It was Cheryl, my current love, back from San Francisco, where she had gone to visit her mother.
“Welcome home!” I said. “How did you know I moved?”
“Adele told me. Are those lahmajoons I smell?”
I nodded. She came over to kiss me. She looked around the office, went through the open doorway, and inspected the apartment.
When she came back, she said, “And now we have this. Now we won’t have to worry if your roommates are home, or mine. Do you think I should move in?”
“We’ll see. What’s in the brown bag?”
“Potato salad, a jar of big black olives, and two avocados.”
“Welcome home again. You can make the coffee.”
Over our meal I told her about my day, my lucky opening day in this high-priced town. I mentioned no names, only places.
It sounded like a classic British locked-room mystery, she thought and said. She is an addict of the genre.
“Except for the guy in Westwood,” I pointed out. “Maybe one of his friends stole the rug.”
Westwood was where she shared an apartment with two friends. “Does he have a name?” she asked.
I explained to her that that would be privileged information.
“I was planning to stay the night,” she said, “until now.”
“His name is Leslie Denton.”
“Les Denton?” She shook her head. “Not in a zillion years! He is integrity incarnate.”
“You’re thinking of your idol, Len Deighton,” I said.
“I am not! Les took the same night-school class that I did in restaurant management. We got to be very good friends. He works as a busboy at La Dolce Vita.”
“I know. Were you vertical or horizontal friends?”
“Don’t be vulgar, Petroff. Les is not heterosexual.”
“Aren’t you glad I am?”
“Not at the moment.”
“Let’s have some more wine,” I suggested.
At nine o’clock she went down to her car to get her luggage. When she came back, she asked, “Are you tired?”
“Nope.”
“Neither am I,” she said. “Let’s go to bed.”
I was deep in a dream involving my high school sweetheart when the phone rang in my office. My bedside clock informed me that it was seven o’clock. The voice on the phone informed me that I was a lying bastard.
“Who is speaking, please?” I asked.
“Les Denton. Mr. Randisi at the restaurant gave me your phone number. You told me you were a friend of Howard Retzenbaum’s. Mr. Randisi told me you were a stinking private eye. You’re working for the Bishops, aren’t you?”
“Leslie,” I said calmly, “I have a very good friend of yours who is here in the office right now. She will assure you that I am not a lying bastard and do not stink. I have to be devious at times. It is a requisite of my trade.”
“What’s her name?”
“Cheryl Pushkin. Hold the line. I’ll put her on.”
Cheryl was sitting up in bed. I told her Denton wanted to talk to her.
“Why? Who told him I was here?”
“I did. He wants a character reference.”
“What?”
“Go!” I said. “And don’t hang up when you’re finished. I want to talk with him.”
I was half dressed when she came back to tell me she had calmed him down and he would talk to me now.
I told him it was true that I was working for Mrs. Bishop. I added that getting her rug back was a minor concern to me; finding her daughter was my major concern and should be his, too. I told him I would be grateful for any help he could give me on this chivalrous quest.
“I shouldn’t have gone off half-cocked,” he admitted. “I have some friends who know Janice. I’ll ask around.”
“Thank you.”
Cheryl was in the shower when I hung up. I started the coffee and went down the steps to pick up the Times at my front door.
A few minutes after I came back, she was in her robe, studying the contents of my fridge. “Only two eggs in here,” she said, “and two strips of bacon.”
“There are some frozen waffles in the freezer compartment.”
“You can have those. I’ll have bacon and eggs.” I didn’t argue.
“You were moaning just before the phone rang,” she said. “You were moaning, ‘Norah, Norah.’ Who is Norah?”
“A dog I had when I was a kid. She was killed by a car.”
She turned to stare at me doubtfully, but made no comment. Both her parents are Russian, a suspicious breed. Her father lived in San Diego, her mother in San Francisco, what they had called a trial separation. I suspected it was messing-around time in both cities.
She had decided in the night, she told me, to reside in Westwood for a while. I had the feeling she doubted my fidelity. She had suggested at one time that I could be a younger clone of Uncle Vartan.
She left and I sat. I had promised Mrs. Bishop that I would “get right on it.” Where would I start? The three kids I had not questioned yesterday were now in school. And there was very little likelihood that they would have any useful information on the present whereabouts of Janice Bishop. Leslie Denton was my last best hope.
I took the Times and a cup of coffee out to the office and sat at my desk. Terrible Tony Tuscani, I read in the sports page, had out-pointed Mike (the Hammer) Mulligan in a ten-round windup last night in Las Vegas. The writer thought Tony was a cinch to cop the middleweight crown. In my fifth amateur fight I had kayoed Tony halfway through the third round. Was I in the wrong trade?
And then the thought came to me that an antique Kerman was not the level of stolen merchandise one would take to an ordinary fence. A burglar sophisticated enough to outfox a complicated alarm system should certainly know that. He would need to find a buyer who knew about Oriental rugs.
Uncle Vartan was on the phone when I went down. When he had finished talking I voiced the thought I’d had upstairs.
“It makes sense,” he agreed. “So?”
“I thought, being in the trade, you might know of one.”
“I do,” he said. “Ismet Bey. He has a small shop in Santa Monica. He deals mostly in imitation Orientals and badly worn antiques. I have reason to know he has occasionally bought stolen rugs.”
“Why don’t you phone him,” I suggested, “and tell him you have a customer who is looking for a three-by-five Kerman?”
His face stiffened. “You are asking me to talk to a Turk?”
I said lamely, “I didn’t know he was a Turk.”
“You know now,” he said stiffly. “If you decide to phone him, use a different last name.”
I looked him up in the phone book and called. A woman answered. I asked for Ismet. She told me he was not in at the moment and might not be in until this afternoon. She identified herself as his wife and asked if she could be of help.
“I certainly hope so,” I said. “My wife and I have been scouring the town for an antique Kerman. We have been unsuccessful so far. Is it possible you have one?”
“We haven’t,” she said. “But I am surprised to learn you haven’t found one. There must be a number of stores that have at least one in stock. The better stores, I mean, of course.”
An honest woman married to a crooked Turk. I said, “Not a three-by-five. We want it for the front hall.”
“That might be more difficult,” she said. “But Mr.—”
“Stein,” I said. “Peter Stein.”
“Mr. Stein,” she continued, “my husband has quite often found hard-to-find rugs. Do you live in Santa Monica?”
“In Beverly Hills.” I gave her my phone number. “If I’m not here, please leave a message on my answering machine.”
“We will. I’ll tell my husband as soon as he gets here. If you should find what you’re looking for in the meantime—”