Stardust (12 page)

“I was told there were pictures.”

“Told how?”

“They took pictures.”

The clerk stared at him, annoyed, then checked the report again, glancing at one of the numbered boxes.

“Give me a minute,” he said, going back to the file room, a martyr’s walk.

He returned opening a manila envelope. “We don’t usually show these to family.”

“What do I need? A court order?”

The clerk passed them over. “Just a good stomach.”

Danny in the hospital had been hard to look at, but still a patient, sanitized, wrapped in bandages, the lacerations stitched closed. Here his face was torn open and the gashes poured blood, his head lying in a pool of it. Ben flipped through the pictures—the body from several angles, limp, legs twisted, a shot of the balcony (for a trajectory?), the alley crowded with onlookers and ambulance workers. Crime scene photographs.

“Why weren’t these in the file?”

“You’re lucky they’re here at all. Should’ve been tossed. No reason to keep them in an accident file.”

“Can I have them?”

“Police property.”

“Which you were going to toss.”

“Still police property. What do you want them for?” Genuinely puzzled, looking at Ben more carefully now. A morbid souvenir.

“How about some paper then? I need to take some notes. For the insurance.”

The clerk reached below and brought up some paper.

“Next time bring your own. That’s taxpayer money.”

“I’m a taxpayer.”

“Don’t start.” He went over to his desk and lit a cigarette.

Ben held up one photo, then jotted down a note, waiting for the clerk to get bored and turn away. The one thing you learned in the Army: The answer was always no, unless you could get away with it. All
bureaucracies were alike. The clerk, still smoking, looked up at the clock. Ben drew out the rest of the photos, negatives clipped to the last. He copied another note, then began feeding paper into the envelope. When the clerk answered the phone, he slid the pictures under his newspaper, added some more paper to the envelope and closed it, pushing it back along the counter.

“Thanks for your help,” he said, turning away with the newspaper.

The cop waved back.

The day clerk at the Cherokee could have been the policeman’s cousin, the same wary indifference.

“You here with the key?”

“I thought it was paid through the month.”

“You’re going to use it?” the man said, oddly squeamish.

“I might. I mean, it’s paid for.”

The clerk gave a your-choice shrug.

“Anybody else have keys?”

“They’re not
supposed
to. Just the tenant. Otherwise we have to change the locks. Why?”

“Just wondering if you ever saw anybody else. Use the apartment.”

“Anybody else who?”

“A lady, maybe.”

“I’m on days. It’s quiet days.”

“You were on that night. I saw you in the police pictures.”

The clerk looked up, a new scent in the air. Just the word police.

“That’s right. I was filling in. What’s this all about?”

“I’m his brother. I just want to know what happened.”

“He fell—I guess. Whatever it was, it was a mess.”

“And you didn’t see anyone go up that night?”

“The police asked me this. I told them, I’ll tell you—no one. I didn’t even see
him
.”

“He used the back door.”

“I guess. All I know is, I didn’t see anybody.”

“So she could have done that, too. Without being seen.”

“If she had a key. Which she’s not supposed to have.”

“She’s not supposed to do a lot of things.”

“That I don’t know. I just run the board and collect the rent. We’ve never had any trouble here, you know. Never. I got a lot of people upset about this. Maybe moving out.”

“Many stay long?”

“More and more. Used to be, people didn’t want the extra service expense. But the war’s been great for us. Hard to find anything, and we already had the phone lines. You couldn’t
get
a phone during the war, so we did all right.”

“He make any calls that night?”

“I’d remember that.”

“You might.”

“No.”

“Sure?” Ben raised his eyes, the cliché promise of a tip.

The clerk frowned. “I’m not looking for anything here. I don’t remember. I don’t keep tabs. Half the people I don’t even know. I’m on days, right? The only reason I knew him is I rented him the room.”

“So you wouldn’t necessarily have recognized everybody.”

“Not unless they’re here during the day. You’re asking more questions than the police did. What’s this about?”

“I’m trying to find out who else came here. He didn’t take the room to be alone. The family need to know. There might be money in it for her.”

Bait that bobbed back, not even a nibble.

