“You look beat.”
“Just got in from Boston.”
Jamieson was uptight at Gallagher’s funeral. My questions about Gallagher’s hacked laptop agitated him. He knew more than he said. Miranda too. She all but told me the secret was on the laptop. If that’s true, what I need to know is at the bottom of the ocean. What’s on Jamieson’s laptop? There’s not one here; must be somewhere in his other home or his office. I walk back to the living room. A zipper whines. A crinkle. Another architect bagged.
“Where’s his wallet?”
Hernandez nods toward the counter.
I check the driver’s license: 1980. Same age as Gallagher. The address is in the Hills above Sunset. The wallet—caramel leather—holds eighteen hundred dollars and a black-and-white picture of a girl. Sadie. Written on the back: 1984–1997. Credit cards, a few business cards, and a folded newspaper clipping of a runner, hair flying and racing toward a finish line. “Paul Jamieson Wins 440: On Way to Nationals.” He looked the part: handsome, well cut, his young face pushing toward victory, eyes alight. He kept that moment, hidden beneath his credit cards with dead Sadie. Sister? Cousin? First love? It’s amazing, the things that mark us. Maybe Jamieson pulled the clipping out every chance he could, but my sense is, he didn’t and this was a piece of him he kept private. He and Gallagher were successful and vain, men I’m sure I would not have liked, except for their conceit in the belief that they mattered. That would have amused me. Their buildings were the measure of who they wanted to be in the world. Their reflections. They sought no smaller definitions. Yet Jamieson did. In the slender recess of his wallet. I liked that it was there. I slide the clipping into my pocket. Mine now.
“Where’s his phone?”
“Didn’t find one,” says Lily Hernandez, who I’m starting to like. Direct, looking right at me.
“You always want to be a cop?”
“My dad and his dad came before me.”
“Where you from?”
“Boyle Heights.”
“I’m thinking the doer took the phone.”
“No one forgets a phone.”
“Easy enough to trace the records.”
She walks to the window, trim even with her gun-and-leather cop bulk. The sun catches her badge.
“Pretty up here, isn’t it?” she says. “Wonder what he was thinking looking at the view. It was night if he was killed when we think, so it was black, the lights of the city shining up.”
“I always wonder about the final thought. The last image a vic has. What did you think? See? Or was there anything at all. Maybe the brain shuts off, you know, slips off the grid and goes dark.”
“Could be. You’re sitting there drinking your wine, looking at the lights. Thinking about tomorrow. That’s what I’d be doing. Sitting by this window watching all the little things below. Thinking I must be doing okay sitting way up here.”
“You Catholic?”
“Raised but not practicing.”
“How many miles you run a day?”
“Ten,” says Lily Hernandez.
“You swim too, right? Bike? Isn’t that how it works?”
“I swim a couple miles in the ocean on the weekends unless I’m pulling OT.”
“I need to get in better shape,” I say.
“You look all right. Tired, like I said, but all right.”
“I’m going to start running again. I used to run and lift. Not like you, but enough.”
“Thing about working out is, you can’t talk about it. Just gotta do it, Detective. Show up and do it.”
“Isn’t that in an ad?”
“Maybe.” She laughs. “But it’s true.”
“I’m thinking this,” I say. “Jamieson’s sitting there drinking his wine, and there’s a girl doing a dance for him. She dances against the window like she’s floating. He’s drinking. She’s dancing. He’s letting it build. But she’s letting it build too. Dancing around him. She knows how the night will end. He has no idea.”
“Healthy imagination, Detective. Could be. Who is she?”
Hernandez’s shoulder radio squawks.
“I gotta take off, Detective.”
“Go ahead. Thanks for the good work. I’m going to go dig out my free weights one of these days.”
She looks at me as if she’s going to say something. I wait, hoping. But she smiles and disappears. My phone buzzes. I know who it is before I see the glow. Ortiz.
