Coldheart Canyon: A Hollywood Ghost Story

TEN

It was night in Coldheart Canyon, and though it was the wrong season for the Santa Anas proper to be blowing, the wind that came up about a quarter to midnight was warm for a night in early spring. It carried away the smell of burned rubber and spilled gasoline; it even took away the stench of the vodka-laced vomit Maxine had ejected. With the vodka out of her system, she found she could think a little better. With trembling fingers she unfastened her seat-belt and fell through the open door, out of the seat in which she'd been hanging and onto the grass.

She lay there for a long time, alternately sobbing and being stern with herself. Luckily—if this can be said to be luck—she'd had two previous experiences with car wrecks, the second of which had been substantially worse than this one, in that it had happened on the 101 in the middle of the morning rush, and involved nineteen vehicles and eight fatalities (one of them a passenger in the same stretch limo in which Maxine had been traveling). She had suffered a hairline skull fracture, a dislocated shoulder, and back problems that her chiropractor had blithely announced would be with her for the rest of her life.

Unless she was very much mistaken, she was not in anything like as bad a condition after this little fun-ride as she'd been on that occasion. Shaken up, yes; dizzy, sick and a little hysterical, certainly. But when she finally crawled away from the car, and got to her feet, she was pleased to discover that she could stand up quite well, and that nothing hurt with that piercing hurt that suggested something had been broken or punctured.

"You must have had an angel watching over you."

She looked round at the wit who'd spoken. It was Todd. He was close to the car, trying to wrench open the door on the driver's side.

"Is Tammy still in there?" Maxine said.

"Yeah. I'm afraid she is."

"How does she look?"

"How the hell do I know?" Todd remarked. "It's too dark to see."

Yes, it was dark. And though that wasn't good for finding out how Tammy was doing, it did suggest the absence of their pursuer.

"It's still here," Todd said. "Just in case you were wondering."

"Where?"

He pointed up. Maxine followed his finger. The angel's light brightened the high branches of a nearby pine. It wasn't as steady as it had been up at the house. In fact, it was fluttering nervously, which made Maxine picture a flock of luminous birds up there, all shaking out their feathers after a rainstorm, and hopping from bough to bough in their agitated state.

"Hey you!" Maxine yelled up at the light, too frustrated and angry to care about the protocol of what she was doing. "Tammy could be bleeding to death in there. How about a hand down here?"

"I don't think it's interested in helping anyone but me. I had to beg it to let me get you two sorted out before it . . . you know . . . came and took me."

"You mean you talked to it?"

"Yeah. While you were unconscious."

"And you promised—"

"I promised I'd go with it, as soon as you two were safe. That was the deal."

"Huh. You made a deal with an angel."

"What else was I going to do? I had to do something. And it was my stupidity that got us into this mess." He put his head through the broken window. "At least she's still breathing. But she's also bleeding."

He lifted his hands and displayed his palms for Maxine. They were blood-soaked.

"Oh God."

"You know what?"

"What?"

"You're going to have to go for help. Because that sonofabitch isn't going to let me out of its sight. Can you do that?"

"Can I walk? Yes I can walk. Can I walk as far as Sunset?" She drew a deep breath. "I don't know. I can try."

"Okay then. You go get someone to help Tammy. And for God's sake be quick about it. I don't think she's got much time. I'll stay here with her. Not that I've got much choice."

"A deal's a deal."

"A deal's a deal."

"Have you got a cigarette?"

Todd stood up and dug in his jeans pocket. "Yep." He pulled out a crushed packet, and examined its contents. "Two Marlboro Lights. One each."

"Matches?"

"Never without." He came over to Maxine, and gave her the better preserved of the cigarettes.

"You light it," she said.

He put both the cigarettes in his mouth and lit them from a single flame. Then he handed Maxine's back to her.

"Didn't somebody do that in a movie?" he said.

"God, you are an ignoramus. Yes, of course. Paul Henreid, in Now, Voyager. I showed it to you."

"Yeah," he smiled. "I remember. Maxine Frizelle's Ten Favorite Moments."

She drew on the cigarette, and started to walk back along the path carved through the thicket by the car, to the street.

"Hurry," Todd said.

Tammy ate her meatloaf in silence, thinking of nothing in particular. Aunt Jessica busied herself in the kitchen, coming in now and again to be sure that Tammy was eating all her vegetables. If the plate wasn't cleaned, there'd be no dessert. No pie or cake. Aunt Jessica wasn't a very good cook but she knew what her niece liked. Pie and cake, preferably with ice cream.

"You're going to be a big girl," she said to Tammy when she brought through the slice of peach cobbler and ice cream. "Big all over. And that can get a girl into a lot of trouble."

"Yes, Auntie."

"Especially with the boys."

"I know, Auntie."

"So you have to be extra careful. Boys take advantage of big girls, and I don't want to see you hurt."

"I won't let them, Auntie."

"Good," Aunt Jessica said, though she didn't sound much convinced. Back into the kitchen she went, leaving Tammy to enjoy her cobbler a la mode.

The first couple of mouthfuls tasted good. She ate them thinking of nothing in particular. The clock ticked on the mantelpiece. Aunt Jessica's canary chirped in its cage.

She took a third mouthful. For some reason it didn't taste as good as the first two; almost as though there was a piece of bad fruit in it. She put her napkin up to her mouth and spat out whatever it was, but the taste of dirt, and the gritty texture of it, remained on her tongue and in her throat.

