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EYE OF THE STORM Pershing Square was crowded, as usual. The city’s oldest park, the one-block patchwork of grass and concrete balanced itself precariously between Olive, 5th, 6th, and Hill Streets. The sidewalk in front of the palatial Biltmore Hotel was alive with harried nannies pushing strollers, older men lounging on benches, and an occasional soapbox orator espousing everything that a free society would allow. Rachel positioned herself, pad in hand, beside the Oviatt Building. She didn’t know what she had expected. The scene was certainly a cold reminder that life goes on. No matter how exalted the station of the fallen, the pulse of humanity continued unabated. Cabbies still honked their horns, delivery trucks ground their gears, and people talked. Usually about the weather, or the price of lettuce, or the waning war. But today it was different. Many eyes were blank, as if seeing without sight, and the voices were hushed, as though the street scene were somehow transformed into a makeshift cathedral. “He was a great man,” a lady whispered. She dabbed running mascara from her eyes with a dainty handkerchief. “I don’t know what our fighting boys will think. I know that they have to be told.” She shook her head. “I just don’ t know what they’ll think.” “I think the Japs had something to do with it!” The darkly tanned man in the Panama suit fanned himself with his straw hat. “I’ve read a lot about those boys. They cook all kinda poisons up over there, and then they sneak it in when you least expect it. Sneaky Japs! First Pearl Harbor and now the President!” “What worries me is Truman.” The pudgy grocer snapped his suspenders. “ He couldn’t make it as a hat salesman, and now here he is President of the United States.” He shrugged in mock disbelief. “Hitler and Tojo must be laughing themselves silly! Truman! Harry Truman!” “Well, I’m not too sorry.” The bushy-haired cabby glanced around, seemingly afraid that his statement might initiate a lynching. “I mean, that cagey ol’ FDR knew about Pearl before the bombs fell. Knew it and didn’t do a thing. Just a cooked up deal by a bunch of fat-cat politicians in a smoky room to get us into the war to help out the Brits.” Rachel filled the pages of her pad one after the other, pausing occasionally to ask a passerby to expand on their comments. She had begun page six when she spotted the familiar figure of Detective Michael Morrison working his way toward her through the crowd. He carried his coat over his shoulder, his broad green tie wagging like a thirsty dog’s tongue over his protruding waist. He was limping slightly, as if his feet had finally decided to protest the weight they were called upon to bear. “Well, if it isn’t LA’s Star Reporter!” He smiled, tipping his stained fedora. “They told me that I might find you down here. Now you know what it feels like to pound the pavement.” She stepped forward to accept his hand. She would never forget the day when this unlikely hero had saved her life. The glint of sharpened steel suspended above her throat in the hands of a madman. The feel of rough desert rock biting into her bloodied hand. If Morrison hadn’t gone the extra mile, she would be dead now, a collection of bones hidden in a shallow grave. “You look hot.” She reached out and smoothed his wrinkled white shirt with her hand. “Out on a big case?” “Out looking for you, really.” He glanced upward toward the blue sky. “ Listen, I need some shade. I parked about ten blocks from here, and I feel like a marathon runner on the last lap.” “I know a place,” she smiled. “As close to an oasis as you’re going to find around here.” She led him down the street. “I owe you one anyway,” she smiled. “At least one.” The promised oasis was tucked tightly in the back of Newland’s Pharmacy. A small collection of white painted chairs and round tables flanked by a gleaming marble-topped soda fountain. A soda jerk, his white cap neatly perched atop his head, had delivered their order with efficiency and then retreated to do his business. Rachel watched her detective mentor as he meticulously spooned layers of hot fudge over his remaining ice cream. She thought for an instant that he had lost a little weight. He hadn’t mentioned being ill, and so she assumed that it was another vain attempt to return his physique to the proportions of a previous day. She tried to imagine thicker darkened hair atop his head. He might have been a good looking man. Maybe a ladies’ man earlier in his life. She immediately thought better of it. Even if he had looked like a movie star, his less than charming and brutally blunt personality would have chased the opposite sex away by the droves. “So...” He leaned forward, as if trying to keep a secret from someone. “Have you heard any more about Peter?” She nodded negatively. “Well, in this situation, I guess that no news is good news.” At first she had thought so. But then, on one dark night, she had been awakened from fitful slumber by an obvious revelation. If anything did happen to her beloved husband, exactly who would it be that would report it? There were no lists of those dying as prisoners of the Nazis. No obituaries, or telegrams, or official notification. Her own government had never been able to tell her more than that he had been seen taken prisoner. Even that, she had reluctantly concluded, could have been a false report. “No, I haven’t heard anything.” She sipped Coke through a bent paper straw. “I think the government has gotten tired of my calls. I have a few contacts through the newspaper who keep their ears to the ground. But...” “Well, this whole damn war is going to be over before long.” That fact offered little consolation. She thought of a story that had come across her desk that morning. An incredible report that would have been a page one banner headline if it hadn’t been for the death of a President. The full horror of German crimes was only now becoming brutally evident as British and American forces were liberating prisons at places called Belsen and Buchenwald. The incredulous conquerors had discovered stacks of bodies and small cadres of emaciated survivors who appeared to be little more than walking dead. Connie had sympathetically reminded her that most of the reports said that few Americans were being found in these death camps. The well intentioned encouragement had done little to dull the cold sharpened pick that was now constantly impaled in Rachel’s stomach. “So, to what do I owe this visit?” She fought to change the subject. “ Surely you weren’t just looking for a date to have some ice cream with.” He smiled. “No, I don’t date married women.” He grew silent for a moment. “We were just born out of sync a little. Now, if you’d been born a little sooner or me a little later.” He shrugged. “Who knows.” “You couldn’t handle me,” she laughed. “Anyway, the only thing more nerve-racking than being a Marine’s wife would be hooked up with a cop.” She poked at him playfully across the table. “Especially a cop who carries around too much weight and insists on hot fudge breaks.” He licked his spoon. “Listen, you remember Reinhart Holzer, don’t you?” “Pasadena Playhouse.” “Yea. He’s the Kraut who was doing something with Shakespeare and other theater stuff. You went out and nosed around looking for some leads when you were trying to unravel the ‘Elephant Trap’ business. “And you guys were trailing me. But, that didn’t turn into anything. He disappeared not long after that.” “Went on the run. You scared him. Well, he’s locked up safe and sound now.” “And...” “And, he wants to see you.” “Me? Why me? He wasn’t too excited to see me when I went to visit him at the theater.” “Had a change of heart, I guess. I got word from his lawyer.” He self consciously licked his lips, as if hoping to discover some missed drop of chocolate. “Where is he?” “Lincoln Heights.” He shrugged. “You don’t have to do it, you know. You certainly don’t owe the guy anything. Just because he didn’t turn out to be the nut doing all the killing, doesn’t mean that he isn’t a nut of some kind. As far as I’m concerned, anyone who’s involved in acting is a nut. Let alone a German.” She had always felt a little guilty about Holzer. He must have been hiding something, or he would have never tried to disappear. But, she was sure that he wasn’t the monster that she had first suspected. “No, I’ll go.” She stood, glancing at the clock whirring above the freshly-polished soda foundation mirror. “Old business. We’ll just consider it old business. ” |
