Bickerstaff sat again and leaned back in his chair, his face tightening with anger. He was a real control freak, this one, Lorraine surmised, and she picked up his hostility immediately. “He’s admitted both.”
“Way it sounds, he’s admitting to any stiff we had in or around L.A. since 1965.” He laughed and she took the cigarette out of her mouth. “How much if I get you proof that it was Art Mathews? You wouldn’t look so dumb about his suicide. As it stands now, Janklow said he killed them, which makes Art Mathews look as if he was put under so much pressure he killed himself …”
“You want me to hire you?” he said with a sarcastic smile.
“You can call it what you like. I just need cash to get cards printed, a word processor, pay a little rent.”
“You withholding further evidence, Ms. Page?”
“No, and maybe I’m wrong, but I think Art Mathews killed both Holly and Didi. And if he didn’t, I’d like to find out who did. And, if you don’t have Janklow on the stand, maybe you’ll have somebody else, because I’m sure Art didn’t do the murders alone.”
“You gonna give me a name?”
“I don’t have one yet, but I’m working on it. Come on, I know there’s a kitty for informers—you can call me that if you like. It’s not as if the FBI’s broke, and it might be useful to you, Mr. Bickerstaff.”
He smarted at her audacity. “How much?”
She stubbed out her cigarette. “Ten grand, in cash, in an envelope.”
He sucked in his breath, stood up, and stuffed his hands in his trouser pockets. “Make it five and you’ve got a deal—if you get us proof that Art Mathews did the murders.”
She tossed the hair out of her eyes. “You’ve got a deal, Mr. Bickerstaff. I’ll be in touch.”
When the door closed behind her, he could still smell her perfume. He liked it, but he was unsure about what he had just agreed to do. Then he shrugged it off—probably be able to pass her over the cash from his own expenses and if she did come up with something worthwhile then it would be a plus for him. He quite honestly no longer gave a damn about Lorraine Page.
* * *
Lorraine took a bus to West Hollywood and headed off to the clubs in search of Curtis. She found him in a bar with a blond Holly look-alike on his arm. When he saw her he whistled and she pivoted for him like a model.
“I want to talk to you, Curtis, someplace private.” She swore she was on the level and they headed into a back room. They were only there for about ten minutes before they returned to the bar.
“You want a drink, Lorraine?”
“I’m not drinking today, but thanks for the offer.” She banged out of the bar into the brilliant afternoon sunshine. She hadn’t thought he’d bite but he had cared for Holly and what was a couple of grand? His girls were making that in a night for him. She caught the next bus home, taking out the dirty used notes Curtis had passed over. They were all in tens and twenties, but he’d been straight, there was two grand. It was enough to last for a while.
Rosie was waiting, immediately asking where she’d been. Lorraine would only tell her that she’d done a deal with Ed Bickerstaff. Rosie tried to get more information out of her but she was too busy taking a shower and changing. An hour later they left together with an overnight bag. They rented not a wreck but a decent car. They had a long drive ahead of them, maybe seven or eight hours: they were heading for San Francisco.
Rosie did most of the driving while Lorraine map-read. They only stopped for gasoline and coffee. It was after midnight when they arrived in San Francisco and booked into a cheap motel on the outskirts. Rosie was hungry and went out for a takeout hamburger and french fries, bringing one back for Lorraine, who was sound asleep, so Rosie ate it herself. She couldn’t sleep, and tossed and turned, her bed creaking ominously, but Lorraine slept on. Rosie propped herself up on her elbow and looked over at her friend. In the blue light from the parking lot that broke through the motel’s thin curtains, she studied Lorraine’s sleeping face. The transformation from when they had first met was astonishing. She was a different woman in every way—less aggressive, more content within herself, more confident, more womanly.
Lorraine woke early. Rosie was dead to the world so she slipped into the bathroom and took a shower. As she soaped herself she thought about Brad Thorburn. She heard the way she had spoken to him, saw him so hurt, so bewildered. They would probably never meet again and he would never know just how much he had meant to her, what he had done for her. He had made her feel loved, wanted, had made some dead part of her revive. Brad Thorburn had woken her as a woman.
