by Dianne Emley
Paula ran to catch her. “That bird still doesn’t like him!” She was out of breath but was still laughing. “What’s wrong?”
“Didn’t you see it?”
“What?”
“Junior’s train set. There was a figure of a woman with long dark hair in a braid down her back.”
“So?”
“She was hanging by a rope from a tree in the middle of the town square. People were going to and fro and no one seemed to be paying any attention to her.”
Paula snorted. “That really pisses me off. The old man lets him live here for free. He doesn’t work. All he does is play with his guns and his trains. There were times when I could have used some help. But no. Everything for Junior and Thomas and nothing for Paula.”
Iris put her hand on her hip. “Doesn’t that seem weird to you? That model train set is Junior’s perfect world. Everyone’s happy, everyone’s industrious, everything’s beautiful, everything’s everything. Why would he ruin it?”
“He’s sick! So what else is new?” She started walking in the direction from which they had come. “I’ve had it with this place. Let’s get out of here.”
“We’ve come this far.”
Paula sighed. “All right.”
Iris resettled the bag of tools on her shoulder and started walking up the hill. She looked back at Paula, who was gazing at the crest.
“C’mon!” Iris urged. “We can’t use the road. Somebody might see us.”
“I don’t remember it being so high.”
Paula followed Iris, but the distance between them began to grow. Halfway up the hill, out of breath, Paula stopped and sat down with difficulty because of Iris’s jeans.
“If you stopped smoking, you wouldn’t be so out of breath.”
“Thank you, Dr. Thorne.”
They continued walking. They finally reached the grove of eucalyptus trees at the crest. The hard, helmet-shaped seed pods made a crunching noise underneath their feet. The trees’ pale bark and slender, silver-gray leaves melded with the landscape’s pastel palette.
“Let’s sit here for a minute,” Paula pleaded. The old man won’t be home for a couple of hours.”
Iris plopped beside her.
A gray cat lay curled at the base of one of the trees. A short distance away, two others, almost hidden in the tall grass, peered at them. Three more dozed in the sun.
“It’s overrun with cats,” Paula cried.
It was a clear day and they had good views of the downtown Los Angeles skyline to the west and the San Gabriel Mountains to the east.
“Been a long time,” Iris said.
“Yeah. Funny. Everything here doesn’t seem as big and everything out there doesn’t seem as far away.” Paula paused. “Except for the top of this hill.”
Iris looked toward downtown. “I can see in this direction from one of the windows in my office. I look out it every workday and imagine I can see this hill. I know I can’t really see it. It’s too far and I don’t think the direction’s quite right but I like thinking I can. It grounds me somehow. It reminds me of who I was and how far I’ve come.”
Paula leaned back on her elbows. “I don’t like being reminded of who I was or who I am.”
Curiosity had gotten the better of two kittens and they started taking tentative steps toward the women. Paula held her hand out and tried to get them to come closer. She made a sudden move and they darted away.
“Even the cats are telling me I’m not welcome.” Paula got up and dusted off. “Let’s go.”
The ranch house’s white paint was chipped and peeling. The wooden roof shingles were faded and warped and many were missing. A prickly pear cactus, some of its flat, green paddles as large as dinner plates, almost covered the wall to the right of the front door, obscuring the windows. Among the prickly pear, silver century plants had self-seeded until the area was spotted with dozens of them, some five feet in diameter. Their fleshy spiky leaves, lined with flat thorns along the edges, unfolded from the center like ominous roses. Several kittens chased each other through the cacti, elongating their backs to maneuver underneath the spines.
To the left of the door, a thorny bougainvillea grew, the vines in winter showing more spikes than green. The plant encased the wall up to the roof where the vines prevented a rain gutter that had pulled free from tumbling to the ground. The thick blanket of vines had been barely hacked away from the door.
The yard in front of the house was piled with junk. There was an old Ping-Pong table, scrap metal, bicycles, doors, window frames, weather-beaten corrugated boxes full of moldy clothing, and all manner of decrepit items.
