On the Nickel (12 page)

‘That medicine not ‘lowed in here, but a body's got to have a taste now and then to stay well.'

‘I understand, I do. Can I go in and see Felice?'

‘Why sure, chile. They either in the TV room or up in 202.'

‘Thanks, Mrs. Duncan. Next time I'll have a sip with you.'

The woman chuckled. ‘You most welcome. You the onliest person here to understand what a body got to do to keep her ol' carcass goin'.'

Maeve wanted to tell her she understood hardship and compromise and weakness, maybe better than the woman thought, but there was no need.

‘Bless you,' Maeve said.

‘Keep it real, baby girl,' the woman said. And Maeve felt an electric jolt as she walked away. That was what Beto and his bangers had called her.

‘You can do this to any building down here,' Vartabedian said.

‘Well, not
any
building. It would be tough to build lofts in the Disney Music Center.' Eddie Wolverton had his forehead to the tall glass windows that he'd had his guys put into the two luxury penthouses of the Driscoll Building. The view west was worth it all. He wouldn't mind one of them himself, but living up Corrigan Canyon ovelooking Hollywood in a famous Lautner house was hard to beat. He hadn't even thrown his housewarming party yet.

‘You know what I mean. What you've done here is just gorgeous, Eddie. This was a shithole. I saw it. A brick rectangle full of sweatshops. Though one was a pretty good cigar-rolling sweatshop, somebody who'd got himself run out of Havana.'

‘Yeah, I had one of his
Yamilet Robustos
myself.'

‘Where did the shop go?'

Eddie just shook his head. ‘Who knows? It was Puerto Rican leaf. You can't shine shit, V. Fuck it. They're gone now.'

‘That's a bit harsh.'

‘There isn't room in life for second rate. Look at me; I stood beside Bobby Kennedy up in Delano in ‘Sixty-Six. Me. If Bobby hadn't been shot, you know, I'd probably be designing big monuments to César Chávez on the Mall in D.C., and you'd still be selling used cars out in Glendale. We all move on, and life gets funny when you watch the Current disappear from Events. OK, the Driscoll's over now. What's next?'

‘The Fortnum Hotel,' Vartabedian said. ‘I almost got it cleared.'

Wolverton turned and his forehead wrinkled up. ‘That's right on the edge of The Nickel, uh-huh?'

‘Sure. Skid Row is doomed, Eddie. We're gonna see it put to rest in a few more years.'

‘I hear there's some guys in the Fortnum who want to stay. Jewish gentlemen with gentlemen's agreements – or maybe even real leases from the old owner. Am I right? The press is going to love this, kicking out a bunch of old Jews. You better hope none of ‘em are Holocaust survivors.'

‘I'm going to pay enough so they want to clear out.'

‘A horse head in the bed?' Wolverton said with a grin.

‘Real money,' Vartabedian countered. ‘To them anyway. It's worth a little premium to keep the process moving.'

‘Ah, the code of gentrification,' Wolverton said with a big grin. ‘I guess it's our very own kind of global warming, isn't it?'

Conor came back to the Fortnum a bit jittery, anxious to write down the tales he'd been told by the homeless men he'd met around Eddie Monk. These men were more fascinating than anyone he'd have met in a thousand years around Fallbrook. He was writing furiously in his diary when a knock interrupted him.

‘Hi there, Mr Greengelb.' Conor was on the very cusp of saying he was busy just then. In comparison to his diary, he couldn't help thinking of Greengelb as interesting but not quite as memorable. Nothing to do with music. But some quirk of ingrained courtesy held his reply. ‘What's happening, sir?'

‘The Musketeers are meeting. Vartabedian's hooligans sabotaged our heat today. I thought you might like to be with us. You get just as cold as we do.' There was something else Greengelb was supposed to tell the boy, but he couldn't remember. His anger made it all worse, more confused.

‘I tremble like a leaf.'

‘Come to my room in ten minutes. We can't let this go unanswered.'

‘Count on me, sir. I'll just be a minute or two.'

Felice and Millie weren't in the TV room, which was full of women sprawling with their children on threadbare sofas and old bean bag chairs watching something – a TV surely – around a corner that flashed light over their faces and emitted unnatural laughter too often to be anything but a sitcom. She went on up the stairs, past posters for The Year of the Woman from Mozambique, and some bearded man named Paolo Friere under a big quote: ‘Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful.'

As she already knew, Eleanor was not part of an organization that worried too much about what the Pope thought. And this was not a place that would have a lot of use for wry humor either, she thought. Though the women here, like Kenisha Duncan with her hidden booze, might have appreciated a little mischief now and again.

She found the room number and knocked softly.

‘Felice! Millie! It's Maeve.'

Felice opened the door and smiled a strangely cool recognition as she beckoned her inside. Maeve almost froze in her tracks when she saw the slim form of Sister Mary Rose/Ms Eleanor Ong propped placidly on the windowsill watching her neutrally.

‘I just wanted to know if you were OK,' Maeve said to Felice. She noticed the little girl moving slowly toward her.

‘We had a bad scare jus' half a thumb-twiddle ago,' Felice said. ‘That little shitass! Oop, I think I'm losing my religion. He snatched hard at my nipples when I told him to go away.'

