Lullaby Town

by Robert Crais

  He poured himself more of the Knockando and got up and went over to the glass doors. "I want to know what you've got on Karen."

  "You mean, how close have I come to finding her in the six hours since I started looking?"

  "Yeah."

  "She is no longer a member of SAG or SEG or AFTRA, which probably means she no longer acts or works in front of the camera. I spoke with people I know at the Bank of America and the phone company and the police, all of whom are checking their computers for information about her past or present, but I probably won't hear from any of them until tomorrow. I talked with the man who was her theatrical agent, Oscar Curtiss, who is trying to be helpful but probably won't be. It goes like that sometimes. He wanted me to tell you that because he would like to do business with you."

  Peter made a little flipping gesture with his drink. "Fuck'm."

  I shrugged.

  Peter said, "That's it?"

  "Yep."

  "I thought it would go faster."

  "Most people do."

  Peter poured himself another three fingers of the Knockando, took it to the glass doors, and drank it. He stared out at the canyon for a while, then put the glass and the bottle on the floor and turned back to me. It took an effort to get himself turned around, like a tall ship in a wind with a lot of sail. He said, "I'm calling you out." Marshal Dillon.

  I said, "Yeah?"

  He nodded. "You're goddamned right. I didn't like the way you spoke to me at the studio today, and I don't like the way you're speaking to me now. I'm Peter Alan Nelsen and I don't take shit."

  I looked at Dani. She said, "Why don't we just leave, Peter? He doesn't want to party. We can go somewhere and party without him."

  Peter said, "Hey, Dani, you wanna leave, leave, but I'm calling this sonofabitch out." Peter sort of swayed forward, squinting the way you do when you're seeing three or four of something that there's only one of.

  He said, "C'mon, goddamnit, I'm serious," and put up his fists. When his fists went up the cat howled loud and mournful and flashed out from under the couch. He grabbed Peter's ankle and bit and screamed and clawed with his hind legs. Peter yelled, "Sonofabitch," jumped sideways, stumbled into the chair, and fell over backward. The cat sprinted back under the couch.

  I said, "Some cat, huh?"

  Dani helped Peter up, then righted the chair. Peter said, "Lemme alone," and pulled away from her. When he did he fell to his knees. He said, "I'm all right. I'm all right." Then he passed out.

  I said, "Is he like this a lot?"

  Dani said, "Pretty much, yeah."

  "I'll help you get him outside."

  "No, thanks. You could get the door, if you want."

  "You sure?"

  "I can bench two-thirty. I squat over four."

  Nope. She wouldn't need the help.

  Dani lifted him into the chair, then squatted in front of him and pulled him onto her shoulders and stood up. She said, "You see?"

  I got the door.

  She moved out past me and stopped on the porch and looked back at me. "I know it doesn't show, but he really likes you. You're all he talked about this afternoon."

  "Great."

  She frowned, maybe looking a little angry. Defensive for him. I liked that. "It's not easy being him. Here's a guy with all he has going, and he can't just go hang out, you see?"

  "Sure."

  "Everybody in his life is there because they want to screw him. Any time there's a woman, he's thinking it's because she wants to rip him off. Any time a guy says he's Peter's friend, it's because he wants to be in business with Peter Alan Nelsen, the big deal, not with Peter Nelsen, the guy." She said it as if we were just standing there, as if Peter Alan Nelsen wasn't an outsized yoke across her shoulders.

  I said, "He's got to be getting heavy."

  She smiled softly. "I can hold him all night."

  I followed her out to a black-on-black Range Rover and opened the right front door. She eased him into the front seat and carefully placed his head on the headrest and buckled the seat belt around him. She tested it to make sure it was snug. I said, "Everybody's out to screw him but you."

  She nodded, then shut the door and looked at me, and there was something soft within the hard muscle. She said, "Are you going to quit? He pulls stuff like this and most people quit."

  I shook my head. "I'm liking you too much to quit."

  She made the little soft smile again, then went around to the driver's side, got in, and made a U-turn onto the little road that winds down the blackness toward Laurel Canyon and Mulholland Drive

  .

