Staying Cool

by Catherine Todd

  “I see.” This was sounding almost as good as Dr. Nugent’s diet, and about as likely to work. It didn’t matter that I was something of a fraud in that world anyway. It was good to hear that there was still hope for somebody.

  She smiled again, more broadly. “So you see, you have nothing to worry about. As I mentioned, I can think of one or two people already who might be suitable.”

  My mouth went dry. “How does that work, exactly?”

  “Unless you prefer some other arrangement, the man will call you. We think it is best not to provide too much information beforehand. We do the prescreening, and our clients trust our judgment. We’ve found from experience that a natural exchange of stories and information is the best way, so that people aren’t forming all sorts of preconceived expectations or prejudices. I can do it otherwise, but I strongly feel that this way is best. Does that sound acceptable to you?”

  I nodded mutely.

  “Good. Then usually the gentleman will arrange to meet you at a restaurant or someplace similar for your first encounter. However, I can tell you that you needn’t have any fears about disclosing your home address or any personal information, as you would with a dating service. We are very select.”

  “I understand.” Well, they might have been select, but I wasn’t sure, on the basis of my own case, how much checking they really did. Maybe they went by instinct, but instinct could be wrong. I was definitely going to opt for the public place.

  A blind date. That’s what it was, no matter how pretentious and exclusive the wrapping paper. I still couldn’t believe I’d gotten myself into this.

  On my way out, I decided that a friendly chat with the receptionist might be in order if I were to learn more than I had from Melanie Klein, who was, by her own admission, inordinately discreet.

  The lobby was empty, and I made a beeline to the front desk.

  The receptionist looked up. She was about twenty and very attractive. “Can I help you, Ms. St. James?” Efficient, too, apparently.

  “Should I give you a check?” I asked her.

  She smiled. “That won’t be necessary. We’ll send you a bill.”

  I wondered if they had checked my fake financial references. “How do you know I’m good for it?” I asked.

  She looked shocked, and then she laughed. “Well, actually, if Ms. Klein has any doubts, she asks her assistant to check it out,” she said disingenuously.

  We shared a chuckle about the absurdity of this being necessary in my case. I looked around, casting about for something to prolong the conversation. “This must be a very interesting place to work,” I said.

  “Very,” she agreed.

  She obviously wasn’t the talkative type. “Have you worked here long?” I asked.

  “Only a few months.” She hesitated, as if she were considering whether to volunteer any more information. It had probably been impressed upon her numerous times that rich clients have their little eccentricities and that her job was to accommodate them as far as reasonably possible, because she added, “Actually, this is only a temporary job for me. I’m taking the semester off.”

  “To get some work experience. That’s great,” I told her.

  She laughed. “Yes, and to earn some money.” She said this matter-of-factly, which, under the circumstances, showed some style.

  “Where do you go?”

  “UCLA.”

  What luck: an excuse for further prying. “So did I!”

  “Really?” She said it politely. I recognized the tone from my own student days, when alums would approach me on campus and launch into a story about their glory days in the postwar years. (“Before Pauley Pavilion was even built!”) The tone said she hoped I wasn’t going to initiate one of those stories, but if I did, she would be nice about it.

  “Yes, a long time ago,” I said. “What are you majoring in?”

  She hesitated for a split second. “Sociology. What about you?”

  “Art.” Too late to distract me; I’d figured out the reason for the hesitation. I lowered my voice. “You’re working here to get information for a sociology project, aren’t you?”

  She flushed so quickly, I knew I hadn’t been mistaken. “I—”

  I felt guilty at making her so uncomfortable. “It’s all right, I won’t mention it to anyone,” I assured her.

  “I’m not doing anything wrong,” she said, flustered. “But I haven’t discussed it with Ms. Klein, and I’m not sure how comfortable she’d feel with it. I’m not going to write an exposé or name the clients or anything like that. Please don’t say anything to her.”

  I would have loved to have told her the truth about myself, so we could savor the irony together, but I didn’t dare. Instead I said, “I’m sure it’s perfectly aboveboard, as long as you don’t breach client confidentiality. I won’t ruin it for you.”

  “Oh, thank you. I really appreciate that.”

  Now that I had her gratitude, I could move in for the kill. “Were you here when…when Ms. Ivanova was murdered?”

  Her eyes grew round, and she looked very young. “I’d just started the week before. The other receptionist left suddenly, and they needed a replacement fast. When I saw the ad in the paper, I knew the opportunity was too good to pass up. Ms. Ivanova interviewed me herself. I never thought she’d be dead in a couple of days.”

  “There must have been a lot of interesting material for you,” I said.

  She looked at me oddly. “How do you mean?”

  “In the aftermath of the murder. Everyone’s reactions. Restructuring businesses and lives. That sort of thing.”

  “Oh, yes, I see.” She looked sheepish. “Well, to tell you the truth, I was upset by the whole thing, and I wasn’t really detached enough to do research on it.”

  “Well, that’s natural.” I lowered my voice. “I don’t suppose you ever saw the kid who did it around here before the murder?”

