When she reached the baobab, Reggie’s chin was against his chest, his back against the trunk, his wrecked arm in his lap. She collapsed beside him and closed her eyes while she caught her breath. She was sweating monstrously.
“How do you feel, my friend?” she asked.
When he said nothing, she wanted to believe he was sleeping. She told herself she might hear a small whistle or snore. She wanted to postpone what she knew in her heart was the truth as long as possible.
“Good enough to fall asleep,” she said. “That’s something. You need your rest.”
How long could she keep up the charade? Oh, until she died, too, she suspected. Until she was too weak to fight off the jackals or hyenas or leopards. The lions.
Maybe she should just put the barrel of the rifle into her mouth and make it quick. She’d been perusing the Hemingway African canon in her mind, so why not end it the way Papa himself had? Then there’d be no chance that she’d feel the pluck and yank as the Ruppell’s ate the flesh from her face and her arms.
But, no. She didn’t walk all the way to that acacia and back just to give up.
And maybe Reggie really was in a deep sleep. Dreaming of whatever it was that made him happy. At least she hoped they were happy dreams. Not dreams of Okinawa or the Serengeti. She knew that she herself had far more bad dreams than good ones. Dreams of anxiety and failure and postponement. If she lived, she’d have to talk to Billy Stepanov about that. What it meant that the nightmares outnumbered the pleasant dreams, and how that was the case for most people.
God, where was Billy right now? Billy and Margie and Katie and David and Terrance and Peter? Where was Charlie? Were all of them off the reserve and in some safe house somewhere? She supposed that wherever they were, it sure as hell wasn’t cushy. It wasn’t Katie’s place in the hills outside L.A. with that scrumptious swimming pool.
But it also wasn’t this.
Finally, she did what she had to do. She reached out her left hand and placed it against Reggie Stout’s chest.
And felt nothing.
She ran her fingers up his shirt to his neck and felt the skin there. It was cold. So were his cheeks and his chin beneath his stubble.
She opened her eyes now and lifted his head off his chest. She kissed him. She kissed his dead and lifeless cheek.
“I love you, Reggie,” she said. “I love you. We all did.”
* * *
.?.?.
Carmen watched Reggie bring his chair from behind his desk and place it beside the chrome-and-glass coffee table in his office, opposite the teak couch with the long plaid cushion, on which, it was common knowledge, the publicist would catch forty winks after work before entertaining clients or a reporter at Revolution or Barry O’s. His secretary had placed on the table glasses, a pitcher of water, and three cups of coffee. Katie had just returned from London and was talking about Michael Caine, and while Carmen knew there was nothing serious about her friend’s infatuation with the young British heartthrob, she was glad that Katie was getting it out of her system here with Reggie Stout, and not when David was present.
“Do you know his real name?” Reggie asked, his tone professorial.
“I don’t,” said Carmen. “Is it as bad as Tedesco?”
Reggie smiled. “Your name is lovely.”
“Hah! You can’t imagine how many people have told me I should change it.”
“Maurice Micklewhite,” Reggie told them. “Maurice Joseph Micklewhite. Junior.”
Katie nodded. “An old friend of his we met at the club—a childhood chum—called him Morey.”
“How come you kept Tedesco professionally if you don’t like it?” Reggie asked Carmen. “Felix is Hollywood royalty. When you married him, you could have become Carmen Demeter. The press would have eaten it up. Catnip.”
“Well, it came up. Jean Cummings and I talked about it. But I decided that I already had my career and people knew me. They knew my name. Obviously, not as many as Katie, but enough. I think my parents were a little surprised. I mean, my legal name is Carmen Demeter, of course. My mom thinks it’s very weird that I didn’t start using that publicly.”
Katie turned to her: “Does Felix have hurt feelings?”
“I don’t think so.”
“And Rex doesn’t mind?”
“Rex would feel exploited if I started using the family coin like that. I think the old man feels exploited that his own son uses his name.”
Reggie laughed. “That’s the Rex I know.”