by Eve Goldberg
“Could we just let that go, Mr. Dargin.?”
“Why not. So, what do you want? Talk.”
“I’m working to clear up Mr. Sutton’s . . . situation.”
“His own fucking fault, that fucking pansy.”
“What’s his own fault, sir?”
“Cut the ‘sir’ shit, buddy boy. You’re a punk PI nosing around my personal business, and no ‘sir’ bullshit is going to change my opinion of you.”
“Gotcha. So, about Mr. Sutton—”
“Let’s cut to the chase,” Dargin interrupted. “I’m aware of Steve Sutton’s predicament, but his pansy problems have nothing to do with me. I have enough on my plate as it is. Why he wants to dig up this crap from the past is beyond me.”
“He’s not digging anything up. It got dumped at his door.”
“Why bring me into it?”
“Because the photographs used to blackmail him came from your office.”
“Bullshit.”
“We both know they did.”
“Can you prove it?”
“If I have to.”
I let him sit with that for a while. He didn’t look happy.
“You’re on thin ice, buddy boy. I’m not somebody to mess with.”
“Mr. Dargin, I’m not here to cause you trouble. My job is to find everything that might hurt my client and get rid of it. Until that happens, he’s a sitting duck.”
“What if I told you I have no more of those photographs? No negatives, no nothing.”
“I’d have to have proof.”
“Oh, Christ. You know as well as I do that it’s impossible to prove something doesn’t exist.”
“So what about the person who shot the photos. They might have copies. Or was that person you?”
If I had wanted to rile him up further, I accomplished it. Dargin went from zero to sixty in an instant.
“What!?” he snapped. “You think I’m some kind of perv!?”
I shrugged. Which only got him madder.
“Listen, buddy boy, my advice to you, and I’m only saying this because I suspect you’re in over your head and don’t know what you’re doing, is leave the past alone.”
“Can’t do it. Not until the past leaves my client alone.”
“More’s the pity,” Dargin hissed.
He made a big show of looking at his watch, pushing his chair back, and rising to his feet.
“I need to prepare for an important business meeting,” he proclaimed. “This conversation is over.”
Dargin towered over me, waiting for me to stand.
I didn’t get up. “Oscar Panozzo was murdered,” I said.
“What the fuck?”
I felt like a messenger on repeat, spreading the same news wherever I went. Maybe I should just write it on a card and flash it when needed. Panozzo dead. Your reaction here.
Dargin sat down. I guess his important meeting could wait.
“Where were you between noon and five yesterday?” I asked. “Other than when we were talking at your house.”
“What? Who do you think you are? A cop? That’s none of your fucking business.”
“Okay,” I said calmly, “so explain it to the cops. Once they connect a few dots, don’t be surprised to see L.A.’s finest at your doorstep.”
“Are you threatening me?”
Just then, the automatic sprinklers clicked on. Tic, tic, tic tic. I watched as the rotators began their orbit, lazily spraying the lawn with water. Tooka tooka tooka tooka. Tic, tic, tic. Water flows uphill towards money. One of Lou’s favorite sayings. Tooka tooka tooka tooka. Tic tic tic. What was my next move? I didn’t know. But at least I knew more about Victor Dargin than I did an hour ago: he was easily angered, and very, very touchy on the subject of certain photographs.
The grating sound of metal scraping across cement brought me back to the here and now. Dargin stood up.
“Get the fuck out of here,” he said. “And let the chips fall.”
CHAPTER 22
Dargin’s maid escorted me down the gloomy hallway and out the front door. I walked to my car, which was parked up the street. Then I waited. It was just a hunch, but I went with it.
About ten minutes later, Dargin’s Jag backed out of the driveway. Either Dargin had a sudden need to buy a carton of milk, or he had prepared extremely quickly for his supposed business meeting.
I tailed the Jag as it headed east on Wilshire. Through Beverly Hills . . . past the gold-tiled cylinder of the May Co. building at Fairfax . . . past the stinky, oozing muck of the LaBrea tar pits . . . past Western and Normandie and Vermont . . . and straight through McArthur Park. At the east end of the park, the Jag turned right onto Alvarado. Halfway down the block it made another right turn into the park.
