Christietown Read online

  Gambino did not understand vintage fashion, but he did understand me. He didn’t so much as blink, for example, the time I showed up at a cop pool party in Eagle Rock wearing a Jantzen swimsuit from the forties with boning and Bakelite buckles. Or when I met his sister for the first time wearing an apricot-colored silk Harlow gown with shirred raglan shoul

  ders and a hint of a train.

  Okay, so we did need to talk.

  We got off the freeway at Lincoln, and headed back to Fourth Street. The valet parkers employed by the neighboring restaurants had gone home, so there were free spots out front. Gambino came around to open my door for me and we walked back toward the dance studio, knocking shyly against each other’s hips. That was our way of reestablishing relationship equilibrium. It was a chilly April night. My dress was thin. Gambino wrapped his arm tight around me and when that wasn’t enough, took off his jacket and draped it over my shoulders. We arrived at the studio, and saw that the blinds had been pulled.

  “It hasn’t even been fifteen minutes,” I said. “They’re probably still in there.”

  Gambino knocked.

  No answer.

  I put my nose up to the glass and through a crack in the blinds saw the silhouette of a pair of lovers embracing behind the screen where Lou kept the CD player.

  Twenty-two years.

  They still had the itch.

  It was just as I’d suspected: sexual chemistry trumps all.

  “‘Fever!’” I suddenly exclaimed.

  Gambino put his hand on my forehead. “You’re sick?”

  “No, I mean for the first song. Peggy Lee. What do you think?”

  “I like it,” he said. “A lot.”

  “Forget about the shoes.” I took Gambino’s arm. “Take me to bed.”

  CHAPTER 2

  y dad, a twenty-year veteran of the force, used to say a

  good cop never closes more than one eye.

  Gambino closes two but still gets the job done.

  It was four A.M. when the phone rang.

  Detective Tico Soto, Gambino’s partner, with his usual impeccable timing.

  A body had been found downtown, on Vignes Street, just around the corner from the L.A. County Men’s Central Jail. The Seventy-seventh Precinct was in disarray. Two of its men had been shot the day before in a hostage situation that had gone south. So the booking sergeant was calling on the Hollywood Division for help.

  Three minutes and thirty seconds later, having pulled on his clothes, kissed me, and retrieved his holster from the hall closet, Gambino was out the front door.

  Homicide waits for no man.

  I had no problem falling back asleep. That lasted until Javier arrived at eight. Javier always arrived with fanfare: clanging garbage can lids, overzealous leaf blowing, lusty weed whacking. And the lawn mower. Suffice it to say Javier’s lawn mower is an underrated instrument of torture. I put the pillow over my ears, then hurled it across the room. Taking that as her cue, Mimi the cat leapt onto the bed and stalked across the sheet, eyes on the prize. Now we were face (mine)-to-furry face (hers). Then, the earsplitting howl: “Fancy Feast or die!”

  I’d recovered by the second cup of coffee.

  A triumphant Mimi claimed the sunny spot under the stained-glass window in the living room. I put food out for my teacup poodle, Buster, who doesn’t bestir himself before nine thirty, and watered the hybrid catmint, which I keep under an overturned wire basket near the sink so Mimi can nibble on the tips without devouring the blossoms. Then I went out to the office to check my e-mail.

  I live in West Hollywood in a 1932 Spanish-style bungalow with hardwood floors, wrought-iron sconces, Moorish archways, a turquoise-tiled bathroom, and a toilet that flushes approximately three times out of four. I won’t get into the general decrepitude of the heating and air system, nor the idiosyncrasies of the shower, nor the sloping floor in the kitchen, not to mention the doorknob that comes off in your hand every time you try to leave. I’ve come to realize, first of all, that neither people nor houses weather more than half a century unscathed; and second of all, that maintenance is a full-time job. I don’t have the constitution for it. So I use the three and a half minutes it takes for the shower to heat up to read Us Weekly or People or Star (there’s not much there there) and the mercurial toilet to scare off unwanted guests.

  Also, I improvise.

  My office, for example.

  It was the garage until I sold my second book and had enough money to hire one of my best friend Lael’s handyman buddies to transform it into my version of a professorial lair: walls and floor painted apple green, built-in bookshelves, big Lucite desk, plush reading chair accented with Pucci pillows, fresh flowers in coordinating shades, a small fridge stocked with my favorite snacks.

