The Tin Horse: A Novel Read online

  A few weeks later, though, Papa announced that this year, instead of getting Hanukkah gelt, we were receiving a truly wonderful gift: a new baby was growing in Mama’s tummy. So maybe Barbara had it backward and squatting over onions was what you did when you wanted a baby? Either way, I knew just enough about human reproduction to be certain Sari’s aunt was right: the onions were meshugas.

  And Mama didn’t want another baby. “I can’t do it this time,” she had cried to God. Maybe I’d misunderstood her Yiddish? But despite, no, because of my confusion about the pot of onions, I felt certain of what I’d heard her say, the words burned into me by the very strangeness of that moment when I stood in the kitchen doorway and couldn’t recognize my own mother. She had said, too, that women in America had little choice about getting married. Did that mean she didn’t love Papa?

  With all that on my mind, I was less upset than I might have been when Danny got caught shoplifting at Chafkin’s, just before New Year’s. Besides, even Eddie Chafkin felt sorry for the Berlovs, so the punishment Eddie devised was relatively mild: Danny just had to do ten hours of work at the store, sweeping and helping in the stockroom, to atone for his crime.

  What did upset me was that Danny stopped telling me his stories. Maybe it was because of his embarrassment over my letter or because I, his unquestioning listener, had confronted him over the stolen candy bars. Maybe getting caught stealing was too great a collision with reality.

  I suppose the stories would have stopped, anyway. We turned twelve that spring, too old for childhood fantasies.

  When we went to the beach the next summer, rather than taking walks with me, Danny got obsessed with the muscle men. He spent every minute hanging out where they lifted weights and ran errands for them, and the men took him under their wing and got him started on bodybuilding.

  I lost Princess Verena. And I gained a new sister, Harriet.

  I’M NOT GOING TO DRIVE ALL THE WAY TO COLORADO SPRINGS. OF course I’m not, I assure myself as I head east on the 10 freeway. That would be insane, especially for an octogenarian in pink Keds who has to stop every hour to pee and can’t drive after dusk because her night vision is shot. I just couldn’t stay in my house one more minute, couldn’t bear the confinement of the walls. What does any true Californian do when she’s jumping out of her skin? She gets in the car and hits the freeway!

  I’m still jumping out of my skin, but at least I’m moving. I didn’t own a car, didn’t even drive, until I was twenty-six, when Paul’s parents gave us a Plymouth as a wedding present. We drove the Plymouth on our honeymoon, four days at the Hotel del Coronado in San Diego, and when we weren’t in bed or at the beach, Paul taught me how to drive on back roads lined with avocado groves. A born teacher, he was able to break down all of the actions an experienced driver does unconsciously. I learned well; I’ve always been a good driver. Sixty years of driving in L.A., and I’ve never had an accident.

  But the one thing Paul never succeeded in getting across to me was having a lighter foot on the gas pedal. From the moment I learned to release the clutch without stalling, I loved speed! As I get beyond the perpetual Los Angeles traffic, I push the car—a silver Jaguar sedan, my gift to myself for my eightieth birthday—past seventy-five.

  I’ll drive as far as Victorville; it’s just eighty or ninety miles from L.A. I’ll treat myself to a date shake, the way Paul and I used to do when we drove to or from Las Vegas. Then I’ll turn around.

  But no matter how fast I go, I can’t get away from what Josh told me earlier this afternoon.

  “That card we found last week for the detective, Philip Marlowe,” he said the minute he walked in, so excited that the words spilled out of him. “I did a little research. He was quite a character.”

  “He was rather well known back in the thirties and forties.”

  “Rather well known? I found newspaper articles about some big cases he helped solve. This one reporter wrote about him a lot. He made your friend Marlowe sound like a tough guy around thugs but a knight in shining armor if he was helping someone small and powerless.” Josh shot me an oddly complicit look. “Turns out the reporter’s papers are in a private collection of L.A. history from the 1940s. I’d heard about the collection, and I’ve been curious about it, so I went and took a look.

  “And … voilà!” He reached into his banker’s box and pulled out a nine-by-twelve envelope. “The reporter must have been friends with Marlowe, because he got all of his case files. I copied his file on your sister. At least I figured it was your sister—Barbara Greenstein, the one in the dance programs?”

