Breakdown

Chapter 34

My private line rang moments after I stepped into the house.

Earl Cohen said, “Hopefully you’re not in need of my services.”

“Not married.”

“Your gain is my loss.”

“You sound good, Mr. Cohen.”

“Meaning why am I not dead? What can I tell you? Nothing a few spare parts didn’t take care of. What’s on your mind?”

“I’m looking for information on some people who were around thirty years ago—”

“Thirty years ago? Gee whiz, we wrote on stone tablets back then. So you reach out to Methuselah? Who are these cave people?”

“Enid and Averell DePauw.”

“I see.” Cohen’s tone had changed. Guarded. “Never represented any of them.”

“But you know them.”

“I’d like to know why you’re interested.”

“It’s complicated,” I said.

“I’m able to deal with complications.”

“Could we meet? Drinks or dinner, on me.”

“I don’t drink, nor am I currently hungry. Are you conducting this inquiry for yourself or for that heavyset police fellow — Sturgis?”

“It’s related to police work.”

“Is anyone else involved?”

Strange question.

I said, “No.”

“What I’m getting at, Doctor, is my own brand of complications. An official inquiry, I talk to you and suddenly I’m getting calls from civil servants.”

“No, nothing like that. Sturgis doesn’t even know I’m calling.”

“And I’m not having this conversation with Sturgis because...”

“I’m doing my own research. No sense drawing him in if there’s nothing to learn.”

“You’re seeing if I have anything to offer first, in order to conserve his energy? From the looks of him, he conserves quite a lot of energy. All right, remember where I talked to the two of you, last year? I don’t mean my office, our alfresco meeting.”

I said, “The park at Doheny and Santa Monica. Walking distance to your house.”

“You remember — and you’re older than thirty! I can be there in an hour or so. I assume you look the same. I don’t.”

He appeared five minutes after I got to the park, walking from the west as he had the last time. True to his word, he’d changed. So much so that I might not have recognized him.

Meager white hair was dyed an uneasy meld of brunette and copper, accentuating the spots where it thinned to the scalp. He’d put on considerable weight, inflating from gaunt to average build, his skeletal face round and padded.

Last year, he’d worn an overcoat on a warm afternoon. Today was cool and he had on apricot-colored linen pants secured by a brown knit belt, a corn-yellow dress shirt, maroon slip-ons. Every plodding step exposed pale ankles.

At times he seemed to falter but when he reached me and proclaimed, “Doctor!” he shook my hand with vigor.

I said, “Spare parts seem to be working well.”

“Medical science proclaims me a miracle man. A few bypassed arteries, a couple of tumors sent packing, a reconstituted disk in my neck, and thyroid hormone to keep me metabolizing. Been feeling so hale, I’m pondering Viagra. My wife’s worried I’ll go blind and grope another woman.”

The only other people in the park were two gorgeous women in yoga clothes perched on the rim of a dry fountain, luxuriating in perfect posture as their dogs socialized. Cohen admired them for a moment, before veering to the northern periphery of the lawn and walking.

Bionic man on fuel-saving mode. I slowed down to keep pace.

He said, “So you’re Sherlocking full-time? No more listening to people’s problems?”

“No, I still do that.”

“Mixing it up,” he said. “Keeps life interesting. Fine, tell me a complicated story.”

I kept Alicia, Imelda, Rod Salton, and Loach out of the narrative, described Zelda, without naming her, as a homeless trespasser who’d died in Enid DePauw’s garden, cause of death still “undetermined.”

“But you’d like to determine.” Unmoved, unimpressed. A guy who’d heard it all.

I thought of the odd question he’d posed. Is anyone else involved?

“Resolution’s always better, Mr. Cohen.”

“You’re saying it could be foul play? On the part of Enid?”

Not shocked by the question. I shrugged.

The look Cohen gave me was one I knew well. Sitting on the stand as an expert witness, as a lawyer prepared to attack.

Then he shrugged, too. “Enid I was aware of because she was married to Av and Av I knew well. There was a time you’d term us chums. Bright boy, he had a law degree but never practiced, found it more profitable to move money around. We met forty-plus years ago when he sent business to the firm I worked for before I went out on my own. They assigned me to his company and we hit it off.”

“Were you doing family law at the time?”

“That’s all I’ve ever done, Doctor.”

“The business he sent was rich people divorcing.”

