Chapter 13

A brief appearance by me.

The game is back on.

Oh, yes. Did you like your present? I’m here in the café across the street. All the other cop people have left, but you’re still inside. I know what you’re doing. You’re watching me. Tingle. Do you like my hat? My coat? Mysterious, right? No face. I like it that way. You can imagine. Men do. Who is your fantasy? I will be her. You can fill it in. But I know who she is. It’s in your files. You love Casablanca. I am Ingrid. I’m sure you’re thinking that. Like a little boy in a prepubescent dream. That’s what I imagine, sitting here with my latte—I’ve decided I don’t like soy, by the way—looking out the window. So fine the city is up here, almost too clean, don’t you think? But I am comfortable and happy. Tired too, if I must be honest.

No one saw me last night except the guy coming out of the elevator, but I looked down and away and he was chattering some ridiculous thing to his dog, the way they do. There was another guy outside smoking after, but I was quick and gone. You’ll get no descriptions from them or the cameras, as I’m sure you know by now. That’s why you’re still inside. Studying me frame by frame. It’s our little movie. I was careful. Like with Gallagher, but this one’s quite different, no? Gallagher was my first, and I wanted it done fast. But I thought Jamieson’s end should linger. Just the two of us, he and I, suspended above the city, the lights hard and bright below. Kind of beautiful, actually.

I came in disguise. But before his last breath, while he was sitting harmless and stripped—doesn’t it look like he’s watching a movie?—I pulled off my wig and stood naked before him, a call girl turned into a remembered face. You should have seen him remember. Startled. Incredulous. The list goes on. He couldn’t move by that time. Your coroner—what’s his name? Oh, yes, Lester—will fill you in on the drug. An easily googled concoction. I sat with Jamieson by the window.

“Hi, Paul. What a surprise after all this time.”

“Errrr, uggghh.”

“You used to be more articulate. What’s happened, Paul? Drug got your tongue? You sound like a caveman. Try again.”

“Errrr, uggghh.”

“Mmmmmm. You’re drooling.”

I leaned in, spoke his sins to him, watched his face realize there was no escape, no absolution, just my words in his ear. Hushed. Like raindrops and seduction. I laid out underpants, bow, knife (You’ve noticed he’s missing a finger, but where is it?), powder, lipstick, mascara, and eyeliner on the table. He tried to move but couldn’t. What must he have been thinking? We had drunk a bottle of wine by then, and I came from behind with my needle. A prick for a prick. You know, he never suspected. Thought I was a girl from the service he used. What is it about Gallagher and Jamieson, the need to pay for it? I suppose, no strings, a transaction, and a way to do things you can’t do with the women you take to plays and symphonies. I’ll leave that to you. Men. I pressed my face to his. “You are my mask,” I said. Mask had a special meaning between Jamieson and me. You might find out later, Detective, if things break your way. I drew lipstick on Jamieson. Never did I want a line to be so perfect. Purple, a few shades from magenta, dark and bold, an elegant, strange snail sleeping on his lips. I put lipstick on too, so he could see, like they do on girls’ nights at the mall. I pretended I might kiss him. But didn’t. Then the mascara and liner, each eyelash a pretty, curling stem. Black. I dusted him with powder. It took an hour, my creation of a demon. I held up a mirror so he could see, and it was then that I saw in his eyes how ashamed he was, sitting there motionless and naked, the city spread before him. And because he was an architect, I knew he saw the gaps in the night—the lightless, abandoned places he wanted to bring light to.

I whispered to him, “Other people, other buildings.”

He knew what I meant. He would not leave his mark on Los Angeles, not in any magnificent way. He would not be mentioned in books not yet written. The Renaissance would have to do without Paul Jamieson. I sat beside him naked. An unattainable bounty.

“What’s it like to be here now these many years later?”

“Errrr, uggghh.”

“Yes, yes, Paul. I know. So hard to describe. But you look so pretty. Don’t try to speak. Let’s just sit here in the night and imagine. Look out there. So clear and hard. It’s so lovely, isn’t it? The beauty out there. It grabs my heart sometimes. What have you been designing lately? Don’t speak. I suppose it really doesn’t matter. Should we play some music? Opera, perhaps?”

