Although I couldn't see or hear the ocean, I was almost certain that I could smell it. I glanced up at the sky. It had the usual orange tinge of an L.A. weekday. I looked over at Carter who also seemed to be enthralled by what he was seeing.
To the left of the pool was a detached garage with what looked like an apartment above it.
Mrs. McKenzie had been talking all along but I hadn't paid much attention. For some reason, however, I realized she was talking about the occupant of the garage apartment. "His name is Howard Paulsen. He's been taking care of the yard and the pool in exchange for staying in the apartment. Nice kid. He's going to U.C.L.A., I believe." She walked over to the side door that led into the garage. Opening it, she said, "He's here. His motorcycle is in the garage."
"Motorcycle?" asked Carter with some interest. He loved to ride. I wasn't sure why he'd never bought one.
Right then, a compact kid opened the door to the apartment and ran down the steps. He was handsome with brown eyes. He stood about 5'8", had brown hair that was a little too long and slicked back, and was wearing a plain white t-shirt and dungarees with what looked like motorcycle boots. It was an odd combination. I pegged him at about 25. I figured he'd been to Korea and was using his G.I. Bill to go to school.
He looked at the four of us and then at Mrs. McKenzie. "Buyers?" he asked.
She nodded and said, "Howard Paulsen, this is Nick Williams."
I walked forward and offered my hand. He shook it and squinted at me for a moment. He then opened his eyes wide and looked at Carter. "Call me Howie. I know who you two are."
I smiled. "Nice to meet you. Would you be able to stay on if we buy the place?"
"Sure. For a couple more years, at least. I'm getting my Ph.D. at U.C.L.A." I wondered if he was older than I thought.
"In what?" asked Carter as he offered his hand.
"Mathematics."
"Impressive," replied Carter. He looked the kid up and down in a way that I didn't really like. The kid seemed not to notice. He looked at me and said, "But what I really want to do is to become a private dick, like you, Mr. Williams."
Billy snorted.
Ignoring that, I nodded and said, "Fine. We can talk about that sometime." I looked back at the house. I noticed that there was ivy growing up the brick wall. I was more and more in love with the place. "What do you think about this house?" I turned back and looked at him. He was cute, there was no doubt. I wasn't sure if he was one of us, or not.
"It's nice. Real homey. I miss Mrs. DaCosta. She was swell. She always invited me in for dinner. Her lasagna was fantastic."
Ben said, "Nick's lasagna is pretty good."
Carter nodded. "Yeah. I like it and I don't like garlic."
The kid frowned up at Carter. "Who doesn't like garlic?"
I turned to Mrs. McKenzie, who seemed very amused by the turn the conversation had taken, and said, "Sold. When can we move in?"
. . .
The house was owned by the estate of Mrs. DaCosta. There were no children, so all Mrs. McKenzie had to do was to call the estate lawyer and make the offer. She did that in the house while the four of us waited in the backyard and chatted with Howie.
They were asking ninety-eight thousand even. That was almost four times what we'd paid for our house on Hartford but only half of what Carter had paid for his house on Kauai. That was fine by me. I also asked that we be able to move in that day and that we would pay thirty days rent in advance.
When she came back out, she was smiling. "He accepted and asked for five hundred for the rent."
"And that price includes all the furniture?" asked Carter.
She nodded. "Yes. I think he was relieved. He didn't think it would be easy to sell the furniture since it's so outdated." She looked at me. "If you'll come with me to my office, I'll draw up the paperwork. It shouldn't take more than an hour."
Carter asked, "What's the address here?"
Mrs. McKenzie smiled and said, "717 North Cannon Drive."
Carter repeated that a couple of times.
Billy said, "If you want to be an old-timer, you can pronounce it like canyon. The street name only has one 'n' and that's got a squiggle over it. It's Spanish. For canyon, as a matter of fact."
Mrs McKenzie nodded. "In fact, in the title, it has that squiggle on it. That's required by the city. But most people pronounce it like 'cannon,' the thing that goes 'boom.'"
