She smiled. “It sounds fine, Jed.”
I watched her scoot in behind the wheel of my car and turn the key. The engine started with a growl, and she put the car in gear. I stood there for almost a minute, watching Carmelita drive away while the dust settled on the shiny paint of Cosmo Beadle’s fancy sportscar. Then I got in the car and started the last leg of my drive to Ventura Boulevard, knowing I was about to enter the labyrinth of bureaucracy and hoping I’d get out of it without being eaten by a Minotaur or something worse.
Chapter Twenty
It turned out my prediction was pretty accurate. After finding a payphone and calling O’Neal, I had to wait around for close to an hour before she and a few black-and-whites made it to my location. I bided my time in a coffee shop, glad to get some food in me after the long night I’d had. The cops finally arrived, O’Neal and Crashaw in the lead. After a few minutes’ discussion, I led the way back along Paradise Road with O’Neal in Beadle’s car beside me. I laid out a selective version of the story for her, inventing a set of quadruplets rather than explain the assassins’ true origins; the story emphasized Elsa’s plans for Nixon and the way Mercy had inadvertently spoiled it by mistaking two of the living quadruplets for the deceased fourth—whom Klaus Lang had spirited out of war-torn Germany some thirty years earlier. I left all mention of Carmelita out of it, telling O’Neal that I’d driven the Patterson into the hills and fought the Nazis myself; I also told her the airship had turned away of its own accord, possibly because of some communication mix-up or maybe because the pilot hadn’t liked the landing conditions around the movie set. When I told O’Neal whose car we were riding in and that the body of Beadle’s chauffeur was waiting for us at Gold Rush Gulch, she just about had a fit—not only upset that I had commandeered the dead man’s car but also that I had invited her in without warning her that she was sitting comfortably in a rolling piece of evidence.
I managed to calm her down—but just barely—before we made it to the old movie set, and then the fun began. She sent me to sit in the Patterson while she started on Edward’s body; Crashaw and the rest went to work freeing and then more properly and more conventionally restraining the assassins. By the time O’Neal came and found me dozing in the Patterson, she was convinced that there would be enough evidence to hold all three of the killers, who were going by the names they’d grown up with rather than confusing things by calling themselves Klaus. She even figured there’d be a good chance she could work each against the others to get one of them to break and give up the truth of what had happened to Mercy Attentater.
“So, you’re ready to let go of the idea that Carmelita had anything to do with it?”
She gave me a smug look. “Until further notice,” she said. “But don’t get too comfortable with her. I still don’t trust her.”
“And you’ll put out an APB on Elsa Schwartz?”
She cranked up the dial on smugness and said, “Let me do my job, Jed. You’re out of it now.”
“I understand,” I replied. “But I’m not sure you understand that I’m not really going to be out of it one hundred percent until you’ve got Elsa behind bars.”
After a while, she radioed for two tow trucks—one for Cosmo’s sportscar and the other for the Patterson. Then it was more waiting. By the time the old pick-up truck was rolling along behind the tow rig on Ventura Boulevard, it was close to four in the afternoon, and I was in no mood to deal with Mullen Peale or Carmelita or anything else.
I had the driver take the Patterson to Chavez Ravine where I found Guillermo not too upset over the damage Carmelita had sustained.
“She seems fine, I think,” he said. We were talking in the yard, Carmelita visible through the front window. My mechanical assistant was reading a newspaper in the little house’s living room.
“Is there any way to find out for sure without her knowing about it?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Not until the next time her power supply runs down. Until then…” He shrugged. “We’ll keep an eye on her, yes? If there’s no malfunction, there’s nothing to worry about or try to fix.”
This was the first I had heard about Carmelita’s supply of Chavezium needing to be updated, but it made sense. Nothing lasts forever, after all.
When I gave Guillermo the short version of how all the Klaus Langs had ended up in this world, his eyes lit up. “They really crossed over? Just like you did in the accident?” he asked.
“If what Elsa said is true. Do you think you’d ever be able to build a machine that could open a connection like that?”
