"Have a nice night," the valet said.
"You too," I said.
And we drove off.
Chapter 28
SUSAN AND I didn't talk much on the way back to Beverly Hills. But when we went to bed we made love with unusual intensity.
There's a positive side to everything.
In the morning after breakfast, Susan went to the health club and I went down to the Parker Center, where Samuelson introduced me to an ID technician who showed me mug shots for maybe four hours. I never found Tino, but I found the surfer. His name was Jerome Jefferson and he'd been arrested six times for assault. One conviction. No time. They gave me his last address, which was three years old. I pocketed it for later.
"Never heard of him," Samuelson said when I went back to his office, "which means only that he hasn't done anything bad enough to get our attention."
"Or you haven't caught him at it," I said.
Samuelson shrugged.
"Six assaults? Whatever he is, he's a gofer," Samuelson said.
"How about OCU?" I said. "This wasn't his own idea. Somebody sent him."
"I'll call over there," Samuelson said. "Sheriff's department, too."
"If they don't know Jefferson," I said, "try Tino. My guess is that Jefferson's the slugger and Tino's the shooter."
"Or at least that's the way it was supposed to work out."
"The way it was supposed to work out, I was supposed to get faint with fear and go right home," I said. "And never make audible mention of Steve or Mary Lou Buckman again."
"Audible mention," Samuelson said.
"I'm sleeping with a Ph.D.," I said.
"You might want to talk to your friend del Rio again," Samuelson said.
"Again?" I said. "You're keeping track of me?"
"We're keeping track of del Rio," Samuelson said.
"He's not exactly my friend," I said.
"Well he must like you. If he didn't, I'd be looking into your death."
"Or his," I said.
Back in my rental car, I picked up Sunset down from the Civic Center, turned up the air-conditioning, and headed west. Jerome Jefferson's last known residence was a three-story white stucco apartment building on Las Palmas just below Fountain. It had the sort of slick, sleazy look that only Los Angeles has fully mastered, with tiny useless balconies of green iron outside the windows.
There was no listing for Jerome Jefferson at the entry. I rang the bell marked SUPER. And after my third ring, he woke up from his nap and slouched to the door in his slippers. He was wearing an oldfashioned undershirt and plaid knee-length shorts. He had a two-day stubble, mostly gray. His long, limp hair was mostly gray, and showed no sign of shower or shampoo.
"No vacancy," he said.
"I don't see why," I said.
"Huh?"
"Implied criticism," I said. "I'm looking for a guy named Jerome Jefferson. Big guy, blond hair. Looks like a boozer."
"He ain't here," the Super said, "and he ain't coming back. The management company evicted him."
"Rent?"
"Yeah. Fucker never paid. Company kept telling me to talk with him. You know him?"
"I've met him," I said.
"Then you know what'd be like to try and talk with him. They don't pay me enough for me to get my teeth kicked in."
"You know where he went?" I said.
"Heard he moved in with some broad he was scoring in West Hollywood."
"Address?"
"Got no idea," the super said. "Maybe they know at the company, they been trying to get the rent he owes them."
There was a sign beside the entry that read MANAGED BY SOUTHLAND PROPERTIES, with an address in Century City.
"You know his friend?" I said. "Smaller guy. Thin. Big, sharp beak."
The super shook his head.
"I hope you find the bastard. You look like you might give him trouble."
"I might," I said.
"You got the build for it anyway."
"Thanks for the encouragement," I said.
He nodded blankly and closed the door and shuffled off back to his nap.
Century City is a cluster of expensive high-rises just below the Los Angeles Country Club that occupies a former movie backlot between Santa Monica and Olympic. There was a big hotel there, and a shopping mall and a theater and a supermarket and the offices of anyone on the west side that wanted a good address. Southland Properties was on the fifteenth floor of a building on Constellation Avenue, with a nice view of the Century Plaza Hotel. I was passed along the chain of command at Southland until I was in the office of their financial compliance manager, whose name, according to the nameplate on his desk, was Karl Adams.
We shook hands and he gestured me to a seat. "Karl Adams," he said. "You're looking for Jerome Jefferson."
Adams was about my height, and lean. He looked like retired military.
"I am," I said.
"We are too," Adams said. "He owes us six months' rent. What's your interest?"
"I'm trying to see what his connection is to a case I'm working on."
My card was lying on Adams's desk. He glanced down at it.
"In Boston?" he said.
"Town called Potshot," I said. "In the desert."
"Long way from home," Adams said.
"Anywhere I hang my hat."
"Yeah sure," he said.
He paused and was thoughtful for a small time. Then he said, "Don't see why not."
"Me either."
"I'll tell you what I know," Adams said. "And if you were to find him, I'd appreciate a jingle."
"Seems fair to me," I said.
"After he skipped out of the place on Las Palmas, we figure he moved in with his girlfriend on Franklin Avenue. So we went up there but she says she's broken up with him and hasn't seen him and never wants to see him again."
"You believe her?"
"No. So we put somebody up there for a couple days but there was no sign of him."
"Round the clock?" I said.
"Hell no. We don't have the manpower for real surveillance."
"So if he didn't come and go between nine and five you wouldn't know if he was there."
"Correct."
"You got much experience skip tracing?"
"Financial compliance," Adams said. "Says so on my door."
"Sure," I said.
"I'm retired Navy," Adams said. "Intelligence. I got a lower budget here."
"You got a name and address for the girlfriend?" I said.
"Yeah."
He took one of his business cards out of a small container on his desk and wrote on the back.
"Here you go," he said. "You need directions?"
"No," I said. "I've screwed up cases out here before."
Chapter 29
THE GIRLFRIEND'S NAME Was Carlotta Hopewell. She had a small clapboard house with an overhanging roof on the front porch. The house was in Hollywood, where it crouched among the apartment buildings on Franklin Avenue between Gower and Vine. The yard needed work, and some of the white paint was peeling from the clapboards. As I walked up the front walk, a woman who must have been watching out the window opened the door and stepped out onto the front steps. She had a glass of white wine in her hand and she smelled strongly of it.
"May I help you?" she said.
Her lips were pouty and her face was puffy. She had loud blond hair and not much muscle tone. She was wearing shorts and a short tank top that stopped several inches above her navel. Her body was pale and soft-looking.
"Carlotta Hopewell?"
"Yes?"
"I'm looking for a man named Jerome Jefferson:"
"I'm not him."
"Good," I said. "That's helpful. It narrows the search."
"Hey you're kind of funny, huh?"
"But I have a serious side. Is Jerome staying with you?"
"Naw."
She swirled her wine a little.
"But you know him," I said.
"Maybe. You want some wine?"
"Yes, thank you," I said.
She opened the screen door and we went in. Ah, memories of things past. There was a rough woven orange rug on the floor of her living room, and a huge picture of Prince covering most of the wall above a brown suede couch. There was a brown beanbag chair, and an angular black metal chair with a white canvas sling to sit in. A hall went off to my left, and through an open archway beyond the suede couch I could see the kitchen.