. Maybe we could talk about it some more.’
‘Maybe this evening?’ Paul asked her. ‘Supposing I buy you dinner, on the Trib.’
‘Okay, then. Where?’
‘You know Bully’s North? I’ll meet you there at seven.’
Susan thought about it, and then nodded yes. ‘Okay. The only thing is, I have to be home at nine-thirty. That’s the house rule.’
‘I know,’ said Paul.
Daffy was frowning ferociously – her ‘for-Christ’s-sake-be-careful’ face. But Susan, without knowing why, felt safe with Paul, and reassured. She didn’t even think to ask him how he could possibly have known that she had to be home by half-past nine.
‘I left my car at the Oceanside Hotel,’ said Paul. ‘I’ll catch you later, okay?’
He crossed the street, and made his way back along Camino Del Mar towards the Oceanside. Susan watched him go, while Daffy waited a little way away, an exaggeratedly sceptical expression already prepared on her face.
‘What a bull artist,’ said Daffy.
‘I don’t think so,’ said Susan, without even noticing the special face that Daffy had put on for her.
‘You don’t mean to say that you fell for all that stuff about death and things? My God, Suze, he wants your body, that’s all.’
‘Don’t be so ridiculous. He doesn’t even know me.’
‘Oh, no? Well, he knows your name, and he knows that your parents died in a car-crash, and he knows that you were down on the beach this morning, and he knows that you live with your grandparents, and he knows what time you’re supposed to be home, and he also seems to know that your personal favourite restaurant is Bully’s North. Now, if he’s telling the truth, he only got your name from the cops about an hour ago. How did he find all that out in just one hour?’
Susan looked towards the ocean, glittering between the buildings on the opposite side of the road like smashed diamonds. ‘I don’t know,’ she said.
‘Well, don’t you care! I think it’s scary.’
‘No,’ said Susan, and in her own mind she was quite sure of this. ‘It’s not scary. But something’s going to happen. Something’s going to change. I can feel it.’
‘Brother!’ said Daffy, shaking her head. ‘The lightning bolt of true love has struck you straight in the brain.’
‘No,’ Susan emphatically. ‘It’s more important than love.’
Chapter Three
Gil swerved his Mustang into the parking-lot across the street from his father’s Mini-Market, gunned the engine, and then switched it off. He sat where he was for a moment or two, thinking, and then he hopped out of the driver’s seat, and crossed over Highway 101, jingling his car-keys in his hand.
The Mini-Market was a single-fronted store, wedged between the Mandarin Coast Chinese restaurant and Freddy’s Instant Print Service. It was the kind of store that sold absolutely everything from ice-cream to cans of Chef Boy-ar-dee Spaghetti Bolognese to shoe-laces to golfing hats to Jewish get-well cards. It had a wonderful aroma to it; an aroma of feta cheese and Hungarian salami and penny candy and Superman comics. Gil’s father was a qualified engineer, and could have brought in four times as much money designing braking systems for hospital trolleys and hydraulic controls for locomotives, but he had dreamed about owning a store like the Mini-Market ever since he was a kid, and he wouldn’t have lived out his life any other way.
Gil’s mother used to say that he must have had a deprived childhood, to want to run a general store, but she knew how happy he was, and that made her happy, too. She stocked the shelves and kept the store clean and even made quiches for the deli counter. Along the strip, Gil’s father and mother were known as the ‘M&Ms’ – Mr and Mrs. Miller.
Gil’s father was standing behind the checkout, packing a week’s groceries for old Mrs. Van Buren who lived on the other side of the Santa Fe Railroad tracks. He was tall and big boned, like Gil, with wiry grey hair and one of those husky-looking outdoor faces like Lloyd Bridges. He wore a striped blue storekeeper’s apron with his name sewn on to the pocket, Phil.
‘Hi, Dad,’ said Gil.
‘How’re you doing?’ his father asked him. ‘You’re back early.’
‘I didn’t feel like swimming, that’s all.’
‘They closed off the beach, somebody told me,’ said Phil Miller. ‘Did you want the barbecue-flavoured beans, Mrs. Van Buren, or the vegetarian?’
‘Yeah, I think somebody drowned or something,’ Gil remarked.
