The Museum of Desire

Chapter 23

Saturday morning I slept in until eight thirty. More rehab than recreation; trying to squeeze some brain-rest out of a night filled with bloody images.

Nearly a week had passed since the horror on Ascot Lane. People abused as children get good at compartmentalizing and I’m no exception. For most of the week, I’d intellectualized the slaughter, putting on blinders by concentrating on the details.

Now the totality was hitting me. Another pile of pictures never to be deleted.

Robin’s side of the bed was empty. I found her in the kitchen, drinking coffee and reading. One hand dangled and tickled the top of Blanche’s knobby head.

She put down her book and warmed me with a smile. “Morning, darling. Eggs okay?”

“Perfect.”

She got up and I caught her midway to the fridge and kissed her. When I let go, I made sure to show her a smiling face and relaxed shoulders. Then I sat and took over massaging Blanche.

Neither of the females in my life was fooled.

Blanche looked up at me with a cocked head, big brown eyes full of pity. Robin took out the egg carton and said, “Tough night, huh?”

“I kept you up?”

“Only when you thrashed — don’t apologize, we all go through it.”

“Not you.”

“Oh, yes, I’m perfect, darling. Remember two months ago? That piece of Adirondack spruce I paid a fortune for, I get it here and it splinters?”

“Don’t remember you thrashing.”

“I’m a jaw-grinder. Had headaches for a week.” She cracked five eggs into a bowl and whisked. “You gently rubbed my temples.”

“Did it help?”

“The fact that you cared helped. Plain scrambled or with stuff? There’s some of that pastrami from last night.”

“Stuff sounds good.”

“Bring whatever you want from the fridge then call Milo.”

“About what?”

“He phoned half an hour ago, we didn’t get into details, you know how he shields me.” She smiled. “Not wanting to upset perfection.”

How much I tell her has been an issue for us. This time I’d given her enough basics not to feel marginalized. But no sense piling on the cruelest details.

I said, “Gallant.”

“When he pushes the right button, he’s got it in him.”

I headed for my office.

Robin said, “When he asked where you were, I told him you were snoozing.”

“And he made a crack, right? Let me guess: Prince Charming getting his beauty sleep. Babe in dreamland?”

“Nope. He said you deserved it.”

No answer at Milo’s office phone. I tried his cell.

He said, “Risen and shiny? Cucumbers off the eyes, yet?”

“Like you said, salad’s virtuous. What’s up?”

“Waiting to hear from McGann and Vollmann’s landlord. Meanwhile, Alicia gets a five-course dinner, place of her choosing. She found two shelters Huralnik drifted in and out of. At the second one she got tipped to an encampment where Huralnik slept when she was in the mood for not-so-fresh air and that led to two others.”

“Any of the places near Skaggs?”

“Four miles away, warehouse district, the jungle keeps expanding east. Several homeless told her the same thing: Huralnik would disappear for days, even weeks. One guy swore to seeing her in Santa Monica. So she coulda been anywhere when she got abducted.”

And yet, he sounded buoyant.

I said, “Doesn’t narrow it down much.”

“True but I’m taking a page from your optimism book: It doesn’t eliminate the area around Skaggs. Main reason I’m calling is something else they said about Huralnik. She could suddenly get hypersexual. That a symptom of schizophrenia?”

“It can be. What did she do?”

“Her thing was to approach someone in an encampment — male or female — and offer to trade money for sex. If she was refused, she’d pull down her pants and say let’s do it anyway. If the answer was still no, her reaction was unpredictable. Sometimes she’d walk away muttering but other times she’d turn aggressive — wheedling, insulting, even pushing and shoving. A few men called her ‘the grabber.’ As in reaching for what one guy called ‘my manly manhood.’ ”

“The pose with Gurnsey,” I said.

“Art imitating life, Alex. Until now, the two of them being paired seemed like a sick joke. Now we know they had something in common.”

“Behavior and maybe motive: payback for coming on too strong.”

“O great mystic mind reader.”

“That would mean Gurnsey and Huralnik hit on the same person.”

“Why not? With Gurnsey it coulda been a bona fide date, with Huralnik just some crazy thing that happened on the street.”

“She groped the wrong person,” I said. “So how does Benny figure in?”

“What, I’m supposed to know everything? My question to you is, would someone overreacting like that have a history of being abused?”

“It’s certainly possible.”

“Could you spring for ‘likely’?”

“You know what I’m going to say.”

“Yeah, yeah, insufficient data. But it’s not unlikely.”

I laughed.

He said, “I’ll choose to take that as an endorsement. You have a nice weekend planned?”

“Nothing on the calendar.”

“Enjoy. No reason to watch me toss Vollmann and McGann’s place. Probably won’t learn a damn thing, ’cause no one writes anything down anymore. I’m lucky, one of them will have a laptop they didn’t pack. I’m not, it’s back to the phone companies.”

“You need me, let me know.”

“You’re the top of my call list.”

Nothing from him until Sunday at six p.m.

“Finally got into Marcella and Steve’s apartment. No laptop but miracle of miracles, one of them did write down their flight info and magnet it to the refrigerator. Sunday morning, like Coolidge’s pathologist guessed. Called the airline and verified. No cancellation, just a no-show. So Coolidge is probably right: waylaid on the way to LAX.”

I said, “How early Sunday morning?”

“Seven forty-five.”

“They’d have to leave while it was still dark and the streets were relatively deserted. Perfect for running them off the road or some other type of blitz.”

He said, “The time frame also fits: Benny goes missing on Friday, McGann, by herself or with Vollmann, goes looking for him that day or Saturday, by early Sunday she’s history. But what bothers me is if she learned something, she didn’t report it.”

“Maybe she didn’t realize she’d learned anything, just had the bad luck to ask the wrong person the wrong question. Someone capable of the limo slaughter wouldn’t balk at taking out insurance. The question is, Where would McGann go searching? My guess is somewhere between the facility and the art gallery. Maybe the gallery, itself.”

“Benny did get to work,” he said. “He just never left alive... Jesus... hold on.”

A minute passed.

He said, “Called Verlang, a woman answered, so they’re finally open. You have time for a little culture?”