A Cold Heart

Soon after that, Allison and I drove up to Malibu Canyon to watch a meteor shower. We found an isolated turnoff, lowered the top of her Jaguar, reclined the seats, and watched cosmic dust streak and explode. Shortly after we got home, at 1:15 A.M. the phone rang. I was skimming the papers, and Allison was reading V. S. Naipaul’s The Mimic Men. She’d pinned her hair up. Tiny, black-framed reading glasses rode her nose. As I lifted the receiver, she looked over at the nightstand clock.

Most of the early-morning calls were hers. Patient emergencies.

I picked up.

Milo spit, “Another one.”

I mouthed his name, and she nodded.

“Classical pianist,” he went on, “stabbed and strangled after a concert. Right behind the venue. And guess what: This guy was on his way up, career-wise. Record deal pending. It wasn’t my call, but I heard it on the scanner, I went over and took over. Lieutenant’s prerogative. I’m here at the scene. I want you to see it.”

“Now?” I said.

Allison put the book down.

“Is there a problem?” he said. “You’re not a night owl anymore?”

“One sec.” I covered the phone, looked at Allison.

“Go,” she said.

“Where?” I asked Milo.

“Hop, skip, and jump for you,” he said. “Bristol Avenue, Brentwood. The north side.”

“Moving up in the world,” I said.

“Who, me?”

“The bad guy.”

***

Bristol was lovely and shaded by old cedars and marked by circular turnarounds every block or so. Most of the homes were the original Tudors and Spanish Colonials. The murder house was new, a Greek Revivalish thing on the west side of the street. Three square stories, white and columned, bigger by half than the neighboring mansions, with all the welcoming warmth of a law school. A flat green lawn was marked by a single, fifty-foot liquidambar tree and nothing else. High-voltage lighting was blatant and focused. A stroll away was Rockingham Avenue, where O. J. Simpson had dripped blood on his own driveway.

A black-and-white with its cherry flashing half blocked the street. Milo had left my name with the uniform on duty and I got smiled through with a “Certainly, Doctor.”

That was a first. Lieutenant’s prerogative?

Four more squad cars fronted the big house, along with two crime-scene vans and a coroner’s wagon. The sky was moonless and impenetrable. All the shooting stars gone.

The next uniform I encountered offered standard-issue cop distrust as he called on his walkie-talkie. Finally: “Go on in.”

A ton of door responded to my fingertip- some sort of pneumatic assist. As I stepped inside, I saw Milo striding toward me, looking like a day trader whose portfolio had just imploded.

Hurrying across a thousand square feet of marble entry hall.

The foyer had twenty-foot ceilings, ten percent of that moldings and dentils and scrollwork. The floor was white marble inset with black granite squares. A crystal chandelier blazed enough wattage to power a third-world hamlet. The walls were gray marble veined with apricot, carved into linen-fold panels. Three were bare, one was hung with a frayed brown tapestry- hunters and hounds and voluptuous women. To the right, a brass-railed marble staircase swooped up to a landing backed by gilt-framed portraits of stoic, long-dead people.

Milo wore baggy jeans and a too-large gray shirt and a too-small gray herringbone sport coat. He fit the ambience the way a boil fits a supermodel.

Beyond the entry hall was a much larger room. Wood floors, plain white walls. Rows of folding chairs faced a raised stage upon which sat a black grand piano. Several scoop-shaped, gridlike contraptions hung from the corners of the curved wooden ceiling- some sort of acoustic enhancement. No windows. Double doors at the rear blended with the plaster.

A pedestal sign to the left of the piano read SILENCE PLEASE. The piano bench was tucked under the instrument. Sheet music was spread on the rack.

The double doors opened and a thickset man in his sixties burst forth like a hatchling, trotting after Milo.

“Detective! Detective!” He waved his hands and huffed to catch up.

Milo turned.

“Detective, may I send the staff home? It’s frightfully late.”

“Just a while longer, Mr. Szabo.”

The man’s jowls quivered and set. “Yes, of course.” He glanced at me, and his eyes disappeared in a nest of creases and folds. His lips were moist and purplish, and his color was bad- mottled, coppery.

Milo told him my name but didn’t append my title. “This is Mr. Stefan Szabo, the owner.”

“Pleased to meet you,” I said.

“Yes, yes.” Szabo fussed with a diamond cuff link and offered his hand. His palm was hot and soft, so moist it verged on squishy. He was soft and lumpy, bald but for red-brown fuzz above floppy ears. His face was the shape of a well-bred eggplant and the nose that centered it a smaller version of the vegetable- a pendulous, plump, Japanese eggplant. He wore a white silk, wing-collared formal shirt fastened by half-carat diamond studs, a ruby paisley cummerbund, black, satin-striped tuxedo pants, and patent loafers.

“Poor Vassily, this is terrible beyond terrible. And now everyone will hate me.”

“Hate you, sir?” said Milo.

“The publicity,” said Szabo. “When I built the odeum, I took such pains to go through every channel. Wrote personal notes to the neighbors, assured everyone that only private affairs and very occasional fund-raisers would be held. And always, the ultimate discretion. My policy’s always been consistent: fair warning to everyone within a two-block radius, ample parking valets. I took pains, Detective. And, now this.”

He wrung his hands. “I need to be especially careful because of you-know-who. During the trial, life was hell. But beyond that, I’m a loyal Brentwoodite. Now this.”

Szabo’s eyes bugged suddenly. “Were you involved in that one?”

“No, sir.”

“Well, that’s good,” said Szabo. “Because if you were, I can’t say I’d have any great confidence in you.” He sniffed the air. “The poor odeum. I don’t know if I’ll be able to continue.”

“Mr. Szabo built a private concert hall, Alex. The victim was tonight’s performer.”

“The victim.” Szabo placed a hand over his heart. Before he could speak, the doors opened again and a young, lithe Asian man in snug black satin pants, a black silk shirt, and a red bow tie hurried toward us.

“Tom!” said Szabo. “The detective says a while longer.”

The young man nodded. He looked to be thirty at most, with poreless, tight skin glowing ivory under a dense blue-black cirrus of hair. “Whatever it takes, Stef. Are you okay?”

“Not hardly, Tom.”

The young man turned to me. “Tom Loh.” His hand was cool, dry, powerful.

Szabo hooked his arm around Loh’s biceps. “Tom designed the odeum. Designed the house. We’re partners.”

“In life,” said Tom Loh.

Szabo said, “Is the caterer doing anything or just standing around? As long as she’s stuck here, she might as well tidy up.”

Milo said, “Mr. Szabo, let’s hold off on cleanup until the crime-scene people are through.”

“Crime-scene people,” said Szabo. Tears filled his eyes. “Never in my life did I imagine that term would be relevant to our home.”

Tom Loh said, “Is the- is Vassily still here?”