Bad Love

10

We met up with Robin and loaded her pickup. Watching her shop empty made her blink, but she wiped her eyes quickly and said, "Let's go."

We set up a caravan- Milo in the lead, Robin and the dog in the truck, me in the Seville, the van trailing- and headed back to Sunset, passing Beverly Glen as if it were someone else's neighborhood, entering Beverly Hills, and driving north onto Benedict Canyon.

Milo turned off on a narrow road, poorly paved and sided with eucalyptus. A cheerless, white iron gate appeared fifty feet up. He slipped a card key into a slot and it opened. The caravan continued up a steep pebbled drive hedged with very high columns of Italian cypress that looked slightly moth-eaten. Then the road kinked and we descended another two or three hundred feet, toward a shallow bowl of an unshaded lot, maybe half an acre wide.

A low, off-white one-story house sat in the bowl. A long, straight, concrete drive led to the front door. As I got closer I saw that the entire property was hilltop, the depression an artificial crater scalped from the tip.

Canyon and mountain views surrounded the property. Lots of brown slopes and a few green spots, flecked with the lint of occasional houses. I wondered if mine could be seen from up here, looked around but couldn't get my bearings.

The house was wide and free of detail, roofed too heavily with deep brown aluminum tile supposed to simulate shake, and windowed with aluminum-cased rectangles.

A flat-topped detached garage was separated from the main building by an unfenced paddle tennis court. A ten-foot satellite dish perched atop it, aimed at the cosmos.

A few cactus and yuccas grew near the house, but that was it in terms of landscaping. What could have been front lawn had been converted to concrete pad. An empty terra cotta planter sat next to the coffee-colored double doors. As I got out of the car, I noticed the TV camera above the lintel. The air was hot and smelled sterile.

I got out and went over to Robin's truck.

She smiled. "Looks like a motel, doesn't it?"

"Long as the owner's not named Norman."

The black van dieseled as its ignition shut down. The three beef-boys exited and threw open the rear doors. Tarped machines filled the cabin. The boys did some squats and grunts and began unloading.

Milo said something to them, then waved to us. His jacket was off but he still wore his gun. The heat had returned.

"Crazy weather," I said.

Robin got out and lifted the dog out of the pickup. We walked to the front door, and Milo let us into the house.

The floor was white marble streaked with pink, the furniture teakwood and ebony and bright blue velour. The far wall was taken up by single, light French doors. All the others were covered with paintings- hung frame to frame, so that only scraps of white plaster were visible.

The doors looked out onto a yard encircled by a nearly invisible fence- glass panes in thin iron frames. A strip of sod-grass separated a cement patio from a long, narrow lap pool. The pool had been dug at the edge of the lot- someone aiming for a merge-with-the-sky effect. But the water was blue and the sky was gray and the whole thing ended up looking like an off-balance cubist sculpture.

The dog ran to the French doors and tapped the glass with his paws. Milo let him out and he squatted in the grass before returning.

"Make yourself right at home, why don't you." To us: "Called London, everything's set up. There'll be a token rent, but you don't have to worry about it until he gets back."

We thanked him. He dusted off one of the couches and I studied the art. Impressionist pictures that looked French and important nudged up against pre-Raphaelite mythology. Syrupy, Orientalist harem scenes neighbored with English hunt paintings. Modern pieces, too: a Mondrian, a Frank Stella chevron, a Red Grooms subway cartoon, something amorphous fashioned out of neon.

The dining area was all Maxfield Parrish: cobalt skies, heavenly forests, and beautiful blond boys.

Lots of nude male statuary, too. A lamp whose black granite base was a limbless, muscular torso- Venus de Milo in drag. A framed cover from The Advocate commemorating the Christopher Street riot side by side with a Paul Cadmus drawing of a reclining Adonis. A framed Arrow Man shirt ad from an old issue of Collier's kept company with a black-and-white gelatin print of a Paul Newman lookalike in nothing but a G-string. I felt less comfortable than I would have expected. Or maybe it was just the suddenness of the move.

Milo brought us back to the door and demonstrated the closed-circuit surveillance system. Two cameras- one in front, the other panning the rear of the house, two black-and-white monitors mounted over the door. One of them captured the three behemoths, shlepping and swearing.

Milo opened the door and shouted, "Careful!" Closing it, he said, "What do you think?"

"Great," I said. "Plenty of space- thanks a lot."

"Beautiful view," said Robin. "Really gorgeous."

We followed him into the kitchen and he opened the door of a Sub-Zero cooler. Empty except for a bottle of cooking sherry. "I'll get you some provisions."

Robin said, "Don't worry, I can take care of that."

"Whatever… Let's get you a bedroom- you've got your choice of three."

He took us down a wide, windowless hallway lined with prints. A wall clock in a mother-of-pearl case read two thirty-five. In less than an hour, I was expected in Sunland.

