The Last Embrace

by Denise Hamilton

  Lily ran all the way to the drugstore, and made for the phone box in back.

  Stephen, she prayed. Please be there. If Magruder answered, she’d hang up. But when the older cop’s raspy voice came on the line, she changed her mind.

  “Could I please speak to Detective Pico?” Lily said, trying to keep her voice normal.

  “Miss Kessler? It’s Magruder. Pico’s not here, can I help you?”

  “Where is he?”

  “Interviewing a witness.”

  With a sinking heart, Lily remembered. Pico was at the harbor, checking DiCicco’s alibi. “I need to speak to him. It’s an emergency.”

  “Please calm down, Miss Kessler. Tell me what’s wrong.”

  “No.” She felt the room spin. She hadn’t escaped the carnage downtown, and then Mrs. Potter, only to waltz into this dirty cop’s arms. What if he had orchestrated Max’s murder? Pico was the only one she could trust. Pico loved her. Pico wouldn’t hurt her. She had to get through to him. He’d protect her. That was the only thing she knew beyond a doubt, and she clung to it.

  “Are you at home?” Magruder asked.

  “I’m at a pay phone.”

  “Where?”

  Lily knew he mustn’t find out.

  “What’s the number at the San Pedro Station? I’ll call him there.”

  “Whatever you have to say to Detective Pico, you can share with me. We’re partners on—”

  “No.” Lily crouched over the phone, panting. “I’ll only speak to Pico.”

  There was a short, deadly pause in which she wondered if she’d gone too far.

  “Very well,” Magruder said, giving her the number. “But bear in mind that he’s an hour away. If you’re in immediate danger, he can’t help. Tell me where you are. I’ll send some men. I’ll come myself—”

  But Lily had already replaced the receiver.

  When she got through to the San Pedro Station she asked for Detective Pico.

  “He’s doing an interview,” a gruff voice said.

  She gripped the walls of the phone booth, trying to catch her breath.

  “It’s an emergency. Tell him Lily Kessler’s on the phone.”

  “Hold on.”

  She waited, glancing over her shoulder. Mrs. Potter knew she often ate here. Would she send Kitty’s killers after her? Two men entered the drugstore and looked around and she felt sure they were after her. Please, she thought, pressing her forehead against the cool glass. When they headed for the lunch counter, she was sure it was to keep an eye on her, grab her as she came out. She trembled. She had to get hold of herself.

  After what seemed like hours, Pico came on the line.

  “Lily? What’s wrong?”

  Hearing his voice, she almost started sobbing.

  “Two men just shot Max Vranizan. Downtown. They opened fire in front of Clifton’s. I was with him, they shot at me too, then chased me into a department store. I managed to ditch them and ran home, but Mrs. Potter—”

  “Where are you?”

  “In a phone booth on Hollywood Boulevard. What should I do? Stephen, I’m afraid.”

  She heard him breathing heavily. “Go right home. Lock yourself in your room. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  “It’s not safe. Mrs. Potter and Beverly are tied up in this somehow.”

  “Then stay put. What’s the address? I’m on my way.”

  “I don’t know if it’s safe here either. They shot Max, Stephen,” she cried into the phone.

  “Okay, okay. Try to stay calm. Who knows you’re there?”

  “I had to call Magruder to get your number. He knows I’m at a phone booth. And this is the one closest to the house.”

  “Oh no.”

  Lily ran her nails along the glass, relishing the screech. “Tell me what to do.”

  “You’ve got to put some distance between yourself and that house. Let me think…”

  “Should I go to a police station?”

  “No! I don’t know who we can trust. I’ll take the coast back, it’s fastest. That’ll bring me in to Ocean Park. Yes. That’s where I want you to—”

  “Oh, Stephen, I don’t—”

  “I’ve got a friend who runs the oyster bar at Ocean Park Pier,” he interrupted. “He’s a retired cop. Next to the carousel. You know where that is, right? You grew up around there.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “He’ll hide you until I arrive. Can you get a cab?”

  Lily’s hands were slick with moisture as she held the receiver to her ear.

  “I suppose. But are you sure? That’s so far.”

