Lone Star

by Ed Ifkovic

  Rapping on the door of the first-floor apartment, I recalled the superintendent’s name from that awful night when I sat in his meticulous kitchen, light-headed from the sickening sight of a dead woman’s body. Manuel Vega seemed happy to see us, ushering us in with a cavalier bow. An old-school gentleman, Vega was in his seventies, a tall willowy man with a shock of absolute white hair and, these days at least, a fuzzy white beard stubble. Skin the color of hazy mahogany, he seemed youthful, robust, though he moved carefully and employed a lion’s-head cane. He spoke a deep, resonant English, no accent, though I had expected one. He looked a casting department stereotype of the old hidalgo of the hacienda. Instead, he spoke with the spacious, lazy drone of the typical Angelino—a stereotype of another persuasion.

  He insisted we drink lemonade, his own creation, a liquid so transparent I thought it water. It had tartness undercut by a surprising sweetness that satisfied. Superb, I told him.

  “How may I help you?” he asked, bowing again.

  I explained that Mercy and I—I called her Mercedes, and the man nodded—were looking into the death of Carisa, strictly as a favor to a friend who stood accused, a young man in danger of being falsely charged of a murder he didn’t commit, a man who…

  “James Dean?” He cut me off.

  I started. “You know him?”

  “My granddaughter is a huge fan. Sitting through East of Eden a dozen times. She took me to see it, in fact. She insisted. A marvelous movie.”

  “Why did his name come to mind?” I asked.

  He smiled. “He’s famous, and you are here now.”

  I sipped the lemonade. “Interesting.”

  “Well, I like the movies now and then, though I’m getting old, ma’am. You see, I was in the movies when I was young, the silents of course, once in a scene with Valentino himself. And in one of Mae Murray’s wonderful comedies. With the little money I made, I bought this house of six apartments for a song, and here I am, years later, as the streets get sadder and sadder.” He shrugged his shoulders.

  “But you know James Dean?” Mercy asked.

  “I don’t know him. It’s my granddaughter who told me he comes here to visit. I didn’t pay attention to the comings and goings. In this neighborhood if I get the rent, I’m a happy man.”

  “Did you ever talk to him?”

  “Never.” He paused. “Or at least I don’t think so. So many young boys and girls come and go, visiting the Krausse girl, that I didn’t pay attention, you know. So long as everything was proper. Proper, you know. But Connie, my granddaughter, is here on weekends. She tells me—you know who I saw leaving the second floor apartment? James Dean, she says. I say who? And she shows me his picture in a movie magazine. She wants to ask for his autograph, but doesn’t have the courage. And so she takes me to see East of Eden, and I say—yes, that’s the lad. Looks different, though. That red jacket he wears.”

  I held my breath. “What can you tell us about him?”

  He looked around his small kitchen, seemed to frown at a cobweb he spotted above the sink. “Nothing. He comes and goes.”

  “Often?”

  “Not a lot. I can’t say. My granddaughter watched for him on weekends. I don’t know. I’m old. I nap in the afternoons and go to bed early. I’m up at four, and the apartment building is sleeping. You know, for a long time Carisa’s not even here, filming in Texas. She’d only been here a short time before she left for Texas. Then she’s back, crazy-like. She said they fired her.”

  “She have a lot of visitors?” Mercy asked.

  “Young people, drinkers, partiers. But so long as everything is quiet and the police stay away, I’m happy.”

  “The police ever come to her place?” I asked.

  “Not till she was dead.”

  “Did you ever see Jimmy—James and Carisa together? I mean, go out or walk together?”

  “No. But I heard them once. Yelling. I knocked on her door. It’s late, and then there’s quiet. I don’t know it’s him but Connie says she saw him leave.”

  “He left then?”

  “The next morning.” He frowned. “I spoke to her about that. This is a Catholic household, ma’am, a decent place, and I frown on that. She said he fell asleep on the floor, that he was drunk, as if that’s supposed to make me happy. But after that, nothing. Silence. Except that she wanders up and down the stairs, by herself, out to the bodega, back with cigarettes, whiskey, and God knows what else. Across the street to the bar and grill where she eats a lot of times. I see her in there, night after night, enchiladas and a beer. A quarter for a meal. A poor man’s restaurant.”

