Last Dance

by Jeffrey Fleishman

  “We wait.”

  Lily leans forward, presses her face to the windshield, sits back.

  “You ever think about all the wonderful, strange shit going on we know nothing about?” she says.

  “We eventually run into it.”

  She rolls down her window.

  “Hear that?” she says.

  “What?”

  “Silence. That’s what being loaded sounds like.”

  I call Ortiz and ask him to run deeper checks on Orlov and Krause. I pull up a Los Angeles Times profile on the producer, written a few years ago when his film The Man from Marrakesh, starring Clive Owen and Rachel Weisz, won the Academy Award for best picture. I remember it. Lust and intrigue in North Africa in the late 1930s, when spies with satchels and maps traveled by camel and slept in desert starlight. It must have been romantic in those times before the war, when the world’s outposts, not connected as they are today, ran on the whispers of strangers. Orlov was reticent about his KGB days, saying only that he had served his government in “various capacities” and spoke German, French, Italian, and a bit of Polish. The story is careful, noting without indictment that Orlov was in Rome the day in 1981 when a Turkish assassin nearly killed the pope. He made a fortune in uranium and gold mines, which meant he had friends in the Kremlin, and in the nineties started a production company in Santa Monica, which he named Solaris after the great film by Andrei Tarkovsky, with whom he once shared a bottle of vodka and a bag of limes in Moscow. Orlov produced nearly two hundred movies, which won thirty-five Academy Awards, including three best pictures. He’s prone to comic-book heroes and smaller biopics on artists like Van Gogh and Caravaggio, which fit his sensibilities. He paints still lifes and portraits that hang in a room across from his wine cellar. Few people are allowed entry. The Times writer was given only a glimpse from the doorway, noting that one painting featured a nude in candlelight, another, a rower alone on a river in winter. “I paint them for myself,” he told the writer. “They are for me alone. My mirrors.” Orlov owns homes in Paris, Monaco, and Barcelona; he skis in Sun Valley and dates actresses, but never for long. His real love, his friends say, was a girl he knew many years ago in St. Petersburg, a striking linguistics student with black hair, whose name he never mentions. The photograph of Orlov in the story shows him on a terrace in the hour before dusk: immaculate silver hair, blue shirt with rolled-up sleeves, arms crossed, hard, deep-set eyes staring right at the camera. The pose is softened by a shy smile, like that of a man whose mask has fallen off, exposing him for an instant. He’s not like many in Hollywood, those content in their myths. But like the best producers and directors, he is driven by a practicality that beauty should earn its keep, and that money and power are not sins against art. Or so the story suggests.

  “He’s handsome for his age,” says Lily. “Works out, I can tell. Probably has a trainer. All rich guys have trainers.”

  “I think he works out alone in the basement. Barbells and sweat. Old school.”

  “Could be. He’s got an edge.”

  “Story says he used to box.”

  “What time is it?”

  “Eleven fifty-three.”

  The gate opens. The Escalade turns right. We follow, reversing the route we took earlier, back to the bar in Burbank. Jimmy Krause gets out, walks toward the bar, reaches for the door, turns away. The Escalade disappears. Krause walks a few blocks to an apartment house. He sits on the front steps, smokes a cigarette, crushes it out, checks his phone. We stay in the car, watching.

  “You see the fires when we were coming up?” says Lily. “The winds have died a little.”

  “Not burning as bad,” I say.

  “I love the colors of the sky when they burn,” she says, “and the black after—you know, like nothing was ever there.”

  Krause pockets his phone and heads inside. A light goes on in a third-floor corner window.

  “In for the night,” says Lily. “We going to knock?”

  “We question him too early and we lose him. We don’t have enough on him or his connection to Orlov. We’ll dig a little more.”

  “Orlov is going to come up clean. You know that, right? No guy like that is going to leave something you can find.”

  “They always leave something.”

  She smiles, shakes her head.

  “You know, Carver, there are these weird moments when you’re an optimist. How about my place? We’ll have a beer on the porch and then sleep. I gotta run in the morning.”

  Chapter 18

  “C’mon, Ortiz, let her work the case with me.”

  “She’s not a detective,” he says.

