Christietown (27 page)

Liz used a blue ballpoint pen. Her handwriting slanted to the left, which is the sign of a detail-oriented individual.

The first item on her to-do list read “mani/pedi.” Even Bridget had noticed Liz’s ratty fingernails when Liz stopped by the shop to try on Miss Marple outfits. But I remembered the blood-red talons from that last day at Christietown. Liz had definitely gotten to item number one.

Item number two was “call Wren.” About what? There were all those little jobs Wren had complained about. Or was it something to do with the affair? Liz had slapped Wren; Silvana had seen it. Liz knew what was going on. Was she calling to tell Wren to back off ? Or to apologize?

The third item said “Lola’s.” Maybe Liz had a friend named Lola. Someone she might have visited that last week? Someone she might have confided in? Of course, I had no way of know
ing when exactly she’d written this list. Lou had given me the
impression that it was recent, but there was no certainty of that. I gave him a quick call, but he was out.

Item number four: “R. Ackroyd.” Roger Ackroyd. The one with the trick ending. Lou said Liz had gone through every
thing Agatha Christie had ever written. Certainly she would have read Christie’s most famous book. There were two deaths in this book, which is about the average: a widow dead from an overdose of veronal, and Roger Ackroyd, who’d hoped to marry her, dead the following night, a knife in his back. Nothing in the story, however, is precisely the way it seems: suicides that are not suicides, lovers who are not lovers. Maybe Liz wanted to reread it. Maybe she saw it as some kind of commentary on her own mixed-up life.

Then something occurred to me.

Maybe Lola wasn’t a friend.

Maybe Lola’s was a place.

There were a million people named Lola in Los Angeles.

But there couldn’t be that many
places
with that name.

I pulled out the stack of phone books. I swear that one got dumped at my door every day, each more useless than the next. The one on the top was a White Pages serving “Hollywood, West Hollywood, Los Feliz, and Los Angeles (portions of ),” which could mean just about anywhere. I went straight for the Ls.

There was a Layla’s Bead Shop on Third Street. A Lolita’s on Yucca. A Lulu’s Alibi on Sawtelle.

No Lola’s.

I went through three more White Pages to no avail, each covering various overlapping subsets of greater Los Angeles. But I wasn’t ready to give up.

There was still the mighty Yellow Pages to conquer.

Half an hour and three Yellow Pages later, I’d come up with the following:

Lola’s the restaurant.

Lola’s the pet groomer’s.

Lola’s the stationery store.

Lola’s the wig shop.

This time, I knew exactly where I was going.

C
HAPTER
4
5

he thing about Los Angeles is, nobody knows how to

drive in the rain.

Grown men swerve to avoid puddles, soccer moms inch along like turtles, old ladies gun across three-way intersections, distracted by their windshield-wiper settings. It’s enough to make you nostalgic for Jersey.

Sundays are good because nobody’s on the road. Even in the pouring rain, it took me less than five minutes to get to the strip mall on La Cienega and San Vicente, kitty-corner from the hulking Beverly Center.

I parked the car underground, then walked up the ramp past the Thai restaurant, the acupuncture studio, and the Payless shoe store until I was standing directly in front of Lola’s Wigs.

The rain-spattered window reminded me of Forest Lawn Cemetery, with its Gothic black lettering and dusty garlands of plastic flowers. This was the place old hairdos went to die: Veronica Lake’s peekaboo waves; Joey Heatherton’s feathery
bob; Angie Dickinson’s cotton-candy page boy. Inside, you could barely see through the clouds of hairspray. My contacts immediately started to sting.

“May I help you.” It was less a question than a statement. A beautifully dressed Asian woman stood behind the counter. An Asian man—dapper, with a thin mustache—nodded his head.

“Thank you,” I said. “Maybe in a minute.” I went over to the corner, and fished around in my purse for some eye-drops. After making a mess of my makeup, I slipped on my sunglasses.

“Take your time, miss,” said the man. “Lots of styles, colors. My wife and I can help you find the one that’s right for you. Please put your umbrella over here.” He indicated a Hello Kitty receptacle that had two Burberry plaid umbrellas in it already.

