The air was thick, sliced by strobes. Red laser and purple light alloyed through the smoke. Chic’s ‘I Want Your Love’ was blaring. Go-go dancers were up on podiums, the dance floor was packed. The blonde was sitting at the end of the bar, drinking alone. Her tattoos were hidden by a plum-coloured romper. Her hair looked recently dyed, her leather boots gleamed. Most people wouldn’t be able to pull off that much make-up.
As he sat down next to her Iwata realized he had seen her before – coming out of the confessional after Meredith’s funeral. She had been beautiful then, in the morning sun, but in this smoky half-dark, dressed the way she was, Iwata found himself taken aback by his own attraction. Beneath it there was also a vague fear he did not understand. Distantly he recalled Rilke’s words: ‘Every angel terrifies.’ Iwata felt the urge to turn around and leave, but that was impossible now.
‘Hello again.’ He spoke over the music.
She looked up. Dark, hooded eyes, curious, free of apprehension. ‘Have we met?’
‘I saw you at Our Lady of Solitude.’
‘Ah, you know what, you are familiar.’ Her smile was beautiful, her jaw firm, her voice carried a soft Mexican inflection. ‘You’re a man of faith, then?’
‘I wouldn’t go that far.’ Iwata laughed. ‘How about you, did you get things off your chest?’
‘I wouldn’t go that far.’
It was the moment where they had to decide, either chalk the meeting up to coincidence or introduce themselves. The woman made the choice. She held out her hand, her arm strong, wiry, deeply tanned. Iwata shook it.
‘Mara,’ she said.
‘Kosuke.’ He nodded at her blonde hair. ‘You dyed it.’
She touched it lightly, as if calming its nerves. ‘I’m still not sure about it.’
‘Suits you.’
They both looked at themselves in the mirror behind the bar. ‘So,’ she said. ‘Is this your usual kind of place, Kosuke?’
‘I don’t have a usual kind of place.’
‘Maybe you just haven’t found it yet.’
‘Maybe.’
‘Kosuke is Japanese, huh? What does it mean?’
‘Clear. How about Mara?’
She stuck out a fatalistic bottom lip. ‘Bitterness.’
‘Now that doesn’t suit you.’
‘Not like my hair?’
‘Not even close.’ He smiled and looked around the club. ‘Are you waiting for someone?’
‘I was. Looks like I’ve been stood up. You?’
‘I’m alone.’
They fell quiet and observed each other daringly until Mara looked away with a half-smile. ‘You know, Kosuke, when a man wants something from a beautiful woman, he usually starts by offering her a drink.’
‘Does that usually get the man the thing he wants?’
‘Depends on the woman.’
‘Not on what he wants?’
‘The list is usually pretty short.’
Iwata laughed and ordered her a margarita. ‘Well, you’re not wrong. I do want something.’
‘I’m listening.’
‘I’m actually looking for someone. You might know her. Geneviève?’
The drink arrived. Mara sipped it, then twirled the cocktail umbrella between her fingers. ‘Yeah, pretty girl. Is that why you’re looking for her?’
‘It’s to do with my work.’ Iwata took out his investigator’s ID and Mara inspected it.
‘Is she in trouble?’
‘I just want to ask a few questions about a friend of hers. Meredith Nichol. You know her?’
Mara looked at him, her gold hoop earrings glinting green in the red light. ‘I don’t know any Meredith. And I haven’t seen Geneviève in a while.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘You have to ask?’ Mara looked playfully hurt and crossed her heart with the cocktail stick.
‘When was the last time you saw Geneviève?’
‘A while is a while.’ She downed her margarita.
‘Where?’
‘Around. I don’t recall.’
‘I’d really appreciate it if you could take a stab.’
‘I better go.’ She slipped off her barstool. ‘But thanks for the drink.’
‘Sure.’ Iwata nodded. ‘Maybe I’ll see you again.’
‘It’s possible.’ Smiling, she reached down for her handbag. Iwata caught sight of her tattoo along her collarbone again. This time, he was able to make out letters after the numbers:
1:18 IS—
The date of birth of a child or sibling? Anniversary?
‘After all,’ she shouted over the music now, a few paces away, ‘seems to me like we move in the same circles!’
Then she was gone.
Iwata stopped at the twenty-four-hour truck across the road from the Mexican Consulate, ordered two fish tacos and a kiwi licuado and sat on a bench at the park entrance. As he ate, he listened to a group of men discussing job opportunities. One had decided to leave the city to work as a field hand, another was going to wait in the Home Depot parking lot tomorrow in the hope of odd jobs. They shared around cans of Tecate and discussed football, children, immigration crackdowns.
As the men talked about their lives Iwata mulled over Meredith’s death.
The accepted wisdom was that motives for murder rarely extended beyond money, sex or revenge. The first was unlikely, given that the killer had left behind her money. The second was possible, but there had been no rape, no injury to her genitals.
