“What?”
“The colors of the rocks. Butterscotch, bone, and pennies.”
“A volcano or some kind of eruption millions of years ago.”
“How does anybody really know?” she says, turning toward me and looking back out the window. “A million years ago—what does that mean? It’d be a good place to run though.”
“You back to it?”
“Did a good five the other day. I lifted too. Look.”
She makes a muscle, laughs, and pretends to punch me.
“You want to stop for coffee? There’s a place.”
“No,” says Lily. “Let’s just find this asshole and see what’s what. No backup, right?”
“Just us.”
“Like partners.”
“A little.”
“All right, I’m not going to talk about it. But I’m getting my detective shield, Carver. You’re going to have to deal with it.” She switches from St. Vincent to Cat Power. “That Zhanna’s some chick, huh? The doer.”
“Can’t prove it.”
“One day, maybe. Fucking spies.”
“I don’t exactly know who she works for.”
“Not knowing is probably the smart play.”
“Too bad for Katrina.”
“And Levon.”
“Wonder what will happen to Orlov’s movie.” She grabs the rearview, tilts it toward her, studies her eyes. She runs a faint thread of color across her lips, tilts it back. “I had a dream about Juliette Binoche the other night.”
“Weird one?”
“They’re all weird, Carver. She was in a first-communion dress, eating cake and dancing on a lawn filled with fireflies.”
I turn onto Quail Springs Road. We drive three and a half miles and turn right on a dirt stretch that leads through yucca, scrub oak, and juniper to a house wedged behind Joshua trees in the lap of a hill.
“I guess this is it,” says Lily. “Number’s the same.”
“No cars. Nobody around.”
“Let’s do it.”
“We knock,” I say.
We quiet step toward the front door, guns drawn. Lily peels off around back. I reach the porch. The door’s open a quarter of an inch. I peek through and push. Slow. I step in. Lily slips through the back door and into the kitchen. She shakes her head. There’s no furniture, just a few rugs and two battered beach chairs. Bottles of Stoli sit on the counter near three empty pizza boxes, overflowing ashtrays, and a deck of cards. The sun is coming through the windows. I look out. The sky is purple-blue, and on the ridge in the distance, a man bundled in a coat walks his dog. We head down the hall. The first two bedrooms are empty. The door at the end is shut. Lily grabs the knob. She nods, turns it. We burst in.
Antonio Garcia sits in a corner on the floor, hands cuffed behind him, legs wrapped in rope and tied like a mummy’s. His mouth is duct taped. His black hair falls long and dirty around his face and down to his shoulders. He’s crying and sweating. He recognizes me. Lily pulls the tape off; he gasps. Keys to the cuffs and a bowie knife lie on the windowsill. I unlock Garcia and cut the rope away. He stands. Smells foul. He’s shaking. He reaches into his pocket for a rubber band and gathers his hair into a ponytail. He’s unshaven and drawn. His eye is bruised, his lip cut. He moves with the stiff soreness of someone who took a beating. He brushes his clothes and tries to become himself again, summoning the arrogant flair and irritating gaze of the man I met the morning after Katrina’s death.
“Anyone else here?” says Lily.
He shakes his head and swallows.
“They left last night, I think.”
“Who?”
“Two giants. Russians. They came to my loft and threw me in a car. Stupid men. Gruff like peasants. Terrible suits—one charcoal black, the other a strange hue of midnight blue. They might have been brothers. I need a toilet.” He runs down the hall. I follow and stand outside the bathroom. He comes out patting his wet face with a towel. “They knocked over my mannequins and ripped my costumes. They tore my place up.”
The three of us walk to the living room. Garcia sits in a beach chair. I pull the second one up and sit in front of him. Lily leans against the front door.
“You had what they wanted,” I say.
“Katrina’s diaries,” says Garcia. “She asked me to keep them. She must have put them in my loft the night she died. I was returning from Paris. We had chosen a hiding place in a box of rags under the sink. I never read them. They were in Russian, anyway. But still, I never would. She trusted me. She had so few people to trust.”