  “Were you surprised she was murdered?” I asked.

  He sighed. “You know, I talked about this with Detective Cotton. The same story.”

  “About James Dean?”

  “Of course. It’s the police. I’m not looking for trouble.”

  “What did you tell Cotton?”

  “He asked if I was surprised at the murder. Well, yes, it’s not an everyday event. Even around here. Only in the movies. I was murdered in a William S. Hart movie. I took a long time to die.” He smiled. “I wanted to be on the screen for a long time. But, as I told Cotton, I was going to evict her. She stopped paying the rent. She wasn’t working, she said, since they fired her, but I just didn’t like some of the crowd that started coming around. Late-at-night crowd. I found a syringe—a needle—in the hallway last week. She said it had nothing to do with her, but I knew.”

  “So you asked her to leave?” Mercy wondered.

  He shook his head. “Not yet. She hid away in the apartment, wouldn’t answer the door sometimes. If I saw her on the street, she just nodded at me. There was this creepy guy around for a while—tough, muscles, and a look that could stop you dead. When I found out he’d been staying over nights, I said something to her. He disappeared. On weekends my granddaughter is here. I gotta watch out. I had one daughter and she married a crazy so I know crazies. Drugs, beatings, tough guy stuff, trouble. He’s in jail, and my daughter works in a hotel weekends, so Connie stays here with me. Fourteen years old, a beauty, who wants to be in the movies. Big surprise! That’s the trouble with living here. Other places your child wants to go into business or, I don’t know, school. But here, it’s Hollywood all the time, covering you like a cotton-candy dream. I talk to her, but you know how babies are…”

  Mercy interrupted. “What about the others who visited her?”

  He stopped, waited, reached for cigarettes. He offered them to us, and surprising myself, I was tempted. I shook my head. Thank you, no.

  “She got the most visitors, that girl. For a while, before I learned she was an actress, I thought she was a whore. Pardon me. Hard to tell. Lots of young girls look like it. Now and then I get one here, got to boot them out. But she was more…what?…crazy than anything. I don’t mean crazy like oddball or, you know, wacky funny. Like Carole Lombard. No, this one was certifiable. All that walking at night, all the wandering in the hallways, unable to sleep, a woman with demons pursuing her. Still, I had to tell her to leave, but I never got around to doing it. Maybe I wouldn’t have. I felt sorry for her. A pretty girl and so crazy. Still, people like James Dean came to see her. What does that tell you? She told my granddaughter she was gonna marry James Dean, and my Connie started crying. But I told her that James Dean is not marrying Carisa. Not on this good green earth. Him, up there in the movies. Big time. All la-di-dah in his sunglasses. No way he’s marrying her. You know what she was? A failed actress. And let me tell you, there’s nothing more pathetic in this town than a failed actress. Pity and tsk tsk from everyone. You didn’t make it. Of course, they think they will. This town’s bottom heavy with sad lives.”

  “Mr. Vega.” I cut into the monologue. “Someone killed her.”

  “I know.”

  “And I don’t believe it is James Dean.”

  He nodded.

  “Can you help us?”

  He looked into my eyes. “I don’t think so. Y
ou see, Connie told me—and I told Cotton—that she saw Dean in the apartment the night Carisa died. She was watching for him. I believe what she’s told me.” He paused. “Connie said she heard yelling and screaming, the two of them. Probably just before she was killed.”

  “And she told all this to Detective Cotton?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Did you recognize anyone else who came lately, a day or so before she died? Anyone who stood out?” Mercy asked.

  He paused. “I told you I didn’t pay much attention.” He took a sip of lemonade. “But one day or so before she died, I was coming back home and Carisa was on the sidewalk talking to a man. Yelling and arguing.”

  I sat up. “A man?”

  “An older man, dressed up like he was going to a play. Tie, jacket. Man in his fifties, say. Very pompous.”

  Mercy turned to me: “Jake?”

  “Probably. Did you hear what they were arguing about?” I asked Vega.

