The Last Embrace

by Denise Hamilton

  His awkward gestures, his thoughtfulness, touched her. Despite everything, she gave in to the voluptuous danger of trusting him. Not the uniform but the decency she sensed at the core of him.

  The tables were set with red-and-white-checked cloths, an oil lamp, fresh carnations in a vase. The owner bustled over, bowing and inquiring about Pico’s family. He served them himself, and they ate crusty loaves of warm bread, coquilles St. Jacques in real scallop shells, gratinéed potatoes, a salad and cheese plate at the end of the meal. A bottle of red wine with no label, filled from a cask in back. Two tumblers.

  “This is lovely,” she said, refusing to believe it was The Last Supper.

  He looked at her hungrily, buttered one last piece of bread, and chewed it solemnly.

  “Topper and Chubb said they ran into you today,” he said.

  Lily’s stomach turned over. How stupid she’d been, with her flights of fancy. She should have known the detectives would tell Pico and Magruder immediately.

  “Oh my goodness, that was such a coincidence, I was—”

  He looked almost sad that she would lie to him. “Detective Magruder and I would like to know why you showed up at Bernard Keck’s apartment shortly after he jumped to his death.”

  He’d been clever, she saw now. Softening her up with food and drink. Playing on her insecurities.

  “Do you really think he jumped?” Lily said.

  “Do you?” Pico asked, after a moment’s hesitation.

  “No,” Lily said.

  “Why’d you go there?”

  She had her story ready. “I found his name scrawled in the margin of an old newspaper in Kitty’s room, along with a phone number.”

  Pico smacked his fist on the table. “Why didn’t you tell us right away?”

  Lily turned large, frank eyes on him. “I didn’t know it was important, so I threw it in the incinerator. Then, last night when I was in bed, it hit me. Thank goodness I have a good memory.”

  “How did you know where he lived?” Pico asked, convinced he’d caught her in a lie.

  “It was a brilliant investigative feat: I looked him up in the phone book.”

  “And you just happened to arrive right after he jumps? You’re lying,” he said, his voice rising with every word. “Now tell me the truth. How did you learn about Keck?”

  Lily tried to look hurt and upset. “I did tell you the truth.”

  Pico leaned over the table. “You had a narrow escape today. An hour earlier and you would have met Keck’s killer in his apartment. Do you realize that?”

  “I thought you weren’t sure he’d been murdered.”

  “I’m assuming the worst, for the sake of argument. Jeez.” He shook his head. “My first homicide, and it’s exploded into the most sensational murder case of the year.”

  “They must really trust your detection skills,” Lily said, delighted to change the subject.

  “Maybe they don’t want someone with a lot of experience digging into it.”

  “Magruder’s got years of experience.”

  “Yeah, well, there you go. He worked the Dahlia case. Great job they did with that one.”

  “You just told me Magruder was okay. And lots of people tried to find Betty Short’s killer. It’s not his fault.” She paused. “You think Kitty’s murder could be related to the Dahlia?”

  “Nobody in Homicide is saying that.”

  “What are they saying?”

  Pico’s eyes tightened almost imperceptibly. Then he shrugged and Lily realized the confidence was over. They got up to go. Mr. Taix came up, bowing and murmuring thanks in Franglais.

  “You didn’t pay,” Lily said when they were on the sidewalk.

  He looked at her lazily, clicked his teeth. “You just didn’t see me. Contrary to what people may think, we’re not all racketeering crooks.”

  Lily remembered the insinuations of Topper and Chubb.

  “Old Alfonse likes to have us in his restaurant. Makes him feel safe. He and the boys in blue have a long tradition. During Prohibition, even the Feds left this place alone.”

  “They get paid off with coq au vin?”

  “It was all out in the open. Alfonse sold plenty of wine. ‘For medicinal purposes only.’”

  Flushed and warm from the food and drink, Lily laughed. “How do you know?”

  His face darkened, and Lily felt the temperature plunge. “My father used to drink here.”

  “Where’d you grow up?” she asked, eager to draw him out.

  “You shouldn’t be here,” he said abruptly.