We all laughed.
I looked at Carter. "Speaking of addresses, now that you know where this place it, how about you go get us a car?"
He smiled. "You sure about that?"
I nodded. "No tiny sports cars, though."
Billy said, "You need a Cadillac. Or a Lincoln. Or a Chrysler."
Carter shrugged. "I have my own idea and I saw just the place when we were driving over here from Ben's apartment."
"What?" I asked.
"It's a surprise."
Ben asked, "What about us?" He meant him and Billy. I guessed we had Billy's services all day.
Without waiting for me to reply, he said, "If you're moving in tonight, you'll need a new mattress, new sheets and towels." He looked at Mrs. McKenzie. "Washing machine?" Before she could answer, he interrupted her. "Never mind. I'll take care of that." He looked at Ben. "Come along, young man. We have some serious shopping to do."
I held up my hand. "Wait."
Billy, who was halfway across the lawn, stopped and turned. "Yes?"
"I know you may hate me for saying this but I like the furniture in the house."
He sighed but looked relieved. "It's not my style, but it's practical. So, what you're saying, Nick, is that you don't want all new furniture this afternoon?"
I smiled. "Yeah. That's it."
"Fine. I have a few thoughts but they can wait."
Mrs. McKenzie said, "That table, by the way, dates back to before the Revolutionary War. Mrs. DaCosta brought it to California from New York. Thought you might want to know."
I looked over at Billy. The wheels of his mind were obviously turning. He said, "Thank you, Lila, dear."
She smiled at him. "No, thank you, Billy."
He waved and walked towards where his car was parked. "Come along, Mr. White. Off we go."
. . .
The paperwork didn't take as long as I thought. Once that was done, I headed back to the house in Ben's big boat of a Chrysler. He and Billy had taken the blue Cadillac to go do the shopping. Instead of asking Mrs. McKenzie to drive me back later, I'd checked the ignition. Ben had left his keys in the car so I just took it.
I decided to cook two pans of lasagna for dinner that night. Howie helped me out, including taking his motorcycle over to the local grocery store to get all the ingredients.
When Billy and Ben got back from shopping, Billy called his housekeeper and asked her to come over and do some light cleaning. Her name was Esmeralda and she didn't talk much. She had cleaned the kitchen while Howie was out getting groceries. At the same time, Ben and I made the quick drive to the hotel so we could grab the luggage and I could settle the bill.
When we returned to the house around 5, Carter wasn't back yet. I called Roz and invited them over for dinner. She volunteered a tossed green salad and two bottles of red wine. I accepted and got to work in the kitchen cooking while Esmeralda started on the living room.
By about 6, Billy was done with setting up the two bedrooms and the bathroom. He'd replaced both mattresses, updated the linens, and moved the furniture around. As he put it, "They are now habitable for persons under the age of sixty."
To handle the muscle part, he'd asked a crew of four helpers to come over. They were all very handsome kids in their 20s and looked like they knew their way around a gymnasium. As I was cooking, they each made their way, one by one, into the kitchen to let me know they were available for work. I'd sent each one back to Ben.
As a final touch, Billy also put away all of our clothes in the bureau and wardrobe in the large bedroom.
Once his te
am was gone, having left in a flurry of offered congratulations and with the twenties I'd handed out, Billy walked into the kitchen and said, "For a tough private dick, you look perfectly at home over a stove top."
Howie laughed. He was mincing onions for me.
I said, "I love to cook and don't get to do so except on the odd Sundays when we don't go out for dinner. Our cook used to be a chef in Paris before the war. You'll have to come up and see us. And bring Jimmie." I'd never met Billy's lover but I'd heard about him.
Billy smiled and said, "We'd both like that."
"We have plenty of room or there's always the Fairmont or the Mark Hopkins."
Billy arched an eyebrow. "Ah, yes. The scene of the crime."
"How's that?" I asked.
"Isn't the Mark Hopkins where you clawed Mrs. George Hearst's eyes out?" He grinned. "I've heard so many versions of that story. I have no idea if any of it is true."