  “A little. The man was asking her to do something, and she was saying no. Kept turning away, but then coming back, baiting him. Cat-and-mouse game. He looked angry, I’ll tell you. Face all purple.”

  “What happened?”

  “I don’t know. I went inside and seconds later I heard her running up the stairs.”

  “Alone?”

  “Alone.”

  “Anyone else?”

  “Lots of people. One guy a lot, back when she first moved in, before Texas. Very effeminate, don’t like his kind, to tell you the truth. He came a lot. Lately he stopped in again. One time with a pretty young boy. Maybe Mexican. I don’t like that stuff in my building. I say live and let live, but swishy is swishy, you know.”

  “You talk to him?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Anyone else?”

  He shook his head. “Lots. What can I tell you? I can’t help you. I hear footsteps up and down. Men, women. I don’t know. There was this other girl, an actress, I can tell, laughing too loud. But Carisa was okay until she got back from Texas. The first couple months here she was quiet. After Texas, she started to fall apart.” He bit his lip. “You know, one night, I couldn’t sleep and heard someone going up to her apartment, around three or four in the morning. A knock, real loud, and then someone running back down the stairs. I don’t like that.”

  “Why?”

  “I just felt he was delivering her some drugs. What else could it be at that hour? Not even there long enough, you know, for a—pardon me, ma’am—quickie.”

  There was a gentle rapping on the door, and an old woman in a sagging housedress, her hair tied up in a kerchief, mumbled something in Spanish. While Mercy and I watched from the kitchen, Vega went into the living room and dialed the phone, speaking with his back to us. When he returned, he looked confused. “I’ve just called the police. Mrs. Sanchez tells me someone has slipped into Carisa’s apartment, past the crime tape that’s there.” Immediately I stood up and started to move. He waved me down. “No, sit tight,” he said. But I had to see. “Please. Would you get yourself hurt?”

  Mercy touched my arm. “Let’s wait.”

  But I stood in the outer doorway, door open, facing upstairs, waiting. The hallway was empty now, and I heard nothing from upstairs. All right, I wouldn’t tackle the stairs, not with an intruder there, but should anyone leave, I wanted a good view. Interesting, this intrusion; in broad daylight. Someone brazen and most likely desperate; after all, crime scene tape would deter most souls. I waited, impatient. Within minutes, the same two balding, beefy cops who’d come the night Carisa was murdered showed up, and, minutes later, surprisingly, Detective Cotton, out of breath, flew into the hallway. Without pretence I trailed Cotton up the stairs.

  The door to Carisa’s apartment was wide open, the POLICE DO NOT CROSS tape dangling off the jamb, most of it bunched on the floor.

  I stood at the top of the landing, with a skittish Mercy poised halfway up the stairs. Vega and Mrs. Sanchez, more sensible souls, remained in the apartment below.

  The cops and Cotton led very boisterous and aggressive Max Kohl into the hallway. At least I assumed the muscular, hirsute man, then struggling with the cops, was the elusive biker. “I got a right to be here, dammit,” he was yelling. “I got a key.” He tried to show the officers the key in his pocket, but they held his hands pinned behind him.

  “You broke into a crime scene.”

  “I thought you just forgot to take it down.”

  “What were you after?”

  “I left some cash there, and it’s mine.” Kohl twisted and threw one cop off. Grappling and struggling with him, they managed to handcuff him, pushing him against a wall.

  Cotton, perspiring and reaching for a handkerchief, turned and suddenly discovered me standing there. He looked astounded. “Oh my God. What?”

  “What?”

  Cotton looked from Kohl to me to Mercy, who’d inched up the stairs. “Do you all know each other?”

  “I never met him before,” I announced.

  “Did you come here together?”

  “Of course not,” I said, indignant. “Do I look like his accomplice?”

  “Last time you two looked like prom queens at a hooker convention.”

  “Sir, you are…”

  He cut me off. “And you’re in the hallway for what reason?” Perplexed, head shaking. He was not happy.

  “We were talking to Mr. Vega about the murder.”

  “You were what?”

