You know, for a long time Carisa’s not even here, filming in Texas. She’d only been here a short time before she left for Texas. Then she’s back, crazy-like. She said they fired her.”
“She have a lot of visitors?” Mercy asked.
“Young people, drinkers, partiers. But so long as everything is quiet and the police stay away, I’m happy.”
“The police ever come to her place?” I asked.
“Not till she was dead.”
“Did you ever see Jimmy-James and Carisa together? I mean, go out or walk together?”
“No. But I heard them once. Yelling. I knocked on her door. It’s late, and then there’s quiet. I don’t know it’s him but Connie says she saw him leave.”
“He left then?”
“The next morning.” He frowned. “I spoke to her about that. This is a Catholic household, ma’am, a decent place, and I frown on that. She said he fell asleep on the floor, that he was drunk, as if that’s supposed to make me happy. But after that, nothing. Silence. Except that she wanders up and down the stairs, by herself, out to the bodega, back with cigarettes, whiskey, and God knows what else. Across the street to the bar and grill where she eats a lot of times. I see her in there, night after night, enchiladas and a beer. A quarter for a meal. A poor man’s restaurant.”
“Were you surprised she was murdered?” I asked.
He sighed. “You know, I talked about this with Detective Cotton. The same story.”
“About James Dean?”
“Of course. It’s the police. I’m not looking for trouble.”
“What did you tell Cotton?”
“He asked if I was surprised at the murder. Well, yes, it’s not an everyday event. Even around here. Only in the movies. I was murdered in a William S. Hart movie. I took a long time to die.” He smiled. “I wanted to be on the screen for a long time. But, as I told Cotton, I was going to evict her. She stopped paying the rent. She wasn’t working, she said, since they fired her, but I just didn’t like some of the crowd that started coming around. Late- at-night crowd. I found a syringe-a needle-in the hallway last week. She said it had nothing to do with her, but I knew.”
“So you asked her to leave?” Mercy wondered.
He shook his head. “Not yet. She hid away in the apartment, wouldn’t answer the door sometimes. If I saw her on the street, she just nodded at me. There was this creepy guy around for a while-tough, muscles, and a look that could stop you dead. When I found out he’d been staying over nights, I said something to her. He disappeared. On weekends my granddaughter is here. I gotta watch out. I had one daughter and she married a crazy so I know crazies. Drugs, beatings, tough guy stuff, trouble. He’s in jail, and my daughter works in a hotel weekends, so Connie stays here with me. Fourteen years old, a beauty, who wants to be in the movies. Big surprise! That’s the trouble with living here. Other places your child wants to go into business or, I don’t know, school. But here, it’s Hollywood all the time, covering you like a cotton-candy dream. I talk to her, but you know how babies are…”
Mercy interrupted. “What about the others who visited her?”
He stopped, waited, reached for cigarettes. He offered them to us, and surprising myself, I was tempted. I shook my head. Thank you, no.
“She got the most visitors, that girl. For a while, before I learned she was an actress, I thought she was a whore. Pardon me. Hard to tell. Lots of young girls look like it. Now and then I get one here, got to boot them out. But she was more…what?…crazy than anything. I don’t mean crazy like oddball or, you know, wacky funny. Like Carole Lombard. No, this one was certifiable. All that walking at night, all the wandering in the hallways, unable to sleep, a woman with demons pursuing her. Still, I had to tell her to leave, but I never got around to doing it. Maybe I wouldn’t have. I felt sorry for her. A pretty girl and so crazy. Still, people like James Dean came to see her. What does that tell you? She told my granddaughter she was gonna marry James Dean, and my Connie started crying. But I told her that James Dean is not marrying Carisa. Not on this good green earth. Him, up there in the movies. Big time. All la-di-dah in his sunglasses. No way he’s marrying her. You know what she was? A failed actress. And let me tell you, there’s nothing more pathetic in this town than a failed actress. Pity and
“Mr. Vega.” I cut into the monologue. “Someone killed her.”
“I know.”
“And I don’t believe it is James Dean.”
He nodded.
“Can you help us?”
He looked into my eyes. “I don’t think so. You see, Connie told me-and I told Cotton-that she saw Dean in the apartment the night Carisa died. She was watching for him. I believe what she’s told me.” He paused. “Connie said she heard yelling and screaming, the two of them. Probably just before she was killed.”
“And she told all this to Detective Cotton?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Did you recognize anyone else who came lately, a day or so before she died? Anyone who stood out?” Mercy asked.
He paused. “I told you I didn’t pay much attention.” He took a sip of lemonade. “But one day or so before she died, I was coming back home and Carisa was on the sidewalk talking to a man. Yelling and arguing.”
I sat up. “A man?”
“An older man, dressed up like he was going to a play. Tie, jacket. Man in his fifties, say. Very pompous.”
Mercy turned to me: “Jake?”
“Probably. Did you hear what they were arguing about?” I asked Vega.
“A little. The man was asking her to do something, and she was saying no. Kept turning away, but then coming back, baiting him. Cat-and-mouse game. He looked angry, I’ll tell you. Face all purple.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t know. I went inside and seconds later I heard her running up the stairs.”
“Alone?”
“Alone.”
“Anyone else?”
“Lots of people. One guy a lot, back when she first moved in, before Texas. Very effeminate, don’t like his kind, to tell you the truth. He came a lot. Lately he stopped in again. One time with a pretty young boy. Maybe Mexican. I don’t like that stuff in my building. I say live and let live, but swishy is swishy, you know.”
“You talk to him?”
“Of course not.”
“Anyone else?”
He shook his head. “Lots. What can I tell you? I can’t help you. I hear footsteps up and down. Men, women. I don’t know. There was this other girl, an actress, I can tell, laughing too loud. But Carisa was okay until she got back from Texas. The first couple months here she was quiet. After Texas, she started to fall apart.” He bit his lip. “You know, one night, I couldn’t sleep and heard someone going up to her apartment, around three or four in the morning. A knock, real loud, and then someone running back down the stairs. I don’t like that.”
“Why?”
“I just felt he was delivering her some drugs. What else could it be at that hour? Not even there long enough, you know, for a-pardon me, ma’am-quickie.”
There was a gentle rapping on the door, and an old woman in a sagging housedress, her hair tied up in a kerchief, mumbled something in Spanish. While Mercy and I watched from the kitchen, Vega went into the living room and dialed the phone, speaking with his back to us. When he returned, he looked confused. “I’ve just called the police. Mrs. Sanchez tells me someone has slipped into Carisa’s apartment, past the crime tape that’s there.” Immediately I stood up and started to move. He waved me down. “No, sit tight,” he said. But I had to see. “Please. Would you get yourself hurt?”
Mercy touched my arm. “Let’s wait.”
