17
Back outside, it seemed the Escalade strategy was working, since the vehicle remained untouched. I got in and drove over to West Eighth.
On many of the street corners along the way, I saw small groups of young men standing around in shorts that hung to their knees and sports jerseys with the number eighteen, more evidence of the 18th Street Gang’s presence. They were one of the most vicious gangs in the city. Clearly they controlled the neighborhood. I wondered if it had been that way when Alejandra Delarosa lived there with her husband and daughter.
I thought it was a little strange that a woman who had found a job as a wealthy man’s administrative assistant would remain in that neighborhood. Surely between Alejandra and her husband, Emilio, they made enough to live in a safer place. I wondered if there had been a kind of penance to her choice. Maybe she had been ashamed to move up in the world. Maybe she had stayed there as a show of solidarity with her people. It seemed like the kind of thing a zealot capable of kidnapping and murder in the name of a cause might do.
The Guatemalan Benevolence Society was in a two-story, tan stucco building one block away from MacArthur Park. The storefront glass was obscured on the inside by a massive Guatemalan flag composed of two vertical sky-blue bars separated by a central vertical white bar. In the center of the white bar was a crest or coat of arms, with some rifles, swords, laurel, or olive leaves, and a colorful bird, which I had learned somewhere the Guatemalans called a “quetzal.” Beside the storefront glass was a single door. I opened it and entered.
Inside I found a room lit by bare lightbulbs suspended on long wires from a high ceiling. Here and there were tables of various sizes surrounded by folding chairs. Most of the tables were empty, but a few old men sat around a couple of them, playing dominoes.
Since I saw no sign of an office, I approached the nearest group of domino players. They all smiled and said hello. I returned their greetings in Spanish. “Would it be too distracting if I asked you men some questions?”
“It would be the most exciting thing to happen here all day,” said an old man in a Milan flattop straw hat. “I am Filipe, and this is Antonio and Jorge, and this is the other Jorge.”
“I am looking into the Arturo Toledo murder. Anybody here remember that?”
“Are you with the police?”
“No. I am looking into it privately. Do you remember anything about it?”
“Of course,” said the other Jorge. “That Doña Elena. Ay, what I would do for a few hours alone with her.”
“A few seconds should be enough in your case, old man,” said Filipe.
Even the other Jorge laughed.
Smiling, I said, “Did any of you know Alejandra Delarosa?”
Felipe said, “Everybody knows La Alejandra.”
“Really? Why is that?”
“She is La Alejandra.”
“I am sorry, but I do not understand.”
“‘La Alejandra,’” he said. “It means ‘defender of the people.’ ”
“I see. Like Alexander the Great.”
“Except more greater.”
“Do all of you think of her that way?”
Everybody nodded.
“Because she killed Toledo?”
The one called Antonio said, “May he rest in hell.” Then he leaned to one side and pretended to spit on the ground.
The first Jorge laid a domino on the table.
“Do you mind if I watch you play?”
Felipe shrugged expansively. “If you are so bored that such a thing seems like a good idea, go ahead.”
I pulled a chair over from a nearby table and sat. The men resumed their play. I pretended to be interested while I thought about what they had already said. “Everyone knows La Alejandra. She is La Alejandra.” They spoke of her as if she were still a member of the community, an esteemed neighbor. I thought that was interesting.
After a few minutes I said, “Why do you think she only took two hundred thousand dollars?”
They looked at one another with smiles. “That,” said old Filipe, “is only what they told the people on the television.”
“You think she took more?”
Everybody nodded. “Much more,” said Felipe.
“What makes you think that?”
“Look around yourself. Could all of this be purchased for two hundred thousand dollars?”
“Felipe,” said Antonio. “You talk too much.”
I glanced around the room. With its bare walls, concrete floor, and naked lightbulbs, I thought perhaps it could indeed be purchased for two hundred thousand, especially in that neighborhood. But the old men were clearly proud of their surroundings, so I kept that opinion to myself.