“How many?”
“People?”
“Red books.”
“Twelve.”
“Why didn’t you tell me you had them?” I say.
“You know why.” He asks for a cigarette. Lily goes to the ashtray and fishes out a half-finished one. She lights it on the stove and hands it to Garcia. He inhales, makes a face. “They even smoke cheap.”
“What did you do with Katrina, Antonio?” I say.
“I should have a lawyer,” he says, rolling the cigarette between his fingers, staring at the ember.
“If you want.”
“You won’t understand.” He looks up at me. “No one will.”
“Try me.”
I cut Lily a glance that says if he asks for a lawyer again, we’ll have to let him make a call. He finishes the cigarette. Lily hands him a glass of water. He stands and looks out the window.
“They threw Nishka in the street,” he says. “Poor cat.”
“You were good to take him in.”
“What could I do after Katrina died? She loved that animal. I couldn’t abandon him.”
“Of course not.”
“He won’t last long. He doesn’t have the temperament to survive the street.”
He pushes his face closer to the glass, feels the sun.
“We think we know who killed Katrina,” I say.
“Russians?”
“Yes.”
“Those two?”
“They probably forced her OD. They were just the doers. It’s way beyond them. More complicated.”
“Katrina was complicated,” he says, dazed, touching his cut lip and bruised eye. “She was glorious. Despite it all, you know.” He glances at me and back out the window. “Her body was perfect. I drew her so many times. I have sketchbooks full of her. She would pose, and we would talk through an afternoon. She loved to be drawn.” He looks down at his small, callused, nicked hands. “The cellist—what was his name?”
“Levon.”
“He had extraordinary hands, like wings.”
Lily rolls her eyes, but Garcia doesn’t see.
“Were you and Katrina lovers?” says Lily.
“Detective,” says Garcia, looking up from his hands to me.
“He’s gay,” I say.
“I was thinking bi,” says Lily.
“Tried that, but not for me,” says Garcia, facing the window again.
“Tell me about Katrina,” I say.
He says nothing. Outside noises seep in. Two ravens flash across the glass. Garcia leaves the window, sits in the chair. Lily fishes out another cigarette and hands it to him. He starts to cry, wipes a tear away with his palm. I take a breath. Lily does too. If he’s going to lawyer up, it’s going to be now.
“I didn’t want her cut,” he says.
“What do you mean?”
“I didn’t want anything to damage her body. She died without a mark. I found her in bed, you remember? I told you. I thought she was sleeping. I couldn’t imagine her on a tray in a morgue. Being cut open by strangers. They wouldn’t have known, wouldn’t have appreciated how perfect she was.” He inhales, blows smoke. “It came to me in an instant. Even before I left her loft that morning.”
&nb
sp; “What came to you?”
“The unexplainable.”
“Try us.”
Lily kneels beside him, takes his cigarette, squeezes his hand, and looks at him the way she can do.
“I wanted to rescue her,” he says. “I wanted her to leave this world as beautiful as she entered it. Do you understand?” He looks at both of us, holding our eyes for a second, then stares ahead to the window. “It was so fast and confusing. My mind went back and forth. I listened from across the hall. I heard them zip her into the bag. That awful, crinkly sound. Like taffeta but louder, you know? I don’t know how you live with that sound in your life, Detective. They carried her away. I was frantic, racing around my loft, too much tequila. This was one of the ballerinas. In a bag, like trash.” He breathes in, tries to calm himself. I lean back in my chair, give him space. “Then it came to me, Detective. But how? I watched from the window. The doors to that awful truck closed, and they drove Katrina away.”
“Is that when you called Wallace Blackman?” I say.
“So you know a little. Wally and I worked together on a film years ago. A dreadful horror thing. Warlocks. Demons. Too many virgins in a castle. Wally was excellent at special effects. CGI, blowing things up. He’s a master. It’s important to know people like that in the business. People who, no matter the job, take their craft seriously. Artists. It’s an overused word, but it fits some of us. I think so, anyway. Wally liked me. We became friends. He was going through a divorce. I was making costumes at the time for an Edith Wharton film.” He stops, sighs. “Will they ever stop making them?”
