“Dave Dumas the basketball player?”
“Yeah. Mr. Stretch.” Shared giggles.
“We took care of his kids,” said the blonde. “Really big kids from a really big guy.” She laughed some more, then turned abruptly serious.
“We’d really like to get back here to Broad— the beach is a total keeper and the concerts at the Trancas CafÉ are heating up. Last week Eddie Van Halen showed up to jam.”
“We’re willing to work,” said the redhead. “Todd said he could get us a trade.”
“Fag-wuss!” said the blonde. “Last time we’re nice to him.” She gunned the Golf’s engine. The dog jerked in alarm.
I said, “What exactly did he want from you?”
“He was, like, act like we thought he was hot. Let him touch us in front of you.” Turning to the redhead: “Told you, Mar. I was like, sure, Todd, you might ever be.”
“Todd’s not hot in real life?”
Giggles all around. The redhead picked a piece of popcorn out of the box and handed it back to the dog.
“He likes it,” she said. “Bernie’s got a sugar thing.”
“Enjoy, Bernie,” I said, walking over and petting the dog. His fur was matted and clogged with salt and dirt. As I rubbed his neck, he whined with pleasure.
“So Todd’s no keeper,” I said.
A wary look came into the blonde’s eyes. Up close her face was hard, ready to age, already starting to leather from too much sun and risk-taking.
“You’re not like a good friend of his or anything?” she said.
“Not at all,” I said. “I do know the people who own the house. But I only met Todd once before.”
“So you’re not, like—” The blonde smiled, gave an arch look, and raised her wrist limply.
“Tra-ace! That’s like so ru-ude!”
“So?” said the blonde. “He’s the one who does it! He should be embarrassed!”
I said, “Todd’s gay?”
“For sure,” said the redhead.
“A muscle-fag,” said the blonde.
“Wasted buff,” said the redhead. The dog coughed. She said, “Don’t stress out, Bern.”
“That’s why it was rank,” said the blonde. “Using us to make like he’s into girls— I mean, maybe he’s got a buff body but his head’s not buff, that’s for sure.”
“How do you know he’s gay?” I said.
“Well,” said the blonde, laughing and gunning the engine again, “it’s not like we go around watching him do it or anything.”
“He’s got guys coming in and out all the time,” said the redhead. “He says he’s training them, but one time I saw him and this guy holding hands and kissing.”
“Rank!” said the blonde, elbowing her friend. “You never told me.”
“Yeah, it was a long time ago. When we were still with Big Dave.”
“Big Dave,” said the blonde, giggling.
“How long ago was that?” I said.
Bafflement. Both of them looked as if they were struggling with a difficult word problem.
Finally the redhead said, “A long time ago— maybe five weeks. Buffy Todd and this other guy were walking in back of the house. Right over there, I was walking Bernie.” She pointed to the cement pad. “And they touched their hands. Then the other guy got in his car— white five-sixty SEC with these brushed-steel custom wheels— and Todd leaned in and gave him a little kiss.”
“Rank,” said the blonde.
“Kind of sweet, actually,” said the redhead, looking as if she meant it. But the empathy didn’t fit, and she squirmed and burst into nervous laughter.
I said, “Remember what this other guy looked like?”
She shrugged. “He was old.”
“How old?”
“Older than you.” Even.
“Forties?”
“Older.”
“Maybe he was Todd’s dad,” said the blonde, smirking. “You can kiss your dad, right, Mar?”
“Maybe,” said the redhead. “Little Todd and his dad, kissing.”
They looked at each other. Shook their heads, giggled some more.
“No way,” said the redhead. “This was true love.” She gave a reflective look. “Actually, the old guy was kind of buff. For an old guy. Kind of like Tom Selleck.”
I said, “He had a mustache?”
The redhead strained. “I think so. Maybe. I just remember he reminded me of Tom Selleck. An old Tom Selleck. Buff tan. Big chest.”
“How come,” said the blonde, “so many of them are buff? What a waste.”
“It’s ’cause they’re rich, Trace,” said the redhead. “They can afford to buy special supplements, get lipoed-out, whatever.”
“Suck and tuck,” said the blonde, touching her own flat midriff. “If I ever need that, put me to sleep.” She stuck her hand in the box of Fiddle Faddle and groped around.
“Geez, don’t touch everything!” said the redhead, tugging on the box.
The blonde held fast and said, “Almonds.” Smile. “Here we go.” She pulled out a nut and placed it between her teeth. Looked at me, flicked it with her tongue, and bit down slowly.