“Let’s do the deal and get the hell out of here,” Paula said. “This is giving me the creeps.”
They walked around to the back of the house.
“Here’s my bedroom window. He never had it fixed.” Paula carefully reached through a broken semicircle in the glass of the double-framed window, unlocked it, and pushed it open. “You go. I don’t want to go in. I can’t.”
“Maybe he has an alarm.”
“He doesn’t even have a telephone answering machine.”
“I’m not going in there!”
“Stop being such a sissy.”
“You’re calling me a sissy?” Iris fished a flashlight from the canvas bag. “Give me a boost.” She clambered through the window. “It’s wall-to-wall junk in here. I hope I don’t get bit by something. Yell if anyone comes.”
Paula went around to the front of the house. She tried to get the attention of some of the cats but they were practically wild and wouldn’t come near her. She sat on the hillside in the direction that faced downtown L.A. and lit a cigarette. She looked at the skyscrapers that jutted incongruously from the flat basin. She looked at the citrus grove and the old Thorne house beyond it.
She leaned her head against her knees and soaked in the warm afternoon sun. She became lost in her thoughts and didn’t hear the car until it had already rounded the first bend in the hill.
She ran to the front door and pounded on it. “Iris!” She ran back to the edge of the yard to get a look at the car as it rounded the second bend. It was the faded blue Oldsmobile. Paula ducked out of view but not before Angus, who was looking out the open passenger window, pointed right at her.
She ran to the back of the house to the open window. “Iris! It’s Angus and Bobby.” She heard the car pull up in front of the house and stop. “Oh shit.”
Iris appeared on the other side of the window. She handed Paula a rectangular metal box.
“Angus and Bobby saw me! I knew he’d come looking for the money. I knew it.”
Angus pounded on the front door. “Paula, baby doll. I know you’re in there.” He hooked a long wavy lock of hair that had pulled free from his ponytail behind his ear. “I saw her on the hill, man. She must be in the house. I told you she’d come here. She’s going to try to sell the will again.”
Bobby stood with his thumbs hooked in the belt loops of his jeans, making his angular pelvic bones jut against the fabric. “Find out what the fuck she did with your cash, man.”
Angus pounded on the door again. “Just answer the door, baby. I forgive you for setting the fire.”
He stepped back with surprise when he heard a lock in the door slide out of its casing.
The heavy old door was pulled open. Paula nonchalantly rested one hand on the doorknob. The other was behind her back. “Hi, Angus. Bobby. What are you guys up to?”
He pushed past her. “Where’s the money, baby?”
“Money?” She maneuvered around him so that she stood in the doorway that led to the hall.
“Yeah, money! I don’t know what you two broads think you’re up to.” He snatched at her arm.
She swung at him with the hammer she’d been concealing, grazing his knuckles. They lunged at her. She threw the hammer at them, then ran down the hall into her old bedroom. She slammed the door and shoved a stack of boxes in front of it, sending old dolls, toys, a
nd books tumbling everywhere.
Angus managed to press the door open and squeeze through but stumbled on the junk that was barely visible in the dim light. Paula started to climb through the window just as Iris careened around the corner of the house with the blue Oldsmobile in reverse, swerving to avoid piles of refuse on the lawn.
As Paula hoisted herself through the bedroom window, Iris heard a sharp noise crack like a gunshot. “Hurry! Get in.”
Angus and Bobby made it to the window just as Iris threw the car into drive.
Paula said, “Bobby, I always told you not to leave your keys in the car.” The tires kicked up dust as they skidded around the house.
“I’m gonna get you, Paula,” Angus yelled.
Bobby pulled on Angus’s sleeve.
Junior stood just inside the door with his gun trained on them.
“Iris, slow down!”
When they rounded the last bend where the hill met the citrus grove, the Oldsmobile spun out on the loose dirt. It made one clean rotation on the narrow road. On the second one, it slammed into the Wall of Gaytan.
