"My boss claims he has a few brain cells left."

"He was the brains of the group."

"But . . .

"But what?"

"I don't know if it's the drugs or the alb.u.m sales or the closetbut . . ."

"What? Is he hitting on you?"

"No. Susan, I'm just an a.s.sistant, not like an agent or some-one. But I hear his memory's like cheesecloth."

"c.o.ke.

"He can afford it?"

Five weeks later Chris was jailed in Nagoya, having been caught with a picket fence of c.o.ke lines beneath his nostrilsduring a police raid of an after-hours club. Three grams of c.o.ke were found in his jacket pocket and the j.a.panese correctionalsystem threw the key to his cell down the well. Randy caught the news on CNN on a Thursday morning shortly after his re-turn. Within days what remained of Steel Mountain's infrastruc-ture was dismantled, and its legal bills were staggering. Susan had until the month's end to vacate the Cape Cod decoy house.Randy lost his job and his back pay and took on another PR gig at half of his previous salary. The baby was sick a few times,and Susan squeaked him through the pay-as-you-go medical system by disguising Dreama as a Canadian tourist flashing awad of bills that were actually the remains of Randy's savings.Dreama kicked in her numerology money, but it only went so far. There were taxes. Rent. Groceries. Phone. Dog food forCamper and w.i.l.l.y.

In the midst of this, Randy enrolled in a screen writingnight school course. He came to realize that his life's 'narra-tive arc' was, like that of most everybody else in the world, cruelly and pitilessly dictated by the most mundane of finan-cial straps and, in Randy's particular case, a troglodyte goon from a collection agency who showed up at his offices duringa sales meeting, demanding either payment or return of theTV set.

And so the money ran out. Everybody was doing what theycould, but Susan decided it was her turn to bring home the ba-con. She arranged a lunch meeting with Adam Norwitz at theIvy. She was going to sell her privacy.

Chapter Thirty-two.

Marilyn meandered through the Seneca crash site and remem-bered a movie she'd seen years before, one where the wife of aHollywood movie executive is hacked to bits and left strewnabout a lemon grove.

But Seneca-this was no movie, this wasthe odor of burning plastics, her shin sc.r.a.ped from b.u.mpinginto a sheared aluminum panel. This was the crackle of walkie-talkies, the wail of competing sirens. She saw a drink servicetrolley, little liquor bottles and all, flattened like a cardboard.She saw a Nike gym bag run over by a fire truck. She saw pre-scription bottles, juice cartons and exploded cans of ginger alepressed into the Ohio soil like seeds, watered with aviation fueland germinated by fire.

She'd been at O'Hare in Chicago, and was heading back toCheyenne after helping organize a regional pageant in Win-netka. Inside one of the air terminal's snack bars, she'd seencrash footage with Susan's old promo shot inset in the upper leftcorner. Within a blink she had checked the departure screens, purchased an electronic ticket and boarded a flight to Colum-bus, where she rented a car. She was at the crash scene within three hours. Once there, Marilyn learned that there are no rulesfor crash sites. They occupy huge amounts of s.p.a.ce in thestrangest locations. Most local disaster crews are overwhelmedby the workload and are sickened by the things they see. There had been a yellow plastic tape hastily strung up around much of the site to keep away the gawkers, and Marilyn knew that theeasiest way to get inside the tape without ha.s.sle was to givethe impression of already having been there. To this end she smeared her face, blouse and jacket with rich Ohio soil andnimbly stepped inside, into the s.p.a.ce where chaotic orders werebarked through megaphones, past blue vinyl tarps fluttering over stacked bodies and inside the supermarket meat trucksused to refrigerate body fragments for later DNA examination.

There were any number of photographers on the scene, andone photo of Marilyn in particular, with her lost face and soiledwardrobe, made the cover of several national publications("One Mother's Loss").

Marilyn bought four dozen copies ofeach issue.