I said, “That the last time you saw this old guy around— five weeks?”
“Yup,” said the redhead, looking wistful. “It’s been a long time since we hit dry sand.”
“So,” said the blonde, “can you do anything for us?”
“Like I said, I’m not in the real estate business, but I do know some people— let me check around. Why don’t you write down your names and numbers.”
“Sure!” said the redhead, beaming. Then she grew grave.
“What is it?”
“No pen.”
“No prob,” I said, resisting the impulse to wink. I went back to the Seville, found a ballpoint and an old mechanic’s receipt in the glove compartment, and handed it to her. “Write on the back.”
Using the Fiddle Faddle box as a desk, she wrote laboriously as the blonde looked on. The dog planted a wet nose on the back of my hand and wheezed in gratitude when I rubbed him again.
“Here.” The redhead thrust the paper at me.
Maria and Traci. Looping script. Hearts over the I’s. An address on Flores Mesa Drive. A 456 exchange.
I smiled and said, “Great, I’ll do what I can. In the meantime, good luck.”
“We’ve already got it,” said the blonde.
“Got what?” said the redhead.
“Luck. We always get what we want, right, Mar?”
Giggles and a cloud of dust as the Golf shot forward.
I watched them speed to the northern end of Broad Beach Road and disappear. It took a second to register that they were around Melissa’s age.
• • •
I made a three-point turn and headed back for the highway.
Older man and young stud.
Older man with a mustache and a tan.
Lots of tan, mustachioed gay men in L.A. Lots of white Mercedes.
But if Don Ramp drove a white 560 SEC with brushed-steel wheels, I was willing to go out on a limb and assume.
I joined the southbound traffic on PCH and drove home assuming even without proof. Casting Ramp as Nyquist’s lover and recasting the tension that I’d witnessed between Nyquist and Gina.
Another macho charade on his part?
Anger on hers?
Did she know?
Did that have something to do with her hints about making a life-style change?
Separate bedrooms.
Separate bank accounts.
Separate lives.
Or had she known about Ramp when she’d married him?
Why, after living a bachelor life for so long, had he married her?
Gina’s banker and lawyer seemed certain it hadn’t been for money, citing the prenuptial agreement as proof.
But prenuptials— and wills— could be contested. And life-insurance policies could be taken out without bankers and lawyers being informed.
&n
bsp; Or perhaps inheritance had nothing to do with it. Maybe Ramp simply needed a cover for the good, conservative folks of San Labrador.
Hearth and home and a child who hated his guts.
What could be more all-American?
22
I got home just after five. Milo was out. He’d recorded a new greeting on his machine. No more misanthropy. Businesslike: Please leave your message. I asked him to please call when he had a chance.
I phoned San Labrador and got Madeleine.
Mademoiselle Melissa was not feeling well. She was sleeping.
Non, Monsieur was not there, either.
A catch in her voice. Click.
I paid bills, straightened the house, fed the fish some more and noticed that they looked tired— especially the females. Did thirty minutes on the ski machine and showered.
Next time I looked at my watch, it was seven-thirty.
Friday night.
Date night.
Without thinking it through, I called San Antonio. A man answered with a wary “Hello?” When I asked for Linda, he said, “Who’s this?”
“A friend from Los Angeles.”
“Oh. She’s over at Behar— at the hospital.”
“Her dad?”
“Yeah. This is Conroy, her uncle— his brother. I’m over from Houston, came down today.”
“Alex Delaware, Mr. Overstreet. I’m a friend from L.A. Hope it’s nothing serious.”
“Yeah, well, that’s what I’d like to hope, too, but I’m sorry to say that’s not the case. My brother passed out this morning. They revived him but it wasn’t easy— some kinda problem with circulation and the kidneys. They’ve got him over in intensive care. The whole family’s over there. I just came back to get some things and caught your call.”
“I won’t keep you.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Please tell Linda I called. If there’s anything I can do, let me know.”
“I’ll be sure to do that, sir. Thank you for offering.”
Click.
• • •
Wrong reason to do it, but I did it anyway.
“Hello.”
“Alex! How are you?”
“Got a date tonight?”
She laughed. “A date? No, just sitting here by the phone.”
“Care to change your luck?”
More laughter. Why did it sound so good?
“Hmm, I don’t know,” she said. “My mother always told me not to go out with any boy who didn’t ask by Wednesday night.”
“Good old Mom.”
“Then again, she was full of shit about lots of other things. What time?”
“Half an hour.”