“Are you saying Alejandra bought this place?”
“Perhaps Antonio is right,” replied Felipe. “I should just play dominoes.”
The old men were clearly proud of the Delarosa woman. They reminded me of a few people I had met who dropped Haley’s name whenever possible, even though they barely knew her. I decided maybe I could play on their pride a little.
I said, “I understand. She is a murderer after all. Some things are too shameful to discuss.”
“Shameful!” said Felipe. All the old men glared at me. “La Alejandra is forever clothed with honor.”
“Please forgive my ignorance. I misunderstood.”
“Indeed you did. La Alejandra has done great things for her people in exile. She repaired the roof over at Our Lady of the Sacred Heart. She supports this place of sanctuary and the food bank and the legal resource center and the South Alvarado Free Clinic. And the most important thing of all, she took vengeance for the disappeared. And you sit there and speak of shame.”
“Truly, I had no idea.”
“Obviously not. Who are you, anyway? If you are La Migra, you have come to the wrong place. Everybody here is an American now.”
“No, no. Nothing like that. I am just a guy who heard about what happened, and I always wondered what became of her.”
“That is something you will never know. No person in the barrio would betray her.”
“So she still lives here?”
“Felipe, you old fool,” seethed Antonio. “Be silent.”
All of the old men sat still and stared at me. The men at the other table did the same. Clearly I would get no further information there, and although not one of the men was below the age of seventy, from the looks in their eyes, I decided it was wise to go.
18
Forty minutes later, I pulled into the garage at El Nido and parked between the Bentley and the stretch Mercedes. I strolled over to the guesthouse, changed into a pair of swimming trunks, grabbed a towel and a pair of goggles, and then headed for the pool.
A couple of years before Haley and I met, she had installed the regulation twenty-five-yard, short-course-length pool, three lanes wide. I had always been a runner, but Haley loved to swim and usually did forty laps in the morning before breakfast, alternating between a crawl and a breaststroke. Watching her slip almost effortlessly through the water had gotten me interested, and after a while I learned to enjoy it almost as much as she did.
I stretched a little on the flagstone apron, then dove in and did one hundred laps. While I swam, I thought about the fact that the old men at the Guatemalan social club believed Alejandra Delarosa was still living in their neighborhood. I wondered if it might be true and decided it was certainly possible. After all, where better to hide from the law than in the most densely populated urban area on the West Coast, among several hundred thousand people who think you’re a hero?
When I was done swimming, I climbed the ladder to find Simon sitting in the shade of a market umbrella at one of the tables. He was reading the Times.
Toweling myself off as I walked over, I said, “What ho, Jeeves. Any news of Parliament?”
He stood as I came, looking at me over the top of his reading glasses. “I take your Wodehouse reference, Mr. Cutter. It is very humorous.”
He remained standing as I settled into a chair. On the table between us were two glasses of lemonade and two plates with ham-and-swiss sandwiches.
I said, “Is one of these for me?”
“Yes. While preparing a meal for myself, I glanced outside and noticed you were exercising. It seemed improper to consume food from your larder without including you.”
“It’s not my larder. It’s Haley’s.”
“As you say.”
“Let’s dig in.”
“As you wish, Mr. Cutter.”
He sat across from me, folded the paper precisely placed it on the table, then went to work on his sandwich. I couldn’t help noticing the paper was turned to the employment section of the classifieds.
I said, “Are you looking for a job in the UK?”
“I had considered it.”
The day was fast approaching when I wouldn’t see Simon or Teru anymore, when I wouldn’t live in Haley’s guesthouse anymore, when the connections to my life with her would be finally and completely severed. I couldn’t bear the thought of staying on, and yet, strangely, when I thought of Simon leaving, my stomach seemed to ball up into a knot. Haley had led a splendid life, a life of honor and integrity and courage, and I wouldn’t let her memory be tarnished, not for all the money in the world. But something about Simon’s newspaper made the coming changes seem more real. I felt a wave of loneliness. It was a dangerous feeling, which led back to dark and disconnected places.
