Bones(62)

I read the carbon again, then a third time. Further proof that Crane had been contemplating suicide for some time before December 10; that his mind had deteriorated to the point where death was the only answer. A little rambling toward the end: his mental state combined with the alcohol. Otherwise, coherent enough. Nothing unintelligible about it, nothing off-key.

Yet it struck an odd note for me, and I couldn't figure out why.

Mandy was Amanda, of course. But who was L? Why was he or she the only one Crane felt he could turn to about his wife? I knew of no one close to Crane whose first or last name began with the letter L. A nickname?

Maybe Porter would know. I went into the bedroom and rang up his studio and got him on the line. And he said, “L? No, I can't think of anyone at all. Certainly none of Harmon's intimates had a name beginning with that letter.”

Back into the kitchen to reread the carbon. That same odd note … but why? Why?

The answer continued to elude me, even after three more readings. Put it aside for now, I thought, come back to it later. I paper-clipped it to Crane's fictionalized confession and left those sheets on the table. The rest of the stuff I put back into the cardboard box. Then I got another beer out of the refrigerator and went to call Kerry.

I needed some cheering up—bad.

She came over and cheered me up. A little while later I thought about rereading the carbon another time, but I didn't do it; I didn't want to get depressed all over again. Instead I reached for Kerry and suggested she cheer me up some more.

“Sex maniac,” she said.

“Damn right,” I said.

I cheered her up, too, this time.

At nine-thirty that night the telephone rang. Kerry and I were back in bed, watching an intellectual film—Godzilla vs. Mothra—on the tube. I caught up the receiver and said hello, and Wanda the Footwear Queen said, “You know who this is?” in a voice so slurred I could barely understand the words. Drunk as a barfly—the kind of drunk that teeters on the line between weepy and nasty.

“Uh-huh,” I said.

“Juss want you know I hate your guts. Hers too, lil miss two fried eggs. Both your guts.”

“Listen, why don't you go sleep it off—”

“Whyn't you go fuck yourself, huh?” she said, and I sighed and hung up on her.

“Who was that?” Kerry asked.

“The voice of unreason,” I said.

And I thought: Poor Eberhardt. Poor, blind, stupid Eberhardt.





NINETEEN



S

unday.



Kerry and I went downtown to the St. Francis Hotel for an early brunch, something we do occasionally. Afterward she suggested a drive down the coast and I said okay; the fog and high overcast had blown inland during the night, making the day clear and bright, if still windy. But I wasn't in much of a mood for that kind of Sunday outing. Not depressed so much today as restless—what a Texan I had known in the Army called a “daunciness”; I couldn't seem to relax, I couldn't seem to keep my mind off Harmon Crane and Michael Kiskadon and that damned letter carbon addressed to somebody with the initial L.

As perceptive as she is, Kerry read my mood and understood it. We were in Pacifica, following Highway One along the edge of the ocean, when she said, “Why don't we go back?”

“What?”

“Back home. You're not enjoying yourself and neither am I. You can drop me at my place if you'd rather be alone.”

“Uh-uh. We'll go back, but I don't want to be alone. I'll only brood.”

“You're doing that now.”

“I'll do it worse if you're not around.”

It was noon when we got back to the city. I drove to Pacific Heights—doing it automatically, without consulting Kerry. But she didn't seem to mind. Inside my flat, she went to make us some fresh coffee and I sat down with the box of Harmon Crane's papers. I reread the letter carbon. I reread the fictionalized confession. I reread the carbon one more time.

I was still bothered. And I still didn't know why.

Kerry had brought me some coffee and was sitting on the couch, reading one of my pulps. I said to her, “Let's play some gin rummy.”

She looked up. “Are you sure that's what you want to do?”

“Sure I'm sure. Why?”

“You get grumpy when you lose at gin.”

“Who says I'm going to lose?”

“You always lose when you're in a mood like this. You don't concentrate and you misplay your cards.”

“Is that so? Get the cards.”

“I'm telling you, you'll lose.”

“Get the cards. I'm not going to lose.”

She got the cards, and we played five hands and I lost every one because I couldn't concentrate and misplayed my cards. I hate it when she's right. I lost the sixth hand, too: she caught me with close to seventy points—goddamn face cards, I never had learned not to hoard face cards.