Death on a High Floor (26 page)

When I woke up, it was pitch black. For a few seconds, I didn’t know where I was. Then I remembered. I turned my head and looked at the bedside clock. The red digits said it was 5:15 a.m. When I’d climbed into bed, the sun had not yet set. I’d slept for more than twelve hours.

I switched on a bedside lamp and saw that I was lying in a four-poster bed beneath a puffy blue quilt. The bed was in the middle of a square room. Oscar seemed to have a thing for square rooms. A round, hooked rug in many colors partially covered the floor, which was crafted from wide wooden planks. A rocking chair sat in one corner, with an antimacassar hung on its back.
HOME SWEET HOME
,
it said. Several prints inspired by Grandma Moses hung on the walls.

I got out of bed. I was naked, and it was cold. Oscar apparently didn’t believe in leaving the heat on, even on a cold December night, when the temperature in L.A. can occasionally get down into the low thirties. I noticed a cedar chest at the foot of the bed, on which a white terry cloth bathrobe had been laid out. I assumed it was meant for me and put it on. At the foot of the cedar chest there was a pair of red felt slippers. I put those on, too.

A copy of
Southern Living
was lying on the bedside table, right next to the clock. Since there was not a sound in the house, and I didn’t want to explore a strange house in the dark, I picked up the magazine and sat down in the rocker to read it. The first thing I read was an article on how to make bouquets from dried flowers. Then I read one on how to make paperweights out of old cream bottles by filling them with gravel and sealing in the gravel with colorful, hot wax.

Then I realized I was starving.

I opened the drawer on the bedside table, in the forlorn and pathetic hope that someone had left a package of crackers or maybe even a candy bar in it. It was empty.

I went to the door and opened it. It gave onto a narrow hallway, dimly lit by a couple of LED nightlights. I turned right and followed the hallway, which made a sharp turn and then emerged into a kind of dining area, where I could see the outline of a big table. I picked my way through the dining room to the kitchen, found a light switch, and flipped it on.

The kitchen was full-bore country. It had a small wood-burning stove in one corner and a big iron oven in the middle of the room. Pots and pans hung above it. The walls were made of pine boards that were either very old or made to look that way. If there was a refrigerator, it was well hidden.

The feature to which my eye was drawn, though, was the huge stone fireplace. In its hearth, three large pieces of wood sat on an iron grate, with twigs and paper kindling stuffed below. An extra-long match stuck out from between the logs, inviting someone to pick it up.

Accepting the invitation, I picked it up, struck it on a stone, and put the flame to the kindling. The fire sprang to life so quickly I had to jump back to keep from getting my nice white robe singed.

With the fire crackling, I went in search of the refrigerator. I finally located it disguised as a set of rustic kitchen drawers. Inside, I found some sweet rolls. I didn’t think Oscar would mind if I ate a couple. I took a plate out of a cupboard, put two sweet rolls on it and began to eat. I tried very hard not to wolf them down, even though no one was watching. It took a big effort not to wolf.

“Stealing my fire and my sweet rolls?”

It was Oscar. I hadn’t heard him come into the kitchen. He came over to the table and sat down.

“We could warm those sweet rolls up if you like, Robert.”

“No, it’s okay.”

“Want some real breakfast? I make a mean stack of pancakes.”

“Sounds fabulous, actually.”

“I’m on it.”

He got up and began pulling out what he needed—iron griddle, mixing bowl, flour, and any number of other ingredients.

I finished the sweet rolls and watched his preparations. “You make them from scratch?”

“Yep.”

“I haven’t had homemade pancakes in years.”

“Not the sort of thing they serve up on those high floors?” he asked.

“No.”

“Figures.”

“Oscar, do you have something against people who work on high floors?”

“Not really. It’s just that when I got out of law school, no one in law firms like yours would even give me an interview.”

“Where did you go?”

“Southwestern,” he said.

“Good school these days,” I said.

“I thought it was a good school in
those
days too.”

“I take your point,” I said.

“Here.” He handed me a wooden spoon and a red mixing bowl filled with batter. “This needs some work . . . these days.” He laughed.

I stirred the batter. It felt therapeutic. Maybe I could work in the prison kitchen.

“Oscar, are you bitter about not getting interviews with firms like M&M?”

“No. Besides, I’ve been in them by osmosis, you might say.”

“Meaning?”

“Turns out lawyers like you sometimes have problems that need the attentions of a discreet criminal defense attorney. Not murder, usually. But other stuff. Wife beating, embezzlement, tax evasion. That kind of thing. So I’ve developed something of a reputation on the high floors.”

“Is that why Jenna called you?” I asked.

“I suppose.”

“Have you ever represented
her
?”

“Not exactly,” he said.

“Should I ask what that means?”

Oscar came over, took the bowl from me, and looked into it.

“Pretty good job of mixing,” he said. “And no, you shouldn’t ask, because I won’t tell you. One of the things I am is discreet, like I said. Anyway, my prior relationship with the case Jenna referred is
truly
irrelevant to your case.”

