indulgently and the waitress brought another tall glass of brown and white goo. Michael chugged this one down in about five seconds, then belched and grinned at me like a sated lover.
'Michael, we have to talk about your mother,' I said.
'Okay,' Michael said.
'Tell me about your mother's friends,' I said.
Michael grimaced. 'She didn't have any,' he said. 'She was a bar floozy.'
I grimaced, and Michael looked to Doc for confirmation. Doc nodded grimly.
'Who told you that, Michael?' I asked.
'Nobody. I'm no dummy, I knew that Uncle Jim and Uncle George and Uncle Bob and Uncle What's-his-face were just pickups.'
'What about women friends?'
'She didn't have any.'
'Ever heard of a woman named Alma Jacobsen?'
'No.'
'Was your mother friendly with the parents of any of your friends?'
Michael hesitated. 'I don't have any friends.'
'None at all?'
Michael shrugged. 'The books I read are my friends. Minna is my friend.' He pointed to the puppy, tethered to a phone pole outside the plate glass window.
I kicked this sad information around in my head. Michael leaned his shoulder against me and gazed longingly at my half-finished root beer float.
'Kill it,' I said.
He did, in one gulp.
I opened up another line of questioning: 'Michael, you were with your dad when your mother was killed, right?'
'Right. We were playing duckball.'
'What's duckball?'
'It's catch. If you miss the ball, you have to get down on your knees and quack like a duck.'
I laughed. 'Sounds like fun. How did you feel about your mother, Michael? Did you love her?'
Michael went red all over. His long skinny arms went red, his neck went red, and his face went red all the way up to his soft brown crew cut. He started to tremble, then swept an arm across the tabletop and knocked all the glassware and utensils onto the floor. He pushed his way across me and ran outside in the direction of his beagle pup.
Doc stared at me, letting an alarmed waitress pick up the detritus of our root beer floats.
'Does that happen often?' I asked.
Doc nodded. 'My son is a volatile boy.'
'He takes after his dad.' It was both a challenge and a compliment. Doc understood that.
'In some ways,' he said.
'I think he's a wonderful boy,' I added.
Doc smiled. 'So do I.'
I laid a five-dollar bill on the table. Doc and I got up and walked outside. Michael was playing tug-of-war with his dog. The dog held the leather leash in her jaws and strained happily against the pull of Michael's skinny arms.
'Come on, Colonel,' Doc called. 'Time to go home.'
Michael and the dog ran ahead of us across Western Avenue and they remained a good forty yards in front as we walked west in the hot afternoon sun. Doc and I didn't talk. I thought about the boy and wondered what Doc was thinking. When we got to the apartment building on Beverly and Irving, I stuck out my hand.
'Thanks for your cooperation, Doc,' I said.
'It was a pleasure, Fred.'
'I think you've been a big help. I think you've proven conclusively that this Jacobsen woman's claim is a phony.'
'I didn't know Marcella had a policy with Prudential. I'm surprised she didn't tell me about it.'
'People do surprising things.'
'What year did she take out the policy?'
'In '51.'
'We were divorced in '50.'
I shrugged. 'Stranger things have happened.'
Doc shrugged too. 'How true,' he said. He reached inside his pants pocket and pulled out the business card I had given him earlier. He handed it to me. The ink on it was smudged. Doc shook his head. 'A smart young insurance bulldog like you should get his cards printed at a better place.'
We shook hands again. I felt myself start to go red. 'So long, Doc,' I said.
'You take care, Fred,' Doc returned.
I walked to my car. I had the key in the door when suddenly Michael ran to me and grabbed me in a fierce hug. Before I could respond, he shoved a wadded-up piece of paper into my hand and ran away. I opened up the paper. 'You are my friend' was all it said.
I drove home, moved by the boy and puzzled by the man. I had a strange sensation that Doc Harris knew who I was and somehow welcomed my intrusion. I had another feeling, equally strange, that there was a bond building between Michael and me.
When I got home I called Reuben Ramos and begged for some favors. Reluctantly, he did what I wanted: he ran Doc Harris through R&I. No record in California. Next he came up with the addresses Marcella Harris had given at the time of her many arrests: in 1946, nine years ago, she lived at 618 North Sweetzer, Los Angeles. In 1947 and '48, 17901 Terra Cotta, Pasadena. In 1949, 1811 Howard Street, Glendale. At the time of her last drunk arrest in 1950, she was living at 9619 Hibiscus Canyon, Sherman Oaks.
I wrote it all down and spent a long time staring at the information before going to bed. I slept fitfully, waking up repeatedly, expecting to find my bedroom inhabited by ghosts of murdered women.
The following day, Friday, I went out to retrace the past of Marcella DeVries Harris. I went first to shady, tree-lined Sweetzer Avenue in West Hollywood, and got the results I expected: no one at the 618 address, a Spanish-style walk-up apartment building, recalled the redheaded nurse or her then-infant son. I inquired with people in the neighboring houses and got puzzled shakes of the head. Marcella the cipher.
At Terra Cotta Avenue in Pasadena the results were the same. There Marcella had rented a house, and the current tenant told me that the previous owner of the house had died two years ago. The people on the surrounding blocks had no recollection of Marcella or her little boy.
From Pasadena I drove to nearby Glendale. It was hot and smoggy. I took care of 1949 in short order: the bungalow court Marcella had lived in that year had been recently demolished to make way for a modern apartment complex. 'Marcella Harris, good-looking red-haired nurse in her late thirties with a three-year-old son?' I asked two dozen Howard Street residents. Nothing. Marcella, the phantom.
I took the Hollywood Freeway to Sherman Oaks. A gas station attendant near the freeway off-ramp directed me to Hibiscus Canyon. It took me five minutes to find it; nestled in a cul-de-sac at the end of a winding street, lined, appropriately, with towering hibiscus bushes. Number 9619 was a four-story walk-up, in the style of a miniature Moorish castle.
I parked the car, and was walking across the street toward 9619 when my eyes were riveted to a sign stuck into the front lawn of the house next to it. 'For Sale. Contact Janet Valupeyk, Valupeyk Realty, 18369 Ventura Blvd., Sherman Oaks.'
Janet Valupeyk. Former lover of Eddie Engels. The woman Dudley Smith and I had questioned about Engels back in '51. I felt myself go prickly all over. I forgot all about 9619 Hibiscus Canyon and drove to Ventura Boulevard instead.
