Robert Crais - Lullaby Town

I made four pancakes and the poached eggs, then crushed the poached eggs on top of the pancakes, poured a large glass of nonfat milk, and brought the food and the milk to the table. The cat had left during the night. Sometimes he eats breakfast with me, but sometimes he doesn't. When he doesn't, I don't know what he eats. Maybe small dogs.

Karen Nelsen had no phone in either name, but I had sort of expected that. After ten years, the odds were large that she had remarried. The credit cards were another matter. If she had a credit card under Nelsen or Shipley, or with Nelsen or Shipley listed as a former name, she should've turned up. That was odd, but there were explanations. Maybe she had joined a cult and no longer had a name. Maybe she had given over all earthly traits and artifacts to a higher being named Klaatu, and in return Klaatu had blessed her with eternal bliss and escape from snoopy private cops. Or maybe she simply didn't like credit cards. Hmmm.

I had run through all of my leads and I had come up with nothing and it made me feel small. I needed another line. Maybe I should ask Klaatu.

The phone rang and Oscar Curtiss said, "I think I got a line on Karen Shipley for you."

I said, 'Thanks, Klaatu."

"Huh?"

"I sneezed. What do you have?"

"I dug out that stuff and I found an old address. It's 3484 Beechwood Canyon Place, Apartment 2. It's where she lived after the divorce."

"Okay. Thanks."

"I really broke my ass to find this stuff. Christ, I had it in storage in Glendale and I was two hours in traffic. You gonna tell Peter? You gonna tell Peter that I came through?" Peter making a little flipping gesture with his drink. Fuck'm .

"Sure, Oscar. I'll tell him."

Oscar said, "Oh, man." Excited at the possibilities.

I said, "Hey, Oscar? Thanks. I appreciate it."

Oscar Curtiss laughed. "Yeah, your thanks and appreciation won't buy dick. Just tell Peter, okay? This town, you're on Peter's team, you're made ."

"You bet, Oscar. Made." Fuck'm .

I hung up.

At nine-forty that morning, I looped down Mulholland to the Cahuenga Pass, then followed the pass down to Franklin Avenue and across the northern part of Hollywood to Beechwood Canyon. Beechwood Canyon starts high, just beneath the Hollywood sign, and winds its way down to Franklin at the bottom of the Hollywood Hills. There is a school at the bottom and a gas station and a lot of large apartment houses that used to be small apartment houses and don't look as nice large as they did small. Urban redevelopment. Between the big places sat small stucco bungalows that were neat and pretty and still managed to look like garages. The higher up the mountain you went, the more you saw of the bungalows and the less you saw of the developers.

3484 was four narrow green stucco apartments stepping up the side of the hill in a line from the street, each one higher than the one in front. Cement steps went up along the left side, the steps cracked and uneven where a couple of ancient yucca trees had lifted them. The front apartment had a little porch with wooden wind chimes and lots of little cactuses in old clay pots that were painted the way maybe Indians would paint them, only the paint was chipped and faded just like the apartments. Four big century plants nested at the street, overgrown with the silver weeds you always see around them. All of it looked clean and all of it looked tended to, but only partway, as if whoever did it couldn't quite get the high spots and couldn't quite get in the corners and couldn't quite get all the grime or the weeds or the litter out. There was no driveway and no garage. Curb parking only.

I drove past, turned around, and parked the Corvette on the steep grade across the street, then went up onto the little porch. The door opened before I could knock and a woman in her seventies looked out past three security chains. She was wearing a paisley housecoat. She said, "Can I help you?" high and hard, like maybe if she didn't like my answer the sort of help she'd give me was the LAPD's Metro Squad.

I showed her the license. "About ten years ago a woman named Karen Shipley Nelsen lived here with a baby. I'm trying to find her. Do you have a few minutes to talk?"

She stared at the license, then at me. "How do I know that's you?"

I took out my driver's license so she could see the picture. Outside on the street a very tall white man and a short, slender Hispanic man walked past. The white guy was bald and wore a tie-dyed dashiki like people used to wear in 1969. The Hispanic guy combed his hair straight back and traced his hand along the lines of the Corvette as they went past. The woman squinted from the picture to the guys on the street, then to me, and said, "That your car?"

I said it was.

She nodded once, knowing. "You'd better watch after it. That little sonofabitch will steal it."

I said I would keep an eye out.

She craned around to watch the two guys on the street until she couldn't see them anymore, then she closed the door and unlatched the chains and opened it wider. "My name is Miriam Dichester. You can come in, but I think we'll leave this door open."

"Sure."

The living room was small and musty, with gray lace drapes and an ancient RCA black-and-white console television and a deep purple wingback couch with crocheted doilies on the arms. A long time ago the doilies had been white. The drapes had probably been white, too. Very old movie magazines sat in neat stacks on either side of the couch, and on the console television were framed photographs of Clark Gable and Walter Brennan and Ward Bond. The picture of Ward Bond was autographed. Ashtrays sprouted from the furniture like mushrooms and an open carton of Kent 100s sat on the coffee table. The air was sour with cigarettes and perspiration and Noxzema skin cream.

Miriam Dichester took a single cigarette and a little blue Cricket lighter from her housecoat and fired up. I sat on the couch. She sat on a Morris chair. I hadn't seen a Morris chair in years. She said, "I watch the street out here and I know. These days, you better watch. That's why I have my place down here by the front. I can keep an eye on anything that comes up that walk." She waved the cigarette at the little broken walk that went up alongside the building. "Anything I don't like goes up there, I know about it. I got a little something to take care of it, too."

I showed her the 8 x 10. This is Karen Shipley. Her son's name was Toby."

"I know who you're talking about."

I put the picture away. "Do you know how I can get in touch with her?"

"No, I do not." She sucked more of the Kent, looking down the flat planes of her face at me. "I take care of my people. I guess I take care of them even when they don't live with me anymore."

I said, "She's not looking at trouble here, Miriam. The ex-husband hasn't seen her or the boy since they were divorced, and he's feeling pretty bad about it. He wants a shot at knowing his son."

She breathed in the rest of the Kent, then crushed it out. Three puffs, and she had drawn through 100 millimeters down to the filter. She said, "I don't like this. A woman gets dumped, then the sonofabitch who dumps her wants to come back to stir the pot again.

And I'll bet you a high hand to heaven I know what he wants to stir it with, too."

I gave her a little shrug. "They're adults, Miriam, they can work that out. The boy isn't. He's about twelve now and he's never met his father."

She pursed the wrinkled mouth. She was wearing only the upper teeth. The lowers were in a glass by the telephone. She finally took out another Kent and lit up. Succumbing to the inevitable. "She lived with me for almost a year. She lived in number two, that's the one right behind."

"Okay."

"She wanted to be an actress. A lot of them come out here wanting that." She looked at the picture of Ward Bond and drew heavy on the Kent.