2.
 Driving away that evening, I felt not in control of this piece of work. As I struggled among headlights and taillights that balmy evening, I knew that C.M.I. was anxious to get signatures on its out of court settlement. And I would have gladly moved the paperwork through my humble shred of officialdom, except for one thing. I had been a fan of Liana, and her death saddened me, though I had never met her. America had lost both a girl next door and a rare beauty. It had made me aware of mortality. Inching along in smoggy traffic among neon signs, while a light sea fog began to creep around street corners, I wasn't taking this assignment lightly. I was slated for 24 hours on per diem, and I meant to use the full three days.
I took I-5 North to La Jolla. There, at the old estate on Torrey Pines Road high above the ocean, I showed the security guard my I.D. and slipped him a five. Then I nosed around the property, which emanated decay. The place where they'd had so many glamorous parties stood empty. As the fog rolled in, I tiptoed across a redwood deck whose boards creaked dangerously. There was a lot of algae slime in the delft-checkered Jacuzzi. It was a place of creaks and whispers, of drips and echoes; a more hysterical person might have argued there were ghosts moving around at night. Stuff like that doesn't get to me; but I'm a sucker for nostalgia, and I remembered Liana's crisp smile on TV. I steeped in melancholy until soggy, then walked back to my car.
I drove to the fatal spot on Ocean Bluffs. The guard rail had long been repaired, and warning signs were in place. The fog shouldered in protectively, and I could get no glimpse of the deadly wet rocks so far below.
It had been a year since their deaths, since tabloids and staid newspapers alike had had their romp. Arabian princes, Japanese billionaires, Italian bankers, you name it, had propositioned and chased Liana, but she had remained true to that enigmatic thin man with troubled eyes, Paul Conlon, who had the drug plastered gaze of a rock star. It was rumored that they fought often, that she ran out on him, that he ran out on her. He had his own subset of paparazzi who chased after him when he was with starlets at Cannes and Monte Carlo. Liana was seen one day with a young Adonis on Crete, another day with a major producer in Los Angeles. Liana and Paul always ended up back together.
|
Thank you for reading. If you love it, tell your friends. Please post a favorable review at Amazon, Good Reads, and other online resources. If you want to thank the author, you may also buy a copy for the low price of a cup of coffee. It's called Read-a-Latte: similar (or lower) price as a latte at your
|
TOP
|
MAIN
Copyright © 2018 by Jean-Thomas Cullen, Clocktower Books. All Rights Reserved.
|