  That was the fantasy, at least.

  The Pucci pillows had faded in the sun. I’d never bought the fridge. The flowers tended to eyeball me accusingly for a day, then die. This morning, it was twelve gerbera daisies. I yanked them out of the vase and tossed them into the trash. Then I dumped the water on the grass, which had pretty much been decimated by Buster, whose youthful urinary tract the vet had applauded at last month’s checkup.

  Happily, my e-mail gave me no trouble. I hit Send and Receive and in seconds the world was at my feet: Cheap Tickets, penile enhancement, fake Rolex watches, Sally.

  That would be my editor, Sally.

  We’d never actually met in the flesh, Sally and I, but I imagined her spending her days in a sleek corner office of a Manhattan skyscraper, sipping highballs while eviscerating manuscripts with her dagger nails. I opened the message.

  Hi, Cece! Got your package. Not bad.

  Not bad?

  In fact, good.

  I exhaled.

  However—

  My least favorite word.

  I think you could’ve eked a little more drama out of Agatha Christie’s mysterious eleven-day disappearance. I would’ve thought that was something you’d be dying to sink your teeth into. So please rework those sections by a week from Monday, at the latest. I don’t want to keep the copy editor waiting. She’s the nervous type. How’s the weather out there, by the way? We’re having a glorious spring. Ciao. S.

  I stomped into the kitchen to pour myself a third cup of coffee. I ate a protein bar. Then a cold slice of pepperoni pizza. Then another slice. What was Sally trying to do, kill me?

  I dialed Lael’s number, looking for sympathy.

  She picked up on the third ring. “You are so lucky, Cece. If you had called five minutes earlier, I would’ve had you bring me more piping bags. My topcoat frosting is incredible. Stop that, I said!”

  “Me?” I asked meekly.

  “No, the girls. They’re trying to put my sunglasses on the dog. Do you hear me, girls? Anyway, Tommy came home early from practice, so I sent him out. Did you need something? Because I’m kind of busy here.”

  In addition to keeping tabs on her four children and playing the vicar’s wife in tomorrow’s theatrical extravaganza, Lael was creating the edible centerpiece: a teapot-shaped cake with a sugar-dough leaf handle and a sugar-dough rose petal spout, accompanied by a twelve-tier tower of actual demitasse cups on which she was piping delicate frosting flowers: bluebells, freesia, Queen Anne’s lace. The cups were going to be filled with cake and sealed with chocolate butter to resemble strong tea.

  “I guess I don’t need anything,” I replied.

  “What do you think for the cake, tiramisu or trifle?”

  “Tiramisu.” I’m Italian.

  “I’ve decided on trifle.”

  Next I called my very pregnant daughter, Annie. Instead of a shoulder to cry on, however, I got a diatribe against Pampers, which were not only bad for the environment but also more expensive than cloth diapers.

  “Over a three-and-a-half-year period,” Annie said, “Vincent and I will have to use over eight thousand seven hundred diapers at a cost of approximately two thousand five hundred dollars. And if the baby is l
arge for his or her age, it’ll be more.”

  Annie wasn’t known for non sequiturs. I waited a beat.

  “It’s a catch-twenty-two, Mom. The larger-size diaper is the same price per package, but the number of diapers in each package is less, making each diaper more expensive. Plus, children using disposables toilet train a year to a year and a half later than their peers using cloth diapers. It’s all there at www. tinytush.com.”

  Before she could continue in this vein, I said I had to go because FedEx was at the door. FedEx was, of course, not at the door, but I did have to go. It was already ten fifteen. My second-best friend Bridget opened her shop at eleven and I wanted to get there before the Friday lunch-hour rush, which occurred when the women of Los Angeles all realized they had nothing to wear for the weekend. It’s the same thing at nail salons. Do not show up at noon on Friday.