In Marilyn's mind, Susan was either completely intact or completely incinerated. Any point between these two extremeswas intolerable, for Susan was a beauty, a result of Marilyn'sown good looks and teaching. Marilyn's own pursuit of beautyhad raised her out of the Ozarks of the Pacific, out of thefamily's Oregonian mountain s.h.i.t shack, with its seven chil-dren, two of whom were alcoholic by the time Marilyn begangenerating memories. Hers was a beautiful-looking family, but one with a h.e.l.lish ugly core, no morals, too many guns, no G.o.dto fear, reared in isolation, mostly illiterate and sticking theird.i.c.ks wherever the opposition was overcome. She abandoned the s.h.i.t shack at sixteen, pregnant by one of two brothers, andmiscarried in a Dairy Queen bathroom after a fourteen-hourwalk into McMinnville.

Using one of three dollar bills she'dstolen from her father's rifle bag, she bought a banana split and marveled at the free red plastic spoon that came with it. Theother two dollars she used to buy foundation at the Rexall to cover up her tear-blotched complexion. She hitchhiked out of town and got a ride with Duran, a half-Cajun drainage pipe salesman. Almost immediately he asked her to marry him, and she accepted because she had nothing else going for her, and besides, Duran was a gentleman who didn't wake her up in themiddle of the night, heavy, wet and pounding. In fact, except forthe first few times that produced Susan, Duran didn't touch her much, and that was just fine. Duran's love was more like wor-ship, and he insisted Marilyn do all she could with what shehad, yet he was also a pragmatist and insisted she learn a non-beauty skill. To this end he oversaw Marilyn's two-part educa-tion of daytime courses at the Miss Eva Lorraine Inst.i.tute ofCosmetology (since 1962), and night school courses in typing and office procedures, which Marilyn soaked up like a cottonball.

Susan was born, but Duran insisted Marilyn continue withher studies, which ultimately raised her to paralegal status."Marilyn, please stop talking and study the woman on TV"

"I'm tired of watching her."

"That is not an issue. Just keep watching." Duran was con-vinced that the most useful accent a woman could use was theconcise nasal telegraph of the network news G.o.ddesses, andmade Marilyn watch and mimic their style.

"Durrie, why are you making me learn all of this stuff?"

"Because, Marilyn, you know I'm not going to be here for-ever, and please don't talk like such a heek."

"What do you mean you're not going to be around? And bythe way, it's hick, not heek, and please don't call me a hick."

"I need to know you'll be able to make it on your own. Theworld is hard. You need skills."

"And when am I going to be alone?"

"When you're twenty-one."wwniMa, "And then what, Durrie?"

What Duran did was leave, just as he said he would, andMarilyn accepted it without rancor and thought she had gottengood value for her time with him. As Marilyn had cultivated nofriends, and had pretty well jettisoned her family, she didn't mention him again to anybody else.

But when the screen door slammed, Marilyn sensed an ab-sence in her life as blunt and frightening as a freshly cut treestump. And it was at this point that her enthusiasm for Susan'sentry into the world of pageants was born.

Miss Eva Lorraine's primary cosmetological message was thatthe traits humans perceive as beautiful are those that bespeak offertility. "Big t.i.tties mean milk, girls, no secret about that. Shinyhair means healthy follicles, and our eggs, girls, come from fol- licles just as surely as does our hair and fingernails. And so that'swhy we keep a buffin' and a primpin'."

Marilyn found the message eminently scientific, and there-after as a rule she let the pursuit of babies govern all of her fu-ture beauty decisions-push-up bras, rouge in the decolletage, cellophane rinses on her hair and, as time wore on, siliconeinjections to plump up some facial sagging. But the injectionsdidn't come until long after Don Colgate entered her life, ahefty logger from Hood River. He was blown away by a lookerwho worked at a genuine legal office, with a daughter like achina figurine on his granny's mantelpiece.