“Jesus, Carver. You leave town for two days and we got another fucking dead architect. The mayor’s office is way up the chief’s ass, which means—you guessed it—the chief’s way up mine. Why is someone killing architects? Some kind of contract shit going on? Somebody not getting enough of the building pie? Someone doesn’t like the designs? Would architects kill one another for that? If it is even an architect. I’m sending two people over to City Hall to check building contracts. Who’s got what, et cetera, et cetera. You get over to his firm and then to the coroner’s. We got a team up at his house.”
“Make sure they get the computers.”
Deep breath, exhale. Fingers to mustache. I can’t see him, but I know.
“What are you thinking, Carver?”
“Obviously connected. But …”
“The ‘but’ is what we need. Press is going to eat this up. You can just see it. A new LA noir. They love that. Especially with everyone involved.”
“Have you been reading again, Ortiz?”
“Read this.”
He clicks off. I stop in the lobby and talk to the guard at the desk. He leads me to a small room in the back, with a bank of monitors. He rewinds the last twenty-four hours and then fast-forwards. The images on the screens move in blurs, faces and bodies, colliding into one another, rushing past, impressionistic—a day compressed into a montage, a disorienting and hypnotic moment. I feel like God on speed, my creations scattering before me. I’m tired. I need a long sleep. The guard stops at 10:07 p.m. The lobby is empty. The doors swing open. A figure appears. A woman in a fedora. Long coat, like a raincoat but not—flimsier, as if made of bees’ wings or air. High heels. She walks past the desk, tilting her head so the guard, if he’s looking, can’t make her out. She stands at the elevators. They open. She tilts her head down. A guy with a dog gets off. She slips in. Alone. Pushes the button for Jamieson’s floor with a gloved finger. The fedora hides her face. She reveals only a flash of chin. A bag over her shoulder. She gets off the elevator and walks down the hall, knocks on Jamieson’s door. A hand reaches out. A crack of light. The door closes. I tell the guard to play it again. Slower. Zoomed in. The black-and-white footage gives her a ghostly grace.
“She knows,” I say.
“What?”
“Where your cameras are. She hides her face, never looks toward a camera. Who was on your front desk last night?”
“See, that’s the thing,” says the guard. “That’d be Manny, and even though he’s not supposed to, Manny goes outside for a cigarette a few minutes after ten every night.”
“No one covers for him?”
The guard looks to the screens. Shrugs.
“No. Sorry. You think we have to mention that?”
He plays the video for me again. There she is. My doer. I press closer to the screen. She moves before me, slow, like a flicker.
Chapter 13
A brief appearance by me.
The game is back on.
Oh, yes. Did you like your present? I’m here in the café across the street. All the other cop people have left, but you’re still inside. I know what you’re doing. You’re watching me. Tingle. Do you like my hat? My coat? Mysterious, right? No face. I like it that way. You can imagine. Men do. Who is your fantasy? I will be her. You can fill it in. But I know who she is. It’s in your files. You love Casablanca. I am Ingrid. I’m sure you’re thinking that. Like a little boy in a
prepubescent dream. That’s what I imagine, sitting here with my latte—I’ve decided I don’t like soy, by the way—looking out the window. So fine the city is up here, almost too clean, don’t you think? But I am comfortable and happy. Tired too, if I must be honest.
No one saw me last night except the guy coming out of the elevator, but I looked down and away and he was chattering some ridiculous thing to his dog, the way they do. There was another guy outside smoking after, but I was quick and gone. You’ll get no descriptions from them or the cameras, as I’m sure you know by now. That’s why you’re still inside. Studying me frame by frame. It’s our little movie. I was careful. Like with Gallagher, but this one’s quite different, no? Gallagher was my first, and I wanted it done fast. But I thought Jamieson’s end should linger. Just the two of us, he and I, suspended above the city, the lights hard and bright below. Kind of beautiful, actually.
I came in disguise. But before his last breath, while he was sitting harmless and stripped—doesn’t it look like he’s watching a movie?—I pulled off my wig and stood naked before him, a call girl turned into a remembered face. You should have seen him remember. Startled. Incredulous. The list goes on. He couldn’t move by that time. Your coroner—what’s his name? Oh, yes, Lester—will fill you in on the drug. An easily googled concoction. I sat with Jamieson by the window.
