Gone (18 page)

“How’s she doing?”

“She wants me home a-sap. Probably gonna greet me with another nervous breakdown. I ain’t going back until I’m sure Tori gets a proper burial.”

His eyes watered. “What a stupid thing to say, it’s a fuckin’
skull,
how the fuck can it get a proper
burial
? I went over there, to your coroner. They didn’t wanna show it to me, gave me all this bullshit, it ain’t like TV, you don’t have to see it. I
made
’em show it to me.”

Spade-shaped hands shaped a shaky oval in the air. “Fuckin’
thing.
Only reason they even had it was some lady was working with it, some fuckin’ science project, she’s putting
holes
in it, digging out the…”

His loss of composure was sudden as a stroke. Pale and sweating, he pressed himself against the seat, gasping as if he’d been sucker punched.

Milo said, “Mr. Giacomo?”

Giacomo clenched his eyes shut and waved him off.

When the young barmaid brought the drinks, he was still sobbing and she was mature enough to look the other way.

“Sorry about that faggy shit.”

“Don’t be,” said Milo.

“Well I fuckin’
am.
” Giacomo rubbed his eyes, ran his jacket sleeve over the lids. The tweed left red trails across his cheeks. “What they told me is I gotta fill out forms so I can take it with me. After that, I’m outta here.”

He gazed at his beer as if it were a urine sample. Drank anyway.

“I got this to tell you: The few times Tori called, her mother bugged her —
getting any parts, sleeping enough, dating anyone. I try to tell Arlene. Don’t bug her. She says ‘I do it ’cause I
care.
’ Meaning I
don’t.
”

Giacomo swallowed more beer. “Now all of a sudden, she’s telling me Tori was maybe dating someone. How does she know? Tori didn’t say so but she didn’t deny it.”

“Any details?”

Giacomo’s lip curled. “Mother’s intuition.” He rotated his mug. “That place stinks. Your coroner’s. Smells like garbage left out for a month. Any way you can use what I just told you?”

“Not without some kind of evidence.”

“Figures —
I’m not trying to bust your balls, but what I got to look forward to when I get home ain’t no picnic. Dealing with the church, who knows what the pope’s position is on burying —
my sister’s gonna talk to the monsignor, we’ll see.”

Milo sipped his Diet Coke.

Lou Giacomo said, “I keep telling myself Tori’s in a better place. If I can’t convince myself of that, I might as well…”

Milo said, “If I call your wife, is it possible she can tell me more?”

Giacomo shook his head. “But suit yourself. She was always bugging Tori —
are you eating, are you exercising, how’re your teeth. What she never
got
was Tori finally wanted to grow up. So what do you think, is Tori connected to that other girl?”

Milo’s lie was smooth. “I can’t say that, Mr. Giacomo.”

“But you’re not
not
saying it.”

“Everything’s an open issue at this point.”

“Meaning you don’t know shit.”

“That’s a pretty accurate appraisal.”

Giacomo’s smile was queasy. “You’re probably gonna get pissed but I did something.”

“What’s that?”

“I went over there. To Tori’s apartment. Knocked on all the doors and asked if they remembered Tori, or seen any guy hanging around. What a dump. Mostly you got Mexicans living there, I’m gettin’ all these confused looks, no speaky English. You could get hold of the landlords and ask ’em to pull their rental records.”

“Seeing as you already tried and they said no?”

“Hey—”

Milo said, “Don’t worry about it, just tell me what they said.”

“They said diddly.” Giacomo handed over a scrap of paper. Holiday Inn stationery. A name and a 323 number.

Milo said, “Home-Rite Management.”

Giacomo said, “Bunch of Chinese, I talked to some woman with an accent. She claimed they didn’t own the building two years ago. I try to explain to her this is important but I got nowhere.” He ran his hands along the sides of his head. “Stupid bitch —
it’s like my brain’s gonna explode. I’m bringing Tori back home in a fuckin’
carry-on.
”

We drove him back to the Holiday Inn, let the engine idle, and walked him to the hotel’s glass doors.

“I’m sorry about that alkie crack, okay? That other time, that Indian place, you guys had tea, I was just…” He shrugged. “Out of line, none of my business.”

Milo placed a hand on his shoulder. “No apologies necessary. What you’ve gone through, I couldn’t hope to understand.”