  Bridget is the owner of On the Bias, L.A.’s premier vintage clothing store. The woman is so knowledgeable that doctoral candidates seek out her opinion on Balenciaga’s banner year (1954). So influential she’d received handwritten invitations to the couture showings in Paris three years in a row (she doesn’t like to fly). So indispensable that a celebrity stylist once attempted to bribe her with an Hermès Birkin bag (in canary yellow, an affront). We met well before her rise to greatness, working back-to-back shifts at the front desk of an aerobics studio. We bonded over our mutual hatred for exercise, as opposed to our mutual love for vintage clothing. But I can’t deny that her inventory has been a plus when important occasions arise or, say, multiple costumes for a murder-mystery play are required.

  I tucked a doggie treat in my bag for Bridget’s dachshund, Helmut, and was on my way. It was a glorious day, sunny and clear. After more than a decade in southern California, I was still dazzled by the weather. Also by the native flora and fauna: the palm trees, the birds-of-paradise, the old people who looked like young people from behind. I would’ve made it to Beverly Hills in less than ten minutes if I hadn’t been stuck behind a Dodge Dart clocking ten mph in a thirty-five mph zone, which is trickier than it might sound. I’m working on road rage, so I didn’t even honk.

  Helmut appreciated the treat. It was liver flavored, a splurge. I forgot, however, to bring something for Maximilian, Bridget’s new intern, a young man from Austria who favored heavily embellished jackets and smiled only when being offered pastry. Today he was wearing a Russian military ensemble, with epaulets, braiding, and fur cuffs.

  “Ms. Sugarhill is presently on the phone,” he announced in his heavy accent. “She is being given the nonsense by one old lady in the Palm Beach. Four Charles James gown she is withholding. The greatest American couturier! Please do you sit until she is coming for you.” He pushed me in the direction of the pink mohair chaise at the front of the store.

  “Thanks,” I said. “I like your jacket, by the way.”

  “Yes,” he said soberly.

  After he was gone, I made my way over to the dresses. I still needed something for Lou and Liz’s receptionist, Wren, to wear on Saturday. Wren was tiny, with an enormous halo of red hair that she was going to put up in pigtails. She’d been working diligently on her trances. Last week, my son-in-law, Vincent, had rigged a device for her to wear around her waist: with a mere push of a button, it released a plume of smoke, heralding a communiqué from the spirit world.

  I thumbed through the racks. Everything at Bridget’s was sheathed in plastic, so you couldn’t really see it. You had to read the labels on the hangers. This was supposed to deter the looky-loos, not that she got many. Bridget’s reputation preceded her.

  I studied a couple of baby-doll dresses. Too sexy.

  Some geometric shifts. Too hard.

  A billowing shirtdress with a Peter Pan collar. Too obvious.

  I liked a black-cotton-eyelet bustier dress from the eighties, for myself.

  Finally, I pulled a double-knit checkerboard romper off the rack.

  “Rudi Gernreich!” cried Maximilian from across the room. “He is like me, from Vienna! His father makes hosiery, then kills himself, boo-hoo! Rudi likes the ladies to wear this with a Buster Brown hat, a school pack on the back, and the little-girl shoes.”

  Maximilian didn’t mention Rudi Gernreich’s greatest claim to fame, the topless bathing suit, which he created in 1964 in a panic, convinced that Emilio Pucci was going to beat him to the punch. His last collection, in the fall of 1968, was likewise a doozy: it included a Genghis Khan jumpsuit; a black-andwhite bloomer dress based on the art of Aubrey Beardsley; and a Renaissance minidress with ribbon-wrapped tights. In the eighties, Gernreich began a home-based business with a menu of gourmet soups, which he personally delivered in his Bentley to a select list of stores in and about Beverly Hills. Bridget thought he was a genius.

  “This could work,” I said out loud.

  Maximilian instantly snatched the checkerboard romper out of my hands. “So sorry, but don’t you see what is the size? Size two! You can count? One, two! It will not accommodate your most big body.” He looked with disdain upon my five feet eleven inches and one hundred and forty-four pounds.

  “It’s not for me,” I said sweetly. “But in any case, I’m sure I can do better.”

  Maximilian looked insulted, so we were even.

  Just then Bridget appeared, shoulders sagging. Something was wrong. She looked like one of those saucer-eyed waifs from the cheesy paintings, when in fact, she was an African American woman in a severe black suit and four-and-a-halfinch stilettos.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “She’s not selling me those Charles James dresses is what.” Bridget flopped into the chaise.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “Bitch,” said Maximilian with feeling.