After they got married, he insisted she quit working, and soshe did. Marilyn saw this as decidedly old-fashioned thinking, but it also implied that Don wouldn't go leaving her like Duran.

It was with her conquest of Don Colgate that Marilyn ob-tained the final proof she needed that fertility and the provenability to bear beautiful babies were integral to her allure andher sense of being. But then there was the issue of Don and his fertility. His sperm were dead or lazy or stupid or overheated,and he and Marilyn didn't conceive. As his sterility becamemore evident, so did his drinking and the number of pag-eants in which young Susan was entered increased. The bunnyhutches behind the trailer increased, too, and it was a trailer,never a house, because Don just didn't seem to get promoted atthe lumberyard.

Marilyn found that she could funnel her native intelligenceinto the world of pageants, an intelligence she was convincedshe had pa.s.sed on to Susan. Other pageant girls whined andscreeched and pulled princess routines, but Susan sat like ahawk on one of the Interstate light posts, scanning for roadkill, watching and learning from the others. She tended to win, andafter a point released Marilyn from the need to shuck bunnies.

Don said that some of the makeup and attire Marilyn madeSusan wear was cheap and s.l.u.tty. She told Don that she'd onceread that girls in China have babies at the age of nine, "so if girlscan have babies that early, there's nothing wrong with high- lighting that capacity."

"It's bad morals is what it is, Marilyn."

"Don, cool your jets. Get off the pulpit."

"Marilyn, nine-year-old girls do not wear t.i.ttie-bar stilettos."

"Don't be so coa.r.s.e. They're evening shoes."

"I thought hill folk were supposed to be so wise, like theWaltons."

The issue of morals usually quieted Marilyn, if only briefly. Knowing about morals was in no way the same thing as actuallyhaving them. She'd been raised in a hog pen and was lacking inethics. Some nights she genuinely did worry about the sins of the parent being handed down to the child-her own feral up- bringing overriding Susan's angelic manner. But she wouldn't speak these thoughts aloud. Instead, for example, she told Donthat morals were whatever got the job done at the time. "Likethose Polynesians who eat Spam."

"The whats who eat what?"

"Spam. That's what Mr. Jordan, my old boss, told me. He'd read that in supermarkets down in the South Pacific they havewhole aisles that are devoted to nothing but Spam. The Americanstried to figure out why these island people liked Spam so much,and it turns out that nothing else approximates the taste ofcooked human flesh like the salty porky taste of Spam."

Don's mouth hung open.

"We think of those jolly little Island people down there intheir jolly little hula skirts and being oh so moral. But to them,cannibalism is perfectly moral, so it seems to me, Don Colgate,that morals are a pretty flexible little concept, so don't go get-ting preachy on me."

But it was Marilyn whose mouth was agape while walking through the sprays of cooked human flesh at Seneca. She was asked her name by a person inside one of the many biohazardprotection suits swarming the site. She replied, "Susan Col-gate is my daughter. I'm her mother. Have you seen her?" Mari-lyn's shoes' heels had broken. She was wearing a pair of pinkwomen's running shoes she'd found intertwined with a stereoheadset a few minutes back when she'd sc.r.a.ped her shin.

At sunset a Gannett reporter named Sheila drove Marilyn tothe local Holiday Inn and gave Marilyn her bed. Sheila filed herstories and bounced between her laptop PC, her cell phone andthe TV. Marilyn called Don. He arrived the next morning. Bothspent the day at the local ice rink, temporarily converted into a morgue. Skating music serenaded family members of crash vic-tims who appraised what remains were "readable." There wererows upon rows of limbs and torsos and shards, all covered inblack vinyl tarps, arranged like 4-H projects atop plywood sheets that straddled sawhorses. Five days went by and still theyfound no trace of Susan, Marilyn donated blood samples for DNA testing, to help a.n.a.lyze those bodies too far gone for visualor dental identification. They returned to Cheyenne, their spiritsfogged like wet car windows, their emotions on hold. Sheilacalled each day to see if an ID had been made, but no. This initself became a story, and the local coroner, in conjunctionwith the airline and the civil aviation authorities, were at a totalloss as to where Susan's remains might have ended up. There hadn't been enough heat for vaporization to occur, and all eye-lashes and fingernail clippings within a half-mile radius hadbeen DNA-cataloged. It was at this point that Sheila hookedup Marilyn with a prominent claims litigator, Julie Poyntz, whospent the next year winning her claim, arguing about the pro-found stress for family members arising from the airline's losing the body of a pa.s.senger, a body that might very well be in the deep freeze of some psychotic fan.