Shit. With no cover of trees or other cars, I couldn’t follow Dargin into the park. And there was no parking on this side of Alvarado. I slowed down to a crawl, watching the Jag pull into a small parking area just inside the park. A horn honked behind me.
“Hey, Jack, get the lead out!” a man yelled as he passed.
I hit the accelerator, made a left at 7th, pulled a U-ey in the driveway just past Langer’s Deli, and headed back up Alvarado.
A Helms Bakery truck was parked across the street from the park entrance. I pulled in behind the truck. From this spot I could see the Jag and the silhouette of Dargin’s head in the drivers seat.
A few minutes later, a tan Bonneville pulled into the park entrance, drove the few yards to the parking area, and parked next to the Jag. Immediately, Dargin got out of his car. He walked around his car to the Bonneville, yanked open the passenger door and got in.
I watched Dargin’s head bobbing and shaking, and another man’s head turned towards him, immobile and topped with a fedora. GET THE BONNEVILLE PLATES a voice in my head shouted. I wasn’t going to blow it this time. I might not be great at memorization, but that’s why they invented paper. I reached for my spiral notebook just as the Helms driver tugged down on a handle and the distinct Helms Bakery double whistle blew. The driver got out and came around to the back of the truck. He unlatched the two yellow doors which opened out like a butterfly wings. By the time he had slid open the glass-fronted drawers filled with fresh donuts and cupcakes and pastries, a crowd of customers — kids, adults, teens, oldsters, white and Negro and Mexican — had gathered at the back of the truck. I could smell the donuts. Same sugary dough smell, same double whistle, same yellow and blue truck, same cheerful crowd jingling their nickels and dimes, as when I was growing up. I figure the Helms Bakery truck will be around forever.
The customers at the truck were blocking my view of the Bonneville, so I got out and mingled with the crowd. I eyeballed the license plate while pretending to check out the warm pastries. UTG 773. UTG 773. UTG 773.
I bought a jelly donut, got back into my car, and wrote down the numbers and letters in my spiral note book. A feeling of accomplishment washed over me. Three letters and three numbers. It was a start. Maybe Dargin had pushed me over the edge with his “amateur hour” mockery, but whatever it was, I was tired of being put down. And I was tired of doing things that deserved it.
I watched the two men inside the Bonneville talk for another ten minutes. Finally Dargin got out and went back to his Jag. Both cars exited the park. Dargin turned left onto Wilshire, the Bonneville turned right. I followed the Bonneville.
Downtown, on Main Street, the man in the fedora parked and got out of his car. He wore a dark suit and tie, white dress shirt, and shiny black shoes. His posture was ramrod straight, his gait precise and measured. He walked up Main, turned onto Spring, pushed open the door to the U.S. Federal Building and disappeared inside.
CHAPTER 23
A red-tailed hawk circled above Holy Cross Cemetery. Every day since Oscar Panozzo’s murder, I had scanned the obits in the Times, the Herald, and the Hollywood Citizen News. Eventually I had found what I was looking for in the Citizen News. “Oscar Panozzo, loving friend, brother, and son pa
ssed away . . . services to be held . . . ”
I turned off Slauson Avenue and drove through the ornate metal gate. Just inside was a pond surrounded by graceful shade trees and rounded boulders. Lily pads with brilliant pink blooms floated on the perfectly rippled dark water. The trees, the water, the blooming succulents poking out from between the rocks, were all so precisely arranged and manicured that I might have entered a Disneyland cemetery made of paper maché boulders and rubber lily pads.
Just beyond the pond, three paved roads led up into rolling hills of impeccably groomed lawn. The place looked deserted. I took the newspaper clipping from my pocket to double check whether the funeral was today. Yup.
Not knowing which road to take, I chose the left. Just over the crest of the hill, a dozen or so cars were parked by the side of the road. A plainclothes cop walked the line of Fords and Chevys, taking down license plate numbers. I made a quick u-turn. I hated to be late for the service, but getting myself on the cops’ list of attendees would be worse.
