His mouth twisted like a man who thinks before he speaks. “If Eileen and Kinley aren’t in Palm Springs, and they’re not, according to my grapevines, and if they’re not in Georgia, then we’ve got to look elsewhere. I’m thinking they may have hauled out across the desert, up toward the windmills, heading east toward Joshua Tree. They’d have to stop and eat, get gas, sleep. The Mission Hills Indians own most of The Springs and most of the Coachella Valley. There are about six or seven subgroups, but they’re all Mission Indians. The name was given to them by the Spanish. There’s some differences in their cultures, but they all speak the same language. Shoshone. They use cell phones like us white folks, but their ancient communication system still can’t be beat.”
“Smoke signals?” I jested.
“Gossip.”
* * * * *
I was almost asleep when Lake called to say that they’d positively identified the man who owned the white Cadillac. “Brody McCracken, age forty. Lives in Ackworth, disbarred lawyer. His father was a lawyer, his grandfather was a judge, his uncle was a state senator. He has an arrest record for child molestation. Law license surrendered; money paid out for not going to trial and jail.”
“Sounds like your man,” I agreed.
“We’ll know in our next life. His DNA’s off to the crime lab. There’s about a million tests ahead of his.”
“No hurry. He’s dead.”
“Unless he didn’t do the crimes. Then we still got a sicko out there.”
“Any more bodies turn up?”
“No,” he said. “You can’t see, but my fingers are crossed.”
“Cross a couple more that I find Kinley quick.”
“Get Dartagnan off his ass.”
“I’m trying.”
14
Zing’s energy could give a beaver a headache. His skinny oriental body flicked and flipped back and forth serving donuts and pouring coffee. When I entered, he smiled and gestured toward the round seat at the end of the counter. I suspected that was Dartagnan’s usual place. Zing slid coffee toward me and grinned an apology for being too busy to serve me immediately.
After he’d taken care of a dozen customers, he ran to a large glass door through which I could see five Asian men frying donuts. He jerked it open and spoke fast and incomprehensively. Two men left their donut-frying duties and rushed out to take on the customers. Talk about a Chinese fire drill.
Zing came toward me carrying a pot of coffee. He poured, ran back to the burner, and replaced the pot. On the way back to me, he snatched a French cruller from a display, placed it on a plate, and sat it before me. “My compliments.”
I had to eat it.
“You new in town?” he asked.
“Temporarily,” I answered. The sugar melted in my mouth. “Tasty.”
“You are a friend of Dartagnan’s?”
“Just met him yesterday.”
“I see.”
“We’re working together.”
“Ah, working. Good.”
“Why good?”
“No good to be girlfriend.”
“I sense a secret here.”
“Tess, the artist, she would scratch your eyes out.”
Tess, jealous? But then I think I hide my jealousy well, too. “She doesn’t have to worry,” I said. “Are they serious?”
“Serious? No. Tess is engaged to someone else.”
“Her fiancé doesn’t mind?”
“He is busy with his other pleasures.”
“Engagements out here sure are different than where I come from.”
“Well, you see this. Tess, she was married before. She is half-Indian and her aunt and uncle follow the old way. Her husband, he dies in the accident. Now she is engaged to his brother, but his brother is too young to marry by California laws.”
“How old is he?”
“Fifteen, sixteen. Too young.”
“You’re kidding. She’s engaged to marry a teenager? How old is she?”
He shrugged his shoulders. “When he turn eighteen, off they go into abode house and stay for three days. They come out married.”
“In the meantime, Tess and Dartagnan carry on.”
“It is the way of the world.”
Somehow I didn’t believe him.
15
Theodosia’s hair salon looked like Rodeo Drive come to Palm Springs. Her sign said that she had shops in LA, Palm Beach, New York, and Chicago. Getting out of the rental, I thought, this is fruitless—the entrepreneur proprietress isn’t going to be here.
But I was wrong. She met me as I entered the salon.