"You just don't lose a body, Mrs. Colgate-Marilyn." It wasearly on in their lawyer-client relationship.

"And I don't want to dwell on the possibilities of what might have become of her re-mains, but ..."

"What if she's alive?" asked Marilyn.

Julie tsk-tsked. "You were there, Marilyn. Everybody on thatflight was dead and/or severely mutilated."

Marilyn squeaked.

"I'm sorry, Marilyn, bat you can't be squeamish. Not now.We're going to win this. They know it. We know it. It's only amatter of how much and how soon. It's no compensation forlosing Susan-who, I might add, was a role model for me fromMeet the Blooms-but at least the money is something."

Money was flowing into Marilyn's life from many directionsat that point, and each new development, or each new recentlydiscoveredbaby photo of Susan was carefully brokered with all facets of print and electronic media. She bought two new cars, aMercedes sedan for Don, and a BMW the color of homemadecherry wine for herself. She also took out a mortgage on a Span-ish mission-style house and indulged herself with clothing andjewelry, her prize being a pair of genuine Fendi wraparoundsungla.s.ses which, not five minutes after buying, she wore as she snapped arms off the fakes she'd bought years ago at a Laramieswap meet. Marilyn spent like a drunk in a casino gift shop.There was no overall scheme to her buying-she simply thrilledwith the burst of power each time a piece of loot that once be-longed to somebody else suddenly belonged to her.

Yet for all this, Don and Marilyn didn't speak much about Su-san, mostly because long before the crash, back in 1990 afterher TV show was canceled, Susan had eliminated them from herlife with a finality that approached death. Marilyn truly saw noreason why Susan should be as angry about the money as she was. Hadn't Marilyn done half the work?

They'd read of Susan's marriage to Chris in the ArtsSt. Life-style section of the local weekend paper.

They met Chris only once, at a midnight vigil for Susan that Marilyn had staged in aCheyenne town square (exclusive continental European photorights to Paris Match, UK rights to h.e.l.lo! magazine, U.S.

and Cana-dian rights to the Star, film and TV rights reserved, as live footagewas to be inserted into a possible A&E special about Susan to be-gin production the following year). Marilyn and Chris huggedfor the cameras, lit candles, and bowed their heads for thecameras. All the while, Chris's young fans chanted from across the square. Afterward, Chris left and didn't speak with Marilynagain. ("Guess what, Don-I think Sir Frederick Rock Star is ana.s.shole.") Then came Julie's phone call one morning: "Marilyn, come to New York. It's over." When Marilyn found out the amount,she whooped with pleasure, then immediately apologized toJulie for whooping in her ear. She tried to find Don, and did,pa.s.sed out in the back corner of his favorite seedy sports bar. So that afternoon she left for Manhattan without him. The next day,with Julie, she walked down the courthouse steps and spoke with the press. That afternoon she spent $28,000 while shop-ping on upper Madison Avenue.

The next day Marilyn went home to Cheyenne, and the dayafter that she got the call from a sparkle-voiced airline PR womanabout Susan's return to the living. She hung up the phone andreached for half a s.h.i.tsicle Don had left beside the phone book.Susan would be home the next morning.

Chapter Thirty-three.

