Blues in the Night (12 page)

‘Take it easy,' Mace said. ‘It was a question, not a criticism.'

‘Oh. About thirty minutes. Nothin' was going on over there. No cops. Nothin'.' Wylie went back to his shake. He sucked, grinned. ‘Micky D makes a badass fucking 'shake, dude. Truth.'

Mace stacked the photos, put them back in the envelope and looked out of the window at the light in the Lowell apartment. He wondered why the cops hadn't visited her. He supposed they could have without Wylie noticing.

He assumed that the media was busily parsing details on the murders. There was a TV resting on top of a chest of drawers, but they hadn't turned it on yet and he didn't want to establish a precedence that could wind up with Wylie watching Sponge Bob Squarepants while Angela Lowell went into the wind. For a minute, he considered asking Wylie to light up his laptop. But only for a minute. He could wait for the morning paper to tell him what he needed to know, assuming the paper still had crime reporters.

He shrugged, picked up what was left of his burger and polished it off. He stood, yawned. ‘OK with you I turn the light off and get some sleep?' he said. ‘She's probably in for the night.'

‘Crash,' Wylie said. ‘I'm awake now. Good for a couple hours at least. I, ah, appreciate the 'shake and the QPs.'

Mace turned out the overhead. He walked across the dark room to his bed, sat down and began to undress. He watched Wylie put his music earplugs in place, take a suck of milkshake and peel the wrapper from the second burger. He wondered just how much Wylie knew about the limo chauffeur. He also wondered if he'd have to seriously hurt the kid to find out.

Ah, well, he'd worry about that tomorrow.

NINETEEN

T
he Killer Cafe was located a block west of the Coffee Empourium on Sunset. In the days when Mace had been a local resident its name had been The Edible Egg and its fame had been the result of a twenty-four-hour breakfast menu. The pale off-white interior still resembled the Egg's, Mace saw, as he moved past the morning diners.

The main change was the choice of framed photographs that adorned the Killer Café's walls. The Egg's publicity shots of celebrities enjoying the most important meal of the day had been replaced by stark black and white photos of famous murderers of recent vintage: David Berkowiz, the Son of Sam; Ted Bundy; John Wayne Gacy; Dennis Rader, the serial strangler known as BTK; Gary Leon Ridgway, also known as The Green River Killer.

Several were tagged by Day-Glo yellow stickers marked ‘Local Slayers'. Mace recognized the now-infamous record producer Phil Spector. The Menendez Brothers. Juan Corona. Richard Ramierez, the Night Stalker. Sirhan Sirhan. Charles Manson, of course. And, yes, the ever-popular O.J. Simpson, though, as his sticker noted, ‘he beat the law.' At least on the big one.

These sinister visages, many of them grinning as if they believed that sooner or later they'd be back walking the streets, did not seem to affect the appetites of the morning diners any more than the cholesterol count of the industrial-sized omelets they were consuming. Nor did the current hot topic of conversation: the media-tagged ‘Point Dume bloodbath'.

Mace moved past the carbo-pounders to a side exit leading to an outdoor patio behind the main building. It had once been the Egg's busiest spot, but the bravery that allowed The Killer Cafe's patrons to ignore the mug shots of murderers evidently did not extend to a more mundane threat like skin cancer. Most of the tables were unoccupied, even those under the protective cover of faded red umbrellas.

Only one patron seemed to be not only tolerating the rays of the late-morning sun but embracing them. Honest Abe sat next to an umbrella-less table on which rested a half-full cup of black coffee, a neatly folded napkin and a plate, fork and knife, smeared with the remains of egg yolk. He was dressed in khaki cut-offs and a vivid red and orange colored Hawaiian shirt. He was leaning back in his chair, wearing little plastic eye protectors with an aluminum sun reflector tucked under his chin.

Mace pulled back a chair from the table and sat.

‘Who's there?' Abe asked, responding to the scrape of the chair. ‘Sylvia?'

‘Morning, Abe,' Mace said.

Startled, Abe jerked upright, the reflector sliding down on to his lap. He removed the eye protectors and squinted at Mace. He seemed discomforted.

‘Uh, Mace . . .'

‘They told me at your place where to find you. I'm surprised. I thought you liked it cold.'