“As you know, rich people create difficult situations when they get emotional. Too much incentive for mischief. What I did for Av’s clients was what today you’d call forensic accounting. My father was a bookkeeper, I knew how to add and subtract.”

I said, “Finding hidden assets.”

Cohen smiled. “You’re not the only one who likes to detect.”

“What kind of person was Av?”

“Friendly, outgoing. As I said, smart, though clever would be more accurate. Knowing what he had to know but not bothering to delve further.”

“Surface intelligence.”

“Mile wide, inch deep, like every politician I’ve met,” said Cohen. “His talent was conversation. He could talk about anything and if you got too specific for him, he’d switch to listening. Or pretending to. I liked him, terrific company, always a positive attitude. We were around the same age, played tennis whenever we could at Roxbury Park. Not golf, golf was a country-club thing and he, being of the Gentile persuasion, played at Wilshire, I at Hillcrest. Good backhand, Averell. We’d also meet on business matters, usually over dinner and too many cocktails. Back then, young Beverly Hills bucks frequented the same locales.”

He held up a finger. “I can tell you what he drank. Moscow Mules, those little copper cups. He liked his ginger beer sharp.”

One of the beauties rose from the fountain rim, bent liquidly, and leashed her dog. Cohen watched her and sighed. “It goes by fast, my friend... where was I — the watering holes. The Polo Lounge, Chasen’s, Scandia, they all closed down in the eighties and nineties. If we were feeling a little less buttoned down and didn’t mind umbrellas in our drinks, Trader Vic’s — still there, but different. Or the Luau on Rodeo — that one was owned by Lana Turner’s husband, went under even earlier. Averell was a generous tipper, took the time to schmooze with waiters and busboys. When you were with him, you got great service... what else... good-looking fellow in that Bob Cummings way.”

“What was his background?”

“Perfect for managing rich people’s money. East Coast prep school, Amherst, law at Virginia. I’m Harvard all the way through, used to kid him about being bush league. He’d make a crack about laboring under the weight of a massive foreskin.”

Cohen turned toward the remaining yoga princess. “Such perfection they achieve today. Anyway, that’s Averell. Enid came later, he married her when he was well into his forties, she must have been midthirties at least.”

“I’ve learned he had studio connections.”

“You learned?”

“He bought his house from MGM in a private sale. Did he do a lot of industry work?”

“Anyone worth their salt in Beverly Hills wanted industry work,” said Cohen. “Was Av a unique whiz with investments? Naw, just a competent stocks and bonds man, cautious strategies, conservation of wealth. If he had any corporate clients, I never heard about them. Don’t read too much into a private sale, Doctor. People had their ears to the ground because the studios were always hustling to raise quick bucks by unloading real estate they’d picked up on the cheap. Not just in the Golden Triangle, we’re talking huge acreage in Burbank they didn’t need anymore for shooting westerns, Thousand Oaks, the Antelope Valley. Private sales worked out for everyone: A seller could discount up to the amount of the brokerage fee they avoided, and if the documents were fudged to reduce property tax and put some extra cash into someone’s pocket, who’d know?”

“Still,” I said, “that’s an impressive place on St. Denis.”

“You’re showing your age, Doctor. Or rather the lack of. By today’s standards, it’s Xanadu. I’m not saying it was ever cheap but back then, if you had money — I don’t mean Buffett — Gates money, a solid six-figure income — you could acquire some serious soil because real estate didn’t take off until the midseventies. My daughter works with me so I know what she earns. She had to take a big mortgage to buy a nice but not fancy house on a south-of-Wilshire seven-thousand-foot lot. For three million dollars. I have a twenty-thousand-square-foot lot on Sierra and paid a hundred grand in 1968.”

A wisp of breeze caused red-brown strands to flutter away from his skull. “Long-term capital gain is a benefit of being a dinosaur. One of the few.”

I said, “So Averell bought the estate with his own money.”

“Did I say or imply that? What I said was it didn’t take that much for anyone with decent cash flow to get a place like that. I could’ve bought an even bigger property than he did, nine acres on Bellagio. Forget it, too much maintenance.”

We continued walking.

Cohen said, “What I heard but can’t confirm is that Enid chipped in big-time, or maybe paid for the whole caboodle. She came from big money in the Midwest. The family made tractors or something.”

“Cleveland. Machine parts.”

“So you know. So what do you expect to learn from me?”

“What do you think of Enid?”

“What do you think of her?”