“Unlike her being the courier?”

“Yes, unlike that.”

Oscar had heated the cast iron griddle on the stove. He put something that looked like butter on it, waited for it to melt, then poured on several dollops of batter. The sizzle of cooking pancakes joined the sound of the fire, which was by now roaring.

Oscar came back to the table and sat down. “Speaking of the courier, we need to chat about her.”

I wasn’t all that anxious to talk about Jenna. “Oscar, shouldn’t you be watching the pancakes?” I asked.

“Nope. A watched pancake never cooks. Anyway, I know exactly when they’ll be done.”

“All right,” I said. “What about her? She told both of us to fuck off, as I recall.”

“Yeah, she did. She even broke an expensive martini glass. But I had just called her a liar. Which was maybe an overreaction. And you were only semi-conscious. Which didn’t help.”

“So?” I was still not feeling all that friendly toward Jenna.

“She called yesterday evening while you were sleeping,” he said.

“About what?”

“Rejoining the team.” Oscar got up and walked over to the stove. “They’re done.”

“Aren’t you going to flip them?”

“No,” he said. “Only fancy people flip them. It’s totally unnecessary.”

He took two plain white plates out of a cabinet and moved three pancakes onto each plate. “Syrup?”

“Sure.”

Oscar took a tin of syrup off a shelf, went through an elaborate warming procedure, and poured the syrup onto the pancakes.

Then he grabbed two forks and plunked them and the plates down on the table. The pancake and syrup ritual was clearly intended to give me time to think about Jenna’s desire to return.

“Why should I want her back, Oscar? You’re back on board now, and you’ve got the experience. Plus you didn’t sleep with the victim. And, so far as I know, you haven’t hidden things from me.”

“True enough,” he said.

For a while, we just sat there in silence, eating our respective pancakes.

Eventually, Oscar asked, “So what do you think of my pancakes?”

In truth, I thought they were kind of underdone on top, and that the fancy people might have the right idea about needing to flip them. But it didn’t seem like the time to say so.

“They’re great, Oscar. With incredible syrup. Where do you get it?”

“My mother sends it to me from Vermont.”

“Your mother lives in Vermont?”

“Yeah. You think there are no people named Quesana in Vermont, Tarza?”

“No. I just . . . never mind.”

“Consider it never minded.”

“The butter tastes kinda different,” I said.

“Bad different?”

“No, just different.”

“It’s soy butter. And the pancakes are made with soy milk.”

“Oh.”

“So,” he said, “moving on from what you think of my pancakes, do you want to know what I think about having Jenna back on the team?”

“You’re my lawyer. Advise me.”

“It has some things to recommend it.”

“Like what?”

He got up, grabbed our now empty plates, and took them to the sink. “First, the two of you work well together, or at least you used to. So, like you said before, you trust her. That can be valuable on a legal team, especially in the kind of stew these cases cook up.”

“Okay.”

“Second, it always looks good to have a girl on the defense team.”

“There are other
women
lawyers out there, last time I checked,” I said.

Oscar had turned and was leaning back against the sink edge, looking oh-so-relaxed. “Third, there’s that reason Lyndon Johnson used to talk about.”

“What reason is that?” I asked.

“Better to have a guy inside the tent, pissing out, than outside the tent, pissing in.”

“The metaphor doesn’t work very well when it’s a woman,” I said.

“Maybe not. But you get the point,” he said, not looking at me, because he had turned back around and begun to wash the plates.

“Your point is what?” I asked. “That she already knows a lot about a lot of things? So let’s not have her bumping around, where the DA’d be more likely call her as a witness?”

“Right,” he said. “Or haul her in front of a grand jury. Plus, she’s clearly brilliant, and her rep in town is she doesn’t crack under pressure, even when there’s incoming.”

“And the argument against taking her back?” I asked.

“She’s a little off her rocker about this case somehow. And it’s more than just that she slept with the dead guy. I can’t quite put my finger on it.”

“Well, maybe she’s the one who swapped the original
Ides
—the one I’m certain I gave Simon six weeks ago—for the counterfeit one I showed Serappo two days ago. She could have done it when she couriered it.”

“To what end? You think Jenna was running a coin counterfeiting business out of her associate office at M&M?”

“You’re right, I guess. It’s hard for me to believe that Jenna was doing that right under my nose without my noticing. I mean I was in her office a lot.” I paused. “On the other hand, she was doing some other things I didn’t notice.”

Oscar was by now drying the dishes. He didn’t say anything for a while. Neither did I.

Finally, he asked, “Can I see the coin you showed Serappo, the one he says is a fake?”

“No, because the cops have it. They took it from my jacket pocket when they arrested me, along with the other counterfeit
Ides
.
The one that Jenna and I picked up in Stewart’s secret compartment.

“Oy,” he said.

“I didn’t know you were Jewish.”

“I’m not, but there’s no English equivalent that fits.”

I laughed. “True.”

“Actually the oys are even bigger than you know, Robert.”