Free Christietown by Susan Kandel Page A

card.
    I’d left it lying on the coffee table.
    Gambino gave me a look.
    “What?” I asked.
    “You know exactly what,” he said. “You are to stay out of this. You had nothing to do with Liz Berman’s death. You are not responsible in any way. Please don’t make me say it again. You’ve heard the lecture.”
    I had.
    More than once.
    But even half-asleep I knew—we both knew—that it was going to take a lot more than that to stop me.
    We didn’t talk much in the morning, just “Excuse me” and “Please pass the butter” and “Have you seen my watch?” We’d talked enough the night before, not to mention that we were both pressed for time. Gambino had had a break in his murder case. There was an emergency meeting downtown. And I had a condolence call to make.
    Lou was standing outside his house, smoking, when I pulled up.
    He took one last drag on his cigarette, then tossed it onto the sidewalk and crushed it underfoot.
    “Liz wouldn’t let me smoke inside the house,” he said, open ing the car door for me. “I know it doesn’t matter anymore, but old habits die hard, you know?”
    The Bermans lived in a modest English Tudor house in Carthay Circle, a middle-class enclave developed in the twen ties in the shadow of Wilshire Boulevard’s Miracle Mile. I’d once seen a photograph of Norma Shearer on the red carpet at the Carthay Circle Theatre, where Gone With the Wind made its world premiere. She looked glamorous in an Adrian gown with big shoulders and a fur collar. David O. Selznick had originally cast her in the role of Scarlet O’Hara, but she received so many letters from fans who felt she was wrong for the part that she bowed out. In any case, the theater, an art deco masterpiece, was torn down in the sixties to make room for an office build ing. I’d passed it on my way over. It already looked like a ruin.
    The house smelled like old people.
    “I think we could use some fresh air in here, don’t you?” I opened a louvered window. Through the narrow panes I could see the rotary sprinkler on the front lawn spinning in circles, spraying droplets of water everywhere.
    “Sure,” said Lou. “Okay.”
    I moved the newspaper—yesterday’s—and sat down on the couch, which was in dire need of reupholstering. The cushions were ripped and the stuffing was starting to come out.
    “Can I get you anything?” Lou took a seat opposite me in a plastic chair that resembled a wedge of coconut.
    “No, thank you,” I said with a smile. “Have you been all right?”
    “Oh, sure,” he said, pressing the back of his hand against his unshaved cheek. Without the usual gel, his black hair looked coarse and unruly.
    “That’s good to hear.”
    He fingered an unlit cigarette then stood up, yanking at his gray sweats, which had lost their drawstring. He disappeared into the kitchen and came back out with a tray of cold cuts.
    “Have some deli meats,” he said. “Somebody brought them over. I’ll never eat all this myself.”
    He hovered over me as I made myself a pastrami on rye. Then, satisfied, he sank into a black globe chair on casters. Above him was a huge Barbarella poster. It looked like Jane Fonda was aiming her ray gun directly at his head.
    “You have some great chairs,” I said, taking a bite of the sandwich. “Um, good.”
    “Liz liked to go to the Rose Bowl flea market.”
    “I go every once in a while,” I said. “When I remember.”
    “Liz went religiously.”
    “That’s how you find the good stuff,” I said, wiping my mouth.
    “They think I killed her,” he said.
    “I know.” I put my sandwich down.
    “I didn’t do it,” he said.
    “I know.”
    “Did you hear the story about how we met?” It was the first time he’d smiled since I’d been there.
    “No, tell me.”
    A small black cat appeared and leapt onto his lap. “I was taking this drama class,” he said, scratching behind the cat’s ears. “I already knew how to dance, thought maybe I could make Broadway