“Thank you,” I said. “I can’t ask for anything more.”
She was still holding my card up as I turned to leave. “Maggie MacGowen,” she said, and glanced at the kids on the rug. “You said you’re making a film?”
“Yes.”
“Latchkey,” she said. “Are you that Maggie MacGowen?”
“I made Latchkey three years ago.” I moved closer to her, because she seemed very troubled. Close the physical space sometimes, you close off certain doubts.
“It’s so strange, you asking about LaShonda just now,” she said. “Is she in some sort of trouble?”
“LaShonda is a witness to trouble. In the beginning I only wanted to talk with her about the neighborhood she grew up in, but so much has happened that I’m concerned about her. I want to find out whether she’s all right.”
The librarian gave me a second visual interview, made her decision about me. “I suppose I’m being overly dramatic.” She tucked my card under the edge of a stack of books. “I’ve worked with the library system for many years. Sudden transfers just don’t happen. Odd. Very odd.”
“How does LaShonda explain it?” I asked.
“I haven’t spoken to her, and that’s odd, too. One of the other librarians said she heard from someone in personnel that the move was for LaShonda’s protection. Protection from what, I don’t know. If she was in trouble, she would talk it over with us; we’re very close here. I know that transfer instructions came down from someone in the county with more authority than a head librarian.”
Story time was over and two-dozen little kids in the six- to seven-year range surged up to the check-out counter with their arms full of precious books, clutching the bright covers against their damp tee shirts. They tried to use library voices, but their excitement bubbled through, charged the atmosphere. Truly, the library trip was a grand new adventure. As a group, they were clean, but just adequately dressed, thrift-shop patina on the sneakers. I wondered how many of them had books of their own at home.
The librarian had been watching the kids with the same sort of awe that must have been on my face. “Excuse me,” she said, rising from her desk. “More hands are needed.”
“Thanks for your time,” I said, and followed her as far as the counter.
As she opened book covers and fed them into the laser scanner, she said, “I’ll deliver your message.”
“That’s all I can ask,” I said.
“Miss MacGowen,” she called as I walked away. “If you hear from LaShonda first, ask her to call me.”
I left her surrounded. Librarians have a reputation for being meticulous with details. And with people. She was worried about LaShonda, and not because the transfer had not been according to standard procedure.
“Have a nice visit?” Guido asked, wiping sweat from his face as we got back into the car.
“A good visit. But damn, I’m still in a going-calling mood, little buddy. Guess we’ll have to drop in on someone else.”
“Like who? Like maybe a bar I know in Santa Monica Canyon? Watch the end of the ball game?”
“Better than that,” I said. “Old Jerry Kelsey’s retired. Bet he has the game on the tube.”
” ‘Splain this to me, Lucy.”
“Don’t you want another version of the girls’ story?”
“Absolutely not.”
“When Mike tried to call Jerry Kelsey, the D.A. or his campaign put a tail on him. I want to see what happens if we actually show up chez Jerry.”
“How well do you know this Kelsey guy?”
“I met him once,” I said. “Mike had to deliver some papers to him and I rode along. You’ll like him a lot-a real space cadet. He pensioned out on a psycho disability four or five years ago.”
“Psycho?”
“Stress-related.”
“Boy, am I relieved,” Guido groused as a matter of form. “Most mass murderers have stress-related problems.”
“Mike said he was a boozer.”
“Uh huh.” Guido slouched down in his seat and watched out his window, trying to seem annoyed, but I knew he was faking it. Guido is the nosiest person I have ever known. That’s part of what makes him so much fun to work with.
Jerry Kelsey lived in Palms, on the Westside, almost under the San Diego freeway. He had an arrangement with a construction company that gave him space to park his trailer in their equipment yard rent-free in exchange for keeping an eye on things. I’m sure it was a good arrangement all around. Rents on the Westside are high and ex-L.A. cops don’t come cheap as security guards.
I saw the construction lot below us, got off at the next off-ramp, and circled back down Sepulveda.
After he rear-ended us, George Schwartz had said that he followed Mike because he tried to get in touch with Jerry Kelsey. I drove past the trailer slowly, stopped briefly beside the gate, showing myself. When I didn’t attract any apparent notice, I pulled away from the drive, circled around the block through a neighborhood of small postwar apartment buildings.
During work hours, the neighborhood was very quiet, a few cars parked along the street, now and then someone walking along the sidewalk. Smog dulled the sky to a yellowed silver, made the air heavy, like a bowling alley after a tournament, curled the big leaves of the desiccated sycamore trees. Guido wasn’t complaining, but I knew he was as hot and uncomfortable as I was.
We didn’t pick up our tail until we made a second pass in front of Kelsey’s trailer.
I wondered when George Schwartz had made bail. And who had paid it.
I pulled into the equipment yard through the open gates. Schwartz, still driving the Toyota, front left fender still showing traces of Mike’s blue paint, drove past the gate, U-turned, and parked at the curb across the street. He made a point of being seen. He scared me, and I knew that was the point. I half-expected him to get out of his car, wouldn’t have been surprised by a confrontation. But he stayed put while Guido and I made our way across the hot gravel toward Kelsey’s double-wide.
“Look dangerous,” I said to Guido. “At least stand up straight.”
“We should have a camera.”
“That would put Kelsey off.” I patted my bag. “I have a recorder running.”
Jerry Kelsey opened the door before I could knock. He was tall, a thin-shouldered man with a paunch like a basketball under his polo shirt-a heavy drinker’s belly. He also had a serious case of what Casey called hair deniaclass="underline" a long swath of hair combed up from one side and plastered over his shiny bald pate. The thick lenses in his wire-rim bifocals gave him a vacant, owlish stare. My impression was, he wasn’t happy to have company.
“Jerry,” I said, offering my hand. “Maggie MacGowen. Remember me? Mike Flint’s friend. Nice to see you again. This is my associate, Guido Patrini.”
He said, “Mike?”
“Mike Flint?”
“Come in,” he said. When he turned around, I could see the lump made by the handgun tucked into his belt at the back. Guido saw it, too.
I turned just as I stepped into the cool gloom of the trailer, saw Schwartz drive away.
Kelsey was leaning out to hold the door open for me. “George Schwartz a friend of yours?” I asked.
“Who’d you say?”
“George Schwartz.”
“I thought you said Mike Flint.”
“I did. I just wondered whether you knew old George Schwartz. Works for the D.A.?”
Kelsey combed his skinny fingers through that long hank of stiffened hair, tugged on the far end of it, but apparently didn’t achieve enlightenment from the effort. He seemed merely impatient for me to get inside, out of the glare and reflected heat coming off the gravel. He touched the back of my shoulder to hurry me.
The trailer was bigger inside than it appeared from outside. A lot of room and very little furniture. Besides a big-screen television and a recliner chair, there were a card table, a few folding chairs, and an old upright piano. On the floor beside the chair was an untidy stack of dog-eared masturbation lit.