“Well, there was a rug dealer in Santa Monica who told me he had heard rumors about a three-by-five Kerman that had been stolen. I have no idea where he heard them.”
“There could be a number of sources. My husband has been asking several dealers we know if they have seen it. And, of course, many of my friends know about the loss.”
“Isn’t it possible they might inform the police?”
“Not if they want to remain my friends. And the dealers, too, have been warned. If Janice has been seen on the Santa Monica beach, the rug could also be in the area. I think that is where you should concentrate your search.”
It was warm and the weatherman had promised us sunshine for tomorrow. Cheryl and I could spend a day on the beach at Mrs. Bishop’s expense.
“I agree with you completely,” I said.
I phoned her apartment and Cheryl was there. I asked her if she’d like to spend a day on the beach with me tomorrow.
“I’d love it!”
I told her about the groceries I had bought and asked if she’d like to come and I’d cook a dinner for us tonight.
“Petroff, I can’t! We’re going to the symphony concert at the pavilion tonight.”
“Who is we?”
“My roommates and I. Who else? Would you like to interrogate one of them?”
“Of course not! Save the program for me so I can see what I missed.”
“I sure as hell will, you suspicious bastard. What time tomorrow?”
“Around ten.”
“I’ll be waiting.”
I made myself a martini before dinner and then grilled a big T-bone steak and had it with frozen creamed asparagus and shoestring potatoes (heated, natch) and finished it off with lemon sherbet and coffee.
I had left Invisible Man in the car. I reread my favorite novel, The Great Gatsby, after dinner, along with a few ounces of brandy.
And then to my lonely bed. All the characters I had met since Wednesday afternoon kept running through my mind. All the chasing I had done had netted me nothing of substance. Credit investigations were so much cleaner and easier. But, like my Uncle Vartan, I had never felt comfortable working under a boss.
Cheryl was waiting outside her apartment building next morning when I pulled up a little after ten. She climbed into the car and handed me a program.
“Put it away,” I said. “I was only kidding last night.”
“Like hell you were!” She put it in the glove compartment. “And how was your evening?”
“Lonely. I talked with the man Denton’s friend saw with Janice on the beach. She told him she had come down from Oxnard. He gave her the bus fare to go back.”
“To Oxnard? Why would anybody want to go back to Oxnard?”
“She claimed she lived there. Don’t ask me why.”
“Maybe the man lied.”
“Why would he?”
“Either he lied or she lied. It’s fifty-fifty, isn’t it?”
“Cheryl, he had no reason to lie. He told me the whole story and he has helped other kids to go home again. He gave me his name and address. Mrs. Bishop told me yesterday afternoon that Janice was—she called her an adept liar.”
“And she is a creep, according to Les. Maybe Janice had reason to lie to the old bag.”
“A creep she is. A bag she ain’t. Tell me, what are you wearing under that simple but undoubtedly expensive charcoal denim dress?”
“My swimsuit, of course. Don’t get horny. It’s too early in the day for that.”
It was, unfortunately, a great day for the beach; the place was jammed. They flood in from the San Fernando Valley and Hollywood and Culver City and greater Los Angeles on the warm days. Very few of them come from Beverly Hills. Most of those people have their own private swimming pools. Maybe all of them.
We laughed and splashed and swam and built a sand castle, back to the days of our adolescence. We forgot for a while the missing Janice Bishop and the antique Kerman.
After the fun part we walked from end to end on the beach, scanning the crowd, earning my pay, hoping to find the girl.
No luck.
Cheryl said, “I’ll make you that dinner tonight, if you want me to.”
“I want you to.”
“We may as well go right to your place,” she said. “You can drop me off at the apartment tomorrow when you go to the weekly meeting of the clan. It won’t be out of your way.”
“Sound thinking,” I agreed.
What she made for us was a soufflé, an entree soufflé, not a dessert soufflé. But it was light enough to rest easily on top of the garbage we had consumed at the beach.
The garbage on the tube, we both agreed, would demean our day. We went to bed early.
The overcast was back in the morning, almost a fog. We ate a hearty breakfast to replace the energy we had lost in the night.
I dropped her off at her apartment a little after one o’clock, and was the first to arrive at my parents’ house. Adele was the second. She had brought her friend with her, Salvatore Martino, known in the trade as Ronnie Egan.
It was possible, I reasoned, that I could be as wrong about him as Mrs. Whitney Bishop had been about Leslie Denton. I suggested to him that we take a couple of beers out to the patio while my mother and Adele fussed around in the kitchen.
We yacked about this and that, mostly sports, and then he said, “I saw three of your amateur fights and both your pro fights. How come you quit after that?”
“If you saw my pro fights, you should understand why.”
“Jesus, man, you were way overmatched! You were jobbed. I’ll bet Sam made a bundle on both of those fights.”
Sam Batisto had been my manager. I said, “I’m not following you. You mean you think Sam is a crook?”
He nodded. “And a double-crossing sleazeball. Hell, he’s got Mafia cousins. He’d sell out his mother if the price was right.”
That son of a bitch …
“Well, what the hell,” he went on, “maybe the bastard did you a favor. That’s a nasty, ugly game, and people are beginning to realize it. Have you noticed how many big bouts are staged in Vegas?”
“I’ve noticed.” I changed the subject. “How did you make out with the commercial?”
“Great! My agent worked Adele into it. And the producer promised both of us more work. We’re going to make it, Adele and I. But we can’t get married until we do. You understand that, don’t you?”
“Very well,” I assured him. “Welcome to the clan.”
My mother had gone Armenian this Sunday, chicken and pilaf. One of Sarkis’s boys hadn’t been able to attend; Salvatore took his place at the poker session.
That was a red-letter day! Salvatore was the big winner. And for the first time in history Mom was the big loser. I would like to say she took it graciously, but she didn’t. We are a competitive clan.
“Nice guy,” I said, when Adele and he had left.
She sniffed. “When he marries Adele, then he might be a nice guy.”
“He told me they’re going to get married as soon as they can afford to.”
“We’ll see,” she said. “He could be another Vartan.”
The day had stayed misty; the traffic on Sunset Boulevard was slow. I dawdled along, thinking back on the past few days, trying to find the key to the puzzle of the missing girl and the stolen Kerman. The key was the key; who had the key to the house and why had only the rug been stolen?
One thing was certain, the burglar knew the value of antique Oriental rugs. But how would he know that particular rug was in the home of Whitney Bishop?
It was a restless night, filled with dreams I don’t remember now. I tossed and turned and went to the toilet twice. A little after six o’clock I realized sleep was out of the question. I put the coffee on to perc and went down the steps to pick up the morning Times.