‘There were ambulances and police cars coming in from all directions,’ said Phil, reaching down for another paper sack, and opening it out.
‘I heard that it was a girl,’ put in Mrs. Van Buren. ‘Some girl, drowned on the beach. Nude, that’s what I heard.’
‘Taking dope, if you ask me,’ said Phil. ‘They take dope, they swim, and they think they can swim all the way to Japan.’
‘I guess we were just as crazy in my day,’ said Mrs. Van Buren. ‘In those days, of course, it was bootleg liquor. We used to drive up and down the Pacific Highway in a De Soto CK Six, high as kites on McNamara’s home-brewed whiskey, and see how far we could get without putting our hands on the steering-wheel. First person to grab for the wheel was a chicken.’
Phil laughed. ‘Why now, Mrs. Van Buren, I didn’t know you were a juvenile delinquent.’
‘You show me a juvenile who isn’t,’ said Mrs. Van Buren, ‘and I’ll show you a juvenile who’s never going to get anywhere in life, not anywhere at all.’
‘I don’t know about that,’ said Gil. ‘This girl only got as far as the beach.’
Phil glanced across at his son questioningly. Gil was conscious that he had sounded as if he had known the girt, or seen her. He deliberately changed the subject by rubbing his hands together briskly, and saying, ‘Want me to slice up some ham, Dad?’ ‘Sure thing, and maybe some of that Italian salami, too, the dry salami.’
Gil walked between the shelves of groceries to the back of the store, to the glass-fronted deli counter. He went around it, ducking his head to avoid the plastic cloves of garlic which hung from the ceiling, and through to the stockroom, where there was a washbasin and a mirror. He washed his hands thoroughly, and dried them. In the mirror, his face looked detached and expressionless, and not at all like the face of somebody who had just witnessed a hideous death and a frightening accident.
Back at the counter, he hefted up a large Maryland ham, covered in golden breadcrumbs and positioned it on to the slicer. He switched on the motor, and began to slide the slicer backwards and forwards, heaping up thin pink stacks of aromatic ham. His father had finished with Mrs. Van Buren, and came down to the back of the shop, wiping his hands on his apron.
‘By the way,’ he said, ‘some girl came by, asking where you were.’
‘Some girl? It wasn’t Gina Chappell, was it?’
‘I don’t know; I don’t know what Gina Chappell looks like.’
‘Blonde, gappy teeth, very small tits.’
His father grunted in amusement. ‘No, this wasn’t Gina Chappell. This one was tall, and dark, and I have to say that she had very big –’ He left the word unspoken, but held out his hands as if he were comparing the weight of two large cantaloups.
Gil switched off the slicer, and lifted the ham with a spatula. ‘Don’t know who that could have been.’
‘She seemed quite anxious to see you. She said she’d have a cup of coffee down at the bookstore, and then she’d come back.’
Gil smiled at his father, and switched the slicer back on again. ‘Maybe it’s my lucky day. For the first time in my life, a beautiful girl has come chasing me.’
‘She’s probably an officer of the court, trying to serve you with a summons for all those parking tickets of yours.’
‘Don’t shatter my illusions, Dad.’
Phil watched his son for a moment or two, and then said, ‘Are you okay?’
Gil glanced up. ‘Okay? Why shouldn’t I be okay?’
‘I don’t know. You look kind of worried about something.’
‘Worried?’
‘Well, I don’t know. You look like you’ve got something preying on your mind.’
Gil shook his head. ‘Nothing that I can think of.’
But his father didn’t seem to be satisfied. He stayed silent a little while longer, and then he said, ‘It’s not like you, to miss out on your swim.’
‘I jogged. The jogging was enough.’
‘Your leg isn’t hurting?’
‘My leg is fine. What is this, the third degree? You’re going to beat a confession out of me with a Hungarian salami?’
Phil laughed again, but without much amusement. ‘I know you. I know you better than you know yourself. That’s because you’re just like me. And when I’m worried about something, I behave just like you. I laugh, but all the time it’s false. And that’s how you’re laughing. I knew something was wrong the moment you walked into the store.’
‘God protect me from an understanding father,’ said Gil. ‘Do you think that’s enough ham? There’s about three and a half pounds there, in half-pound batches.’