  Lily was confused. “What are you talking about? This was your idea.”

  “You don’t want to get mixed up in this. Any of it. Me included.”

  “Why shouldn’t I trust you?”

  His face loomed in, angry and distorted in the yellow glare of the streetlight. “You don’t even know me. I could drive you to the railroad tracks right now, slit your throat, and throw your body on the slag heap, and no one would be the wiser.”

  “You wouldn’t do that.”

  “Because I’m a cop?”

  “Because you’re decent. I can tell.”

  “People can’t tell anything. They delude themselves. Criminals, the ones who are sick inside, they know how to bury it so deep that even they don’t remember it, most of the time.”

  “What are you telling me?”

  “Nothing good will come of this.”

  “Of what?”

  A struggle played out across his face. He seemed to be deciding whether to tell her something. Then he kicked the car tire.

  “I don’t always do the right thing. Like not paying for that dinner tonight. Like turning away when I see another cop do something wrong.”

  “But that’s small stuff. Things you can fix.”

  “Just because you put a uniform on a monster doesn’t make him any less of a monster.”

  The vehemence with which he spoke made Lily afraid.

  “Detective Pico,” she asked, “do you know who killed Kitty Hayden?”

  “No, but I bet she was just like you. Thought she knew better. Now you’re running around town, doing the same thing, lying about—”

  “I’m not going to get killed,” Lily interjected quickly.

  “How do you know?” he said hoarsely.

  “Because if I get into any trouble, you’ll bail me out,” Lily said, wondering if she was right.

  He wouldn’t meet her gaze. For a long moment there was turbulent silence.

  Then Lily said, “So are you going to tell me where you grew up?”

  Her words seemed to break the black spell. Slowly his face lost its stormy expression.

  “Whittier,” he said, staring at the sidewalk. “How about you?”

  “Mar Vista. There were lima bean fields all around. One of our neighbors had a goat farm. The fog crept in at night. You’d see ghostly shapes moving and hear the tinkle of bells.” She sighed, recalling the changes. “What about Whittier?”

  “It’s always had a pretty good-sized downtown. They used to call it Picoville.”

  “Cuz so many Picos lived there?”

  It was the wrong question again. She felt like she was walking on eggshells.

  “No,” he finally said. “Just one.”

  “Who was that?”

  He stared at her, not seeing her, focused on something far away. His eyes were smoky pools. “My great-grandfather.”

  “Your people have been here a long time, then?” Lily probed.

  He flung open her car door and it creaked in protest. “It’s all dust in the wind now.”

  She got in. Why was he so touchy? “I doubt that,” Lily said.

  He leaned against the open car door, a sardonic look in his eyes. “Want to see for yourself?”

  He expected her to decline. Fine, she’d call his bluff. She was curious about him.

  “Sure,” she said.

  Pico drove roughly, jerking the car, staring straight ahead, not saying an
ything. The car shot over an old Egyptianate bridge with curved serpent lampposts that spanned the L.A. River. Lily looked down and saw that the earthen banks where she’d once caught frogs, chased great blue herons, and marveled at hawks riding the thermals had disappeared. So had the willows, the wild roses, the biblical rushes. Mile by mile, the untamed river of her youth was being encased in a concrete channel. She recalled the floods of ’38, how they’d ravaged the city and killed dozens. This was necessary, she told herself. It was progress. And she was hardly sentimental. So why, she wondered with vague annoyance, did she feel a sense of loss?

  Soon the road grew dark, fields stretching on either side. It felt peaceful to leave the city. She could see so many stars. She smelled the pungent whiff of nearby dairies, heard the lowing of cattle. They passed crops of corn and lettuce and strawberries. Then slowly the farmscape gave way, first an occasional house, then clusters of them, streetlights, the stars dimming overhead, the buildings growing more dense. A main street, shops.

  “Welcome to downtown Whittier,” Pico said, pulling up to a three-story whitewashed adobe that had once been grand. She felt they’d crossed an invisible border back to the nineteenth century. PICO HOUSE HOTEL, the faded sign read. Two bandit-faced fellows lounged on a wooden bench on the front porch. Dead plants trailed from upstairs balconies. A wooden shutter banged in the night breeze. Under the streetlight, Lily saw the adobe was grimy with years of accumulated dirt. There was a wooden hitching post along its side where horses had once been tied up. In the back somewhere, there would be a stable.

