by Wim Coleman
“Awfully messy for a professional job.”
“Well, it sort of fits in with the pervasive decline in American craft and workmanship, doesn’t it?”
“It was personal, Nol.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” Nolan said, remembering the man’s gaping wound and the savagely rendered bloodstain. “How long’s it been since we saw someone cut up like that?”
“I sure can’t remember.”
Nolan was seized by another wave of tiredness. He involuntarily closed his eyes. His own words echoed through his thoughts.
“How long’s it been since we saw someone cut up like that?”
Her face crept into his mind. Her face with that odd, glazed look. Nolan tightened his eyes.
It’s been three years. Don’t see it. Keep it out of your brain.
Her face with that expression. What was it about that expression?
His first thought had been that she’d gotten her makeup all wrong. And, yes, that expression. He’d laughed at that expression whenever she’d gotten it before. It was a screwed-up goofy look of some thirties movie comedienne, a bemused look she got when some asshole called with a wrong number or when she came home from the store with somebody else’s grocery bag or when she’d bob out of a swimming pool like a wet cat after an unexpected dunking. It was the look that had made all her friends cheer and clap and hoot and holler when she popped in the door on the evening of her thirtieth birthday and got the surprise of her life. It was a look that had made sweet mockery of her pretty young face.
Nolan’s eyes popped open. The bright light of the café dissolved her image. It had been a long time since his last such attack, and he’d forgotten how simple it was to get rid of the pictures.
Just remember to open your eyes when you don’t want to see something.
The brightness resolved into a glittering clarity—the half-eaten omelet, the empty coffee cup, the Formica tabletop. Nolan raised his head and looked into Clayton’s light brown face with its slender but distinctly African features. Clayton was staring at him.
“You okay, Nol?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
“Don’t bullshit me. It’s my business to know when you’re not fine.”
Nolan sighed. “Doesn’t this job ever get to you?” he finally asked.
“No.”
“Never?”
“Huh-uh.”
“Does it ever get to you that it doesn’t get to you?”
“All the fucking time. I worry like crazy that I’m turning into a ghoul or a soulless zombie or an insensitive husband or daddy or some such thing. It’s just a fact of life.” Clayton paused a moment, then added, “But I haven’t been through what you’ve been through.”
Nolan nodded. That pretty well cut to the problem. Clay hadn’t become Nolan’s partner until a few months after the thing had happened, and Nolan had never told him the whole grisly story. But Nolan was sure that Clayton had found out plenty about it on his own.
“If it’s getting to you, maybe you should take some vacation time,” Clayton suggested.
“Naw, then I’d really get all strung out. I’ll be okay, Clay. I’m just tired. And when I’m tired, I start getting pictures in my head. After a while they always go away.”
The two of them ate in silence. Then Nolan said, “I used to like this work. Now I’m like an air traffic controller who’s trying to do his job after he’s been in a plane crash. Maybe I really ought to look for another line of work.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. Something that won’t push my buttons so much.” Nolan fell silent again for another second or two and then added, “Maybe I’ll become a mortician.”
He and Clayton both laughed.
“Not until you get yourself cloned,” Clayton said. “If I lose you, my next partner’s sure to be some right-wing-redneck-skinhead white supremacist.”
“You’d be an experience for him.” Nolan grinned.
*
The next day at around noon, Nolan again stood in the Quenton Parks’s sixth-floor elevator alcove staring at the blood on the wall. Gillaspie, the thirty-ish hotel manager, had railed at him for making his staff wait a day and a half before cleaning up the murder scene. Nolan remembered the young man’s brash, spoiled demeanor.
A kid. Getting paid five times my salary, I’ll bet.
The manager had become more pleasant when he learned that none of the hotel guests or employees had so far been implicated in the murder. And he had turned absolutely charming when Nolan told him to go ahead with the cleanup.
Now the gold screen that had been hiding the stained wall and floor had been removed. The police-barrier tape was piled on the floor. Three hotel employees stood discussing what could be done about the bloodstains.
“The one on the wall’s no problem. We’ll scrub it, then give her a good coat of paint. But that blot on the carpet …”
“Guess we’ll have to replace the whole square of carpeting for this corridor.”
“Si, pero no hoy. Not today,” the third added. “That Gillaspie, he want this hall fixed up quick.”
“So?”
“Grab one of those little rugs from an empty room,” the first worker said. “We’ll toss it over the stain for now.”
The three dispersed. Nolan still stood in the corridor, staring at the bloodstain as though it could be decoded, as if it might reveal … what?
Rodriguez, the forensics investigator, had already been by to perform his spatter-analysis magic. By measuring the exact size and dimensions of the blotch, the distance between isolated droplets and how they were smeared, Rodriguez had drawn his Sherlock Holmesian conclusions about the exact positions of the attacker and the victim when the fatal wound was delivered. Rodriguez had even come up with a fair idea of the attacker’s height, build, and strength.
About my size.