He shrugged. “I would need more information on what this Lang fellow did, but…then? Maybe?”
I nodded and said, “Well, I don’t think we’re going to get anything more. It was all in a book that Elsa got away with.” Not for the first time, I recalled how close I’d been to grabbing the plainly covered book at Gold Rush Gulch. I’d lost the chance in order to save Carmelita, and when I looked at her through the window and saw the way Guillermo looked at her as well, I didn’t regret the choice at all.
Maybe, I thought as Guillermo led the way into the house, it’s time to let go of the idea that I can get back to my world. Make the best of this one instead.
It was early evening and Echo Park wasn’t far away; regardless, I didn’t have it in me to pack Carmelita into my car and make the short drive home. Knowing that Carmelita would slip into her torpor state before long, I soon found the couch in Guillermo’s front room, lay down on it with Perdida at my feet, and closed my eyes. I didn’t open them again until dawn.
In the morning, Guillermo fixed an extra plate of scrambled eggs and toast without my asking him to. Carmelita, true to form, told us that she’d gotten up early and eaten without us. The three of us passed sections of the morning paper back and forth as Perdida circled our feet, hoping for scraps she wouldn’t be able to eat but which her programming told her to desire regardless. It was quite the domestic scene, the hole in Carmelita’s chest notwithstanding.
Near the back of the paper, I saw the obituaries and funeral announcements, not a section I usually peruse. But I caught sight of the word “Attentater” in one of the middle columns and started reading. It appeared that Mercy’s service was going to be that morning, and that it was going to be a double funeral, combined with her deceased father-in-law, Klaus Lang. I saw that the service was going to be at Morris Brothers’ mortuary near downtown.
Folding the paper closed, I said, “Carmelita, if I can convince Peggy to swing by and pick you up, would you mind going in to the office without me this morning?”
She tilted her head a tiny bit as she processed my question and then said, “No. That’s fine. I wanted to finish writing up my report on Mullen Peale.”
“That’s fine. I’ll call Peggy.”
I stood up and straightened my clothes, hoping I looked presentable enough for a funeral. Peggy, as always, was amenable to the change in her routine once I explained everything that had gone on since I’d seen her last. Then, telling Guillermo I’d check in with him later, I headed out, glad to be behind the wheel of my car again and pointing it toward something I knew I could wrap my head around.
Morris Brothers was part of a cluster of funeral homes south of downtown. I arrived early and opted to wait in the car rather than go inside, not relishing the thought of spending extra time with Mercy’s and Klaus’s corpses. After about half an hour, I noticed other cars parking on the street near the mortuary; drivers and passengers emerged and crossed the street to go inside. Most were women, and from what I could tell they looked like they matched Mercy’s body type—other dancers from the Rose Room, I assumed. I also noticed some men, most of them gray-haired and slow-moving.
As I got out of my car, I noticed one other vehicle pulling up to the curb. Crossing the street, I saw that this latest arrival was Detective O’Neal. In the car with her was McNulty, and I was glad to see him rather than the abrasive Crashaw. I reached the sidewalk and waited for the detectives.
&nb
sp; “Strait,” O’Neal said with a nod after she’d gotten out of her car and crossed the street.
“Detectives,” I said, returning the nod to both of them. McNulty offered his hand, and I shook it. Then I stepped aside to let them go into the mortuary ahead of me.
“Wasn’t expecting to see you here,” O’Neal whispered as we walked down a flower-lined hallway toward a hand-written sign that said “Attentater/Lang.” Organ music played unobtrusively in the background.
“It was a last-minute decision,” I said. “I just thought I’d pay Mercy my last respects.”
“And Lang?”
“Two for one,” I said. “You?”
She gave me a brief, sly look and then said, “You should be able to guess.”
“Hoping Elsa shows?”
She shrugged. “Leave no stone, right?”