  They got out of the car, coughing from dust the tires had kicked up. Pico held the front door open for her. It was framed in wood, etched in gorgeous smoky glass. At the bottom, someone had patched a crack with tape.

  “After you, mademoiselle.”

  Lily held back, wondering why he’d brought her here. “What is this place?”

  “You said you wanted to see.”

  He coaxed her inside, and she stepped into the lobby, marveling at the glory and decrepitude. In the middle of the room, a double staircase made of marble curved up to the second floor. You didn’t climb such a staircase, you ascended. Preferably with a page trotting behind you, holding your velvet train. But the carpet, once colorfully woven wool, was unraveling and faded. Above her hung an enormous gas chandelier. Painted wood beams held up the high ceiling. Carved rosewood furniture lay scattered around. Five men sat in the bar, smoking cigarettes and playing cards. They stared at Lily and Pico, then, with the instinctive cunning of ne’er-do-wells who smell John Law, packed up and slunk outside.

  Lily looked around. Tarnished brass spittoons were stacked in a corner. Gigantic birdcages of filigreed iron gaped empty, the paper on the bottom littered with petrified bird droppings. The lace curtains were yellowed from generations of tobacco smoke. The once-fancy wallpaper peeled off the walls. Dead flies decayed on the windowsill. Lily’s nose wrinkled.

  Far away on a tinny radio, Esther Williams and Ricardo Montalbán were singing “Baby It’s Cold Outside.” At the reception desk, a man’s head suddenly popped out from behind the counter. He yawned and said sleepily, “Will you be wanting a room, sir?”

  Lily’s breath caught. She was suddenly hyperaware, felt the same stillness as earlier in her room. The loaded words of the song, Montalbán’s sly seduction, had never resonated so strongly.

  “I’m just showing a friend around,” Pico said.

  “Very well, sir.”

  They continued their stroll. Lily felt the excess energy drain away. The song was just a song again, not a suggestion.

  “Years ago, this was the best hotel in all Los Angeles,” Pico said. “Out there”—he pointed past French doors at the rear of the lobby—“was a courtyard planted with exotic flowers and trees. The most expensive rooms overlooked the fountain. The restaurant was known as far away as Seattle and Denver for its French chef. Guy by the name of Sharles Laugier.”

  “How do you know all this?”

  He gave her a sad, melancholy look. “My great-grandfather built it.”

  A little shock of pleasure and curiosity coursed through her at his revelation. “Who was your great-grandfather?”

  Pico shoved his hands in his pockets. “His name was Pío Pico.”

  The name rang a bell with Lily. A fourth-grade field trip to the San Gabriel Mission. California history. “Wasn’t he…” Lily’s voice trailed away. He wasn’t a bandit revolutionary like Pancho Villa or a Franciscan missionary like Father Junípero Serra, or an explorer like Gaspar de Portolà. Queer, it was on the tip of her tongue.

  Pico waited, a glazed, expectant look on his face. When she finally gave up, he said, “Pío Pico was the last Mexican governor of California. He died in 1870.”

  “Mexican?” she said, shocked. “But you’ve got light skin and brown hair and, what, hazel eyes?”

  Now that she examined them, they were more tawny than hazel, flecked with gold as they caught the light.

  “Never fear, the blood’s been quite diluted since then.”

  She blushed. “I didn’t mean…”

  “That’s okay, don’t worry about it.”

  “So how did…?”

  “My great-grandfather believed in sowing his seed. Had three kids with his ‘official’ mistress. Then, toward the end of his life, a Scottish maid at the Pico mansion caught his eye. He was in his seventies and she was eighteen when she gave birth to my grandfather. The family never acknowledged the kid. Not that there was any money left by then.”

  Her history came flooding back. “Didn’t Pío Pico get one of the original Spanish land grants?”

