When the receptionist was gone, he smiled at us. “Temp,” he said. “My girl’s out on maternity leave. I’m Marty Otis. How can I help you ladies?”
I didn’t have to look at Joey to know her reaction to “my girl” and “you ladies,” but Marty seemed oblivious, so I went through my “worried about Annika” spiel. Marty gestured toward a desk across the room. We moved our folding chairs to it. Marty took a seat and smiled some more. “Let me start by telling you a little about us. We’re a licensed agency participating in a cultural exchange program established by the Department of State in 1986. Young people from around the world come to live with host families in America, to provide child care and further their education. By the way, which of you is with the L.A. Times?”
I started to speak, but Joey jumped in. “We work together.”
“Marty,” I said, “we’re wondering if you’ve filed a police report on Annika.”
He leaned back, folding his hands. “Let’s put this in context, shall we?”
“So that’s a no?” I asked.
“You need to understand teenage girls. Off the record? Opportunists. They come here with some kind of work ethic, because that’s how it is for them back home. Then they see their American counterparts, and in three months, they’re as reliable as rock stars.”
“They don’t come from Mars,” I said. “It’s not like there’s no sex, drugs, rock and roll in Europe.”
Marty shook his head. “These are working-class types, slated for factory jobs until they get married and produce kids of their own. They’re from backwater towns. If they were more sophisticated, they’d be in college, not coming to change diapers for minimum wage.”
“What’s that got to do with-” I said, but he cut me off, sitting forward.
“What do you think happens when these sheltered young things get turned loose in L.A.?”
“I imagine that depends on the sheltered young thing in question.”
“Right. Type One gets homesick, fat, runs up the phone bill. Type Two? She gets drunk, she gets a tattoo, she gets knocked up. That’s the type to take off and leave us holding the bag, finding a replacement for the host family.”
“And what if Annika wasn’t a One or a Two?” I said. “Have you met her?”
“I don’t have to.” He patted a stack of documents. “We’ve had complaints. Discrepancies on her application, for starters. Go to the police? Police aren’t going to care about some German girl skipping out on her job a month early.”
I had an urge to reach out and grab the papers off his desk. “Can I see the application?”
“Our files are confidential.”
“Isn’t that handy?” Joey said. She’d been leaning so far back in her folding chair, I worried she’d tip over. Now she straightened up, the front of her chair hitting the floor sharply. She smiled. “Smart guy, Marty. Why search for a girl who could turn up dead, which would be bad for business, when with no effort she can stay missing and no one will care?”
Marty walked to the door and held it open. “Excuse me, ladies. I have work to do.”
“Nice business license.” I went to inspect the document on the wall behind his desk. “Cheap frame. Is this something you’re fond of? Because I wouldn’t take it for granted.”
Marty left his post at the doorway to join me behind the desk, perhaps feeling he’d made a tactical error in leaving it. He was shorter than me, and there was a subtle smell emanating from his shirt, the kind that comes from ironing clothes that aren’t quite clean, trying to get another day’s wear out of them.
“Get out of here,” he said. “This is private property and you’re trespassing.”
“Okay,” I said. “Call 911.”
Joey strolled to Marty’s other side, so that he was now pinned between desk and wall, Joey and me. “Go for it, Marty. Tell them you’re being menaced by two tall girls.” Joey was tall, and as menacing as a stalk of celery. Still, Marty could not physically remove us without resorting to violence and considerable loss of dignity.
“You media people are sick,” he said. “What do you want from me?”
“What’s the discrepancy on her application you referred to?” I said.
“This isn’t for publication. I’m not giving you permission to print this.”
“I guarantee it won’t make it into print.”
“There was an incident with the police back in Germany that she didn’t tell us about.”
“What kind of incident?”
“All I know is, she lied about it. You want specifics, ask the German police.”
“Marty,” Joey said. “We came to San Pedro. That’s our limit. Why not just tell us?”
“I’m telling you. There’s a police report on her. Unspecified.”
“How’d you find out about it?” I asked.
“I got a phone call, I don’t know who from. They said, Take a closer look at her application. I put in a call overseas, and sure enough, they got something on her.”
“But it could be something minor?” I said. “Unpaid parking tickets?”
“Doesn’t matter. Any run-in with the law is a no-no. She lied about it, that’s fraud, that gets her deported.”
“So you were getting ready to deport her?” I asked.
I saw his mind working, trying to figure out which answer would sound best. “We were considering our options.”
“Let me get this straight,” I said. “Annika had a police record, but you didn’t bother to find out what it was, or tell her host family?”
A mulish look came over his face. “We had the matter under investigation. Things of this nature take time.”
“Yes, we can certainly see how swamped you are,” Joey said.
“Go to hell.”
We’d pushed him into a corner. I took a conciliatory tone. “What else? You said there were complaints, plural.”
“I don’t have another word to say to any goddamn reporters,” he said. “And I’m calling the Times.”
I smiled. “Oh, did you think we work for the L.A. Times? I’m sorry, you misunderstood. We read the L.A. Times. Joey even subscribes. Me too, but only on Sundays.”
“Sometimes we write letters to the editor,” Joey added.
Marty turned red, then pushed past me with some force and marched over to the receptionist’s station. “Get out.”
“Gladly,” I said, moving to the door. “By the way, Annika is not fat, drunk, stupid, lazy, irresponsible, or blinded by the American way of life. Happy Thanksgiving.”
“Bye, Marty,” Joey said. “Enjoy the job while you have it.” She joined me out in the sunshine and aimed her keys at the BMW, which beeped in response. “Just when you think a used car salesman is as bad as it’s going to get,” she said, “you meet Marty. Where to now?”
“Where nobody else wants to go,” I said. “To the cops.”
6
The West Valley Community Police Station was on Vanowen Street just west of Wilbur, in a neighborhood that hadn’t changed its socks since the 1950s. Cramped bungalows occupied tiny lots, tract houses in need of paint jobs, the kind I might one day afford. Yards were area rugs of patchy grass, a far cry from the lawns of the Quinn estate in Encino. Probably the only thing these people had in common with the Quinns, in fact, was this branch of the LAPD.
If I hadn’t been obsessed heading to San Pedro, I was edging toward it now. The encounter with Marty Otis had intrigued Joey, but it disturbed me; I hoped that laying it out for the police would quiet my anxiety.