“Hi, Paul. What a surprise after all this time.”
“Errrr, uggghh.”
“You used to be more articulate. What’s happened, Paul? Drug got your tongue? You sound like a caveman. Try again.”
“Errrr, uggghh.”
“Mmmmmm. You’re drooling.”
I leaned in, spoke his sins to him, watched his face realize there was no escape, no absolution, just my words in his ear. Hushed. Like raindrops and seduction. I laid out underpants, bow, knife (You’ve noticed he’s missing a finger, but where is it?), powder, lipstick, mascara, and eyeliner on the table. He tried to move but couldn’t. What must he have been thinking? We had drunk a bottle of wine by then, and I came from behind with my needle. A prick for a prick. You know, he never suspected. Thought I was a girl from the service he used. What is it about Gallagher and Jamieson, the need to pay for it? I suppose, no strings, a transaction, and a way to do things you can’t do with the women you take to plays and symphonies. I’ll leave that to you. Men. I pressed my face to his. “You are my mask,” I said. Mask had a special meaning between Jamieson and me. You might find out later, Detective, if things break your way. I drew lipstick on Jamieson. Never did I want a line to be so perfect. Purple, a few shades from magenta, dark and bold, an elegant, strange snail sleeping on his lips. I put lipstick on too, so he could see, like they do on girls’ nights at the mall. I pretended I might kiss him. But didn’t. Then the mascara and liner, each eyelash a pretty, curling stem. Black. I dusted him with powder. It took an hour, my creation of a demon. I held up a mirror so he could see, and it was then that I saw in his eyes how ashamed he was, sitting there motionless and naked, the city spread before him. And because he was an architect, I knew he saw the gaps in the night—the lightless, abandoned places he wanted to bring light to.
I whispered to him, “Other people, other buildings.”
He knew what I meant. He would not leave his mark on Los Angeles, not in any magnificent way. He would not be mentioned in books not yet written. The Renaissance would have to do without Paul Jamieson. I sat beside him naked. An unattainable bounty.
“What’s it like to be here now these many years later?”
“Errrr, uggghh.”
“Yes, yes, Paul. I know. So hard to describe. But you look so pretty. Don’t try to speak. Let’s just sit here in the night and imagine. Look out there. So clear and hard. It’s so lovely, isn’t it? The beauty out there. It grabs my heart sometimes. What have you been designing lately? Don’t speak. I suppose it really doesn’t matter. Should we play some music? Opera, perhaps?”
He didn’t answer. He couldn’t; the drug had taken every muscle from him. I didn’t want him to answer, anyway. It was my night, and I would fill in the blanks. Jamieson loved opera. The drama, the scales. I gave him an ending worthy of Puccini.
Don’t you think?
So this is where we are, my darling detective. You’ll learn more when Lester’s scalpel gets to work. You like Lester, don’t you? It’s in your files. After all his years of seeing the worst that can be done to us, Lester is not a cynic. He’s like you, holding a glimmer that we’re not as bad as we appear. I want to believe that. I think I once did. But there’s so many shades of me now. I’ve noticed. I wake up and don’t know who I’m going to be. It comes in gradations, a slipping away, a shedding of skins. It’s not all that odd, I guess. Given what I’ve done this past week. Two for two. Still, I keep a balance.
I’ve learned about myself over time, how I’m not like everyone, even before, way before this. It’s not that bad. Not like my mother. She was bad. When she would veer from highs to lows in that circus of her mind, my father would bring me to the living room and put on Roberta Flack singing “Bridge over Troubled Water.” Did you ever hear her sing it? It makes you feel all will be okay. That the world has prayers that can reach you. My father and I would sit and listen, smiling and sometimes crying with each other as my mother railed and broke things in other rooms.
“It will pass,” he’d say. “She’ll come back. She always does.”
“What if she doesn’t this time?” I’d say.
“Don’t be scared, Dylan. You have me. I am here.”