  “She’s almost,” I say. “She can do it unofficially. Just to help with Jimmy Krause. I want her to watch him.”

  “You’ve fought me on not wanting a partner for years. I let you get away with it. Now, suddenly . . .”

  “It’s a complicated case.”

  “Okay, okay. I’ll arrange it with her lieutenant. You’re not sleeping with her, are you?”

  I sip my espresso. We look at one another.

  “Shit, Carver. I don’t want to know.”

  “Best not to.”

  “You’ve got issues, man. A whole lot of fucking issues,” he says. “Make sure you keep going to that shrink. It’s required if you want to keep your shield. How was the last session?”

  “My dreams suggest a Harry Potter–like escapism, but my id represses them, which leaves me rather dark and fantastical on the spectrum. Not full-blown insane, but you know . . .”

  “Screw you, Carver.”

  I laugh. Ortiz finishes his coffee.

  “Where’s the barista you like?” I say.

  “It’s Monday,” he says, staring out the window at two uniforms passing on horses, which in LA is so ridiculous, it’s not even quaint. He looks back to his empty cup, twirls the spoon. “She’s off. I think she has a boyfriend. This guy came in the other day. Scroungy. What makes those types attractive, I can never figure out.” He reaches for a napkin. “You check with your FBI friend on Orlov? They must have something from far back.”

  “She’s looking into it. What about the Russian consulate?”

  “Don’t want to ask yet.”

  “Orlov would get a call.”

  “Pronto.”

  “What was the house like?”

  “What do you think?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Speaking of dreams, I had one last night about our ballerina,” says Ortiz. “She was dancing in a fog or a mist or some shit, flickering like an insect here and there. I kept walking toward her, but she kept moving, and then the fog cleared, and I was standing on an empty stage. She was gone.”

  “Where are we on that?”

  “Still nothing. What did you tell me about her neighbor? The costume designer guy.”

  “Antonio Garcia. Self-possessed, intelligent. Theatrical to the max. He’s got a poster of Katrina on his wall, next to a vampire’s cape. She looks down on the mannequins he dresses. He’s working on a movie about Dean Martin and the fifties. Guy’s meticulous. He and Katrina were close. He’s still pretty shaken. He saw her as an artistic equal. ‘A shared soul.’ That’s what he said. Adopted her cat.” I finish my espresso. “I was there at least an hour. He was slamming tequila. Guy’s got high tolerance.”

  “We know a few of those,” says Ortiz, leaning in and then back, eyeing me.

  “But get this. He goes on about her dancing, her costumes, finding her in the bed that day, alone and naked. He starts tearing up. But he never mentions her body being lost. Don’t you think that’s weird? That’s the first thing everyone mentions, right? They want to know: How could it happen? A death is one thing, but a vanishing body stays in the mind, right? Like a lost kid.”

  “Didn’t I just tell you about my dream?”

  �
�Exactly. The unreconciled.”

  “What are you saying? This guy’s a vampire and he’s got her in a coffin in a basement.”

  “Don’t be facetious.”

  “Fa-what?”

  “You know what I mean. I’m not saying he’s a psycho. I just find it odd that he never mentioned it. I’m going back to see him again.”

  “I thought he had an alibi. Paris.”

  “It checked out.”

  “So?”

  “I think we’re looking at two different crimes, two different motives.”

  Ortiz shifts in his chair, folds his hands on the table.

  “You mean someone kills her, and someone entirely different, who had no hand in the homicide, steals the body,” he says. “I don’t think so. You steal a body before an autopsy, and there’s no way to assign cause of death. No crime.” Ortiz smooths his mustache. “Besides, the body was jacked like it was a special op, a military thing. Cars blow up outside the morgue. Two guys in ball caps pulled low hustle through the chaos. Boom, gone. From what you tell me, I don’t think Antonio the dressmaker has that kind of résumé.”

  “Look at the video again. It’s almost like the guys didn’t exactly know where they were going once they got inside. Didn’t have a blueprint. A pro would have known right where to go.”

  “They had a pretty good idea where they were going. They knew where shit was. It happened sixteen hours after she got to the morgue. That’s on the fly, maybe, but still planning with a working knowledge of what’s where. I don’t know, Carver.”

