Part 19 (1/2)
I hand her the book, as happy to be rid of it as she is to be rid of Lois's things. She opens it immediately. As far as she is concerned tucking, I'm already gone.
”Thank you, Mrs. MacMurray,” I say, rising, the shoe box under my arm. ”I'll show myself out.”
Her eyes tear across the pages as I head toward the door. As I open it, I decide to take one last shot. From over my shoulder, I call out, ”Oh, and where's Alice Steele's box?”
Without looking up, ravenously consuming each mystifying page, she mutters, ”She picked that up long ago.”
It is hours later, with the box set on my tufted bedspread, that I understand why I was so struck by Lois's name on the top. It had been tingling in the back of my head ever since.
The writing in the pad did not match. It had been written by someone else-maybe Joe Avalon, or likely Mrs. MacMurray herself. As for the scrawled name on the box, I suddenly recognize the hand. The same looping, wavering, slanted scribble.
Your brothers wife is a tramp, she's no good and she'll rune him. If you dont beleve me, ask at the Red room lounge in Holywd.
The postcard of the Santa Monica Pier that had led me to the Red Room Lounge.
Lois had been trying to tell me something. Maybe she lost her nerve once I arrived. Or maybe she was just seeing if I'd bite. Maybe she was showing Alice how close she could get to me. Or maybe, maybe she was looking for help.
If WS was Walter Schor and he was the man who had beaten up Lois, it wasn't hard to believe he was the type of man who could also have killed her. I wonder if Alice knew and if she did, why she didn't do anything about it. And if she didn't, then why she was content to let Lois just disappear.
I think of Lois's torn body at the Rest E-Z Motel. I think of the look in her eyes, of despair and wry defeat, or provocation and surrender. She wanted me to see, to know the kind of world she-and by extension, Alice-lived in. Was she blackmailing Alice or just refusing Alice her own escape?
Pus.h.i.+ng aside my doubts from the night before, I call Mike.
”Can you tell me something about Walter Schor?”
”Sure. What are you looking for, sweetheart?”
”Would he be the type who would hurt women?”
He doesn't even pause. ”No, no. He's not the one you're looking for, Lora. You're on the wrong track. Besides, I heard that Lois was running up and down Central Avenue every night. Far more likely this has to do with drugs and a bad scene.”
The feeling I had in the file room as he snapped up Lois's file folder returns, but with more intensity-a bristling up my spine, rough as a razor. ”When did you hear this?”
”Asking around. She was moving in a very rough crowd. These things happen.”
”What's wrong?” I nearly gulp, straining for air. When Mike saw Olive MacMurray's name in Lois's file, he somehow figured it all out. Figured out that this wasn't just about Alice and a two-bit thug like Joe Avalon, an easily replaceable pimp. This went higher, sunk deeper. He is lost to me.
”Wrong?”
'You sound different from last night, at my apartment.”
”Different? No, baby, not different. Listen, I had an idea. How about you and me and a drive up the coast this weekend? Or Catalina and all that? Get our minds off all this. Forget about it.”
I try to get some control of my voice. I want to sound casual.; I want to sound like nothing is wrong.
”That sounds wonderful, Mike. But I've got a lot of work to do this weekend, stacks of student papers and lesson plans. Listen, I'll call you later.”
”Okay. What are you doing tomorrow?”
”Just cleaning house,” I say as I hang up. I am going to have to do it alone.
Lois lying, facedown, in dark water. Born only to die and to die like this, lost, forgotten, brutalized, released, left faceless, nameless, alone. Somebody had to speak for her. That night, I dream of her. Of her speaking to me. Hair twisted with seaweed, face swimming out of dark water, eyes imploring, mouth coiled darkly, queerly into a smile. Lora, she would say, Lord, you know more than you think. You know everything.
These are the things I barely remember: Calling in sick. Driving to my bank. Waiting twenty minutes for it to open. Withdrawing my savings-only four hundred dollars, but a world of effort for me. Driving back to the ghostly house on Manchester, the long, long drive past countless streets baroque and scarred, nondescript and ominous.
The next thing I know I am looking at Olive MacMurray's startled expression as she peers at me from around the corner of the sofa, ten feet and a screen door separating us.
There must be something in my eyes, something hanging there, dangling dangerously, because she stands, not moving closer, only hissing faintly, ”What are you doing here?”
”I need to see you.”
”We finished our business,” she says in clipped, hushed tones, stripped of the prior day's wile.
”I have money. I need to know some things about Alice Steele.”
She rushes to the door, her face stretched tight, and hastily ushers me in with trembling hands. ”Listen, you, you don't know what you've gotten yourself into. I don't want any part of this.”
”What do you mean? What happened?”
”How much do you have?” She twists her fingers anxiously.
”Four hundred dollars. But only if you can answer all my questions.”
She waves me over to the sofa. Someone has gotten to her. Joe Avalon has gotten to her. I feel my teeth set on edge.
”I'll take that money. I need that money now.” The powdered flesh of her bosom mottled today, her hands clenching.
”Who wrote Lois's schedule of dates? Was that you?”
”No. It was your sister-in-law,” she snaps.
”Why?” I snap back, only then realizing what she has said: Your sister-in-law. She knows who I am, maybe has known all along. But there is no time for this revelation. I repeat, ”Why?”
She takes a deep breath, then, ”She was one of the girls, fancy ambitions but dangerous habits. She had an arrangement with Avalon. She helped control Lois. Helped keep her jumping-Lois and her big mouth. Joe wanted to dump her or worse, and Alice kept her alive. She was her lucky piece, as they say.”
”I guess she couldn't keep her alive forever,” I murmur, my head throbbing.
”Once Alice hooked up with her lawman, she had more of an interest in keeping herself in the pink. Lois was a drag on her. It turned out pretty lucky for Alice in the end. But her loose ends may trip us all up yet,” she says, wringing her hands over and over.
I pull the Santa Monica Pier postcard from my pocket.
”Did Lois write this?”
”How should I know?”
”The handwriting?”
”Could be. Lots of the girls write like that.” She reads the card more closely. ”Ah, I get it. She was looking to have something over Alice's head. A bargaining chip.”