Still Lives(75)

Evie glances over her shoulder when I get in. Her face is a smooth, pale bowl. “Maggie,” she says, raising her sculpted eyebrows. “I didn’t know you were here today.”


Evie can’t stay for the entire tour. She had to reschedule the whole Judd shipment last night because the Amsterdam museum is freaking out about timing. She’s so sorry. Really. This was going to be the highlight of her week. Her month.

“Well, except that it’s such a sad day,” she says, with a glance back at me. “It’s terrible news. I mean, not about Shaw, but about …” She trails off.

“It’s terrible all around,” I say. “Somebody obviously tried to frame him.”

If Evie is guilty of the crime, I can’t believe the smoothness of her delivery, the loose grip of her hands on the wheel. I can’t believe the warm light in her eyes when she showed me the provenance of Kim’s work. She must have been thrilled to set me on the wrong investigation. She must have taken me for such an idiot.

Yegina sighs. “Let’s just talk about anything but Kim Lord.”

We are on the 101, merging into a steady four-lane stream that will take us to Hollywood. I sit in the back seat, behind Dee riding shotgun. Dee is bent forward, fiddling with the radio. Yegina has scuttled as far away from me as possible, and stares east into the receding downtown skyline. The air conditioner threads a cold wind through the car, but the windows and doors radiate heat. I still don’t believe it. Did Evie intend to kill me, too, in my apartment, when I blundered in, home early from my supposed night at Bootleg? Instead, she took my phone and let me go. Because I’m her friend? I doubt it. She must need me alive, to take the blame. Now that Greg is in the clear, she needs someone else to frame.

If Evie’s act of murder and cover-up was so meticulous, I can’t imagine the flawlessness of her getaway today. I have to delay her as long as possible, and meanwhile get a message to Hendricks. But how can I make her stay with us?

I mull over various scenarios. Direct confrontation. No, then she might just bolt. Dark hints. Only if she’s not entirely sure of my intentions.

“Evie, I was hoping I could interview you for the next members’ magazine,” I say to the back of her head.

There’s an awkward silence.

“The theme for the issue is behind-the-scenes,” I say.

“Oh. I don’t think anyone will be interested. In me,” Evie says slowly, as if it’s difficult to enunciate each word.

“Of course they will,” I say. “People love to know about the art, the crates, how everything comes and goes.” I pause. “Dee—you build the crates. Do you always build them for specific works?”

“Mostly,” says Dee. “Sometimes I make extras so Brent can give me the hours.” She gives a little laugh. “We say it’s the Rocque’s other permanent collection.”

We are nearing the Hollywood exit now, a gray concrete wall beneath a small burst of trees. Bougainvilleas bloom in magenta profusion, as if they know they’re running out of time. The spring rains have greened everything in L.A., but by midsummer every flourishing spot like this will fade and wither beneath a glaze of smog.

“I promise I won’t print that,” I tell Dee. “Say, did anyone ever play a prank with the spare crates? I bet you could smuggle some funny stuff in there.”

“There was a keg for the Chris Branson performance,” says Dee.

I force a chuckle. “It seems like you could fit an actual person in there.”

“Not much air for a person, unfortunately,” Dee says.

Evie turns sharply onto the exit, throwing Yegina against me. As our bodies collide, I smell my own rank odor and cringe. “Sorry,” I say in an abject tone. Yegina’s frown softens.

“Do you think Janis secretly hates us all?” she asks Dee. “For not keeping her father’s museum afloat?”

Dee snorts. “What do you mean ‘secretly’?” Then she glances back, unsmiling. “Nah. She hates that she can’t figure out a way to keep his vision alive either.”

“Maybe we have to change the vision,” Yegina says. “Insider cachet isn’t enough anymore. We need tourists.”

As interested as I am in speculation about the Rocque’s future—and Yegina’s sudden eagerness to alter it, her words sounding more like Bas’s than her own—I hunker in my seat while they talk, thinking about my next move. Storefronts on Hollywood Boulevard sail by: stiletto boots for drag queens, a few decrepit bars, pawn shops, taquerias.

We pass the golden dragon and superheroes of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, and we’re through the big commercial district and into neighborhoods again. Then we’re coasting onto Sunset Boulevard, below the hills. Janis Rocque lives on a Bel Air road that meanders through mansion estates, all gated, all so far back from the street they are only a dream of habitation. Luxury pools, terraced patios, a private bath for every bedroom. From these massive palaces, you can see the whole city, but they are invisible to everyone but their own neighbors. Or so I was told once by Greg, who’d loved visiting them on his last job.

They seem like traps to me. Once we get to Janis Rocque’s, we’ll be stuck behind some huge fence, down some winding road. Yet if I can convince Evie to stay, then she’ll be trapped, too.