  Pico scuffed his shoe and looked wistful. “At one time he owned twenty-two thousand acres in San Diego County. Where Camp Pendleton is today. Plus his ranchita here in Whittier. All gone. To con men, gambling debts, bad luck, and worse investments. He died penniless.”

  “So how’d your great-grandmother raise an illegitimate child?”

  “She sold the jewels he bought her with the last of his money. My grandfather grew up rough, though. Betwixt and between. Married a pretty waiter girl from France he met at the San Antonio Winery and they had four children before he split for good.” He gave a tight smile. “I come from a long line of wastrels.”

  “What about your father?”

  “Oh, he turned things around, all right,” Pico said. “He became a cop.”

  That Sam Pico’s kid?

  The fix was in on that one.

  “Well, there you go,” Lily said stoutly, pushing the memory away. “Each generation makes its own destiny.”

  Pico’s mouth twitched. She sensed his mingled pride, shame, and melancholy that his once-heralded bloodline had passed into history. Alta California was gone, its rulers and lineage dispersed, its families and vast ranchos broken up. New gods of commerce and celluloid strode the arid land. Even the language had changed.

  “You’re, like, original California royalty,” Lily said in a low voice.

  “Are you not seeing this place? It’s a dump.”

  “Just think what that land grant would be worth today. Millions.” A shiver ran through her. “If Pío Pico hadn’t been swindled. If he hadn’t been greedy and impulsive.”

  “I need a drink,” Pico said.

  They walked into the dingy bar. Pico slid into a booth. Lily made for the other side, then saw that flaking plaster from the ceiling had rained chalky dust across her seat. She wiped it off but only smeared it further. With an exasperated sigh, she scooted in next to him.

  The detective’s arm draped along the top of the wooden booth. Immediately he removed it, careful not to touch her shoulder. He ordered them brandy, then seemed to retreat deep inside himself.

  “Sometimes I come here to think,” he said after a waiter brought the drinks. “I know it sounds strange, because he’s been dead almost eighty years, but I can feel my great-grandfather here in this place he built. When I get a day off, I come and poke through stuff in the
basement and the attic, hunting for traces of him. I’ve salvaged a few paintings, some furniture, a handful of letters. Odds and ends. They keep a room for me upstairs, and I store everything there and pay a lady to keep it clean. Don’t know why, really. Can’t think who’d ever want it. It’s more because I can’t stand the thought of his stuff moldering into dust or getting tossed out with the trash. So I polish and fix it up. And I talk to him about what I’m doing, tell him about my cases. I guess it’s my way of praying.”

  “Does he answer you?”

  Pico laughed. “I’m not that crazy. But when I leave, my head’s more clear, and I’m at peace. Even sitting here tonight, watching it crumble all around me, it feels all right. Reminds me of my mortality. That’s not a bad thing for a homicide detective to keep in mind.”

  His voice was slow and hypnotic, his eyes deep wells that receded further away with each sentence he spoke. Lily felt she was disappearing into them, tilting, spinning, falling, head over heels.

  “I’m glad you brought me here,” she whispered.

  “Never shown anybody this place, leastways a girl.” He took a long drink. “My pops thinks I’m nuts for caring about some old Mexican the rest of the world has forgotten. He said it’s not something you go around telling people when you’re a cop. Especially not after Sleepy Lagoon and the Zoot Suit Riots.”

  He shifted restlessly beside her. With a sudden motion, he tossed back the rest of his drink. Soon he’d take her home. A sense of impending loss swept over her. She wanted to prolong their time together, couldn’t bear the moment when they’d say good night.

  “Would you show me the unofficial Pío Pico Museum?”

  He looked at her in surprise. “You actually want to see more of this raggedy-ass place?”

  “Consider it an impromptu history lesson.”

  He pulled back, blinking. “Well, all right.”

  He paid and they walked back to the lobby and made their way up the staircase. On the second floor, the stairs grew more modest. They passed a group of men in crew cuts walking down.

  Lily turned to watch. “And here I thought this place was almost abandoned.”

  “They’re vets. Living in temporary housing on the third floor. They’ll be gone soon.”