I drove back towards the pond and took the right fork. This road led to a humongous concrete mausoleum painted in broad, alternating verticals of blue and white. Above the entrance, a white plaster Jesus hung on the cross between two live palms. I parked in front of the mausoleum, then hurried across a wide, sloping lawn, nearly tripping on one of the flat, inlaid gravestones that dotted the entire hillside. Looking down to avoid another near-fall, one gravestone caught my eye. It was white marble with an intricate pattern of black marble roses wrapped around a cross. The inscription read:
Bela Lugosi
Beloved father
1882–1956
Just beyond Dracula’s grave, stone steps led to a Disney-like grotto where a waterfall flowed over rugged volcanic rocks and through a landscape of neatly sculpted shrubs. I touched the rock to see if it was real. Answer: yes . . . maybe.
I followed a path alongside the waterfall, through a stone archway, past an alcove cradling a statue of the Virgin Mary, and out the other side of the grotto to another wide, slopping, grassy hill.
That’s where I spotted the mourners. It was a small group, gathered close together on a vast expanse of lawn. They had formed a circle around the casket, heads bowed, under the hot noon sun. I counted sixteen men and two women. A priest stood at the head of the casket, reading from the Bible. I looked around for cops but didn’t see any.
I stood at the outer edge, just behind the mourners. My mission here probably wasn’t that different than the cops: get a bead on Oscar Panozzo. Find out about his pals (if he had any), his family, anything at all to figure out who the guy was and what he was up to.
As the priest droned on, my mind drifted. Religion didn’t mean a thing to me. Or maybe, as Allison had once said: “Surfing is your religion, Ryan. The ocean is your church.” We had both laughed about it. Her observation seemed light and funny and even a kind of compliment at the time. But later, when we broke up, and, according to Allison, my lack of ambition or interests beyond surfing were part of the reason, I didn’t know if it was a compliment after all.
The click-and-whir of a camera shutter brought my mind back to the present. The cop I had seen jotting down license plate numbers was standing beside me taking photos. He methodically aimed his camera at each mourner, snapped, moved to the next. They all kept their eyes down, pretending not to notice the intrusion. All except one. She was about my age, early twenties, with long black hair, smooth olive skin, and sparkling green eyes that looked directly at the cop as he pointed the camera at her. She must have felt me checking her out. Her eyes moved off the cop. She looked at me and smiled. I have to meet this girl, I decided. I watched as she slipped out of her high heels, her bare feet sinking into the grass. She picked up one foot and massaged her ankle. I wondered if the massage was partly for my benefit. Then again, maybe her feet just ached from the shoes. Why did girls wear those high heels that seemed more like torture chambers than footwear? There were a hundred reasons I was glad not to be a girl, and that was one of them.
The priest finally closed his Bible, the casket was lowered into the ground, and the gathering broke up. All the men, alone or in small groups of two or three, walked slowly back towards their cars.
Only the two women and I lingered at the gravesite. After the olive-skinned girl put her shoes back on, she put a comforting arm around the shoulder of the older woman who was short and dressed completely in black. Her grey hair was tied back in an old-fashioned bun, and her face was streaked with tears. She looked enough like the gorgeous brunette that I guessed she was her mother.
I approached the grave. I could feel the girl watching me. I met her gaze.
“Are you a friend of Uncle Oscar’s?” she asked.
“We only met recently.”
“Were you in his club?”
“Leave the man alone, Julie,” commanded the older woman.
“That’s okay,” I assured her. Then to Julie. “No. I only knew him from his store.”
“Oh, isn’t that the most darling shop! I always loved to go there. Mother never really understood Uncle Oscar, but I thought he was wonderful. So sweet and so . . . unique.”
“This isn’t the time, Julie,” warned the older woman.
“Oh, Mother, I’m just so sick of that. It’s never the time. Nobody in our family ever likes to talk about Uncle Oscar.”
“Julie, really. We need to go. I don’t want to miss the plane.”