After breakfast, Lorraine took a street map of San Francisco, marked their destination with a cross, and passed it over to Rosie. “You’re the driver. That’s where we got to get to.”
“Who we seeing?”
Lorraine hesitated. In all fairness Rosie should know why they had come here. “I don’t think Janklow killed Holly or Didi. Nula lied to me. She said that she and Didi were working together the night Holly was killed, but Holly’s pimp said Nula was on her own. I think it’s got something to do with Art. Also, I think Nula lied about where Didi was the night she was murdered. It’s Nula we’re going to see. Curtis gave me the address and loaned me some cash. Funny guy, you know he really cared for Holly. I didn’t think he’d cough up the cash, but he did. I left him the lighter and wallet the cops bought me as collateral.” Lorraine laughed, quite pleased with the fact she had screwed so much out of the cops. She’d have taken the suit back and tried for a refund but it had been altered to fit her.
“I don’t want to scare Nula off. I just want her to tell me a few things.”
“Are you gonna get paid for this?”
“Five thousand dollars from Ed Bickerstaff, and Curtis said he’d forget the repayment of his two grand if I got Holly’s killer, so we’ll have enough to open the agency.”
Lorraine called Nula’s number. A sleepy voice answered and she hung up. She recognized Nula’s voice.
She and Rosie left the motel. It was cooler here than in L.A. and quite foggy. They bought a morning paper and, following their map, headed into the city. They were hemmed in by traffic and the streets were a confusing mass of one-way systems, but they eventually reached the Tenderloin district located near the Civic Center in the central part of town. They passed through the area’s wide, run-down streets, down which a few prostitutes even at this hour were wandering, maybe not working but probably on their way home. Lorraine surmised that this was a heavy drug hangout area. Big five-story brick buildings; a lot of Asian families and kids visible on the streets and grouped on the corners. They cruised past sleazy bars and closed-up sex shops with signs advertising live shows, past shabby hotels. More drug dealers’ areas, more liquor stores per block than grocery stores. They continued on, passing old derelict theaters, when Lorraine tapped Rosie.
“Slow right down, real slow,” Lorraine said. “Let’s check the streets from here on. We pass Eddy Street, Jones Street, Ellis, and, okay, the one we want is Leavenworth Street, and it should be coming up on the left, number one eighty-two. There it is!”
Rosie pulled up outside a dilapidated four-story building. There was hardly a soul around and very little traffic. Cars were parked all along the street as none of the houses had garages or porches but big locking gates on the front entrances. Lorraine opened the car door. “I’ll be about half an hour. Sit tight.” Rosie picked up the newspaper and prepared herself for the wait. Lorraine checked the names on the apartments. She was looking for number twenty-three but most were broken or graffitied over. But she was in luck because the main gate to the apartment building was open. Lorraine made her way up an old stone staircase littered with garbage to the top floor. She knocked hard on the door of apartment twenty-three and waited.
“Who is it?”
“Surprise, Nula, open up, it’s me.”
The peephole slid back, and bolts and chain locks were removed. Nula opened the door. “Jesus Christ, how did you find me?”
“Curtis said you were here. Since I was passing, I thought I’d visit.”
Nula opened the door wider and Lorraine stepped inside. Nula was wearing her scruffy kimono and she was barefoot. She had an old dirty terry cloth turban on her head, and no makeup. “It’s only nine o’clock, for chrissakes.”
Lorraine apologized and followed her into the apartment’s single room. It was a mess, crammed with dresses and bags, cases half unpacked and old takeout cartons. “I just moved in, pretty depressing comedown, but I’m not gonna be here permanently. It used to belong to a friend and they’re on tour in a big show so I’ve got it for a few months. Sit down.” Nula folded her arms and looked over Lorraine. She pursed her lips. “Looking very chic, dear, come into money? That’s a very expensive suit.” She sat at her dressing table, fiddled with one of her wigs, and checked her face. “I look like a piece of shit but I was working nearly all night. Girl’s got to do what a girl’s got to do to earn a living, but, Christ, this is a shit hole. The pay isn’t half as good as in L.A.”