“Only met her once,” I said. “Despite a dead body in her garden, she seemed pretty cool and collected.”

“You’re seriously considering she had something to do with it.”

“You consider that unlikely?”

Cohen’s hair flew up again. He made no effort to suppress it. “What haven’t you told me, Doctor? If that little précis you gave me is ‘complicated,’ my foreskin’s going to grow back.”

“This needs to stay between us.”

“I am the soul of discretion.” Cohen laughed. “You’re thinking that’s a hoot, last we spoke I spilled more beans than a drunken chuckwagon cook. I explained at the time: I wanted to die in a burst of altruism. Now that I realize I’m going to live forever, I’m back to keeping my mouth shut.”

“The woman who died on Enid’s property claimed she was the daughter of Zina Rutherford, Enid’s half sister.”

“Claimed?” he said. “You think she was raving?”

I’d said nothing about mental illness.

Rather than waiting for an answer, he went on. “You know better than me, Doctor. People claim they see little green men. Pink elephants.” Going on too long, his voice losing conviction.

No sense challenging him. I said, “She was mentally ill but that doesn’t mean there was no truth to her claim.”

“Zina’s daughter,” he said. “Never met Zina, let alone her daughter.”

“What was Enid like?”

“The first time I saw her was at Scandia, they had a lattice gazebo at the back of the main room, a bunch of us were dining there and Averell entered with a woman and everyone noticed her. Was she gorgeous? If you like Bette Davis. Tall, blond, nice shoulders, great haunches — she wore a blood-red dress, designed to show off what she had.”

His hands formed an hourglass.

I said, “Making a statement.”

“A classy statement, those days every woman of means projected class. So did the fellows, we wore suits and ties to the Rose Bowl.”

“Bette Davis,” I said. “A little hard around the edges?”

“More like strength of character — her, Joan Crawford, Barbara Stanwyck, Ida Lupino. Some fellows go for that, my taste runs to pillowy and emotionally vulnerable — Monroe. I met her, such a fragile gal.”

He laughed. “Not that I ended up with vulnerable. My wife’s Japanese, I thought I’d be getting a geisha and woke up with a samurai. Though she has remained gorgeous. What does Enid look like nowadays?”

“Keeps herself up, elegant. She has a boyfriend.”

“Really. Who?”

“J. Yarmuth Loach.”

“Him? He’s younger than her.”

I waited.

Cohen said, “Got to be what, ten years younger?”

“Three.”

“I would’ve thought more. Back then, he seemed like a kid.”

“How’d you know him?”

“He worked for Av. I thought of him as a kid but I guess he had to be late twenties. Yarmie and Enid, huh? Guess it makes sense, he imitated everything Av did — four-in-hand tie knot, same phraseology. If Av wore an ascot, a few days later you’d see one on Yarmie. Av used to joke about it, I’m Pete, he’s Repeat. Not in a nasty way, I think he enjoyed being emulated. Being held up as the standard of Wasp savoir faire.”

“Loach didn’t share that background.”

“With his name, you’d have thought so,” said Cohen. “J. Yarmuth, don’t recall what the J stood for... I know he didn’t come from money because during the Pete and Repeat conversation Av said look how far a Bakersfield hick can go with good tailoring. I remember that because it made me wonder what Av really thought of me. My parents never owned a house, I went to Bronx High School of Science, got into Harvard on a scholarship and caught plenty of bigotry there. I resolved to keep my own name and not pretend I was someone else. That’s why I moved here. L.A. was wide open for anyone with brains and drive. Where are you from?”

“Missouri.”

“Come from money?”

“Not even close.”

“And look at you, a man of sophistication, a healer of minds. And a self-styled Sherlock.”

“What did Loach do for Av?”

“He was also a lawyer but didn’t want to be. Instead of clerking or joining a firm, he took a low-paying apprenticeship at Av’s company. What that entailed, I couldn’t tell you.”

He shook his head. “Young Yarmie consorting with Enid, go know.”

“He’s practicing law now.”

“Where?”

“Revelle, Winters, Loach, Russo.”

“He’s a named partner? Bakersfield made it big,” said Cohen. “Don’t know the firm, never had dealings with them. Must be downtown, not the Westside.”

“Seventh Street.”

“As downtown as you can get. What’s Yarmie’s specialty?”

“Estates and trusts.”

“For that, training with Av would be an asset.”

I said, “He doesn’t seem to work much, could be a rainmaker.”