Lily hands Garcia another glass of water. He doesn’t speak for a long while.
“I’m hungry,” he says. “Let’s go eat. There must be something in town.”
“Why don’t you finish; then we’ll eat,” I say.
“Hey,” says Lily. “I’ll run out and get some sandwiches. Bring back smokes and coffee.”
She’s gone before Garcia and I can respond.
“I hope she brings tequila,” he says. “She’s got good bones. Taut muscles. You partners?”
“Starting to look that way.”
“Ah, she’s your lover. Your voice changed, Detective. Ever so slightly.”
I let it pass. I decide to give him a little.
“You remember when I came to your loft and you drew the picture of the woman you had seen Katrina with?”
“Striking, older, right?”
“That one.”
“We think she’s behind it. She was Katrina’s aunt.”
“Why?”
“I can’t say more. We’re still investigating.”
“Katrina was always so at ease with her. They were like sisters.”
“Did you know Mickey Orlov?”
“Everybody knows Mickey. Well, at least knows of him. I almost worked on a few of his films. But the timing never worked out. He’s produced a few great movies. Most producers don’t even get one. Why do you ask?”
“I saw one of his films the other night at a private screening.”
“Was it good?”
“It was unfinished.”
“What was it about?”
“A woman with only her memories left?”
“Sometimes they want to take even those.”
He looks down at his shirt and pants.
“I’m filthy,” he says. “May I take a shower?”
I check the bathroom: one towel, bar of soap, empty cabinets, nothing sharp; a window too small to climb out of.
“Leave the door open,” I say. “I’ll stand out here.”
The shower runs. Steam spirals into the hallway. I can hear him crying, muffled through the water, but the sobs are deep. It’s settling around him now, finding its weight, that “unexplainable” moment that changes everything. He’ll tell us. In his own way and time. This house must be for sale. There’s no sign out front, but it feels like a home between hands. Maybe for an Airbnb. A lot of those in the high desert these days. The water stops. I can hear the towel across his skin, hear him step into his pants, slip on his shirt. A guy like him having to wear the same clothes for days must be a Dantesque kind of hell. He steps into the hall, his hair slick and wet in a ponytail. He seems halfway back to himself.
Lily arrives with two bags.
“Turkey sandwiches, coffee, sushi, cigs, Cokes.”
“Tequila?”
“Just Cokes.”
“Sushi?” I say.
“Impulse buy,” says Lily.
“I like sushi,” says Garcia, reaching into the bag.
We eat in silence. Garcia lights a cigarette. I reach for one. Lily shoots me a disappointed glance, but I need a smoke.
“I want to show you something,” says Garcia. “Can we drive?”
“What do you want to show us?” says Lily.
“It’s best just to go. You’ll want to go.”
I drive. Garcia’s in the passenger seat; Lily’s in the back. We head to the main road. Garcia gets his bearings. We drive east for a few miles toward the Sheep Hole Mountains. Garcia is quiet, exhausted. He cracks the window and smokes. Saying nothing, he points us to dirt roads and flat stretches of desert broken by boulders and hills, wrinkling at places, drawing the eye. The land is at once scoured and shadowed, a vast terrain of smoke trees, cactus, and ocotillo. A fox appears on a boulder. It sits and watches us and disappears when the wind kicks up. It’s late afternoon. We turn past the broken wood of an old mining camp and drive deeper into rock formations and ancient swales where rivers once ran. I check the rearview. Nothing but a trail of thinning dust.
“Stop here,” says Garcia. “We have to walk a little.”
“How far?” says Lily.
“Around those rocks.”
“No fucking with us, right?” says Lily.
“No.”