“Then I hope you find her. Now how about I get back to work? Are you going to keep the room, or what? Hey, Al.” This to the mailman coming in with his bag.

“Joel. How’s life?”

“Overrated.”

“Hah,” the mailman said, opening the front panel of the boxes with the post office key and beginning to fill them. Catalogues from Bullock’s, a girl in a sundress, ordinary life.

“Let me know if you want to extend,” Joel said. “The lease. It’s month to month. And he was leaving at the end, so I need to know.”

“You mean he gave you notice?” Ben said, surprised. Because the affair was over?

Joel nodded. “End of the month.” Involuntarily his eyes shifted toward the alley. “I guess he had other plans.”

Ben went over to the elevator, then turned. “When he came in to rent—how did he know? There was an ad?”

“No, we just use the window,” Joel said, jerking his thumb toward it. “Put out a sign. Somebody always sees it. Like I say, it’s been busy since the war. What with the phone.”

The apartment was exactly as he’d left it, tidy, with the empty stillness of unoccupied rooms. The brandy bottle was on the counter, untouched, not even moved for dusting. He opened the French window, looking down from the balcony just as he had before, but imagining it differently. You wouldn’t need a lot of leverage with the low rail—even a woman could have done it. But wouldn’t Danny have reacted, reached out, grabbed something? No marks on the rail.

He went out to the hall, looking down the back stairs, the door that led to the roof. Someone could have gone up there, waited it out, then slipped away after the excitement died down. But why would she have to? A transient building—not even the clerk knew all the tenants by sight. She’d be just another face in the crowd. Why bother with the roof? Walk down Cherokee to Hollywood Boulevard and hop a red car. Unless she’d been driving, parked around the corner. Then no one would see her at all.

Ben went back inside and sat in the quiet. The empty bathroom, the empty desk. Whatever prints there’d been would have been wiped away by the maid. The fact was there would never be any physical evidence. The how was unknowable. The only way in was the why.

Downstairs, he put the keys in his pocket, then took them out again—one for the room, one for the back. No mailbox key. But why would Danny get any mail? An apartment registered to another name. Just a place where they changed the sheets. Still, they must have given him one, if only to clean out the catalogues and restaurant flyers. He turned back to the clerk.

“I don’t have a mail key,” he said. “For 5C.”

“You’d better find it. We’ll have to charge. We can’t keep making keys.”

Ben looked at the mailman. “He get mail here? Collins? 5C?”

“Mister, you think I keep track? If it’s U.S. Mail, we deliver it.”

“But you might notice—if it piled up. Or if someone never got any.”

“Never? I’d buy him a beer.” He waved his hand toward the boxes. “Everybody gets mail.”

“Did you check his desk?” the clerk said. “Sometimes people keep it there.”

But it wasn’t in his desk or in the desk at home, at least not in any of the shallow paperclip trays in the top drawer, where it logically should be. And not in any of the boxes on top. Ben began taking papers out of the drawer, not rummaging through as he had that first day, but systematically putting them in piles—canceled checks, bill receipts. He started with the address book, as if somehow a number would leap out at him, but none did. Who would put his girlfriend in a book? An odd scrap of paper that no one would see, even a matchbook cover, but not in a book.

The checks were more interesting, like shards of pottery you piece together to reveal a whole society: tree surgeons and pool tilers, land-scapers and caterers, an account at Magnin’s, a life so far removed from Ben’s that it seemed to be otherworldly. Like the thick terry robes by the pool, the drawers of cashmere. He thought of Howard Stein, looking around. And this was only someone with a B series about detectives. Mayer was the highest paid man in America. Still, nobody had killed him because Liesl kept a running account at Magnin’s. He flipped through the stubs. No checks to the Cherokee Arms, presumably a cash expense, discreet. The appointment book was even less revealing: no coded notes,
M 5:30,
just straightforward studio meetings and doctors and dentists.