‘I do. It's just kinda hard to get a tan in the cold. And they still do a bang-up breakfast here.'

‘You ought to be more careful. Somebody could have walked right up and –' Mace made a gun with his thumb and forefinger and pointed it at Abe – ‘Bingo! You'd be playing Lincoln for real.'

‘That'd be carrying an impersonation a mite too far,' Abe said with a nervous giggle. ‘Why would anybody—'

‘You told Paulie Lacotta I'd been in to see you.'

Abe seemed surprised and maybe even relieved. Momentarily. He lowered his eyes in a show of embarrassment. ‘I . . . kinda had to, Mace. I got my debts, you know. I'm sorry. It wasn't personal. You understand that, right?'

Mace didn't bother to reply. He took a folded glossy photo of Angela from the inside pocket of his jacket and held it up in front of Abe.

‘Tell me about her,' he said.

‘Why are you—'

‘Look at the goddamned picture, Abe.'

Abe gave the photo a quick scan and said, ‘Never seen the lady before.'

Mace rose suddenly, his chair tipping over behind him. He grabbed the front of Abe's hula shirt and dragged him up from his chair. Then, aware of the silence, the sudden stillness in the air, he looked around the patio and saw that the few diners were staring at him. He was getting a lot of that lately. He managed to contain his anger enough to let go of the shirt.

Abe fell back on to his chair, blinking nervously.

Mace folded the glossy and slid it into his pocket. Then he leaned in on the lanky man, grabbing the armrests of Abe's chair. ‘You tell me what you know about this woman, or I beat the crap out of you right here in front of these citizens.'

Abe licked his lips. He wasn't anxious to call Mace's bluff. ‘It's the dame you mentioned before, Angela Lowell,' he said. ‘She's come into my place once or twice.'

‘With . . . ?' Mace asked. He moved back out of Abe's personal space.

‘Lacotta,' Abe said. ‘Didn't look like anything hot and heavy. You know Lacotta. His taste runs to, ah, earth mamas with big tatas. You must remember that from the old days?'

Mace did. But tastes changed.

He righted his chair and sat down again. ‘Who else does she hang with, Abe?'

‘You're tapping the wrong source,' Abe said, as if he meant it. ‘Power on my computer, you will not even find the lady's name. I've seen her. I remember her because it's my business to remember pretty women. But that's it.'

Mace gave him the hard eye.

‘Swear to God. Either she's what we used to call a square, a straight, or she's got the discretion thing down cold.'

‘No connection to Tiny Daniels?'

‘Jeeze, Mace,' Abe lowered his voice, looking around the sun deck to see if anyone had an ear out. ‘You don't want to be dropping that name today above a whisper.'

‘Why not? Everybody else in town is talking about the murders. We'll get to them in a minute.' Mace noted Abe's wince. ‘Right now, I want you to tell me about Angela Lowell and Tiny.'

‘Tiny was never into the ladies, figuratively or literally,' Abe said in a rough whisper. ‘But he liked to be seen with pretty woman. I suppose I may have spotted a picture of them in Los Angeles magazine or one of those Beverly Hills back-pat journals, at a gallery opening or charity soirée. Tiny played that part, you know. Businessman contributor to good causes and culture. He was a big art collector. The paper this morning said there might have been twenty million dollars' worth of paint hanging on the walls of the murder house.'

Mace frowned, struck by a thought he should have had earlier. ‘Who gets it?' he asked.

‘Say again?'

‘Who gets the art? All of Tiny's estate?'

‘The paper didn't say,' Abe replied. ‘Not me, surely. You're thinking Angela?'

‘No,' Mace said, but he wasn't sure that was the truth. ‘What've you heard about the murders?'

‘Not even rumors. Still too soon. By afternoon, everybody will have a theory. Even Charlie Manson will offer his thoughts.'

‘Are you familiar with an old-school Brit named Thomas who carries a gun and knows how to use it.'

Abe's face showed nothing. ‘Not on my playlist. Is he the one –' Abe lowered his voice until Mace could barely hear him – ‘took out Tiny and the others?'

‘How would I know that?' Mace asked, annoyed.

‘Of course you wouldn't,' Abe said. ‘I didn't realize we'd changed the subject.'

