Lily is doing push-ups and jumping jacks at a bend in the river. The sun is high and hot. We are drenched and happy. She kisses me on the cheek, and we walk toward the Arts District.
“Not too bad today, Carver.”
“I felt a second wind at the end. How far?”
“Just over five.”
“Felt farther,” I say.
She rolls her eyes and skims the sweat from her hair.
“How was Europe?”
“Something I needed,” I say.
“Did you see her?”
“She’s gone.”
“I don’t think so, Carver. Won’t be gone till you arrest her.”
“Might not happen.”
“Then she’ll always be there,” says Lily.
We trace railroad tracks and walk a hill, crossing the First Street bridge, a thread of water running beneath.
“How’s your dead ballerina?”
“We don’t have much. Made to look like an OD, but it’s not. She kept a diary, and I think she wanted to tell a story.”
“You get the diary?”
“Not yet,” I say. “Her parents are well-connected Russians. Putin level—at least, the mother. Katrina had lots of affairs with men and women around the world. Did whatever she wanted because of her talent. An enfant terrible.”
“Brought back some Europe, huh? Your accent’s shit.”
“Points for trying,” I say. “It was strange to see her dead. I’ve seen a lot of stiffs, but something about her, I don’t know. We’re looking at a cellist who played for her. Maybe not the doer, but he knows something.”
Lily slaps me on the back.
“That’s right, Carver. I heard you chased a guy through town.”
“That was him.”
“I hope you caught a cellist, Carver. Please tell me a cellist didn’t outrun you.”
“He almost did. I had help.”
Lily laughs, sly and innocent, the sound of a charmer.
“No more work talk,” she says. “Let’s wander and see what we see.”
“Get coffee too.”
“Then dinner.”
“I’ll cook.”
“Carver, let’s just grab tacos. It’s Saturday.”
We walk, our sweat drying, the day as it should be: a pause, a breath, hours of living the way you see other people live. The sun is high, the mountains hard behind us, the city luring us to its center. Lily jumps on my back, bites my ear, tells me she wants to be my partner when she makes detective, and I say I don’t know, and she says, “With me, no one will ever outrun you.” I’ve worked alone for so long. Ortiz indulges my “weird aloofness.” I like to follow a case on my own, to let it seep into me, to go where I am pulled, chase the odd angle, not having to explain or get drawn into things that don’t matter. My father, the boxer, was that way. Always on edge, a distant creature, running by himself for miles, turning up at all hours. My mother said it was like “keeping vigil for a Bedouin.” I tell Lily maybe. We order lattes at Hauser & Wirth gallery and head back over the bridge to the taco place, where we buy a bagful and walk to Lily’s and sit on her back porch, listening to Chavela Vargas, looking at the moon, getting up and showering together, me holding her in the water, nothing more, and then climbing into bed half-dry, Lily, the brilliance of her warmth under my arm, her body stretching along mine, both of us staring out the porch door to palms blowing in the black beneath the cross at St. Mary’s.
Chapter 11
Cello between his legs, head drooped. The bow leans against him. He seems a sleeping puppet in a leather chair. His hands, scrubbed and mesmerizing, hang still at his sides. A syringe and a bent spoon lie beside him. A belt on the floor. Bare feet, tuxedo pants—the old kind that musicians wear to Armenian weddings in Glendale and bat mitzvahs in Hancock Park. Is this what a prodigy comes to? All those years of work and unforgiving stages in cities not stayed in for more than a night? I snap on gloves and kneel next to him, Levon—a cautionary tale in a West Hollywood apartment, a shambled place of sheet music, take-out cartons, and half-smoked joints. Beer bottles and an old Soviet flag with a frayed yellow star and sickle; a picture of Pushkin in the snow; a poster of Pussy Riot, scowling through pink ski masks, stomping in army boots, setting fire to a photograph of Putin.