  “Yes, that’s right,” I said curtly. For Josh, following the card to Philip and then Barbara was nothing but a librarian’s treasure hunt—a puzzle, a lark. But it was my life he was prying into, my hope that got kindled and, inevitably, dashed. Well, not this time. I already knew what was going to be in the file. I took the envelope and set it aside, then turned to the material I’d laid out on the table. “I promised you those letters to editors I wrote when I was a teenager.”

  But Josh was like a cat bringing in a dead bird and wanting to show off its kill. “Funny you didn’t know Kay Devereaux was the name your sister used in Colorado Springs. When she worked at the hotel.”

  Obviously Josh had misread something. Still, I opened the envelope and pulled out the file, a thin sheaf of no more than half a dozen pages. My eyes raced over the top sheet, notes from talking to my family: Barbara’s height, weight, date of birth, when and where we’d seen her last, the names of her friends, and so on. Continuing through the file, I could see how Philip followed those leads, though his actual notes were sketchy, a scatter of names or phrases he’d jotted for his own reference; I could piece them together because I’d already heard it all more than sixty years ago. Only one piece of information was new to me. Apparently it came from his interview with Alan Yardley: under Yardley’s name, he’d written Trocadero and three women’s names—women Barbara had worked with in the chorus?

  “Fascinating, huh?” Josh said. “So can I ask you about Philip Marlowe sometime?”

  I waved him off and dove into the rest of the file.

  Performing in a nightclub is hardly the most stable profession, and it had clearly taken some digging to track down any of the showgirls; there was a page with multiple addresses and phone numbers under each woman’s name, most of them crossed through, as well as the names of half a dozen nightclubs. Finally, he had found at least one of the women, though it wasn’t clear which; he’d written “unhappy at home” and “heard Broadmoor Hotel, Colo. Springs, hiring.” I figured that was what the woman had told him about Barbara. “Unhappy at home” gave me a twinge, but I could hardly argue that ours was a harmonious family from which no one would have wished to escape.

  Then I came to the last item in the file: a letter, messily written in pencil and badly spelled but on a half sheet of good rag paper with the Broadmoor Hotel letterhead.

  Marlowe—

  Theres a botle-blond, gos by Kay Devereaux, who might be your girl. Call if you want more infomation.

  Carl Logan

  House Detective

  “Devereaux” was spelled out carefully, as if he’d copied it a letter at a time. My hand started shaking, and the words juddered in front of my eyes.

  “Is this it?” I asked Josh, my voice tight and tinny in my ears. “Did you copy the whole file?”

  “Everything except three or four copies of a photo, it looked like her high school graduation picture … Elaine, are you all right?”

  “I can’t meet with you this afternoon.”

  “Sure. Okay.” He grabbed his banker’s box. “Your sister came home, didn’t she? After Philip Marlowe found her? You told me she got married and had kids.”

  “I’ll see you next week, same time.” I nearly pushed him out the door.

  Then I went back to the file and read it again as I paced from room to room. It wasn’t just that I felt too agitated to sit; with each change of locati
on, each different set of furniture and fall of light, I hoped I’d be jogged toward some kind of clarity.

  Carl Logan had it wrong, that was all. He hadn’t been sure himself: She might be your girl, he’d written. And what was he going on, even to say that much? Philip might have mailed him Barbara’s high school photo, we’d given him copies to show around, but she was eighteen in that photo! I have grandkids that age, and they all have the same shiny newness, their faces like just-minted pennies waiting for the stamp of experience. Logan could only have guessed he was seeing that high school girl in a bottle-blond chorine. And look at his letter, smudged and barely literate. Wasn’t a hotel dick the sleaziest character in any detective movie? I’d bet Logan had insisted on being paid for his information, and he figured he’d get more money if he said what Philip wanted to hear.

  Kay Devereaux wasn’t my sister. It was the only thing that made sense!

  Yet another explanation kept whispering in my mind, one that made me feel like I’d been punched in the gut. When I couldn’t stand being in the house anymore, I got in the car and started driving.

