“L.A.? How’s the quake situation?”
“Shaky.”
Hacking laugh. “What can I do for y’all, California?”
“We’ve received an application from a certain party for a certain state job- a position that requires a full background check, including proof of citizenship and birth records. The party in question has lost her birth certificate, claims she was born in Port Wallace.”
“Background check, huh? Sounds pretty… covert.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Brotherton-”
“Deeb. Lyle Deeb. Brotherton’s dead.” Chuckle. “Unloaded this dump on me in lieu of a poker debt, three months before he passed on. Got the last laugh.”
“I’m not at liberty to say more about the details of the position, Mr. Deeb.”
“No prob, Cal, love to help a fellow civil-servicer, ’ceptin’ I cain’t, ’cause we got no birth certificates in Port Wallace- not much of anything other than shrimp boats, black flies, and wetbacks, and the Immigration playing grab-ass all up and down the river. Records are up in San Antonio- you’d best check there.”
“What about hospitals?”
“Just one, Cal. This ain’t Houston. Dinky place run by Baptist naturopaths- not sure if they’re even legit. They service mostly the Mexicans.”
“Were they servicing back in ’53?”
“Yep.”
“Then I’ll try there first. Do you have the number?”
“Sure.” He gave it to me, said, “Your party in question’s born down here, huh? That’s a real small club. What’s the name of this party?”
“The family name is Johnson; mother’s first name, Eulalee. She might also have gone under Linda Lanier.”
He laughed. “Eula Johnson? Birth in 1953? Ain’t that a hoot, you folks getting all covert and everything? Meanwhile it’s public knowledge. Hell, California, you don’t need no official records for that one- that one’s famous.”
“Why’s that?”
He laughed again and told me, then said, “Only question is,
“I don’t know,” I said, and hung up. But I knew where to find out.
32
The same vine-crusted fieldstone walls and mentholated air, the same long, shady stretch past the wooden slab sign. This time I was driving- L.A. legitimate. But the silence and the solitude and the knowledge of what I was about to do made me feel like a trespasser.
I pulled up in front of the gates and used the phone on the stand to call the house. No answer. I tried again. A male mid-Atlantic voice answered: “Blalock residence.”
“Mrs. Blalock, please.”
“Who shall I say is calling, sir?”
“Dr. Alex Delaware.”
Pause. “Is she expecting you, Dr. Delaware?”
“No, but she’ll want to see me, Ramey.”
“I’m sorry, sir, she isn’t-”
“Tell her it concerns the exploits of the Marchesa di Orano.”
Silence.
“Would you like me to spell that, Ramey?”
No answer.
“Are you still with me, Ramey?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Of course, I could talk to the press instead. They always love a human interest story. Especially one with heavy irony.”
“That won’t be necessary, sir. One moment, sir.”
Moments later the gates slid open. I got back in the car and drove up the fish-scale drive.
The verdigris roofs of the mansion were gold at the peaks where the sunlight made contact. Emptied of tents, the grounds looked even more vast. The fountains threw off opalescent spray that thinned and dissipated while still arcing. The pools below were shimmering ellipses of liquid mercury.
I parked in front of the limestone steps and climbed to an immense landing guarded by statuary lions, recumbent but snarling. One of the double entry doors was open. Ramey stood holding it, all pink face, black serge, and white linen.
“This way, sir.” No emotion, no sign of recognition. I walked past him and in.
Larry had said the entry hall was big enough to skate in. It could have accommodated a hockey stadium: three stories of white marble, rich with moldings, flutings, and emblems, backed by a double-carved white marble staircase that would have put Tara to shame. A concert-hall-sized chandelier hung from the gold-leaf coffered ceiling. The floors were more white marble inlaid with diamonds of black granite and polished to glass. Gilt-framed portraits of dyspeptic-looking Colonial types hung between columns of precisely pleated ruby velvet drapes tied back with beefy gold cord.
Ramey veered right with the smoothness of a limousine on legs, and led me down a long, dim portrait gallery, then opened another set of double doors and showed me into a hot, bright sun-room- a Tiffany skylight forming the roof, one wall of beveled mirror, three of glass that looked out onto infinite lawns and impossibly gnarled trees. The flooring was malachite and granite in a pattern that would have given pause to Escher. Healthy-looking palms and bromeliads sat in Chinese porcelain pots. The furniture was sage and maroon wicker with dark-green cushions, and glass-topped tables.
Hope Blalock sat on a wicker divan. Within her reach was a bar on wheels holding an assortment of decanters and a crystal pitcher frosted opaque.
She didn’t look nearly as robust as her plants, wore a black silk dress and black shoes, no makeup or jewelry. She’d drawn her hair back in a chestnut bun that gleamed like polished hardwood, and she stroked it absently as she sat at the very edge of the divan- barely lowering rump to fabric, as if daring gravity.
She ignored my arrival, continued staring out through one of the glass walls. Ankles crossed, one hand in her lap, the other gripping a cocktail glass half-filled with something clear in which an olive floated.
“Madam,” said the butler.
“Thank you, Ramey.” Her voice was throaty, tinged with brass. She waved the butler away, waved
I sat opposite her. She met my gaze. Her complexion was the color of overcooked spaghetti, overlaid with a fine mesh of wrinkles. Her aqua-blue eyes could have been beautiful but for sparse lashes and deep, gray sockets that made them stand out like gems in dirty silver. Frown lines tugged at her mouth. A halo of post- menopausal down encircled her unpowdered face.
I gazed at her glass. “Martini?”
“Would you care for a splash, Doctor?”
“Thank you.”
The wrong answer. She frowned, touched one finger to the pitcher and dotted the frost. “These are vodka martinis,” she said.
“That will be fine.”
The drink was strong and very dry and made the roof of my mouth ache. She waited until I’d
