The Shake
wasn’t always expedient.“Do you have expense money with you?” I asked Karla.
She was dressed in black, including black leather boots with heels that made her taller than me, and she’d done something spiky with her hair, which made her look taller, still. “Two thousand,” she said, giving me a look intended to make it clear how unnecessary the question was.
“Would you mind paying for my ticket?” I asked.
“Okay, but if you want popcorn, you’re on your own.”
•
Afterwards, I suggested we go to a 24-hour restaurant. On the way, we talked a little about the film.
“I really enjoyed it,” Karla said.
“I like Jarmusch’s sense of humor.”
“Yeah,” she agreed. “Like the next door neighbor, Winston. What a crackup.”
“The way he handled the letter mystery was very amusing.”
“Yeah, the Bill Murray character, Johnston, acted like he couldn’t be bothered, like he wasn’t interested. But he really wanted to know who wrote the letter.”
“The more I think about Johnston, the more complex he seems to me.”
A slight smile pulled at the corner of Karla’s mouth. “I know she only had a few seconds of screen time, but I thought Tilda Swinton was incredible. She’s such an amazing actress. At first, I didn’t even recognize her.”
“Do you think she was the one who wrote the letter?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I’ve been thinking about that. Probably, she did. But we don’t really know, for sure. I like that, too. Not knowing for sure. The movie’s better that way, I think.”
“I agree. Penny, the Swinton character, seems like a good candidate for the letter writer. But there are little details here and there to raise your doubts.”
Karla was quiet for a minute. “You know, I was a little nervous about going to a movie with you.”
“Oh? Why is that?”
“I was afraid you were going to be one of those intellectual types who wants to, what do they call it, deconstruct it afterward.”
I wasn’t surprised to hear that she’d been nervous, but I was amused to hear the reason why. “I’ve watched a lot of movies,” I said. “I don’t expect to learn much from them, beyond perhaps something about the art of film making, which I’m not especially interested in. I go to the movies for the pleasure of the story, of watching it unfold. There are a few actors and directors I like, because I can usually depend on them to provide that pleasure. Beyond that, I leave the criticism to the people who get paid for their opinions.”
“In that case,” she said, after giving it some thought, “you can ask me to take you to the movies any time you want.”
•
At the restaurant, we sat in a booth by the window facing J Street. I encouraged Karla to eat if she was hungry. She ordered a salad and I ordered a bottle of Perrier.
“Is that all you’re having?” she asked.
“I have to be careful about eating in restaurants,” I explained. “I have some bad allergies. Even in good restaurants the cook may not know what’s in the food. In places like this, they don’t even want to know.”
“Is that why I’ve never seen you eat?”
“Partly. Why?”
“Nothing, really,” she said, shrugging. “It’s just, you know, nice to see people enjoy themselves.”
“By watching them eat?”
“That’s one way.”
I was pretty sure Karla would not find watching me eat an endearing activity.
“You should be a politician,” she said.
I waited for her to elaborate.
“You’re good at sidestepping topics you don’t want to discuss,” she explained. “When a politician doesn’t want to talk, it means he has something to hide.”
“When a politician wants to talk,” I responded, “it also means he has something to hide.”
“So is your diet something you need to hide?”
The waitress stopped by the table and asked if we needed anything. Karla had her coffee topped off. I was still eyeballing my Perrier. Contrary to myth, vampires can and do drink water. Compared to blood, however, it’s almost unbearably insipid.
“How about you, honey?” the waitress asked me. “You sure you don’t want something to eat?”
“Not tonight, thanks.”
Karla had a curious expression on her face as she watched the waitress. When the woman walked away, I asked what she’d been looking at.
“Her smile is a little bit like yours.”
Again, I waited for an explanation.
“It’s a nice smile,” she said. “You just don’t, you know, open your mouth. You don’t show your teeth. Are your teeth crooked, or something?”
“Not at all,” I said. “In fact, they’re perfect.”
For some reason, this seemed to be of genuine interest to Karla. “Perfect? Really? Can I see?”
“No offense, Karla, but examining one another’s orifices is somewhat outside the scope of our relationship.”
She stopped chewing and glared at me. It seemed like a good time to change the subject.
“There’s something I want to talk to you about,” I said.
She started chewing again, but slowly.
“About a year ago, an off-duty Sacramento cop got killed in a motel down in Vacaville. You may not have heard about it. A guy named Dean Arnaud was shot in the head, executed. There were some unanswered questions about what he was doing at the motel. It looked like he was involved in something drug related, but it's possible he was looking for his missing niece. Either way, the police never caught the killer.”
“Sorry,” she said, “I don’t pay much attention to the news.”
“Anyway,” I continued, “the guy’s wife, Francine, was sure her husband was not involved in anything illegal. I guess she couldn’t convince anyone else of his innocence. She eventually hired a private detective to try to clear Dean’s name. Apparently, that didn’t pan out, either, and the matter seems to have died there.”
I put my index finger in the Perrier glass and stirred the ice around, then licked the water off my finger. Water, by any other name...
“So, what does all this have to do with anything?” Karla asked.
“I’d like to find out if the P.I. knew anything about why Dean was in that motel in Vacaville.”
“Why don’t you ask the wife?”
“I would,