  AM I ALREADY AT Victorville? The diner where Paul and I liked to stop is still there, just off the highway. I use the ladies’ room, get the date shake to go, and take a sip. Ah, the blend of dates, milk, and ice cream turns out to be one of the few revisited pleasures that’s as good as I remember. I place the shake in the Jag’s cupholder to enjoy as I drive home.

  But instead of heading back to L.A., I obey Maxene, the name (after the middle Andrews sister) I’ve given the car’s smooth-voiced navigator. Just for the heck of it, I’d programmed Maxene for Colorado Springs. Of course, I won’t really drive that far. But Las Vegas—why not go there? Spend a day or two, see a show, play the slots? Is there anyone I need to call, anything to reschedule? I’m not meeting with Diane, the young attorney I mentor, until next week. And I taped my commentary for the legal affairs show on the public radio station yesterday.

  Vegas, yes! I’ll buy myself a toothbrush. And a swimsuit. One of the things I remember most fondly from trips we took to Las Vegas with the kids was swimming in those turquoise pools. Though I know that, unlike the date shake, which has held up to my memory of it, Las Vegas long ago stopped being the place I loved in the fifties and sixties, when you could still feel the desert grit beneath the glitz.

  Vegas in those days was my cousin Ivan, a small-time operator who lived there and always treated us to a dinner at a steakhouse and introduced us to his latest lady friend. At least I reassured myself that he was small-time, involved in nothing worse than gambling scams. If he’d been doing anything really unsavory, wouldn’t he have been able to afford something better than the series of modest apartments where he lived? And his ladies were invariably girl-next-door types from the Midwest.

  Ivan was one reason we went to Vegas a couple of times a year. My parents had sponsored him to come from Romania in the late 1930s, and I felt responsible for him. And I like to play blackjack and the slots; gambling, after all, is something of a family pastime. Best of all, Las Vegas was a cheap, quick family getaway. I’m sure neither of my kids would set foot in Vegas these days—Carol’s idea of a vacation involves backpacks and national parks, and Ronnie gravitates toward places where the entertainment features museos and string quartets, not feather boas—but we had some great times there.

  Was I drawn to Las Vegas for another reason? I wonder now, sipping my date shake and pushing the car to eighty-five on the straight, flat interstate. Did I go because it seemed like a place where Barbara might have ended up? That’s one of the futures I imagined for her, as a Las Vegas showgirl. Or she might have become a New York socialite or the wife of a fabulously wealthy oil sheik with homes in half the capitals of Europe—Barbara wouldn’t have settled for anything small and ordinary. Not that I spent every minute thinking about her; I didn’t have time. My missing sister was simply another instrument in my usual symphony of Paul and the kids and work and politics … an oboe, perhaps, sad and autumnal, that shaded every other tone.

  No, I didn’t look for her in Vegas, not like Mama peering into every store on her walks through Hollywood. Yet the one time I thought I spotted her, I took off like a runner exploding from the starting blocks, as if my muscles had been primed for just that moment. It was 1958, almost twenty years since she’d left. I was walking on the Strip with the kids. Carol was seven then and Ronnie four. Something about a woman walking half a block ahead of us, her back or her stride, riveted my attention, and I dropped my kids’ hands and raced after her. “Barbara?”

  She didn’t react.

  “Barbara!” I touched the woman’s shoulder, and she turned. What was I thinking? This woman was barely twenty-five, whereas Barbara would have been nearly forty by then, the same as me. “Sorry,” I stammered, and hurried back to my kids.

  Ronnie was blubbering and Carol trying to be the reassuring big sister, although her eyes had gone wide in alarm. I hugged them, keeping my arms around them even when Carol squirmed and complained, “It’s too hot, Mommy.” I needed the comfort of my kids’ sweaty bodies against the disappointment that the woman wasn’t Barbara—and the jab of deeper hurt that shocked me in that moment with its force: while Barbara remained “missing” to us, she could have gotten in touch with our family anytime. But she didn’t want to see us.

  She didn’t want to see me.

  A PIT STOP AT a Denny’s outside Barstow. I sit at the counter and order a slice of apple pie, not really wanting it but to “pay” for using the bathroom. The pie tastes great, though, and I take my time enjoying it.