No wallet, either. But he must have had one. Maybe in his dresser,
with the tie clips and cuff links. He crossed the hall to the dressing room and opened the door that covered the built-in shelves, the inside panel a mirror to check your tie. He reached for the top drawer then stopped, standing motionless. The mirror, some optical trick, reflected the mirror on the partly opened bathroom door. A leg, resting on the rim of the tub, just one, her hands moving up it slowly, as if she were putting on nylons, moving together toward her thigh, then out of the mirror. The hands again, the same smooth drawing up, rubbing. Not nylons, some kind of cream, maybe suntan oil. He stood there, unable to move, his eyes fixed on the mirror. A perfect leg, arched. He imagined his hands moving along it instead of hers, slick with oil, an image that came like a pulse beat, fast, involuntary. Now the leg leaned farther in, more thigh showing, the hands moving. Close the door. Instead he held his breath, mesmerized, wanting the hands to go farther. He could feel himself fill with blood. Unexpected, just like that, without thought. He wanted to see more, where the leg met the body. But it dropped and the other one came up, the same hand motion, just for him, even more exciting because she was unaware.

What could he say if she saw him? Find the wallet and get out. But he stayed, still not breathing. The other thigh now, an almost unbearable second, her sex just beyond the edge of the mirror, and then it moved forward, not hair, a wedge of bathing suit, then more, her whole body bent over, moving into the mirror, her head turning, looking toward her door. He closed the cabinet, a snap reflex, and crossed back to the office, his body flushed, slightly shaky. Had she seen him? The mirrors had to reflect each other, didn’t they? What would she have seen? Standing there, mouth half-open, looking where he shouldn’t, eyes fixed, caught in a kind of trance.

He picked up the checkbook again, pretending he could read the stub notes, listening for footsteps.

“What are you doing?”

He looked up, startled, feeling caught. She was pinning her hair, on her way to the pool.

“I was just—going through his things. I should have asked.”

Nervous, waiting for her to say something. But she seemed not to have seen him in the mirror.

“No, please. Somebody has to. I’ve been putting it off. I’ve been a coward a little bit. In case I found—you know, if it’s somebody I know,” she said, turning to go now, anxious, her movements as darting as they’d been that first day at Union Station.

A new idea. “Did he leave a will?”

“The lawyer has it. Everything comes to me, so that part’s easy. Oh,” she said, a hand-to-mouth gesture. “I never thought. Is there anything you would like? I’m sure he—”

Ben shook his head. “I don’t need anything. Anyway, you’re his wife.”

She smiled a little, trying to be light. “It’s lucky we’re living now. Not like in the old days. Bible times. You would have to take care of me. The brother’s wife. Like a sheep or a goat. I’d belong to you.”

He looked up at her, thrown off balance, then passed it off by smiling back.

“I couldn’t afford it.” He motioned to the check stubs. “Magnin’s alone.”

“You think I’m extravagant. Really, it was Daniel. He liked going out. He liked me to dress. And now how much is left? I haven’t thought.” She stopped and came over to the desk for a cigarette, her hands nervous. “I haven’t thought about anything, really. What I’m going to do. Since you won’t take me,” she said, smiling again, blowing out smoke. “I should sell the house. My father’s already asking, come live with me, but it’s enough the way it is. Milton’s daughter. An apartment somewhere, I guess. But I’d miss the pool.” All said quickly, as if she were filling time, avoiding something else.

“You don’t have to stay here.”

“I couldn’t leave my father. Anyway, I like it here. Maybe I’m lazy. Everyone complains, so ugly, so boring, but I like it.” She started to put on her bathing cap, then stopped. “I know why you’re looking,” she
said suddenly, nodding to the desk. “You want to know who it was. The other one. But what does it matter now?”

He took a breath. “Because we need to know. I don’t think he killed himself. I don’t think he tripped.”

She said nothing for a minute, staring back, her body almost weaving. “You’re not serious,” she said finally, her voice faint.

“There was someone else in the room.”

“How can you know that?”

“It’s the only way it makes sense.”

“Sense,” she said, still trying to collect herself. “To think that. Things like that don’t happen, not in real life. Do you think he was a gangster?”

“That’s not the only reason—”

“Why then? She was so jealous? He was leaving her? Maybe it was the wife. Maybe you think that. Isn’t it always the wife?” she said, her voice rushed, flighty.

“Not always,” he said calmly.

She took up the cap again, fidgeting. “It’s not true. Think what it means.”