‘I bet I know who you mean,' Maeve said. ‘He tried to shake me up by stabbing his own leg. What a creepy guy.'

At that moment Millie took Maeve's hand hard. ‘Hi, Millie,' Maeve said. ‘I'm sure you'll be OK here.'

‘I got to go out sometimes, look for Clarence,' Felice said. ‘I know he's here somewhere, I feel it in my heart. That drip-nose with his knife seem to be ever'place, like a used Kleenex. He said I remind him of Marilyn Monroe.' She made a contemptuous noise.

Maeve looked up at Eleanor, who hadn't said a word. Her eyes were watching her thoughtfully, almost disinterestedly. ‘He's what's called a sociopath,' Maeve said to Felice. Eleanor didn't move a muscle. ‘He even said it himself. That means he's got no conscience.' She studied Felice, dowdy and drawn and plain, but she decided a lot of that was worry and lack of taking care of herself. ‘You know, you could be really pretty with a little fixing up,' Maeve told her. ‘I'll bet some of the women here would help.'

‘I don't care about that. I just want to find Clarence and go home where things is normal.'

‘I'm looking for somebody, too, a missing boy. I showed you his picture. But when I get through finding him I can help you.' She wondered if tasks and missions had multiplied unpredictably like this for her dad.

‘Could I talk to you outside, Maeve?' That was Eleanor, speaking at last and smiling now, though barely, like the Mona Lisa.

It turned out to be impossible to separate her hand from Millie's, who had fastened on like a sucker fish, so the three of them stepped into the hallway. ‘We'll just be a second, Felice,' Eleanor said. ‘We'll do something about that rotten man. I promise.'

All of a sudden, Maeve was tense as a small wild animal caught out in the open. Eleanor shut the door behind her.

‘You know who I am, so please let's not belabor it,' she said pleasantly. ‘How's Jack these days?'

Maeve wouldn't give the woman an inch. Whatever she did, she had to keep this woman away from her father. She knew he'd had such an overwhelming infatuation with her that he could never again be trusted to keep his pants zipped around her. After her own bout of love madness, she would never underestimate the tug of infatuation. ‘Should I call you Sister Whatever, or Eleanor?'

‘Whichever name makes you comfortable, Maeve. I don't mind.'

‘I thought you'd gone back into one of those silent convents. That's the family legend – after Dad's life turned out to be a bit too technicolor for you.' She couldn't think of a nastier way to put it.

Eleanor laughed softly for a moment. ‘I tried. It turns out I'm better at serving than silent prayer. I can't really keep my mouth shut, they tell me. Speaking of legends – have you ever heard the age-old convent tale?'

Maeve shook her head.

‘This isn't strictly true – but take it as an analogue of the truth, possibly said about another nun centuries ago. The Mother Superior allows us to speak two words out loud every fifth year. My first two words were “hard bed.” So they got me a better bed. Then, just last year, after ten cloistered years, I said, “lousy food.”

‘“OK, it's going to be best if you leave us,” the Mother Superior said. “You've done nothing but complain since you got here.”'

Maeve smiled but did her best not to laugh. ‘Dad has a permanent woman now. He's very committed to her.'

‘And I have what we call a vocation. I'm still a nun, Maeve, a bride of Christ.' She displayed the plain gold ring on her marriage finger. ‘My order is St Procopius, of the Benedictines, the same as Dorothy Day. If you don't know her, look her up. She's a wonderful hero. “Bride of Christ” works much the same way as marriage.'

‘Not exactly,' Maeve said. ‘Gloria isn't imaginary and Jesus is.' She was trying to be hard as a rock to remain loyal – insulting and untouchable – but she realized she'd just revealed Gloria's name. Was that a mistake?

‘Gloria,' the woman mused. ‘A Latina? How interesting.'

‘A Paiute Indian, in fact. She's strong as an ox, hard as nails, smart as a really good shrink. A very good cop. And possessive as all get-out.'

The half-smile came and went. ‘Don't worry, Maeve. I don't covet Jack. I just wanted to know how he's cooking along these days. I was worried. When I knew him long ago, things were a bit ragged.'

No way on earth Maeve would tell her about Jack's problems. ‘He's fine. Just perfect, in fact.' She felt Millie's hand tighten twice on hers, like some kind of weird lie detector going off.

‘You should go back to your mom now,' Eleanor said to the little girl, as if there was something more she wanted to say to Maeve.

‘I have to go find a runaway boy now,' Maeve said quickly.

Uh-oh. He broke off writing at the knock on his door, thinking it was the Musketeers again, then he tried to ignore the interruption and finish the sentence, but he'd lost his train of thought. So he sighed and got up and opened the door. Surprisingly, he found a girl there, freckled and aged about eighteen. She was slim and big-breasted and looked pretty good, even though she was trying to be fierce-looking, for some reason. You didn't really have to guess about self-protection on Skid Row.

‘Wow, you're Conor,' the girl said.

‘Whoa – who told you that?'

‘Your dad, Mike Lewis.'

‘Ah, shit. Tracked down to my hideout. Who are you?'

‘Come on, man, let me in. I'm not screwing with you, and I'm not your enemy.'

‘How do I know that?'

She shrugged. ‘Maybe I made it all up. I'm Jack Liffey's daughter.'