Cohen looked at me. “You’ve been researching him, too? You suspect both of them are up to something? Are you saying this insane woman really was the sister’s offspring and put the screws on Enid for serious moolah and Yarmie overstepped trying to defend his honey?”

I stared at him.

He said, “Been deducing for a long time.” He looked away. Even old lawyers give up tells.

I said, “That’s all it is, deduction?”

“What else would it be?”

“With all due respect, Mr. Cohen, that’s a helluva lot of information to pull out of the air. I also find your remark about raving interesting since I never mentioned mental illness.”

He took a second to answer. “I don’t have a crystal ball, Doctor, deduction is all it is — logic. You said she was homeless and broke into Enid’s place. To me that sounds crazy.”

Plausible, but no conviction at all in his voice.

Is anyone else involved?

“Mr. Cohen, I get the feeling I’m not the first person asking you these questions.”

“Why would you think that?”

“You asked me if anyone else besides Lieutenant Sturgis was involved. And despite your explanation, that question about raving was a significant conceptual leap.”

“Homeless? The majority of them aren’t seriously disturbed?”

I smiled.

He faced me. “Who do you think I talked to?”

“All I can do is guess, Mr. Cohen. Someone also interested in ‘psychological’ issues. Maybe a psychiatrist named Lou Sherman?”

He stopped short, pitched forward scuffing dirt, held his hands out for balance.

I reached out to brace him; he shook me off. “I’m fine, I’m fine. So what is this, a game? You know the answers but you’re testing me? The way cops do with suspects — what I do when I cross-examine? When I passed the bar, I said no more tests. Got that?”

“Just trying to get to the truth, Mr. Cohen.”

He puffed his lips. Above us, a cloud passed over the sun, leaving a glare that turned his dyed hair the hue of bloody cotton. For an instant, he looked like a battered man. Then another cloud arrived and restored him to mere cosmetic pretense.

I said, “Lou Sherman would want you to talk to me. We were friends and colleagues, he’s the one who got me involved with Zelda. That’s her name, by the way. Zelda Chase. But you already know that, don’t you?”

“Then have Dr. Sherman release me from confidentiality.”

“Unfortunately, he’s passed on.”

Cohen flinched.

I said, “Not everyone benefits from spare parts—”

“I get it,” snapped Cohen. He resumed walking. “If you’re playing on my survivor guilt, you’re succeeding. When did he die?”

“A little over two years ago. When did he come to see you?”

Cohen sighed. “Good man, Dr. Sherman. He impressed me as a shrink who actually cared about his patients, you don’t see that often.”

He paused again, pivoted sharply but managed to maintain his balance, eyes narrow and acute. “You really were colleagues?”

“If you’d like I can send you his chart on Zelda. My name’s in there, that’s how I reconnected with her.”

“No, no, I believe you. He came to me around four years ago. What was your involvement?”

“Lou asked me to evaluate Zelda’s son. To see how he was functioning and to find out if Zelda was competent to care for him. At the time, she was. The boy’s eleven, Mr. Cohen. If he’s alive. He hasn’t been seen since Zelda began living on the streets. I’m trying to find out if he’s okay.”

“And if he’s not?” said Earl Cohen. “That’ll be tough to hear.”

“Better than not knowing.”

“So now you toss in guilt over a child’s welfare, wonderful. You understand my reluctance. You’ve already seen me relax my ethical standards and I’m not sure I want to repeat it. For some reason I seem to care what you think of me.”

“I wouldn’t—”

“Yadda yadda yadda, as Lenny Bruce would say. Met him, too. All doped up, tragic kid. But people forget how funny he was... so Sherman’s gone. Pity.”

The remaining yoga beauty leashed her dog and left. Cohen said, “Let’s take a load off,” and made his way to the fountain. He sank down precisely where her posterior had rested and I settled next to him.

“All right,” he said. “Since he’s dead, I see an opening. Sherman came to me because he’d already begun his own research and like you, thought I could help him. Why? Because newspaper archives on Enid and Av also contained my name. Social stuff — tennis finals, fundraisers. Like I said, we were chums.”

Wide grin. “Not that mine was the only name but everyone else Sherman looked up was dead. I told him I didn’t know whether to feel flattered or worried. He laughed — he had a hearty laugh. He wasn’t like other shrinks I’ve met, most of them come across like they didn’t get laid much in college. Not you, I’ll bet you had plenty of fun.”

