A Savage Place

Chapter 7

CANDY TURNED LEFT onto La Cienega. “Where now?” I said.

“We’re going to see an agent I used to sleep with. He knows more about Hollywood, capital H, than anyone in town.”

“Mind if I ask him how it was?” I said.

“How what was?”

“When he used to sleep with you.”

“You find it shocking that I mention it casually?”

“No, but it seems a little contrived.”

“You mean a little too casually sophisticated?”

“Yeah.”

She was silent. I thought, peeking at her sideways, that she might have been blushing slightly. We crossed Olympic. Behind us a blue 1970 Pontiac with a black vinyl roof came out of Olympic and turned up La Cienega. It passed a car and swung in behind us. It was still behind us at Wilshire. And it was still behind us at San Vincente.

“Take San Vincente,” I said to Candy. “And go back onto La Cienega at Beverly Boulevard.”

“No left turn,” she said.

“Take it anyway,” I said.

She turned onto San Vincente. “You doing some sight-seeing?”

“Maybe. There’s a car behind us. I want to see if he’s following.”

Candy checked the rearview mirror. “Old blue Pontiac?”

“Yes.”

We crossed the intersection at Third with the Pontiac still behind us. He had dropped back a little. There were two cars between us. San Vincente Boulevard slants northwest for a short way across the more conventional Los Angeles grid from Pico Boulevard to Melrose Avenue. It crosses La Cienega between Wilshire Avenue and Third Street. At Beverly we turned right and went three blocks east, then left, and we were back heading north on La Cienega. When we crossed Melrose, I checked behind us and the blue Pontiac was there.

Candy looked at me.

“Okay,” I said, “so someone is following us. It would be good to know who.”

“What do you suppose he thought we were doing with that little maneuver on San Vincente?”

“Unless he’s an idiot, he thought we had spotted him and were trying to make sure he was really following us.”

“So now he knows we know.”

“Yeah.”

“He doesn’t seem to care.”

“That’s right.”

“What’s that mean?”

“It might mean he’s going to make a move on us. It might mean he is so interested in what we’re doing that he doesn’t care about stealth. It might mean he’s a cop.”

“A cop?”

“Cops don’t give a damn about anything sometimes,” I said.

“What shall we do?”

“We need a place… go east on Melrose then down Fairfax to the Farmers Market.”

The Pontiac stayed with us now, openly, no dodging behind cars; it was right behind us. I turned in, my seat and rested my chin on my forearms and studied over the open rear deck of the MG.

“There are two of them. Apparently they’ve dumped the Firebird and the van,” I said to Candy. “The one in the passenger seat is balding. He has a black mustache and goatee. It’s hard to tell while he’s sitting in the car, but he appears to be fat and strong. Does that sound familiar?”

“Oh, my God,” Candy said. She cleared her throat.

“It’s okay,” I said. “This time we’ve got them outnumbered.”

“There’s two of them.”

I looked at her and flexed my bicep in a physical culture pose.

“Oh,” she said, “I see what you’re saying. I’m sorry, but I’m scared. This time what if they mean to kill me?”

“That’s what the Sound of the Golden West is paying me for,” I said. “When we get to the Farmers Market, pull in close to one of the doors and park, illegally if you need to. Just don’t waste any time. Then jump out and run inside, and go in the nearest ladies’ room. You know your way around in there?”

“Oh, sure.”

“Okay. The ladies’ room nearest the entrance we go in. Stay there till I yell for you. I’ll open the door and yell.”

“You may be arrested as a Peeping Tom.” She sounded strained but she was trying.

“You’ll swear my eyes were shut tight all the time,” I said.

She smiled, though not very wide, and said, “Okay. While I’m hiding in the ladies’ room, what are you going to do?”

“I’m going to consult with our groupies here. See if I can get a little information.”

The Pontiac was drawing closer.

“Move this thing faster,” I said to Candy. “I need a little space between us when we get to the Market.” The MG speeded up as we went down Fairfax. The Pontiac hung in behind us. “You can’t outrun it,” I said to Candy, “but this thing can outmaneuver it. Slip in and out of traffic a little.”

“Spenser, I bought this because it was cute, not because it was hot. I don’t know how to stunt-drive.”

“Well, do what you can. I don’t want them to make a run at us right here on Fairfax.”

She bit her lip and tromped down on the accelerator and jockied the little sports car in between a truck and a Lincoln that looked like a truck. The Pontiac edged out around the truck and then fell back in behind it. Candy passed the Lincoln on the inside and got honked at by a red-faced man wearing a pink shirt and smoking a cigar. We screeched into the parking lot on the north side of the Farmers Market, cutting across the traffic recklessly and causing several more horns to blow.