  “Unlike you, I’m convinced James Dean did not kill Carisa Krausse, and I’m convinced you’d like to see him charged, so…”

  “So you’re doing my job?”

  “No, only you can do that. Clearly.” I looked at the dumbfounded Max Kohl and back at Cotton, who was wiping his brow. “I’m just helping a friend.”

  “Twice I come upon you,” he looked at Mercy now, “and you at a murder scene.”

  I spoke sharply. “Only one murder scene. Mr. Kohl, if that is who I assume this young man is, still looks very much alive—though angry.”

  Kohl narrowed his eyes. “Who are you? How do you know me?”

  “I thought you arrested Mr. Kohl when he tried to escape questioning.”

  “Bail, lady, bail,” he said. “It wasn’t a felony.”

  “Perhaps it should be.”

  “Write your congressman.”

  “Aren’t you compounding your problems, Mr. Kohl, by breaking into a crime scene?” I asked. He stared at me, open-mouthed.

  “Miss Ferber,” Cotton said, “I don’t need your help.”

  “I’m curious.”

  “Save it for another time.”

  “I need my money,” Kohl thundered.

  “For what, more bail?” I asked.

  Detective Cotton looked at me. “Ma’am, it’s not a good idea coming around places like this. Do you know what goes on in this neighborhood? Tourists don’t come here.”

  “I’m not a tourist. I’m a novelist.”

  “You might end up a dead one.”

  “Well, Fannie Hurst would be tremendously pleased, then.”

  “What?” He threw his hands up into the air. “You could get yourself murdered.”

  “Then you’d have two homicides to solve.”

  Cotton shook his head, smiled in spite of himself, which caught me by surprise. “Why do you want to make my life difficult, Miss Ferber?”

  “I’m just asking questions to help a friend.”

  “Go home,” he said. “Now.”

  “Detective Cotton…”

  “Did you hear me? Go home.”

  “I happen to live in New York City.”

  “Perfect. American Airlines has a midnight red-eye.”

  “Sir.”

  “I’ll even drive you to the airport.”

  CHAPTER 11

  I sat in Mercy’s dressing room in Burbank, the two of us sipping tea, my elbows resting on a small table, with Mercy reclining in an easy chair, draping herself over it, legs up on
a small wobbly ottoman. She looked serene, eyes dreamy. “Edna, when I travel with you these days, the police tend to show up moments later.” She chuckled, almost to herself. “I haven’t had this much excitement since Marfa, the night Jane Withers beat me at Monopoly, and, crowing like a strangulated hen, walked into a wall.”

  I laughed. “Only two times, Mercy. The gods work in mysterious ways.”

  There was a knock on the door, and Detective Xavier Cotton walked in. Mercy looked at me, eyes bright, and sat up. “Make that three times.”

  “Ah, Miss Ferber, you’re here, too. As I expected, since the two of you seem intent on becoming the Dolly Sisters of Hollywood crime.”

  “Detective Cotton, I explained why we were there.”

  He spoke to Mercy. “The studio has given consent,” he said it sarcastically, “to have a number of Carisa Krausse’s acquaintances fingerprinted. We’ve lifted some good prints from the crime scene. Sometime this afternoon, if you can make it downtown…”

  Mercy nodded. “Gladly.”

  I smiled. “Me, too?”

  He tucked his tongue into the corner of his cheek. “Not yet.”

  Both Mercy and I laughed. He didn’t.

  “I’ve been fingerprinted before,” I commented, still smiling.

  “Why am I not surprised?” Again, without humor. Cotton said lines that should be accompanied by bursts of hilarity—or at least a smile. Did he have a light side, a moment when he let go, held his sides, rolled from side to side, laughing? I wondered about his home life—marriage, children, mistresses? Hookers? Dogs and cats? Ferret? Something that looked like him? “We’ve had most of the principals down to the station this morning, quietly, unannounced, but of course you were otherwise engaged.”

  “Have you spoken to Jimmy?” I asked, curious. “I understand he’s shooting today.”

  “Which is why he can’t be disturbed. And no one can see him fingerprinted at the station. We have to come to him, carrying our little kit and talking happy like we’re itinerant preachers saving his soul.”