  “Far’s what we want right now. My friend’s name is Ernie Carlson. Tell him I sent you. Everything will be okay. I’ll be there before you know it.”

  “Hurry. Oh God, please hurry.”

  “Lily, I love you. I’m on my way.”

  Lily hung up and looked around. The men she’d found suspicious earlier were laughing as the waitress took their order. But there could be others. On their way. Looking for her. She realized she didn’t have enough money to get a cab all the way to Ocean Park. That left the trolley.

  At the San Pedro Police Station, Pico hung up the phone, his heart pounding.

  A uniform popped his head in. “Call for you on the captain’s line.”

  “Where is she?” Magruder bellowed when Pico picked up.

  “Who?” Pico said, playing dumb.

  “The Kessler broad. She called here, sounding scared to death, and demanded your number.”

  “It’s nothing,” Pico said. “She gets overly dramatic sometimes. I’m going to meet her and then I’ll call you—”

  “Don’t bullshit me. Someone just gunned down Max Vranizan downtown and I know she was there. They’ll come for her next. She’s scared shitless and whatever’s about to go down, you’re not going to get there in time. Where is she?”

  “I’d like to handle it, sir.”

  “All you’re going to handle is a dead body if you don’t let me get some men out to protect her. You can’t be the knight in shining armor this time, Pico. There isn’t time.”

  Pico wondered if his partner wanted to get there first to silence her.

  “Sir, I have reason to believe that whoever killed Kitty Hayden and Max Vranizan has ties to the LAPD. And with all due respect, she may not be safe with your men.”

  There, he thought, it was out in the open.

  “So that’s how it is,” Magruder said, his voice cold as steel.

  “Let me bring her in,” Pico said, “with enough media hoopla and some high-ranking official from the DA’s office along to take her statement, so that she’s protected. I don’t want any more blood shed today.”

  “Where is she?”

  “Sir! I respectfully decline to say.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the truth of the matter, sir, is that I don’t trust you either.”

  Instead of exploding, Magruder’s voice grew soft.

  “Stephen, Stephen. We both know my hands aren’t exactly clean. And my son’s care doesn’t come cheap. But if you think for one second that I’d kill an innocent girl, you’re out of your mind. I’m not an animal, Stephen.”

  Pico stared into the phone. He remembered Magruder staggering into the hallway at the whorehouse, naked and covered in blood, the girl screaming. But it had been chicken blood, the girl scared but unhurt.

  “I don’t know, sir. I’m only trying to do the right thing.”

  “As am I, Stephen. And I give you my word. Tell me where she is and I’ll be there with two men in twenty minutes.”

  Pico looked at the clock. It would take him more than an hour to get to Ocean Park. And whoever was chasing her might find her first.

  “Where is she, son?” Magruder asked again. “For god’s sake, if you care about this girl, if you ever want to see her again, except stretched out on a coroner’s slab, tell me now.”

  Pico doubled over in a soundless cry. He thought of Lily in his
arms last night, her smooth flesh and scent, the way she’d cried out, the hunger he felt bubbling up for her even now. He had to protect her. Again, he heard the terror in her voice, recounting how the men had shot at her and chased her. Two men. Thuggish men. Not cops. Not Magruder.

  “I sent her to Carlson,” he whispered. “At Ocean Park Pier.”

  Magruder gave an enormous sigh of relief. “We’ll be waiting for you there, Stephen. I’ll see to it that she doesn’t come to any harm.”

  As soon as he hung up the phone, Magruder collapsed against the wall, then crossed himself, ending with a reverent kiss on his thumb.

  Picking up the phone again, he dialed a number.

  “Boys,” he said, “Lily Kessler is on her way to Ocean Park Pier. Pico’s sent her to the oyster bar next to the carousel. Yeah, Ernie’s place. We’ll need to get out there on the double. And you’re not to move in until I give the word.”

  The trolley dropped Lily at the foot of the pier. As she stepped onto the boardwalk, her eye was drawn to the marquee of the Moroccan-themed Dome Theater, where a Kirk Armstrong movie was playing. A bad omen. She thought of Kitty running through Hollywood on the last night of her life, seeking safety and shelter, much as she was doing now.

