Page 69 of The Happy Month
“Do you think she killed her?”
“Why would you say that?”
“I heard she could be rough on her partners.”
“Rough as in violent?”
“It’s a rumor. I don’t know that it’s true.”
“It’s a terrible thing to say about an old lady.”
“Not if it’s true,” he replied.
“Are you going to say terrible things about me when I’m old?”
“Are you going to do terrible things?”
“I’m not making any guarantees.”
He shook his head and picked up his pizza. We went downstairs to watch the movie. We ended up starting it again, mainly because Junior loved Wilma Wanderly’s number “I Love the White Way,” which pretends to be an innocent ditty about the lights of Broadway but could also be interpreted in a very racist vein.
The world is always changing and yet somehow is always the same.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
July 31, 1996
Wednesday morning
Ionly worked a half day that Wednesday. Mostly I did paperwork, making sure all my notes were in good shape for the Larry Wilkes case. Lydia was still ruminating. About what, I had no idea. I’d brought some leftover pizza for my lunch. Around noon, I took out a slice and was about to take a bite, when Lydia came out of her office and said, “Go. Have a great time.”
“It’s business. I’m not going?—”
“It’s a couple hours of business and you’re going for two days. Have fun.”
Before I got all the way out of the office, I heard her send Karen home, too. She was planning something. I wished I knew what it was.
Ronnie was already at home when I got there. We packed up his two-year old Legend because it got better gas mileage than my Jeep. Not to mention it had comfy leather seats and an air conditioner that turned the car arctic inseconds. Our bags went into the backseat since Ronnie had a traveling office in the trunk. All the forms he needed were in accordion files. Documents pertaining to several million dollars in real estate deals had been signed on his trunk.
We left around one-thirty. I was driving. Ronnie suggested we take 7th Street until it became the 22, stay on that past Garden Grove, the north on the 57 up to the 91, and stick with that until we get to Riverside. With traffic, that leg should take about an hour and a half.
I’d broughtCanyon Girlwith me and had it in the front seat. I was only about halfway through and really should try to finish before I interviewed Wallace Philburn. On the one hand, I didn’t think it mattered; on the other, I didn’t want to end up feeling like a kid who didn’t do his homework if he figured out I hadn’t read the whole book.
I caught Ronnie up on the chapters I’d read and then asked him to start reading with chapter nine. At first, I wasn’t sure he was reading the right book. The chapter was about corruption in the Los Angeles police department in the late forties. Eventually, I started to catch on. He was making the case that if the LAPD was corrupt then the Pasadena Police Department probably was too. Corruption by association.
What wasn’t clear was what that had to do with Vera Korenko’s death. Was he suggesting a police officer killed her? Or the mob? Or basically anyone willing to pay off the police? He wasn’t making himself clear.
Ronnie got to the next chapter about the time we were merging onto the 57. This chapter tracked Vera’s movements during the last week of her life. Starting with Monday, she worked every day that week. Security National Bank was on Hollywood Boulevard and Ivar. There was a cafeteria nearby where the girls all ate theirlunches. According to Georgia Dawson, she and Vera ate there on Mondays and Fridays. The other days they brought their lunches because they couldn’t afford to eat out every day.
Georgia couldn’t remember whether it was Monday or Friday when Vera told her she was going to Malibu for the weekend with friends. Philburn implied these were friends in the movie business.
“I don’t think that’s true,” I told Ronnie. “Rocky said Vera wasn’t much interested in the movies.”
“It was true though, if she was going with Patrick and his boyfriend. Ivan was in the movie business. Besides, you don’t have to like movies to like movie people.”
“Do you like Dwayne?”
“He’s not the only person I know in the industry,” Ronnie said. “I do actually know some I like.”