The Olds’s engine cut out. The damaged metal creaked and groaned.
Paula gingerly touched her head where it had slammed against the passenger window. “Are you all right?”
Iris tried to start the engine but it just cranked dryly. “Yeah. C’mon, baby,” she cooed to the Olds. “You?”
“Yeah.”
The engine finally turned over and Iris backed up. The right front fender and quarter panel were smashed and the bent metal scraped loudly against the right front tire.
After she’d backed up a few feet and put the car in drive, she stopped to stare at the wall.
Paula looked around anxiously. “Let’s get out of here!”
“I’m having one of those déjà vu things. I hate when that happens.” Iris shook her head briskly, then peeled out on the dirt.
Finally outside Las Mariposas, they climbed the hill opposite, the Oldsmobile groaning. When it would go no further, its vital fluids streaming down the asphalt, Iris rolled it against the curb.
They climbed into the Triumph.
“My legs are shaking,” Iris said. “When I heard that shot…”
“What shot?”
“I heard a noise like a gunshot.”
“That was no gun, dingbat. I split your jeans.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
It was Monday morning and Iris was bathed, dressed, caffeined, and at her desk with a fresh yellow pad squared in front of her and three freshly sharpened pencils lined up next to it. She was ready for war. There was a rumor that the Fed was going to lower the prime interest rate next week and the market was restless.
She managed to work feverishly but only for short gulps of time before her mind began to wander. She was fine as long as she was on the phone but once she hung up, the DeLaceys crept in. When the client with whom she was speaking now, a widow with two grown sons, began unloading on her about her problems with her children, which was probably the real reason she had called, Iris began to doodle on a yellow pad. She wrote: Bill DeLacey, Humberto, Dolly, Junior, Thomas, Paula, Dad. She crossed out Dad—the endearing term had a false ring—and wrote Les Thorne. She underlined it.
When her client hung up, she punched numbers that she pulled from memory onto her telephone keypad, crossed her legs, and leaned back into her leather desk chair. It was odd to call John Somers but more odd to find him home in the middle of the day. She supposed that was his life now as a damaged cop.
He was glad she’d called. He’d been worried about her. They chatted for a bit and she hoped that she hadn’t arrived at the real purpose of her call too quickly.
“How easy is it to look at a file for a murder that happened in nineteen seventy-one in the Northeast Division?”
“I have a buddy who works out of the Northeast. I’ll give him a call.”
“Was your friend there in seventy-one?”
“Let’s see.” He paused. “Yeah, he probably was. What’s up?”
“This is very confidential.”
“You know I don’t kiss and tell.”
“Gabriel Gaytan was murdered in seventy-one and Humberto De la Garza took the rap for it. The only reason the case wasn’t investigated further was because Humberto died after these two cops, Gil Alvarez and Ron Cole, beat him up when he resisted arrest. The case was closed to cover it up. I want to find out if there was any evidence that pointed to another suspect.”
He agreed to look into it today. He seemed happy to have some police work to do.
Iris looked at her watch. Her bank was now open. She grabbed the strap of the small duffel bag that she’d stashed under her desk.
Kyle Tucker sauntered into her office. Iris quickly dropped the bag, then spotted her doodlings and tried to appear casual as she covered the yellow pad with a client file. Somewhat breathlessly, she said, “Hi, Kyle. What can I do for you?” She plastered a polite smile on her face and thought: State your business and get the hell out.
He flopped into one of the two chairs that faced her desk, resting the calf of one leg on the knee of the other, and cavalierly interlaced his fingers behind his head, elbows akimbo.
He said nothing but just grinned at her with his thin rubbery lips closed but stretched salaciously across his face.
Finally Iris said, “It’s really not fair, Kyle. If I sat like that, I’d be accused of being unladylike.”
“You might make some new friends.” His already impossibly broad gash of a mouth stretched even further across his face.
“That’s a shit-eating grin if ever I saw one.”
