No one waiting outside.
I walked in, got a headful of garlic and overripe cheese. Bad murals covered the sidewalls- walleyed grape pickers bringing in the Chianti crop under a bilious sun. Five round tables rested on a red linoleum floor, covered in the same checked gingham as the curtains. The rear wall was a takeout counter backed by a brick pizza oven that gave off yeasty fumes.
Two Hispanic men in stained white aprons worked the dinner crowd, which was three parties. The cooks had Aztec faces and took their work seriously.
The customers were a Japanese couple sharing a petite pepperoni pie, a young bespectacled couple trying to control a pair of wild-eyed, tomato-sauced preschoolers, and three black guys in their twenties wearing Fila sweats and enjoying salad and lasagna.
One of the countermen said, “Help you?”
“I’m waiting for someone. Young guy, around twenty?”
He shrugged and flipped a limp white disk of dough, sprinkled it with flour, repeated the move.
I said, “Has anyone like that been around?”
Sprinkle. Flip. “No, amigo.”
I left and waited out in front. The restaurant was on a quiet block, sandwiched between a photocopy service and a one-story office building. Both dark for the weekend. The sky was black and, two blocks up, traffic on Pico was anemic. L.A.’s never really been a nightlife city, and this part of Westwood hibernated when the mall wasn’t bustling.
The mall.
Eight years after he had brutalized Kristal Malley, Rand wanted to talk about the crime, two blocks from a mall.
I’m a good person.
If it was absolution he was after, I wasn’t a priest.
Maybe the distinction between therapy and confession was petty. Maybe he knew the difference. Maybe he just wanted to talk. Like the judge who’d sent him away.
I wondered how Tom Laskin was doing. Wondered about all of them.
I stood there, careful to stay in the reflected glare of the boot sign, watching for the man Randolph Duchay had become.
He’d been a big kid, so he was probably a large man. Unless eight years of institutional food and God knew what other indignities had stunted his growth.
I thought of the way he’d struggled to make out the word “pizza.”
The word was two feet of tricolor neon.
Five minutes passed. Ten, fifteen.
I took a stroll up the block, watching my back for no reason except that a murderer might be looking for me.
What did he want?
Returning to Newark Pizza, I cracked the door, in case I’d missed him. I hadn’t. This time the black guys checked me out and the cook I’d talked to got an unpleasant look on his face.
I went back outside, positioned myself ten feet up from the restaurant, waited five minutes more.
Nothing. I drove home.
My message machine was blank. I wondered if I should call Milo and ask him to check the specifics of Rand Duchay’s release. Solicit a detective’s guess as to what Rand had wanted and why he hadn’t shown.
A quarter century of homicide work had implanted a doomsday chip in Milo’s brain, and I had a pretty good idea of how he’d respond.
Once a scumbag, always a scumbag, Alex. Why mess with it?
I made myself a tuna sandwich and drank some decaf, set the house alarm, and settled on my office couch with two months’ worth of psych journals. Somewhere out in the darkness a coyote ululated- a warbling, shrieking a cappella solo, part scavenger’s protest, part predator’s triumph.
The Glen’s teeming with the creatures. They dine on the haute garbage that fills Westside trash cans, and some are as sleek and fearless as house pets.
I used to have a little French bulldog and worried about letting him out in the yard alone. Now he was living in Seattle and life was simpler.
I cleared my throat. The sound echoed; the house was full of echoes.
The howl-sonata repeated itself. Enlarged to a duet, then grew to a coyote chorus.
A pack of them, exulting in the kill.
Food-chain violence. That made sense and I found the noise comforting.
I read until two a.m., fell asleep on the couch, managed to drag myself to bed at three. By seven I was up, awake without being rested. The last thing I wanted to do was run. I dressed for it anyway, was heading for the door when Allison called from Greenwich.
“Good morning, handsome.”
“Morning, gorgeous.”
“I’m glad I caught you.” She sounded a little down. Lonely? Or maybe that was me.
“How’s life with Grandma?”
“You know Gra- ” She laughed. “You don’t know her, do you? This morning, despite the fact that it’s freezing, she insisted we take a walk around the grounds and look for ‘unique leaves.’ Ninety-one and she’s forging through snow like a trapper. She studied botany at Smith, claims she would’ve gotten a Ph.D. if she hadn’t ‘been swept into matrimony’ at twenty.”
“Find anything?” I said.
“After clawing through a four-foot snowbank, I managed to produce one brown shriveled thing she found ‘interesting.’ My fingers were numb and that was with gloves on. Gram, of course, eschews hand-coverings except at lunches in the city.”
“Greatest generation. How large is the property?”
“Twelve acres, with lots of trees and rare plants she put in over the years.”
“Sounds nice.”
“It’s getting a little run-down,” she said. “And the house is way too big for her. Still clearing your consults?”
“They’re clear.”
“Good for you.”
Before she left, I’d asked if she wanted me to join her for part of the trip. “If it was up to me, Alex, you could stay the whole time, but Gram’s possessive. It’s a ritual with her- ’special time’ with each of the grandkids.”
At thirty-nine, Allison was the youngest grandkid.
“Am I keeping you from anything?”
“Not a thing,” I said, wondering if that were true.
“Consults work out okay?”
“As good as can be expected.”
“So what else is up, baby?”
I deliberated telling her about Duchay’s call. “Nothing exciting. What time does your flight arrive?”
“That’s one of the reasons I’m calling. Gram asked me to extend my visit for another two weeks. It’s hard to tell her no.”
“She’s ninety-one,” I said.
“The rooms smell like camphor and I feel a hundred and twenty. I’m getting serious cabin fever, Alex. She turns in for bed at eight.”
“You could make snow angels.”
“I miss you,” she said.
“Miss you, too.”
“I was thinking maybe we can do something about it. Gram has a friend coming from St. Louis tomorrow so she’ll be occupied for three days. The hotels in New York are running a post-New Year’s special. Big discounts and free upgrades.”
“When do you want me there?” I said.
“Really?” she said.
“Really.”
“That’s great- you’re sure?”
“Hey,” I said. “I need special time, too.”
“Oh, boy,” she said. “You don’t know what you’ve just done for my spirits. Is there any way you could make it by tomorrow? I could take the train and be at the hotel by the time you arrived.”
“Which hotel?”
“When I traveled with my parents we always stayed at the St. Regis. The location’s perfect- Fifty-fifth off Fifth- and they’ve got butler service on every floor.”
“Nice touch, if the butler’s not intrusive.”
“He won’t be if we bunk in and never call him.”
“Which bunk do I get?” I said. “Upper or lower?”
“I was thinking more in terms of share-zies.”
“I’ll bring a flashlight and we’ll play pup tent.”
“Alex, it’s incredibly flexible of you to do this.”