Lorraine told Nula about Janklow, how he had admitted to all the murders, including Didi and Holly. Nula closed her eyes. “Thank God. I’ve been praying they get the bastard and I know about Art. I cried my heart out, but he took his own life, so I guess that’s what he wanted. Those bastards pushed him, the shits, and he was innocent. But why are you here?”
“Work. I’m with an investigation agency.”
Nula shrieked with laughter, then pointed at Lorraine. “You were a cop, weren’t you? Well, I hope you haven’t come to arrest me.” She brushed her wig, looking at Lorraine in the mirror. She was getting uneasy, Lorraine could sense it.
“What do you want?” Nula asked.
“Well, I’m trying to piece a few things together. You said on the night Holly died Didi was with you, that you both saw her cross the road, but Curtis said Didi wasn’t there, you were alone.” She paused.
Nula gestured for her to continue. She eased off her turban and slipped on the wig; it was one of Didi’s—dark, straight, and silky. Lorraine remembered it as the one Didi had been wearing the first time she had met them both. Nula now began to carefully glue the netting to her forehead, all the time watching Lorraine in the mirror.
“Nula, I think Art killed Holly and Didi, but I got to have evidence to prove it. Whatever you tell me won’t be used against you—I’ll keep your name out of it and it won’t hurt Art because he’s dead. It’ll really help me. It’s Mrs. Thorburn’s jewelry I’m interested in—or what pieces you’ve got left.”
Nula blinked rapidly and swiveled around. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Lorraine got up and walked toward Nula. “The last meal Didi ate was homemade banana bread. She was at home, wasn’t she? Not, as you said, out working. Curtis said she didn’t show that night because her foot was still hurting. You said she’d been out all day with a regular, but that wasn’t true, was it? Now, did Art come by that night?”
Nula began to paint her nails. “Bullshit, dear. She went out, and then I was told she’d been murdered. You even called the apartment.”
“The ring on Didi’s finger, the one you said she couldn’t take off, was Mrs. Thorburn’s, wasn’t it? Well, I’d never seen her wearing it before, so she must have been able to get it off. So I think it has something to do with that ring. Is that why Art killed her? Because of the ring?”
Nula painted the last nail of her right hand and began on the left with studied concentration. Lorraine moved closer. “Didi and Art were blackmailing Steven Janklow. Art was cleaning up, wasn’t he? He used Didi to make contact and to pick up the jewels. Where did she pick them up from? Janklow’s garage? Was that where they did the exchange?”
Nula continued to paint her nails. “Listen, dear, why don’t you go and do your Perry Mason someplace else? Didi was my closest friend, we adored each other and we both loved little Holly—neither of us would hurt her. Whatever she was doing with Art … she never let on about it to me.”
“Maybe not, but Art might have gotten angry with her. Maybe it was Art that picked Holly up?”
Nula wafted her nails in the air to dry them. “To be honest, dear, I don’t know what you’re getting at. You’ve had a wasted journey.”
“Come on, Nula, I know you have to be in on it. Janklow listed a lot of Mrs. Thorburn’s jewelry, but he didn’t sell it. Did he give it to Art?”
“I don’t know,” Nula snapped.
Lorraine shrugged. “Fine, I’ll go, but I won’t keep quiet. You must know something; you had to be in on it.” She tried a different tactic. “Look, I don’t like to do this, but I’m broke. Maybe I’ll keep quiet if you give me a cut. I want money to keep my mouth shut, Nula. I lied about the agency crap—who’s ever gonna employ me?”
Nula began to shake a bottle of foundation cream furiously and started to make up her face. “Obviously I have so much money that I get some perverse kick out of living in this shit hole and getting twenty dollars a blow job if I’m lucky. I don’t have any dough, all right?”
Lorraine walked slowly to the door. “Well, if you won’t help me, Nula, I’ll go to the cops—see if they’ll dole me out a few dollars for the information.”
Nula smirked and then said loudly, “Craig, why don’t you come in and say hello to Perry Mason, dear?”
Lorraine pressed her back against the door as Craig Lyall walked in from the bathroom. Nula started to gather her clothes, relaxed and seemingly no longer interested in Lorraine. She held up a dress, checking herself in the mirror, while Lyall moved closer to Lorraine.
