Thomas Perry - Dead Aim

“The relationship with Mark Romano.”

“Fine,” said Lydia. “That’s L.A. We can be on a plane back to L.A. in an hour or two. We’ll find out what we can about Romano, and see where that leaves us.”

The flight back to Los Angeles seemed longer to Mallon than the flight to Pittsburgh. This plane seemed to be smaller than the last, and Lydia had said little since the conversation in the car. Mallon opened the subject again. “I know I’m being self-indulgent.”

“If you know, then why are you doing it?”

“I think it’s because I realized that for the first time in my life I actually could. I’ve seen things happen to other people, had things happen to me. I don’t think I ever really understood why most of them happened. This one I saw coming. I knew what she was trying to do, but I still didn’t understand what she was thinking, why she was doing it. I don’t, even now. This seems to me to be a chance to find out one thing that matters.”

“I’ve known since the beginning that this isn’t just about her,” said Lydia. “When you first realized what she was doing, you felt as though you were reliving your sister’s last day, when you talked to her and couldn’t save her. You were trying to make sure that this time it came out right-that you said the right things, did the right things, and made it not happen.”

“Maybe I was,” Mallon said. “It didn’t work. All that’s left now is knowing.”

“What you want isn’t possible to get in one lifetime. It’s omniscience. That’s why people read books. Maybe you could take a night class or something.”

“Night class,” said Mallon. “That’s where she met him.” He was silent for a time. “What do you think of him?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“I heard what Sarah Carlson said. So far the only person who ever laid eyes on him seems to have thought he was a prince. I need to find out more facts before I start having an opinion of my own.”

Lydia and Mallon rented a car at Los Angeles International Airport and drove it to the Hotel Bel-Air, then checked in. Lydia said, “I’m going to go to my room and see what I can get on the Internet. I’ll call you later for dinner.” Mallon followed a bellman to his bungalow. He unpacked his single bag, showered, changed, and went out.

Los Angeles was more crowded and intimidating than he remembered it. He knew that was a sign that age was advancing rapidly, making him not timid exactly, but prickly and unwilling to be inconvenienced. In Santa Barbara, people walked. Here, in order to go to a place where he could walk without appearing to be a vagrant or a criminal, he had to take a cab a couple of miles, past Santa Monica Boulevard to the shopping area of Beverly Hills. He walked up and down the streets pretending interest as he looked in famous windows at rather ordinary merchandise. The sidewalks and the fronts of buildings seemed to be particularly clean and mostly white. The blocks were short and required waiting for traffic lights to change, so he went around blocks in a series of squared loops.

When he returned to the hotel, Lydia was sitting at a table in the tiled patio dining area, sipping a tall glass of iced tea.

She said, “You must have walked halfway to Tijuana. I’m glad you finally made it back, because we’re meeting somebody here in a few minutes.”

“Who?”

“A cop. I looked up the article in the L.A. Times that Sarah Carlson told us about to get the name of the homicide detective who investigated the Romano thing. It turned out to be somebody I met while I was here on a case one time. It’s a big favor to come down here to talk to us, so you’re buying dinner. Better go put on a coat.”

Mallon went to his room and returned wearing the only sport coat he had brought from home. As he approached the table, Lydia looked to her right, smiling. Mallon turned his head in order to see the cop’s arrival.

She was blond and looked about thirty-five, with the raw, light-skinned sort of face he had always associated with the inland towns that were almost desert, skin that seemed to have been sunburned too many times.

Lydia said, “Here’s Mallon, my client. This is Detective Angela Berwell.”

She held out her hand to Mallon, but when he reached for it expecting her to grip too hard, as women in jobs like hers sometimes did, she surprised him by gently grasping his hand and letting go. She wore a blue summer dress with a pattern of white flowers, and high heels that were a bit too high. Mallon could see that Lydia was amused at her own cleverness in not mentioning that the cop was another woman. Mallon mumbled, “Pleased to meet you,” and she gave him a display of even white teeth and sky-blue eyes.

Next she turned to Lydia and hugged her, both of them careful not to touch their cheeks and smudge their makeup. Then she pulled back with a wry look on her face. “Love your purse, Lydia.” Mallon looked at it, a small, unremarkable black bag with a zipper on the side. “In fact, I’ve got one just like it.”

“You do?”

Detective Berwell nodded. “I almost brought it tonight. It’s the best I’ve ever found that was designed for the purpose. But I needed a bigger purse tonight. Want to show me a carry permit for the gun?”

“Sure.” Lydia took out her wallet and showed her a card.

“Town of Stovall. Kern County, eh?” She handed it back to Lydia, then mistook Mallon’s discomfort for surprise. “Nobody gets a concealed-weapon permit in most of the urban counties, L.A. County especially. So people who want one establish a residence in some rural county, and get a permit there. When they carry here, it’s legal. We can’t stop them.”

Mallon nodded politely, as though that loophole in the law were not already familiar to him. He supposed Lydia must have decided not to reveal that she and Mallon had once worked together as parole officers. He spent only a second wondering why, and then reflected that knowing more than people supposed was a useful pose.

Lydia smiled. “Don’t worry. I just got off an airplane. I’m not carrying. I just didn’t change purses when I left home.” She slipped her wallet back into the purse, then looked at Detective Berwell. “Did you bring the tapes?”

“Yes,” she said. She patted her oversized purse. “That’s what’s in here.”

“Would you like to have a drink out here first?” asked Lydia.

She shook her head. “No, I don’t think so. I’d like to get this over with, and do it where we can talk a bit in private.”

Lydia said to Mallon, “Let’s go to your room.”

Mallon led them past the open doorway of an interior dining room that was painted a pinkish color. They could see thick, starched white linen and heavy silver and quiet, unobtrusive waiters. Mallon waited until they were walking down the quiet garden path toward his bungalow before he spoke to Detective Berwell. “I appreciate your willingness to meet with us.”

She said, “It’s not entirely out of the goodness of my heart. This is partly for me. Lydia always says she’s the best, but the truth is, the worst I can say is that she’s only one of the best. I wouldn’t be upset if you paid her to turn up something that I missed and solve the Romano case for me.”

“Did she tell you how I got involved in this?”

She nodded, and her eyes stayed on him. They weren’t quite as cheerful. “I’ve been through that. Almost everybody I know has. When you lose one, you go over and over it for a while. I’m not sure what I have will help you: I don’t really know much about Catherine Broward. She just came up in the investigation with a few dozen other names. What I know about is Mark Romano.”

They had reached Mallon’s bungalow. Mallon sidestepped ahead of the others on the narrow stone walkway and opened the door. They stepped inside, and Mallon closed it. He gestured toward the couch, and Lydia and Detective Berwell sat. He pulled out the desk chair, turned it around, and sat facing them. Mallon said, “The newspaper implied he had been involved with the drug trade. Is it true?”