  She shook her head. “I heard that his mother used to work here, but I never saw him or heard his name mentioned. I don’t even want to think about it, it’s so horrible. I mean, how could somebody do that, just for a handful of junk from this office? Ms. Klein said there were some valuable artworks here, but he didn’t have enough sense to take those.” She shrugged and laughed. “Well, I wouldn’t have, either, but you see what I mean. It just seems so senseless.”

  “Yes, extremely,” I agreed. I kept looking over my shoulder for another client or Melanie Klein to put an end to our tête-à-tête. “Do you have any idea what he did take?”

  “Oh, yes, I had to prepare an inventory for the police. Just small things, like a desk clock, and a calculator, Ms. Ivanova’s ATM card. Things like that.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Ms. Ivanova had a beautiful watch. I noticed her wearing it when she interviewed me. Apparently she had it on the night she died, but he didn’t take that, either. It’s funny, you know?”

  “Maybe he was scared.”

  “Not too scared to rummage around in the client files, though, and make off with some of those. That takes a certain coolness, don’t you think?”

  “What on earth would he want with Ivanova Associates’ files?” I asked her. This was totally new to me. I was sure I’d never heard about it during the trial.

  “Who knows? Maybe he was just vandalizing the place and making it hard on us. Kids think that sort of thing is funny.” She said this seriously, from the perspective of the two- or three-year advantage she had over Ramon. “I could be mistaken, though, because, come to think of it, no one identified them as missing on the inventory list when I made it up. It wasn’t till a few days later, when the office was functioning again and I was trying to do some filing, that Ms. Ivanova’s secretary—I mean Ms. Klein’s secretary—told me they were missing. Maybe I assumed they were part of the burglary or somehow got that impression. I can’t remember.” She shrugged. “Well, I guess we’ll never know.”

  “Not unless the killer volunteers something,” I told her. “Still, there’s a
lot going on around here for a budding sociologist to study.”

  She smiled, but before she could reply, the door to the inner sanctum opened and Melanie Klein looked at us inquiringly. “Everything all right, Ms. St. James?” she asked.

  I’m sure she would never have believed we had the bad taste to be discussing the murder, but I did not want her to reprimand this sweet child for excessive volubility with clients, or whatever transgression she was imagining. The girl’s sudden tension spoke volumes about what kind of boss Melanie Klein really was, despite her surface affability. I said, “I’m afraid I’ve been taking up too much of your receptionist’s time,” I told her. “My daughter is going on a work/study tour this semester, and Miss”—I looked at her nameplate—“Hutchins and I were just comparing notes.”

  “How nice,” she said smoothly. “Christine, did you offer Ms. St. James a cup of tea or some espresso?”

  “Yes, she did,” I replied, before she could answer, “but I’m afraid I should be on my way.”

  Christine smiled at me gratefully.

  “Thank you again for your time,” I said to Melanie Klein.

  “My pleasure,” she said, raising her palm in a little farewell wave that Queen Elizabeth herself might have envied.

  I’d been intending to stop by the office and talk to Diana on my way home, but after mulling over all the information I’d gleaned at Ivanova Associates and dictating my research notes into the little cassette recorder I’d bought for the purpose, it was later than I had realized. Still, I was pleased with the results of my efforts. Although I was undeniably jittery about my imminent return to the dating scene, it seemed to me that a couple of awkward dinners was a small price to pay for the progress I was making on the investigation. Well, not a huge price, anyway.

  I glanced at my watch. Rush hour—inaptly named; the portion of the day it referred to hadn’t been limited to an hour since approximately 1956—was about to commence. Traveling in L.A. was always a calculation: If I leave now, how long will it take me? If I leave after three, is it worth going at all? The answer to the second question was usually “no.”

  I thought about stasis on the San Diego Freeway, sucking exhaust. “Screw it,” I thought. “I’ll call Diana later.” On an impulse, I headed in the general direction of downtown, against the flow of cars. I wanted to visit something I’d read about in the paper: an Art Park, located on an abandoned construction site, that showed the work of professional artists and at-risk or homeless neighborhood kids.

  I found it in the middle of a welter of check-cashing stores and pawn shops and Mexican bakeries (panaderías, with names like Flor de Michoacan and Rosita Mexicana). The signs were mostly in Spanish, if you didn’t count the giant ones pointing the way to the baseball stadium. The “gallery” had walls, but no ceiling, and the sun was beating down mercilessly on some out-sized wrought-iron sculptures and some wildly colored acrylic paintings that looked even more vivid, thanks to the smoggy light. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t have been interested in these kinds of works at all, but I was attracted by the oddity of the situation and the incredible flamboyant vitality of the art. Even if you didn’t like it, you could feel it. That gave it a kind of raw power. I got out of the car.

  An extra-large but somehow delicate metal rose, curving lightly, appeared to sprout out of the asphalt in front of me. I admired it and walked over to a wall of paintings that were obviously done by students, and some of them fairly young at that. The works carried labels from art programs I’d never heard of. One of the paintings showed a young boy with oversized hands and feet holding two flags—one Mexican and the other American. One side of his body was limned in green, the other in red and blue. He was smiling. It was charming and very well executed. I couldn’t help smiling, too.

