Helga: again, that? with you, it’s always carnality.
Backer: got something better lol too bad it’s not with u.
Helga: from what I see you’ve got your hands full.
Backer: hands and other body parts. lol.
Helga: enough i don’t lol about stupidity.
Backer: meant to talk to you about that.
Helga: about what?
Backer: ur state of mind.
Helga: my mind is fine.
Backer: ur never
Helga: what’s to about?
Backer: hmmmm… how about big go-boom?
Helga: that? one small step.
Backer: for the elimination of mankind?
Helga: wish I believed in god.
Backer: why?
Helga: i could say god-willing.
Milo put the pile aside, squared the corners. “Creepy.”
I said, “There’s a flirtatious quality to it. Initiated by Backer, but she went along with it.”
“Guy never stopped trying. Guess his batting average proved it was a good strategy.”
“Except with Helga.”
“The one who got away,” he said. “She’s a cold one, Alex.”
“She’d contemplated becoming a nun. Maybe she’s one of those people with a low libido. Or she decided to suppress her urges.”
“Or she’s doing it with another guy and decided to be loyal.”
“Helga and Hoodie?” I said. “It’s possible, but I’ll bet sex is low priority for her.”
He smiled. “I could tell you about nuns.”
“The joys of parochial school?”
“Some of them were angels, greatest women I ever met. A few were monsters, about as warm and cuddly as Helga. Can you imagine her with a metal-edged ruler? Guess she found her own religion. First commandment: Lose the hair.”
“In a lot of cultures, hair’s a symbol of sensuality. Fundamentalists tend to cover their women and keep their own hair short. Buddhist monks shave their heads. It’s all about pruning vanity and focusing on nirvana.”
“Sista Skinhead aiming for a no-people nirvana. She finds common ground with Mr. Happy-face horndog. Poor fool had no idea Helga was using him.”
He flicked the transcripts. “I think I finally get Backer doing Doreen at Borodi. There never was any distinction between business and pleasure, for ol’ Des it was all about fun.” Shaking his head. “In flagrante destructo.”
He locked up, we took the stairs down, passed the clerk out front, and were at the door when a shout brought us to a halt.
The clerk stood and brandished the phone. “Call for you, Lieutenant Sturgis.”
“Who?”
A hand clamped over the receiver. Near-whispered reply: “God, delivering the tablets from Mount Sinai.”
“That was Moses.”
“Whatever, here, take it.”
Milo accepted the phone. “Sturgis-evening, sir… Yes I did… Yes, he did… I see… Thank you, sir… I hope so, too, sir.”
He hung up. The clerk said, “Is he mad? He sounded mad when I told him you weren’t in your office.”
“He’s peachy.”
“Good, good, I’m hearing bad talk about budget cuts. I’m new and I really need this job.”
“I’ll put in a good word for you.”
The clerk brightened. “You could do that?”
“If the topic comes up.”
Leaving the man to puzzle that out, we left the station and stepped out into warm night air. Cruisers pulled in and out of the staff lot. A uniform stood near the fence, smoking and texting on his iPhone. A shabby-looking man stepped out of the bail-bond office half a block up and slouched toward Santa Monica. A woman walking her dog saw him and crossed the street. When she spied the badge clipped to Milo ’s jacket pocket, she relaxed.
Traffic hummed. The air smelled like hot tar.
Milo breathed in deeply, spread his arms wide. “I love when something finally happens.”
“Weinberg changed his mind?”
“Screw Weinberg, that was no chief with a small c.”
“His Holiness?”
“In all his celestial glory. Turns out he thinks putting Helga’s face on the news is a capital idea. As long as it ‘leads somewhere and you don’t end up making me look like a histrionically overreacting conspiracy-nut paranoid schizo loony-tune.’”
“Congratulations,” I said. “Now all you have to do is get that passport photo.”
“Already delivered to the networks,” he said.
“Palace guards move fast.”
“You bet,” he said, lighting up a cigar. “Miss Skinhead debuts at ten. Sports and weather to follow.”
CHAPTER 30
Robin and I watched the news in bed, Blanche wedged between us, dozing and alternating between snorts and squeaks, flicks of her left bat-ear.
The story was the final segment of a slow news day. Someone not looking for it might’ve missed it.
Twelve seconds total, half of that featuring a cloudy passport shot of a barely recognizable Helga Gemein with blunt-bangs black hair. No mention of nationality, terrorism, murder. Just a woman considered a “person of interest” in an arson case, anyone with information was requested to call Lieutenant Miller Sturgis at…
“Now on to tonight’s caught-in-the-act feature, with celebrity heiress Roma Sheraton found shopping for jeans on Robertson with no makeup and looking as if she just woke up on the wrong side of the bed! For more on that, here’s entertainment reporter Mara Stargood.”
I clicked off.
Robin said, “Miller Sturgis?”
“Even the chief has limitations.”
The phone rang.
I said, “She looked like Bettie Page.”
Milo said, “How’d you know it was me?”
“The ring tone was kind of weepy and the receiver sagged.”
“Ghost of Salvador Dalí. Yeah, it’ll probably come to nothing.”
But he was wrong.
By ten o’clock the following morning, fifty tips had come in. Only one was good, but who needed quantity when you had quality?
Hiram Kwok operated a secondhand furniture store on Western Avenue between Olympic and Pico. The hipper-than-thou, vintage-craving renaissance that had sparked La Brea ’s discount case-goods emporiums had eluded Western. Half the block’s storefronts were dark, shuttered, or blocked by accordion gates.