Body Copy - Michael Craven [79]
Holy shit—he was on the wrong side of the road.
Tremaine lit a smoke, the windmills now in his rearview, thank God. Still spinning though. Even tiny in the rearview, they could take you to that hallucinatory place.
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Now he was passing though Palm Springs, the desert giving way to some greenery, some palm trees—granted, all brought there and planted, but it was a nice change after those wild-ass windmills.
For a long time, Tremaine didn’t understand the allure of Palm Springs. Didn’t understand the appeal of roasting in the sun all day, then going to high-end chain restaurants with a bunch of middle-aged to old red-faced rich people who were swilling booze, wearing shorts and weird golf shirts, talking golf and about tennis and golf and real estate. And golf.
He didn’t understand that you’d go to some places and, in hundred-and-fifteen-degree heat, there were tables and chairs outside with devices set up that sprayed you down with very fine water pellets to cool you off so you wouldn’t pass out. Like elephants at the zoo getting hosed down in the summer.
That’s how these people lived. It was so hot you’d have to be sprayed with water constantly just to sit somewhere.
And then, ridiculously, the only thing anyone talked about was how hot it was. Tremaine would always say to these people, “I have an idea about how to deal with this heat.”
And they’d say, “Yeah, how?”
And he’d say, “Go the fuck inside.”
But over time, Tremaine got it. Got the appeal of the desert lifestyle. It was decadent, it was about pleasure and camaraderie. There was something otherworldly out here with the brown land and the cacti and the rocks and the roadrunners. Sitting in the heat by the pool getting wasted all day. It was like you were on another planet—it was dif-248
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ferent and the culture demanded that you luxuriate. So people did.
It’s almost like the heat slowed people down, got them in a more relaxed mood, got them to let go.
And then eventually you just bought in. Bought a thin, light blue terrycloth jumpsuit, got way too sunburned, bought some enormous glasses, went to big, loud, expensive restaurants, and just got tanked.
If you had dough, that is. If you didn’t, this desert life just kind of made you nuts.
Palm Springs was in his rearview now. And the glam-our was in his rearview, too. He was now in Indio, in a sad little section of this desert town where people got wasted, sure, but it was in their basements, working their meth labs, or sitting on a street corner somewhere huffing gaso-line.
Tremaine called Angela Coyle. She answered.
“Hello.”
“Hi, Angela?”
“Who’s this?”
This woman was rough, Tremaine could hear it. This wasn’t Eveyln Gale, not even close.
“My name is Donald Tremaine. I’m a private investigator.”
“What do you want?”
Really defensive. But not with an aristocratic edge. With a poor edge, a defensiveness born out of something real, not born out of what people would think at the club.
“I was hoping to talk to you about your sister, Kelly, just for a few minutes.”
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“Nothing to say. She’s dead.”
Man, this lady was harsh.
“Five minutes, Angela. I’m in Indio. Can I come by?”
Tremaine pulled down her street. A side street off the main drag through town. Treeless, pelted by heat, bleak.
Her house sat too close to the road, was institution gray and looked paper-thin. Tremaine could picture it rolling and bouncing in the wind across the countryside like some massive tumbleweed.
Tremaine got out of his car as Angela Coyle opened her door. She was thin and blonde, and he could see Kelly in her face, somewhere down in there. Her skin was scratched. Tremaine had seen that look before and had always wondered,