“Right,” I said. It had not occurred to me until now that Elsa might show up at the funeral, either to gloat in the back row or to see about wrapping up loose ends. The thought made me a little nervous. I had left my gun in the trunk of my car and wished I had brought it into the mortuary. In its absence, I resolved to stick close by the two detectives and the concealed weapons they no doubt had.
The room where the service was being held had several rows of chairs, mostly occupied already. At the front of the room were two coffins placed head to head, both with the lids open, a large wreath at the foot of each one. Walking in, I could see Mercy and Klaus in their final repose, but from the back of the room I couldn’t see either of their features very well. The detectives and I took our seats among the old men and the exotic dancers while the organ music continued playing. I saw the little doorman who’d tipped me off to Klaus Lang, and I noticed that he saw me, too. The man with the accent gave me a nod, and I returned it. Then he turned his attention back to the two coffins, and we waited for the service to begin.
I was expecting a minister to officiate, a milky-skinned fellow in a black suit, probably someone hired by the mortuary to say a few prayers and offer words of comfort to the mourners, words that would ring hollow because he likely hadn’t known either of the deceased, nor would he have frequented places like the Rose Room. That’s not what we got, though. A doorway opened and a little woman in a purple dress walked in; by “little” I mean no more than three-and-a-half feet tall. Looking around at the varied mourners in the chapel, I saw that the woman in purple seemed to fit right in. I thought at first that she might be another dancer, but I realized before too long that this woman seemed to serve a different role among the mourners, or at least those who were there for Mercy. The woman seemed to be a mother figure, and by the time the service was over, I had come to think of her as a sort of chaplain, a spiritual advisor for these women whose lives seemed so unconventional and so removed from the kind of spirituality most folks get sold on.
The organ music came to an end, and the woman in purple disappeared behind a podium off to the side of the caskets. I heard the sound of heels on wood, and then saw her face appear at the top of the podium, assuming she had climbed a few steps to be able to reach a spot where she could see and be seen.
“Good morning,” she said, her voice stronger than her physique would have suggested. “I am glad so many of you could join us on this sad occasion.”
What followed was your standard fare, but when the woman officiating got to the point in the service where she discussed the lives of the deceased, she offered none of the cookie-cutter platitudes that a ministerial gun-for-hire might have delivered. Instead, she spoke about Mercy and Klaus like she’d known them, and for all I knew, she had. My guess was that she really had known Mercy and that the discussion of Klaus was a result of some conscientious digging into the man’s life. Most of what she said about Klaus had to do with his role as a father and father-in-law, accentuating his devotion to Mercy after the death of his adopted son.
About Mercy, the woman in purple said, in part, “She was the kind of person who didn’t let her troubles slow her down. Not a perfect size for a woman living in this society? That didn’t stop her from doing her job and doing it beautifully. War widow? She mourned her husband like anyone else would have, but she kept her life going despite her suffering. Mercy was sweet but tough when she had to be, kind but wary when she needed to be, generous but demanding when she knew she had no choice. I can think of no one else like her, and I don’t suppose I ever will. I won’t go so far as to say she was the best of us, but she was awfully, awfully close. Things aren’t going to be the same without her.”
It was a moving speech, probably made more so because of all the sniffles I was hearing from the mourners, and it made me sorry I’d never get the chance to know Mercy more than our two brief conversations had allowed.
More prayers followed, during which I bowed my head out of respect, but that was about as far as it went for me. My mind drifted while the prayers droned on, mostly going back over the events of the last couple of days. You’d think the fight with the assassins would have been the thing I’d focus on the most, as that had been the most intense part of the whole thing. But that wasn’t it. Instead, my thoughts kept drifting back to the little office where I’d met Sherise Pike and the little bit I knew about her from the other world I’d visited on Friday night. I thought of her eyes and her nose ring and her tattoos. Maybe it was a result of being around all the burlesque dancers at the service, and maybe it was because of the feelings of regret and lost opportunities the officiator’s speech had filled me with. Regardless of the reason, though, it was like my mind was caught in a funnel, and Sherise was the tiny center that pulled everything toward it, an irresistible force. I kept having to jar myself back in the right direction, reminding myself that I was in a room with two corpses, a handful of mourners, and two watchful detectives.
