City of Mirrors (23 page)

I
opened my eyes. Slumped in a worn maroon-velvet seat, I raised my head, breathing in the odor of dust, mildew, and forlorn emptiness. Putting my hand to my head, I felt a lump. Nausea swept through me as I leaned forward, gripping the back of the seat in front of me, and peering at a movie screen. A velvet curtain draped the proscenium. Light fixtures sculpted like bent arms with hands holding dimly lighted torches lined the walls. I looked up at the ceiling, blinking it into focus. The Hollywood version of the Sistine Chapel mural had been painted on it. The angels, movie-star sexy, had faded and chipped into decay. Gerald and Bruno sat still on either side of me as if we were at a private screening waiting for the movie to begin. I was in Parson's theater.

I sat a few moments, gathering myself. Swaying, I stood up. “I'm going for popcorn. Want some?” I quickly squeezed past Bruno. Just as I reached the aisle he stuck out his foot, tripping me. I went down on the carpet.

Gerald snickered. I got to my hands and knees then sat back on my haunches, waiting for the nightmare room to stop tilting. “I thought you and Gerald weren't allowed in The Rock. At least that's what Mrs. Parson told me.”

Bruno shot up out of his seat and leaned down, putting his face in mine. “You keep your mouth shut.” He jerked me up to my feet.

“Ms. Poole,” Parson greeted me as he came down the stage steps and walked up the aisle to us. “I'm glad you're alive. Rubio had such a need for drama, the need to create his own special effects. Not a good combination for a hit man. I won't miss him.”

“How did he know Celia was at the motel?” I asked, as the room finally righted itself.

“I had Bruno, Gerald, and Rubio following you. Bruno and Gerald tailed who they thought was you to the hospital. So I ordered Rubio to wait at Bella Casa in case someone else went in or out. And you did. In a bright red convertible. Rubio followed you to the motel and of course informed Bruno where he was.”

“I didn't see his bike.”

“He wasn't on it, just in a regular plain sedan. I didn't order him to rent the room next to Celia's or fire stupidly through the wall. But that was Rubio's way. He too loved the movies. Did you tell them where the memory card is?”

“No.”

“We searched Celia, the room, and Ms. Poole,” Bruno explained. “Nothing. It was a quick search. We had to get out before the cops arrived.”

“Where's Heath?” I asked Parson.

Parson assessed me. “You said you didn't tell Bruno and Gerald where the card is. Does that mean you know?”

“Yes.”

“We're making headway.”

“I want to see Heath first.”

“Bring her upstairs,” he told the two men.

Parson led us backstage. Bruno's hand gripped my arm as we made our way up the circular stairs. I didn't have a plan. But I had one goal, the card in Bruno's pocket. Other than that, I was improvising, and like all good actresses I knew I had to follow my instincts. Wait for the moment.

Parson opened the door to his bedroom. I braced myself for what bloody condition Heath might be in.

“Sit, Miss Poole.”

Bruno shoved me onto the bed. Then he and Gerald leaned against the wall opposite me. Now Parson opened the door to the cement-lined room. Heath was tied to the wooden chair. His shirt hung open and his head lolled down, chin resting on his bare chest.

Luis stood next to him, his black hair glistening like a gigolo's.

“As you can see, we've kept Heath under control,” Parson said. “I could play the torture game to make you tell me where the card is, but that's tedious, don't you think?”

“Let him go. I'll tell you where it is.”

Luis grabbed Heath's hair and yanked back his head. Heath's face stretched in a grimace of pain.

“You know I can't do that,” Parson said in his most reasonable tone. “You tell me its location, and I'll send Bruno and Gerald to get it.”

“Let Heath go first.”

“Luis.” Parson spoke his name but it was really a command.

In one balletic movement Luis pulled a knife from his pants pocket, flipped the blade from its sheath, and pressed it to Heath's throat.

“Stop it!” All eyes were on me. I had my moment. I had my audience. “I don't want to watch any more people die. I saw Celia die. I saw your wife die. I can't take it …”

“My wife?” Parson looked as if he'd been shot. “What are you talking about?”

