City of the Dead (Alex Delaware, #37)(18)

“He’s a psychologist. His name is Alex and he was wondering if he could have a few words with you.”

“What about?”

“Someone who listed you as a friend on Facebook. Cordi Gannett.”

“Another psychologist. They’re friends? Competitors? Enemies?”

Robin looked at me.

I whispered, “Acquaintances.”

She repeated the word.

Mare Nostrum said, “Sure.”

“Sure—”

“I’ll talk to him, why not?”

“Thanks, I’ll put him on—”

“Not now,” said Mare Nostrum. “The phone’s basically the enemy. Strangers asking me political questions. Trying to sell me things I don’t need. I like to look at people when they talk at me. I’ve gotten good at decoding.”

“Got it,” said Robin. “Can I put him on to arrange—”

“He can come here and talk. Not to my house, no one comes to my house. There’s a park nearby, he can come there. Not now, it’ll be dark soon, I don’t go out in the dark. Tomorrow. After I eat breakfast. Ten o’clock.”

Robin looked at me. I gave a thumbs-up.

“Sounds perfect, Mare. Where’s the park?”

“North Hollywood. Kingsford Street. He’s a doctor, he can figure it out.”

“Thanks so much, Mare.”

“I’m Mary, now. The other one was a fraud. My manager gave it to me. I didn’t want it. I thought he was riffing on my nostrils.”

Click.

I said, “I owe you.”

Robin said, “There’ll be opportunities to show your gratitude.”





CHAPTER


    10


The following morning I learned what I could about the thirty-nine-month career of Mare Nostrum, née Mary Blank.

The name she’d been given at birth showed up in a Billboard piece on the singer’s “retirement due to health and other personal issues.” The quote came from her manager, a guy named Chuckie Rose. It had ended with a proclamation that “Mare Nostrum has left us and Mary Blank has arrived.”

When asked if that meant an eventual return to the singer performing under her real name, Rose said, “Your guess is as good as mine.” Knowing what I did now, I figured his client had ordered him to memorialize the change.

The rest of the article was a brief bio. With “a style that alternated between solemn and furious, the Iowa-born vocalist” had begun as a backup singer for a raspy-voiced British metalhead named Izzo Lacks, whose own solo career had floundered after walking out on a band called Thrombosis. Nostrum had toured with Lacks for a season, progressed to opening for slightly more successful thrashers in medium-sized venues, peaked as an arena headliner. Her highest chart had been 5, followed by 11, then 38. After that, the requisite downward slide.

The most recent appearance I could find was an unannounced drop-in at a club on Cahuenga two and a half years ago reported in the Calendar section of the L.A. Times. The “now sedate” Mary Blank had sung two Nina Simone songs “passably” before escaping into the wings.

After that, radio silence. Literally.



* * *



—

The park was in a marginal area of North Hollywood. I drove north on the Glen, crested the ridge at Mulholland that separates 310 from 818, drove east on Ventura Boulevard to Laurel Canyon, and followed a series of GPS prompts through a neighborhood of shabby apartments and tenacious single-story bungalows.

Kingsford Mini Park (so labeled by the department of recreation) was a sad smear of weedy grass surrounded by low pink block walls victimized by sloppy, indecipherable graffiti. A dozen parking slots, all empty.

An open gate led me to the sole bench in the space, wooden slats with concrete legs, built for durability not comfort. The doors to a public restroom were padlocked. More scrawl-filled block. Recreational equipment was limited to a pair of swings suspended by rusty chains over a bed of sand. One of the swings hung askew. Paper wrappers and crushed cans specked the sand. Glints of glass said proceed at your own risk.

They say the mayor wants to run for president. He’s one of those simpering types, big on feeling everybody’s pain. I had a pretty good idea what the parks were like in his neighborhood.

I checked the bench for foreign objects, sat and checked my phone for messages. One from a lawyer whose name I didn’t recognize. He could wait. Ten o’clock passed, ten fifteen, twenty. I wondered if Mary Blank had changed her mind, decided to stick it out for another quarter hour.

At ten twenty-eight, she appeared, looking around, blinking. She spotted me easily because I was the only one there. I stood and waved, anyway. She remained still for a few more seconds then continued toward me.

She’d put on thirty or so pounds that rounded her nicely. Short brown hair had given way to shoulder-length pewter waves. She wore a cognac-colored velvet sweat suit and white New Balances. Clear skin, clear eyes, no adornment other than an incongruously flashy ruby ring on her left hand. Huge stone—five-or-so-carat marquis cut with enough clarity to sparkle in the hazy sunlight.

Sport something like that in a neighborhood like this, good reason not to venture out at night.

She sat next to me, facing forward. “You look the same.”