Robin read my mind: "Your afternoon appointment?"

"What time?" said Milo.

"Three-thirty," I said.

"Where?"

"Wallace's mother-in-law. I'm supposed to see the girls out there. No reason not to go, is there?"

He thought for a moment. "None that I can see."

Robin caught the hesitation. "Why should there be a reason?"

"This particular case," I said, "is potentially ugly. Two little girls, their father killed their mother and now wants visitation-"

"That's absurd."

"Among other things. The court asked me to evaluate and make a recommendation. In the very beginning Milo and I talked about the father possibly being behind the tape. Trying to intimidate me. He's got a criminal record and hangs with an outlaw motorcycle gang that's been known to use strongarm tactics."

"This creep's walking free?"

"No, he's locked up in prison. Maximum security at Folsom, I just got a letter from him, telling me he's a good father."

"Wonderful," she said.

"He's not behind this. It was just a working guess, until I learned about the "bad love' symposium. My problems have something to do with de Bosch."

She looked at Milo. He nodded.

"All right," she said, taking hold of my jacket lapel and kissing my chin. "I'm going to stop being Mama Bear and go about my business."

I held her around the waist. Milo looked away.

"I'll be careful," I said.

She put her head on my chest.

The dog began pawing the floor.

"Oedipus Rover," said Milo.

Robin pushed me away gently. "Go help those poor little girls."

• • •

I took Benedict into the valley and picked up the Ventura Freeway at Van Nuys Boulevard. Traffic was hideous all the way to the 210 and beyond, and I didn't make it to McVine until 3:40. When I got to the Rodriguez house, no cars were parked in front and no one answered my ring.

Evelyn showing her displeasure at my tardiness?

I tried again, knocked once, then harder, and when that brought no response, went around to the back. Managing to hoist myself up high enough to peer over the pink block wall, I scanned the yard.

Empty. Not a toy or a piece of furniture in sight. The inflatable pool had been put away, the garage was shut, and drawn drapes blocked the rear windows.

Returning to the front, I checked the mailbox and found yesterday's and today's deliveries. Bulk stuff, coupon giveaways, and something from the gas company.

I put it back and looked up and down the street. A boy of around ten zoomed by on rollerblade skates. A few seconds later, a red truck came speeding down from Foothill and for an instant I thought it was Roddy Rodriguez's. But as it passed, I saw that it was lighter in shade than his and a decade newer. A blond woman sat in the driver's seat. A big yellow dog rode in the bed, tongue out, watchful.

I returned to the Seville and waited for another twenty-five minutes, but no one showed up. I tried to recall the name of Rodriguez's masonry company and finally did- R and R.

Driving back to Foothill Boulevard, I headed east until I spotted a phone booth at an Arco station. The directory had been yanked off the chain, so I called information and asked for R and R's address and phone number. The operator ignored me and switched over to the automated message, leaving me only the number. I called it. No one answered. I tried information a second time and got a street address- right on Foothill, about ten blocks east.

The place was a gray-topped lot, forty or fifty feet behind a shabby brown building. Surrounded by barbed link, it had a green clapboard beer bar on one side, a pawnshop on the other.

The property was empty except for a few brick fragments and some paper litter. The brown building looked to have once been a double garage. Two sets of old-fashioned hinge doors took up most of the front. Above them, ornate yellow letters shouted R AND R MASONRY: CEMENT, CINDER, AND CUSTOM BRICK. Below that: RETAINING WALLS OUR SPECIALTY, followed by an overlapping R's logo meant to evoke Rolls-Royce fantasies.

I parked and got out. No signs of life. The padlock on the gate was the size of a baseball.

I went over to the pawnshop. The door was locked and a sign above a red button said, PRESS AND WAIT. I obeyed and the door buzzed but didn't open. I leaned in close to the window. A man stood behind a nipple-high counter, shielded by a Plexiglas window.

He ignored me.

I buzzed again.

He made a stabbing motion and the door gave.

I walked past cases filled with cameras, cheap guitars, cassette decks and boomboxes, pocket knives and fishing rods.

The man was managing to examine a watch and check me over at the same time.

He was sixty or so, with slicked, dyed-black hair and a pumpkin-colored bottle tan. His face was long and baggy.

I cleared my throat.

He said, "Yeah?" through the plastic and kept looking at the watch, turning it over with nicotined fingers and working his lips as if preparing to spit. The window was scratched and cloudy and outfitted with a ticket-taker remote speaker that he hadn't switched on. The store had soft, wooden floors and stank of WD-40, sulfur matches, and body odor. A sign over the gun display said NO LOONIES.

"I'm looking for Roddy Rodriguez next door," I said. "Have some work for him to do on a retaining wall."

He put the watch down and picked up another.

"Excuse me," I said.

"Got something to buy or sell?"