  Would the oyster bar even be open? She hurried toward the illuminated attractions, unwilling to linger in the dark. She heard the muffled roar of the surf, smelled the briny sea air shot through with the sweetness of caramel corn and cotton candy.

  When she’d left in ’44, there had been blackouts, the beaches closed and battened down for fear of Japanese invasion. Now electric lights glinted wetly off the rides. She heard the rackety clack of the wooden roller coaster, the screams of the riders, the asthmatic wheeze of the diving bell plunging people to the sea bottom, the carnival barkers and touts.

  The damp wood splintered under her black heels. Please, Lord, don’t let me become the Black Sandal, she prayed. There were people fishing off the pier, raggedy hobo men and tiny Asians, bent as commas. A sailor with his arm around a girl lurched out of an arcade, their laughter emerging in puffy white clouds on the sea air. She saw crabs and lobsters scrabbling desperately against the glass walls of their tanks, knew exactly how they felt. But she was confused. There were two stands advertising oysters, one close by, another past the carousel.

  Lily looked at her watch. In her clandestine days she’d never waited more than five minutes for a rendezvous. After that, you became a target for anyone watching. She hurried toward the first oyster bar. She felt vulnerable out here in public, where anyone could see her.

  Someone called her name. Lily froze.

  She turned, cringing as she recognized the voice.

  It was Magruder. With two more cops behind him, blocking the mouth of the pier and any possible exit back onto the streets.

  “Lily,” Magruder called. “Over here.”

  Lily’s eyes widened. She shook her head and took a step back. “No,” she said.

  “It’s all right, Lily,” Magruder said. “I spoke to Pico. How do you think we knew where to find you?”

  He spread his arms, palms up, to show he had nothing to hide. His voice was patient, encouraging, the way you’d coax a stray dog to shelter.

  Her thoughts went around and around. It was a trap. Pico didn’t trust Magruder. This wasn’t in the plan. He wouldn’t have told Magruder where to find her. But then how had he learned? How else could he have gotten here so fast? Around and around her thoughts went, like the carousel on the pier. She couldn’t think straight. She had to. She struggled to reach a decision. She’d do what Pico told her. She trusted him. He wouldn’t betray her.

  “You must be chilled, this damp night air,” Magruder said, taking off his coat, holding it out to her. “Come in out of the cold, Lily. Put this on. It’ll keep you warm.”

  His solicitous attitude chilled her even more than the clammy night.

  “No,” she screamed, running toward the nearest oyster bar a mere ten feet away. That way lay safety. Not toward Magruder and into the arms of a corrupt cop. “Dear God,” she cried. “Will no one help me?”

  Just then another figure stepped out from behind the oyster stand. He was tall, wearing a suit and a black overcoat. He looked vaguely familiar, but she couldn’t place him.

  “Lily,” he said, extending a hand.

  She froze, hoping beyond hope.

  “Who are you? Are you Car—” She stopped, realizing she had to let him identify himself. For all she knew, Magruder had men all over the pier.

  The man gave a reassuring smile. “It’s okay, Lily. You’re safe now. You’d better come with me quickly.”

  She looked from him back to Magruder forty feet away, whose men had bunched around him now, the three of them pushing through the crowd toward her.

  The man in the coat was holding something up. It was a badge. She couldn’t read it properly, but she made out an embossed shield.

  Magruder and his men drew nearer. Thirty feet. Twenty-five.

  “Lily, get away from him,” Magruder called.

  “Are you Carlson?” Lily asked, desperate now.

  “He’s not a cop, Lily,” Magruder screamed. “It’s a trick. Run.”

  The black-coated man looked steadily at the beefy cop. “You’re making a big mistake, Magruder. The debt must be paid. It’s time. Now back off.”

  “I don’t care. I’m not going to stand by and let you kill this innocent girl. Run, Lily, I’ve never seen him before in my life.”

  “Lily,” the other man said. “I’m Carlson. You need to trust me, not that pathetic excuse of a cop over there. He’s dirty, Lily, and more than that, he’s a murderer. He killed Kitty Hayden. You’re lucky I found you before he killed you too.”