I glanced at Heath, still with the knife at this throat. He was watching me closely. And I realized he was more alert than he'd first appeared.

“What about my wife?” Parson demanded.

“I was there in the penthouse when she jumped. I tried to prevent her. We all did. Ask Bruno. Ask Gerald.”

“She's lying!” Gerald said. “We checked on your wife every hour, like you said. The last time we did, she was gone.”

Bruno stared silently at me, his eyes filled with pure hatred.

“Go on, Ms. Poole,” Parson said.

“She was on the balcony when Bruno and Gerald broke in.”

“Broke in?”

“Yes. She'd stolen the key from Bruno and had locked the door from the inside.”

“I don't know what she's talking about.” The blood had drained from Bruno's face.

With a small, hard smile, Luis moved to the doorway, the knife in his hand, his back to Heath.

“I was with her,” I said to Parson. “You have pre-Columbian art in your penthouse. The glass wall automatically folds back into panels. You have a private elevator with a door that looks like all the other office doors. Your wife had auburn hair, she was wearing jeans.” Parson's eyes were beginning to glaze over with rage. I glanced at Heath. He was working his hands trying to loosen the ropes on his wrists.

“She said you took Jenny to the Rock, and Jenny came home wanting to be an actress. She said you used the theater for solace. Or to kill.”

Parson's stone-like eyes narrowed, his cadaverous body went rigid, and he jabbed a finger at me. “Enough of this bullshit. I want the card
now
.”

“I saw Bruno take it.”

Parson turned slowly toward the big man.

Bruno pulled himself up. “I don't have it, sir. She's screwing with us.”

“He put it in his handkerchief pocket. Look for yourself.”

Bruno's left hand flattened against his chest. His eyes widened as he felt the card. Instantly his other hand jammed inside his jacket and pulled out his gun. But Bruno wasn't fast enough.

With a flick of his wrist, Luis hurled his knife across the room and into Bruno's neck. Bruno's mouth gaped open. Dropping the gun, his hands grabbed for the knife. Blood spurted from his jugular. His legs buckled and he dropped to the floor. The Aubusson rug soaked up his blood.

Heath had worked his hands free. He was grappling with the ropes on his legs.

“Stop!” Gerald yelled. “We didn't do anything. It was her. It was all her!” Backing up to the bedroom door, he waved his gun at me, then at Parson.

Parson was motionless, standing as if he were in a trance. I knew Gerald was waiting for an order to shoot, for someone to tell him what to do.

Heath had freed his legs. Silently he rose, turned, lifted his chair, and crashed it down on Luis's back. Luis flew forward, his chin up, surprise on his face. He belly-flopped onto the floor next to Bruno. Gasping for air, he reached for Bruno's gun.

Gerald fired, somehow missing all of us. Heath ducked, moved in, and seized Bruno's weapon from Luis. With a quick twist of his body, he aimed and fired.

A round black hole appeared in Gerald's forehead. He dropped to his knees. Shoulders slumping, he keeled over. I moved to him and grabbed his weapon.

Parson sat down on his bed and asked calmly, “Are you all right, Luis?”

“
Si
.” Luis's hand moved to take the knife from Bruno's neck.

But Heath stood over him. “Give it up, Luis. Go sit with your boss.”

As Luis silently joined him, Parson looked at Heath with calculating eyes. “If you were a cold-blooded killer, Heath, you'd shoot Luis and me. Obviously, you're not.”

“Don't be too sure,” Heath said.

I stood next to Heath, holding Gerald's gun on Parson and Luis. “Heath's going to the call the police.”

Parson tossed me his bony Pasha grin, but spoke to Heath. “Are you?”

Heath didn't answer.

“Heath?”

He had a look of not knowing me on his face. He turned and walked back into the cement room and scooped up his wallet, cell phone, flashlight, and coins from the wood table.

“Your mother,” Parson told me in an amused voice, “would figure a way out of this mess so nobody got hurt, especially her. That's what Heath is doing. He's the best fixer there is.”

My voice rose. “You can't do this, Heath!”

