by Lanyon, Josh
He hesitated—just long enough for me to realize I was making a mistake. Jack was the one who’d lost interest in pursuing a relationship. We were neighbors, not friends, and this was probably the equivalent of complaining to a doctor you’d met at a party about that pain in your neck.
“Yeah, sure,” Jack said, and he stepped aside, nodding for me to come in.
Worse than looking pushy, gauche, I realized this might seem like I was coming up with an excuse to see him again. So instead of coming in, I took a step back and said, “You know, on second thought, it can probably wait.”
“Whoa!” He caught my arm as I turned away. “What’s this?” He was smiling now, his eyebrows raised.
The feel of his hand on my arm reminded me vividly of our one and only night together. The warm sure slide of his palm stroking my belly, knuckles brushing the sensitive skin between hip and thigh, long strong fingers closing at last around my dick…
I let him draw me into his apartment.
Jack closed the door and I looked around curiously. Tidy as a monk’s cell. A stark black-and-white print of the desert hung over the fake fireplace. There were a few pieces of generic guy furniture, a number of paperbacks—mostly nonfiction and mostly true crime—on a low bookshelf. Nothing had changed. Jack had changed, that was all.
“Did you want a beer?” he asked, going behind the counter that separated kitchen from living room.
“Sure.”
Jack returned a moment later, handed me a frosty cold bottle, fingers grazing mine, and then he dropped down on the couch across from me. He took a swig.
He wore Levi’s and a yellow muscleman T-shirt that displayed his hard, tanned body to perfection.
“So…what’s the problem?” He grinned and the dimple showed for a moment. I wondered if a dimple was a liability for a cop. Did bad guys ever make the mistake of overestimating that mischievous crease in Jack’s lean cheek? “Jaywalking tickets piling up? Somebody finally haul you in for disturbing the peace?”
“Er…no.” I set the bottle on the glass-topped table, leaned on one hip, fished the tarot card out of my pocket, and put it face up on the coffee table.
Jack studied it, one eyebrow arching. “The Tower?”
“Yeah. Someone stuck it on my door while I was in the pool this morning.”
“Yeah, I saw you swimming,” he said absently, reaching for the card, careful to only touch the edges. His gray eyes lifted to mine. “And you see this as…what? A threat?”
“I don’t know. I know it seems a little…” I raked a hand through my still-damp hair. “I think it has to do with the book I’m writing. About the Aldrich case. The Tarot Card Murder.”
His face showed no comprehension.
“I guess it’s supposed to be a joke.” I added doubtfully, “But it happened then, too.”
“What happened then?” he asked. “You’re not making a lot of sense, Tim.”
“Are you familiar with the Aldrich case?”
“No.”
“No?”
He looked a little exasperated at my tone. “I’m not familiar with every homicide case that ever took place in the L.A. vicinity, no.”
“Well, it’s just that it was kind of a high profile case. And it’s still unsolved.”
“I’ll try not to take that personally.”
“Back in 1957, a starlet by the name of Eva Aldrich was stabbed to death at a big Hollywood party. The only clue was a tarot card pinned on her blood-stained dress.” Like one of those old press cameras, my memory flashed on those gory old black-and-white crime scene photos. There had been one shot of Eva’s discarded and bloodstained high heel lying a few feet from her body. There was something poignant—something I couldn’t shake—when I thought about that frivolous little pump splashed with her dying blood.
“And you’re writing a book about this?”
I assented.
“You’re writing a book about a homicide that took place back in 1957?” Jack was expressionless. “And you think…what? You’ve got some geriatric killer stalking you?”
I felt color rise in my face. “I don’t know what to think,” I said evenly. “It’s kind of a weird coincidence, don’t you think?”
“Maybe. Who knows you’re writing this book?” He stared at the card, and then he stared at me. His eyes were just the color of the ocean when the mist starts rolling in.
“My publisher. The people I’ve interviewed so far.”
