“Sort of,” I said.
“You interested in politics?”
“I vote,” I said. “But that’s about all — unless you count a growing feeling of despair.”
He nodded understanding. “A lot of guys your age feel that way.”
When my bag arrived I let him carry it so that I could save my strength. At my age, I might need it. We crossed over to a parking lot and stopped in front of a green Ford van.
“Is this it?” I said.
“Uh-huh.” He opened the rear door and put the bag in. “I’ve sort of fixed it up inside,” he said.
I looked. There was a deep green shag rug on the floor. A raised section supported a thick slab of foam rubber that was long enough and wide enough to serve as either a bed or a couch. A yellow throw rug covered most of the foam rubber. Opposite the bed was a small butane stove that rested on a two-shelf wooden stand that was filled with canned goods, a skillet, a pot, some plates and glasses, and a miscellaneous collection of kitchen utensils. A portable cooler rested on the floor next to the shelves and the stove. On some hooks that came off the wall were three or four hangers that held a sports coat, a couple of pairs of slacks, and a few shirts. I noticed that there was more storage space in a couple of deep drawers that were cleverly fitted into the platform that held the bed.
“You use it to go camping in?” I said.
Guerriero shrugged as he closed the door. “Sometimes,” he said. “Sometimes when I’m broke I live in it. They’re handy for a lot of things.” He grinned again. “I guess that’s why they sometimes call them fuck trucks.”
I felt even older as I went around the van and got into the passenger’s seat. Guerriero slid behind the wheel, started the engine, and backed out.
“I need someplace to stay,” I said.
“You want a hotel or a motel?”
I thought about it. “A motel, I think.”
“There’s a small one on La Brea that’s pretty good,” he said.
“Okay.”
Past the airport, Guerriero got on to the San Diego freeway going north and then switched to the Santa Monica freeway and we went east for a while. He drove the way that a lot of Californians drive, with smooth, easy motions and careful attention to the rear-view mirror.
On La Brea we went north for almost a mile and then turned into what was called the Riverside motel, although I had seen no evidence of a river anywhere. It was a typical cinder-block affair, painted blue and run by a tired-looking man in his fifties whose only question was whether I’d be staying more than one night. When I said that I would, he seemed mildly pleased. At least he smiled a little.
Guerriero carried my bag into the motel room and helped me inspect the bath and the bed. There was one of each and everything looked fairly clean and fairly new and about as cozy as a hospital room.
“Is it okay?” he said.
“It’s fine.”
“What time do you want me to come by tomorrow?”
“Make it about nine-thirty.”
“Where do you think we might go?”
“I’m not sure yet,” I said. “Why?”
“No reason. Just curious.”
“I’ll know by nine-thirty.”
“Okay,” he said and started for the door. He paused and said, “Well, have a good night,” and then he was gone.
I unpacked my bag and then fixed a drink. I drank it sitting there in a chair that was covered in lime green plastic. There must be far lonelier spots than a cheap motel room in a strange city after midnight, but just then I couldn’t think of any.
12
It was warm the next morning, warm for me anyhow, about 60 degrees and cloudy. I had a mediocre breakfast in a coffee shop that I found across the street. When I came back to the motel I called Max Spivey. He wanted to know where I was staying and where I planned to start.
“I thought I’d talk to Maude Goodwater first,” I said.
Spivey was silent for a moment. “I suppose that would be all right.”
“Why wouldn’t it?”
“She’s still pretty upset because of Jack Marsh.”
“I have to start somewhere.”
“She’s had to talk to a lot of people in the last few days. We’ve talked to her. The cops have talked to her. I don’t think she really wants to talk to anybody else.”
“I’ll try to be both polite and brief.”
There was another silence that lasted a few seconds before Spivey said, “Okay. I’ll give you her address and phone number.” He read off the phone number and I wrote it down. The address was on Malibu Road. “You know where that is?” he said.
“No, but I’ll find it.”
After Spivey hung up, I looked at my watch. It was 9:15. I wondered if Maude Goodwater would be up yet and decided to find out. She answered the phone on its third ring. She had a low, quiet voice over the telephone. I told her who I was and why I wanted to see her.
“Were you there?” she said.
“Where?”
“In Washington when Jack was killed?”
“Yes. I was there.”
There was a silence. I seemed to be running into them that morning. Then she said, “Will you tell me about it?”
“If you’d like me to,” I said.
“Yes, I think I would. Where are you staying?”
“At a motel on La Brea.”
“Why don’t we make it eleven o’clock?”
I told her that eleven would be fine, listened to her directions, and then hung up. After that I sat in the lime green plastic chair and read the Los Angeles Times for a while. There was an interesting article about some coyotes that had found their way into Beverly Hills and were causing all sorts of fuss.
When the knock sounded at the door I looked at my watch. It was 9:30. I opened the door and it was Guerriero, wearing a blue shirt, white duck slacks, and loafers. He was also carrying a white paper bag.
“I brought some coffee in case you hadn’t had any,” he said.
“I can use some more,” I said. “Come in.”
He came in and took two coffee containers out of the paper sack. “How do you take yours?” he said.
“Just sugar.”
He ripped open a small packet of sugar, dumped its contents into one of the coffees, stirred it, and handed it to me.
“Thanks,” I said. “How far is it to Malibu?”
“This time of day, about thirty or thirty-five minutes. Maybe less.”
“We can make it by eleven?”
He nodded. “No problem. We can even take the scenic route. It’s slower, but if you don’t have to be there until eleven, we’ve got plenty of time.”
“What’s the scenic route?”
“Sunset Boulevard all the way to the beach. Or we can take the Santa Monica freeway. Another way is to take Wilshire out to San Vicente. That’s pretty quick, too, if you don’t like freeways.”
“Let’s try Sunset,” I said.
Sunset Boulevard hadn’t changed much since I had last seen it a few years back. It looked a little more seedy perhaps, and the colors might have turned a bit gaudier. You could still get a massage, if you wanted to, or look at some all-nude girls, or have your fortune told, or buy a secondhand Rolls, or even get something to eat and a place to sleep. At the end of the Strip was something new, two tall black glass buildings that had a gloomy, brooding look about them that made me think of twin sentinels who had been posted there to make sure that the gamier backwash of the Strip didn’t slop over into the residential section of Beverly Hills.
It was spring in Beverly Hills and in Bel Air and in Brentwood and I decided that, all things considered, it must cost at least five dollars just to grow a daisy there. As we drove past I admired some of the architectural efforts, which would have looked more at home in Virginia or Cape Cod or maybe somewhere south of Paris. But each of them was home to somebody and, as always, I wondered what it was that the people who lived in them sold or produced or provided and whether they felt just a bit uneasy about it all.