I deposited my cheapie collapsible and had a look around. There were many disembodied heads, all staring at me, their wide-open eyes fringed with dark lashes, their lips glossy and beckoning. Join us, they murmured. Liberate yourself from the tyranny of your blow-dryer. A shiny, bouncy life can be yours for a mere $89.99.

I have to admit it was tempting. Platinum corkscrews? An orange-and-yellow-striped bob? Prom queen? Punk rocker? Also short and curly don’t-notice-me wigs in various shades of mousy brown. At the back were the men’s styles: Elvis, Fabio, Charlton Heston as Ben-Hur.

“We’re having a special on falls,” the man said. “The Look of Love Pony Express line is twenty-five percent off. You’d look good in a bologne curl.”

I had no idea what a bologne curl was, but I was fairly cer
tain I didn’t want to look or smell like luncheon meat.

“Great idea,” I said. “Can I try one on?”

“Two dollars,” said his wife. “We deduct it from the cost of the fall if you buy. Watch out for the bucket over there. Can’t get a roofer now, big pity.”

I went to sit at a gold-trimmed vanity with hundred-watt bulbs circling the mirror, undoubtedly a fire hazard. Next to me was a heavyset man fiddling with a jet-black toupee. We acknowledged each other, then he swirled spray around his head. I decided to breathe through my mouth.

The wife came over, and gathered my voluminous locks into her hands. “Big hair,” she said admiringly. “But more is always better.”

The husband said, “Please remove the sunglasses.” Then he sprayed something pine scented on my head, which had the miraculous effect of tamping down my hair by at least two inches. Far more effective than the pomade I’d used the other day.

Then the wife handed her husband something that looked like roadkill, which he promptly banana-clipped to the back of my head. He then stuffed my new flat hair into a pocket hanging off the banana clip and stepped back to admire his handiwork.

“Nice,” said the wife.

“Very nice,” said her husband.

The man with the toupee kissed his fingers to his lips.

I studied myself in the mirror. I looked bald. Bald in the front, with a dead animal in the back.

“I don’t think the bologne curl works on me,” I said.

Then I saw it.

“That’s the one,” I blurted out, pointing to a frizzy red-haired number next to a Dolly Parton.

“How come that one is so popular all of a sudden?” said the husband, tut-tutting. “We just sold a nice lady the very same one.”

I knew it.

“That was my sister,” I said. “It looks so great on her, I want the exact same one.”

“Then you can do a sister act,” said the wife. “Everybody in

L.A.
wants to be in show business, right?”

The husband painstakingly de-bologne-curled me while the wife fluffed up the red wig. Then, working in tandem, they stuffed my hair into what looked like a chopped-off pair of control-top panty hose, careful to tuck in the stray pieces. Finally, they put the wig on my head and tugged it into place.

I looked at myself in the mirror.

Wren Abbott looked back at me.

“I’ll take it,” I said.

As I was paying, I asked the wife, “Are you Lola?”

“Junie,” she replied, handing me my receipt. “There is no

Lola.”

The sky was still blackish and forbidding, but the rain had died down. From Lola’s, I took La Cienega up to Beverly, then turned right. At Fairfax, I swung a left and parked on the street in front of a ramshackle orange hut with a sign that had read
OKI DOG
until the K fell off, long before my time.

An Oki Dog is two hot dogs in a burrito filled with chili and pastrami. The pastrami is what puts it over the top. Only for teenagers and Tums abusers.

I crossed against the light and entered Xotx-Tropico.

Number five on Liz’s to-do list.

Xotix-Tropico was a small nursery with foliage crawling up the fence and plants and flowers of every imaginable kind crammed and shoved and balanced on corners and shelves and tables along various skinny, dirt-strewn trails. I could hear the traffic on Fairfax, the honking horns and the screeching brakes, but inside, I felt far away from the city.

The middle aisle led to the greenhouse in the back. It was kind of like taking an around-the-world cruise. Here’s the English countryside, with snapdragons and roses in shades of pink, yellow, white, even lavender. Now the jungle, dripping with palm fronds and Mexican weeping bamboo. Finally the desert, with its spiky succulents. One long table was covered with tiny plastic pots containing miniature cacti. Several looked like organs—livers or kidneys. Others looked like pebbles. You could pick up a pretty moon cactus for about the price of an Oki Dog.

“Back so soon?”

I turned around and was face-to-face with a tall man wear
ing torn jeans. He had the weather-beaten skin of someone who spends his days outdoors.