Giacomo didn’t repel the contact. “Be straight with me: Would you consider this a bad one? Compared to most of them that you get?”

“They’re all bad.”

“Yeah, of course, sure. Like someone else’s kid ain’t as important as mine. But my kid’s what
I’m
thinking about —
think I’ll ever be able to not think about it?”

Milo said, “People tell me it gets easier.”

“Hope so. You find anything, you’ll let me know?”

“Of course.”

Giacomo nodded and shook Milo’s hand. “You guys are all right.”

We watched him enter the hotel lobby, pass the desk without word, and stand fidgeting in front of the elevator without touching the button. Thirty seconds later, he slapped his temple and pushed. Turned around, saw us, and mouthed the word “stooopid.”

Milo smiled. We got back in the car and drove off.

“‘People tell me it gets easier’,” said Milo. “Pretty therapeutic, huh? Speaking of lies, I need to get to the office, chart all that stuff Little Brie thought was off the record. Don’t wanna bore you.”

“Want me to meet you at Michaela’s apartment tomorrow morning?”

“Nah, that could be boring, too. But how about you phone Tori’s mom, see if a Ph.D. helps. The ex-husband, too. Here’s the numbers.”

I made the calls the following morning. Arlene Giacomo was a thoughtful, sane woman.

She said, “Lou drive you nuts?”

“Not yet.”

“He needs me,” she said. “I want him home.”

I let her talk for a while. Eulogizing Tori but providing nothing new. When I brought up the dating issue, she said, “A mother can tell, believe me. But I’ve got no details, Tori was really into being free, no more girl talk with Mama. That was something her father couldn’t grasp, he always bugged her.”

I thanked her and punched in Michael Caravanza’s number. A woman answered.

“Hold on —
Mii-
keee!”

Moments later a slurred, “Yeah?”

I explained why I was calling. He said, “Hold on —
one second, babe. This is about Tori? You found her?”

“Her remains were identified yesterday.”

“Remains —
oh, shit, I don’t wanna tell Sandy, she knew Tori.”

“Did she know her well?”

“Nah,” said Caravanza, “just from church. What happened?”

“That’s what we’re trying to figure out. Did you have contact with her after she moved to L.A.?”

“We were divorced, but we were getting along, you know? Like they say, amicable. She called me a coupla times, maybe the first month. Then it stopped.”

“No more loneliness.”

“I figured she hooked up with someone.”

“She say that?”

“Nah, but I know —
knew Tori. When she had that voice it meant she was excited about something. And it sure wasn’t her acting career, she wasn’t getting shit. That she told me.”

“No idea who she was seeing?”

“You think he did it to her?”

“Any lead would be helpful.”

“Well,” said Michael Caravanza, “if she did what she said she was gonna do, she hooked up with some movie star. That was the plan. Go to Hollywood, the right clubs, whatever, meet some movie star and show him she could be a star, too.”

“Ambitious.”

“Ambitious is what split us up. I’m a working guy, Tori thought her shit was —
she thought she was gonna be Angelina Jolie or something —
what’s that —
hold on, babe, just a sec —
sorry, Sandy’s my fiancée.”

“Congratulations,” I said.

“Yeah, I’m gonna try the marriage thing again. Sandy’s nice and she wants kids. No big church deal, this time, we’re just gonna do it with some judge then go off to Aruba or something.”

“Sounds nice.”

“Hope so. Don’t get me wrong, Tori was a nice girl. She just thought she could be someone else.”

“The few times she did call,” I said, “did she say anything that could help us?”

“Let me think,” said Caravanza. “It was only three times, four, whatever… what did she say… mostly she said she was lonely. That was basically it, lonely. In some shitty little apartment. She didn’t miss me or want to get back together, nothing like that. She just wanted to tell me she was feeling shitty.”

“What did you say?”

“Nothing, I listened. Mostly that’s what I did when I was married. She talked, I listened.”

I reached Milo’s cell and reported both conversations.

“Hooking up with a movie star, huh?”

“Maybe she settled for someone who looked like one.”

“Meserve or another PlayHouse Adonis.”

“With her level of naiveté, someone who’d been around just a bit longer could’ve seemed impressive.”

“Wonder how long Meserve’s been getting insight from Nora Dowd.”