Heath stepped back into the bedroom. “He'd walk right out of the police station, Diana. He knows too much about too many people.”

“He should at least be arrested.”

Parson pursed his lips and stroked his goatee. “She has a point, a little too moral for this situation, but a point. You must be very disappointed in Heath. Your mother would have loved him. Come on, Luis.”

Luis, his perfectly pressed Polo shirt drenched in Bruno's blood, got to his feet and opened the door for Parson.

“Wait a minute,” Heath said, “I've changed my mind. I think I will have you arrested.”

“I've never seen a woman sway you before, Heath.”

“You don't know people as well as you think you do, Parson.” He gestured with his weapon to the cement room. “Get in there. Now.”

Parson gave a world-weary shrug. He and Luis entered their torture chamber.

Parson turned and stared at me. “Did my wife intend to kill herself? I need to know.”

“Yes, she said it was the only power she had over you.”

He hesitated, then nodded. “Bruno was a trustworthy man, in my world that is. Did he take the card?”

“No, I put it in his pocket.”

“You are impressive. Perhaps more impressive than your mother.”

“Did you want the card to protect Jenny?”

A sad, distant smiled formed on his grim lips. “We spend too much time protecting the dead.”

Heath shoved him all the way in and bolted the door.

T
he stench of blood filled the room. Heath turned from the bolted door and took his cell from his pants pocket and punched in a number. Placing Gerald's gun on the nightstand, I stood by the bed, my arms crossed, holding myself. As Heath waited for someone to answer, I looked at his shirt, the buttons ripped off. He was breathing as if his ribs hurt. Finally he spoke into the phone. “Hey, Spangler, this is Heath. I'm in an old movie theater called The Roxy. Two of Parson's men are dead. I've locked up Parson and Luis. They're all yours if you can hold 'em.” He gave the address. “Diana's with me. I'll tell her.” He disconnected and peered at me, questions in his dark eyes. “They found Celia at a place called the Larchmont Motel.”

“I know.” Swallowing hard, I crouched beside Bruno and slid the memory card from his pocket and put it in mine. Needing to get away from the smell of death, I went out to the landing and stood by the spiral staircase.

“Diana? Are you all right?” Heath asked, moving next to me.

“Rubio shot Celia. Before she died, she killed him. She saved my life.”

“I'm glad she did.” He put his arms around me, pulling me to him.

“I owe you a new shirt,” I said.

“I owe you my life. Parson was right. You are impressive.”

Taking a deep breath, I moved away from him. “Were you really going to let Parson go?”

“If you weren't here? Yes.”

“Why?”

He heaved a sigh. “In the Army you were ordered to do things you knew were ineffective, even useless. And arresting Parson is the same thing to me. He'll be let go. He has too much on too many important people. Why waste everybody's time and money? Why go though the process?” He paused, looking at me. “You're disappointed.”

“I guess I am.”

“You were right, Diana. I'm a fixer. I see a problem, I try to take care of it for the people involved. The people who pay me. Sometimes I take shortcuts, even skirt the law. It's what I do. It's who I am. Let's get you some air.”

“What about Parson and Luis?”

He gave mirthless laugh. “They can't get out.”

We walked down the stairs to the area behind the movie screen and out the service doors. It was dark now. Parson's limo was parked in the alley. Behind it was the blue van.

Not talking, not touching, we walked down the sidewalk past stores closing up for the night. Hard-working men and women pulling the gates across their properties, trying to protect what little they had inside. The cold night air felt clean on my face.

“Tell me how you found Ben?” I said.

“After I left you early this morning …”

“God, it was only this morning?”

“I sat in the car outside your house. I wanted to make sure you were safe.”

I looked at him. “Thank you.”

“Later in the morning I decided to stretch my legs. I walked down to Celia's and let myself in. I thought maybe I'd find something connecting her to the murder or to Parson.”

“But Ben tore the place apart.”

“He did. My job is to search without anyone ever knowing I've been there. When I left, I walked back up PCH and saw Ben's Jeep drive past. I watched him park in front of Celia's, and I waited for about an hour. Keeping an eye on the house waiting for him to come out, so I could follow him.”

