Coldheart Canyon: A Hollywood Ghost Story

TWO

At 5:49 a.m., when the 6.9 earthquake (later discovered to have had its epicenter in Pasadena) had shaken Los Angeles out of its pre-dawn doze, Tammy had been standing on the nameless street outside Katya Lupi's house in Coldheart Canyon, drawn back to the place with an ease that suggested she had it in her blood now, for better or worse.

She had left the party at the Colony a few minutes after the departure of Eppstadt's expedition, having decided that there was little point in her waiting on the beach. If Todd and Katya were still in the water, then they were dead by now, their corpses carried off by the tide toward Hawaii or Japan. And if by some miracle they had survived, then they surely wouldn't go back to Maxine's house. They would head home to the Canyon.

Her initial plan was to give up on this whole sorry adventure, return to the hotel on Wilshire, shower, change into some fresh clothes and then get the first available flight out of Los Angeles. She'd done all she could for Todd Pickett. More than he deserved, Lord knows. And what had she got for her trouble? In the end, little more than his contempt. She wasn't going to put herself in the way of that ever again. If she wanted to cause herself pain all she had to do was bang her head against the kitchen door. She didn't need to come all the way to Los Angeles to do that.

But as she drove back to the hotel, fragments of things that she'd seen in the Canyon, and later in the house, came back to her; images that inspired more awe in her soul than terror. She would never get another chance to see such sights this side of the grave, certainly; should she not take the opportunity to go back, one last time? If she didn't go now, by tomorrow it would be too late. The Canyon would have found new protections against her—or anybody else's—inquiry; new charms and mechanisms designed to conceal its raptures from curious eyes.

And, of course, there was always the remote possibility that Todd had survived the ocean and made his way back up there. That, more than any other, was the strongest reason to return.

Her decision made, she drove on up to Sunset—forgetting about the shower and change of clothes—and made her way back to the Canyon.

No doubt it was foolhardy, returning to a place where she had endured so much but, besides her desire to see the spectacles of the place one last time, and putting aside any hopes she might have for Todd's survival, she could not shake the niggling suspicion that her business at the house was not at an end. She had no intellectual justification for such a feeling; just a certainty, marrow-deep, that this was the case. She'd know when it was over. And it was not.

It had been an eerie drive up the winding Canyon road in the pre-dawn gloom. She had deliberately switched off her headlights so as to attract as little attention as possible, but that made her feel even more vulnerable somehow; as though she were not quite real herself, here in this Canyon of a Thousand Illusions.

Twice something had moved across the road in front of her, its gray form unfixable in the murk. She put on the brakes, and let the creature cross.

Once she got to the house she realized she was not the first visitor. There were two cars already parked outside. She was crossing the street to examine the other two when the earthquake hit.

She'd been in earthquakes before, but she'd never actually been standing so close to the bedrock while one took place. It was quite an experience. She almost lost control of her bladder, as the road idled under her feet, and the trees, especially the big ones, creaked and churned. She stood and waited for the first shock wave to pass, which seemed an eternity.

Then, when her heart had recovered something approximating its natural rhythm, she headed toward Katya Lupi's dream palace.

Eppstadt was in the hallway, looking down the stairwell. It was dark at the bottom, but he thought he saw a motion in the darkness; like motes of pale dust, spiraling around.

"Joe?" he called. "Are you there? Answer me, will you?"

The sound from below had died away: the din of beasts was now barely audible. All that remained was the sound of the wind, which was remarkably consistent, lending credence to the notion that what he was hearing was a soundtrack, not reality. But where the hell had Joe got to? It was fully five minutes since he'd disappeared down the stairs to close the slamming door.

"I wouldn't go down there if I were you."

Eppstadt glanced over his shoulder to see that Brahms had forsaken his place at the window, and had come into the hallway.

"He doesn't answer me," Eppstadt said. "I thought perhaps he'd fallen, or ... I don't know. The door's still slamming. Hear it?"

"Of course."

"I don't suppose you want to go down there and close it for me?"

"You're big on delegation, aren't you? Do they teach you that in business school?"

"It's just a door."

"So close it yourself."

Eppstadt threw Brahms a sour look. "Or don't. Leave him down there if that's what your instincts are telling you."

"And if I do?"

"Put it this way: the longer you wait, the less chance there is you'll ever see him again."

"I should never have sent him down there," Eppstadt said.

"Huh. I never thought I'd hear that from you."

"Hear what?"

"Regret. This place is changing you. Even you. I'm impressed."

Eppstadt didn't reply. He simply stared down the long curve of the stairway, still hoping he'd see Joe's well-made face emerging from the shadows. But the only motion down there was the dust stirred up by the wind, circling on itself.

"Joe!" he yelled.

There wasn't even an echo from below. The bowels of the house seemed to consume the shouted syllable.

"I'm going upstairs," Jerry said, "to see if there's anybody up there."

"Is Maxine still out back?"

"I assume so. And if I remember from previous quakes she'll stay out there a while. She doesn't like being under anything, even a table, during a 'quake. She'll come in when she's ready."

"Thanks."

"You're welcome."

"You don't like me, do you?" Eppstadt said out of nowhere.

Jerry shrugged. "Hollywood's always had its share of little Caligulas."

So saying, he left Eppstadt to his dilemma, and went on up the stairs. He knew the geography of the house pretty well. There were three doors that led off the top landing. One went to a short passageway, which led in turn to a large bedroom, with en suite bathroom, which had been occupied, until his death, by Marco Caputo. One was a small writing room. And one was the master bedroom, with its astonishing view, its immense closet and sumptuous, if somewhat over-wrought, bathroom.