• • •
She came out of the front door of her studio just as I pulled in front of the building. She was wearing a thin black silk turtleneck and tight black jeans tucked into black suede boots. Lips glossed, eyes shadowed, curls full and gleaming. I wanted her, badly. Before I could get out, she opened her own door, scooted next to me, radiating heat. One hand in my hair. Kissing me before I had a chance to catch my breath.
We necked fiercely. She bit me a couple of times, seemed almost angry. Just as I ran out of breath, she broke it off and said, “What’s for dinner?”
“I was thinking Chinese.” Thinking of all the times we’d eaten takeout in bed. “Of course, we could call out for it and stay here.”
“Never mind that. I want a date.”
We drove to a place in Brentwood— the standard Mandarin/Szechuan menu and paper lanterns, but always reliable— and feasted for an hour, then headed over to a comedy club in Hollywood. A lighthearted place we used to enjoy together. Neither of us had been there with anyone else.
The ambience was different now: black felt walls, murderous looking bouncers with ponytails and steroid complexions. Calcutta level density, stale smoke, and hostility. Tables crowded with heavy-eyed night-crawlers and their significant others, coming down from one trip or another, demanding an entertainment-fix or else.
The first few acts were raw meat for that crowd— mumble-mouthed novice stand-ups reciting the stuff that had always cracked up their friends but didn’t make the transition to Sunset Boulevard. Sad clowns veering wildly, like drunks on ice skates— staggering between silences more painful than any I’d encountered doing therapy and stutter-bursts of manic word salad. Just before midnight, things got more polished but no more friendly: slick, trendily dressed young men and women who’d been shaped on the late night talk show lathe, spitting out the four-letter wit they couldn’t get away with on TV. Rage-laced relationship humor. Ugly-spirited ethnic jokes. Screaming scatology.
Had the city gotten meaner, or had I just lost my edge?
I looked over at Robin. She shook her head. We left. This time she allowed me to open her door. Pressed herself against it the moment she was inside and stayed that way.
I began driving. Reached for her hand. She squeezed mine a couple of times and let go.
“Sleepy?” I said.
“No, not at all.”
“Everything okay?”
“Uh-huh.”
“So . . . Where to?”
“Do you mind just driving for a while?”
“Not at all.”
I was on Fountain going west. Turning right on La Cienega, I crossed Sunset up into the Hollywood Hills, climbing slowly and steadily until I found myself on a series of narrow, hairpin residential streets named after birds.
Robin remained tight against the door, like a nervous hitchhiker. Eyes shut, not talking, her face directed away from me. She crossed her legs and placed one hand on her belly, as if it ached.
A few moments later she put her head back and straightened her legs. Despite her denial of fatigue, I wondered if she’d fallen asleep. But when I switched on the radio and found a late night jazz show, she said, “That’s nice.”
I kept driving, with no idea where I was going, ended up somehow on Coldwater Canyon, took it all the way to Mulholland Drive, and turned left.
A bit of forest, then clearings that revealed sheer cliff above the incandescent grid of the San Fernando Valley. Fifty square miles of lights and motion, leering through night-haze and treetops.
Bright lights, pseudo city.
Being up here felt strangely adolescent. Mulholland was the quintessential parking spot, as consecrated by Hollywood. How many make-out scenes had been filmed here? How many splatter flicks?
I lowered my speed, enjoying the view, keeping my eyes out for drag-racers and other nuisances. Robin opened her eyes. “Why don’t you pull over somewhere?”
The first few turnoffs were occupied by other vehicles. I found a eucalyptus-shaded spot several miles from the Coldwater junction, parked, and killed my lights. Not far from Beverly Glen; just a quick southward dip and we’d be home— at least I would.
She was still up against the door, looking out at the Valley.
“Nice,” I said, setting the emergency brake and stretching.
She smiled. “The stuff of picture postcards.”
“It’s good being with you.” I made another reach for her hand. No return squeeze this time. Her skin was warm but inert.
“So,” she said, “how’s your friend in Texas?”
“Her dad took a turn for the worse. He’s in the hospital.”
“I’m so sorry.”
She cranked open her window. Stuck her head out.
“Are you okay?”
“Guess so,” she said, pulling her head back in. “Why’d you call me, Alex?”
“I was lonely,” I said, without thinking. Not liking the pitiful sound of it. But it seemed to cheer her. She took my hand and played with my fingers.
“I could use a friend, too,” she said.
“You’ve got one.”
“Things have been rough. I don’t want to whine— I know I have a tendency to do that and I’m fighting it.”
Private Eyes Page 33