  “Keep an open mind.”

  He stands and steps to the window. Checks his reflection, fixes his tie.

  “Something better break on this soon,” he says. “You see that piece in the Times?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Is this ‘indicative of the department’? That’s what they wrote. Hate that shit.”

  “You know they’re moving out to El Segundo. New headquarters. They won’t be across the street anymore. Maybe they’ll leave us alone.”

  “Who moves to El Segundo?”

  Ortiz pays the bill and heads back to the office. I call Lily and tell her to sit on Jimmy Krause.

  “No shit, Carver, I’m on this?” she says.

  “Semiofficially.”

  “Cool. On my way to Burbank.”

  “Just watch,” I say. “Be a shadow.”

  “I know how to surveil,” she says. Click.

  I walk down Spring to see Antonio Garcia. He’s not around. I slip under the yellow tape and through the door into Katrina’s loft. Quiet. The bed is unmade and half-stripped, as if she had awoken and hurried to a rehearsal. I kneel, look for her imprint, but she was too light. The morning I saw her, her black hair, a flare across the pillow, made her body even more incandescent. Like moonlight. I put my face to the mattress, breathe in. No scent of her. Her pills gone and bagged into evidence. An unopened vodka bottle sits on the counter. An unframed picture of her poised at a barre is thumbtacked to the wall. I sit in a hardback chair. Levon must have sat here when he played. I can see them. But they do not speak. I get up and grab the vodka and take the chair to the window. I sip and sit and watch the street; five floors up, faint voices beneath. I reach for my phone and call up the music to Giselle on Spotify. I close my eyes and listen. Woodwinds and violins. I drift for a moment. I take another sip, cap the bottle, wipe my prints. I put the bottle back, open drawers and cabinets, step into the small closet, and go through her two suitcases: scarves, balms, leggings, a black dress, a single toe shoe signed in blue marker by Baryshnikov. No little red books. I turn off the music, close the door, and slip back under the yellow tape, looking up at the hallway ceiling streaked with angels and dreams from the brain of a meth addict.

  I walk home, flip open the laptop, and read about Mickey Orlov. A lot has been written. But except for the Times piece I read last night, not a lot directly from him. The stories are composites based on financial documents, court papers, production notes, the recollections of others. Most of the articles have no quotes from him at all, as if he is content to be more imagined than real, which, I suppose, he learned as a spy, if he ever was one.

  A piece written years ago in the Post quotes a retired CIA spook as saying, “Orlov was certainly a Russian agent. He covered as a business tycoon, socialite, millionaire, and a bit of an artist. A communist renaissance man. He was a master at it.” He grew rich as the Cold War ended. He applied for a visa and a green card and moved to America, donated millions over the years to Republican and Democrat candidates. The spook says to that, “Old enemies became new friends. We never could pin anything on him that would have prevented it. Besides, he had the right connections in Washington. Some thought he was a double agent.”

  It’s night. I flick on the lamp, pour a scotch, make a turkey sandwich. I call Lily.

  “Krause went to that same bar,” she says. “He drank three beers and went home. Talked to no one. I’m sitting outside his place now.”

  “Give it another hour,” I say, “and then get some rest.”

  “I gotta work out in the morning,” she says. “Then I’ll be back.”

  I pour another drink, step to the window. Esmeralda, small and bent, is sleeping in her rags and scarves in front of the Hotel Clark. I should go down and bring her tea. I’m tired. I put on Billie Holiday, her high, bruised voice, so close to ruin. We all are. I’m buzzed and warm. This solitary comfort I have long known. A shiver runs through me. I lean my head back, eyes heavy.

  Someone’s banging. Dark. I stumble down the hall and open the door.

  “You look like mess, Sam. Get packed. We go soon.”

  Stefan steps in and hugs me. He is shaved, crisp, smells of cologne.

  “What are you doing here? How’d you know where I live?”

  “Really, Sam?”

  “What’s going on?”

  “We’re leaving on the trip. The person you need to see. Remember? The Russian. All arranged.”

  “I can’t leave. I’m in the middle of a case.”