And—oh, yes—although the autopsy wasn’t too far along, it seemed pretty conclusive that the killer had used an extremely keen blade—probably some kind of stainless steel, serrated kitchen knife.
The wonders of forensics.
Several hotel guests came and went, gawking and shuddering and sometimes making sick jokes. Nolan looked at the raised wall pattern critically. He didn’t have to be an expert on decor to know that the interior of the Quenton Parks was a load of crap.
Typical Hollywood—trying to make a new hotel look old.
Two of the men in white coveralls returned with buckets, brushes, paint rollers, and rags. Nolan sighed as he watched them set to work. It was kind of sad to wipe out a thing like that with a few sweeps of a paint roller. There sure was a lot of mystery in that stain. Nolan sort of liked the way it shattered the corridor’s pretensions.
Nolan heard a small gasp at his back. He turned to see a dark-haired woman standing behind him. She was tall in her high heels—about as tall as he was. Her smooth hair was pulled back and fastened with some sort of clasp. She was dressed in black and tan, an expensive-looking suit with matching accessories. It was the kind of getup that had been carefully put together or bought as an outfit. Her eyes were wide, and her mouth was hanging slightly open. She seemed stunned.
“Can I help you, ma’am?”
The woman was clearly unaware of his presence.
“Ma’am?” Nolan said, stepping nearer to her.
She started out of her trance, trembling. She briefly, nervously perused Nolan’s face. With her large green eyes and her full red lips, she struck Nolan as a startlingly beautiful woman—but he thought that was probably the result of a lot of time and effort.
The woman turned swiftly and started to walk away.
Does this one know something? He stepped in front of her, pulling out his badge.
“Ma’am,
my name is Nolan Grobowski, L.A.P.D. Are you aware that this is a crime scene?”
The woman stopped, but she looked as though she actually might try to dash past him and run.
“What do you want?” she demanded.
“Well, it’s just that you seemed awfully interested in that wall there.”
“Not really,” she said, not turning to look at it.
Nolan tried to go easy. Don’t spook her. “Ma’am, I don’t mind telling you that we’re having a hell of a time with this investigation. It was a particularly nasty crime, and in a public place like this—well, clues are pretty tough to come by. If you can tell me anything, anything at all …”
She looked at him. “It’s just—” she stammered. “It’s just that I’ve seen something like that.”
Nolan pressed forward. “What’s your name, ma’am?”
“Marianne Hedison.” She shrank away from him again.
“Are you staying here? Nice place. Not your usual homicide scene, if you know what I mean.” He was trying to put her at ease, but she seemed to grow colder and more distant by the second. He wondered if he still had garlic on his breath from lunch.
“Yes, I’m staying here,” the woman said. “Down the hall. I’m here on business.”
“What did you mean when you said you’d seen something like that?” asked Nolan, gesturing toward the wall.
The woman started to reply, then closed her mouth. Nolan reached out as if to touch her arm, to encourage her—a mistake, he realized too late. She drew back from him again and was quite composed now. This time she turned and faced the splattered wall.
“Oh, it’s the design. I believe it’s Louis XIV. I saw something like it at Versailles, I’m sure. I’m an interior designer, so I notice these things. It’s shocking to see it … stained like that.”
The elevator doors opened. “Excuse me,” the woman said, “but I’m late for an appointment.”
Nolan nodded. She walked away from him.
Can’t exactly take her in for knowing too much about wall decor
With a straight back and a dignified step, the woman disappeared into the elevator. Nolan took out his small notebook and wrote down her name.
00010
OLICE LINE DO NOT CRO
Marianne Hedison fled deep into the velvet-lined elevator, slipping into a space behind several people. She watched the open doorway warily, but the detective did not follow her. The handful of people faced front in doll-like silence as the doors slid shut. She closed her eyes and leaned back against the elevator wall. The sun design with its dark blotch kept exploding in her mind like the afterimage of a flashbulb.
That morning, when Marianne had followed the porter out of the elevator on her way to her room, she had laughed when she spied the ornamented wall. She knew that the emblem of the Sun King was copied from His Majesty’s very bedroom doors. Even then, another significance to that design had teased at her thoughts, but her attention was quickly deflected by the small demands of finding her room and settling in.
She had seen only one of the garlanded suns that morning, however. The other wall had been blocked with a screen. Something gold. Yes, three gold panels with a crane and a bonsai tree. One of the elevators had been out of service. And a yellow tape bearing the warning POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS had been stretched diagonally across part of the corridor, preventing access to the screen or the elevator. Marianne hadn’t found the tape particularly ominous—just a reminder that she was back in L.A.
But just now, the Japanese screen had been moved aside and a long strand of the yellow plastic tape lay tangled on the floor. Fragments of the message surfaced here and there among its coils …
… OLICE LI ... ROSS POLI ... INE DO NOT CRO ... OSS POLICE LI …
And now that police detective was standing there in the hallway. He had been staring directly at the stain—a stain that Marianne had not seen that morning. The larger splatter was placed across the garlands and the rays of the sun, the smaller splashes bloomed like terrible flowers on the face of the sun, and the line of a drip followed a curved edge.
