Lunar Park - Bret Easton Ellis [64]
“Daddy, the light’s green again,” I heard Sarah whimper, and I shot forward.
As if guided by radar I drove to Ira’s Spirits and parked in front. I told Robby to watch his sister but he had his Discman on, tuning out the world, his future flattened by my presence, and I mumbled something to Sarah and closed the door before she could say anything and rushed into the liquor store and purchased a bottle of Ketel One. Barely a minute passed before I was back in the Range Rover—the transaction occurred with that much urgency.
At Elsinore: Jayne wouldn’t be home for an hour, Marta was conferring with Rosa about dinner, Robby ambled upstairs ostensibly to study for a test, Sarah went to the media room to play Pinobee, a video game about a flight-challenged and oddly charmless bumblebee whose expression of disgust always managed to fill me with alarm. I went to my office and locked the door, and filled a large coffee mug with vodka (I didn’t need a mixer anymore, I didn’t even need ice) and drank half of it before trying Aimee Light again on her cell. Waiting for an answer I sat at the desk and went over e-mails left unchecked from yesterday. One from Jay, one from Binky informing me that Harrison Ford’s people were delighted by my interest and had inquired when I could get out to L.A., and there was an odd one from Gary Fisketjon, my editor at Knopf, who wrote that a detective saying he was from the Midland County Sheriff’s Department had called his office asking how they could get in touch with me, and Gary hoped it was all right if he gave them my number. Before the fear began creeping in again I found another e-mail that arrived last night from the Bank of America in Sherman Oaks. Its arrival time: 2:40 a.m.
I scrolled down the blank page until Aimee’s phone stopped ringing and her message played out. I clicked off the cell after the beep when I noticed that the light on my answering machine was blinking. I reached over and pressed Play.
“Mr. Ellis, this is Detective Donald Kimball. I’m with the Midland County Sheriff’s Department and I’d like to talk to you about something that’s, well, rather urgent . . . and so we should probably talk as soon as you can.” Pause, static. “If you want we can meet here, in Midland, though considering what I want to talk to you about I think it might be best if I dropped by your place.” He left a cell phone number. “Again, please call me as soon as you can.”
I finished the mug of vodka and poured myself another.
When I called Kimball back he didn’t want to discuss whatever “this” was over the phone, and I didn’t want to discuss it in Midland, so I gave him our address. Kimball said he could be at the house in thirty minutes, but Kimball showed up fifteen minutes after we hung up, a discrepancy which forced me to realize vaguely, uneasily, that this was probably more important than I’d first thought. I was hoping for a welcome distraction from fretting about Aimee. But what Kimball presented me with was not the respite I was hoping for. I was drunk when he arrived. I was sober by the time he left.
There was nothing much to notice about Donald Kimball—my age, vaguely handsome (I’d do him, I thought drunkenly, and then: Do . . . what?), dressed casually in jeans and a Nike sweatshirt, cropped blond hair, Wayfarer sunglasses he whipped off as soon as I opened the front door—and except for the nondescript sedan parked behind him at the curb he could have passed for any one of the handsome, affluent suburban dads who resided in the neighborhood. What singled him out was that he held a copy of American Psycho. It was frayed and yellowed and ominously dotted with Post-its. We shook hands and I ushered him into the house and after offering him a drink (which he declined) led him to my office while I kept glancing at the copy of the book. When I asked if he wanted it signed, Kimball paused grimly, thanked me and said that he did not.
I sat in my swivel chair and took little sips from the coffee mug. Kimball