started and stopped a couple of times. His eyes felt hot.
“Steve?”
“I’m here. Listen. Robert. He’s not dead.”
There was a long pause. “Your brother?”
“Yeah.”
“How could it be?”
“I can’t go into the whole thing. But it was a whole scheme, and the boy who died was misidentified as Robert. He’s alive. He’s been in prison, but he contacted me. I’ve just been out to see him. It’s . . . I don’t know, it’s been a lot.”
“I’m sorry, Steve. I didn’t know.”
“I know you didn’t.”
“That’s just so . . . unbelievable. How did he find you?”
“I don’t really want to talk about it right now. I’ll move my stuff. Just give me time.”
“Sure, sure. I’m really—”
He snapped the phone shut. It was almost dark now and the city was still an hour away. Move his stuff. It reminded him of that scene in Moonstruck when the college professor gets water thrown at him by one of his young female students. He tells the waiter to clear the table and remove all evidence of her and bring him a tall glass of vodka.
Ashley sure wanted all evidence of Steve removed. He knew they were finished, but as long as he had some things in the garage, well, maybe he had a shot. Yeah, and maybe there were barbequed ribs on the moon.
But then there was Sienna. Why had she come into his life at this particular time? Maybe getting his brother back and a new woman in his life was a twist of the old wheel of fortune. Coming up his way for a change.
That was something to cling to. They call that hope, he guessed.
Or maybe delusion.
He stopped at The Cue and ran a couple of racks. Drank a pitcher but kept it to one and got back to the apartment without incident.
That would a fine thing to show his new clients, a DUI charge. What an idiot, what a stupid idiot he was.
As he approached the apartment building he saw the telltale flash of red light and spotty gatherings of people on the street. The urban distress code. And the ambulance was right in front of his place.
Which kept him from getting into the driveway. So he double parked and got out, blinking to try to clear his beer goggles.
He was sufficiently successful to spot the manager, Mr. Jong Choi, standing on the front grass with his arms across his chest and a cigarette smoldering in one hand. He was slight of build and always wore a Hawaiian-style shirt and smoked incessantly.
“What’s going on?” Steve said.
“Number six,” he said.
Number six was Ida Stanky’s apartment.
Choi said. “She trouble, alway trouble.”
Steve turned away and looked to the ambulance. It was clear the paramedics were inside the complex. He made a beeline for number six.
The door was open. The white, gangsta-wannabe kid from number seven was standing outside with a couple of his wannabe friends. A little something happening in their pointless world.
Two paramedics were standing over Mrs. Stanky, who was on the sofa.
“She okay?” Steve said.
One of the medics turned around, a bottle-faced guy. “You are?”
“Neighbor. Upstairs.”
“Who is that?” Mrs. Stanky’s voice.
“It’s me, Mrs. Stanky. Steve from upstairs.”
“Steve?”
“Right here.”
“Don’t go.”
To the medic he said, “Can you tell me what happened here?”
“We think she kinked her hose,” he said. “No oxygen. Passed out.”
“How’d you get the call?”
The medic shrugged. “I think somebody called it in.”
“I did.” Mr. Wannabe was in the doorway. “She wasn’t complaining about the music, so I thought something was wrong with her. I looked in and saw her on the floor.”
So Mrs. Stanky’s disposition had saved her, by its very absence. Steve thought there was a certain poeticism in that.
“Good work, dude,” Steve said.
Wannabe looked disgusted at being called dude. But a little proud, too.
The medics finished their business and decided Mrs. Stanky could stay as is, provided someone sat with her for a while.
So Steve watched another episode of Law & Order, all the way through this time. By the time the jury got the case handed to them, Mrs. Stanky seemed her old self. Which meant lodging some complaints with Steve.
Satisfied she was good as new—or at least as good as she had been—Steve went outside where he was met by Nick Nolte, looking for a dish.
The routine seemed like a good thing. Verner, California, was starting to feel a bit strange.
23
Steve went to see Ashley the next day.
They’d bought a house together in Altadena, a nice little burg about twenty minutes from downtown LA. It was community