Pouring some oil into a large pan, I said, "I just told her husband what I thought about his rag of a paper." I didn't go into details because I suddenly remembered the last time I'd seen Billy, the previous January, and how he'd explained his fondness for the family patriarch, the late William Randolph Hearst.
Howie laughed. "Good for you, Nick." He coughed. "Is it OK if I call you Nick?"
"Of course." I looked over at Billy who was frowning at me. "What?"
"I would call you brave, but I don't know."
I shrugged. "It wasn't brave. It was probably stupid. Made my father happy, though. He's never liked any of the Hearsts."
"And he's OK with everything?"
"I guess. He doesn't say anything, at least. And he likes Carter."
"That must be nice."
"Well, Carter worked on that. I would have been happy to never talk to my father again."
"I heard about the lawsuit."
I nodded. My father had sued when my Great-Uncle Paul had left half of his very sizable estate to me in '43. The rest of the family had joined in and the whole thing made its way to the California State Supreme Court before being tossed out in '48. "After my sister died, Carter began to visit my father."
"Did you know he was doing that?" That was Howie.
"Nope. I thought he was at work. Instead, he was playing chess with my father. But the real turning point happened when my father married Lettie." I looked at Billy. "She's Marnie's mother and a real force of nature. She's the one who helped him see the light, I guess you could say."
Ben walked into the room. "You know what we don't have?"
"What?" I asked.
"Booze. How about Billy and I go out and stock up your liquor cabinet?"
I laughed. "Sure. Do you need any money?"
Billy smiled. "I'm charging everything. You'll get a bill."
I smiled and didn't say, "With your usual mark-up," because I didn't much care. Instead, I said, "Fine. Thanks for all your help."
"My pleasure."
"Is Jimmie going to be able to make it for dinner?"
Billy shook his head. "He has other plans." I wondered what that meant but it was none of my business, so I didn't ask.
And, with that, they were gone.
Howie said, "I'm done with these onions. What else?"
"Can you open those cans of tomatoes?"
"Sure, Nick. Say..."
"Yeah?"
"Who is that older man?"
"Oh, sorry. That's Billy Haines. He's a famous interior decorator. He knows all the movie stars. Or so I've heard. He was a movie star himself in the 20s and 30s and then Metro fired him. Or he quit. I'm not sure which."
"Why?"
"Because he wouldn't marry a woman."
"Gosh!"
"Yeah."
"I'm glad it's not like that anymore."
"You think so?" I asked, trying to keep the cynical tone out of my voice.
"Sure. Gee, look at you and Mr. Jones."
"Carter," I said.
"Thanks. Carter. You two are honest about who you are."
"We didn't choose to do that. It just happened. Billy is the one I admire. He did things his way."
"So do you." He paused. "Don't you think?"
"Well, it helps when you have a lot of money."
"Well, I'm me. And that's fine. And I don't have a lot of money."
"Maybe it's because—" I stopped. I was beginning to sound like a father. "How old are you, kid?"
"I'll be 30 next month. Why?"
"I was beginning to sound like my old man. And I'm only three years older than you."
Howie laughed. I turned from the stove to look at him. "What?"
In a completely different voice, he said, "That's part of my charm."
His back was turned to me. He was opening the fifth and final can. "What do you mean?" I asked.
He turned and looked at me. His face was completely different. He looked older. More serious. "In this town, it helps if people think you're younger than you are."
"Are you really going to U.C.L.A.?"
He nodded and wiped his hands on a towel. "Sure. And getting the degree I mentioned." He smiled. "Well, not really. I am getting my Ph.D. in Mathematics, that part is true, but that's only because they don't have a degree in computers yet."
"Computers?"
"Yeah. You know. Like the ENIAC? Big machines that can make hundreds of computations in a few minutes. Amazing things. I work on building them and programming them. U.C.L.A. has its own computer. It's called SWAC. It used to be the fastest in the world, but now there are several that are faster. I.B.M. is putting in a data processing center next year. I know you own stock in them. It's a good investment. That's the future."
