Shamus In The Green Room (27 page)

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renovations. It was still a great location, though. I skipped up

the path toward the colorful outdoor staircase that led to the

second floor. Maybe after Gambino came home, we could

stroll down Vermont to that French place we liked. Or com-

mandeer a white leather booth at the Dresden Room and listen

to Marty and Elayne, who came on at nine. We could do all

sorts of things once I cleared the air.

Clearing the air is what grown-ups do.

The gardeners had obviously just been there. The bottom

of the stairs was one huge puddle. Villa Gina’s resident cat, the

morbidly obese Coco, started to meow at my feet. She was ker-

flummoxed as to how to get to her napping spot without wet-

ting her massive paws.

I scooped her up in my arms, scratched a little behind her

ears, and deposited her with a thud underneath the chipped

plaster birdbath in the courtyard.

I usually didn’t get as far as the courtyard. It really needed

a paint job. There were rust stains everywhere. For some un-

known reason, I was estimating how much it would cost to

paint an entire apartment complex when I heard a door open. I

glanced up to the second-floor landing and saw a young

woman with long black hair coming out of the apartment in

the far corner.

That would be apartment number 16.

Gambino’s apartment.

She didn’t look like the building manager. The building

manager had gray hair. And a walker.

The woman shut the door and started down the hallway.

I ran back to the entryway and ducked behind a pillar. If

she wasn’t the building manager, who was she?

That was pretty obvious.

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I heard her heels clicking down the short staircase. Then the

clicking stopped. She was outside the building. I waited a cou-

ple of seconds, then crept into the alcove and peered down the

sidewalk. She was heading east on Los Feliz, toward Vermont.

I stared at her narrow white jeans and red poncho. I had a red

poncho, but hers was nicer. Her brown leather shoulder bag

wasn’t as exciting, but she was holding on to it like her life de-

pended on it.

That was it! She was a burglar! She’d taken something from

Gambino’s apartment and was hiding it in her purse! I was go-

ing to scream. If I screamed, someone would stop her. She’d

start running, but someone would catch her.

Except that she wasn’t a burglar.

And I wasn’t an operative.

Not that that was going to stop me.

I started down Los Feliz Boulevard after her, maintaining a

brisk pace. I was wearing earth tones, which seemed a plus,

camouflage wise. I considered, then rejected, tucking dead

leaves in my hair. Too much.

So far, so good. She didn’t see me—wait, she was turning

around. Oh, my god. I leapt behind a bus bench near the corner

of Vermont and froze in a sort of militaristic crouch, hands on

hips. No, she wasn’t turning around, she was just reaching into

her purse for her cell phone. She started talking animatedly. My

fiancé, no doubt. The nerve. Did Tico know about her? Gam-

bino was with Tico, celebrating. At least that’s what he’d said.

Maybe he wasn’t with Tico at all.

I tried not to get carried away here. Gambino was not my

ex-husband. But our relationship had been on again, off again

since the beginning. I thought we were on again, but maybe my

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on was his off. Even in a paranoid frenzy, I didn’t believe that.

But a person should finish what she starts.

I emerged from my hiding place as she took a right on Ver-

mont. I sprinted toward the corner, but a huge flatbed truck

carrying a fleet of new cars was crossing the intersection, so I

couldn’t exactly dash across.

Once the truck passed, I turned the corner and caught sight

of her on the other side of the street. She was still chattering

away on the phone, keeping up a good pace, but so was I,

though it was hard to maneuver downhill in stilettoes. I kept

feeling like I was going to topple over. I was going to break my

neck, on top of everything else.

In these situations, there are standard protocols. You don’t

wear stilettoes, for one thing. The Op didn’t have to worry

about that. He did, however, adhere religiously to the four

tenets of shadowing: stay behind your man as much as possi-

ble; do not ever try to hide from him; act naturally, regardless

of what happens; and never look him in the eye.

Who would be dumb enough to look the person in the eye?

There was a church coming up on her left, Our Mother of

Good Counsel. She stopped—feeling guilty, no doubt. I knelt

behind a black Dodge Ram parked at the curb. It had tribal

detailing and was for sale by owner for $2,650. Seemed like a

good deal, but the guys at D.J.’s were going to save my Camry.

Nope, she didn’t feel guilty. She’d stopped to put her cell

phone back in her purse. Then she walked on, past the Gurd-

wara Vermont, a fortresslike Sikh temple with gold onionskin

domes poking out of the top. I managed to keep an eye on her

while sidestepping a pile of dog poop.

She took off her poncho and draped it over one arm.

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I took off my sweater, and tied it around my waist.

She picked up her pace.

I picked up my pace.

She put her poncho back on.

I refused to put my sweater back on. It was hot.

One time, when Hammett was working as a Pinkerton, he

trailed a suspect for six entire weeks, riding trains, passing

through half a dozen small towns. I could barely keep this up

for six minutes.

I scurried past an old woman in a gray overcoat banging on

the door at 1955 1/2. “Open up,” she was yelling. “Open up!”

She turned around for a second and I made the mistake of

smiling in what I thought was a noncommittal way.

“Excuse me, miss? Young lady?”

I pretended not to hear her.

“Would you be so kind as to help me?” She knew full well I

could hear her. “I’m locked out. My nephew is inside.” I glanced

across the street. I could still see her, red poncho swinging. “At

least he’s supposed to be. He may be indisposed.”

I started banging on the door before the old woman could

elaborate further. “Your aunt is stuck out here! Open the door!

Are you in there”—I turned to her and asked her nephew’s

name—“are you in there, Sid? Sid?”

The door opened.