I smiled.

“Enigmatic?” said Cohen. “Monte Lisa?” He crossed a leg, examined a scrawny ankle. “Sherman enjoyed a good single malt. We drank together in the Four Seasons bar and he ponied up for a bottle of Oban. He told me he was looking into Enid and Av due to a personal matter that required professional confidentiality. He insisted on giving me a retainer, though I assured him none was necessary. The basic story was that he had a patient whose veracity couldn’t be taken at face value due to mental health issues. She’d convinced herself she was the child of a movie star who’d disappeared and he wanted to know if there was truth to it, so he could treat her appropriately. I was impressed, Dr. Delaware. His going the extra mile.”

He turned, placed a hand on my shoulder. “I can see why the two of you would get along.”

“Thank you.”

“It is a compliment. I don’t give them out like Halloween candy.”

His hand returned to his lap. “He asked me if I was aware of any vanishing movie stars and I said I wasn’t. He said he hadn’t come up with anything, either, the closest was a wannabe named Zina Rutherford and looking into her led him to the DePauws, apparently he found some out-of-town documents.”

Taking the same steps Milo and I had. Great minds. Suddenly, I missed Lou. Could imagine what it felt like to be Cohen, last man on the mountain.

He said, “Unlike your situation, there was no suggestion of foul play, all Dr. Sherman was trying to verify was a family link between Zina and Enid, which I gave him. That was it. Whether or not he proved to his own satisfaction that his patient — the Zelda woman — was accurate or delusional, I haven’t a clue.”

“You knew Zina.”

“I knew of her. Enid’s much younger, even better-looking sister. In fact, it came up that first night when Enid walked into Scandia with that red dress. Someone gave a low whistle and said Av had snagged himself a looker. Someone else — don’t ask, I have no idea — said, ‘You think she’s something, you should check out her baby sister, Av sure did. Guess he likes them more mature now.’ ”

“Av dated both of them?”

“What I heard was that both girls came to L.A. trying to break into the industry. Enid thought she could buy herself in with her money and did manage to get a few no-dialogue walk-ons that were basically vanity things — crowd scenes, that kind of thing. The harsh truth was, being in her thirties put her over the hill. And there was already one Bette Davis.”

He shook his head. “According to the wags I was with, there was also the matter of talent. Enid had none. Zina was younger, prettier, and at least marginally competent. She landed some small parts in cheapies. But her career also went nowhere.”

Zelda had topped both of them. Had she thrown that in Enid’s face? Probably not, too broken down to muster up a complex thought.

“Failed actresses, they should build a monument to them,” said Cohen. “Like the poor girl who jumped off the Hollywood sign. At least those two had dough to fall back on.”

“They also had an interest in the same man. Who Enid ended up with.”

Cohen nodded. “Spiteful. You’re thinking spite stuck in her soul and was directed at Zelda.”

“I think Zelda might have threatened her directly by declaring herself an heir.”

Cohen smiled. “Look at us. I go psychological, you go financial.”

“It’s all related.”

“Yes, it is, son. Do I believe Enid capable of murder? Can’t say, I spoke to her at parties and such, that’s the extent of it. I recall her as a frosty dame. You’re the one with the license to analyze.”

“Did your dinner companions at Scandia have anything more to say about Zina?”

“They did but it’s... unchivalrous, Doctor. More than that. Rude.”

I said, “Something about her sexual talents?”

Cohen cleared his throat. “The term I believe I heard was ‘crazy sexy.’ Then someone else said, ‘Crazy and sexy is the perfect combination, you can do what you want with one of those.’ And the rest of us laughed. What can I say? Times were different.”

“Any idea what happened to Zina after Enid poached her boyfriend?”

“Dr. Sherman said she’d spiraled downward before disappearing.”

“Did Dr. Sherman say anything about who raised her daughter?”

“He wasn’t certain Zelda was her daughter. He did say Zelda was adopted, had embarked on one of those journeys to discover her roots only to be disappointed because she couldn’t have a reunion with a woman who’d vanished.”

“Who adopted her?”

“He didn’t get into details, just told me they were also deceased and not... what’s the word he used... ‘ideal.’ The implication was the girl had it rough.”

Cohen threw up his hands. “Nice man, paid for the entire bottle. Now he’s gone. It keeps happening to me, son. I call someone to have lunch and learn they keeled over. Guess I’m the only one cursed with immortality.”