He didn’t answer. He couldn’t; the drug had taken every muscle from him. I didn’t want him to answer, anyway. It was my night, and I would fill in the blanks. Jamieson loved opera. The drama, the scales. I gave him an ending worthy of Puccini.

Don’t you think?

So this is where we are, my darling detective. You’ll learn more when Lester’s scalpel gets to work. You like Lester, don’t you? It’s in your files. After all his years of seeing the worst that can be done to us, Lester is not a cynic. He’s like you, holding a glimmer that we’re not as bad as we appear. I want to believe that. I think I once did. But there’s so many shades of me now. I’ve noticed. I wake up and don’t know who I’m going to be. It comes in gradations, a slipping away, a shedding of skins. It’s not all that odd, I guess. Given what I’ve done this past week. Two for two. Still, I keep a balance.

I’ve learned about myself over time, how I’m not like everyone, even before, way before this. It’s not that bad. Not like my mother. She was bad. When she would veer from highs to lows in that circus of her mind, my father would bring me to the living room and put on Roberta Flack singing “Bridge over Troubled Water.” Did you ever hear her sing it? It makes you feel all will be okay. That the world has prayers that can reach you. My father and I would sit and listen, smiling and sometimes crying with each other as my mother railed and broke things in other rooms.

“It will pass,” he’d say. “She’ll come back. She always does.”

“What if she doesn’t this time?” I’d say.

“Don’t be scared, Dylan. You have me. I am here.”

Those words. I am here. It’s all a child wants. A promise. I still listen to that record. I played it a lot after that night years ago when I first met Jamieson and Gallagher. I was doing fine until then. I really was. But, well, what can I say? I smoke too. It calms me. By the way, did you like Jamieson’s carpets? I know you like carpets. It’s in your files. I especially liked the small Iranian one with the peacocks and foxes by the door.

Children are passing. A yellow bus. They must be on a field trip to the Museum of Contemporary Art. Chirping little voices, holding hands, two-by-two. Remember those days? Graham crackers and milk at recess, liking a boy (in your case, a girl) from a distance, glimpsing him with his book bag, a flash with the others into the afternoon toward home. Gone.

My latte’s almost gone. I must get to the office. Designs, you know. A whole city needing shape, order, symmetry. It’s delicate, the science and art of public space and function. To inspire yet be useful. That’s the trick. To be beautiful with purpose. I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately. Architecture and life. I won’t burden you with it now, but one day I’d like to talk with you about the city, the rise of steel, the shine of glass, the suppleness of a building that must give and sway, like a dancer, when the earth trembles. People should think more about what they live, work, pray, and fuck in. That’s an indelicate word. Sorry, they sneak out sometimes.

You’re still inside watching me. Looking for clues. No crime is perfect. That’s not true. Perfect crimes are committed every day. Look into the eyes on the street; you’ll see small and big offenses, ordinary and human, piles of infractions. It is who we are. Everyone a doer and a vic. Your terminology. No escape. Now I’m sad. I got myself sad. I don’t want to be sad. My latte is finished. I’m leaving. I thought I might see you come out, but I must go.

Do you know I’ve never heard your voice? I passed you once at the symphony, brushed beside you, a touch barely felt; you didn’t notice. You didn’t see me in my black dress the night of poor Gallagher’s demise. You smelled of witch hazel, scotch, and something else. But no voice. What is your sound, the pitch of you? Deep. Soft. High. A rasp maybe; you used to smoke, still sneak one sometimes. Yes, maybe a raspy little a growl. I would like that. It would be tender, though. It would soothe. I’ll hear you one day. I’ll listen to your words. To meet as strangers and speak, those first clumsy, beautiful syllables. I’m a kind of romantic. An idealist, really. I see things in my mind’s eye so perfectly. Aahhhh. To live there. To fold into thought. Still, I must hear your voice. One day soon. Oh, yes. It’s cool and windy on the sidewalk. I feel it blow through me, walking down Grand, my hair a whirl, the sadness leaving me, the resolve to finish. I must finish. It’s so hard, though. Yes, I have doubts. But I lock them away. Look at me; a killer in the light. No one knows, not even you. But if you’re as smart as I think, well, maybe, just maybe …