Grave on Grand Avenue by Naomi Hirahara

makes it superstrong so it’s practically bloodred. I don’t really care for it that much, but I’m not going to refuse a mugful of it right now.
    She holds her own steaming mug close to her face and I notice how freckled and wrinkled her hands are. Lita talks and lives like a much younger woman, younger even than my parents, so moments like this that show her age really catch me off guard.
    She moistens her lips and begins. Her voice shakes uncharacteristically. She’s stored this up for a long time. “He was so charming. Tall, dark and handsome with a handlebar mustache.”
    Handsome? My, how things have changed.
    “I met him in a bar in North Hollywood. And he had this car, this beautiful car. He always had a thing for cars.”
    Like the Skylark, I think.
    “It was just one of those magical, magical evenings. It was in the summertime. I remember because I was wearing a cotton sundress that was tight around the waist. He kept complimenting me about it. He was a gentleman, at least at first. Opened doors for me, all that. I was only twenty, so those things made a big impact.” She takes a slow sip from her mug. “I wasn’t a loose type of girl. I was a virgin before I met him. Can you believe it?”
    I pray that Lita’s not going to go into the details of her sex life. I’m still trying to erase from my mind the thought of that pelican-shaped birthmark Fernandes mentioned.
    “He was in a respectable profession. Involved in the entertainment industry.”
    “What did he do?”
    “He was a gaffer, you know, lighting electrician. He was originally from San Diego. Son of a Portuguese fisherman. Came up to Hollywood to escape that hard life on the sea. He was always good with his hands.” Lita swallows. “My mother encouraged our relationship. She was impressed by him. Impressed by the car.”
    Lita doesn’t talk a lot about her parents. I don’t know anything about her father, but I know that she was raised by her single mother, just like she raised my dad alone. “She thought we’d get married. Those days, a girl had to be married by twenty-one or so, or she was viewed as an old maid, day-old leftovers. It was the early sixties, remember. Everything was going fine. But Puddy had this friend Ronnie. A bad influence, I’ll tell you. He was the one who got Puddy in trouble.”
    “Ronnie what?” I say, too eagerly. This must be the guy connected to the Old Lady Bandit.
    “Oh, I can’t remember his last name. He was a makeup man, horror movies and TV shows. Talented, but Ronnie was into cards, always in debt. Puddy even loaned him some until he couldn’t do it anymore. Then I heard that Ronnie went to the mob.”
    “You mean in Vegas?”
    “No, we had our own Mafia over here in Los Angeles, believe it or not. Your LAPD chief back in the fifties, Parker, dismantled most of its power. But it still was around to some degree in the sixties. Enough for Ronnie to get into trouble.”
    I immediately think of Parker Center, the old police headquarters where Aunt Cheryl used to work, though her office now is in a different building, all glass and sunny.
    “I told Puddy to stay away from Ronnie. But he wouldn’t listen to me. We began to fight. A lot. He pushed me down one time. He apologized afterward, but I never forgot.”
    I can’t imagine anyone doing that to Lita. It makes me so angry that I wish Puddy were here so I could smack him.
    “One day, Puddy comes to my house. He says he’s been called away to some job out of state. Someplace where it will be hard for him to call. But he’ll be back.”
    Lita rests her freckled hand on her forehead for a moment. “Then I found out that I was pregnant. I was desperate. I didn’t know what to do. So I went to his apartment in Burbank. His place was all cleared out. The landlord told me that Puddy had been in the middle of packing when he was arrested.”
    She lifts her head. “I tried to find out what I could from the police. Looked through old newspapers.