A Cold Heart

A couple of beats passed. “Didn’t think of that… well, let’s see what Stahl turns up. Meanwhile, Petra and I have adopted the showbiz approach: got no ideas, take a meeting. The next one’s tonight, nine P.M., her turf: Gino’s on the Boulevard. You’re welcome to come, but I can’t promise you any excitement.”

“Shame on you,” I said. “No rose garden, and now this.”

39

Allison had a break between her last outpatient of the day and a man dying of Lou Gehrig’s disease whom she was seeing at the hospice. I bought some takeout deli, picked her up on Montana Avenue in front of her office, and we drove to Ocean Park and ate while watching the sun sink. A few windsurfers lingered on the beach, incorrigibly optimistic. Pelicans flapped their wings and scanned the water for dinner.

She attacked her sandwich, wiped her mouth, and watched the birds. “I love them. Aren’t they gorgeous?”

Pelicans have always been favorites of mine. Ungainly fliers but efficient feeders. No pretense, just do the job. I told her so, put my arm around her, and finished my beer. “My idea of gorgeous is more like you.”

“Shameless flattery.”

“Sometimes it works.”

She put her head on my shoulder.

“Tough night ahead?” I said. She’d talked to me a few times about the ALS patient. A good man, a kind man, he’d never make it to fifty. She’d counseled him for four months. Now, as he faded, so had Allison’s feelings of usefulness.

“This job we chose to do,” she’d said, a few weeks ago. “We’re supposed to be experts, but which god appointed us?”

“The Baal of Academia,” I said.

“Exactly. Get good grades, pass the right exams. It’s not exactly spiritual training.”

Neither of us spoke for a very long time. I heard her sigh.

“What is it?”

“Have the stomach for another confession?”

I squeezed her shoulder.

“My little chromium friend,” she said. “I’ve used it once.”

“When?”

“Soon after I got it. Before I got my own place, when I leased space in Culver City. I used to work really late. Because I had nothing to come home to. One night, I was in the office doing paperwork until after midnight. I came out to the parking lot and some kids- punks- were hanging out, smoking dope, drinking beer. By the time I got to my car, they’d moved in on me. Four of them- fifteen, sixteen, they didn’t seem hard-core, but they were clearly blasted. To this day, I can’t be sure they meant to do anything other than hassle me. But when the leader stepped up to me- really got in my face- I gave him my best girlish smile, pulled the gun out of my purse, and stuck it in his face. He peed his pants, I could smell it. Then he backed away, ran, they all did. After they were gone, I just stood there, the smile still plastered to my face- it felt wrong, smiling, but for a moment I couldn’t move my facial muscles. Then I began trembling, couldn’t stop, the gun was flopping around. Catching moonlight- the reflection on the barrel was like shooting stars. When we were up in the canyon watching the sky, that image came back to me… I was gripping the gun so hard my fingers began to ache. When I finally calmed down, my hand still remained tight. I’d actually pushed the trigger down partially.”

She lowered her head, black waves of hair fanning out.

“After that I thought of ditching the gun. But I decided that wasn’t the answer. I needed to master it- master more of my life… and here’s the real confession: part of what attracted me to you was the fact that you got involved in crime cases. Someone in the same field as me who got it. I felt we were kindred spirits. I thought about you a lot. When you finally called me, I was thrilled.”

She touched my hand. Her nail tickled my palm. My erection was sudden, disembodied.

First with Robin, now this. Reacting to everything with the little head.

“Of course,” she said, “that was only part of it. Your being handsome and smart didn’t hurt.”

She looked up at me.

“I’m not telling you this to lord it over Robin, because she had problems with your work and I want to be the big, brave kindred spirit. It’s just the way it is.”

She gripped my fingers. “Does all this sound twisted?”

“No.”

“Does any of what I just said change things? I really don’t want it to. I’m so happy about what we’ve got going- I’m taking a risk, here. Letting you know who I really am.”

“Nothing’s changed,” I said. “I like what I know.”

“You’re sweet to say that.”

“It’s the truth.”

“The truth,” she said, rolling on her side and pressing herself against me. “That’ll do, for now.”

***

I dropped her at her office and was setting out for the meeting at Gino’s when Milo called.

“Canceled. Another body turned up. Similar to ours but different, because it wasn’t found near any artistic venue. Dumped outdoors, in the wetlands, near the Marina. Not buried but half-hidden by marsh plants. Some cyclists saw birds clustered, went to check. Significant decay, coroner estimates it’s been lying there two, three days.”

“Right after Erna got picked up,” I said. “Right around the time Kevin’s car was left near the airport. The Marina’s not far from the airport.”

“The dump site’s right on the way. Looks like Kevin gave himself a going-away present. The victim’s definitely an artistic type, sculptor named Armand Mehrabian. He’s based in New York, came out to audition for a big corporate project downtown. Works in rocks and bronze and running water- kinetic sculpture they call it. He was staying at the Loews in Santa Monica, had gone missing. Young, gifted, just starting to get noticed by the art world. Good shot at winning the corporate gig. He was gutted just like Baby Boy and had his neck yanked by a corrugated ligature. I told the coroner’s tech it was probably a low E guitar string. She was very impressed.”

“Marina dump site makes it Pacific’s case.”

“Two Ds I don’t know,” he said. “Schlesinger and Small. Petra says Small used to work Wilshire, she collaborated with him, he’s okay. We’re rescheduling the meeting for later so they can show up. We’re an equal opportunity organization, share the despair. Figure on tomorrow morning, so Schlesinger and Small have time to do a preliminary workup on Mehrabian. Not Gino’s, the Westside for their sakes. My Indian pals’, say 10 A.M. That work for you?”

“Like a charm.”

40

The same small back room at Cafe Moghul, the same smells of hot oil and curry.

Two more people huddled around the table made the space feel like a cell.

The Pacific detectives were men in their forties. Dick Schlesinger was big, dark, rangy, long-faced, and thoughtful, with a mink-colored mustache that crossed his face like a freeway. Marvin Small was smaller, chubby and blond-gray, his ode to facial hair a silver brush, prickly as a straw bed, bursting from under a boxer’s nose. He chuckled a lot, even when nothing was funny.

The woman in the sari brought chai and ice water and left, smiling at Milo.