“You’re surprised, aren’t you?” she said. If Theodosia was Greek, then her name fit. She was tall, strikingly dark, and very handsome.
“I bet Arlo called ahead,” I said.
“Arlo and I are longtime friends,” she said, puffing her bing-cherry lips. “He asked that I speak with you and that’s what I’m doing. I am very discreet.” She smiled, showing large straight teeth as she turned to lead me to the back of the salon. “Not all hairdressers are busybodies,” she said, with a backward wave of her hand. “I am sorry for Arlo’s—shall we say—momentary loss.”
I looked around the spacious office where elegant antiques vied with salon clutter. Theodosia sat in a leather chair. I sat on a small couch beside her. I felt like a television talk-show guest.
“I started my career in Atlanta,” Theodosia said, tapping her red nails on the satinwood arm. “Small world.”
“Did you have a shop there?”
“No, dear. I started at Cut ’n’ Curl in the Avondale Mall. I scissored hair for seven dollars. A buck tip, if I was lucky.”
“A modest beginning,” I said.
“Very, but I am ambitious.” She reached to pick up a silver cigarette case and a matching holder from a table in front of us. “I quit and came out to Los Angeles. Guess where I went to work?” She pushed the cigarette into the holder.
“A Cut ’n’ Curl in a mall?”
“Smart girl.” She lit the cigarette and blew a stream of smoke toward the ceiling. That’s when I knew for certain she’d started life as a man. She said, “Then I was discovered.”
“Isn’t everybody here?”
“I adore sardonic humor,” he/she said. “The angular cut made Sassoon famous, and I improved on it.” She ran a hand over a wig that made her look like Cleopatra. She then glanced over my mass of dark curls. “Your hairdresser doesn’t do you justice,” she purred. “You should have glamour. I would cut your hair to your shoulders, feather it just a bit. Then I would iron it straight and curl it into loose spirals. Very chic. Very sexy.”
My hairdresser had tried spirals, but my lifestyle didn’t allow for hour-a-day hair maintenance. I said, “From photographs of Eileen, looks like she had good hair to work with. Did you personally style it?”
“Not always, but when I was in the salon I did. Her hair was divine—thick and silky—the perfect texture for anything I wanted to create. I keep a photograph of her on the board. People wanted a style like hers.” She sniffed and waved the cigarette holder. “Most asked the impossible.”
“When did you last see Eileen?”
“I checked my book to reassure my memory. It was last Thursday. She brought her little girl, too. I didn’t do the little girl’s hair, but it is just like her mother’s.”
“Did Eileen come in every week?”
“At least, depending on her social schedule,” she said and took an unhurried drag on the cigarette. “She missed her standing appointment yesterday. I was very perturbed, because I was planning on making a few suggestions on the cut of her hair. Eileen was so good to experiment on.” She tapped the cigarette holder against a crystal ashtray. “So she has disappeared, huh? Arlo said that’s why you’ve come to The Springs.” I opened my mouth to tell her how important it is to keep it quiet, but she held up a finger. “When Arlo wants the world to know Eileen left him, he can be the one to broadcast the news.”
“T
rouble in paradise?”
She looked amused. “Now what do you think I’m supposed to say to that?”
“The truth?”
Through half-closed eyes, she looked upward, at the cigarette smoke swirling toward the ceiling. “You want to know about Eileen and Arlo as a couple?” Her performance heightened my anticipation. I couldn’t wait to hear the dirt. She apparently read me and guffawed. “Eileen loved him; Arlo was devoted to her.”
“That’s it?” The smoke surrounded me, and I coughed into my fist.
“He’s very romantic beneath that rather rough veneer. You know, men don’t have to be handsome to be sexy.”
“You think he’s sexy?”
“Oh, yes. Money, you see.”
“I understand the money part.”
She wrinkled her nose “You disapprove?” I shrugged. She said, “The handsome men here—most don’t have money and are gay. By money, I mean lots, and by gay, I mean very.”
“Then there are no rumors about troubles between the Camerons?”