‘I had a run-in with Thomas and his brother Timmie, a big boy who looks like Elvis and acts and talks like he's in kindergarten. They were in a mustard-colored limo with a black driver named Sweets.'

Abe grinned. ‘Not exactly sneaking around, are they? I can say without equivocation I have neither seen nor heard of such apparitions. What sort of run-in did you have?'

‘Nothing fatal,' Mace said.

‘You might ask your paparazzo about them,' Abe said.

‘My paparazzo?'

‘Symon,' Abe said. ‘I saw his name on your picture of Lowell.'

Mace took the photo from his pocket. Simon S. Symon's name was stamped on the back.

‘Colorful odd characters in a yellow limo? Symon lives for that kind of photo op. He's the west coast Diane Arbus.'

‘He's a scumbag.'

Abe shrugged. He settled down in his chair and began to readjust his reflector. ‘These days, who isn't?' he said.

TWENTY

A
t the stucco duplex on Orange Avenue, there was no sign of the fat woman with the baby. She'd probably already had her morning tobacco fix. Mace moved quickly to the rear of the building where he took the wooden stairs two at a time, not giving a damn how much noise he was making.

Past the screen door, the door to the apartment stood open.

There was no sign of life.

He opened the screen door and stepped in.

The worn couch and chairs were still there. The people, the projector and even the yellow beanbag chair weren't.

He moved through the small apartment. The bedroom was in semi-darkness, old-fashioned paper shades blocking the sun, except for a torn edge that let in a shaft of light. A stripped, stained mattress rested on a metal frame. There was sand or grime on the floor that crunched when he walked.

The single bathroom was damp and smelled of soap perfume. There were no towels, nothing in the medicine cabinet, not even a roll of toilet paper.

Nothing in the apartment for him.

As he headed for the front door, he felt something under his shoe that was neither sand nor grit. A couple of coins; a quarter and a nickel. He guessed they'd fallen out of The Beaver's pants while he was lying on the pillows.

Thirty cents didn't buy much. The departing tenants hadn't felt the coins worth the bending over.

Mace left them, too. But they reminded him of something.

He reached into his pocket and looked at the strange coin he'd taken from a dead man's mouth. He decided it was time for a visit to old friends.

TWENTY-ONE

T
here was a sign indicating that the Santa Monica Pier was celebrating its hundredth year of operation, which explained why it had had at least one makeover since Mace had last visited. The Merry-Go-Round in the old Hippodrome building, which was providing music and entertainment for a group of gleeful children, had been recently painted. The restaurants and shops looked much less seedy. There even seemed to be more tourists than homeless people, though Mace had to admit the distinction was not always apparent.

He paused in front of a brightly colored electric blue storefront displaying the drawing of a human hand. An unlit neon sign read ‘MADAME SUZY' and in smaller letters, ‘By Appointment Only.'

He tried the bright blue door and found it open.

A bell tinkled as he entered a small room with indirect lighting. As was the case with the rest of the pier, obvious improvements had been made. The walls had been painted aqua and the room refurnished with retro 1950s' couch and chairs, chrome based with aqua-colored, vinyl-covered seats. They surrounded a coffee table with a laminate top on which were artfully scattered books and pamphlets with titles like,
The Key to Your Sixth Sense
and
The You Beyond the You
.

Mace remembered a door in the wall directly across from the entrance, but it seemed to have disappeared with the remodel. He was searching for some way to move on into the rest of the house when he heard a familiar voice exclaim, ‘Well, I be goddams.'

A section of the wall opened and an elderly woman entered the room smiling at him. She was dressed in blue denim trousers and a paler denim shirt. Though she had to be in her seventies, her hair was jet black, piled up on her head with what looked like a fresh magnolia pinned to it.

Before he could say a word she rushed across the floor and began hugging him.

‘Hey, you goddamn galoots, you,' she said against his chest.

‘Hi, Suzy.'

She pulled back and stared at him, putting on a fake pout. ‘Hi Suzy. Hi Suzy. Nine years and it's “Hi Suzy”, huh?' She patted her hair. ‘Drop in like this, no warning. No time to fix myself up.'

‘You look great,' he said.

She grinned. ‘I look like what I am, an old voodoo. But you, David . . . you some hunk of man, sugar. Damn, it's good to see you.'

‘You, too, Suzy,' he said. ‘The Marquis around?'