He came out of the shadows that draped the three covered spots at the other end of the lot and walked over to a late-model Taurus, apparently the ride of choice for bottom-feeder agents that preyed on would-be ingénues with stars in their eyes. I waited for another fifteen minutes after he drove away, watching the lot, the street, and the dark second-story window all at the same time. Satisfied that nobody was going to come around wanting to know what the hell I was doing, I got out of Graham’s rental and crossed over to where Ray had come out. I found the back door there, a dented steel rectangle with no handle. Exit only.
“Great,” I whispered to myself.
Of the three spots under the concrete awning, only the one closest to the door was vacant. The spot on the far right contained a late-model sedan and in the middle sat a tan Impala from around the time I was born. I took one look at the relic and decided the thing I loved most about cars from the seventies was their length — the monster was sticking out three feet, forming a perfect stairway to the top of the awning, which stopped right beside Ray Warren’s office window.
So I climbed. Maitland-Man, does whatever a Maitland can.
I was completely prepared to bash the window in, but I found it unlatched. All I had to do was push it up and sweep the blinds aside to crawl right in. I didn’t know if it was still considered a B & E if no actual B was involved, but I was counting on it. In my head I told Graham he’d damn well better appreciate the lengths I was going to here when he woke up. Maybe he could even bring me a cake with a file in it when they locked me up for this shit.
Instead of the overhead lights he had on when I was legally visiting, I switched on a little lamp on the desk for minimum illumination. I then sat down behind the desk and gave the monitor a glance when something even better caught my eye: Ray’s little black book.
“You marvelous Luddite,” I said.
If I was at all surprised by how gross his marginal notes in the book were, I was only barely surprised. There was no rhyme or reason to how the names were ordered, just pages and pages of them paired with pseudonyms, phone numbers, addresses, and emails; and every so often, a note to remind himself that he’d already bedded this one or that one. The old casting couch routine, a trick older than Hollywood itself. I cursed the scumbag and got to flipping pages, searching for Helen’s name. I was relieved when I found it and there was no corresponding note, though I don’t know why I cared. She’d already cheated on Graham twice that I knew of, so what difference would it make? I let it go and tore the page out.
And while I was folding it to stuff in my pocket, a key crunched into the lock in the door.
Shit.
I dropped into a crouch behind the desk, chiefly because I panicked and got stupid in a hurry. There was a perfectly good open window directly behind me, but it was too late to worry about it when the door opened and the ceiling lights flickered on. Through the slats on the other side of the desk I could see a pair of legs in black stockings pass by, the heels at the end of the pins click-clacking across the tiles. I wouldn’t have held it against Ray if that was his thing, but the legs were much too slender to belong to him. A tattoo of a rose encased in barbed wire peeked out through the nylon on her ankle. I watched it like it was an astronomical event and tried not to breathe.
Of course I had to suck in some air anyway, which I did as slowly and quietly as I could, and when I did, I was assaulted by the unmistakable odor of gasoline.
Double shit.
The legs crossed over to the far corner of the cramped office where the gas started to splash. The odor grew stronger and the woman started to grumble in a smoky voice.
“Son of a bitch — fuck you, Ray. Fuck you and fuck your fucking office.”
I decided then and there that I didn’t much want to be burned alive, so I leapt up to my feet and made for the window. The clatter of the blinds brought the woman out of her hateful reverie and she growled, “Hold it!”
I stopped and looked over my shoulder. She had a red gas can dangling from one hand and a pistol in the other. It was pointed at me.
She was a peroxide blonde with rockabilly curls, a gleaming stud in her lip, and drawn-on eyebrows. Her lips were a deep twilight purple and there were sleeves of tattoos on both of her arms. She was beautiful, in a crazy kind of way. She was also crying.
“Who the fuck are you?” she asked.
I said, “I was just leaving.”
“Stick around,” she said. “Watch the fucking fireworks.”
She sure had a mouth on her. I held on to the blinds, let the smoggy evening air from outside wash the gas smell out of my nostrils.
“Would you mind pointing that thing somewhere else?” I asked her. “I got no beef with you and guns make me nervous.”
I wasn’t lying. I hated the damn things.
She lowered the pistol and narrowed her eyes at me, obscuring the steel gray irises.
“I’m going to burn this place to the ground,” she said matter-of-factly. “You can do whatever the hell you want.”
With that, she returned the gun to her small handbag and resumed soaking the walls and furniture with gas. I started back out the window, but paused again. We were in an office building that housed a number of other suites in addition to Ray’s. There was no telling what — or who — this lady was going to destroy with her little revenge mission. I didn’t want to get involved, not after breaking and entering to steal information in the first place, but my conscience was nagging at me. Go figure.
“Listen,” I began, keeping an eye on that handbag. “I can see you want to give it to Ray, and that’s cool. But if you burn this place, you’re going to take out a bunch of others that don’t have anything to do with you or him. And that’s definitely not cool.”
“What’s it to you, asshole?”
Nice.
“Hey, if it was my office next door, I wouldn’t want you to obliterate my livelihood just because you’re pissed at some prick I didn’t even know.”
“You don’t even know what that fucker did to me.”
“I can guess.”
“He a friend of yours? Is that it?”
“No friend of mine. I’m just looking for somebody. He wasn’t keen to help, so I helped myself.”
“If you got what you need, go ahead and get the fuck out of here, then. You don’t want to be here when the place goes up.”
She sloshed some more gasoline around.
I said, “Tell you what — don’t strike that match. Come along with me, and tell me about it. Maybe I can help you, and I think maybe you help me back. Symbiotic, like.”
“Why the hell should I help you?” she barked.
“Quid pro quo.”
“Talk English.”
“I scratch your back, you scratch mine. I’m not a creep like Ray, I’m just trying to help a friend in need here.”
“What friend?”
“You don’t know him.”
“Then how the fuck could I help?”
“You might know his ex-wife. I’m looking for her.”
“Why?”
“She’s missing. He’s been shot in the head. There’s some shit going down.”
“Sounds like something I really want to get mixed up with.”
“I don’t want to mix you up in anything. I just want you to stop what you’re doing and tell me if you know anything about Helen Bryan.”
“Holy fuckballs,” she suddenly boomed. “Helen’s missing?”
She set the can down on the floor in a puddle of yellow gas.
20
Frank lived in a rooming house in the Valley that was raided on a Sunday. He wasn’t there, and all of his belongings were gone. Word spread quickly around the set on Monday morning, owing largely to how surprised everyone was that such a quiet, unassuming man like Frank not only had apparent underworld connections, but that he’d shot and killed someone. No one knew that Grace had witnessed the whole grisly spectacle, and she had no intention of putting that forward. She expressed as much shock as everyone else, while remaining largely aloof from anyone with an interest in discussing the matter.