  I went back into the house and picked up the empty glasses and the Knockando bottle and cleaned up the spilled booze. The cat came out from under the couch and watched me for a while, and then he left. Off to do cat things, no doubt.

  When the glasses were put away, I went out onto the deck again and looked down into the dark canyon below. It was open and free and, beneath me there, lights moved along the curving roads.

  Maybe they were Dani and Peter, but maybe they weren't.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The next morning I rose early and was out on the deck again while the sun was still low in the east. The canyon below was cold and green with a faint hint of haze, and high overhead a red hawk rode a growing thermal, looking for gophers.

  I did slow stretches and then the Twelve Sun Salutes from the hatha yoga and then an easy tae kwon do kata and then a hard one, snapping the moves with power and speed and certainty of purpose. It feels clean to do it that way. Sometimes when I practice in the early evening, the two little boys who live in the cantilevered house down the street come over and watch and we talk about things that are important to small boys. I find that they are important to me, too. In the morning, I am always alone. Lately I've noticed that I work out less in the morning and more in the evening. Maybe Peter Alan Nelsen was feeling that way, too.

  I showered and shaved and put out two eggs for poaching and made a batter for blueberry cottage cheese pancakes. While I waited for the griddle to heat, I called my answering machine. There were messages from my friends at the Bank of America and the phone company and from Lou Poitras. My friend at the B of A said that their credit check showed that no one named Karen Shipley or Karen Nelsen or listing either of those names as either a maiden or former name possessed a credit card of any kind anywhere within the United States. My friend at the phone company said pretty much the same. Lou Poitras said that Karen Shipley had once gotten a ticket for parking in a red zone but had paid it promptly. Her address at that time was the apartment she had shared with Peter Alan Nelsen. He said that if I found her, I probably wouldn't have to assume she was armed and dangerous, but that I might want to bring along backup just in case. That Lou. He's a riot, isn't he?

  I made four pancakes and the poached eggs, then crushed the poached eggs on top of the pancakes, poured a large glass of nonfat milk, and brought the food and the milk to the table. The cat had left during the night. Sometimes he eats breakfast with me, but sometimes he doesn't. When he doesn't, I don't know what he eats. Maybe small dogs.

  Karen Nelsen had no phone in either name, but I had sort of expected that. After ten years, the odds were large that she had remarried. The credit cards were another matter. If she had a credit card under Nelsen or Shipley, or with Nelsen or Shipley listed as a former name, she should've turned up. That was odd, but there were explanations. Maybe she had joined a cult and no longer had a name. Maybe she had given over all earthly traits and artifacts to a higher being named Klaatu, and in return Klaatu had blessed her with eternal bliss and escape from snoopy private cops. Or maybe she simply didn't like credit cards. Hmmm.

  I had run through all of my leads and I had come up with nothing and it made me feel small. I needed another line. Maybe I should ask Klaatu.

  The phone rang and Oscar Curtiss said, "I think I got a line on Karen Shipley for you."

  I said, 'Thanks, Klaatu."

  "Huh?"
>
  "I sneezed. What do you have?"

  "I dug out that stuff and I found an old address. It's 3484 Beechwood Canyon Place, Apartment 2

  . It's where she lived after the divorce."

  "Okay. Thanks."

  "I really broke my ass to find this stuff. Christ, I had it in storage in Glendale and I was two hours in traffic. You gonna tell Peter? You gonna tell Peter that I came through?" Peter making a little flipping gesture with his drink. Fuck'm.

  "Sure, Oscar. I'll tell him."

  Oscar said, "Oh, man." Excited at the possibilities.

  I said, "Hey, Oscar? Thanks. I appreciate it."

  Oscar Curtiss laughed. "Yeah, your thanks and appreciation won't buy dick. Just tell Peter, okay? This town, you're on Peter's team, you're made."

  "You bet, Oscar. Made." Fuck'm.

  I hung up.