She put down her spoon, and put her fingers into her mouth.

"Wait . . ." somebody said.

It wasn't Aunt Jessica who spoke to her, however. It was a man's voice. A gentle man.

"There's . . . something ... in my mouth . . ." she said, though she wasn't quite sure who she was talking to.

"Dirt," the man told her. "It's just dirt. Can you spit it out? Spit hard."

She glanced back toward the kitchen. Aunt Jessica was at the sink, washing pans. She wouldn't approve of Tammy spitting in the house.

"I should go outside," she said.

"You are outside," the man replied.

As he spoke to her she felt the room lurch sideways—the table, the mantelpiece, the canary in his cage.

"Oh no—" she said. "What's happening?"

"It's all right," the man said, softly.

"Auntie!" she called.

"No, honey. I'm not your auntie. It's Todd. Now spit. You've got dirt in your mouth."

The world lurched again, only this time there was somebody's arms to catch her, and she opened her eyes to see the face of the handsomest man in the world looking down at her. He was smiling.

"There you are," he said. "Oh thank God. I thought I'd lost you."

As the last morsels of Aunt Jessica's peach cobbler melted away she remembered where she was and how she'd got here. The angel on the road, the trees, the car overturning and glass shattering.

"Where's Maxine?"

"She's fine. She went to get help. But she's been away a long time so I had to drag you out of there myself. It took a little doing. But I did some bandaging. There was a first aid kit in the trunk. I got the bleeding to stop."

"I was eating peach cobbler."

"You were hallucinating is what you were doing."

"Only there was dirt in it." She spat, with as much gusto as she could manage. It made her body hurt to do it, though. Her stomach, her head. She winced.

"You did good," Todd said. "Maxine got out with scrapes."

"It was pure luck," she said. "I was driving too fast, and that damn angel got in my way." She dropped her voice. "Did it leave?"

Todd shook his head, and directed her attention up at the tree where the angelic presence still sat. It was quite composed now. It had made its arrangements, and it was waiting.

"I'm afraid it's going to want me to go with it very soon," he said. "I promised I'd go."

"You did? You didn't try and make a run for it?"

"How could I? You were in there, hurt. I couldn't just run out on you."

"But you might have escaped."

"Ha. You know, I think I did," he said.

"I don't understand."

"Oh ... not quite the way I thought I was going to. But I escaped being a selfish fuck-up." He looked into her eyes. "You think I would have had an angel come to fetch me before I met you? No way. It would have been straight down to Hell for Todd Pickett."

He was making a joke of it, of course; but there was something here that came from his heart. She could see it in his eyes, which still continued to stare deep into hers. "I want to thank you," he said, leaning down and kissing her cheek. "Maybe next time round it'll be our turn, eh?"

"Our turn?"

"Yeah. You and me, born next-door to one another. And we'll know."

"I want you to stop this now," she told him gently. There were tears blurring her vision, and she didn't like that. He'd be gone soon enough, and she wanted to have him in focus for as long as possible.

He looked up. "Uh-oh. I hear the cavalry," he said. Tammy could hear them too. Sirens coming up from the bottom of the hill. "Sounds like I should make my exit," Todd said. The sirens were getting louder. "Damn. Do they have to come so quick?" There were tears in his eyes now, dropping onto Tammy's cheek. "Shit, Tammy. I don't want to go."

"Yes, you do," she said. She fumbled for his hand, and finding it, squeezed it. "You've had a good time. You know you have."

"Yeah. Oh yeah. I've had a great time."

"Better than most."

"True enough."

The light was descending from the tree, and for the first time—either because the angel was close to finishing its business, or because Tammy herself was hovering on the edge of life—she saw the contents of the light more clearly. There was no attempt to confuse her with memories now; no Monarch Street, no Aunt Jessica at the door. There was a human shape, neither male nor female, standing in the light, and for a moment, as it came to stand behind Todd, she thought it was Todd—or some other face of his, some gentle, eternal face that no camera would ever capture, nor words would ever show.

He stroked her face with the back of his fingers, and then he stood up.

"Next time," he murmured.

"Yeah."

Then his smile, that trademark smile of his which had made Tammy weak with infatuation when she'd first seen it, dimmed a little; its departure not signifying sadness, only the appearance of a certain ease in him, which his smile had concealed all these years. He didn't need to try so hard any longer. He didn't need to charm or please.

She tried to catch his eye one last time—to have one last piece of him, even now. But he was already looking away; looking at where he was really headed.

She heard him speak one last time, and there was such happiness in his voice, she began to cry like a baby.

"Dempsey?" he said. "Here, boy! Here!"

She turned her head toward the light, thinking she might glimpse him even now, but as she did so, she heard—or thought she heard—the angel utter a word of its own; a seamless word, like a ribbon wrapped around everything she'd ever dreamed of knowing or being. It wasn't loud, but it erased the sound of the sirens, for which she was grateful; then it moved off up into the darkness of the Canyon.

Knowing she was safe in the hands of those who would take care of her, and one, Maxine, who loved her, she followed the ribbon of the word up the flanks of Coldheart Canyon, skimming the darkened earth.

And as the woman and the word passed over the ground together, the creatures of the Canyon forgot their fear. They began to make music again; cicadas in the grass, night-birds in the trees; and on the ridge, the coyotes, yapping fit to burst. Not because they had a kill, but because they had life.