“No shit, Sherlock,” Burton said, keeping his eyes on his Game Boy, or whatever the hell it was he was thumb-abusing. Neither he nor Taylor made a move to exit the Toyota.
“Well,” I said, opening the car door, which set off the annoying dinging until I pulled the keys from the ignition, “you guys can stay here if you want. I’m going inside. Maybe I can find where your mom hides her good silverware and steal it.”
Almost unbelievably, that drew responses from them. When they looked up from their games, they were actually smiling. “We get a cut from the sale,” Taylor said.
“For not telling,” Burton added.
“Fair enough, let’s go.”
I was steeling myself for what the inside of the house must look like, but the reality of it exceeded my most exaggerated expectations. I can’t recall ever seeing shrines to living people, but that accurately described the Frost living room. Practically every square inch of the walls was covered with framed photographs of the two boys. One poster sized image, which was grainy and blurry, and appeared to have been blown-up from a very low-res phone picture, showed the boys standing outside a restaurant next to Tom Hanks, who smiled dutifully. I could only assume that Hanks was innocently having dinner there when he was spotted by Nora. Next to the leather sofa was a life-sized cardboard standee of the boys, dressed like Indiana Jones, and over the fireplace was an oil painting of the two boys that was of near photographic quality. I walked over to the standee, the sort of thing they have in tourist traps that allow you to pose for a picture with your arm draped around one cardboard shoulder so that it looks like you and your best friend Elvis are hanging out together. “Was this from a film or something?”
“No,” Taylor said. “We were supposed to go on a safari in Africa and Mom was going to shoot it and make some kind of television show, but we ended up not going.”
“I think she’s planning on dragging us out to someplace called an Arborium or something, so that it looks like a safari,” Burton said. “Then she’ll film the lions at the zoo and cut it together.”
“Probably the Arboretum,” I said. “They have a whole jungle setting out there that has been used for films for decades. They shot some early Tarzan movies out there.”
“I thought Tarzan was a cartoon,” Burton said.
“Before the cartoon, there were about ninety live action…oh, never mind. Just let me look around for a rocking chair.”
“I don’t think Mom has one,” Burton said. “Why do you want one?”
“Yeah, I thought you were after the silverware,” Taylor added.
“Oh,” Burton muttered. “Was that rocking chair thing like a joke? Like you’re so old?”
My brain suddenly conjured up the image of a birthday party clown sweating his greasepaint off in front of these two and then deciding to go home and commit suicide. But before I could say anything, Taylor announced: “I’m going to get something cold to drink. C’mon, Burt.” The two of them marched out of the room, presumably toward the kitchen.
“Nothing for me, I’m good, but thanks for asking,” I called after their shadows. Perhaps I should have gone with them, not to keep an eye on them, but because number five on the list in my notebook is that you can learn more about someone by viewing the contents of their refrigerator than you can anywhere else. On the other hand, I was relieved to be away from the little brats for a few moments. I decided to use the opportunity to examine the living room more closely. A brick fireplace with an ornate grate was set into one wall, though it appeared not to have been used any time recently. Upon closer inspection, I saw that it was cleaner than my apartment. Its primary function was as a shelf; the mantle held several framed photographs, including one large, formal one of a man in military dress uniform. Examining it closely, I saw a small brass plate affixed to the frame that read: Lt. Randall Frost. This was Dad, the hero.
Perpendicular to the fireplace was the sofa, and across from it was a large plasma television atop a horizontal cabinet with containing the kind of equipment one would expect to find in the home of a couple of tween boys, chiefly a DVD player and a game console. There was also a VHS machine. Sliding open the large drawer as silently as possible, I found about two dozen games in PS3 format, but a lot more jewel boxes filled with homemade disks, each labeled “Brothers Alpha” followed by a situation or location: “Brothers Alpha on Horseback”; “Brothers Alpha at Space Camp”; “Brothers Alpha on Catalina”; “Brothers Alpha at the Art Museum”; and about fifty more. I stopped looking, afraid I was going to come across “Brothers Alpha Knocking Over a Seven-Eleven,” or something else the knowledge of which would make me an accessory after the fact.
I closed the drawer and went to sit down on the sofa. The iron-and-glass coffee table in front of it was empty save for a large scrapbook, which I did not even need to open to gauge its contents. But curiosity got the better of me. Sure enough, it was a photographic record of the Brothers Alpha from what looked like preschool through to the present. The last third or so of the book consisted of professional acting headshots in a variety of poses and costumes, but virtually no changes of expression, like flesh-and-blood paper dolls. There was no agent logo on the shots, just “Nora Frost, Alpha Productions,” and a phone number. I pulled out the card Nora had given me and checked it against the photos: the phone numbers were the same.
It was getting a bit dark inside the house, since the sun was sinking behind a hill, so I took the liberty of turning on a few lamps. It was quiet, too; the only sound I heard was the ticking of the clock that hung on the wall over the television, and which, miraculously, did not have pictures of the Brothers Alpha on its face.
I walked to the spacious dining room, which did not appear to have hosted many recent meals despite the large table. The table was covered with what looked like week’s worth of mail, Hollywood trade papers, BackStage, which was a casting newspaper, and a box full of mailer tubes. I presumed these would eventually contain the posters of the boys protesting fox hunts. “You guys okay?” I called into the void.
“Of course we’re okay,” a voice replied, and I think it was Burton’s. “It’s our house.”
“We’re having soda, and Mom doesn’t allow us to bring soda in the living room,” Taylor’s voice added. It stood to reason: what would happen if all those photos were to have something spilt on them?
“Okay, just checking.”
A little while later, through the dining room window I could see headlights. Nora Frost’s Lexus was pulling into the driveway and not a moment too soon for me. It had not been two hours, or even close to it, but it seemed like it. I went to the door to wait for her and she burst through a moment later. “Where are the boys?” she asked, not bothering with such formalities as “Hello.”
“In the kitchen,” I said. “They wanted sodas.”
“I guess they can have a little splurge, since they performed so admirably today,” she said. “Come with me.” I followed her into the living room where she opened up her purse and withdrew not a cashier’s check, but a stack of cash, which she flopped on the coffee table. “It’s the whole ten-thousand, not half. I didn’t think you would mind.”
I had never before heard the sound of ten-thousand dollars in hundred dollar bills thumping down on a hard surface, but I enjoyed it. It was rich, warm and resonant. “I decided this would be easier than a cashier’s check,” she said.
I