“Want to know a secret?” His eyes twinkled, making it apparent that he had the beans and could hardly wait to spill them.
He was getting on her nerves. She decided to deny him what he wanted, just to be a brat. She decorously pulled herself erect in her chair and said, “I’m sorry, Kyle, but I am really busy right now.” For good measure, she picked up a pencil and positioned it to write.
He persisted, her comment sliding off him like water off a duck’s back. “I think you’ll want to hear this.” He paused and shot a quick glance through her door, as if checking for eavesdroppers. He lowered his hands from behind his head and leaned toward her with his elbows on his knees. “Truth or fiction? Amber Ambrose says she saw you and Garland Hughes kissing and holding hands on the street in front of the Edward Club.”
Iris tried to remain poker-faced, but felt the corners of her mouth tighten. “What in the world would possess her to say something like that?”
His hands again went up behind his head. Now spent, he seemed more relaxed. “Truth or fiction?”
“That doesn’t even merit a comment.”
“C’mon, Iris. I thought we were friends.”
“Let me teach you a few things about this business, Kyle. Rule number one: Trust no one. Rule number two: Hate everyone.”
“Oooh. Tough talk, Iris. My nipples are getting hard.”
She interlaced her fingers and clutched her knee between her hands. “What if it were true?”
“I’d say you were exercising rule number three: Use everyone.” He got up and walked toward the door.
“Thank you for sharing, Kyle.”
“What are friends for?” He winked at her. “Well, back to the veal-fattening pen.”
Iris walked to the filing cabinet where she kept her purse. She gazed out of the window that overlooked the suite and watched Kyle duck into his cubicle. She lingered, gazing at Amber’s pretty auburn-haired head, which was just visible above her cubicle wall. “Some friend you turned out to be.”
Amber turned just then as if she sensed that someone was watching her. Iris averted her eyes and busily took her purse from the cabinet. She grabbed the duffel bag, made sure it was securely zipped, slung the long strap over her shoulder, and started to walk out of her office. She had her hand on the light switch when she changed her mind and ducked back inside. She flipped through her
Rolodex, found the card she wanted, and slipped it into her suit jacket pocket.
“Iris is going to work out at the gym,” Sean Bliss said with surprise as she walked by.
Iris turned but kept walking backward. “I’m going to drop-kick a few junior investment counselors, just to keep in shape.”
At the elevator, she pressed the heat-sensitive call button, which glowed orange at her touch. Inside the car, she faced front and tilted her head to watch the illuminated numbers above the doors count off the floors, as did the other passengers. The elevator stopped a few times to pick up and discharge people during its descent.
By the time she’d reached the lobby, she had decided on a plan of action regarding the rumors. She voiced it aloud as if to solidify it. “Rule number four: Deny everything.”
She waved to the security guard as she walked out the building onto the street. Her mood immediately improved. She loved the tall skyscrapers of downtown Los Angeles. They were new, sleek, and shiny and had lots of glass. Some of the front courtyards were decorated with sculptures, fountains, and fanciful gardens with palm trees and topiaries. Well-dressed people buzzed to and fro. She fit in. She was part of it. She was a player.
At the corner, she waited for the light to change, occupying herself by glancing at the other passersby and at the flow of traffic that buzzed through the busy intersection. Across the street, she saw two men who appeared to be homeless panhandlers talking to a suited businessman. The businessman pointed at the tall, black granite office tower where Iris worked. When the light changed, the men started walking to the corner diagonally across from Iris. She gasped when she realized it was Angus and Bobby.
She positioned herself behind a couple of tall men also waiting for the light to change and peeked around them. Angus and Bobby were still standing on the corner, talking to each other and looking out of place. When the light changed, Iris had to walk quickly to match the pace of the tall men. A car that was waiting to turn right impatiently nudged into the wave of pedestrians. Iris shot a glance across the street and saw Angus and Bobby crossing in the opposite direction from her.