“Longer than two years,” I said. “He was there before Michaela arrived.”

“And when Tori showed up. So where the hell is he… okay, thanks, let me toss this around while I wait for Michaela’s landlord.”

The day floated by with all the importance of a cork in the ocean. I considered calling Allison, then Robin, then Allison again. Settled for neither and filled Saturday by running and sleeping, doing scutwork around the house.

Sunday’s balm and glorious blue skies made matters worse; this was a day to be with someone.

I drove to the beach. The sun had brought people and cars to the coastline. Golden-haired girls promenaded in bikini tops and sarongs, surfer dudes peeled in and out of wetsuits, tourists gawked at natural wonders of all types.

On PCH, a conspicuously crawling highway patrol car lowered the pace to race-walk from Carbon Beach to Malibu Road. The southern entry to Latigo Canyon was closer but that meant more miles of winding road. I kept going to Kanan Dume and turned off.

Alone.

I tooled up the canyon, both hands on the wheel as the twists tested the Seville’s mushy suspension. Despite being up here years ago, the sharpness of the curves and the dead drops if you steered wrong surprised me.

Not a spot for a leisurely cruise and after dark the route would be treacherous unless you knew it well. Dylan Meserve had hiked up here and returned to play out a fraudulent kidnapping.

Maybe because of the isolation. I had yet to encounter another vehicle challenging the mountains.

I drove another few miles, managed to turn around on a skinny ribbon of asphalt, hooked right on Kanan, and drove into the Valley.

Tori Giacomo’s last known address was a dingy white multiplex. Old cars and trucks filled the street. True to her father’s description, the people I saw were mostly brown-skinned. Some were dressed for church. Others looked as if faith was the last thing on their minds.

Laurel Canyon south led me back into the city and Beverly Boulevard east took me to Hancock Park. No Range Rover in Nora Dowd’s driveway and when I walked up to the door and knocked, no response.

Go west, aimless man.

The weeds where Michaela had been dumped had fluffed, obscuring any history of violence. I stared at plants and dirt, got back in the car.

On Holt Avenue, I spotted Shayndie Winograd and a young, sparsely bearded man in a black suit and a broad-brimmed hat walking four small children and steering a double stroller north toward Pico. The allegedly ailing Gershie Yoel was the picture of health as he tried to shinny up his father’s trousers. Rabbi Winograd fended him off, finally lifted the boy and slung him over his shoulder like a sack of flour. The kid loved it.

A short drive away, on Reynold Peaty’s block of Guthrie, I looked for Sean Binchy but couldn’t find him. Was the guy that good? Or had born-again obligations prevailed on Sunday?

As I coasted past Peaty’s building, a young Hispanic family came down the stairs and headed for a dented blue van. Definite church garb, including three chubby kids under five. These parents looked even younger than the Winograds —
barely out of their teens. The father’s shaved head and stone-faced swagger were at odds with his stiff gray suit. He and his wife were heavy. She had tired eyes and blond-streaked hair.

Back in my intern days, the psych staff had favored a smug, knowing line:
Kids having kids.
The unspoken tsk-tsk.

Here I was, driving around by myself.

Who was to say?

I’d stopped without meaning to in front of Peaty’s building. One of the little kids waved at me and I waved back and both parents turned. Shaved-head Dad glared. I sped off.

No action at the PlayHouse, same for the big cantaloupe-painted complex on Overland that Dylan Meserve had left without notice.

Shabby place. Rust streaks beneath the gutters I hadn’t noticed the first time. Front grid of stingy little windows, no hint anyone lived behind them.

That exhumed memories of my student days living on Overland, alone and faceless and so full of self-doubt that entire weeks could slog by in a narcotic haze.

I pictured Tori Giacomo mustering the courage for a cross-country move and ending up in a small, sad room on a street full of strangers. Fueled by ambition —
or delusions. Was there a difference?

Lonely, everyone lonely.

I recalled a line I’d used on girls back then.

No, I don’t do drugs, more into the natural low.

Mr. Sardonic. Every so often, it had worked.

Monday morning at eleven, Milo phoned from his car. “Damn landlord stood me up Saturday, too much traffic from La Jolla. Finally, he tells me I can get a key from his sister who lives in Westwood. Asshole. I waited for the techies, just finished doing my own toss.”