“I was there talking with him part of that time. He ran away from me.”

He nodded. “I saw the two of you on the walkway. I followed him north as he drove up the coast. After a couple of miles he made a fast U-turn and sped off south. I thought he might be going back to Celia's. Just then I got a frantic call from Gwyn that Robert had been drinking and was threatening to kill himself, and that Ben had discovered Celia was his birth mother. That was a big surprise. Hell, this has been a day of surprises.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “So I pulled off the road and tried to calm Robert down over the phone. He said Parson had been there, threatening them and searching for a camera. Gwyn took the phone back, and I couldn't get her off, so I hung up on her.” He stopped. “I need a drink. Would you like one?” He gestured across the street to a bar next to a vacant lot.

“I could use one.”

Waiting for a few cars to pass, we hurried across the street and into the tavern. From a radio on the counter, a male voice sang forlornly in Spanish. Men, their jeans and shirts grimy from their labor, lined the pock-marked bar.

On the opposite wall were three stiff-backed booths made of dark wood. Maybe because of Heath's appearance, or maybe because we were
gringos
, the bartender gave him a stern look as we took one of the booths. A few of the men turned and assessed us, then went back to their conversations. The bartender wandered over. “No problems,” he warned Heath.

“No.” He tried to tuck in his shirt and gave up.

“Senora?”

“Martini.”

“Beer, tequila.”

“I'll have a shot of tequila then.”

“Dos Equis,” Heath said.

We stared out a small window at the emptying street. I could see the battered marquee of Parson's theater.

“Do you want me to go on?” Heath asked.

“Yes.”

“I hung up on Gwyn and drove back to Celia's and saw Ben's car in her driveway. I parked, blocking it. I didn't want to lose him again.” He shook his head. “Little did I know I already had. I couldn't find Ben anywhere in the house. I checked the deck and the beach. When I returned, I noticed there were only five chairs at the kitchen table. When I was there earlier there had been six. So what happened to the missing chair?” He leaned back and closed his eyes. And I remembered the chair lying on its side in the faded oil stain.

Now he looked at me. “That's when I opened the garage door and saw Ben hanging. I righted the chair, got on it, and felt his carotid artery. He had a faint pulse. Then the chair was kicked out from under me.”

“He was alive,” I said.

“Yes.”

We stared out the window again. The bartender returned with our drinks. Heath took a long swallow of his beer. I sipped my tequila. It was warm and smooth. I fought back my tears, saving them for later when I would be alone. Then sirens filled the small bar as the black-and-whites, the emergency vehicles, converged on The Roxy. The night sky was lit up with their flashing lights. A few of the men at the bar paid and ran out the back door. Illegals? Criminals? Scared of the cops? Or just scared.

“We should be going,” I said.

Heath set his bottle down. “You put the memory card in your pocket. What are you going to with it?”

I looked at him. “Give it to Spangler.”

“The LAPD is a giant bureaucracy with some good management and some bad. Some good cops and some not so good. There are people who would pay a lot of money to get that card. One of the highest bidders will be Parson.”

“Are you saying I shouldn't give it to her? She's corrupt?”

”Not Spangler. But this all happened out of her jurisdiction. She'll have no control over the card once it's put in as evidence.”

“What do you want, Heath?”

“I'm going to cut another corner. I need that card to protect my client, Diana.”

I sucked in my breath and felt the distance between us widen. “Is he the governor of the state? The mayor? The police commissioner? Head of a studio?”

“He's P. J. Binder.”

“What?” I sat back.

“Binder was afraid Pearl had made a copy of the Bella Casa key and had given it to Zackary Logan. He'd seen them together and knew he'd been her pimp in the past. He was worried about her safety, so he hired me to find out what was going on. Then Logan showed up at Bella Casa when he was cleaning the pool and said he had a meeting with Celia. P.J. got angry and told him he knew what was going on. Logan pulled a gun, they struggled, and it went off.”

“Celia didn't kill Logan then.”

“No.”

“And that's why Pearl didn't want to give me the card.” I explained what had happened at Bella Casa. “She wanted it to protect P.J. What will you do with it?”