Cello music lifts from a speaker. I read the playlist. “The Mustard Seed,” by Icelandic composer Hildur Gudnadóttir. The TV is muted to a TMC black-and-white Western. The curtain is open, the hills hard in the night. Lights streak from canyons. I search the arm with the rolled-up sleeve. A prick of dried blood. No other tracks. A single prick. His face is serene. Not like Katrina’s, who saw death coming and resisted. Levon welcomed it; at least, that’s what it looks like. It can be a comfort, I suppose, to go numb, to feel the warm flood, the gentle surge. That’s too easy though. That didn’t happen. But his face does not betray the crime. His black, curly hair has been cut short. He looks more like a boy than a man. A tall kid, a recruit, with a scalp of bristle. The white-suit guys are bagging things. Cameras flash. The apartment fills with strangers. The clatter of cabinets, drawers, gloved hands rifling through clothes. I step to the table by the window and pick up a scrap of paper scribbled with a few bars of music. I slip it into my pocket. Levon is part of me now, another too-soon ghost, the young man whom I chased through the city only a few days ago.
Buzz. I answer.
“It’s him.”
“Shit,” says Ortiz. “What’s it look like?”
“Staged overdose. Heroin, probably cut with fentanyl. He wasn’t a user.”
“Like the ballerina.”
“Same MO,” I say.
“She could have OD’d. She was pretty screwed up. Not on heroin, but on pills, right?”
“She was killed.”
A pause. An exhalation.
“We don’t have a body to prove it,” says Ortiz.
“Better not lose this one.”
“Don’t talk like that, Carver. It’s not helpful.”
“The last we saw Levon was three nights ago when he left the station. I called his lawyer, that Mathias guy, the next day to set up an interview. He never got back to me. Then Levon disappears. His parents are not around either.”
“That woman in the back seat of the lawyer’s Mercedes. Who was she? His mother?”
“No. There’s a picture of him with his parents online. It’s not her.”
“Why is someone killing Russians in LA?” says Ortiz.
“Technically, he’s an American. He was born here. But is that a rhetorical question?”
“Fuck you. Find out.”
Ortiz hangs up. I drive to Century City to see Bernie Mathias, Esq. I don’t like Century City. It’s a soulless glass dreamland of suits, agents, and bistros floating west of downtown and bordering Beverly Hills. A twentysomething secretary in a mint-colored dress and blown-out caramel highlights meets me in the lobby. She reminds me of my first crush in middle school: Alice Cheevely, who played Dorothy in our production of The Wizard of Oz. I was a flying monkey with a hose for a tail and wings sewn by my mother. Charlie Sheen bursts through the door, yelling at a man shuffling papers and scrolling iPhones. An actress from an Avengers movie is hitting on a vape and reading a script. A tall woman, an Iman knockoff with a Maltese peeking out from her purse, sweeps past with a chattering entourage. I feel as though I need new clothes. That’s what happens to you this far west—a soul starts taking inventory.
Mathias’s office is on the tenth floor. I thought it would have been higher. The secretary—Carly, originally from Santa Cruz, who sings at night in a retro punk band—hands me a cup of coffee and puts me in a conference room.
“Bernie will be with you soon,” she says. “He’s finishing up with a client.”
She smiles and leaves. I reach for my notebook, jot down Bernie’s nam
e, time, place. I stare out the window and write what I see: terra-cotta rooftops, swimming pools, Fox Studios, Bentley, gardening truck, empty sidewalk, the sky north orange and gray with the latest brush fire. The winds are not yet dry, but there’s been little rain, and the fires dance. A helicopter skims south; a thin layer of smog reaches to the ocean. I write like this often, a memoir of each case—not only the facts of the crime, but also what lies before me. I find comfort in placing myself in a scene. Shadow, time of day, the way light hits a window, the impermanence of the smallest detail, a flash and speck of gravity that holds it together in the mind’s eye, like the man below stepping into a church with a bouquet of flowers.