  At nine-forty that morning, I looped down Mulholland to the Cahuenga Pass, then followed the pass down to Franklin Avenue

  and across the northern part of Hollywood to Beechwood Canyon. Beechwood Canyon starts high, just beneath the Hollywood sign, and winds its way down to Franklin at the bottom of the Hollywood Hills. There is a school at the bottom and a gas station and a lot of large apartment houses that used to be small apartment houses and don't look as nice large as they did small. Urban redevelopment. Between the big places sat small stucco bungalows that were neat and pretty and still managed to look like garages. The higher up the mountain you went, the more you saw of the bungalows and the less you saw of the developers.

  3484 was four narrow green stucco apartments stepping up the side of the hill in a line from the street, each one higher than the one in front. Cement steps went up along the left side, the steps cracked and uneven where a couple of ancient yucca trees had lifted them. The front apartment had a little porch with wooden wind chimes and lots of little cactuses in old clay pots that were painted the way maybe Indians would paint them, only the paint was chipped and faded just like the apartments. Four big century plants nested at the street, overgrown with the silver weeds you always see around them. All of it looked clean and all of it looked tended to, but only partway, as if whoever did it couldn't quite get the high spots and couldn't quite get in the corners and couldn't quite get all the grime or the weeds or the litter out. There was no driveway and no garage. Curb parking only.

  I drove past, turned around, and parked the Corvette on the steep grade across the street, then went up onto the little porch. The door opened before I could knock and a woman in her seventies looked out past three security chains. She was wearing a paisley housecoat. She said, "Can I help you?" high and hard, like maybe if she didn't like my answer the sort of help she'd give me was the LAPD's Metro Squad.

  I showed her the license. "About ten years ago a woman named Karen Shipley Nelsen lived here with a baby. I'm trying to find her. Do you have a few minutes to talk?"

  She stared at the license, then at me. "How do I know that's you?"

  I took out my driver's license so she could see the picture. Outside on the street a very tall white man and a short, slender Hispanic man walked past. The white guy was bald and wore a tie-dyed dashiki like people used to wear in 1969. The Hispanic guy combed his hair straight back and traced his hand along the lines of the Corvette as they went past. The woman squinted from the picture to the guys on the street, then to me, and said, "That your car?"

  I said it was.

  She nodded once, knowing. "You'd better watch after it. That little sonofabitch will steal it."

  I said I would keep an eye out.

  She craned around to watch the two guys on the street until she couldn't see them anymore, then she closed the door and unlatched the chains and opened it wider. "My name is Miriam Dichester. You can come in, but I think we'll leave this door open."

  "Sure."

  The living room was small and musty, with gray lace drapes and an ancient RCA black-and-white console television and a deep purple wingback couch with crocheted doilies on the arms. A long time ago the doilies had been white. The drapes had probably been white, too. Very old movie magazines sat in neat stacks on either side of the couch, and on the console television were framed photographs of Clark Gable and Walter Brennan and Ward Bond. The picture of Ward Bond was autographed. Ashtrays sprouted from the furniture like mushrooms and an open carton of Kent 100s sat on the coffee table. The air was sour with cigarettes and perspiration and Noxzema skin cream.

  Miriam Dichester took a single cigarette and a little blue Cricket lighter from her housecoat and fired up. I sat on the couch. She sat on a Morris chair. I hadn't seen a Morris chair in years. She said, "I watch the street out here and I know. These days, you better watch. That's why I have my place down here by the front. I can keep an eye on anything that comes up that walk." She waved the cigarette at the little broken walk that went up alongside the building. "Anything I don't like goes up there, I know about it. I got a little something to take care of it, too."

  I showed her the 8 x 10. This is Karen Shipley. Her son's name was Toby."

  "I know who you're talking about."

  I put the picture away. "Do you know how I can get in touch with her?"

  "No, I do not." She sucked more of the Kent, looking down the flat planes of her face at me. "I take care of my people. I guess I take care of them even when they don't live with me anymore."

  I said, "She's not looking at trouble here, Miriam. The ex-husband hasn't seen her or the boy since they were divorced, and he's feeling pretty bad about it. He wants a shot at knowing his son."

