Levant, what a lunatic-another dope fiend, but a genius. I was the first girl pianist for the Co-coanut Grove, played the Mocambo, did a party at Ira Gershwin’s up on Roxbury Drive. Talk about stage fright- George and Ira listening. There were giants back then; now it’s only mental midgets and-”
“Orson told Mr. Itatani he was a film director.”
“Mr. Itawhosis”-she sneered-“doesn’t give a damn who he rents to. After the scumbag moved out, I got stuck with two sloppy kids-real pigs-then a fag cosmetologist. Back when I bought this house-”
“When Orson lived here, did you ever see any filming next door?” said Milo.
“Yeah, he was Cecil B. DeMille-no, never. Just cars, in and out. I’m trying to practice and the damn headlights are glaring through like some kind of-”
“You practice at night, ma’am?”
“So what?” said Marie Sinclair. “That’s against the law?”
“No, ma’am, I was just-”
“Look,” she said. Her hands separated from her hips, clamped down again. “I’m a night person, as if it’s any of your business. Just woke up, if it’s any of your business. Comes from all those years of clubbing.” She stepped onto the porch, advanced on Milo. “Nighttime’s when it comes alive. Morning’s for suckers. Morning people should be lined up and shot.”
“So your basic complaint against Orson was all the traffic.”
“Dope traffic. Those kinds of lowlifes, what was to stop someone from pulling out a gun? None of those idiots can shoot straight, you hear about all those colored and
Mexican kids getting shot in drive-bys by accident. I could’ve been sitting in there playing Chopin, andpow!”
She squeezed her eyes shut, punched her forehead, jerked her head back. Black ringlets danced. When her eyes opened, they were hotter, brighter.
Milo said, “Did you ever get a good look at any of Orson’s visitors?”
“Visitors. Hah. No, I didn’t look. Didn’t want to see, didn’t want to know. The headlights were bad enough. You guys never did a damn thing about them. And don’t tell me to turn the piano around, because it’s a seven-foot-long Steinway and it won’t fit in the room any other way.”
“How many cars would there be on an average night, Ms. Sinclair?”
“Five, six, ten, who knows, I never counted. At least he was gone a lot.”
“How often, ma’am?”
“A lot. Half the time. Maybe more. Thank God for small blessings.”
“Did you ever talk to him directly about the headlights?”
“What?” she screeched. “And have him pull out a gun?
We’re talking scumbag. That’s your job. I called you. Lot of good it did.”
“Mr. Itatani said Orson had a machine shop out in the garage. Did you ever hear sawing or drilling?”
“No,” she said. “Why? You think he was manufacturing the dope back there? Or cutting it, whatever it is they do to that crap?”
“Anything’s possible, ma’am.”
“No, it’s not,” she snapped. “Very few things are possible. Oscar Levant will not rise from the dead. That cancer in George Gershwin’s genius brain will not- Never mind, why am I wasting my time. No, I never heard drilling or sawing. I never heard a damn thing, because during the day, when I sleep, I keep the music on-got one of those programmable CD players, six discs that keep repeating. It’s the only way I can go to sleep, block out the damn birds, cars, all that daytime crap. It was when
I was up that he bothered me. The lights. Trying to get through my scales and the damn headlights are shining right on the keyboard.”
Milo nodded. “I understand, ma’am.”
“Sure you do,” she said. “Too late, too little.”
“Anything else you can tell us?”
“That’s it. Didn’t know I was going to be tested.”
Milo showed her Claire’s picture. “Ever see her with Orson?”
“Nope,” she said. “She looks like a schoolteacher. Is she the one he killed?”
The crime-scene crew arrived ten minutes later. Itatani sat in his Oldsmobile, looking miserable. Marie Sinclair had gone back inside her house, but a few other neighbors had emerged. Milo asked them questions. I followed as he walked up and down the block, knocking on doors. No new revelations. If George Orson had been running a dope house, Marie Sinclair had been the only one to notice.