Footsteps, indiscernible voices. The door opens.
“Sorry you had to wait, Detective,” says Bernie. “Busy day.”
“When did you last see Levon?”
“Get right to it. That’s good. The night at police headquarters with you. I called him the next day after you phoned me, to set up the interview. He didn’t pick up.”
“He’s dead.”
Bernie sits.
“You don’t seem surprised,” I say.
“How?”
“Overdose.”
“He was troubled.”
“More likely someone troubled him. How did you get the call that night you came to the station?”
“Detective, there is a thing called attorney-client privilege.”
“Not so much anymore, I think. There’s only one of you now. We can do this here or downtown.”
“That always sounds ominous in the movies. But, really, you know . . . oh, never mind.”
He leans back. Takes a moment. Straightens his tie.
“His parents called me that night,” says Bernie. “They were frantic. They came here from Moscow in the eighties. His father does something with software, and his mother is an interior designer. Not wealthy, but flush.”
“Why you?”
“Our firm represented the father on a trade case a few years ago. I handle our criminal work.”
I take notes. It slows things.
“Levon had been sliding,” says Bernie. “The music thing wasn’t working out. He was supposed to be first or second chair in a major orchestra by now. Lot of pressure on the kid. His parents had friends in Russia who knew Katrina Ivanovna’s family. They were hoping for contacts, help. They reached out to everyone. Insular world. Like here. Levon ended up playing for Katrina. You know this already, Detective. I don’t think I can help you out much more. Like I said, I got a call late at night.”
“That’s taking a lot in for a late-night call. What do you know about Katrina?”
“Only what I read. She’s dead and lost.” He smiles, quick as an arrow.
“Who was the woman, the tailored, classy one in the back seat when you picked up Levon?”
“Friend of the family’s from Russia. In the music-dance world too. That’s what she led me to believe. She didn’t say much. I picked her up at the Peninsula before we drove downtown. Her name was Zhanna. Strong accent. You’re right, though, Detective. She was lovely but terse, like an aristocrat from old Russia—at least, that’s what I imagined. I wonder what it was like back then.”
“Where is she now?” I say.
“That was the only time I saw her. I dropped her and Levon off at the hotel. It was before dawn.”
Bernie relaxes. He’s coy, but I don’t think he knows much. He’s a power in Hollywood—rescues celebrities from unseemly headlines and reputation-ending confessions—but Levon and Zhanna have taken him beyond his element. Trim and in his late fifties, Bernie has the money and reputation earned by those from the best schools back east who arrived here decades ago to reinvent themselves, surf, smoke a little dope, and find their niche among the privileged. Accountants, lawyers, fixers live off this town’s sins and insecurities. They have homes in the hills with end tables of framed photographs of them at some benefit with Julia Roberts or Jennifer Lawrence. They are a class of men whose fathers read Dreiser and Fitzgerald and taught their sons that life is a shifting bargain between wonder and treachery.
Bernie stands and walks to the window.
“You like these long pauses, don’t you?” he says. “It makes people want to fill the space. People don’t like unfilled space. I’m curious. Do you get a lot of confessions?”
“Never enough.”
“I suppose not.” He laughs. “I tell my clients, never talk. A misplaced word, thinking you’re smarter than the guys with the questions—that’s poison. Just sit there and don’t fill the space.”
“Seems like you want to fill it.”
“I want to be helpful. I feel bad for the kid.”
“Why did Levon run from me after the recital?”
“You know why. He told you before I got there.”
“The two Russian men—at least, they spoke Russian—who came to Katrina’s apartment. They spooked her.”
“He started to talk about it in the car, but Zhanna cut him off. She said something in Russian. I think it was, anyway. It was curt, you know. She saw me glancing back in the rearview and said in English that she didn’t think it rained in Los Angeles, and that her friends back home would be disappointed and surprised when she told them.” He shakes his head. “She wasn’t good at small talk, but she knew her power, if you know what I mean. She could make a lot of money in this town. Levon didn’t say anything. He looked out the window like a scolded child. We got to the Peninsula. They got out. I drove away.”
