Page 16 of Hanging and Burning

“Um.” Even when being serious the siren was calling out. “About two months ago she—I think it was her—she came in here with a big guy who said his name was—was Blast, somethin’ like that.”

“What was her name?”

“She didn’t talk. The guy said that he wanted to talk to Paulie, but he wasn’t in, and they didn’t leave a message. I told Mr. P that a Black couple came in but didn’t leave their names.”

“Did they ever come back?”

“No. Uh-uh,” she replied, looking up into my eyes, bringing to mind some ancient Greek handmaiden pining for release while considering the vastness of the sky.

“Thank you, um…” I said, realizing that I didn’t know her name.

“Cosette,” she said. “Cosette McIlroy.”

A dyed-in-the-wool Angeleno, she handed me her card and asked if I had one. I did.

Before leaving I said, “Tell Mr. Antonucci that that’s my name on the card and that I’m staying down the street at the Royal Palace Hotel.”

“Fancy,” the front-room siren mouthed.

4.

SITTING IN THE living room of my posh Beverly Hills suite, I spent the time pulling the fragments of information in my mind together, hoping for some direction to appear before me.

My grandmother was being treated for a deadly form of cancer that was growing between her lungs and heart. She could die any minute, but she wasn’t dead yet and I was not about to give up hope. In order to keep her happy, I had to lose at hearts and search for the missing granddaughter of an ex-gangster nicknamed Mr. Smooth. Leaf Alyssandra Morton, who could only be defined as a free spirit, had asked me if I had a woman, and, after that, I was so shaken that my nose was open after every woman I met.

Mr. Smooth—Arman Babylon, né Babel—wanted me to find his granddaughter, Twyla, but he wasn’t telling me the complete story. My research into his past had revealed only that he was among four persons of interest who might have had something to do with the disappearance—maybe the murder—of a woman named Dalia Shorts, a torch singer at the defunct nightclub, the Carnelian Oyster Bar.

I didn’t want to return to New York yet, so I called up my computer search engine and entered Carnelian Oyster Bar; maybe someone had logged some nostalgic post on the old place.

I was hoping for some slight thread that would lead a little closer to Arman and maybe someone who knew something about Twyla.

Expecting little to nothing, I found a listing for a nightclub called, simply, the Carnelian Oyster, which was located on Lincoln Boulevard in the heart of Santa Monica, not six miles from my hotel.

Wearing a one-button midnight-blue suit, black leather shoes, no socks, and an orange shirt, I got to the nightclub by eight thirty. They maintained a red-jacketed valet service and a jacketless, Black, bald doorman who had the proportions of an old-school bouncer.

“Good evening,” the door guard said with a voice that sounded like the rattle of stones at the bottom of a steel cauldron. “Reservation?”

Handing him a fifty-dollar bill, I said, “I just want to sit at the bar.”

His smile revealed a missing left-side upper incisor.

“Come on in.”

The website for the Carnelian Oyster strongly recommended reservations and touted the great music, mostly jazz, they offered.

It was a large room and every seat at the thirty-stool bar was occupied. Those seated—mostly glamorous young women—were attended by their standing girlfriends and a healthy number of young and not-so-young men.

I managed to wedge myself in at the waiter service station, and after maybe fifteen minutes or so, I got a White Russian made with Grey Goose vodka, without ice, served in a stainless-steel goblet that came right out of the freezer. I was given a towel to hold my drink, which I sipped while standing at the outer rim of the crowd at the far end of the bar.

The singer was a woman named Manitou Corrales. She performed jazz standards from back in the day when the original Carnelian Oyster was operating. I couldn’t make out her age, but her voice had no wrinkles or quaver; it was pure and strong.

“Hello,” a woman said.

She was wrapped in red silk with a royal blue sash tied around her middle. There was a tiny golden hat attached to the left side of her black hairdo; her shoes looked to be molded from crushed diamonds.

“Hi.”

“You meeting somebody?” she asked.