That stain was exactly like …
But no. She wouldn’t complete that thought. The implications of that precise stain on that precise design were intolerable.
Marianne struggled to bring her thoughts under control. The elevator stopped at another floor, and two more people got on. At each stop, everybody on the elevator shuffled slightly backward. The rhythmic sliding of the doors, the familiar rituals of the people—their polite distances, their quiet apologies to one another, their contractions of boundaries to accommodate those whose presence they would not again acknowledge—these small protocols eased Marianne’s alarm. She couldn’t believe she had so nearly panicked right in front of that detective.
What did I think he was going to do, arrest me?
By the time she got off the elevator and found her way to the bar, Marianne was feeling steady again. Like the rest of the hotel, the King Louis Lounge was posh—although here the florid French motif gave way to a darker and more heavily upholstered elegance. Behind a well-polished wooden bar, an array of bottles glittered. Only a few people occupied chairs around the scattered tables. The room was shadowy, and Marianne couldn’t tell immediately whether the friend she planned to meet had arrived or not.
Then, in a burst of color and motion, a woman with wild, rust-colored hair scrambled out of a booth and charged forward, holding out her arms and calling Marianne’s name. Renee’s warm, chestnut-colored eyes momentarily startled Marianne. No one else she knew had eyes like that.
Surprised by a rush of emotion, Marianne realized how much she’d missed her friend. Her eyes stung with tears as she threw her arms around Renee, who returned the embrace warmly. Marianne stepped back and saw that Renee, too, was laughing through tears.
“I can’t believe it’s been a year,” Marianne said.
“I can’t, either,” Renee said.
Then came a moment of pleasant confusion during which neither of them had the slightest idea what to say next.
“Love your outfit,” Marianne said at last, although she was sure that Renee’s tunic and slacks hadn’t started life as an ensemble.
“Don’t be sarcastic,” replied Renee pertly.
“Let’s just say you’ve got a knack for making me look stodgy.”
“You’ve made it so easy,” commented Renee with a little smirk. Marianne caught a sepia-tinted glimpse of the two of them in the mirror behind the bar. Her own sober tan reflection was practically invisible next to the crimson and purple one. Images came back to her, of the two of them in jeans and men’s shirts tied at the waist, or in long skirts, ethnic blouses, dangly jewelry, strappy sandals, and a bright scarf or two.
In those days, they’d been on more equal terms. Of course, they’d both gone through transformations during the past several years. But Marianne could see that Renee still maintained an air of exuberance, while her own look was now more premeditated.
My own life is more premeditated.
The two women settled into a booth Renee had already appropriated. The padded black leather seat curved halfway around a marble-topped table. Above the row of booths, beveled and leaded glass panels, some frosted and some clear, provided a striped view of palmetto plants and the main lobby beyond.
“Would you like to start with a drink?” a waiter suggested. He took their order and retreated.
“So, what do you hear from the old gang?” Marianne asked.
“There is no old gang anymore,” Renee said sadly.
“Don’t you hear from any of them?”
“Not a one. And you?”
“Me neither.”
“Surely you hear from Evan now and again.”
Marianne winced. “Only what I read in The Village Voice.”
<
br /> “Do I detect a note of bitterness?”
“Probably. I guess even an amicable divorce brings out a few hard feelings. Actually, he did call about three months back. He was ranting and raving, complaining about everything as usual. But he’s getting attention in the New York gallery scene.”
“He’s got to love that.”
“Oh, yeah, Evan loves attention. And God knows, he’s worked hard for it. I hope it lasts long enough to make him stinking rich. I hope he gets famous.”
“You don’t sound like you mean it,” Renee observed.
“Really?” Marianne asked. She was surprised. She thought she meant it. She knew the photographs printed with recent reviews were of Evan’s old work and that he was living on borrowed time and borrowed talent. For his sake, Marianne hoped he could rake in a fast fortune and rest on his laurels. His laurels were all he had left.
“I hope he does well,” Marianne said simply.
“Of course he will,” Renee said. “You know he’s brilliant. It takes genius to be that much of an asshole.”
Marianne laughed. “If that’s any measure of genius, he’ll probably get a Nobel.”
Renee went on talking—all about Evan and the gang. Marianne almost felt the presence of old friends, earnest young creators of images, sounds, words—her younger self among them. They had been a vital, hungry bunch, straining for a chance to show off their talents, to make their own statements to the world. But those memories didn’t quite hold the same allure for Marianne. During her six-year marriage, Marianne had watched Evan fall deeper and deeper into a whirlpool of booze and amphetamines, alternating them more and more rapidly, cranking himself down with alcohol and cranking himself back up again with meth, always in search of an increasingly elusive creativity.
She sighed deeply. Whatever creativity was, it had to be more than perpetual adolescence. She had divorced Evan two years ago and had moved to Santa Barbara to get away from the life they had shared.