I didn’t want them to leave yet — for reasons professional and personal. Doing my chivalrous best, I held out my elbow to the mother. “May I escort you back to your car?”
“Thank you,” she said, looping her arm through mine and giving Julie the evil eye. I turned my attention to the mother as we began the trek through the graveyard.
“You must be Oscar’s sister whom he spoke so highly of.” I was laying it on thick — okay, telling a straight-up lie — but what the hell.
“He spoke highly of me?”
“Yes, quite often.”
“That’s so nice to hear,” the mother said. “Oscar and I were close when we were young, but he left home right after high school. It seemed like he couldn’t wait to leave. He just rushed away from home as soon as he could.”
“Why’s that?” I asked.
“Oh, Oscar was always a bit different. Not that any of us had illusions he would follow Papa onto the docks. He was much too . . . too refined for that kind of work.”
Julie rolled her eyes. “Mother, Uncle Oscar wasn’t refined. He was homosexual. And nobody could ever deal with it. That’s why he left home.”
“Julie. Stop. This day is hard enough already. You don’t need to make it worse.”
Julie rolled her eyes again and shot me a my-mother-is-so-hopeless look.
“I just hope the police catch whoever killed darling Oscar,” Julie said. “Who would want to kill a sweet, gentle man like him? And to die like that . . . I can barely think about it, it’s so horrible. And what will happen to all those wonderful movie things that he loved so much? I thought maybe the club would want them, but the police won’t let anybody near anything. They say it’s all part of their investigation.”
Julie paused. She looked over at me suspiciously.
“So you’re really not in Oscar’s club, Mr. . . . .?”
“Ryan. Ryan Zorn. And no, I’m not in any club. I don’t even know what this club is.”
“It’s a movie club,” the mother answered much too quickly.
“Oh, Mother, it’s not a movie club. Can’t anyone tell the truth for a change? It’s a club for homosexuals. They go to movies, sure, but they also go to concerts and plays, all kinds of things.”
“How do you know so much?” snapped the mother.
“Because Uncle Oscar talked to me. I didn’t judge him like the rest of you did.”
“Well, you don’t have to air our family’s dirty laundry in front of a stranger.”
“It’s not dirty laundry. It’s just Oscar.”
The older woman sighed. We had reached their car, a rented white Impala. Julie got into the driver’s seat. After opening the passenger door for the mother, I circled around to Julie who rolled down her window.
“So you’re flying back home this afternoon,” I said.
“Mother is. I’m staying a while longer. There’s a lot to do to . . . to wrap things up. I’m going to Oscar’s apartment tomorrow morning.”
“Where’s home?”
“Seattle.”
“Julie,” the mother chimed in, “we need to get going. I don’t want to be late for my plane.”
“Don’t worry, Mother. We’ll be there in time.”
Julie put the key in the ignition and started the engine. It was now or never.
“Julie,” I said, “I know this kinda comes out of nowhere, but would you like to meet before you go home to . . . to talk about Oscar?”
“Only to talk about Oscar, huh,” she teased.
“Maybe other things too,” I admitted. “And by the way: I’m really, truly not in Oscar’s club.”
Julie grinned. “I didn’t think so. Okay, call me later at my hotel if you want. I’m staying out near the airport at the Thunderbird.”
CHAPTER 24
The Thunderbird billed itself as “California’s First Jet Age Hotel.” It was sleek and modern — three floors built around a central courtyard with a swimming pool. The color scheme was aqua and orange. The theme was Polynesian Pop. The front of the hotel constructed of huge glass panes divided by panels of aqua and orange. Palm trees were everywhere. And the doors to each room alternated aqua and orange.
As I pulled into the hotel parking lot, the sky was getting dark. The orange neon Thunderbird sign with its outsized T flickered on. I walked towards the main building. Just as I reached out to pull open the door to the lobby, it was pushed open from the other side, and I came face to face with Detective Mackie.
“Detective,” I said with a nod.
Mackie stopped short. A cigarette dangled from his lips. He had the same red face and sour look as when he questioned me at the Hollywood station a few days ago.