"He hasn't been much of a father."

"He's tried."

"Has he?"

"In his own way."

"Which is what?"

"Staying out of their lives so his genius wouldn't overshadow them. Giving them money- who do you think paid for the coward's dope after he ran through his trust fund? Then he tries to pocket those ampules, the little puke."

"Why's Buck so interested in seeing Lucy?"

"Because he's her father. A girl should meet her father. If she doesn't, it's her loss. He's one of a kind. There's beauty in that, alone. Don't you see?"

"One of a kind," I said.

"Look," she said, fighting to keep her voice low, "you get off on helping people, but that doesn't mean you know everything. If you were hiking in some strange place and you came across a snake that had never been seen before- maybe it was poisonous, you had no idea- would you run from it? Or would you try to capture it and learn about it?"

"Depends on the danger."

Her nostrils widened and pulsed. She opened and shut her hands several times. "Okay, I tried. You've got your script." A few more steps, then: "He's the only thing in her miserable little ground-chuck existence that can make her prime meat. But go on, let her continue in the same old way."

Sound came from the radio. Low and anguished, then louder. Wordless moans. Then filthy words, a chain of them.

"Baby's up," she said.

Just past the stairs, she said, "You can wait here."

Alone with the stuffed heads, I walked around the giant room, listening to loud voices from the back of the house.

When she finally pushed his chair out, he was in a dark blue silk robe over white pajamas and his hair was disheveled.

"The Jew!" he said, slapping the wheels with his hands. Trying to go faster but Nova was in control and she steered him right at me. "Der Yid!" Spittle flecked his lips and his eyes were crusted. He rubbed one, picked something out, and flung it away.

"And don't tell me your cock hasn't been peeled and your mother goes to Mass. You're a dime-store Freud and that makes you a Jew. Thinking you're better than everyone and have a right to nose into everyone's business. Every analyst I knew felt that way; that's why all analysts are kikes."

I stared at a stuffed owl.

He said, "Where's the girl?"

Nova said, "Be nice to him, Buck," in an overly sweet tone. "He came all the way here to tell you something important."

I stared at her. She shrugged and walked over to a window.

I said, "Did I?"

She said, "Didn't you? You're the expert."

Then she left.

Lowell watched her. "Those cheeks," he said. "Like sugar-coated sponge rubber. To be between them… What's on your mind, Dimestore? The girl still working on her bruised-virgin courage, dispatching you on another reconnaissance mission?"

"It's Puck," I said. "He's dead. Drug overdose."

He nodded. Stopped. Clamped both hands down on his wheels and turned his back on me.

"All right," he said, very quietly. "All right, you've delivered the message. Now fuck you to hell. If I see you again, I'll kill you."

35

He showed up two days later at the funeral, arriving late, wheeled across the rolling lawn of the cemetery by Nova. Conspicuous in a white suit and shirt and a wide-brimmed straw hat. He stayed well back from Lucy and Ken as a minister on call to the mortuary recited a dispirited prayer. Once, Nova's eyes met mine and tried to hook me into a staring contest. One of her hands touched a breast. I turned my attention back to the service.

The cemetery was one of those hundred-acre things yearning to be a theme park: offices in a colonial mansion, bulldozed hillocks of golf turf, replicas of Michelangelo's statuary cropping up in odd places. Instead of gravestones, brass plaques were set flush with the ground. Ken had bought Peter's strip of perpetuity yesterday, after Milo'd helped speed release of the body.

I'd spent a good part of the past forty-eight hours at the house on Rockingham. Ken and Lucy had been nearly inert, eating little, resting a lot, barely capable of speech.

I'd experienced some inertia myself, not following up on Curtis App or doing anything else about Karen Best. Sherrell Best had phoned once, and I'd had my service call him back to say I'd get to him in a couple of days. The grief of the moment loomed so huge, it seemed to have blotted out the dream. I wasn't sure when- or if- Lucy would ever return to it. Still, as I stood there among all that barbered green, it chewed at me.

A few feet behind me, two laborers waited under a tree.

The minister said something about the puzzles of life and God's will. Then he shot a glance at the laborers and they came over. One of them activated a motor attached to thick cloth straps that supported the gray lacquered coffin. The straps loosened very slowly and descended. As it hit bottom, it made a resonant, almost musical sound, and Lucy let out a high, agonized wail. Ken held her and rocked her as she cried into her hands.

Behind them, Buck said something to Nova.

The laborers began shoveling dirt on the coffin.

Each clump made Lucy cry out. Ken's face looked ready to crumple.

Buck shook his head, and Nova wheeled him away.

The chair bumped its way over the grass, catching a couple of times and forcing Nova to free its wheels. Finally, she got it to the curb of the swooping drive where the hearse sat and worked a long time getting Lowell out of the chair and into the Jeep. Folding the chair and stowing it in back, she sped off.

I dropped Milo off at the West L.A. station and drove back to Malibu. Shooting the Curl was still closed.

Had I flushed the prey too well?

I stopped off at the Malibu civic center and killed an hour locating a business license for the surf shop.

When the original papers had been filed, the Sheas had been living on the land side, up Rambla Pacifica. Three years later, they'd moved to the 20000 block of Pacific Coast Highway.

I drove back south and found the place: a one-story Cape Cod, white board and green shutters, squeezed between two bigger stucco edifices. Probably one of the original beach structures of the twenties and thirties, reminiscent of a quieter, simpler Malibu. Sometimes big storms washed the old places out to sea.

I rang the bell. No answer. The knocker was a bronze sea lion patinaed with salt. I used it to drum the green wooden door a couple of times. Still nothing. Neither Gwen's customized van nor Tom's BMW was in sight. But no mail in the box, not even throwaways.

I went home and called the Producers Guild and learned that Curtis App was president of New Times Productions in Century City.

A call to New Times got me a voice mail system that required an engineering degree to understand. I pushed 6 to speak with Mr. App and got cut off.

It was just after noon.

I drove into the city, heading straight for the university library.

The computer held a dozen references to App, the most recent being five-year-old reviews of a movie he'd produced called Camp Hatchet II.

Bomb review. Maybe that was his spiritual link with Lowell. The next seven citations were more of the same. Then I found a thirteen-year-old article in American Film entitled APP ON THE DEFENSE: TEEN PIX PRODUCER SAYS HE KEEPS KIDS OUT OF TROUBLE.

The magazine hadn't been microfilmed, but it was in the stacks. The article was an interview in which App acknowledged the dreadful critical notices he'd received on each of the nine soft-sex blood-and-gore flicks he'd produced and admitted that "my pictures aren't Dostoyevsky, they're popcorn for the head. But no pubic hair or nipples. Kids watch them, space out, and have a good time in the drive-in. When they're there, they're off the streets, so think of it as public service programming. As a parent, I'd rather have my kid watch Janey Makes the Squad or Red Moon Over Camp Hatchet than a lot of the garbage that's on network TV."