Survival Of The Fittest

48

“The old charm works its wonders,” said Milo, stretching in the car. Not the unmarked. A brown Honda I'd never seen before.

Pine boughs darkened the car's interior. He'd pulled up next to me at Sunset and San Vicente and told me to follow him.

The place he chose was in Beverly Hills, the alley behind Roxbury Park's western border. Lots of toddlers and mothers and nannies, the ice-cream man playing his jingle while dispensing popsicles and drumsticks, plenty of parked cars, no reason to notice ours.

“If I needed an ego boost, this wouldn't be it,” I said. “She's beyond aggressive.”

“Aw, don't sell yourself short… Little Miss Sex Pistol, huh?”

“Both guns blazing. Ponsico must have been a trout in a bathtub. It's a good bet it was him she meant when she talked about brains without spine. The DVLL murders probably originated at a Meta meeting- maybe not the whole group, just a splinter. The scenario I like is that Ponsico was enthusiastic in theory but when it came to action, he got cold feet and disappointed her and her friends. Some of whom are staying over, will probably be at the party tomorrow night. Add Sanger's trip tomorrow and it smells like a big night for Meta. And Andrew's invited.”

He frowned.

“What's wrong?”

“I worry when things go too well.”

“Don't you think we're finally due for some good luck on this one?”

“I suppose.”

“There's no way she'd suspect anything, Milo. The time we spent together was divided between intellectual pretentiousness and sex talk. The sex came from her. I played Morose Andrew as hard as I could without turning her off. At one point, I thought I'd gone too far.”

I described Zena's rage at perceived rejection. “Lots of talk about how wonderful she is, but at the core she's fragile.”

“Fragile?” he said. “Or just a rotten temper?”

“The two often go together. The point is, for all her posturing about being brilliant and sexy and slender and peppy, she lives in a shabby house and runs a bookstore with very few customers. The whole femme-fatale bit had a pathetic edge to it, Milo. It didn't take much to touch a nerve. She also called high school a “crucible of cruelty,' meaning she probably hadn't been Miss Popular Cheerleader. She was so upset when I moved her hand away, it actually blemished her face. That kind of volatility could have spelled bad news for Ponsico. Other people, too.”

“Now you're saying Ponsico was killed because he offended her personally? I thought it was because he betrayed Meta.”

“Maybe it was both,” I said. “Someone like Zena might not separate the two. One thing's for certain: She's a eugenics fan. My buying the books is what caught her attention and it didn't take long before she offered her views on the elite and the masses.”

My two purchases were on the dashboard. He'd thumbed through them.

“Mr. Galton and Mr. Neo-Galton,” he said. “Nasty stuff.”

“Nasty store.”

“Speaking of which, we can't find any business partners. Sharavi managed to trace her parents. Lancaster. Mother's dead and her father's a groundskeeper at Santa Anita racetrack, has a drinking problem. No trust fund.”

“She said her folks were educated, brilliant. More posturing.”

“She may be smart but she's not too educated, herself. Lancaster High, less than a year of junior college, then she worked at Kmart before getting the job at PlasmoDerm. And listen to this: When she was in JC, she signed up as a police scout with the Lancaster sheriffs. She wanted to join the force but was too small.”

“Anything weird on her academic record?”

“No. She spent half a year, dropped out.”

“Underachiever. It fits our profile,” I said. “So does her being a police wanna-be. I'd never have thought of a woman in those terms.”

“A woman with pals, Alex. No way would she have been physically able to pull off any of the murders by herself.”

“Maybe the pals who're staying at her house.”

“Yeah… and maybe pals who fund the store.”

“The Loomis Foundation?”

“Wouldn't that be nice.”

“What if, after the flap about Sanger's article, Meta shifted its emphasis to L.A.?” I said. “Sanger could be the group's bagman and he's flying out tomorrow to deliver cash.”

“Mr. Mossad's working on untangling their accounting, we'll see what he comes up with.”

“Heard from him on the trade school, yet?”

“Nope.” He blew smoke rings out the window. The ice-cream man drove away; lots of pint-sized satisfied customers. So cute… everybody starts off cute…

I said, “I skimmed as many books as I could but found nothing on DVLL. But some of them had no index and I couldn't cover everything in detail. If I stay friendly with Zena after the party, I'll have an excuse to get back to the store.”

He flicked ashes and rubbed his face. “You've done good work, Alex, but there's a bad smell to this. You're sure you want to stick with it?”

“If it means getting a closer look at Meta, I do. My main concern is how to avoid Zena when she decides she does want to take me into the garage and yank down my pants.”

“Tell her you've got herpes.”

“It's a little late for that and besides, this woman would check. I'll figure out something.”

“Well, don't do anything you'll regret. Even LAPD has its standards.”

I thought of Nolan Dahl's time-outs with teenage hookers. “How close were you following me?”

“I was at the store before you got there, parked two blocks up Apollo, used some Zeiss binocs Sharavi gave me and had a clear view of you going in and coming out with her. She looks a lot different than the picture Sharavi gave me- the hair- but her size was the tip-off. Her body language was affectionate, so I figured it was going well. When you left for the restaurant, I was four cars behind you. While you ate French food, I had a bad burrito in the car.”

“Such sacrifice.”

“Yeah, workmen's comp time. When you left the restaurant, I followed you but when you turned up Lyric, I held back because it's a quiet road and I didn't want to be conspicuous.”

“Daniel supply the car?”

He nodded. “One of the things that smells bad, Alex, is the layout. In terms of maintaining a close watch. Too damn isolated, too damn quiet, and her house is at the top, no way to get above it.”

“So you did drive up there.”

“I waited a few minutes, drove to where Rondo Vista splits off from Lyric and stayed on Lyric, where I parked about a hundred feet down. Then I went on foot. I had on a uniform- gas company- and a stick-on gas-company sign for the car door. I was carrying one of those little meter gizmos, no reason for anyone to give me a second look. But there's a limit to that kind of thing, Alex. Gas guys don't show up often. I ambled from house to house, managed to catch you getting back in the Karmann Ghia.”

“Never spotted you.”

“I was two houses down, peeking around some plants. Zena's body language was even better- big-time hots, so I figured you weren't in any immediate danger, but I don't like it.”

“It's just a party,” I said. “The elite and me. The biggest threat will be her hormones.”