Sunset Express

CHAPTER 3

The two kids with their skateboards were gone, but the dog was still sitting by the churro cart, watching the vaquero. The vaquero was still waving his churro at the passing cars and looking sad. All the way up from Zacatecas to stand on a corner and sell something that no one except a couple of kids and a dog wanted. A man who had worked with the Brahmas, no less.

I climbed into my car and opened Truly's envelope and looked at Angela Rossi's address, wondering what Haig had meant about seeing where she lived. 724 Clarion Way. I looked up Clarion Way in the Thomas Brothers Guide, found it in Marina del Rey, and thought, 'Well, hell.'

The Marina wraps around the ocean on a stretch of sand just south of Santa Monica. It's home to sitcom writers and music producers and people who own Carpeteria franchises, maybe, but not cops. The cheapest house in the Marina maybe goes for six hundred thousand, and even the smallest apartments would set you back fifteen hundred a month before utilities. Condos had to start at three hundred grand. Raymond Haig was probably just a raging sexist who had been shown up on the job and was working out on the person who had shown him up, but how did that explain a cop living in the Marina? Of course, there were probably ten million explanations for how Rossi might live there, but I probably wouldn't ferret them out sitting in front of a tire store in Glendale.

The churro salesman caught me staring at him and gestured with the churro, his eyes somehow embarrassed in their sadness. I climbed out of my car and paid him thirty-five cents for ten inches of fried dough that had been dusted with powdered sugar and cinammon. He thanked me profusely, but he still seemed sad. I guess there's only so much you can do.

I went back to my car and worked my way across the valley floor, then up onto the San Diego Freeway and down through the westside of Los Angeles to the Marina. It was sunny and bright, with the sun still riding a couple of hours above the horizon. The air smelled of the sea and crisp white gulls floated and circled overhead, eyeing McDonald's and Taco Bell parking lots for fast-food leftovers. Women with pony tails raced along the wide boulevards on Rollerblades and shirtless young men pedaled hard on two-thousand-dollar mountain bikes, and everybody had great tans. Aging vaqueros selling rubber-hose churros weren't in evidence, but maybe I hadn't looked close enough.

I turned down Admiralty Way with its wide green traffic island and drove along the Silver Strand to a short cul-de-sac lined with low-density condominiums partially hidden behind tropical plantings. Clarion Way. Seven twenty-four was part of a four-unit building at the front of the curve, and even from the street I could see that the units were large and spacious and expensive. Definitely not pop digs. A gated drive led down beneath the building, and a gated walk led along the front of the units. A mail drop was built into the front gate, along with a security phone so that you could call inside to let the residents know you'd come to visit. I circled the cul-de-sac, parked across the street at the curb, and walked back to the mail drop to see if Angela Rossi's name matched the address. No names. I guess the postman was expected to know who lived where.

A thin man with thick glasses and a bulging forehead squinted out at me from behind the gate. 'May I help you?'

I gave him one of my better smiles and tried to look reasonable. 'Do you know if Keith's home?'

He frowned at me. 'Keith?'

I nodded. 'That's right. Keith Adams in seven two four. He said he'd wait for me, but no one answers.'

He shook his head. 'You must have the wrong address. There are only four of us in the building, and no one by that name lives here.'

I dug out my wallet, drew a cash receipt from Hughes Market, and frowned at it. 'It says seven twenty-four Clarion.'

He was shaking his head before I finished. 'Maybe there's another Clarion. I know the woman in seven twenty-four. I don't think she's home now.' The woman.

'You don't think we could be talking about Keith's wife, do you?' I peered through the gate. A boy's red bike was leaning against a planter in the entry to seven two four. A plastic hamper filled with Nerfballs stood behind the bike.

He put his hands on his hips, still shaking the head. 'Oh, no. It's just Angie and her kids.' Angie. You see how it adds up?

I put my wallet away and scratched my head. Klem Kadiddlehopper comes to the big city. 'Has she lived here long? Maybe Keith moved.' Trying to find out how a cop could afford to live here. Trying to find out if she rented or stayed with a friend or had won the place in a lottery.

'Not long. She moved in two years ago.'

'She own it, or does she rent?'

Now he was frowning. Suspicious. 'Why don't you leave your number. Maybe the lady knows something about your friend and will call you.' The detective presses his luck a tad too hard.