“Make it unusable. Another moral dilemma for you, Diana.”

I downed the last of my tequila, took the card from my pocket, and slid it across the table to him.

“And you're all right about covering up for P.J.?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“My mother helped him to reenter the world when he came back from 'Nam. I guess I'm helping him to stay in it.”

“If Celia hadn't died, would you have let her go?” he asked.

“But she did die.”

“And you still see my wanting to let Parson go differently.”

“Yes.”

Heath's eyes burrowed into mine. His voice was husky when he spoke. “What am I going to do with you, Diana?”

“What am
I
going to do with
you
?” I could feel the energy our bodies created dancing between us.

His cell rang. “Heath,” he answered. “I'm across the street. Christ, Spangler, can't you guys ever arrive with just a
few
cars?” He disconnected. Then he threw some cash on the table and we walked back across the street to the theater.

A long hour later, inside the movie theater, I had told Spangler and two Central Division detectives what had happened. After many questions, they asked me to wait and left.

Spangler lingered, handing me a Snickers. “Something to remember me by.”

“You're not the kind of woman one easily forgets,” I said.

“So I've been told. Mostly by the bastards I've arrested. I'll get you a car to take you home.”

After she left, I found my purse on the floor next to my seat. I opened it, dropped the candy bar in, and discovered I still had Celia's gun. Christ, was I never going to be unarmed again?

A few minutes later, Heath walked me back outside past all the patrol cars, still flashing, past the ambulances to the waiting black-and-white.

Heath opened the back door for me. “I'll see what I can do to keep you out of all this, Diana. The media doesn't bother much with this side of town. I've got to get back.”

“Aren't you being driven home?”

“It seems I shot a man between the eyes. They want to take me downtown.”

“I told them it was self-defense.”

“Don't worry, I have an excellent lawyer. Almost as good as Parson's.”

“Oh, I forgot.” I reached into my purse and took out the gun. “It's Celia's.”

“For a moment I thought you were going to shoot me.” He took it.

“That reminds me. Who's Collette?”

“Who?”

“I accidently called your home phone number when I was trying to track you down today. Collette answered. She was there gathering some things that belonged to her. Bra, panties… .”

He cocked his head. His index finger stroked the bump on the bridge of his nose. “Would you believe she was my sister?”

“Yes.”

His eyes widened. “You would?”

“Yes. Because you're such a charmer, such a good liar.”

Now serious, he cupped my cheek in his hand. “Would you ever want to see me again?”

Without waiting for an answer he turned and walked quickly away, his white shirt stark against the night. Was he afraid of my answer? I wondered, getting into the car. He knew I wasn't sure of him or his world. Did I have an answer? As the car pulled away from the curb, I wondered how Heath and I would feel about each other after there was no more violence. No more adrenalin rushes. No more dead.

Even though I knew Parson was under arrest and I was heading toward Malibu in the back seat of a black-and-white, I glanced several times out the rear window to see whether a Mercedes limo was following me. Or the ghost of Rubio on his bike. I'd be looking over my shoulder for a while.

When I finally arrived home, I found a large manila envelope leaning against the front door. There were no television sounds from the kitchen—I must've forgotten to turn it on. I stood, listening. Yes, the silence was bearable.

In the living room, I turned on the light and placed the envelope and my purse on the coffee table. I walked over to Colin's Oscars and my mother's urn on the mantel. Gathering them in my arms, I carried them into Colin's office and set them on his desk. When Ryan was healed, I thought, he and I would scatter her ashes in the ocean. I closed the door quietly behind me and went back to the living room.

I opened the manila envelope and took out a script. It was from Pedro Romero, the director. In a note, he asked me to read for the costarring role of Elena in his film,
A Long and Happy Death
. I sank onto the sofa, clasping the script to my breasts, and looked at the empty mantel and thought of Celia and Ben. The confusion and pain of Zaitlin. I thought of Heath. I let my tears flow freely.

Not now, but tomorrow, I would feel that powerful surge of hope, of possibility, that keeps all actors going.