“And this card, The Tower, that’s the card that was pinned to the decedent’s—this Aldrich woman’s—dress?”
“No. The card pinned to her dress was the sixth card in the major arcana, The Lovers.”
“Not the same card?”
“No.”
“I see.”
“Look, I know it sounds silly. But…”
But what? I was the kind of guy who jumped at shadows? I didn’t have a sense of humor? I had too much imagination? I wanted attention? The unflattering possibilities were plenty.
He studied me for a moment, then straightened, arching his back a little like he was stiff—or bored with sitting there talking to me. “Okay. Tell you what,” he said. “I’ll do some checking for you. See what the unofficial word is on this cold case of yours.” He shrugged a broad shoulder. “It can’t hurt.”
I nodded, tension draining from my body. Maybe he was just humoring me, but I knew enough about Jack to know that if he said he’d check, he really would. Realizing I hadn’t touched my beer, I tilted the bottle to my lips. Jack watched me steadily. It made me uncomfortable.
“Have you uncovered any new info on the case?” he asked.
“Not that I’m aware of.”
“Maybe it is a joke.”
“Where’s the humor?”
He shrugged and checked his watch. It wasn’t pointed, just remembering that he had somewhere to be.
I set the bottle down, stood up.
“Can I hang on to this?” He nodded to the card lying on the tabletop once more.
“If there were any prints I messed them up handling the card.”
“I noticed.” He offered that half grin. “It never hurts to check.”
“Thanks, Jack.” I moved toward the door. “I know this isn’t really anything for the police. Unless something else—”
“No problem.” He held the front door for me.
As I stepped out onto the shady walkway he said awkwardly, “I’m glad you stopped by, Tim. Really. I—uh—I’ve been meaning to call.”
“Oh, shit yeah.” I shrugged. Smiled. No big deal, this. “I’ve been busy myself.”
* * * * *
Back in my apartment, I circled from room to room, trying to settle enough to get back to work. I wasn’t sure what had me more off-kilter, seeing Jack again or finding the tarot card.
After a few minutes, I sat down on the sofa with a copy of Roman Mayfield’s The Mystery of the Tarot, thumbing through until I found the description of The Tower.
Mars’ martial light shines upon The Tower, the card of war. The dark masonry of a structure built of lies crumbles beneath the lightning flash of truth. The Tower represents “false concepts and institutions that we take for real.” In a reading, the querent is often shaken when The Tower appears, expecting to be blinded by a shocking revelation. Sometimes the catalyst of reading forces the querent to face a bitter truth or knock down beliefs rooted in the concrete of self-deception.
Was someone trying to tell me I was heading for a fall?
Absently I listened to the flap of palm tree leaves outside the open window, the distant rush of traffic from the Hollywood Freeway, listened for something else too. Something that didn’t belong. There was nothing to hear but the normal sounds of apartment living: splashing and laughter from the pool, someone’s stereo playing too loudly, another bout in an ongoing argument between my neighbors on the left.
And if I listened very carefully I could hear Jack humoring me. Okay. Tell you what. I’ll do some checking
for you.
That was nice of him, seeing that he hadn’t been interested in keeping up the friendship—let alone something more.
Odd to think of him watching me swim. Couldn’t have been for more than a moment—just long enough to decide he didn’t feel like a morning swim.
If I closed my eyes I could feel his broad hand on the small of my back guiding our bodies closer, the comfortable friction of bare skin on skin, the solid rub of our erections. I could feel the tickle of his chest hair, the unexpected softness of his mouth…
But it hadn’t been perfect, by any means. We’d both had too much to drink that night, and after we’d rushed past the feverish preliminaries of getting naked and getting between the sheets, there had been the usual awkward moments of trying to get into sync with each other, fitting our bodies together, finding a rhythm.
The warmth of him, the salty taste of him, the clean scent of him.
Abruptly, I sat up and started clicking away on my laptop, like I could tap and type away from memories. It was just a couple of dates. Jeez. Get over it.