Those words. I am here. It’s all a child wants. A promise. I still listen to that record. I played it a lot after that night years ago when I first met Jamieson and Gallagher. I was doing fine until then. I really was. But, well, what can I say? I smoke too. It calms me. By the way, did you like Jamieson’s carpets? I know you like carpets. It’s in your files. I especially liked the small Iranian one with the peacocks and foxes by the door.
Children are passing. A yellow bus. They must be on a field trip to the Museum of Contemporary Art. Chirping little voices, holding hands, two-by-two. Remember those days? Graham crackers and milk at recess, liking a boy (in your case, a girl) from a distance, glimpsing him with his book bag, a flash with the others into the afternoon toward home. Gone.
My latte’s almost gone. I must get to the office. Designs, you know. A whole city needing shape, order, symmetry. It’s delicate, the science and art of public space and function. To inspire yet be useful. That’s the trick. To be beautiful with purpose. I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately. Architecture and life. I won’t burden you with it now, but one day I’d like to talk with you about the city, the rise of steel, the shine of glass, the suppleness of a building that must give and sway, like a dancer, when the earth trembles. People should think more about what they live, work, pray, and fuck in. That’s an indelicate word. Sorry, they sneak out sometimes.
You’re still inside watching me. Looking for clues. No crime is perfect. That’s not true. Perfect crimes are committed every day. Look into the eyes on the street; you’ll see small and big offenses, ordinary and human, piles of infractions. It is who we are. Everyone a doer and a vic. Your terminology. No escape. Now I’m sad. I got myself sad. I don’t want to be sad. My latte is finished. I’m leaving. I thought I might see you come out, but I must go.
Do you know I’ve never heard your voice? I passed you once at the symphony, brushed beside you, a touch barely felt; you didn’t notice. You didn’t see me in my black dress the night of poor Gallagher’s demise. You smelled of witch hazel, scotch, and something else. But no voice. What is your sound, the pitch of you? Deep. Soft. High. A rasp maybe; you used to smoke, still sneak one sometimes. Yes, maybe a raspy little a growl. I would like that. It would be tender, though. It would soothe. I’ll hear you one day. I’ll listen to your words. To meet as strangers and speak, those first clumsy, beautiful syllables. I’m a kind
of romantic. An idealist, really. I see things in my mind’s eye so perfectly. Aahhhh. To live there. To fold into thought. Still, I must hear your voice. One day soon. Oh, yes. It’s cool and windy on the sidewalk. I feel it blow through me, walking down Grand, my hair a whirl, the sadness leaving me, the resolve to finish. I must finish. It’s so hard, though. Yes, I have doubts. But I lock them away. Look at me; a killer in the light. No one knows, not even you. But if you’re as smart as I think, well, maybe, just maybe …
Chapter 14
Matthew McKinley at McKinley, Jamieson, and Burns isn’t much help. He’s in shock from the news. He’d tried to reach Jamieson all morning to go over plans for a hotel on Pico and then drive to Santa Monica for lunch at the Water Grill. McKinley is lean with white hair that billows like a cloud. Tapered blue shirt, red tie, and cuff links. Tailored pants and English shoes. He reminds me a little of Arthur Kimmel, Gallagher’s partner, but Kimmel has more of a casual LA flair. McKinley is old school, prim as a newly minted dollar. He leads me into Jamieson’s office. Scrolls, books, Macs, and a Caravaggio—not a real one but a fine reproduction of The Cardsharps. A shaft of light across cunning faces. It covers one wall.
“Do you like it, Detective? Paul had it painted by a local artist of little renown. Took him three months. He was a strange fellow. Moody, as artists can be. He’d come in every morning and leave after we all had left. Covered in paint. The whole office smelled of paint and turpentine and was littered with rags. But Paul insisted, and we indulged. He needed to be indulged. I don’t suggest that in a negative way. You don’t know what will inspire someone. With Paul, it was Caravaggio. Paul was a man between two worlds. He adored the art and architecture of the old Italians, but his projects spoke to his time and place. The best architects do that. They are mirrors. Why would anyone think Los Angeles should look like Rome or Paris?” McKinley trails off, then looks at me. “You don’t think this painter could have had anything to do with it, do you, Detective? He was a scurrilous sort.”
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