“Trust me,” Guido said. “How much time do I have?”
“None,” I said. “We need it now.”
“Let me call my friend and see if I can lure him back to campus.” Still bouncing on his springs, Guido went to the next room to use the telephone.
Mike was giving me a dark look. “You two were talking in some sort of code. What’s up?”
“Basically, the structure of this film project. More than that, though, it’s the whole question of what happened to Hillary.” I let out a breath and studied the grotesque parody of a face lying on its manila folder on the table. Then I turned to Mike.
“When I moved into my house,” I said, “there were ten layers of wallpaper on the kitchen walls. I was interested in seeing the old patterns, to get some idea what the kitchen used to look like, what I might try. I started stripping it. But every time I had cleared away a goodly patch and could almost get some effect, I would break through to the next layer, and the next. Each layer obscuring the others. So you know what I did?”
“Tell me.”
“I said fuck it. I rented a steamer and stripped the walls down to the plaster.”
“Seems consistent with the woman I know and love.” He smiled. “What is the point of this story?”
“This Hillary thing is like that, layers. Peel one away, find another.”
“Most police work is like that.” He waved a dismissive hand. “You never get the whole picture. You just hope for enough pieces so you can put the bad guys away.”
“We were set up, Mike.”
“How?”
“You said it last night when Randy was found. We were meant to find him. There are two overlapping layers here, two chronologies of events. The first is the chronology of discovery: Hillary is found first, then Randy. Then there is the chronology of death: first Randy, then Hillary.”
“Right. So?”
“So, it’s time to rent a steamer, Mike. Find the bare walls.”
“Where do you think you’ll find this steamer?”
“Hanna Ramsdale’s mother.”
He nodded with a sort of weary resignation. “I have to talk to her. She probably hasn’t been told her granddaughter is dead.”
“She should know. What were you waiting for?”
“Daylight, I guess. I hate bringing bad news to old ladies.” Guido came back just then.
“All set,” he said. “I’m meeting nerdo at the computer lab in fifteen minutes. It’s a twenty-minute drive, so I’m out of here. Maggie, how do I reach you?”
“Mike’s machine.”
“Mi casa es su casa. Stay here if you like. Bye.” He ran, or rather he sprang, out the front door and banged it behind him. “Shall we raid the refrigerator?” Mike said.
“Let’s get something on the way.”
“On the way to?”
“Pasadena. Isn’t that where Hanna’s mother is?”
CHAPTER 16
Somewhere between Highland Park and South Pasadena, Mike’s pager went off. He unclipped it from his belt and handed it to me.
“Can you read it?” he asked. If he put his reading glasses on, he wouldn’t be able to see beyond the hood of the car.
I had to wipe double-cheese Bingo Burger slime from my hands before I could take it. I punched the read-out button. “Your office,” I said.
He pulled off the freeway at the next exit and found a public telephone. I waited in the car.
Clouds had moved in off the ocean until the moon was only a glow above the dense canopy. The air was appreciably colder and damper than the bright day promised. I pulled my blazer close and snuggled down into the corner of my seat. “The Ride of the Valkyries” blasted from the radio.
I watched Mike’s straight back under the blue light from the telephone booth. He shifted from one leg to the other, agitated as he spoke. I felt uneasy. The dark, I guess, and Mike so exposed in the one well-lighted spot on the block of industrial warehouses surrounded by razor wire. He made a good target for anyone so inclined. For no reason perhaps other than habit, his free hand covered the semiautomatic pistol at his belt, fiddled with the release snaps on the holster. Maybe it was just something to hold on to.
I worry about Casey all the time. A sort of free-floating maternal anxiety based on nothing more concrete than a wild imagination and too much experience with the range of possibilities the big world offers.
I don’t know when it happened, but I realized I had started worrying about Mike, too. He’s bigger than I am, and a whole lot tougher. That had nothing to do with how I felt. I wanted him to duck out of the light, make himself less vulnerable. Standing there with his silver hair shining, he reminded me of Pisces under the moonlight. The night before she died.
Mike made a second call, argued with whoever answered at the other end. I unwound my arms and had just stepped out into the chill night air to be with him when he turned and motioned for me to come.
“What is it?” I asked, shivering.
“Some card calling himself John Smith says he needs to talk to you. Says you gave him my number. You want me to shine him on?”
“No.” I jogged over. “Honest to God, that’s his name. He’s the PI I told you Hillary hired.”
Dubious, Mike handed me the receiver.
“Mr. Smith?” I said.
“Is that the cop who’ll use me for target practice?” he asked.
“If you get out of line,” I said. “What’s up?”
“I earned a little of my retainer this evening, did some checking on the fortunes of George Metrano.”
“And?”
“And there is no fortune. He’s one step away from filing Chapter Eleven, bankruptcy.”
“The Bingo Burgers I saw looked like a booming concern,” I said.
“It is. Problem is, he blows it away faster than he rakes it in.”
“Blows as in blows it up his nose?”
“No, worse. His addiction is the craps tables in Vegas. He lost a bundle about four years ago and went into court-ordered reorganization that time, too. There were a couple of check-kiting charges in the mess. The judge gave him probation if he’d hitch his star to Gamblers Anonymous. Seems he’s been AWOL from meetings, though. He’s signed notes on everything he owns again to pay off the casinos. The family home is being foreclosed on.”
“Did you talk to him?” I asked.
“No. The little woman says he’s out. I don’t know if that means he’s out to creditors or he’s gone away.”
“Interesting. Very interesting. Anything else?”
“I’ll let you know.”
“Thank you, Mr. Smith,” I said. “You’re a gem.”
I closed the connection and pulled out my notebook.
“What did he say?” Mike asked as I punched in my credit card numbers and dialed the Metranos.
“George gambles big-time. He’s losing everything he owns,” I said.
“Ah,” he breathed. Mike is a quick study.
Leslie Metrano’s soft voice came on the line, quavering. “Hello?”
“Hi, Leslie. It’s Maggie MacGowen. Did you have a chance to show my pictures to George? I’ve been anxious to get his reaction.”
“He isn’t home, Maggie. He’s away on a fishing trip.”
“He’s fishing now? With all that’s going on?”
“He had to get away.”
Away from what? I wanted to know. But she seemed rather fragile. I settled for: “When do you expect him?”
“I don’t know.” Her voice broke.
“Are you all right?” I felt like a heel, as if I were lying to her. She was a sweet woman. I was thinking she deserved a break.
“It’s just…” She seemed to haul herself together sufficiently to speak. “I expected him back by now. Maybe he had trouble with the boat. I wish he would call me.”
“Where did he go?”
“Off Baja, he said.”
“Alone?”
“I don’t know.” She started to cry.
“When?”
“Saturday night.”
“Is anyone there with you?”
“My daughter and her baby,” she sobbed, so forlorn she sounded like a lost child herself.