Jerry had only been in the master bedroom two or three times; but it held fond memories for him. Memories of being a young man (what had he been, twelve, thirteen at the most?) invited in by Katya. Oh, she'd been beautiful that night; it had been like lying in the bed of a goddess. He'd been too frightened to touch her at first, but she'd gently persuaded him out of his fears.

As his life had turned out, she'd been the only woman he'd ever slept with. In his early twenties he was certain his queerness was a result of that night. No other woman, he would tell himself, could possibly be the equal of Katya Lupi. But that was just self-justification. He'd been born queer, and Katya was his one grand exception to the rule.

As he reached the door of the master bedroom, there was an aftershock. A short jolt, no more; but enough to set the antiquated chandelier that hung in the turret gently swaying and tinkling again. Jerry waited for a few moments, holding on to the banister, waiting to see if there were going to be any more shocks coming immediately upon the heels of this one. But there were none.

He glanced down the stairwell. No one was in view. Then he tried the bedroom door. It was locked from the inside. There was only one thing to construe from this: the room had an occupant, or occupants. He glanced down at the shiny boards at his feet, and saw that there were a few droplets of water on the polished timber.

It wasn't hard to put the pieces of this puzzle together; nor to imagine the scene on the other side of the locked door. Todd and Katya had survived their brush with the Pacific. They were alive; sleeping, no doubt, in the great bed. The voyeur in him would have liked very much to slide through the closed door and spy on the lovers as they slept; both naked, Todd lying face up on the bed, Katya pressed to his side. She was probably snoring, as he'd heard her do several times when she'd cat-napped in his presence.

He didn't blame Katya for her covetousness one iota. If being hungry for life meant being hungry for an eternity of nights wrapped in the arms of a man who loved you, then that was an entirely understandable appetite.

And there was just a little part of him which thought that if he stayed loyal to her long enough—if he played his part—then she would let him have a piece of her eternity. That she would show him how the years could be made to melt away.

He retreated from the door and headed downstairs, leaving the sleepers to their secret slumber.

When he got to the mid-level landing Eppstadt had gone. Apparently, he'd made the decision to go downstairs and search for Joe. Jerry looked over the balcony. There was no sound from below. The wind had died away to nothing. The door was no longer slamming.

He went from the stairs to the front door, which stood ajar.

Perhaps this was his moment to depart. He had nothing more to contribute here. Katya had her man; Todd had found some measure of peace after his own disappointments. What else was there for Jerry to do but make his silent farewells and slip away?

He stood at the front door for two or three minutes, unable to make the final break. Eventually, he convinced himself to linger here just a little longer, simply to see the look on Maxine's face when she realized Todd was still alive. He went back into the kitchen, and sat down, waiting—like anyone who'd spent his time watching other lives rather than having one of his own—to see what happened next.

Eppstadt had been two steps from the bottom of the stairs when the aftershock hit. He was by no means an agile man, but he leapt the last two steps without a stumble. There were ominous growlings in the walls, as though several hungry tigers had been sealed up in them. This was, he knew, one of the most foolish places to be caught in an earthquake, especially if (as was perfectly possible) the aftershock turned out not to be an aftershock at all, but a warm-up for something bigger. It would be more sensible—much more sensible—to ascend the stairs again and wait until the tigers had quieted down. But he wasn't going to do that. He'd been sensible for most of his life; always taking the safe road, the conservative route. For once, he wanted to play life a little dangerously, and take the consequences.

That said, he didn't have to be suicidal. There was a door-lintel up ahead. He'd be safer under there than he was in the open passageway. He made a dash for the spot, and as he did so, the aftershock abruptly ceased.

He took a deep breath.

Then he glanced over his shoulder into the room behind him. Presumably this was the place Joe had disappeared into; there was nowhere else for him to go.

He went to the door. Looked inside. He could see nothing at first, just undivided gloom. He reached in, as many had done before him, to fumble for a light switch, and failing to find one, allowed a little surge of curiosity to take hold of him. Hadn't he said to himself he wanted to live a little more riskily? Well, here was his opportunity. Stepping into this strange room at the bottom of this lunatic house was probably the most foolish thing he'd ever done, and he knew it.

A cold wind came to greet him. It caught hold of his elbow, and drew him over the threshold into the world—yes, it was a world—inside. He looked up at the heavens; at that three-quarter-blinded sun, at the high herringbone clouds that he remembered puzzling over as a child, wondering what it was that laid them out so carefully, so prettily. A star fell earthward, and he followed its arc with his eyes, until it burned itself out, somewhere over the trees.

Far off, many miles beyond the dark mass of the forest, he could see the sea, glittering. This was not the Pacific, he could see. The ships that moved upon it were like something from an Errol Flynn flick, The Sea Hawk or some such. He'd loved those movies as a kid; and the ships in them. Especially the ships.

It was twenty-six seconds since the man from Paramount, who'd spent his professional life keeping the dreamy, superstitious child in him silenced by pretending a fine, high-minded superiority to all things that smelled of grease-paint and midnight hokum, had entered the Devil's Country; and had lost himself in it.

"Come on, don't be afraid," the wind from the sea whispered in his ear.

And in he went, all cynicism wiped from his mind by the memory of wheeling ships beneath a painted sky, still young enough to believe he might grow up a hero.