This left Iwata with revenge. So far, it seemed the least implausible. It could have been rudimentary in nature; Joyce Carbone had mentioned Meredith had been a pickpocket, for instance. Perhaps it was a more intimate reprisal, some kind of deep-rooted bitterness. But then he recalled Joseph Clemente’s words. The killer had said, ‘Sorry.’
Or, if it didn’t fit in to any of these categories at all, was there a fourth element hiding here?
It was gone 5 a.m. by the time Iwata had finished eating. He knew it didn’t look good to be ringing doorbells at this hour, but he had little choice – there was a killer out there, and Geneviève was missing.
Iwata cut through MacArthur Park, seeing the figures sleeping on dead grass, hearing their grumbling dreams. Beyond Wilshire Boulevard, which cut MacArthur Park in two, he could see the lake glittering, as though it weren’t filthy.
When he reached Bonnie Brae Iwata stood under the fig trees opposite Geneviève’s apartment. In the alley next door the shiny hoods of cockroaches glimmered like lost sapphires. An old man in the empty parking lot was muttering to himself. There was a new moon. Somewhere nearby Iwata could hear a gameshow host asking the audience a question:
¿Quién quiere ser millonario?
Iwata crossed the road, hands in his pockets, and pressed Geneviève’s buzzer once. He scanned the street as he waited. After half a minute he buzzed again. Knowing he should just go home, he went to the side of the building and climbed over the fence. He dragged a large dumpster until it was sitting beneath the fire-escape ladder.
‘Forty years old,’ he hissed, then jumped as high as he could.
He grabbed the lowest rung, dangled awkwardly for a second, then got his knee on to it. From there he was able to heft himself up. He climbed the fire-escape stairs as quietly as possible. Up on the roof he skirted broken satellite dishes and coils of cable. The door into the building was, unsurprisingly, locked.
Iwata took out his pocket-sized lock-picking set. He had been police long enough to know that with a pinch of determination and a few cheaply acquired tools most doors were nothing more than an illusion of security. Inserting the tension wrench and applying gentle pressure, he pushed the pick in and began to rake it back and forth. The pins lined up in seconds. There was a quiet clunk, then a release.
Inside, the stairway was dark and echoey. Iwata descended cautiously. Two floors down, he stopped at number 52. The door was ajar. That was never good.
Instinctively, he reached for a gun he didn’t have. With no choice, he entered.
The apartment was still and murky in the weak moonlight.
‘Geneviève?’
There was no reply. Holding his breath, Iwata scanned the gloom and took out his canister of tear gas from his pocket. With the other hand he picked up a heavy glass ashtray.
‘Geneviève?’ Louder now.
Still nothing.
Iwata flipped the light switch but no light came. Just a few soft footsteps.
Someone filled the bedroom doorway.
In the dark, it was only a figure.
Iwata looked at it. ‘Geneviève? Is that you?’
There was no response.
They rushed each other.
Iwata cleaved the ashtray down but it was blocked, thunking away in the darkness. The squirt of tear gas missed completely. And then it was fists. The man hit hard – ribs, solar plexus, anywhere he found meat – his blows voracious. Iwata landed his own, muscle memory kicking in, but there was no light, too many objects in the way. With no space to back into their bodies locked together, all desperate grunts, bunched clothes, skin under nails. Iwata was aware of the pain but felt only the rushing nausea of fear, his blood flooded with adrenaline, his ears pounding with the breathlessness.
He threw a lead hook, praying for the sweet spot behind the ear, but the man was too fast, too strong, his movements frantic. Iwata reached out; he wanted hair, an eye, an ear. Instead he got a forearm smash flush in the face. There was a pop, like an eardrum on a night-flight landing, then warm blood was gushing out of his nose.
With that, Iwata’s legs were gone. He fell to the floor and saw the ceiling fan like a wooden flower. Iwata felt him from behind, legs slipping around his ribs. Then the cushion was over his face, the man squeezing ruthlessly. The pressure in Iwata’s head sounded like a train coming, his throat sucking for something, anything.
The man said something, something Iwata couldn’t hear. His hands fumbled for help. He felt a magazine. A broken candle. His canister of tear gas. Clutching it, Iwata pointed it over his head and pulled the trigger. A loud hiss resounded, then a yelp. The pressure vanished.
Iwata forced himself on to all fours, wheezing hard. The man that had tried to kill him was retching somewhere behind him, stumbling into furniture, clawing at his eyes. Iwata picked up the ashtray. He wouldn’t have long; he had to end this now.
The man opened the window. Then he was gone.
Trembling, Iwata crawled to the bathroom, locked the door and closed his eyes. He could hear the breeze outside, the fig branches rasping at the glass. He could hear gameshow applause, as though the audience had appreciated the fight. He could hear his own whistling breath.
Iwata had not seen the man’s face. He had barely heard his voice. It was as if he had just been attacked by the wind itself. Battered and exhausted, he closed his eyes.