  Something scraped behind me. I turned quickly; this was not the safest part of town, even by daylight. I found myself being watched by a kid of about ten in a white shirt and black pants. He wore heavy black thick-soled shoes that hadn’t been considered fashionable footwear for people his age since the last century. His hair was dark and thick and hung in his eyes. It needed cutting. “Hi,” I said.

  He ducked his head and grinned shyly. He came up beside me and stared at the painting, riveted. Then he looked at me expectantly.

  “Yours?” I asked, already guessing the answer.

  “Yes.” It sounded like “Jes.” He looked enormously pleased with himself.

  “It’s very good,” I told him. “You should be proud.”

  “Thank you,” he said formally, in heavily accented English. “I come to look at it every day.”

  I hid a smile. “Did you come here from Mexico?” I asked him.

  He nodded. “Two years ago. With my papa and my mama.” His gaze returned with admiration at his handiwork. “I painted this for my abuelo.” He looked at me uncertainly.

  “Your grandfather?”

  He smiled. “Yes. When they have finished with it here, I will send it to him in Mexico.”

  “I’m sure he’ll like that,” I told him. “Where does he live?”

  “In Hermosillo.”

  A pretty town in northern Mexico. I’d heard of it, though I’d never been there. Hermosillo was one of the things my mother didn’t talk about. My father had been born there. “My father came from Hermosillo,” I told him.

  His eyes widened in disbelief. I was dressed in my Saks outfit for impressing Melanie Klein, with high heels and a tasteful strand of pearls that were my mother’s only inheritance (other than the Curse). Clearly, I was an anomaly in this part of town. “Really?” he asked politely.

  “Really,” I said. Somehow it was important to me that he believe it. “Just like your abuelito. He came to live in the United States when he was young, like your parents. Later he went back to Mexico.”

  “Where does he live now?” he asked, scuffing his foot against the ground.

  “He’s dead,” I told him.

  He crossed himself. “Did they shoot him?” he asked gravely.

  The calm acceptance knifed me in the gut. “No, he just died,” I said. I thought of his honest pride in his work, and the hopefulness the picture represented. I didn’t want him to lose that. I wanted to give him something before adolescence and the temptations of the street got their claws into him. Even on short acquaintance, I thought he was probably worth ten Mira Jensens. “Listen,” I said, “I want to tell you something important.” I looked at him. “What is your name?”

  “Camilo.”

  “Listen, Camilo, I’m in the art business—I find good paintings for people who want to buy them. I know what I’m talking about. You have talent. You should keep painting, if you enjoy it. Go to school. Take classes. Someday, people will buy your work too.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. I work almost exclusively with Latino artists. They are famous. They make money. People admire what they do. Remember what I’m telling you.” I was running on, but I really wanted him to understand. To believe.

  “I’ll remember,” He grinned. “You were telling me the truth? Your papa really came from Mexico?”

  “Cross my heart,” I said.

  16

  I would rather have gone on a month-long spiritual retreat with Jimmy Swaggart than call Ramon Garcia’s mother, but it looked as if I was going to have to. The information about the missing files had tipped the scales; I had to find out from Ramon what had happened in that office. I had to hear his side of the story of the murder. I didn’t think I could find out anything more about it by tiptoeing around the Main Event the way I’d been doing.

  To get to Ramon, I knew I had to go through his mother.

  Or I could forget about the whole thing.

  The truth (there’s that word again) is, I’d reached the point in the “investigation” where I was going to have to get personally involved with certain facts and people I’d previously found it more pleasant to ignore. Murderers and lowlife burglars weren’t exactly my cup of tea, and I di
dn’t relish the thought of consorting with people whose idea of art is something that comes out of a spray can.

  The other thing was that, where I was headed, the emotions were definitely rawer and possibly more dangerous, and I didn’t want to go blundering around in the Garcia family skeletons, upsetting a woman who obviously loved her son whether he deserved it or not.

  Everything I’d done up to now had been playacting—like auditioning for the role of Female Sleuth. I’d asked a few questions; I’d pretended to be a client at Ivanova Associates, but nobody had gotten hurt, including me. If I backed out now, I wouldn’t be risking anything.

  On the other hand, my visit to the Art Park had reminded me of lots of good reasons for getting involved with people and projects that weren’t necessarily conventionally “safe.” It had even reminded me why I’d wanted to get involved with art in the first place—certainly not so I could hang expensive objects on the walls of people’s sterile palaces just so they could prove to their friends that they had money and taste. How had I let that become my life? I’d gotten so used to clients wanting objects for some other purpose—status, decoration, chic—without really connecting with their choices, that I’d lost sight of what had moved me about art originally: What does it mean? How does it push the limits? Why do I care?

  I was tired of just going through the motions, with art and life generally. Investigating this case was the first thing that had made me really connect with anything in a long time.

  I didn’t want to give that up.

  The problem was, although there were some unresolved issues, the probability was still better than 90 percent that the right guy was behind bars. I wasn’t tormented by sleepless nights of wondering how poor Ramon was faring in jail. I wasn’t on a crusade to liberate an innocent man. I just wanted to know the truth.