The store section of the Farmers Market was a rambling white low building surrounded by parking lots just south of CBS Studios on the corner of Fairfax Avenue and Third Street. There were cars parked all around the building, and Candy jammed the MG into the walkway leading to one of the entrances, and we jumped out and headed into the market. Just inside the door there was a stand selling barbecue and down the aisle from that was a sign that said RESTROOMS. I pointed at it, and Candy went for it at as brisk a walk as one could muster. I went with her till I saw her go in and then I faded behind a stand that sold Mexican food and moved down the aisles of food stalls and produce stands, watching the entrance where we’d come in. I saw the fat man. Candy was right. He was fat, but you weren’t fooled. He was strong too.

He looked around. I moved down the aisle away from him, past a stand that sold blackberry pie, my mouth watering briefly, then I went past a Chinesefood concession and into the parking lot in front, around the corner from where we’d entered.

The Pontiac was double-parked between the market and the souvenir shop that sold Mexican jewelry and leather cowboy hats and pictures of the Griffith Park Observatory sealed inside a transparent plastic square. Candy’s MG was sitting there in the walkway near it. People skirted it to get into the market, shaking their heads; a man suggested to his wife that the driver was an asshole. I felt he’d made his judgment on insufficient evidence.

The driver of the Pontiac was standing leaning against the car with his arms folded on the roof. He was tall and blond with longish hair combed back in a stiff sweep. He had a dark tan and a thick mustache that turned up slightly at the ends. He wore a white shirt with epaulets and a pocket on the left sleeve. It was half unbuttoned. He had two slim gold chains around his neck. The bottom half was bleached white straight-leg cords worn over hand-tooled cowboy boots. His waist was narrow, but his upper body had the thickened look of a weight lifter.

I walked up behind him, stepping softly. “Are you Troy Donahue?” I said.

He turned his head slowly and looked at me. His skin glowed with a healthy tan. He smelled of Brut and hairspray. There was wax on his mustache. “Fuck off,” he said.

I hit him a firm left hook that tilted his chin back and followed with a right cross that knocked him flat on his back. When he got his eyes focused, I had the barrel of my gun just touching the tip of his nose.

I said, “This is a public place, Troy. Soon somebody will call the cops, and they’ll come and it will be awkward. So you tell me real quick why you were following me or I’ll blow a hole in the middle of your face.”

“I ain’t Troy Donahue,” he said.

“You’re not Albert Einstein either, I guess. But quick”-I shoved the gun against his nose, bending the tip of it in on his upper lip-“why were you following me?” I thumbed the hammer back. There was no need to. It was a double-action piece, but the gesture always looked good.

“I’m day labor, man,” Troy said. “I just got hired to drive and help out if there was a hassle.”

“Who hired you?”

“Him.” Troy pointed with his eyes. “Franco, the fat guy.”

“Franco what?”

“I don’t know, you know how a guy is. You see him around, you just know his name.”

“Franco his first or last name?”

“I don’t know.”

A ways off I heard a siren. I put the gun back under my coat, got in the Pontiac, started up, and drove away. In the rearview mirror I saw Troy get up and head toward the market. On the seat next to me was a Colt .32 automatic, half-hidden under a newspaper.

I rammed the Pontiac between a wine-tasting shop and the rear of the Market, out across Third Street, through the lot of a shopping center and out onto a side street that led down toward Wilshire. About a block past the shopping center was a kind of a housing development that spread out around a central circle. I parked there, put on my sunglasses, took off my jacket, pulled my shirttails out to cover my hip holster, and stuffed the Colt in my belt in front under the shirt. I went down a little side street and came out on Fairfax. I folded my coat and put it down on the grass along the sidewalk, then I walked back up toward the Farmers Market. My experience with eyewitnesses told me that I had concealed my identity all I needed to. They’d seen a neat man in a gray jacket with no shades. I was now a sloppy man with his shirt out and no jacket wearing sunglasses. I came in the Market from the Third Street side. It wasn’t very busy. I didn’t see the fat man. The police siren would have made him fade. His buddy Troy had probably cut through the Market and screwed into the neighborhood south of Third. There was some activity around the doors on the far side of the market. That’s where the cops would be: What happened? There were these guys fighting, one had a gun. Where are they now? I don’t know. One drove away. What did they look like? Short. Tall. Fat. Thin. Blond. Black. Old. Young. Who called? I don’t know. Smell.

I get to the door of the ladies’ room, pushed it partway open, and yelled, “Hey, Candeee.”

She came out before I stopped yelling. “For God’s sake what’s going on?” she said.

“I’ll tell you later. Go get your car. If a cop speaks to you, smile at him. Show him your press credentials. Ask what’s going on. Wiggle your ass at him if you feel that’s appropriate. Then, when you can, drive down Fairfax, toward Wilshire. I’ll be walking along. Stop and I’ll get in, and I’ll explain while we go see that agent you used to sleep with.”

She gave me a hard look but did what I told her.