Nula giggled. “Sit down, sweetheart. We’re going to have a little party, just the three of us. Well, you are. Open the bottle, Craig dear, she won’t be able to resist.” She minced out into the bathroom.
Lorraine’s heart thudded. How long had she been in the apartment? Ten, fifteen minutes? Would Rosie do anything? Did she even know which was Nula’s apartment?
Lyall produced a bottle of vodka.
“Listen, Craig. I just wanted a cut of the jewelry, nothing more, and Janklow’s already admitted the murders. I won’t go to the cops, I promise, it was just a threat. I didn’t mean it—all I wanted was some dough.”
Nula shrieked from the bathroom, “What do you think we are? What are you so scared about? All we’re going to do is have a little party.”
She reappeared, wearing a black silk slip and stockings. She held out a pair of shoes. “If you think your shoes are nice, look at these, three hundred dollars, handmade.” She slipped on first one, then the other.
Lyall opened a bottle of vodka and poured a tumblerful. “Have a drink, Lorraine, dear. Go on, drink it!”
She swiped Lyall’s hand away. The glass smashed against the wall.
“Hold her down and pour it down her throat.” Nula had opened a suitcase full of new clothes. She selected a smart navy dress with a white collar, very demure, very respectable. She didn’t want to be obvious, not anymore, not for a while. Lyall gripped Lorraine’s wrist and dragged her toward the bed. She struggled and Nula smacked her hard across the face. “Listen, you’d better do what we want or we’ll mark your other cheek. Is that what you want, Miss Goody Two-Shoes? I knew you were a cunt the moment you ripped us off at the gallery. You blackmailed Art. Now drink.”
Lorraine was trying to locate the fire escape. Did the apartment face the street? How long had she told Rosie she would be? She’d fouled up so badly. Had she really felt so sure she’d be able to confront Nula, get the information she needed, and return to Bickerstaff? She’d been so off the wall, she’d lost her touch. She almost needed a drink she was so angry with herself.
“Drink,” Lyall said, but she still hadn’t taken the glass.
Nula moved to his side. “Pour it down her throat! What are you waiting for? Few glasses and she’ll be begging for more. Go on, do it.”
Lorraine looked up into his scared face. “Don’t do this to me, Craig. I promise I won’t tell anybody y
ou’ve got the jewelry—”
He gripped her cheeks and forced the glass to her lips. Nula grabbed her hair and held her head back, screaming at Lyall to get on with it.
Rosie had read the entire newspaper. She tossed it aside and checked her watch. She looked at the front entrance, drumming her fingers on the steering wheel. Then she got out of the car, trying to remember the name of the person Lorraine was seeing. She looked down the row of names by the intercom but most were scratched out or blank. She pushed open the main door, walked into the corridor, which stank of urine, and climbed the stairs to the second floor. Halfway up she stopped when a door opened and two kids ran out. She had to flatten herself against the stairwell as they charged past her. A woman came to the door and Rosie hurried toward her. “Have you seen a tall blond woman?” The door slammed in her face.
She continued up to the third floor, where a male voice demanded to know what she wanted. She turned to face an elderly black man wearing overalls and carrying a broom. “You live here? What you doin’ here?” Rosie explained she was looking for someone. “What apartment?” he demanded.
“I dunno. She came in about half an hour ago to visit a friend—Nula. You know anyone called Nula?”
He shook his head and shoved the broom at her feet. “Get out, go on, get out. This is private property.”
She got to the car in time to see the kids who had pushed past her breaking one of its side mirrors. The window on the driver’s side had been smashed. Rosie kicked at the glass in fury as the kids ran off shrieking. She carefully removed the glass from the seat. Where the hell was Lorraine? As she straightened up she saw a man walking out of the building with two suitcases. He was in one hell of a hurry and she was about to shout to him when he turned into an alley alongside the old building. Rosie followed. The alley led into a parking area strewn with a few old wrecks, old sofas, and broken furniture. As Rosie reached the entrance of the lot the man was throwing suitcases into the trunk of a car. Just as she was about to cross toward him, a woman shouted and he looked up to the fire escape.
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