To distract myself, I told Simon about my morning at Pico-Union. When I was done, he said, “What are your plans now?”
“I’ve spoken with her neighbors. I think the next logical step is to see what her victim has to say, but I can’t figure out how to get to Doña Elena. With my background, the congressman isn’t going to let me get within a mile of his wife.”
Simon took a small bite of his sandwich, chewed it thoughtfully, swallowed, then said, “Perhaps something could be arranged.”
About an hour later, after I had rinsed the swimming pool’s chlorine off in the shower and slipped back into my jeans and black-silk T-shirt, there was a knock at the front door of the guesthouse. When I opened it, Simon stood there in his perfectly tailored suit. He handed me a folded piece of cream-colored stationary. On it were his embossed initials centered at the top, and below that a handwritten address in Beverly Hills and the time, 2:30 p.m. The penmanship was impeccable.
I looked at him.
He said, “Mrs. Montes will be expecting you.”
“How’d you do this?”
“One does have one’s contacts.”
“Buttling contacts?”
He offered a slight smile, turned, and walked away.
I called after him, “You might as well explain this. I’ll find out how you did it sooner or later.”
Simon lifted one hand slightly to signify he had heard me and kept walking. I watched his back for few more seconds, suddenly aware of how much I didn’t know about the man. What kind of butler could arrange a meeting with one of Hollywood’s leading stars on an hour’s notice? I should have known Haley would never hire a butler who was simply a butler. She had always surrounded herself with interesting people, and it seemed Simon had more going on beneath the surface than I had realized.
But a 2:30 appointment didn’t leave much time to consider Simon’s background, so my thoughts shifted to strategy. I decided not to bother changing into something more formal. During my time as a chauffeur and a bodyguard, I’d found the well-to-do in California often affect a casual wardrobe. Besides, there wasn’t time. I had to leave immediately to make the appointment. I set out across the grounds toward the garage. I decided to borrow Haley’s Bentley. Blue jeans and a black T-shirt were one thing, but it was Beverly Hills, after all. I was pretty sure it would help break the ice with the movie star and the congressman if I met certain standards.
I took the 5 to the Hollywood Freeway, then the Santa Monica exit. I bore right at the fork to cut over to Sunset Boulevard and then turned right again on Benedict Canyon to climb up into the hills. Rolls-Royces, Maseratis, Jaguars, Porsches, and Ferraris ebbed and flowed around me. The Bentley didn’t get a second look. There were no curbs or sidewalks, just the asphalt road winding up and up between ten-foot-tall stone and stucco walls and perfectly manicured hedges penetrated every two or three hundred yards by pairs of imposing gates. I took a hairpin turn to the right and then veered off the canyon road at Wallingford Drive. About five hundreds yards farther up, I reached the Montes’s estate.
There was the usual pair of gates with a speaker box discretely mounted on a post to the left of the driveway apron. I pushed a button marked “Call,” and a woman’s voice came on to say, “May I help you?”
I told her who I was. She asked me to wait. A moment later, the gates began to swing in, and her voice came from the speaker again. “Ms. Montes is looking forward to meeting you, Mr. Cutter. Please drive up the hill and bear to your right at the first fork. You’ll see a gravel area when you arrive at the house. Park there and come to the front door.”
Everything was exactly as the woman had described. When I got out of the Bentley, I was standing before a classic example of the fifties modern style of architecture: a sleek collection of sheet-glass panes and limestone slabs balanced on steel poles. I climbed seventeen steps to the front door. Before I could push the button on the jamb beside it, a spectacular young woman opened the door and smiled at me.