“I didn’t say that, did I? There are always rumors. That’s what makes life fun.”
Theodosia enjoyed acting—and baiting me. “How about a hint?” I asked.
“Arlo has been here a very long time. Eileen has been here, oh, four, five years. Arlo had a life before Eileen. He enjoyed the companionship of many women. A few turned up with unexpected bonuses in their pouches. But they were paid handsomely, and there are many discreet clinics in LA. He’ll always be a pussycat for a pretty ingénue.”
She stubbed the cigarette out and opened the case for another. I was about to gag. “And Eileen?”
“If she ran off with another man, I don’t know who he is. She hangs around Dartagnan. They say she knew him before she came here.”
“He didn’t tell me that,” I said.
She clicked the lighter shut. “Don’t you wonder why not, with all that talking he does?”
“The man can talk.”
“He could talk about a lot of things, but he won’t. Not if he values living in The Springs.”
“Where did Eileen know him from?”
“He didn’t tell me. Nor did she. It’s just something people … think.”
I let that sink in. “Think about the last time you saw Eileen—was she nervous, did she say anything peculiar?”
Her lips pushed the smoke out. “Nothing that sticks in my mind. I’d say she seemed happier than I’d seen her in a while. She loved showing off her little girl. The child could be in commercials or in the movies. Arlo could get her a contract in a heartbeat.”
“What was Eileen’s idea about that?”
A sound came from her nose. “Never mind what her idea was. There was the father in Atlanta. Bradley Fucking Whitney.” She sucked on the cigarette.
It was useless holding my breath since I had to talk. “I take it Eileen discussed Whitney with you?”
Blowing smoke, she said, “Eileen couldn’t wait to fry his ass for lying in court.”
“What did he lie about?”
“Himself.”
“Did Eileen go into detail?”
“Just to say she found out he had secrets.”
“What kind?”
“What kind of secrets can a man have, dear? Sexual secrets. From her description, I’d say homosexual secrets.”
I nodded that I agreed. “You lived in Atlanta. You know the city. Even if Whitney was homosexual, the court wouldn’t necessarily take the child away. The times, they have a-changed.”
She studied the tip of her cigarette. She outdid Portia when it came to using a cigarette as a conversational prop. “Depends,” she said, and stubbed it out. “How did he comport himself? What were his . . . inclinations?”
“Do you know anyone in Atlanta who might know about him?”
She sat back. “It was a long time ago, but I keep in touch with my old friends. If he’s out and about, I can learn about him, yes.”
“He may not be. He’s an educator.”
“Still closeted, huh?”
“It would appear.”
She snorted as only a he can do. “He sneaks out. He must. Temptation. Compulsion.”
“Have you heard of The Cloisters?”
She eyed the cigarette holder. “That place where rich people go by the sea?”
I laughed. “Not hardly. It’s an exclusive men’s club in Atlanta.”
She picked up the holder and gripped it between her teeth. “The Cloisters, huh. I’ll ask my friends about it. It intrigues me.”
Me, too.
16
Philippe’s shop stood out on Ramon Road—white ceramic tile and glass block. I figured Philippe came from New York originally. Everyone in Palm Springs, except Native Americans, comes from somewhere else.
I expected a bell to peal when I entered the shop, but none did. Philippe stood at a computer, totaling a woman’s purchases. Seeing me, he raised his chin and held up a finger. The lady took her bags and left. Philippe flashed out of sight, but, seconds later, came from behind a dairy case that was chock-full of cheeses.
He held a white shopping bag bearing a logo for the fanciest takeout place I’d ever been in—and Atlanta’s no slouch for takeout places. The logo was a caricature of Philippe cavorting above the name of his shop: Too Busy to Cook? Underneath that, it read: “Philippe Wischard—Cordon Bleu Chef.
Philippe placed the shopping bag on the counter and said proudly, “I have your shik-can, fried creesp. A few secret spices to savor le palate. Also, I have for you a fried okra salad. Arugula and spring greens. And for dessert, a nice anise cheesecake.”
