“But don’t you see,” I said, “it’s a total natural. You’re a…a social worker, a caregiver—and a beautiful singer. This could be a new integration.”
“Yeah, but I’m not a real performer, I mean, I have really bad stage fright, I—”
“Well, there’s no stage to speak of,” Jensen said. “It’s very low pressure. Just fall by tomorrow and join me for a song or two. You’ll have a good time.”
“I don’t know.”
“Adam’s right—it could be a nice combo of your talents. And if it goes bad…” He smiled. “Most of ’em won’t remember anyway.”
We laughed. Endi and I exchanged a glance and she squeezed my hand under the table.
“All right kids,” Jensen said. “Let’s go check on the old man.”
The three of us rode the elevator back to the waiting room. Up at the nurses’ station, they told us Charles Elkaim was in the clear but too tired for visitors. They said he would likely be sent back to the Shalom Terrace the next day after tests. Apparently, he was lucky that Nurse Rosa had taken his blood pressure and saw it was sky-high right before his collapse.
Relieved, Jensen bid us adieu and I walked Endi the four blocks north back to Ziva’s. At her front door, she slipped her arms around me and we kissed under the awning. Then she said, “Thanks for the dancing lesson.”
I made it back to the car around 2:00 in the afternoon, light in my step, still marveling at this blue-eyed angel who seemed to fall from out of the blue. I hit the app and started a shift, but into this beaming mood, one funny phrase kept poking at me, something Jensen said in passing—the liars, the grabbers, all that petty ego shit. An image accompanied this harshing of my mellow, a hiccuppy VHS on rapid rewind—it was Lazerbeam telling me with a straight face that he had discovered the band, that they were thrilled to be on Pioneer, and that he did not know Cinnamon Persky at all, had barely heard of her.
But Kip and Rog flat-out stated otherwise—The Daily Telegraph were going places, or trying to, and it was Cinnamon who was working the hustle.
The more I got stuck on this, the more I absolutely knew—Lazerbeam had lied to me about the band, about Cinnamon, all of it, right to my face. Whatever Kip and Rog had to hide, whatever that kook Gladstone was trying and not trying to tell me—one thing was for sure: Larry the Lazerbeam knew way more than he fronted, and he was playing me for a sucker.
I cut the app and headed back to Centinela Trailer Court.
24
Marie opened the trailer door with a smile this time—I smirked and gently pushed past her. The hairy old geezer was in the kitchen on his knees in a Foreigner T-shirt and cutoff jeans, shuffling through a pile of sleeveless 45s, maybe a hundred of ’em.
“You,” I said, “you lied to me.”
He looked up, caught off guard, tried to play it off. “Hey, it’s Sherlock Holmes. What’s happenin’, pops?”
He started to get up and I grabbed him one-handed by the tee, hoisted him up against the tin wall. The rickety sink creaked with his weight.
“You lied to me,” I repeated. “About the band.”
His hands shook. “Whoa, Nelly! Mellow out, guy, you and me are pals, remem—”
“You ain’t my pal.” I pressed gentle but firm and stared right into his washed-out gray eyes. “They didn’t start with you and they definitely didn’t stop with you. Something happened—they kept going. Spit it out.”
“Okay, okay,” he said, “don’t spazz.” He cast a worried glance at Marie.
I let him go and stepped back, and he did a little corrective pull on his shirt.
“I’m sorry,” I said, sounding insincere. “But Devon Hawley’s dead, I’m the one that found him—and I don’t have time for more bullshit.”
Lazerbeam fished anxiously for his pack of American Spirits—Marie watched us like someone at a ping-pong tournament.
“I…we heard that,” he said. “Awful. But you don’t think we had anything to do with that?”
“Out with it.”
“Okay, okay—so maybe I skipped a part or two,” he said, lighting the cig. “They shopped around.”
“Yeah, I already know that—I’ve been to see Kip and Rog. Then what?”
“They made a demo or some shit. And then it didn’t take. There wasn’t much to it, see what I mean? They couldn’t sell it. And then the boys came crawling back to me begging to put out the tracks. And that is the honest truth.”
“The boys?”
He nodded once.
“Don’t you mean Cinnamon—their manager?”
He bristled; his nostrils vibrated with tension.
“Lazerbeam Larry or whatever the hell your name is, you are a mediocre liar. For one, you had a stake in all this, a contract and a record to put out—your one shot at glory, per Kip ‘n’ Rog. And the band burned you, cut you loose. Don’t tell me it was nothing. In fact, I’m guessing you probably flipped your wig. Your little paisley fantasy went kaput and probably you couldn’t handle the humiliation, no way. Who knows? Maybe you killed Durazo, and maybe, when Hawley tried to out you, you killed him too.”
“No, no, I—”
“Yeah, you know what? Never mind. Maybe I’ll just take all this up with the cops.”
He was starting to shake in place, whimpering like a crazed terrier, looking to Marie, his master without a leash.
“Or else…you can tell me the truth,” I said firmer, “now.”
In one move, Marie lunged for the green antique lamp and swung for my head—I ducked but then she swung again the other way, bashed me right at the ear.
