might be listed as Scribbler,” he ventures. “I was her writer, you know.”
“Mr. Scribbler?” Frigo and Carlo exchange looks. “Ah! There is definitely some confusion.” The undertaker cannot stop frowning quizzically at the potential for an error at his carefully orchestrated event. “The truth of the matter is that another writer has already come to pay his respects. A Mr. Furman Taylor is here at this moment. Perhaps you are acquainted with him, a colleague?”
“Never heard of him. You didn’t make him stand in line?”
“Oh, no, the Signora Casals’ personal manager, Mr. Hank Holloway, put his name on the list. See?” Frigo points to the name under the T column.
“Are you sure it’s not Alonzo Baylor? He’s famous.”
“Writers are a mystery to me,” Frigo shrugs.
Hollywood Hank has begun to push him off the project, smuggling in the famous writer under an alias. Lockwood doesn’t know what Holloway has told Alonzo Baylor about giving him access to the Señora’s sources, opening her life up for him. But without the tapes and the memorabilia, Baylor has nothing. Scouring the Internet, pumping her friends and colleagues, a few visits to her husband, Nolan Keefe, will not provide what Lockwood has collected in six months of listening to the Señora.
The fratelli Rossini offer him one last cookie from the tray and move on down the line consoling the mourners, promising that their wait will be rewarded with a private moment of remembrance.
It’s a varied group. There are the obligatory music students, violin cases in hand, music sheets sticking out of their backpacks. Others, loyal old fans, rely on memories still lively with the sounds of their favorite Aida, their most endearing Liu, their most pitiable Mimi.
He sees a few who knew her: Preston, the doorman, considered her the premier resident in the building. Serena, the hairstylist, alone knew how to conjure up her recognizable red hair out of a secret formula of henna, L’Oreal no. 47, and reduced beet broth. Romualda, the Filipina shoe clerk at Neiman Marcus, kept a lookout for the new arrivals from Choo and Manolo and knew the Señora’s arches, toes, and bunions as well as her own.
Mercè Casals had not performed in public in nearly twenty years. By noon, there is an air of celebration, as if the Señora had consented to come out of retirement for one more aria, a parting gift for those who have loved her throughout the years. Some of her fans are oblivious to the world as they wait in line with eyes shut, lips in a dreamy smile, ears wired to their iPods. Everywhere hints of “Casta Diva” intermingle improbably with a crackling “Ridente la calma” and snatches of “Vissi d’arte.”
And then, as if out of some stage production gone curiously awry, appears a six-foot-four Violetta in a white, lacy gown of five concentric flounces, a corsage of fading camellias pinned to an enormous foam bosom. He’s got the details right. It’s an exact replica of the costume for the DiStenza Covent Garden production of 1963. He has pancaked his ruddy face to a deathly pallor heightened by cherry-red lips, inky mascara, and a perfectly placed mole on the chin. A cluster of rhinestones protrudes out of a pinkie ring from a hand that touches his breast as if to still a galloping heart. “Sempre libera . . . ” He lip-synchs the soaring soprano to the boom box at his feet. The crowd applauds happily. Violetta takes a bow at the end of the aria, then marches off under the escort of a nervous Rossini brother.
As the public line shuffles toward the casket, the VIP guests hover by the buffet table behind a purple velvet rope, out of the reach of the not-so-famous. Once Lockwood stands in the Rossinis’ inner sanctum he realizes that not everyone is here to help provide for the Señora’s final send-off. Even as he is being squeezed inside the stuffy parlor, his movements inhibited by the rope that keeps the mourners in line, Lockwood recognizes Alonzo Baylor from the back of his head as he bends over the table, building himself a thick sandwich with slabs of bloody roast beef, slathered with mustard and mayo and horseradish, capped with a thick slice of raw onion. Possibly feeling Lockwood’s eyes on him, Alonzo Baylor turns around, meat juice running down his hand. He faces dozens of eyes fixed on him as he opens his mouth to bite into the wondrous construct.
Lockwood’s eyes meet Baylor’s and there is a flicker of recognition. The thick neck, the wiry gray hair, and the pugilistic nose are unmistakable, and intimidating. Baylor makes literature look easy, as one terse sentence inevitably builds on another. He has time to write books and to pal around with film stars, prizefighters, beach bunnies, and ex-convicts. He pisses off academics and feminists with his pronouncements. And his books weigh a ton, packed as they are with gristly prose and squat paragraphs as compact as fire hydrants.
A mere ten feet away, Lockwood stands with head bowed, hands clasped, his gaze apparently on the Señora’s feet squeezed into pink satin pumps. His attention, however, is fixed on Alonzo Baylor, who hovers at the head of the casket, sandwich in hand.
The world-famous author dabs the corners of his mouth with a napkin, wiping away a smear of mustard. He looks in both directions, then places the half-eaten sandwich on a stanchion and leans into the coffin to gaze at the Señora’s placid face. He appears (or pretends, thinks Lockwood) to be too involved in his grief to notice the steady shuffle of the crowd as it files past him. A man so absorbed should not be disturbed. Even when he is recognized, and whispers flutter about him, he is able to ignore the nervous shiver that his presence elicits. His name is handed down the line until, as in a game of telephone tag, Alonzo Baylor becomes Shoreman Sailor becomes Roman Taylor becomes Norman Mailer and Alonzo Baylor again, here to pay tribute and mourn Mercè Casals out of an old friendship, perhaps a secret passion.
Baylor has the moves of a thief. His sneaky fingers creep along the outside of the casket until the right hand is poised just above the Señora’s head. The fingers, casually dangling over the edge, descend until they ever so lightly brush the side of her face. With his left hand firmly supporting his brow, Baylor glances darkly around, and in a moment’s sleight, the right index curls itself around a few of the Señora’s fine red hairs and yanks them out swiftly. Her head barely nods. Lockwood winces. He expects the diva to cry out.
Thinking he has escaped notice, Baylor is emboldened. He slips the hairs inside a white envelope. Next, he places the envelope on Mercè Casals’ famous mouth and obtains a lipsticked imprint of her lips. Baylor hangs over the edge of the casket, his shoulders convulsed in theatrical sobs, as he pockets the envelope. Lockwood imagines him gaining some insight or other into his biographical subject by taking the samples for DNA analysis. Maybe something occult, like a reading of tea leaves or a channeling of the newly departed spirit.
This time Lockwood looks directly at Baylor and stares at him with a look that says, I saw what you did!
Baylor meets his gaze. The message is clear: I know you saw what you saw. Why would I give a damn?
ONE, 900, DR. PHONE.
When Lockwood returns to Anaheim at the end of the day, the Señora’s absence continues to absorb him. He decides that grief and shock feel like the flu; the day’s events bring on a dull ache in his chest. A scattering of unopened mail and unread newspapers lies by the door, but he goes directly to his office upstairs. He sits at a heavy oak desk; to one side his Mac workhorse; on the other a printer and two metal filing cabinets stacked like a fortress. He is surrounded by fiberboard bookcases, their slats swaying under the weight of handy references: dictionaries and a thesaurus, Bartlett’s quotations, Books in Print, volumes with maps and holy books of all creeds, America’s Most Beloved Poems from Auden to Whitman, The Unabridged How Things Work, Trees and Plants of North America, Audubon’s bird books, insect books, fish books, and 1001 Jokes, Insults,