  Magruder’s mouth was moving, foam gathering at the corners as he fought to speak.

  “Whatever he says, don’t believe him, Lily,” the man who called himself Carlson said. “Your only chance is to come with me.”

  Magruder was fifteen feet away now. He reached for his gun. The men behind him did too. The older cop looked at the revelers thronging all around. He wouldn’t get a clean shot.

  “Let’s go,” the man with the badge said urgently. “Before they shoot.”

  Lily saw the homicidal rage on Magruder’s face as he strode forward, the crowd parting at the guns. Ten feet. Who could she trust? If she chose wrong, she’d die.

  Lily turned and ran with the man across the pier. They ducked behind a ring-toss booth, hurrying along the backs of tents. The man steered her toward a set of stairs that materialized out of the fog and led down the side of the pier.

  Lily balked. “This isn’t what Pico said to do.”

  “Change of plans,” the man who called himself Carlson said. “We didn’t expect Magruder to show up either.”

  Magruder’s shouts rang in her ears. He was coming closer. With a last look behind her, she started down the stairs, seeing the parking lot below where a car waited, idling.

  “Where are we going?” she asked.

  “Hurry,” the man said, bundling her roughly toward the car. He wore a signet ring and it pressed unpleasantly against her bare arm.

  From inside the car, Lily heard a strange sound.

  It was the sound of laughter.

  And then she knew she’d made a horrible mistake.

  As the car door opened, she turned and kicked the man between the legs as hard as she could. His grip loosened and she broke free.

  “Help,” she screamed.

  And then she ran.

  Pico kept his foot on the gas pedal the whole way up Highway 1, running stop signs, passing the occasional car, veering into oncoming traffic, cursing and crying. The fog was so thick in places that he couldn’t see. The world had narrowed down to one overriding goal and one person, and as the car raced toward Ocean Park Pier, Pico’s thoughts raced as well, arguing and making deals with God.

  Let her be alive, and I promise I’ll never take another free meal or drink
again. I’ll be righteous and set an example and do anything you want.

  But as he flew toward his rendezvous with Lily, Stephen Pico knew the real bargain God wanted. What he’d only danced around until now. There was only one sacrifice God would accept and he’d always known it. Saving Lily meant destroying his father. His father, who had used blood money linked to Kitty Hayden’s murder to buy his son’s promotion into Homicide, where his very first assignment had been to find the girl’s murderer. With the tacit understanding that maybe he and his partner wouldn’t look too far or ask too many questions. So he cursed as he drove, at the impossible circularity of it, and how inevitable it all seemed. And he vowed to break the chain.

  Lily wove through parked cars, trying to escape her pursuers. She screamed, but her cries were muffled by the thickening fog and obscured by the shrieks of roller coaster riders, the general cacophony from the pier. Soon the parking lot ended and she was running on the sand. Damn these shoes, she thought. She’d never wear heels again. She wanted to stop and bend down, shuck them off, but her pursuers were gaining on her, they were right behind her. With each step she sank in sand to her ankles. She was going to die, just like Kitty, just like Louise Dobbs and Florence Kwitney. But these weren’t the same men who had chased her downtown. She still believed in Pico. But something had gone wrong, just when she’d been so close to safety. More than anything, she wanted to feel Pico’s arms around her right now, to escape this nightmare and crawl into his warm embrace forever. But five years in Europe should have taught her that she couldn’t depend on anyone else to save her. She was on her own.

  She heard shouts now. Footsteps pounding nearby.

  “My wife,” the man yelled. “Please, sir, help me. She’s not well.”

  “He’s not my husband,” Lily screamed. “I’m being attacked. Help.”

  But her words were muffled in the cotton-batting fog, lost on the wind.

  “Come back, dearest,” the man’s voice called. “You know you’ve had too much to drink.”

  Lily’s heels sunk too deep and she fell. She scrabbled to stand up, and found herself jerked roughly to her feet. The man with the badge, and another one, larger, with a bandage on his nose, and eyes that reflected back emptiness. She smelled black rubber.