I remembered I still had clothes in the laundry room washer.
The bad news—besides the rent—about living in one of those atmospheric 1940s L.A. apartment buildings was the little inconveniences, like parking in the back with the winos and homeless folk, the lack of any kind of security, and a laundry room that any Hollywood scout would immediately peg for a horror movie location.
Buried in the jungle of hibiscus and jasmine behind the pool yard, the laundry room was down a short flight of stairs. The overhead bulb was usually burned out because no one ever remembered to turn it off. There were three washers and three dryers to service the entire complex; I’d learned to take advantage of it during the day when most of the young and not-so-young professionals were working.
Carrying my laundry basket down the steps, I automatically flipped the wall switch, and, of course, nothing happened. It didn’t matter because there was enough daylight from above so that I could see to scoop soap into the battered machine.
It was warm and noisy with the sudsy washers filling up and the dryers tumbling. I put the lid down on my sodden clothes and turned to get the previous load I’d left in the dryer. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught movement.
I glanced swiftly toward the stairs.
A shadow filled the doorway. The door to the laundry room slammed shut.
Chapter Two
“Hey!” I yelled.
There was no response; granted, it was hard to tell over the rumble of the machines and flood of water. I put a hand out, fingers brushing the cool cement wall, and started toward the stairs.
My foot bumped into the bottom step. I couldn’t see a damn thing; it was like a crypt in there. I swore under my breath and went up the first couple of stairs—and realized there was someone with me in the humid darkness. Someone at the top of the stairs, blocking the exit.
I could feel him—and it was definitely a him because I could smell his cheap aftershave—feel his warmth and bulk—although I couldn’t see him. I stopped midcharge and teetered off-balance for a second.
He growled, “Eva Aldrich is ancient history. Butt out or you’ll be history too.”
A couple of meaty hands planted in my chest, and he shoved me hard.
I fell back, grabbing blindly at empty air, and tumbled down the stairs, landing in a painful sprawl at the bottom, my head grazing one of the vibrating washers. Dimly I was aware of the door above me opening, a flash of afternoon sunlight, and the door banging shut again.
Shocked, I just lay there for a few moments trying to process what had happened. Luckily, it was a short flight of steps. My elbow hurt and my back felt twisted, but mostly I’d landed on my ass. Nothing broken. Nothing sprained as far as I could tell. I’d banged my head against the washer, not hard, but hard enough, and that, more than anything, was scaring the shit out of me. I stayed still in the soap-scented blackness and waited for the fireworks.
Meanwhile the asshole was getting away…
But I let the thought go, just as I had to let my attacker go.
So much for thinking the tarot card pinned to my door was a joke or a coincidence. Apparently someone didn’t want this book written. Had sent a goon to lean on me like something in a pulp novel. It was crazy. Eva Aldrich had been dead for fifty years. Half the suspects weren’t even alive anymore.
The washer above me hit spin cycle, and I edged away from the juddering motion. It occurred to me that so far my circuitry seemed okay, so I got carefully to my feet and felt my way through the darkness again to the stairs and the doorway.
I pushed the door open to flickering sunlight. Shrubbery stirred in the breeze, but there was no sign of anyone. To the right, the path led to the pool yard where a woman in a red bikini baked on a lounge chair. To the left, the path led to the parking lot behind the apartment complex. The tall gate swung gently in the wake of someone’s hasty exit.
Stepping through the gate, I studied the small dusty lot crowded with cars.
A sheet of newspaper pinwheeled on the breeze, a beer can rolled to a stop a few feet away. A blue jay gave me hell from the telephone pole above.
Nothing out of the ordinary.
I noticed Jack’s Jeep was gone, so there was no point running upstairs to tell him about the latest development. And I didn’t like the fact that this was the first line of action that occurred to me.
