“Did he do that to Helen?”
“Nah, she never went in for that. Christ knows he tried, but she wouldn’t have it. She was only in the game for the drugs, anyway. Half the photographers provide it for free to any model who wants it. I never did, but that Helen was a goddamn Hoover.”
“Why’d he ditch her? Because she wouldn’t do the porn stuff?”
“That’s part of it. That, and she was just too fucked up all the time. Meaner than hell, too.”
I chuckled softly, and she read my mind.
“You think I’ve got an attitude?” she asked me. “You definitely haven’t met Helen Bryan.”
“Maybe not the real her, no,” I said, and remembered the page I’d taken from Ray’s book. I pulled it out and flattened it on the table. Louise snatched it up and scrutinized it.
“Yeah, she don’t live in Glendale anymore. Good thing you ran into me.”
“You know where she lives?”
“I was at her place a few weeks ago. Her and that gorilla she lives with.”
“Well, that cinches it,” I said, killing off the coffee and making a face appropriate to the flavor or lack thereof. “I’m going tonight. Would you write the address down for me?”
“Don’t remember it. But I can get you there.”
I stalled. Riding around with a pyromaniac I didn’t know from Eve wasn’t my first choice for the evening’s festivities. I signaled for the check.
“Well?” Louise prompted me, planting her palms on the table.
I sighed — inwardly.
“All right,” I relented. “Let’s go find her.”
The building was right in the heart of Hollywood, right off La Brea between Hollywood and Sunset, spitting distance from Hollywood High. I parked Graham’s rental car underneath a towering palm on the street and walked up to the front of the ugly structure with Louise in my wake.
“This is where you went?” I asked.
“About two and a half weeks ago, yeah.”
I advanced to the door, which was locked. Beside it an intercom was mounted with two rows of names on handwritten slips. BRYAN was 6C. I pressed the button, and it buzzed obnoxiously. There was no answer, and I didn’t really expect one.
“What now, chief?” Louise piped up. “You gonna bust in like you did at Ray’s?”
I groaned and said, “Yep.”
She grinned. I mashed the buttons, as many as I could. When at last someone answered with a drowsy, “Yeah?” I muttered something about a pizza in a goofy fake accent.
The door buzzed and unlocked. I pulled it open and gestured for Louise to go ahead of me.
“What a fucking gentleman,” she commented.
“You’re fucking welcome,” I said. When in Rome.
We rode the elevator up to the sixth floor. The floors were bare up there, the carpet stripped off, probably awaiting replacement. The concrete was webbed with deep cracks, terrifying remnants of the Northridge quake in ’94. I was still feeling the tremors when I moved out there a few years later. I never got used to them.
“6C,” Louise reminded me. I nodded and we made our way down to the end of the hall where it turned right and kept going. The next length brought us to the door in question, a big green door with no peephole or bell. Louise rose her fist to knock but I held her wrist before she could.
“Element of surprise?” I suggested.
She shot me a bemused look. I didn’t blame her.
I knocked. The surprise was on me when the door actually opened.
Now I faced a rotund Mexican whose belly bulged over his belt buckle. He regarded me with indifferent eyes and clutched a spackle knife with a sticky white dollop clinging to it. Behind him, every light was on and the place was a shambles. Cardboard boxes were stacked everywhere, half of them overflowing with all manner of junk. Another man was painting a wall opposite the one I supposed the first guy was working on, judging by all the holes that needed fixing.
He said, “Wrong place, man. Nobody lives here now.”
“Looks like somebody’s still moving out,” I said, pointing to the boxes.
“Left behind. They split. You want to look at the place, it’ll be ready Monday. Make an appointment.”
He started to close the door, but I pressed into the crack.
“Hold up a minute,” I said. “I know the people used to live here. I’m trying to get in touch with them.”
“Really not my problem, hermano,” he said. “Unless you’re a cop with a warrant, I can’t you let you in here.”
“That’s just the issue,” Louise suddenly added, stepping up to the plate. “The woman who lived here is my sister, and she’s missing. The cops don’t even care, sir. They’re barely looking, and I’m scared to death for her.”
I had to admit I was impressed — not just with her quick thinking, but by her ability to say twenty-five words in a row and none of them “fuck.” I didn’t think she was up for it.
“Mierda,” the workman sighed. “That’s rough, lady.”
“Please,” she begged, “just let us have a quick look around. Anything to help us find her and make sure she’s safe.”
The man screwed up his mouth and glanced back at his partner, who seemed oblivious to our presence. When he returned his gaze to Louise, he groaned out a long breath and nodded his head.
“Okay,” he said. “Be quick though, eh? I’m really not supposed to let people up in here.”
“Lickety-split,” said Louise.
He went back to spackling across from his buddy the painter, and I went first into the big bedroom with Louise. One of the guys switched on a radio playing Tejano, all trumpets and accordions and strident Spanish voices in harmony. We stood in the middle of the room and surveyed the task in front of us. It was Mrs. Sommer’s storage unit all over again, a comparison that made the hair prick up on my neck when I recalled what had become of Mrs. Sommer.
“So we’re looking for a cokehead with a fidelity problem,” Louise said, her hands on her hips. “Most addicts I know keep their connections tighter than a fucking drum, but our girl doesn’t seem the type to much care what happens to anybody else, am I right?”
“I thought you knew her better than me,” I said.
“I don’t think anybody knows Helen as much as they might like to,” she said. “Least of all Helen her own damn self.”
“So, what — we’re looking for another black book, like Ray’s?”
“Maybe,” she said, unconvinced. “Seems like it depends on whether she left in a hurry, or of her own free will. That would make the difference in what she left behind.”
“You’re good,” I said. She winked, sardonically, and dug into one of two dozen boxes scattered around the cluttered room. I followed her lead and opened one of my own. Louise found stuffed animals and trinkets; I came upon an unorganized mountain of old photos. Graham was in a lot of them.
“That your buddy?” Louise asked over my shoulder.
“Yeah. He’s in the hospital right now, out cold. Shot in the head and Helen knows something about it.”
“Jesus Christ, Jake,” she said.
“It’s a doozy of a story,” I said.
She stood up, looked me over like a sideshow freak for a moment, then sniffed.
“Why don’t you tell it while we look through this shit? I’d like to know how deep I’m getting into this fuckup of yours.”
We kept on through the boxes and I told it, all of it, from meeting up with Graham at Bukowski’s in Boston to nearly getting barbequed in a low-rent pornographer’s office by Louise herself. By then we’d found piles of clothes, dog-eared fantasy paperbacks, a trunk full of tame sex toys, a shoe box packed tight with sales receipts, none of which post-dated Boston. The woman was a packrat, but we weren’t any closer to our goal.