'Okay,' she said. 'I guess we can supply that.' 'Thank you.'
'Where was our station located again?'
'The corner of Melrose and Fairfax in Los Angeles.' 'One moment.'
This time she didn't put me on hold, but came right back on the line.
'You're mistaken. We have no franchise located there.'
'This was back in 'ninety-five. It's not there anymore. I told that to the first woman I spoke to.'
'But you didn't tell me, did you?' Frigid. Finally, I heard computer keys clicking.
'Okay, 'ninety-five. That station was actually not on a corner, but one up from the intersection with a Melrose Avenue address.'
'Thank you, ma'am, I'll make a note of that. Could you tell me who owned the franchise?'
'Yes.'
More silence.
'Would you mind telling me now?'
'I'm trying to pull it up, if you'll please give me a second.'
We definitely weren't hitting it off.
'From 'eighty-three to 'ninety-five, that station was owned by Boris Litvenko. Then it was sold to Patriot Petroleum.'
'Excuse me. Litvenko? Did you say Litvenko?' 'L–I-T-V-E-N-K-0.' She spelled it.
My heart was beating faster now. Boris must have been Marianna's husband and Martin Kobb's uncle.
'Do you happen to have the ownership names for Patriot Petroleum?'
'No, we wouldn't have. That.'
'Thank you, ma'am. If I have any more questions, I might need to talk to you again.'
'I'll be right here,' she chirped, not sounding too happy about it, either.
I found Emdee and Roger eating prefab waffles at the kitchen table. They put two in the microwave, zapped them up for me, and handed me the butter and syrup.
'Anything?' Broadway asked.
'We're in business. Marianna Litvenko sold the station in 'ninety-five to an outfit named Patriot Petroleum. No surnames on the paperwork.'
'Whatta ya wanta bet there's no patriots employed at Patriot Petroleum?' Perry said.
'So, like you said, Marty Kobb wasn't at the market. He was over visiting his Uncle Boris's gas station when he was killed,' Broadway said.
'Why didn't Marianna Litvenko or anyone else mention that they owned a gas station right next to the market, and that Marty was there right before getting shot? When Blackman and Otto talked to her in 'ninety-five she never mentioned it.'
'That ought to be our first question once we find her,' Emdee said.
We spent the rest of the morning looking for Boris's widow. She wasn't listed in the phone book. Maybe she was listed under another name or had remarried. I thumbed through my shorthand of Blackman's and Otto's notes looking for the Bellagio address. I found it, picked up the phone, and ran it through the LAPD reverse phone directory. No Marianna Litvenko. The directory listed the people who owned the house at that address as Steve and Linda Goodstein. I called the number and Mrs. Goodstein said the house had sold twice since '95. She had never heard of the Litvenkos.
Emdee Perry finally found Marianna in the LAPD traffic computer. She had three unpaid tickets for driving with an expired license from three years earlier.
We agreed that since I'd turned this angle, I would run the interview on Mrs. Litvenko. Roger and Emdee would be there for backup. The address was way out in the Valley, in Thousand Oaks.
'Wonder why she sold the nice place on Bellagio?' I said as I unlocked my sun-hot car and we piled in.
Roger shrugged and took shotgun. Perry stretched out sideways in the back. We headed down Coldwater, onto the 101. Just after two o'clock we pulled up to a slightly weathered, not-too-well-landscaped, low-roofed complex of cottages in the far West Valley.
When we parked in the lot, my question was answered. There was a large sign out front: WEST OAKS RETIREMENT CENTER AN ASSISTED LIVING COMMUNITY
Chapter 47
As we walked up the stone path to the lobby building, I glanced over at Emdee. 'Don't you think since you speak Russian, you'd be better equipped to handle this?'
'You get in a crack, I'll help ya out. But I don't put out a good Granny vibe. I look like I skin goats for a living, so old ladies mostly hate me on sight.'
'Listen to the man. He knows his shortcomings,' Broadway said.
We entered a linoleum-floored waiting room furnished with several green Naugahyde couches, bad art, and a long vinyl-topped reception desk. An old man with a turkey neck and two-inch thick glasses peered at us over the counter as we approached.
'Ain't seen you folks before,' he announced, loudly. 'Means you're either guests, undertakers, or family of our next resident victim.' Then he smiled. He had most of his lowers, but not much going the other way.
'We're here to see Marianna Litvenko,' I said.
'Ever met her before?'
'No, sir,' I said.
'Then get ready to be disappointed. Whistler's mother with more wrinkles than a Tijuana laundry. And to make it worse, the woman is a communist.'
He picked up the phone and started stabbing at numbers, made a mistake, and started over.
'Can't see shit anymore,' he growled.
'Are you employed here?' I asked, a little surprised at his demeanor.
'Hell, no. Volunteer. I'm Alex Caloka of the Fresno Calokas. Not to be confused with the San Francisco Calokas who were all fakers and whores.'
He finally got the phone to work. 'Folks to see Russian Mary,' he bellowed into the receiver. Then he waited while somebody spoke. 'I ain't shouting!' he said, and listened for a minute before hanging up.
'Unit B-twelve, like the vitamin. Off to the right there. She's getting massage therapy. If they got her clothes off and ya don't wanta puke, cover your eyes.'
We walked out onto the brown lawn that fronted the paint-peeled cottages and turned right. The single-story, shake roof bungalows were arranged in a horseshoe. A few frail-looking, old people with blankets on their laps, sat in wheelchairs taking the sun.
'Be sure and sign me up for this place after I retire,' Emdee told Roger.
B 12 was identical to the other units. The only difference was the color of the dying carnations in the flowerbed out front. We went to the door and knocked.
'Just a minute, not quite finished,' a young-sounding woman's voice called out.
We waited for about three minutes, listening to occasional hacking coughs, which floated across the lawn from the row of parked wheelchairs. Finally, the door opened and a thirty-year-old blonde goddess in gym shorts and a sports bra came down the steps carrying a canvas therapy bag.
'You're her guests?' she asked.
'Yes, ma'am,' Broadway and Perry answered in unison, both of them almost swallowing their tongues.
'You're lucky. She's having one of her good days.'
Then the goddess swung off down the walk using more hip action than a West Hollywood chorus line, and headed toward another cottage.
'As long as we're here, maybe I oughta see if I can get that painful crick worked outta my dick,' Perry said, admiring her long, athletic stride.
We stepped inside the darkened room and stood in the small, musty space for a moment waiting for our eyes to adjust. Then I saw her sitting in a club chair parked under an oil portrait of a stern-looking baldheaded man.
