James Siegel - Deceit

“Uh-huh.” Norma had made it back to her desk and immediately reimmersed herself in the lives of the rich and silly.

I stared at the close-up shot. Eddie Bronson clearly legible-the MIA name the vet had taken as his own, resting on a bed of black granite, even if his bones were rotting away in some tunnel in Chu Lai.

Wren’s Vietnam vet story, while nicely written, hadn’t been exactly appreciated. This, according to Norma. For one thing, Hinch believed that small-town newspaper reporters should stick to small-town news. Mall openings , for example. For another thing, some of the debilitating neglect the vet was experiencing had come courtesy of the good people of Littleton, who hadn’t taken kindly to a disheveled and half-crazy vagrant setting up living quarters in the town gazebo and calling it home.

This all coincided with Wren going a little half-crazy himself. Maybe all that animosity got to him. Or the Santa Anas blew through town. Or the blistering ever-present heat finally baked his brain.

Whatever it was, his turn at serious and socially relevant reporting seemed to have given him delusions of grandeur. Mall openings were for hacks. He’d immediately submerged himself in a retrospective expose on the Aurora Dam Flood. I could tell from the date carefully written on the third folder, simply labeled: Flood . One week after the story on Eddie Bronson.

This folder was empty.

“You think he took them with him? Norma …?”

“Took what?” she said, peeking out from behind Brittney’s silicone-enhanced breast.

“His notes. His files . You think he took them with him, or did you throw them out after he left?”

“I don’t remember,” she said. “He wasn’t exactly operating on all cylinders at that point. Know what I mean? He locked himself in here one night and howled at the moon.”

“He howled at the moon ?”

“Just an expression.”

“Right. What was he doing in here?”

“God knows. All I know is they had to call the sheriff to get him out.”

“Okay. When did he leave town, Norma?”

“The next day-I’m not kidding. He must’ve been embarrassed by the whole thing. God knows the man needed a change of scenery.”

He’d gone somewhere north, I remember Norma telling me. The details were kind of hazy.

“He leave a number, Norma?”

“Number?”

“Yeah. The digits you dial on the phone when you want to speak to someone. A number.”

She leafed through her desktop Rolodex. “Nope.” Then she cocked her head and said: “Hold on.”

She went into Hinch’s office, where I heard the sound of drawers being opened and closed. She reappeared bearing a piece of wrinkled paper.

“Thank you, Norma,” she said.

“Thank you, Norma.”

John Wren’s last known phone number. Judging by the area code, Northern California. I wrote it down on the back of one of the photos and stuck it in my wallet.

Wren’s answering-machine message sounded like someone who was already feeling put-upon, even though he hadn’t actually been made to answer the phone.

We’re out fishing, but if you’d like to leave a message, fine.

“Hi, this is Tom Valle. I took your position at the Littleton Journal .” I took your house as well , I could’ve added. “I’d like to ask you about a story you were working on before you left. Could you please call me back?”

I left my work and cell numbers.

Then I called Anna.

She was due to leave tomorrow. Back to Santa Monica. We were supposed to go out again and I wanted to confirm the where and when like any responsible journalist should.

She picked up on the fourth ring.

“Hey,” I said.

“Hey.”

“So we’re on for tonight?”

“Of course. Didn’t we make plans?”

“Yeah, sure. Just wanted to be sure they were still on.”

“I would’ve called you if there was a problem.”

“Okay. Great. So we’re still on then.” Mr. Stupid, meet Mr. Needy. “ Where are we meeting again?”

“Violetta’s. Just like we said two days ago. You do have a touch of ADD.” At least she sounded friendly when she said it.

“Just confirming,” I said.

“Oh, one thing.”

“Yes?”

“We’re ordering white wine,” she said.

“Yeah, I’m really sorry about that. Is your dress ruined?”

“It’ll be fine. I use a dry cleaner that’s absolutely scorched earth on stains. If Monica Lewinsky had given them that blue frock, there never would’ve been any impeachment hearings.”

I laughed, then immediately wondered if her reference to seminal stains had some kind of invitation inherent in it. All you had to do was ask , she’d said when I wiped at her dress.

There was a brief silence, as if her allusion to sex had consumed all available air, then I asked her how her father was doing. I’d previously skirted this issue, thinking that when she wanted to talk about it, she would. But its absence was starting to feel conspicuous.

“The same,” she said. “Thank you for asking.”

“Your mom still around?”

“Yeah. They’d divorced, though. So it’s kind of just me.”

“That’s tough.”

“Oh, I don’t know. It’s what you do for someone you love, right? He’s my dad. I’d do anything for him. How about you?”

“Me?”

“Your parents? Still alive?”

“No. They’re both gone.”

Gone . A label my father earned while I was still playing scully on the streets of Queens. He’d come back once, before the funeral, and asked me if I’d like to take a ride on the fire truck the way I used to. We’d gone around the block and parked in the shadow of St. Anthony’s church. What happened, Tommy? Sitting next to me in the cab but not really looking at me. Looking at a picture of the four of us tucked into the windshield. What happened?

“Sisters, brothers?” Anna asked me.

“No. I… not anymore.”

“What’s that mean?”

“I had a brother. He died. A long time ago.”

“Oh. I’m terribly sorry. What happened?”

“Nothing. He just died. It was an accident.”

“Oh God. How old was he?”

“He was 6.”

“Jesus, that’s terrible. I guess you don’t like talking about it.”

“No, it’s just… it’s been a long time…”

“Sure, I understand.”

No you don’t , I thought.

Some things are beyond understanding.

Kara Bernstein.

Kara Betland.

Kara Bolinsky.

Kara Brill.

I used the half hour I had between showering and shaving and combing and recombing my hair and spritzing on some ancient Stetson for Men then washing it off because it smelt like old leather-the half hour between that and actually needing to leave the house-to look up Kara Bolka in the online phone directories.

No luck.

Not that there weren’t a generous number of Karas in California; I pictured legions of OC girls still wearing their braces, chilling at the mall or flaunting their hard bodies at the beach and in the waiting rooms of San Fernando’s porn industry. Kara Bolka sounded like a name Eastern European immigrants might give their American-born daughter. It whispered half woman and half nymph.

Of course, it might’ve been my libido doing the whispering.

The night hadn’t actually begun, but I was wondering how it would end. I was counting down from my last intimate encounter and contemplating whether it really was like riding a bicycle, and if we were talking ten-gear or mountain bike.

I hadn’t completely been a sexual hermit since my arrival in Littleton. No. I’d cohabited at the Days Inn with a certain married woman who’d ventured into Muhammed Alley pretty much for the same reason I had-as a retreat. In her case, from an unfaithful husband who tended to knock her around when his golf game was off or a business deal went sour. He was in real estate, where business deals tended to unravel on a regular basis-especially in Littleton, which still boasted two half-finished resorts.