  “I spent a whole weekend with her,” Bridget went on, “eating cocktail wieners and frozen quiches out of chafing

  dishes. It isn’t fair.”

  “But you love junk food,” I said consolingly.

  “Real junk food,” she said. “Black junk food. Not the WASP version.”

  “The woman is going to come around.”

  “No, she’s not.”

  “Yes, she is.”

  “You don’t know that,” she said with a stamp of her elegant foot.

  “What is this? You are Bridget Sugarhill!”

  “You’re right!” Bridget exclaimed, sitting up. “And I want a Big Mac!”

  It’s a process. Today went more quickly than usual.

  Maximilian trotted over to get his man bag from behind the desk.

  “One for you, one for me, one for doggie Helmut,” he recited. “And perhaps it is better the single patty, no bun, for your friend?”

  Ignoring him, I asked Bridget if she could recommend something for Wren to wear.

  “All taken care of,” Bridget said. “She was in a few days ago, and I gave her a Holly’s Harp dress in soft fleece with a lace collar.” Holly’s Harp was a legendary, now sadly defunct, boutique on Sunset Boulevard catering to rich hippies and rock-star girlfriends. “Wren looked like an angel, with that crazy red hair. But poor Liz.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She showed up yesterday. We found something perfect. You can take it with you when you go. Stockings, shoes, the whole shebang. But I’m telling you, it took forever! She tried on my entire inventory. Everything made her look like an old frump.”

  “She’s supposed to look like an old frump,” I said. “She’s playing Miss Marple.”

  “Whatever. She’s taking this whole thing very seriously. Do you know she’s been out there, to Aggieworld, three or four times, just to get the lay of the land?”

  “Christietown. And you’re kidding.”

  “Nope. Anyway, she’s got horrible posture. And needs her nails done desperately. And a decent hairdo. And those allergies.” She made a face.

  I remembered how beautiful Liz looked in Lou’s arms, how graceful.

  “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” I said.
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br />   “That’s tripe,” said Bridget. “Jesus H. Christ! There’s lint all over this chaise!” She leapt up in horror. “Maximilian is getting a spanking.”

  I tried to keep the image from forming in my mind.

  “Let me get the outfit for you.” Bridget went into the back. I followed.

  “By the way,” she said, handing me a gray garment bag, which I draped over my arm, “I absolutely adore the governess, Estella Raven. What a mouth she has on her! It’s like you wrote the part just for me.”

  “I did.”

  “You want to see what I’m wearing?” she asked, her face aglow.

  “Surprise me,” I said. We chatted for a while, then Bridget walked me to the celadon-and-gold front door. A pair of teen-starlet types with big heads and tiny bodies brushed past us on their way in.

  “Welcome,” said Bridget coolly. “Have you been here before? No, I don’t believe you have. I know my regulars. Please refrain from tugging on the hangers, and don’t even THINK about removing the plastic.”

  At that, one of the girls dropped her Gucci handbag right on its bamboo handle. The other one hastily scooped up the goods and pulled her friend toward the Azzedine Alaïas.

  “Do you have to be so mean?” I asked Bridget.

  “Believe me, I do.”

  “It’s a miracle anybody comes here.”

  “Forget about them,” Bridget said in a hushed voice. “Listen. I have a theory about who the killer is. In the play. And I’m dying to know if I’m right. So would you please tell me already? I can’t wait until tomorrow. Come on, Cece. Who did it?”

  I thought about how that old frump Miss Marple might answer the question.

  “You don’t need me to tell you,” I said. “If you’ve got a theory that fits the facts, then it must be the right one.”

  CHAPTER 3

  gatha was wearing a fur coat, brown fur-lined gloves, and a small green velour hat on the night she drove away from Styles, her sprawling, mock-Tudor house on the border of Surrey and Berkshire.

  It was early December, but there was already frost on the leaves. Winters in this part of England came on early and hard. She wrapped her gray cardigan around her lumpy body. She couldn’t even look in the mirror anymore. She was afraid of what she’d see. Shadows, folds, furrows. She was only thirty-six years old. She felt a thousand.