‘Mom?’
Faith Hubble was jolted out of sleep. She had been dreaming: dreaming that Port Leo was gone, left far behind her on a boat arrowing deep into the bowl of the Gulf, and Pete stood to one side of her, Whit on the other. As the spray from the prow cooled her face against a blistering sun, the two of them seized her shoulders, upended her over the railing, and she plummeted toward a canyon of water, falling for miles. She had glanced up and Pete and Whit were gone, Lucinda and Sam standing in their places, watching her die.
She pulled her head from the pillow. Sweat touched her shoulders, her back, between her legs.
‘Mom?’ Sam said again. Purpling shadows marred the skin under his eyes. He looked as though he hadn’t slept in a week. ‘You okay?’
She smiled. She certainly was. ‘Yes, honey, I’m fine.’ She patted his hand. ‘It’s all gonna be okay. I promise you that.’
Velvet munched on a cold Pop-Tart and counted the money again, the bills new and stiff and feeling like revenge under her fingernails. She made the edges of the bills flush with a smack against the bedside table. As down payments went, it wasn’t half bad. And since her production company wasn’t being at all helpful on the legal front (‘Sorry, Velvet. Don’t know a lawyer in Texas and we just can’t get involved’ – the bastards), the money was more necessary than ever. Money from Faith to stab Faith, eventually. She liked the idea.
She finished her Pop-Tart then studied the pastry’s box to see if the phrase was trademarked – not a bad name for a movie. Pop-Tarts. Could play up pop music, could play up oversweet breakfast treats. Damn. Trademarked. Oh, well. She folded the money – twenty thousand – into the bottom of her suitcase, hiding it inside a light wind-breaker.
She showered, considering her next move. Shooting Faith would have been a bad idea and she doubted that she could have pulled the trigger. But she had loaded the gun and stuck it in the bottom of her purse as Faith knocked on the door, just in case.
Just in case the crazy bitch tried to kill her.
But Faith had not had murder on her mind. Listen, Velvet, you know and I know that Pete killed himself. You saying anything else is just a ploy for publicity.
You mean a ploy for justice.
No, Publicity. I did a little checking, sweetie. Pete tried to kill himself four years ago, swallowing pills. I got the hospital records from Van Nuys. I’m giving them to the police and to Whit Mosley.
It doesn’t mean anything.
You know what else I found out, sweetie? Your last five movies have bombed. You tried to get all artsy instead of just delivering the smut, and no one cares what you’re doing now. You’re broke. Velvet.
Get the hell out of here.
And Faith, instead of getting mad, gave her that superior little smirk. So mature. Don’t you know I can help you? Get you back on your feet so you can – the smirk again – get back off them right away. And you and I can both be happy.
Velvet rinsed her hair clean of lather, turned off the shower, reached for a towel. She felt better than she had yesterday, when the knots and rocks in her gut shifted with every breath. She stepped out of the shower, wondering if Pete was looking down or up at her, and whether he hated her now.
Don’t hate me, Pete, I promise you I’m not done with them yet, and Faith Hubble’s going to fry, fry, fry. She would have to launder the money the Hubbles would be steering toward her, polish it with a veneer of respectability, before she called the papers in Dallas and Houston and Austin. It shouldn’t, she figured, take very long.
She got dressed and checked the gun again, at the bottom of her purse. It fit in perfectly next to the handheld tape recorder. Faith’s voice on that tape – cajoling, begging, offering bribes for silence over Pete’s still secret career – was better than any bullet. A bullet meant only a moment’s suffering.
Suffering. She thought of Sam, Faith’s pleas that he be protected from all the pain about Pete’s career, and she remembered Sam and Pete sitting on the prow of Real Shame, Pete drinking a bottled beer, Sam sipping a Coke, awkwardly talking, settling finally on a discussion of baseball. Pete liked the Padres, Sam the Rangers, and she shamelessly eavesdropped, hearing them warm to each other, talking about trades and homers and a mutual loathing of the Yankees. Sam had finally laughed at one point. Warm tears had welled in her eyes and she thought, Who the hell are you, June Cleaver? Maybe she should say nothing forever, let Sam think his father just made industrial films. Pete wouldn’t want Sam to be ashamed, to bear the brunt of his sins. Or she could take the money, throw it at Sam, say. Here’s what your mama wanted to pay me for silence, hon. Know who you’re living with.
She dug the creased business card out of her purse, smoothed it out, then dialed Whit’s number.
*
At ten after nine Wednesday morning, Claudia drove past an elaborately painted sign that read JABEZ JONES MINISTRIES. Above the logo was a gold cross etched over a pair of gargantuan biceps.
‘Did you know that Jesus did not work out on a regular basis?’ Whit slurped a cup of hot coffee he’d snagged at Irina’s cafe.
‘Judas was flabby, too,’ Claudia said. The road leading to the compound was surrounded by a dense growth of bent oaks and lined by hardy palm trees. They drove past another sign that read SALVATION