We get out of the car. Garcia stays a few steps ahead. He threads us through boulders. I listen to our footsteps across dirt, scraping rocks. We slip through the last formation as if through a keyhole. The land opens up. Nightfall is an hour away, but the colors are changing, glowing like bronze and turning to deeper ocher shades. It feels as if we are pioneers, alone, in communion with the earth. Garcia points to another clump of boulders a hundred yards east. He stops, takes a breath, looks back at me. I have seen that look before. We’re close. A gust comes, swirls the dirt, and dies. Another follows. The air stills, colder. Garcia rounds one boulder, passes between two others. Rock walls rise and open to the sky like a house without a roof. He glances down. The last of the light hits ground blackened with ash. Garcia bends and runs his hand over it. Lily and I step closer. Garcia stands, tears in his eyes, ash on his hands.
“Katrina is here,” he says. “Here and with the sky.”
“Tell us,” I say.
He takes a breath, searches for the first sentence.
“We took her from the morgue,” he says, a shiver running through him, the blanket I had given him from my trunk wrapped around his shoulders. “I didn’t even know if we could. But I had to try. I called Wally right after you left Katrina’s loft that morning, Detective. He was a morgue driver for a few years before his special-effects career got going. His dad used to be a fireman, I think. He helped Wally get the job. Wally said it could take at least a day or more before they did an autopsy. We had time. He was excited. Wally gets animated when he’s excited, manic almost. He was fascinated. He came to my loft with the uniforms he used to wear. He had a box of movie-set explosives in his van. Wires and gadgets, things I knew nothing about. Wally thought of the plan.”
“Why does Wally all of a sudden sign on to it?” I say. “He didn’t know Katrina, but you call him, and he comes. I don’t know, Antonio.”
“He’s a thrill junkie. He was a delinquent when he was a boy. He told me he broke into Beverly Hills house
s and spray-painted graffiti on the walls. Just to do it. He stole cars and left them in the Palisades. He’s still like that. He can be fucking crazy. But he’s good too. I don’t want to say Wally’s not good.”
“Good how?”
“He lets your mission become his. Like a soldier.”
“Where is he?” says Lily.
“I don’t know.”
Garcia lights a cigarette, hands me one.
“We waited for night,” he says. “We talked and drank tequila. Wally’s bigger than I am, so I had to alter the uniform to fit me. Wally walked among my mannequins, pretending he was in a movie. He had no inhibition. We ordered Chinese. Wally grabbed me after we ate. He held me by the shoulders. He said, ‘Are you sure?’ I said, ‘Yes.’” Garcia looks to the ground and then up to the dark rocks. “We drove to the morgue around three a.m. It was quiet. We parked. Wally got out and fastened explosives to two cars at the end of the lot. He had a remote. We pulled our ball caps down. They were police ball caps. Wally knew where the cameras were. We stood to the side of the door. He pressed the remote. A car exploded. People ran out to see. We snuck in. Wally hurried me down a hall. It was chaos. Radios were going off. We went to a room. Wally opened and shut little silver doors. I stood with him, watching faces of the dead slide in and out. And then.” He takes a long drag. “Katrina. We lifted her out. She was pale and light, like silk. Nothing had touched her. We put her in one of those terrible bags and rushed into the hall. Wally pressed the remote again. I could hear another explosion outside. We hurried down the hall and out the door. Police cars and fire trucks were coming. We laid Katrina in the van and drove away.”
“Just like that,” says Lily.
“Nobody stopped us. I kept thinking they would. I kept thinking this is not real. It was as if the moment kept taking us deeper in, and we were looking at it from outside ourselves. There was so much confusion. We looked like everyone else. We hurried through the madness. We drove to a parking lot and changed out of the uniforms, into our clothes. Wally threw the uniforms in a dumpster. We went to Ralph’s and bought a dozen bags of ice. I waited in the van while Wally went in. He liked being the one in charge. I was alone with Katrina and I remembered how much we liked the nights, just the two of us, telling stories. She once said we were like vagabonds. I told her nothing else would hurt her. Wally came out, and we drove to the Arts District.”
Last Dance Page 24