‘Sure.’
He waited until she had closed the door behind her. He counted to five, slowly. Then he reached under the couch and pulled out his light tan deck shoes. He picked up his blue linen coat, grabbed his cellphone, and went to the door. He opened it quickly but very quietly, and listened. No footsteps on the stairs; no elevator whining. She must have left the hotel by now.
He hurried down the staircase to the lobby. He was just in time to see Astrid outside in the street, climbing into a red and green taxi. He leaned back against the wall, half-concealed by a bushy fig plant, until the taxi had pulled away. The receptionist raised an eyebrow at him but didn’t say anything. As soon as the taxi had disappeared, he pushed his way out through the revolving doors. His own car was parked only fifty feet up the hill, its front wheels cramped against the curb. He climbed into it, started the engine, and backed it into the front bumper of the Jeep parked behind him.
Astrid’s taxi took a left on Holloway Drive, and then a tight right on to Santa Monica. Frank had to wait at the intersection with Santa Monica, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel, while a long, dawdling procession of traffic crawled past. But by weaving in and out of the west-bound traffic he caught up with the taxi by the time it reached Rodeo Drive. He could see Astrid’s head in the rear window, and he prayed that she wouldn’t turn around.
Eventually the taxi took a left into the Avenue of the Stars, and then another right, and pulled into the semicircular parking space in front of the Star-TV building, which was new and gleaming-white, built in an S-shaped wave, with a huge revolving star on the roof, made of dazzling steel. Its windows were all tinted black, and its staff called it the ‘Limo.’
Frank drew into the curb behind a UPS delivery truck and watched as Astrid climbed out of the taxi. She crossed the white marble sidewalk and disappeared into the Limo’s black-tinted revolving doors.
Frank hesitated for a moment, then got out of his car and followed her. There was a chance that she was still in the lobby, waiting for somebody to meet her, or waiting for an elevator, but he would just have to risk it. He pushed his way inside and was instantly met by a penetrating air-conditioned chill. The lobby was clad in white polished marble, three stories high, with water cascading down one wall and a galaxy of stars suspended from the ceiling.
There were black leather couches for visitors, but there was nobody sitting on them except for two scruffy-looking designers with large art portfolios. The elevator bank was off to the left, but the only people waiting to go up were a UPS messenger and a plump secretary with a bag of doughnuts and a cup of Starbucks coffee.
Frank was immediately approached by two security guards in sky-blue uniforms. One was black and looked like Yaphet Kotto’s fatter brother. The other was white and thin and blue-chinned, with close-together eyes.
‘Do you have an appointment, sir?’
‘Uh, yes, as a matter of fact. A friend of mine said that I was to meet her here.’
‘Would you like to give me your friend’s name, sir?’ said one of the guards, lifting up a clipboard.
‘Um, Polaski. Libby Polaski.’
The security guard ran his pen down the list. ‘Sorry, sir. No Polaski listed here. Can you tell which department she works in?’
‘News. She’s an editorial assistant. She’s only been working here a few weeks. That’s what she told me, anyhow.’
The guard flipped over to another page and glared at it as if he were trying to set it on fire with X-ray vision. Eventually he announced, ‘No Polaski in the news department, sir.’
‘Oh. Well, it looks like I’ve been taken for a chump, doesn’t it? She gave me this whole spiel about her glamorous new career in television news.’
The security guards were not amused. ‘I’m sorry, sir, we’re going to have to ask you to leave the premises immediately.’
‘Sure. I understand. What with all these bombs going off.’
‘We’d appreciate if you didn’t mention anything like that, sir.’
‘OK, sure. Sorry. Sorry to have caused you any trouble.’
Frank left the building and walked back to his car. A motorcycle cop was standing beside it, writing in his notebook.
‘This your vehicle, sir?’
‘Yes, it is. I’m sorry. I had to pick something up from Star-TV.’
‘You had to pick what up?’
‘Well, nothing, as it turns out. The person I was supposed to meet there didn’t show.’
‘What was the name of this person?’
‘Polaski. Libby Polaski.’
‘And what were you supposed to pick up?’
‘A DVD. I met her at a bar yesterday evening and she promised to lend me a DVD of Black Wednesday, the director’s cut. But she’s not listed as working at Star-TV, so it looks like I’ve been taken for a mug.’
The cop tucked his notebook into his pocket. ‘I’m going to have to agree with you, sir.’
‘Oh, yes?’
‘’Fraid so. You never heard the name Libby Polaski before? Libby Polaski is that little blonde girl in If Pigs Could Sing.’
Frank smacked the heel of his hand against his forehead. ‘Jesus! You’re right! Do I feel stupid or do I feel stupid?’
Sixteen
Frank was driving to see his sister, Carol, when his cellphone rang. It was Nevile.
‘I got your messages, Frank. I’m sorry, something came up and I had to go away for the weekend. How are you feeling now?’
‘I’m not sure. Baffled, I guess, more than anything else. Worried.’
‘Why don’t you come and see me? There’s some things that I need to tell you, before we go any further.’
‘OK. I’ll see you in fifteen minutes.’
It must have been the maid’s day off because the teenager in the splashy Hawaiian shirt opened the door for him with a grin like a cheap piano.
‘Sir, you are very, very welcome, señor.’
Nevile was waiting for him out on the deck, dressed in a charcoal-gray shirt and black pants, with black suspenders, like a priest. He looked pale and distracted and there were dark circles under his eyes.
‘Hello, Frank.’ He lifted a large cut-crystal tumbler of whiskey. ‘Can I get you a drink?’
‘A little early for me, thanks.’
Nevile drew out a chair and sat down. ‘I owe you an apology – vanishing off the face of the earth without telling you. I didn’t mean to leave you in the lurch. I had to go away for a couple of days and have a think, otherwise I wouldn’t have been any use to anybody, myself included.’
Frank said nothing, but waited for Nevile to explain himself.
‘The thing is, this business with Danny is a lot more complicated than it first appeared. I think it might be a lot more dangerous, too. Quite honestly, we might be better off if we called it a day.’
‘Just a minute. On Friday you were telling me that it was absolutely critical that we found out what it was that Danny was trying to tell me.’
‘That was on Friday.’
‘So it’s only Monday. What’s different?’
‘Well . . . after you left, I decided to try picking up some more psychic resonance from that truck seat that Lieutenant Chessman had given me. You know – the one from the Garry Sherman Show.’
‘Oh yes?’
‘I was in the right mood for it, after that séance. How can I describe it? My psychic antennae were still tingling.’
‘So what happened?’
Nevile swallowed whiskey and grimaced. ‘To begin with I got nothing more than the same flashes that I had seen before. A man shouting, and then a walk between some cypress trees. They still didn’t tell me anything coherent. Nothing that might account for a young man wanting to blow himself up.