“Oh, excuse me,” he said quickly. He ducked his head and kicked some gravel. “I thought you were someone else.”

He reminded me of a bashful cowboy. “I’ll bet you’re talk
ing about my sister.”

He straightened up, studied my face for a minute, then grinned. “I don’t know. She didn’t look all that much like you.”

“Just this crazy red hair,” I said, touching my wig, “right?”

“Yeah, just the hair. Maybe the eyes, a little bit. Same shape.”

“That’s what everybody says.”

The air in the greenhouse felt thick, heavy with moisture. I could feel the sweat beading on my upper lip. My heart was pounding.

“She okay, your sister?” he asked.

“Fine.”

“Good.” He nodded a couple of times.

“Why do you ask?”

“I don’t know. She seemed kind of edgy the other day. In a hurry. No big deal.”

“Let me ask you something about orchids,” I said, changing the subject. I was going to take it slowly. Rushing him wouldn’t accomplish anything. I reached out to touch a dark fuchsia flower poised at the end of a long, curving stalk. Its petals were translucent, like stained glass. “Are there any orchids that will grow outdoors?”

“Sure,” he said. “We got the climate for it here. Mild nights and all. I’d recommend this one.” He took me over to a cat
tleya in full bloom. Canary green with fringed petals. “Smell,” he said.

I bent down. It was crisp, tart, like lemons.

“Biggest mistake people make with orchids is overwatering. You know the trick, don’t you?”

“No,” I said, shaking my head.

He stuck his hands in his pockets. “Sharpen a pencil so you get fresh wood on the tip. Then stick it deep into the pot and twist a couple of times. If the wood gets dark, don’t water. Wait. You gotta be patient with orchids.”

“I love flowers,” I said. “I don’t have much luck with them, though.”

“You gotta start small. If you’re not an experienced gardener, you might be better off with some daylilies, maybe. We’ve got
Stella de Oros. Very easy to cultivate. But not for cutting, if that’s what you’re looking for.”

“My sister chose some lovely flowers,” I said. “You helped her, right?”

“Sure did.”

My armpits were soaked now. My knees were trembling. “Foxglove, wasn’t it?”

“That’s right.”

Jesus.

“Can you show me the ones you sold her?”

“Sure.”

We walked back to the front of the nursery, ducking now and then to avoid running into jade vines and kangaroo paws.

Foxglove.

How beautiful they were.

I studied the flowers in silence, hoping he’d say something more.

After a minute, he did. “Your sister is a lot more decisive than you are.”

“Oh, I know,” I said. “Everybody always says that. She decides what she wants and she goes out and gets it. No look
ing back. How many plants did she buy, do you remember?”

“Seven—she about cleaned me out.”

“Who do you think is taller,” I said suddenly. “Me or my sister?” I had to be sure.

He laughed. “I’ve got two sisters myself. They’re very com
petitive, like you guys. All right.” He stepped back, looked me up and down. “You are. But only by a hair.”

I was almost six feet tall.

Liz was just about my size.

Wren was a slip of a thing.

I was sure.

“Oh, man, I almost forgot,” the guy said, running into the little shed up front. “Your sister left this here. I’m sure she needs it.”

He came out of the office and handed me an inhaler.

Liz’s inhaler. Another thing she’d lost.

On the way out I stopped in front of the herb garden. I needed to catch my breath. I bent over for a minute, my hands on my knees. I must’ve looked dazed because an elderly woman picking out some heirloom tomatoes put her hand on my shoulder and said, “It’s the angel’s trumpet. The smell is very strong. I always need a glass of water after I’ve been here.”

I thanked her for her kindness, then got into my car and checked the messages on my cell.

Lou had returned my call.

I was about to call him back when I saw the hollow-battery emblem indicating that my phone was out of juice. Of course, I couldn’t find the charger anywhere. I went back into the nursery to see if I could use their phone, but the guy was nowhere in sight and the office was locked up. So I ran into Oki Dog and pleaded my case to the kid at the counter, who said he wasn’t supposed to let people use the phone except in dire emergencies.

I said this was a dire emergency.

Lou picked up on the first ring.

I told him I needed to see him, that it was urgent.

He didn’t sound surprised.

C
HAPTER
4
6