“Maybe they should’ve told me that before I said what I thought of his poetry. He damn near broke my jaw. That’s scary enough for me. The man’s crazy.”
“Know where he might be right now?”
“Nope. Sorry, man, I can’t help you, but there’s one of the chicks used to run with his crowd upstairs. Can’t miss her. Ditzy looking brunette, strictly space cadet, nobody home.” He tapped his skull. It didn’t echo, but Arvo got the point. “Hangs out in the lady psychiatrists’ booth.” And he turned back to his poetry book, scribbling something illegible in the margin.
Arvo hadn’t a clue what Cal meant, but he made his way up to the gallery, which turned out to be less crowded than downstairs. Then he saw a little nook with a joke sign reading “Reserved for Lady Psychiatrists’ hanging over it, and two people at the table.
He walked over, told them his name and said he was looking for Mitch Cameron.
“Mitch?” said the woman. “Oh, yeah. Shit, Mitch. Right. Sit down, sit down.” A long skinny arm shot out of her baggy sleeves and she gestured for him to sit. She had rings on all her long, thin fingers, including the thumbs. “This is Brook,” she said, introducing the angst-ridden young man next to her, with his pale complexion and lock of hair falling over his eye. “He’s working on a movie screenplay and he wants me to be in it, don’t you, Brook?”
Brook glared at Arvo and grunted. Wants to get laid, more like, thought Arvo. Screenplay. Jeez, some things don’t change even north of Santa Barbara.
“I’m Candi,” she said. “With an “i.’”
At last, the elusive Candi. Exotic dancer and blow-jobber par excellence. “Pleased to meet you,” Arvo said. “Is there a little heart over it?”
She frowned. “Over what?”
“The ‘i’?”
Candi just looked confused. Maybe she hadn’t seen LA Story. She had long straggly brown hair that looked as if it could do with a good wash. Her face was pleasant and open, free of make up, but it had that blurred, unfocused quality, like her eyes, and probably like her life. Drugs will do that to you. Arvo didn’t know if she were drunk or stoned right now, but she was something. He hoped she was older than she looked.
“I’m trying to find Mitch,” Arvo explained slowly. Candi’s eyes were on him but not quite fixed. She had a mixed drink in front of her and sucked it through the crushed ice as he talked, making a slurping sound. Brook lit a cigarette and stared at the slide show. Arvo decided there and then it would be best not to tell them he was a cop. Maybe they’d guess, like Cal, but he wouldn’t put money on it. He probably looked like a tourist. Or a bookie.
“He’s gone,” Candi said finally.
“Do you know where?”
“Why do you want to know?”
“He owes me some money.”
“Huh. Good luck.”
“Do you know where he’s gone?”
“LA. We went down there with Gary Knox, you know, the rock star, the guy who died of an overdose last year.” She nudged Brook. “I fucked him, you know,” she said to him. “I fucked Gary Knox.”
“Oh yeah?” said Brook. “What was he like?”
Candi frowned, then giggled. “Well, would you believe it, I can’t remember. Maybe I just blew him. What the hell.” She waved her arm and almost knocked over her drink.
Better work quick while she’s still on her feet, Arvo thought. “So Mitch stayed in LA?”
“What? Oh, yeah. Well, like, I had this new dancing job to come back to and all, but Mitch, he didn’t have nothing. He’d gotten fired. You know why, man?” She nudged Brook.
“No. Why?” he mumbled.
“For protecting me from this drunk asshole who was, like grabbing my tits, that’s why.” She looked at Arvo, eyes burning briefly with excitement at the memory. “Broke the guy’s fucking arm, Mitch did. And his face. His nose, I mean. Got himself fired. Shit.” She giggled. “He was my knight in shining armour.”
“So Mitch stayed in LA?”
“Uh-huh. Said it was his big chance.”
“Big chance? How?”
“Mitch wanted to be a rock star. Didn’t you know that? He played guitar, wrote songs and poetry and stuff. Gary Knox said he liked them and Mitch thought maybe he’d record some. Maybe he’d even let Mitch be in his band. But he died.”
“Do you remember Gary’s girlfriend at the time? Sally?”
Candi screwed up her eyes. “I think so,” she said. “Hey, is that the one who’s on that TV cop show? I had this argument with a guy—”
“That’s the one,” Arvo said.
She banged the table and made the glasses rattle. “Whoo-ee! Holy shit! I knew I was right. That’s twenty bucks Pete owes me.”
“Did you know Sally?”
“She was a cold one. Spaced out most of the time. No, we never talked. I fucked Gary, though. Did I tell you that?”
“You did,” said Arvo, smiling. “What about Mitch? Did he like girls?”
“Pants or skirt, it didn’t matter to Mitch. If it moved, he’d fuck it.” She laughed.
“He was bisexual?”
“Like a pendulum.”
“Did you notice how he got along with Sally?”
“Did he fuck her, do you mean?”
“How did he treat her?”
“He called her his Little Star. I don’t think he fucked her. She was a cold one, man, did I say that already? Prob’ly like fucking an iceberg. But what would I know? I don’t do girls. A girl’s got to draw the line somewhere, don’t you think?”
Arvo took a deep breath. He asked her if she knew what kind of car Mitch drove.
“A red one,” she said. “Or it might have been blue. I don’t know.”
Her head was starting to droop and loll onto her chest now. Brook seemed to be getting impatient beside her, Arvo thought, if indeed that was what the occasional tics and sighs coming from his general direction meant.
“Do you know where he might be living in LA, anyone he might be staying with?”
She shook her head without looking up.
“What about money? Work? He’d need a job. What kind of work does he do?”
At this she looked up. “Security,” she said. “’S’all he can do apart from write songs. Bouncer. Bodyguard. Do you want to know the truth?” She wrinkled her nose and crooked her finger at Arvo to come closer. He did. Close enough to smell the gin on her breath. “They sucked,” she whispered. “His songs sucked. But don’t you tell him I ever said that or he’d kill me.”
“He would?”
“Sure. I mean, I’m not his Princess, his Little Star, am I? Sure he would.” She started singing to herself, “‘Twinkle, twinkle little star, how I wonder what you are... ’”
At which point Brook put his hand on her arm and said, “I wouldn’t let him, baby. I wouldn’t let anyone hurt you.” And he glared at Arvo with reinforced passion. Like hell, thought Arvo. From what he had heard, Mitch Cameron would make sushi out of someone like Brook.
There was nothing more to be learned from Candi. It was time to let the seduction run its course, if it wasn’t already too late, and it was time for Arvo to head back to the hotel and check if there were any messages. Maybe he would call in Mitch Cameron’s Social Security number. The DMV runs driving record checks for cops twenty-four hours a day, while you wait.
As he walked, Arvo remembered something Candi had said, and a little warning bell went off in his mind. She had said all Mitch could do was act as a bouncer or a bodyguard. Arvo had briefed Zak himself, and he remembered the compact body, the blond hair. Zak — Mitch. Surely it couldn’t be... But if he was right, Sarah was in great danger. He pulled up his collar and hurried toward the hotel.
36
Try to stay calm, Sarah told herself. Right foot, gas; left foot, brake. At least that was how she remembered it. She pressed her right foot down. Why wasn’t it moving? Then she remembered. First she had to shift the stick from park to drive.