  “This is case. C’mon, Sam, get awake. We have to go.” He pats me on the cheek, the night cool still on him. “Shower. Pack. Three days gone, max.” He walks to the living room. “Drink?”

  I pour him a scotch.

  “Any bourbon?” he says.

  “I’m a scotch man.”

  “Cool but not hip. That’s you, Sam.”

  He looks around.

  “Nice,” he says. “A good cop apartment.”

  He studies the pictures on the walls: Kenyan holy man, icon from Bucharest, etchings from Egypt, charcoal street scene from Paris.

  “The world in a tiny place,” he says. “I like.”

  He sits at the piano. Dips his head, sets his hands on the keys. Strikes an F, makes a face.

  “Needs tuning, Sam.”

  He plays.

  “Romani ballad. My mother taught me before war,” he says. “All of Sarajevo played songs then. Before. They didn’t know. My mother played and told stories of knights and forests and girls, how do you say, damzils . . .”

  “Damsels.”

  “Yes, damsels.” He sips, plays with one hand. “Hurry. We can talk about damsels on the plane.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Surprise. But you need a coat. Do you have a suit? Good one?”

  He holds up his glass. I pour him another. He turns back to the piano. I shower and pack. It’s 2:00 a.m., I call Ortiz. I can see him startled, squinting, walking out of his bedroom to the kitchen, voice cracked and soft, so he doesn’t wake his wife. I had told him before about Stefan stopping by the Little Easy with the prospect of a Russian who might know something.

  “I don’t know, Carver, leaving town now,” says Ortiz.

  “If Stefan says . . .”

  “I know,
but shit, we don’t want an international incident, and the FBI doesn’t think as highly of him as you do. They think all kinds of bad shit about him. This could go very sideways. It’s not our turf.”

  “Ortiz,” I say, “we’re nowhere on this case. We need a break.”

  I hear him breathing, see him fiddling with his mustache in the dark.

  “Okay, shit,” he says. “Get back quick. I’ll keep Lily on that guy.”

  “Jimmy Krause,” I say.

  “Don’t fuck this up, Carver.” Click.

  I text Lily. Let her sleep. Stefan, his scotch on the piano, a cigarette slanting from his lips, is playing Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata.” His fingers float as if a too-hard touch would shatter a note. He’s usually so brash and alive, but now, with his black hair shining, his face serene, he’s at peace in the music. He draws closer to the piano, almost crying, but not in a broken way.

  “How?” he says, looking at hands on the keys.

  “How what?”

  “Did he do it.”

  He stands, wipes his eyes, finishes his scotch.

  “We go.”

  Chapter 19

  We head north on the 101 in Stefan’s restored 1967 Camaro. Deep blue with white stripes, the car is one of seven in his vintage fleet. He pops in an eight-track tape of the Jefferson Airplane. Grace Slick sings “White Rabbit.” We roll down the windows, the cold wind blowing, roaring, carrying Grace’s voice over the dark hills beyond the Griffith Observatory. I am tired, but I feel young, a boy of mischief. Stefan accelerates. The highway is almost empty. We streak into the valley. The stars harden, and the air warms. Stefan hands me a flask.

  “Bourbon!” he yells.

  “Why this ancient eight-track? You can stream all these songs, you know.” I take the flask.

  “I want car and sound to be just as it was then,” he says. “Isn’t it great? We’re in another time, Sam. The sixties.”

  He sings with Grace. We race past Sherman Oaks, cut right before Encino, and roll into the Van Nuys airport. Stefan drives through an open gate and parks beside a Gulfstream. A pilot greets us. I hand my bag to a second man. Stefan and I walk up the steps toward a woman in a skirt and a hip-cut jacket. She hands Stefan a satchel and a drink. He and I sit facing each other. The woman, Alex, brings a bowl of pistachios, a joint, and bourbon for me. The pilot closes the cabin door. The engines whine. The last touch of earth falls beneath us. Wildfires burn in the west, smaller than a few days ago but still bright, like angry eyes looking toward heaven. They disappear as we bank east. Stefan kicks off his shoes, lights the joint. Alex sits across from us, twirling her hair and thumbing through a Vogue.