“Thank you for your help, dear,” the woman said, grabbing

Sid by the collar and shutting the door.

I hadn’t lost her. She was in front of a low, brick building

now, with a huge parking lot behind it. As I got closer, I read

the sign: masonic elysian temple. My father had been a

Shriner, and all Shriners are Masons, but not all Masons are

Shriners. Maybe somebody could explain that to me one day.

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There was a banner out front saying they rented the place out

for movie shoots. Good to know.

Hammett said shadowing was a kind of compulsion. I

could see that, actually. I was noticing all kinds of things I’d

never noticed before. Like the fact that Vermont goes down-

hill. That it’s got all these houses of worship. That people

drop all sorts of things on the ground, not just garbage. I’d

seen a Chinese jump rope, a spelling test, dice, a pair of laven-

der mittens. Maybe I could keep this up for six weeks. How

did you change clothes, though? Eat? But my cover was blown

across the street from the 7-Eleven on the corner of Vermont

and Franklin when, running for the light, I tripped on the

plastic top of a Pringles can, twisting my ankle and causing a

VW bug making a right turn on red to slam on his brakes so

as not to kill me.

The guy didn’t have to yell.

She looked up at the commotion. Maybe she knew who I

was, and maybe she didn’t, but either way, she didn’t like what

she saw. In the blink of an eye, she’d disappeared behind a

huge Metro bus.

So much for the Op’s rule number four.

When the light changed, she was gone.

I sat down on the bus bench and took off my shoe. My an-

kle had started to swell. Great. I tugged on my sweater and

waved away a downtown bus that was preparing to stop for me.

This experience struck me as somehow symbolic: a symbolic

failure. I squeezed my fat foot back into my shoe, and for a brief

moment thought about getting on the next bus. I could see it al-

ready, the big crosstown bus. I could just hop on and keep go-

ing, to the end of the line. I could stay wherever I wound up.

Build a whole new life.

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No, I was going back to Gambino’s to surprise him, as

planned.

To clear the air, as planned.

To ask a simple question about the attractive young lady

with the not-fat foot I’d seen coming out of his apartment,

which was the part that wasn’t planned. After that part, of

course, I’d have to clear the air again.

I was trudging back, thinking about what all this said about

me—and none of it was good—when I saw a dress hanging in

the window of a vintage clothing store kitty-corner from the

ill-fated 7-Eleven.

A slip of a dress, poison-green satin, with peacock-feather

trim at the bottom.

Something like that could really change a person’s mood.

Plus, it looked like my size.

In my current state, I was unlikely to be prudent, but I

didn’t care. A salesgirl wearing a leopard-skin pillbox hat told

me to have a look around, she’d be right back, then zipped into

the back and came out with another salesgirl, wearing a beret,

who started nodding and smiling, and eventually burst out

with how much better I looked in person.

I said thank you because it seemed easier.

They were thrilled but not surprised that I liked the green

dress. It had been worn by Jean Harlow. Now it was my turn

to nod and smile. I’d heard that line about every thirties dress

cut on the bias I’d ever come across. Not that I particularly

cared either way. When it comes to vintage clothing, all that

matters is whether it fits or not, and this dress fit like a dream.

They made me come out and show them. Then they put a hat

with a black veil on my head, which I promptly removed.

Then they made me stand by the window, where the light was

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better, so I could see how fabulous the color was with my hair

and eyes.

And that was when I saw her, the girl in the red poncho, on

her way into the House of Pies.

“Hello! You!” I screamed, banging on the window, not that

she could hear me.

“Is everything all right?” asked the salesgirl in the beret.

I ran back into the dressing room, grabbed up all my stuff,

and made a frantic dash for the front door. How could she eat

pie at a time like this?

“Stop!” yelled the beret. “You haven’t paid!”

“I am so sick of fucking celebrities!” yelled the pillbox hat.

“They want everything for free!”

I reached into my purse, threw a couple of twenties at them

(which was more than the dress was worth because Jean Har-

low was maybe half my weight and height, and everybody

knows platinum blondes don’t wear green), and flew across the

street.

I was hoping for an explanation, but I got a hell of a lot more.

CHAPTER

THIRTY-THREE

Banana cream, Bavarian cream, Dutch apple, black cherry,

pecan, pumpkin, fresh strawberry: around and around

they spun, glistening under the hot lights of the display case.

Under normal circumstances, it would’ve been hard to resist,

but these were not normal circumstances. At least my shoes

were on.

“Table for one?” asked the hostess, pulling a laminated

menu from the rack.

“Actually, I’m looking for a friend.” I scanned the room. It

was filled with teenagers eating French fries, old people eating

boiled eggs, and nobody eating pie.

Maybe she was in the bathroom.

“Restrooms and telephones to the left, in the rear,” the

hostess responded to my question. “Nice dress.”

“Thanks.”

I marched down the aisle, and pushed open the freshly

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painted door marked ladies. There were two stalls inside, both

occupied. I squatted down to check the respective footwear.

One pair of navy-blue pumps, and one pair of brown leather

mules. I hadn’t noticed her shoes, but I was betting on the

mules.

A toilet flushed. Navy-blue pumps came out and left with-

out washing her hands.

One down, one to go.

I waited. I studied the faux-wood grain on the doors. I

checked my face in the mirror, and wiped off the mascara col-

lecting under my eyes. Then I was done waiting.

“Time to face the music,” I said out loud.

She didn’t answer.

“I know you can hear me. When you come out, I expect

you to say something.”

I heard a flush, then the door swung open and a hefty,

middle-aged woman with flame-colored hair and delicate an-

kles stepped out. She was wearing a pink ruffled apron.