“He listed it as a ‘producer and manufacturer of health education materials.’ He and his wife were sole shareholders, declared a loss for five years, then folded.”
“What years?”
“Let me see, I’ve got it right here: ’74 through ’79.”
Sharon’s last year in college, her first four years in grad school.
“What it boils down to, Alex, is a rich guy living off inheritance. Dabbling.”
“Dabbling in people’s lives,” I said. “The army taught him psychological warfare.”
“For what that’s worth. When I was a medic I caught an eyeful of the army’s psychological warfare. For the most part, worthless bullshit. The Viet Cong laughed at it- ad agencies do it better. Anyway, bottom line is, Ransom emerges as your basic phantom lady with a rich patron. For all practical purposes she could have dropped out of the sky in 1971.”
“Martinis in the sun-room.”
“What’s that?”
“Nothing important,” I said. “Here’s another possibility. I looked up the newspaper coverage of the Lanier/Johnson drug bust. Linda and her brother were from South Texas- place called Port Wallace. Maybe there are records down there.”
“Maybe,” he said. “Anything in the papers that Crotty didn’t tell us?”
“Just that in addition to the dope thing, the Red Scare was raised- supposedly the Johnsons went to parties with subversives. Given the mood of the country, that would have guaranteed public support for the shootout. Hummel and DeGranzfeld were treated like Most Valuable Players.”
“Uncle Hummel,” he said. “I called Vegas. He’s still alive, still working for Magna- chief of security at the Casbah and two other casinos the company owns there. Lives in a big house in the best part of town. Wages of sin, huh?”
“One more thing to chew on,” I said. “Billy Vidal and Hope Blalock are brother and sister. Vidal set up deals between Blalock’s husband and Belding. After Blalock’s husband died, Magna bought her out cheap. After Belding died, Vidal ended up chairman of Magna. Mrs. Blalock was bankrolling Kruse- supposedly because he’d treated one of her kids. But she doesn’t seem to have any kids.”
“Jesus,” he said. “Ever get the feeling, Alex, we’re playing somebody else’s game by somebody else’s rules? In somebody else’s goddam stadium?”
He agreed to run a Texas trace and told me to watch my back before hanging up.
I wanted to call Olivia again, but it was close to eleven, past her and Albert’s bedtime, so I waited until nine the next morning, phoned her office, and was told Mrs. Brickerman was up in Sacramento on business this morning and was expected back shortly.
I tried to reach Elmo Castelmaine at King Solomon Gardens. He was on shift again, busy with a patient. I got in the Seville and drove to the Fairfax district, to Edinburgh Street.
The old-age home was one of dozens of boxy two-story buildings lining the narrow, treeless street.
King Solomon Gardens had no gardens, just one pudgy-trunked, roof-high date palm to the left of the double glass entry doors. The building was white texture-coat trimmed in electric blue. A ramp carpeted in blue Astroturf served in place of front steps. Cement had been laid down where the lawn should have been, painted hospital green and furnished with folding chairs. Old people sat, sun-visored, kerchiefed, and support-hosed, fanning themselves, playing cards, just staring off into space.
I found a parking space halfway down the block and was headed back when I spotted a chunky black man across the street, pushing a wheelchair. I quickened my pace and got a better look. White uniform tunic over blue jeans. No corkscrew beard, no earring. The crown of the head yielding to near-total baldness; the stocky body, softer. The face looser, double-chinned, but the one I remembered from Resthaven.
I crossed the street, caught up. “Mr. Castelmaine?”
He stopped, looked back. An old woman was in the wheelchair. She didn’t pay any notice. Despite the heat, she wore a sweater buttoned to the neck and an Indian blanket across her knees. Her hair was thin and brittle, dyed black. The breeze blew through it, exposing white patches of scalp. She appeared to be sleeping with her eyes open.
“That’s me.” The same high-pitched voice. “Now, who might you be?”
“Alex Delaware. I left you a message yesterday.”
“That doesn’t help me much. I still don’t know you any better than I did ten seconds ago.”
“We met years ago. Six years ago. At Resthaven Terrace. I came with Sharon Ransom. Visited her sister, Shirlee?”
The woman in the chair began to sniffle and whimper. Castelmaine bent down, patted her head, pulled a tissue out of his jeans and dabbed at her nose. “Now, now, Mrs. Lipschitz, it’s okay, he’s gonna come get you.”
She pouted.
“Come on now, Mrs. Lipschitz, honey, your beau’s gonna come, don’t you worry.”
The woman lifted her face. She was sharp-featured, toothless, wrinkled as a discarded shopping bag. Her eyes were pale-brown and heavily mascaraed. A bright-red patch of lipstick had been smeared over a puckered fissure of a mouth. Somewhere behind the crease and corrugation, the mask of cosmetics, shone a spark of beauty.
Her eyes filled with tears.
“Aw, Mrs. Lipschitz,” said Castelmaine.
She drew the blanket up to her mouth, began chewing on the coarse fabric.
Castelmaine turned to me and said softly, “They reach a certain age, they can never get warm, no matter what the weather. Never get full satisfaction of any kind.”
Mrs. Lipschitz cried out. Her lips worked around a word for a while and finally formed it: “Party!”
Castelmaine kneeled beside her, eased the blanket away from her mouth, and tucked it around her. “You’re gonna go to that party, hon, but you’ve got to be careful not to ruin your makeup with all those tears. Okay?”
He placed two fingers under the old woman’s chin and smiled. “Okay?” She looked up at him, nodded.
“Goo-ood. And we
The old woman held up one shriveled hand. A thick black one wrapped around it.
“Party,” she said.
“Sure, there’s gonna be a party. And you’re so pretty, Clara Celia Lipschitz, that you’re gonna be the belle of that party. All the handsome boys are gonna line up to dance with you.”
A rush of tears.
“Now c’mon, C.C., no
More struggle to enunciate: “Late.”
“Just a little late, Clara Celia. He probably hit some heavy traffic- you know, all that gridlock I’ve been telling you about. Or maybe he stopped off at a flower shop to get you a nice corsage. Nice pink orchid corsage, like he knows you love.”
“Late.”
“Just a little,” he repeated, and resumed pushing the chair. I tagged along.
He began singing, softly, in a sweet tenor so high it verged on falsetto. “Now C., C.C. Rider. C’mon
The music and the repetitive rub of the chair’s tires against the sidewalk set up a lullaby rhythm. The old woman’s head began to loll.
“… C.C. Lipschitz, see what
We stopped directly across the street from King Solomon. Castelmaine looked both ways and nudged the chair over the curb.
