Guilt

CHAPTER 39

I trolled gossip sites and the links they sent me to for personal sightings of Prema Moon and/or Donny Rader.

They’d been highly visible until four, five years ago, showing up at clubs, screenings, premieres, charity events, shopping sprees. Audiences with heads of state. But the two hits I found covering the last eighteen months featured Prema only, both times in L.A.: World Affairs Council symposium on African famine, Banish Hunger luncheon where the actress received an award.

Time to give my personal conduit to Glitz-World another try. Robin was sweeping her workbench. Pads for applying French polish sat in a wastebasket. The flamenco guitar hung drying.

“Gorgeous.”

“You can test-drive it for me in a couple of days.”

“Perks of the job,” I said. “Do you still have a way of contacting paparazzi?”

“I’m sure some of my clients do.”

“Could you call one of them?”

“Looking for a lead on the staaahs?”

I told her about the sudden drop in sightings.

“Burrowing because they’ve gotten weird?” she said. “Okay, I’ll try Zenith. He’s not so big anymore but he hangs with the biggies and his current flame’s that actress on the doctor show and she’s always good for a cleavage shot.”

Zenith Streak ne James Baxter professed ignorance of “all that bullshit” but he connected her to his publicist who punted to another rock star’s personal manager. It took three additional calls before she obtained the number of a paparazzo named Ali, whom she sweet-talked before passing the phone to me.

I introduced myself.

He said, “Hey, dog, whusup?” in a Middle Eastern accent.

“Haven’t seen much on Premadonny lately.”

His voice climbed three notes up the scale. “Whu, you know ’em?”

“No. I was just wondering why.”

“Aw, man … so why you- They pissing me off, man.”

“Why?”

“Whu you think? For not being, know muh saying?”

“No more photo ops.”

“Got to eat, dog, they the meat, dog. We don’ hassle ’em, we they friends with the lens.”

“So no idea why-”

“They used to be, man. Like a clock, we getting the call, they there smiling, waving, smiling, waving. We shooting and booting and sending. Then we spending.”

“They orchestrated everything.”

“Huh?”

“It was all prearranged.”

“Sure, man, what you think?”

“You ever get pictures of their kids?”

“Nah, just them. Pissing me off, know what a baby brings? Hot tot shot’s the mostest lot.”

“Any idea why they don’t call anymore?”

“They crazy.”

“How so?”

“They not callin, they crazy. You not there, no one care. So what, you’re like a music person’s si-nificant other?”

“Yup.”

“You know Katy?”

“Sorry, no.”

“Taylor?”

“No-”

“Adam, Justin-you know even Christina, that’s cool-how bow Bono? You know anyone, I slip you a share of what’s there.”

“Sorry-”

“You don know no one, dog?”

I chose to answer philosophically. “Not really.”

“Then we done.”

Robin said, “So they really are playing ground squirrel.” Her smile was sudden, mischievous. “Or they’ve just opted for the simple life.”

I said, “Growing their own vegetables, and raising hyperintellectual organic cattle. For the milk.”

She said, “Don’t forget hand-stitched hemp duds.”

We both laughed. I tried to put my heart into it.

Holly Ruche had phoned while I was in the studio. I called her back, figuring single-session euphoria had faded, the way it often does.

But when she answered, her voice was fat with pleasure. “Thanks so much, Dr. Delaware. For what you’ve accomplished.”

Not sure what I’d done, I said, “Glad everything’s going well.”

“Everything’s going great, Dr. Delaware. Matt’s talking. Really talking, not just the hello how are you we used to do.”

“That’s great, Holly.”

“Turns out what he needed was for me to tell him I valued what he had to say. Because his parents discouraged talking, his father actually used to say ‘Children should be seen, not heard.’ Can you believe that? Anyway, I did. Tell him. It just opened him up. Me, too. About my issues. And he was surprised to know how I felt about my mom. Which makes sense, I never talked about her until you led me in the right path. Anyway, Matt listened, nonjudgmental. Interested. Then he told me more about his childhood. Then we … everything kind of kicked up to a new level. I’m feeling in control, like I really own this pregnancy. Own my entire life.”

“That’s terrific, Holly.”

“Couldn’t have done it without you, Dr. Delaware.”

My line of work, things like praise from patients aren’t supposed to affect you because it’s all about healing them, not your ego.

To hell with that, I take what I can get. “I really appreciate your telling me, Holly.”

“Sure,” she said. “Do you have another second?”

“What’s up?”

“In terms of … what happened … to the baby. I’m assuming they haven’t found anything out? Because I did read about that other poor little thing, it made my heart ache, I cried, Dr. Delaware.”

“Sorry, Holly, no progress, yet.”

“Something so long ago, I imagine it would be difficult to solve. And this probably won’t help but that box-the blue hospital box? For some reason it bothered me. Someone putting a baby in something like that.”

Her voice caught. “This is going to sound weird but I’ve been going online and searching for something like it and finally I found it. A box just like it at a collectibles site called OldStuff.net. From the same hospital-Swedish, the seller calls it a bank box, for depositing money, she has others for sale, from other hospitals. I called her up and she told me back in the day they used metal boxes for extra security when they brought cash to the bank. Before the armored cars were safe enough so you could use bags.”

“Interesting.”

“Could it be important?”

“At this point, any information’s valuable.”

“Great, Dr. Delaware. Then I feel good about all the time I spent online. Bye.”

I logged onto the site. Identical blue box. No additional wisdom.

Robin knocked on my office door. “Going to keep working for a while?”

“Nah, let’s have some fun.”

She looked at the screen. I explained.

She said, “Never thought of hospitals as cash businesses.”

“Place was an abortion mill back when abortion was a felony. Illegal means high profit margins.”

I logged off.

She said, “Fun sounds okay.” Utter lack of conviction.

I put my arm around her. “C’mon, life’s short, let’s own ours. How about music?”

“Sounds good.”

“Let me check the Catalina … here’s their calendar … Jane Monheit.”

“Like her,” she said. “If we can get tickets, let’s do it.”

Monheit was in fine voice backed by a band that never stopped swinging, the food at the club was decent, a couple of generous Chivas pours went down well.

We got home and beelined to bed and afterward I plunged into sleep, stayed out for an atypical seven hours, woke up with an aching head that filled quickly with words and pictures.

When I got to my office my cell phone was beeping and my landline message machine was blinking.

A pair of calls, less than a minute apart. I punched Play on the machine.

Milo’s voice said, “Found my boy Wedd. Call.”

“Sturgis.”

“Congrats.”

“Hear what I have to say first.”