Back in Cheyenne's outskirts, Marilyn lurked inside her motelroom with the drapes closed, the TV blaring. Vanessa and Ryanwere standing behind the rental car keeping sentinel on her,while Ivan and John headed to the lobby.

Ivan called Cheyenne's airport about the jet's overnight park-ing and then rented rooms for the group in case they had towatch Marilyn into the evening. John was looking out the win-dow covered in grit and credit card stickers, also scoping thedoor to Marilyn's room. The group reconvened at the car, where Ryan said, "I'm starved. We didn't eat lunch."

"Me, too," said Ivan. "I'm going to go make a burger run.There's an A&W a quarter mile back on the road."

"Well, you can't use the car," said John.

"What?" said Vanessa. "As if Marilyn's going to vamooseright now or something? We're all sugar crashing. It's a worth-while risk to get ourselves properly nutrished. Get me a large fries-make sure they use vegetable oil, no lard-and an icedtea."

John was too hungry to fight and he gave Ivan his order. Ashe left in the rental car, Vanessa walked up to the door of num-ber 14, and knocked loudly. Even from a distance, the sound ofblaring cartoons and commercials tumbled from the room, thewindows rattling as if they possessed stereo woofers.

Vanessa's unexpected charge shattered John and Ryan's com-placency, and they dive-bombed behind Marilyn's BMW "h.e.l.looo . . ." said Vanessa, and she knocked again, louder thistime. "h.e.l.looo-Mrs. Heatherington?

Fawn Heatherington?" Va-nessa rapped the windowpane and then a slit in the curtains,which were yellowed, nicotine-soaked and threadbare, flutteredopen. The room's door opened a crack. "Yes?" Bugs Bunny shrieked from within.

"I'm Mona. My uncle runs this place. Did you leave a twenty-dollar bill lying on the counter by mistake?"

She held up the bill.

The door opened a notch wider. "Why yes, I did-howthoughtful of you."

"Think nothing of it, Mrs. Heatherington. Wyoming hospi-tality."

Marilyn plinked the bill from Vanessa's fingertips and mum-bled the words "

Wellthankyouverymuchgoodbye," to Vanessa, but Va-nessa stuck her foot in the door so it couldn't close. "Excuseme?" said Marilyn in a forced huff.

"Sorry to disturb you even more, Mrs. Heatherington, but-"

" Fawn. Call me Fawn."

"Sorry to disturb you even more, then, Fawn, it's just that . ."Vanessa's eyes saw the aged curtains. "It's just that for the pastyear I've been trying to get my uncle to buy new curtains forthe units. See how ratty these are?"

"Well, I suppose, yes."

"Exactly. If you could just mention this when you check out, it would sure help me build a stronger case.

He's kinda cheap."

"Absolutely," said Marilyn.

The door shut and Vanessa strode over to her room, num-ber 7. She was followed by John and Ryan, who scrambled out from behind the BMW, then beneath Marilyn's window. Theycame into the room and Vanessa said, "She's not alone,"

"How can you tell?" asked John."I heard someone rattling about in the bathroom. Eventhrough the cartoon noise."

"Did you see anything else in there? Clothing? Books? Maga-zines?"

" No. It looks like an unoccupied room."

Ryan asked if the room was the same configuration as theone they were in, and Vanessa suspected it was. "Then comeback here with me," Ryan said. "Let's see if there's some kind ofescape route we should watch for." They walked back to thebathroom and inspected the window beside the sink.

" I don't know if that window is crawl-out-of-able," said John.

"I think it is," said Ryan. "Watch me." He hoisted himselfup, his stomach resting on the dusty and blackened aluminumslide rail.

"Ryan," said Vanessa. "Get down from there."

" No. I just want to see if-" He was cut short by the soundof Marilyn's BMW charging out of the parking lot and left, westward, onto the highway.

"s.h.i.t," said John. He kicked a hole in the door of number 7.

"Don't be so melodramatic," said Vanessa. "Ivan'll be back soon enough. Let's sit tight."