'That's okay. I'm pretty sure I've got Keith's number back at the office.'

I thanked him for his time, went back to my car, then drove to a pay phone in a little shopping center at the mouth of the Marina where I called a realtor friend who works in Pacific Palisades. A bright woman's voice said, 'Westside Realty, how may I help you?'

I tried to sound like a G-man. 'Adrienne Carter, please.'

'May I tell her who's calling?'

'Richard Tracy.'

'Please hold.'

Maybe twenty seconds later another woman's voice came on. 'This is Adrienne Carter.'

'I'd like to buy the Hearst Castle. Wanna handle the deal?'

Adrienne Carter laughed. 'Dick Tracy. Oh, please.'

I gave her Angela Rossi's address and asked if she could run an owner-of-record check for me. I told her it was a matter of Utmost urgency and the security of the nation depended on her. She said, 'I'll bet, Dick.' I think I had started something that I was going to regret.

Forty minutes later I made the slow pull up Laurel Canyon into the mountains above Hollywood and the rustic A-frame I have there. It's woodsy where I live, and though I have neighbors, our homes are separated by mature eucalyptus and olive trees that give us shade and lend stability to the steep slopes upon which we live. I bought the place many years ago when it was in disrepair and, over time, have rebuilt and refinished it both alone and with the help of friends.

I parked in the carport, let myself in through the kitchen, and was looking in the refrigerator for something to eat when the cat-door squeaked and the cat who lives with me walked in. I said, 'Hey.'

The cat is large and black and one ear sits kind of cocked to the side from when he was head-shot with a.22. The flat top of his head is laced with scars and his ears are shredded and lumpy. When he was younger he would often bring me bits of squirrel and bird to share, but he's older now and the gifts are not as frequent. Perhaps he's slowing, or perhaps he's just less generous. He snicked across the floor and sat by his bowl. 'Naow.'

'I'm hungry, too. Hang on.'

I took out leftover chicken that I'd baked with garlic and rosemary, and a half can of tuna. I turned the oven to 350, wrapped the chicken and canned new potatoes together in foil, then set it in the oven to heat. I forked the tuna into the cat's bowl, then set the can next to it so he could lick the juice. He prefers the chicken, but the garlic gives him gas, so I've had to draw the line. He doesn't like me for it, but there you go.

It was eighteen minutes after seven, and I was getting ready to take a shower when the phone rang. Adrienne. I said, 'Hi, Adrienne.' Elvis Cole, Too Hip Detective, pretends he can read minds.

Lucy Chenier said, 'Adrienne?' The Too Hip Detective steps in deep doo-doo.

'A realtor friend,' I said. 'I'm expecting her to call with some information I need.'

'Do tell. Well, heaven forbid I should tie up your line.'

I gave her Groucho. 'Can't think of anyone I'd rather have tie me up, heh heh.'

'Oh, you.' I love it when she says 'oh, you.' And then she said, 'Hi, Studly.'

I felt the smile start deep in my chest and grow large like an expanding bubble, and then I was standing in my kitchen with the phone and Lucy Chenier's presence seemed to fill the house with warmth and light. I said, 'I miss you, Luce.'

'I miss you, too.'

'Hmm.'

'Hmm-rnm.' We often have conversations like this.

I had met Lucy Chenier three months earlier when I was working in Louisiana for an actress named Jodi Taylor. Lucy was Jodi Taylor's lawyer and I was Jodi Taylor's detective, and the attraction, as they say, was immediate. We had called each other regularly since then, and two months ago I had flown back to Louisiana to spend a long weekend with Lucy and her eight-year-old son, Ben. Three weeks after that, Lucy and I had met in Cancun for four days of snorkeling and grilled shrimp and sunburns, and it was harder still to say good-byes when she boarded her plane and I boarded mine. Thereafter, the phoning grew more frequent, and the conversation less necessary, and soon we were in a kind of comfortable,'uncomfortable place where the occasional murmur on the other end of the line was enough, but not nearly enough. Over the weeks an increasing part of my day has become the anticipation of the evening's call, when I would sit in my home and Lucy would sit in hers and we would share a few minutes together linked by two thousand miles of fiber-optic satellite relays. It wasn't as nice as actually being with her, but if romance were easy, everyone would do it. I said, 'You may be interested in why I am waiting for Adrienne to call.'