I don’t like licorice or cheesecake. “Monsier Phillippe,” I said, “you have outdone yourself.”
“Not so, non. For my friend, Dartagnan, and for you. A friend of my friend is my friend.” I’d heard it said, an enemy of my enemy is my friend. I liked that better.
He fiddled with numbers on his computer while I watched his assistants, two women and two men, clad in all white and wearing floppy chef’s hats, waiting on expensively dressed customers. My eyes roamed over the interior, which contained foodstuffs, wine, coffees, flowers, and very expensive utensils. The aroma overwhelmed, each individual aroma lending its fragrance.
“Fabulous,” I said when he handed me my check. I had my American Express card ready. The cost of this lunch was going on Whitney’s tab. “Anybody else in Palm Springs run a place like this?”
“Non. I, alone, have les coeurs et les ventres dans le Springs.”
I grinned at him. “Monsieur Philippe, you ever been to France?”
His laughter was over the top. Then he replied in unaccented English, “Everyone wonders. No one but you has asked.”
“I’m inquisitive.”
“And very beautiful, too. Beautiful people can get away with being, er—quoi? Outrageous? But oui, I have indeed been to France. I studied in Paris. I will tell the truth to you. I was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey. My mother named me Philippe. Pourquoi? Je ne sais pas. I speak comic-strip French because it is what people here want. They want to make fun of the Phony Frenchman. That is what they call me behind my back. But this is Palm Springs. Everybody is an actor.” He paused, then resumed his role. “A l’instant meme, pourquoi?—why are you in our little counterfeit oasis in the desert?”
“That is the question, n’est-ce pas?” That was about the extent of my French.
He held up his hands, palm out. “I pry no more.”
“I will tell the truth to you. I am on a mission.”
“Ah, no better place, mademoiselle. I am right, am I not, that you are not a madam?”
“I am not a madam.”
“You still have the freshness. So many young women, they marry, and they lose that look of naïveté.”
“You’re observant.”
“It helps me to make suggestions for madams who are looking for just the right thing to take the boredom out of food, and for mademoiselles who want to court a lover.”
“Tell me, what does it say to you when a woman orders sushi—raw squid, mackerel, abalone—for herself?”
His face segued through various aspects—frowns, smiles, wry grimaces. “Does your mission have to do with sushi?”
“Maybe.”
He looked suddenly as if I were competition come to town. “But you are not a cook, a chef?”
“Don’t I look like a chef?”
“Non,” he said, holding up his gnarly hands. “Your hands. They are not calloused, nor are they scarred. Look at mine. The burns, the knives.”
“You’re right, I’m not a cook.”
“I can tell you this. Women who eat raw sushi—the squid and the mackerel and the abalone—they are experimental, or . . .” he bowed his head from his neck, “they are Japanese.”
“Not everything’s raw, is it?”
“Few fish from la mer are served raw. The eel, the squid are en vinaigre or vin blanc. It is more délicieux to those who eat at McDonald’s.” He shuttered.
“I was visiting Arlo Cameron the other day—”
“Ah, the movie man. Oui.” His eyes slid sideways before he said, “Monsieur Cameron has asked me some discreet questions, I must tell you, mademoiselle, but I will not repeat our conversation. I am sworn.”
“All right, monsieur. Arlo Cameron didn’t strike me as a sushi person, yet—”
“Oh, mademoiselle, he is not. He devours steak tartare I make especial for him. Filet mignon ground with onions, Worcestershire, and some secret spices. On pumpernickel, you mound it, and make a hole, and put in a raw egg and capers. Délicieux!”
“Eileen is the sushi eater. Arlo said—”
“Ah, the beautiful madam. Yes. I fix especial for her last weekend.”
“Saturday?”
“Yes. Three dozen assorted.”
“Expensive.”
“They who come into my magasin can afford, you see?”
The Last Temptation Page 8