  I’m surprised, when I return to the car, to notice the first hint of dusk. It’s not even five, but of course it’s November. Well, I’m halfway to Vegas already; if I turn around now, I’ll hit rush hour traffic in L.A. As long as I have to drive after dark, it’s better with my lousy night vision to be on a straight-shot highway through the desert, I reason.

  The austere landscape makes me think of the wild, beautiful desert photograph that Alan Yardley gave me, a black and white shot, all light and shadow. Yardley, when I went to ask him about Barbara, struck me as the gentlest man I’d ever met. I learned later, from Philip, that all the while Yardley was meeting my gaze with his sad, compassionate eyes, he was lying to me. I hung the photo in every office in which I worked—now it’s above my desk at home—to remind me that trust must be earned, not blindly given.

  Yet obviously I gave my trust too easily. As I race across the desert, the knowledge I’ve tried to push away all afternoon—the other explanation for Philip’s card among my mother’s papers and for the letter from Carl Logan in his file—worms into my mind: Barbara was living as Kay Devereaux in Colorado Springs. Philip found out, and he told Mama and Papa. And they all kept it from me!

  “No!” I scream in the privacy of the car, the night, the desert.

  It’s no more than a second’s inattention, but the Jag swerves, and I’m bumping over rough terrain, seeing nothing but shadows ahead of me. I pump the brakes. The car slows but continues to lurch forward. There’s a scraping metallic shriek, and I sail over the edge of something.

  I get walloped in the chest and rammed back against the seat. Then everything stops.

  WHAT COMES NEXT IS a blur of pain and people in uniforms, first the Highway Patrol and paramedics, then white-coated doctors and nurses at the Barstow hospital.

  I’m lucky, the emergency room doctor tells me; it looks like my worst injury is a cracked rib from the airbag slamming into me. Beyond that, “you’re going to get some colorful bruises.” They’ll keep me overnight for observation, but I should be able to go home in the morning. He leaves, and a nurse who’s been standing by says she’ll take care of moving me into a hospital room.

  Groggily, as I’m wheeled on a gurney, I wonder about the damage to my car. And hell, I’ll have to call Ronnie to come here tomorrow and pick me up. But before I get out the words, the nurse says, “I hope you don’t mind. Your cell phone rang w
hile the doctor was treating you, and I answered. It was your grandson. He’s on his way here. Hope that was okay,” she says again.

  “Fine,” I mumble, my voice thick with whatever they gave me for pain. My grandson? But Ronnie’s son, Brian, is in Argentina, working as a photojournalist. Then I remember that Dylan, Carol’s son, moved to Los Angeles a few months ago; a former minor-league baseball player, he got a job coaching at Culver City High School.

  It must be Dylan who called.

  Still, the last thing the nurse says, as the drugs and shock drag me into sleep, mystifies me. “Your grandson must have ESP. He called because he was worried about you.” ESP, indeed. What else would make Dylan worry about me?

  HE’S THERE IN THE morning. The nurse who wakes me says, “Okay if your grandson comes in? He spent the night in the lounge.”

  “Sure.” I’m touched—and so shaken up and vulnerable, in the wake of the accident, that tears spring to my eyes. I reach to brush them away, and flinch. Ow! I must have gotten a shiner.

  A moment later, a young man—well, a blurry shape in the doorway, I don’t know what they did with my glasses—enters the room and calls out loudly, “Grandma!”

  But it’s not my grandson. It’s Josh. He hurries over to my bedside, whispers, “I had to say I was related, or they wouldn’t have told me anything. And I didn’t know how to reach anyone in your family.” Once he’s gotten that out, he takes a good look at me and adds, with real alarm, “Elaine, are you all right?”

  “Better than I look. Really. Damn airbag.” I try to laugh, but it hurts.

  “Guess I oughta see the other guy, right?” he says.

  “The Sierra Club will probably revoke my membership for what I did to the desert.”

  And my poor Jag! I ask Josh if he can find out what happened to it, if it was towed somewhere or is still sitting amid rocks and cacti. He rushes off, clearly grateful to have a task, and returns in fifteen minutes with the news that the car was taken to a Highway Patrol lot. I have no doubt the Jag is going to need extensive body work, but I’m hoping it suffered no serious internal damage. That turns out to be the case for me, I learn from the doctor, who comes by a few minutes later.