I stood there, stunned. I only understood about half of what he'd said. But he was definitely smart. "Were you serious about wanting to work as a private dick? Or was that an act, too?"
He grinned. "I was serious. I think that computers could help in a lot of ways."
I shrugged. "I have no idea how that might be the case but I have a feeling that if you think so, you're probably right. There's a guy at our office you should meet sometime. His name is Walter. We call him our resident brainiac. I don't know if he's into computers or not. But he's smart like you."
Howie grinned. "Is he cute?"
I laughed. "Sure but he's not my type. He's just about five feet tall and reminds me of an owl. I always want to feed him."
Howie's eyes got big. "That sounds cute to me. I don't like big guys like Carter. I'm more into the shorter guys. Makes 'em easier to handle."
I laughed. "OK. Now you sound like Carter."
With a thick drawl that came out of nowhere, Howie asked, "Do I now? That sounds so interestin'."
I smiled and shook my head. Right then, I heard the front door bang open. "Honey, I'm home."
"Speak of the devil," I said to Howie who grinned.
Carter walked into the kitchen. "Smells good in here."
Howie, back to his kid-like voice said, "Do you think so, Mr. Jones? Nick is a great cook."
I shook my head. "It's all an act, Carter. He's got an I.Q. of like a million and may be smarter than Walter."
Using his normal voice, Howie said, "Even the name makes me horny."
Carter burst out laughing. "What?"
I rolled my eyes. "Don't ask. What kind of car did you get?"
He smiled. "Come see."
I said, "Hold on. Lemme turn off the stove. Don't wanna burn down the house the first day we're here."
After that was done, Howie and I followed Carter out the front door. In the driveway stood a navy-blue Mercedes-Benz. It was a sedan and looked just like one we'd seen in Australia, only the steering wheel was on the left side instead of the right. I walked up and looked it over. It definitely looked foreign. No one would ever think it was an American-made car. The seats were leather and it was smaller than Carter's Mercury Monterey. I turned and looked at him. He was as proud as a mother hen. Smiling, I said, "I like it. Why'd it take so long?"
&nbs
p; "They wanted the mechanic to look it over one more time before I left. Plus they had to show me how all the buttons and levers worked." He folded his arms. "I've been wanting to get one of these ever since we got home from Australia."
Howie said, "You know it has..." They started to talk about transmissions and I just walked into the house, not particularly able to follow. It wasn't as confusing as talking about computers but the subject never really interested me and I wasn't sure Carter knew much more than me about the subject. In any event, I wanted to get the trays of lasagna put together and in the oven. I also figured Carter should get to spend some quality time with Howie since I knew he would eventually be working for us. I couldn't imagine why we would ever need a computer to do our job, but maybe that was just a lack of imagination on my part.
. . .
"It's just lovely that you're here in the neighborhood, Nick." That was Roz.
We were all seated around the big table eating pieces of a cake Billy had ordered and had delivered.
I smiled. "I like the house. It feels homey." Looking over at Billy, I said, "It does remind me of our old house on Hartford."
He smiled and took a sip of his brandy. Looking around the kitchen, he said, "When you go home, I'd really love to have a chance to brighten things up in all the rooms."
Roz said, "But surely you don't want to make any radical changes?"
Billy shook his head. "No. Now that I know what makes a private dick and an ex-fireman feel at home,"—we all laughed at that—"I'd like a chance to just clean up a few things and make things even more homey."
Roz looked at me. "Well, Nick? What do you think?"
I looked at Carter who said, "Fine by me. Like Nick said, the place reminds me of our old house." He looked over at Billy. "Just don't change the furniture. This stuff looks like I won't break it. That Danish Modern always looks a little flimsy to me."
Billy smiled. "I might update the pieces but they'll still be homey. And solid."
. . .
We stood at the front door. I shook hands with Freddie while Carter gave Roz a kiss on the cheek. "Always good to see you, Freddie."
The Pitiful Player (A Nick Williams Mystery Book 14) Page 9