Mercy clicked her tongue. “There’s too much Jimmy in the picture.”
“Mercy, our aim is not to solve the murder, really. That’s Detective Cotton’s bailiwick, troglodyte though he strikes me. No, I think we have to prove Jimmy’s not guilty. He’s our worst enemy here, of course, hostile to everyone, especially the police.”
I could almost hear the smile. “And you need me as an accomplice for what?”
“You can start by being the driver. I don’t think Warner wants the studio car idling in questionable neighborhoods.”
“We’re cruising Rodeo Drive?”
I chuckled. “I vowed never to return to Carisa’s apartment after that night, but I’m afraid we have no choice.”
“I’ll gas up the getaway car.”
By noon Mercy’s Ford sedan pulled up in front of Carisa’s apartment house, and we surveyed the building in daylight. Still Skid Row. Broad daylight revealed grime and decay and utter disregard. Defeat in the tired buildings; defeat in the struggling, shuffling souls. A man dressed in a winter coat, huddled in a doorway, stared into the street. A rickety car pulled up in front of a pawnshop, and an obese woman in a flowered muumuu and loose sandals started to drag what I thought was a brass coat rack across the sidewalk. I stared, mesmerized. A little girl in shocking pink pedal pushers trailed the large woman. A soiled, used-up street. A hint of naughtiness in the jaunty walk of a couple of spangled girls. It reminded me of Pigalle, touring France one hot, hot summer with Noel Coward and Louis Bromfield. They always insisted on cultivating Parisian life in the grimier, suspect avenues, those wags, dragging me along for shock value. As I stepped out of the car, a young woman, so rail-thin and pale she seemed not even to be there, floated by, smiling, smiling. A haunted, parched face; the hunger of reaching zero.
Rapping on the door of the first-floor apartment, I recalled the superintendent’s name from that awful night when I sat in his meticulous kitchen, light-headed from the sickening sight of a dead woman’s body. Manuel Vega seemed happy to see us, ushering us in with a cavalier bow. An old-school gentleman, Vega was in his seventies, a tall willowy man with a shock of absolute white hair and, these days at least, a fuzzy white beard stubble. Skin the color of hazy mahogany, he seemed youthful, robust, though he moved carefully and employed a lion’s-head cane. He spoke a deep, resonant English, no accent, though I had expected one. He looked a casting department stereotype of the old hidalgo of the hacienda. Instead, he spoke with the spacious, lazy drone of the typical Angelino-a stereotype of another persuasion.
He insisted we drink lemonade, his own creation, a liquid so transparent I thought it water. It had tartness undercut by a surprising sweetness that satisfied. Superb, I told him.
“How may I help you?” he asked, bowing again.
I explained that Mercy and I–I called her Mercedes, and the man nodded-were looking into the death of Carisa, strictly as a favor to a friend who stood accused, a young man in danger of being falsely charged of a murder he didn’t commit, a man who…
“James Dean?” He cut me off.
I started. “You know him?”
“My granddaughter is a huge fan. Sitting through East of Eden a dozen times. She took me to see it, in fact. She insisted. A marvelous movie.”
“Why did his name come to mind?” I asked.
He smiled. “He’s famous, and you are here now.”
I sipped the lemonade. “Interesting.”
“Well, I like the movies now and then, though I’m getting old, ma’am. You see, I was in the movies when I was young, the silents of course, once in a scene with Valentino himself. And in one of Mae Murray’s wonderful comedies. With the little money I made, I bought this house of six apartments for a song, and here I am, years later, as the streets get sadder and sadder.” He shrugged his shoulders.
“But you know James Dean?” Mercy asked.
“I don’t know him. It’s my granddaughter who told me he comes here to visit. I didn’t pay attention to the comings and goings. In this neighborhood if I get the rent, I’m a happy man.”
“Did you ever talk to him?”
“Never.” He paused. “Or at least I don’t think so. So many young boys and girls come and go, visiting the Krausse girl, that I didn’t pay attention, you know. So long as everything was proper. Proper, you know. But Connie, my granddaughter, is here on weekends. She tells me-you know who I saw leaving the second floor apartment? James Dean, she says. I say who? And she shows me his picture in a movie magazine. She wants to ask for his autograph, but doesn’t have the courage. And so she takes me to see East of Eden, and I say-yes, that’s the lad. Looks different, though. That red jacket he wears.”
I held my breath. “What can you tell us about him?”
He looked around his small kitchen, seemed to frown at a cobweb he spotted above the sink. “Nothing. He comes and goes.”
“Often?”
“Not a lot. I can’t say. My granddaughter watched for him on weekends. I don’t know. I’m old. I nap in the afternoons and go to bed early. I’m up at four, and the apartment building is sleeping. You know, for a long time Carisa’s not even here, filming in Texas. She’d only been here a short time before she left for Texas. Then she’s back, crazy-like. She said they fired her.”
“She have a lot of visitors?” Mercy asked.
“Young people, drinkers, partiers. But so long as everything is quiet and the police stay away, I’m happy.”
“The police ever come to her place?” I asked.
“Not till she was dead.”
“Did you ever see Jimmy-James and Carisa together? I mean, go out or walk together?”
“No. But I heard them once. Yelling. I knocked on her door. It’s late, and then there’s quiet. I don’t know it’s him but Connie says she saw him leave.”
“He left then?”
“The next morning.” He frowned. “I spoke to her about that. This is a Catholic household, ma’am, a decent place, and I frown on that. She said he fell asleep on the floor, that he was drunk, as if that’s supposed to make me happy. But after that, nothing. Silence. Except that she wanders up and down the stairs, by herself, out to the bodega, back with cigarettes, whiskey, and God knows what else. Across the street to the bar and grill where she eats a lot of times. I see her in there, night after night, enchiladas and a beer. A quarter for a meal. A poor man’s restaurant.”
“Were you surprised she was murdered?” I asked.
He sighed. “You know, I talked about this with Detective Cotton. The same story.”
“About James Dean?”
“Of course. It’s the police. I’m not looking for trouble.”
“What did you tell Cotton?”
“He asked if I was surprised at the murder. Well, yes, it’s not an everyday event. Even around here. Only in the movies. I was murdered in a William S. Hart movie. I took a long time to die.” He smiled. “I wanted to be on the screen for a long time. But, as I told Cotton, I was going to evict her. She stopped paying the rent. She wasn’t working, she said, since they fired her, but I just didn’t like some of the crowd that started coming around. Late-at-night crowd. I found a syringe-a needle-in the hallway last week. She said it had nothing to do with her, but I knew.”
“So you asked her to leave?” Mercy wondered.
He shook his head. “Not yet. She hid away in the apartment, wouldn’t answer the door sometimes. If I saw her on the street, she just nodded at me. There was this creepy guy around for a while-tough, muscles, and a look that could stop you dead. When I found out he’d been staying over nights, I said something to her. He disappeared. On weekends my granddaughter is here. I gotta watch out. I had one daughter and she married a crazy so I know crazies. Drugs, beatings, tough guy stuff, trouble. He’s in jail, and my daughter works in a hotel weekends, so Connie stays here with me. Fourteen years old, a beauty, who wants to be in the movies. Big surprise! That’s the trouble with living here. Other places your child wants to go into business or, I don’t know, school. But here, it’s Hollywood all the time, covering you like a cotton-candy dream. I talk to her, but you know how babies are…”