  She breathed in the rest of the Kent, then crushed it out. Three puffs, and she had drawn through 100 millimeters down to the filter. She said, "I don't like this. A woman gets dumped, then the sonofabitch who dumps her wants to come back to stir the pot again.

  And I'll bet you a high hand to heaven I know what he wants to stir it with, too."

  I gave her a little shrug. "They're adults, Miriam, they can work that out. The boy isn't. He's about twelve now and he's never met his father."

  She pursed the wrinkled mouth. She was wearing only the upper teeth. The lowers were in a glass by the telephone. She finally took out another Kent and lit up. Succumbing to the inevitable. "She lived with me for almost a year. She lived in number two, that's the one right behind."

  "Okay."

  "She wanted to be an actress. A lot of them come out here wanting that." She looked at the picture of Ward Bond and drew heavy on the Kent.

  "Only it wasn't happening."

  "She tried, though. She'd ask me to mind the baby so she could go out on readings, and I would, and for a while she worked at one of these carhop places, and I minded the baby then, too. She was good about it. She didn't abuse." Miriam leaned past me and peered out the open door. The flash of a bird. A passing car.

  "How long did that last?"

  "Two months. Maybe three." She leaned back as if whatever had caught her eye was gone. "I heard her crying one day and I went to see. She said she couldn't keep on like she was going. She said she had the baby. She said there had to be a way to make a life for herself. She was very serious about it. She talked about going to school."

  I thought of the Karen Shipley I had seen on the tape. Giggle. Do I havta, Peter? Giggle. "Did she enroll?"

  Miriam Dichester shook her head and finished off another Kent. "She didn't have the money. And what was she going to do with the baby?"

  "Did she have friends? Boyfriends, maybe." As soon as the one Kent was dead, she fired up another.

  "No. She was alone. Just her and the baby. Not even any family to go to. After a while she didn't even leave the apartment. She just sat there, a young girl like that. Then she moved out."

  "She tell you where she was going?"

  "She didn't say nothing when she moved out. She just up and left, owing me three months' back rent."

  She leaned forward again to look out the door. This time when she looked, I looked with her. It was catching. I sai
d, "You seem to like her."

  "I do."

  "Even though she stiffed you on the rent."

  She waved the cigarette at me. "She paid it back. Couple of years later I got a letter. There was a U.S. postal money order in it for every nickel and the interest, too. How many people you know would do that?"

  "A couple."

  "Then all right. There was a little note in there apologizing and saying she hoped I wouldn't think bad of her for what she did but it couldn't be helped."

  "You like her a lot."

  Another nod. More of the Kent.

  "You keep the letter?"

  She said, "Oh, Lord, I got so much stuff scattered around."

  "Maybe you could take a look."

  She squinted out past the drapes to the street. "I go digging around in the back, I can't see the front."

  "I'll watch the front for you."

  "That little sonofabitch is looking to steal something, mark my words. They're coming back."

  "I'll watch. I'm good at watching." I tapped my cheek under my right eye. Watchful.

  She nodded and bustled over to a little secretary that was against the wall near where the living room L'd into the dining room. Three small drawers were fit across the top of the secretary, and she opened them one by one, looking through pens and pencils and note cards and small envelopes and photographs and a crushed flower and newspaper clippings that looked, from across the room, like obituary columns, and things that might've been forty years old. Precious things. She rustled around in it for a while, talking to me but really talking to herself, saying how she'd have to clean the place up, saving that she started to last week but then someone named Edna called and that had been that, no one ever calls until you're about to do something. She went through the drawers and she came up with a small white envelope that had been torn along the top edge. It had been in the little drawer for so long that the ragged tears were crushed flat and smooth and the paper was dingy. She took out a single sheet of folded yellow notepaper and read it and then showed it to me. It was exactly as Miriam Dichester had said it was, Karen apologizing for leaving while still owing money, saying she hoped Miriam hadn't experienced a hardship because of it, saying a check had been enclosed to pay Miriam back in full, including 6½% interest, and that she appreciated the kindness and friendship that Miriam had shown her and her son while they had lived with her. There was no return address and no hotel letterhead and no mention of where Karen was or where she was going. The envelope was postmarked Chelam, CT.