Withdrawing from the parking lot, I headed back to my apartment, past the nearly deserted pool yard, generator humming noisily, past the open windows of my neighbors, snatches of cartoons and talk shows. I let myself into my apartment and dug the phone out from beneath the pile of throw cushions—the L.A. Times having a habit of calling right when I finally fell into a deep sleep.
My conversation with Glendale PD went pretty much as expected. The dispatcher was sympathetic but admitted that without any kind of description of my attacker—or even a suspect—there wasn’t a lot they could do. She promised to send a patrol car over to take my report, and that was basically that.
I fixed myself a sandwich, although I wasn’t hungry, poured a glass of iced tea, and sat down with my notes.
The popular theory at the time of Eva Aldrich’s death was that her ex-husband, a gas station owner by the name of William Burack, had killed her in a fit of jealous rage. Burack’s then-current girlfriend had alibied him, and the police had never been able to prove otherwise. I studied the photos of Burack. He’d been one of those big blond bruisers who turn to fat as they age. He hadn’t aged a lot, though, dying in a car crash in 1965.
Since he was dead, I couldn’t see anyone close to Burack getting worked up at the idea of my writing a book about the case. He hadn’t had any kids and his only close relative, a brother, had died sometime in the 1980s. So if someone was threatening me to stay out of the Aldrich case, it probably wasn’t because he feared I was going to uncover proof that Burack had killed his glamour-girl ex.
Which meant that someone else had.
Washing the ham sandwich down with iced tea, I considered this theory objectively. It made sense, right? Someone unconnected to Burack didn’t want me digging into the old case. Because someone, somewhere, still had something to lose if the truth about a half-century-old homicide were to be revealed.
Since there’s no statute of limitations on murder, there was an obvious motive for keeping the identity of Eva’s killer secret: her killer was still alive.
But Jack also had a point. Most of the principals in the Aldrich case were now in their seventies. Not that trial and prison would be any more appealing at age seventy than at age twenty, but it was hard to picture a member of the Geritol set scurrying around tacking tarot cards to my door and shoving me down stairways.
Besides, no senior citizen had knocked me down in the laundry room—unless it was Jack LaLanne. There had been a size and a force—and a voice—to my attacker that had indicated an adult male in his prime.
Well, on the
bright side, assault and threats would make pretty good publicity for the book. Assuming I lived to write it.
I was still wound too tight to work and my muscles were beginning to stiffen up after their collision with a cement slab. I set aside my notes and occupied myself with tossing out old newspapers, vacuuming, reshelving all my reference books. I paused in the bathroom and swore at my reflection. A colorful bruise was making an appearance where my forehead had caught the edge of the washer.
Great. I’d just got rid of the last set of abrasions.
It was sometime after eight that a thump on my door sent me jumping out of my chair—and nearly my skin. Which pissed me off no end. I hated feeling wide open; it was happening way too much these days.
Eye to the peephole found a miniature Jack adjusting his tie as though it were too tight. That explained the Police! Open Up! knock. He was in official persona.
I unlocked the door, opened it.
“A chain would be a good idea,” he remarked.
I stepped back and Jack stepped inside. He looked around curiously, and I remembered that this was the only time he’d actually been in my place. He’d picked the right night; usually it looked like a cyclone had hit it.
“Would you like a beer?” I asked.
“No, I can’t st—” He broke off, staring at the discoloration on my forehead. “What happened to you?” Then his face changed, uncomfortable as he leaped to the wrong conclusion about what had happened to me.
I said shortly, “Someone threw me down a flight of stairs.”
“Oh. Right.” His eyes looked dark in the soft lighting of my apartment. “I heard you had some trouble today.” He hesitated. “Maybe I will have a beer.”
I got a cold beer from the fridge and brought it to him. He was sitting on the sofa glancing through the photos of the cast of suspects in the Aldrich case. He took the beer with absent thanks and continued looking through the photos.
He paused at one. “Now here’s a familiar face. Tony Fumagalli.”
“Tony the Cock,” I agreed. “The Early Years.”