“What about his parents?”
“Never met them,” he says. “I only talked to his father when I got the call. I phoned later, but no answer. I sent someone to their home, but they were gone. As you can see, Detective, I was involved in this matter for about three hours, just to get a kid out of your box.” He walks from the window and sits back down. “I got a call early this morning from Zhanna. She said my services are no longer needed.”
“Did you get a number?”
“Came across as unknown.”
“You worried?”
“Different kind of people than what I’m used to. What do you think?”
“I’d watch myself,” I say.
“That’s reassuring.”
He walks to a cabinet in the corner, pulls out a bottle and two glasses. He sits beside me and tells me to turn my chair toward the window.
“End of the day,” he says. “Best show in town.”
He pours.
“Matthew McConaughey’s label. He bought into a bourbon distillery in Kentucky. Authentic, you know. All the stars want a liquor brand these days. George has his tequila. Made a billion on it. Matthew and the others are trying to cash in too. You can only sell so much coffee and cologne. Now it’s booze. Pretty soon it’ll be weed. Cheech is already marketing hydroponic dope.”
“I’m on duty.”
“The sun’s setting, Detective. Have a drink.”
I take the glass.
“I read about you,” he says. “An old story from the Times. You’re from Rhode Island. I’m from Connecticut. Groton. How’d we get here?” He sips. “Look at it, Detective. Never tire of it. Fire in the sky, man. Never the same, you know. A second is added or taken every day, every one a new creation. You ever think about that?”
“I do.”
“I think about it all the time. The balance. Calibration. It reminds of my imperfections, but in a good way, you know, a way that says, it’s okay. We’re human.” He breathes out, loosens his tie. “‘Our worth is in understanding the majesty before us.’ A lawyer actually said that in a murder case. No shit. When I was starting out, I used to sit in on trials. This lawyer was the best. Gavin McEdwards. A master of restrained flourish, you know. He said it in a closing argument. He wanted to elevate the victim. To make the jury see her even though she wasn’t there. It was a gr
eat closing.” He runs a hand through his hair. Sips. “I think of all kinds of things when the sun goes down.”
He pours us a little more.
“What’s the best closing you ever heard?” he asks.
The bourbon warms. I feel oddly content.
“Death penalty case,” I say. “The perp was guilty every kind of way. But he was young. He was scared and didn’t look like he could do what he did. The defense attorney gets up, walks back and forth in front of the jury. Back and forth, slow. Seconds go by. Minutes. He wants the jury to see his client—you know, really see him. The judge gets ready to say something. But the lawyer keeps pacing. You could hear everything. The sounds you never hear. Echoes out in the hallway. The creak of the bailiff’s belt, shuffling shoes. A breath. Then the lawyer says, real soft, ‘Have mercy.’ It was brilliant. He knew he lost the case but he was trying to save a life.”
“What happened?”
“What do you think?”
Bernie finishes his bourbon, sets the glass on the table. He leans forward. I pocket my notebook.
“We never had this conversation, right?” he says.
“What conversation?”
He laughs. We sit in silence and watch the night slip in from the east.
Chapter 12
The Little Easy is nearly empty. Lenny is reading the Times on the bar. A hipster and his tattooed, silver-ringed, short-skirted girlfriend are kissing in the corner over a bottle of Shiraz and a plate of sliders. I sit. Lenny pours without taking his eyes off the paper. Dinah Washington is playing low. I see myself in the mirror behind the bar. At this distance, I don’t look so tired, but I feel it. A siren pierces and passes. I pull out my notebook and riffle through pages. Dinah Washington fades into the funk, rasp sex of Betty Davis—Lenny’s favorite singer, reminding him of his club-hopping youth in New York—who hides a razor’s edge in every seduction.
Last Dance Page 6