Elsa Schwartz never showed up, but I noticed McNulty and O’Neal scanning the room and watching the entrance for any sign of her. I was glad she didn’t appear, not because I wanted her to have gotten away but because it would have put an end to the solemnity of the service. Mercy and Klaus deserved to go out with a little dignity, I thought.
When the talking was through, the woman in purple invited the mourners to file past the caskets for a last look. The two detectives stayed planted in their chairs, but I went ahead and joined the queue, ending up between the little doorman with the big eyebrows and one of the Rose Room’s dancers, dressed all in black. When it was my turn to pause for a moment and look down at Mercy’s remains, I couldn’t help thinking of the last woman’s casket I’d looked into; Annabelle had drawn me to California, and in the end, I’d taken her back east in a box just like this one. I felt strangely like the two coffins were bookends, and in the middle was Jed Strait, private investigator, trying his best not to play the blues.
Mercy looked at peace, which is, I suppose, the goal of any mortician worth his pay. Seeing the unfortunate woman in her repose made me glad I’d done all I could to bring her killer to justice. And then, as I stood there, I realized that whatever role I’d played in bringing the case to its close, the outcome wouldn’t have been the same if it hadn’t been for Carmelita. She had both saved me and stopped the assassins from making their run for the southern border. Her interference in their plans had been accidental, of course, but it was undeniable nevertheless. The thought of it brought a little smile to my lips, one I had to wipe off before stepping away from Mercy’s casket.
After the service, I waited on the sidewalk until O’Neal and McNulty exited the mortuary. This gave me the opportunity to peruse the rest of the mourners, all of whom seemed to be sizing me up as well. I suppose the people who’d come for Klaus thought I was there for Mercy, and those who’d come for Mercy thought I was there for Klaus. When I saw the little doorman from the Rose Room, I nodded him over and quietly said, “Do you mind if I ask you something?”
“What is it?” he asked, wiping tears from his cheeks.
“This double funeral. Whose idea was it?”
&nb
sp; “Phyllis,” he said, as though this was supposed to mean something to me. He must have caught my quizzical expression, as he explained after a moment. “The woman who spoke. She is like mother to the girls.”
“But how’d she know Klaus was dead?”
“Cops,” he said. Then he nodded toward the door of the little funeral home. “They come around after Mercy died, and they come back around after the old man.” His eyes narrowed at me. “I don’t mind to say that I tell them about you, how you ask about Mercy, how you follow the old man out that night.”
I nodded. “That’s all right,” I said. “I’m glad you did. And I suppose you’ve figured out since then that I’m not the enemy.”
His expression relaxed a little. “Is true. When I see you in there with cops, I guess they would have put the cuffs to you if you were bad guy.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I suppose you’re right. Thanks for your help.”
He turned away and joined the other mourners as they walked to their cars. I saw him linking arms with a woman who was at least a foot taller than him, and then he disappeared into the crowd.
O’Neal and McNulty joined me moments later.
“How’d it go with our German friends?” I asked as we crossed the street together.
O’Neal gave me a little smile. “Awfully cocky of you, isn’t it? Just assuming I’ll spill privileged information on a case we haven’t even taken to the DA yet?”
“Sorry,” I said. “I just figured that, since I’m probably still a target, you’d maybe let me know if you were going to kick one or more of those guys loose. So I can watch my back, you know?”
The detective’s smile grew slyer. “Sure, Strait. I get it.” She leaned a little closer to me and dropped her voice. “Just between you and me, all right?”
“Of course.”
“Prints from one of the Germans matches what we found in Lang’s apartment.”
I nodded. “About that…” I said, pondering the truth I had kept from the detective—that the men in her custody weren’t brothers but alternate versions of the same person. “How do you suppose it is that they have different finger prints if they’re identical?”
The Double-Time Slide: A Dieselpunk Adventure (The Crossover Case Files Book 2) Page 24