"No, I was just wondering if you knew when Rodriguez was-"

He turned his back on me and walked away. Through the Plexiglas I saw an old desk full of papers and other timepieces. A semiautomatic pistol served as a paperweight. He scratched his butt and held the watch up to a fluorescent bulb.

I left and walked over to the bar two doors down. The green board was rubbed to raw timber in spots and the front door was unmarked. A sun-shaped neon sign said, SUNNY'S SUN VALLEY. A single window below it was filled with a Budweiser sign.

I walked in, expecting darkness, billiard clicks, and a cowboy jukebox. Instead, I got bright lights, ZZ Top going on about a Mexican whore, and a nearly empty room not much larger than my kitchen.

No pool table- no tables of any kind. Just a long, pressed-wood bar with a black vinyl bumper and matching stools, some of them patched with duct tape. Up against the facing wall were a cigarette machine and a pocket comb dispenser. The floor was grubby concrete.

The man working the bar was thirtyish, fair, balding, stubbled. He wore tinted eyeglasses and one of his ears was double pierced, hosting a tiny gold stud and a white metal hoop. He had on a soiled white apron over a black T-shirt, and his chest was flabby. His arms were soft looking, too, white and tattooed. He wasn't doing much when I came in, and he continued along those lines. Two men sat at the bar, far from each other. More tattoos. They didn't move either. It looked like a poster for National Brain Death Week.

I took a stool between the men and ordered a beer.

"Draft or bottle?"

"Draft."

The bartender took a long time to fill a mug, and as I waited I snuck glances at my companions. Both wore billed caps, T-shirts, jeans, and work shoes. One was skinny, the other muscular. Their hands were dirty. They smoked and drank and had tired faces.

My beer came and I took a swallow. Not much head and not great, but not as bad as I'd expected.

"Any idea when Roddy'll be back?" I said.

"Who?" said the bartender.

"Rodriguez- the masonry guy next door. He's supposed to be doing a retaining wall for me and he didn't show up."

He shrugged.

"Place is closed," I said.

No answer.

"Great," I said. "Guy's got my goddamned deposit."

The bartender began soaking glasses in a gray plastic tub.

I drank some more.

ZZ gave way to a disc jockey's voice, hawking car insurance for people with bad driving records. Then a series of commercials for ambulance-chasing lawyers polluted the air some more.

"When's the last time you've seen him around?" I said.

The bartender turned around. "Who?"

"Rodriguez."

Shrug.

"Has his place been closed for a while?"

Another shrug. He returned to soaking.

"Great," I said.

He looked over his shoulder. "He never comes in here, I got nothing to do with him, okay?"

"Not much of a drinker?"

Shrug.

"Fucking asshole," said the man on my right.

The skinny one. Sallow and pimpled, barely above drinking age. His cigarette was dead in the ashtray. One of his index fingers played with the ashes.

I said, "Who? Rodriguez?"

He gave a depressed nod. "Fucking greaser don't pay."

"You worked for him?"

"Fucking A, digging his fucking ditches. Then the roach coach comes by for lunch and I wanna advance so's to get a burrito. He says sorry, amigo, not till payday. So I'm adios, amigo, man."

He shook his head, still pained by the rejection.

"Asshole," he said, and returned to his beer.

"So he shafted you, too," I said.

"Fucking A, man."

"Any idea where I can find him?"

"Maybe Mexico, man."

"Mexico?"

"Yeah, all a them beaners got second homes there, got they extra wives and they little taco-tico kids, send all they money there."

I heard a metallic click to the left, looked over, and saw the muscular man light up a cigarette. Late twenties or early thirties, two-day growth of heavy beard, thick, black Fu Manchu mustache. His cap was black and said CAT. He blew smoke toward the bar.

I said, "You know Rodriguez, too?"

He gave a long, slow headshake and held out his mug.

The bartender filled it, then extended his own hand. The mustachioed man jostled the pack until a cigarette slid forward. The bartender took it, nodded, and lit up.

Guns 'n Roses came on the radio.

The bartender looked at my half-empty mug. "Anything else?"

I shook my head, put money down on the bar, and left.

"Asshole," said the skinny man, raising his voice to be heard over the music.

• • •

I drove back to the Rodriguez house. Still dark and empty. A woman across the street was holding a broom, and she began looking at me suspiciously.

I called over: "Any idea when they'll be back?"

She went inside her house. I drove away and got back on the freeway, exiting on Sunset and heading north on Beverly Glen. I realized my error just as I completed the turn, but continued on to my house anyway, pulling up in front of the carport. Looking over my shoulder with paranoid fervor, I decided it was safe to get out of the car.

I walked around my property, looking, remembering. Though it made no sense, the house already looked sad.

You know how places get when they're empty…

I took a quick look at the pond. The fish were still there. They swam up to greet me and I obliged with food.

"See you guys," I said, and left, wondering how many would survive.