She was about five foot ten and slender in an athletic way. She wore a black blouse of some kind of elastic material that showed her figure to full advantage. The blouse was tucked into white slacks decorated along the sides with rows of botonadura, the silver buttons typically seen along the legs of mariachi trousers. On her feet were a pair of white leather boots. A pair of large silver hoops dangled from her ears. Around her waist was a black silk sash. My thoughts turned to Salma Hayek, whom I had seen with Haley at a party about a year before. But this woman was much younger than Ms. Hayek. I put her at about twenty-three or twenty-four, about ten years younger than I was.
“Mr. Cutter,” she said, “I’m Olivia Soto, Ms. Montes’s personal assistant.”
“What an interesting name,” I said. “I used to know a guy named Walnut Tree, but everybody called him Wally.” In Spanish, “Olivia Soto” meant “olive grove.”
She smiled at me again. Her teeth were flawlessly straight and perfectly white; her lips were succulently full. She wasn’t as beautiful as Haley, but it was a very close call. “You speak Spanish,” she said, offering her hand. “How nice.”
I took her hand and smiled. She gave one vigorous shake and then released me. “Would you please come this way?”
I followed her into the entry hall. It was darker than I had expected, what with all the sheets of glass I’d seen outside. The floor was a highly polished dark-blue stone of some kind, and the walls seemed to float on either side of us, set off along the bottom as they were by deep reveals.
As Olivia Soto led the way, I admired her black hair hanging in a loose french braid halfway to her waist. Her hips swayed seductively beneath the fabric of her white cotton mariachi slacks, but somehow I got the feeling she was unaware of that. She had the unselfconscious air of a girl next door who has somehow managed to grow up to become a beautiful woman without realizing it.
We stepped from the dark entry into a huge living room flooded with light from a wall of floor-to-ceiling glass that overlooked Los Angeles far below.
“Ms. Montes, may I present Mr. Malcolm Cutter?” said Olivia. “Mr. Cutter, this is Doña Elena Montes.”
The woman rose from where she had been sitting and turned to face me. She was blond and barefoot, in a simple white cotton T-shirt and a pair of plain white trousers cut short at calve length. She could have been dressed in sackcloth and ashes, and I would still have recognized the iconic cheekbones, the perfectly sculpted lips, the arched eyebrows, and the flashing eyes that conveyed such passion in her close-ups.
She was a small woman, but the proportions were exactly right in all regards. Doña Elena Montes was that rarest of Hollywood stars: an old-fashioned sex symbol in the tradition of Marilyn Monroe and Sophia Loren. At a time when nudity clauses were boilerplate in female actors’ contracts, Doña Elena could arouse any male audience while completely clothed from head to toe.
“Mr. Cutter,” she said, approaching me with her hand extended. “What a pleasure.”
She had a professional’s control over her words, speaking English without a trace of an accent, although I knew she had moved to the States only a decade before.
“It’s very good of you to see me,” I replied.
“Not at all. Would you like a drink? I’m having a glass of Chablis.”
“That sounds good, thanks.”
“Olivia, darling, would you please bring a glass for Mr. Cutter, and refresh mine?”
“Certainly,” replied her assistant, who picked up Doña Elena’s nearly empty glass, then left the room.
I turned toward the view. It was breathtaking. The house must have been cantilevered out over a cliff. The canyon floor was at least one hundred feet below the windows, and it fell farther away toward LA from there.
“Magnificent,” I said.
“Yes, isn’t it? I especially love it after dark. The city lights. The stars. It’s like hovering above the planet in a spaceship.”
I was glad it wasn’t after dark, glad I didn’t have to stand there and look down on the same city lights Haley had seen on her fall to the rocks. I shuddered. I turned away from the horrific memory as Olivia Soto came back in with the wine. She refilled Doña Elena’s glass, poured one for me, and then left the room again. The Chablis was excellent.
I said, “Apparently you know my friend Simon.”
“Such a remarkable man.” She gestured toward the seating area and a large white C-shaped sectional surrounding a white pine table covered with expensively printed photography books. She was on the cover of a few of them. “Shall we?”
As we sat I said, “Do you mind if I ask how you know Simon?”
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