'I'm sure I don't want to know.'

'Do I detect coolness?'

'You detect indifference. They are not the same.'

I said, 'Ha. We'll see if you feel the same after you hear my news.'

She said, 'Let me guess. You've changed your name to Jerry Lee Lewis Cole?' You see what passes for humor in Louisiana?

'I'm working with Jonathan Green.'

There was a moment's silence, and then Lucy Chenier said, 'Is that true, or is this more of the famous Elvis Cole wit?' Not joking, now.

'Hired me today for the Big Green Defense Machine.'

Lucy Chenier made a soft whistling sound, then said, 'Oh, Elvis. That's wonderful.' You see? Impressed. Lucy being impressed made me want to thump my hind leg on the floor and roll over so that she could scratch my belly. She said, 'We used to study his cases in law school.'

'How about that.'

'It must be very exciting.'

'He's just another client.'

She said, 'I have news, too.' She sounded happy, like maybe she was smiling when she said it.

'Okay.'

The firm has business to take care of in Long Beach, and they're sending me out. Ben's out of school, so how would you like a couple of freeloading house guests?'

The background noise of the TV and the CNN newscasters was suddenly a million miles away. I said, 'I could handle that.'

'What?' I guess she hadn't heard me. I guess my voice had come out hoarse and small.

'Hold on a minute and let me check my calendar.'

'You rat.'

I was smiling. I was smiling so wide that my face felt tight and brittle, as if I smiled any farther my cheeks would crack. 'Yes. Yes, I think that would be fine. Are you kidding? That's great.'

'I thought so, too.'

I said, 'I'll be at the airport in an hour.'

She laughed. 'You can be there in an hour, but Ben and I won't be there until the day after tomorrow. I'm sorry to spring this on you, but I didn't know for sure until this afternoon.'

I was too busy smiling to answer.

'I'll call tomorrow and give you the flight information.'

'Hey, Luce.'

'Hm?'

'I'm really happy about this.'

'Me, too, Studly. Oh, you don't know.'

We talked for another hour, mostly about where we would go and what we would do and how excited we were that we would see each other again. When my food was warm I sat on the kitchen floor, eating as we talked, and the cat came over and stared at me. Purring. Lucy asked about Green and the Teddy Martin case, and as I told her I listened to the soft country sounds of k.d. lang behind her, and the passing voices of Ben and his best friend as they tumbled through her home. The sounds of Lucy Chenier's life. I told her about the videographer and that Green was shorter and thinner than he looked on television, though still imposing, but after a while our conversation drifted back to us, and to how our tans from Cancun were fading and how much fun we'd had drinking blue iced cocktails and eating the fresh ceviche that the hotel chefs would make at the beach, and then after a while the conversation was over.

Lucy blew me a kiss and hung up and I lay back on the kitchen floor with the phone on my stomach, grinning at the ceiling. The cat stopped purring, and came closer to stare into my face. He looked concerned. Maybe he didn't know I was grinning. Maybe he thought I was dying of some sort of hideous facial stricture. Is that possible? Death by grinning. I said, 'She's coming to see us.'

He hopped up onto my chest and sniffed at my chin and began to buzz again. The certainty of love.

Later, I washed the dishes and shut the lights and went up to bed. I lay there for a very long time, but sleep wouldn't come. I could only think of Lucy, and of seeing her, and as I thought the grin seemed to grow. Perhaps the grin would grow so wide that it would crash through the sides of the house and slop down across the mountain and just keep expanding until it became The Grin That Ate L.A. Of course, if that happened, the grin would eat LAX and Lucy couldn't land. Then where would I be?

At a little after two that morning, I went downstairs to the guest room and stripped the bed and put on fresh linen and then dusted and vacuumed and cleaned the guest bath. I figured I could borrow a camper's cot from Joe Pike; Ben could use the cot and Lucy could have the bed.

At sixteen minutes before four, I went out onto the deck and stared down at the lights in the canyon below. A family of coyotes who live around Franklin Reservoir were singing, and a great desert owl who lived in the eucalyptus trees made his hooting call. I breathed the cool night air and listened to the coyotes and the owl, and I thought how fine it was that so much of my being could have so suddenly become focused on an airplane's time of arrival.

I did not sleep, but I did not mind.