"We were straight with you," she said. "You can stiff the cops. We were straight with you." She dipped a fingernail into the powder and held it under a nostril, then sniffed sharply. She repeated the ritual for the other nostril. "Hey, what do you want from me? You bust in here before the birds get up, get me talking about stuff I never tell anybody, and then you try to screw me over." She did another couple of snorts.
"Amber was okay when you dropped her off?"
"I guess she was okay by Amber's standards. I hope to God I never get like that," she said, wiping her nose. "But you know something? I thought she was totaled then. After you called, when Toby said she was dead, I figured it was an overdose."
"But nobody messed with her."
She'd dipped her nail into the jar again, but now she looked up at me. "Nobody messed with her," she said. "What do you think we are, sadists? I mean, what do you think I am? We both know about Toby." The nail came halfway to her nose.
"Where'd Toby get the loads?"
"Some street corner, Adams and Crenshaw, maybe. You can always get them there." The fingernail completed its trip, and she sniffed.
"He wasn't gone long enough."
"Hollywood and Highland, then. Who gives a shit?"
"Did he get them at the club? At the Spice Rack?"
Saffron looked at me for a long moment. Then, very deliberately, she screwed the top of the jar back on. "Goodbye," she said. "Close the door behind you."
"Is that where he got them?"
"Nobody scores at the Spice Rack. Now get out of here."
"The Spice Rack's clean, huh?"
"Cleaner than Betty Crocker. I thought you were leaving."
"If the Spice Rack is Girl Scout Central, how come you're so nervous?"
"Nervous? Who's nervous? I need to sleep. I'm dancing tonight. I've got a public to worry about. Now get out of here, or I really will call the cops."
"You can't. You'll be in detox before you can spell your name, whatever it really is."
"You're right," she said petulantly. "You're just so very clever. I can't call the cops. But I can call Tiny, and if I do, you'll wish I had called the cops. If you're not afraid of Tiny, you're not brave, just stupid."
An image of Tiny popped unbidden into my mind's eye. "I try not to be stupid," I said.
"Keep trying, you may make it yet. And remember, nobody scores at the Spice Rack."
I was going to have to face Tiny sooner or later, but later seemed to have a lot to recommend it. I went to the door and pulled it open. "Write down my phone number," I said.
"For what?" She sounded weary.
"Just in case. Get a pen and write it down." She fished something that could have been a pen out of a drawer, and I gave her the number. "Listen. If anything goes wrong or if things just get too crazy, call me. If you even just think things are getting crazy, call."
She flopped down on the bed and covered her eyes with her forearm. "Crazy?" she said. "In my life? Just close the door. I'll lock it later."
"Sleep well," I said. I closed the door. I was skirting the pool, looking down at the trash when I heard the locks being yanked into place.
On Sunset Boulevard I pulled Alice, gleaming her usual rabid horsefly iridescent blue, into a gas station. "Fill it up," I said to the Persian at the pump.
"This one, she takes gas, eh?" he said. He had a widow's peak that was about to exert territorial imperative over his eyebrows.
"No," I said. "She runs on Islamic fervor. I just give her gas once in a while to remind her of the good old days when all the oil came from Texas."
"You pay more here at this pumps. Self-serve are more cheaper."
"A receipt, okay? Do the pay phones work?"
"Sometimes. You know, punks." He pronounced it "ponks." "Sometimes they works."
I called Bernie first. No Sprunks in either of the Dakotas, he told me, sounding satisfied. Also no Sprunks in Idaho, Iowa, Nebraska, or Wyoming. One Sprunk, a widow in her seventies-I didn't ask how Bernie knew how old she was, but if he said so, it was right-in Montana. Minnesota had too many people to check. I told him to try it anyway. Then I called Wyl.
"Dear boy. It's all here and organized to a fare-thee-well, the total scope on Toby Vane. Such a terrible boy, really. It's enough to make you doubt appearances."
"Anything interesting?"
"Depends on the point of view, don't you know. A lot of the photos are absolutely riveting from my perspective, although I doubt you'd linger over them for very long."
"Jesus, how much is there?"
"More than you'd think. Most of it is fannies, of course. Since you're going to be kind enough to return it to me, I've broken it down into categories. The newspaper clips should be the most interesting. I don't think you really care what his favorite color is."
"Blue," I said.
"You almost never cease to surprise me. Are you going to pick it up?"
I looked at my watch. I had more than an hour before the dreaded Joanna Link was due at Universal. "Sure," I said. "Be there in ten minutes."
"I'll go in the back room and put my bells on," Wyl said before he hung up.
He was right. The newspaper clips were the most interesting. The second page I read told me something very interesting: it told me that both Stillman and Dixie had lied to me.
"May I use your phone?" I asked Wyl.
I had only one friend in the police department. Al Hammond was a sergeant, a prototypical middle-aged desk cop with a problem belly and creased skin on the back of his neck that was thicker than the average catcher's mitt. When I first decided that I had chosen a career that was going to put me into uneasy proximity to the police-uneasy for me, at any rate-I'd started drinking at a couple of police bars downtown. Hammond and I had gotten pulverized together four or five times before I told him what I did for a living. He wasn't thrilled, but he'd kept drinking with me.
"Records, Sergeant Hammond," he snarled. Then he remembered departmental public relations. "Oh, yeah, and how may I help you?"
"Your bedside manner is impeccable," I said. "This is Simeon."
"Would you spell that, sir?"
"Simeon," I said. "S-i-m-"
"Not that, shithead. Impeccable."
"With three different vowels."
"Are you still drinking?"
"Only when I'm thirsty."
"Thought maybe you'd gone to the Betty Ford Clinic or something. Seems to me it's been a few months since I saw you throw up."
"You've never seen me throw up. By the time I begin to get queasy, you're unconscious. Listen, I'm looking for a girl. Her name is Rebecca Hartsfield."
"Has she got a sheet?"
"I doubt it. She's more in the victim line. She got knocked silly about four years ago at Ontario Motor Speedway. A police report was filed."
"But not with us. You're talking to the LAPD, remember? You want the Ontario cops or the sheriffs, if Ontario's in L.A. County."
"I was hoping that you had some sort of relationship with the Ontario cops. You know, brotherhood of the blue or something like that."
"Yeah, well, they won't hang up on me if I call them. But four years ago? For battery? Jeez, Simeon, that's ancient history. If it was murder. ."
"The weapon was fists. The fists belonged to an actor named Toby Vane."
"Oh," Hammond said. "My daughter likes him."
"On the other side of the TV screen, he's no problem. Just don't let her get any closer."
"Is this important?"
"Have I ever asked you to do anything stupid?"
He gave forth with a mirthless laugh. "How much time have we got?"
"I've got all day. I thought the police were busy."
"Are we involved?" "We" was the LAPD.
"No," I said. It was a lie I might have to answer for later.
"So what do you want?"
"A phone number, an address, whatever."
"Call me later. About four, okay?" He hung up.
"People are hanging up on me today," I said to Wyl.
"I can tell. Your left ear is getting callused."
I hefted the stack of stuff he'd given me. "Thanks for the archives," I said. "I'll get them back to you in a day or two." Yellow stick-it papers protruded from the pile of magazines and newspapers. Each was meticulously labeled with a date. "Must have been a lot of work," I said.
"It was fun, actually. I don't think he's got staying power, though. Steve McQueen he's not."
"Wyl," I said, "he's not even Butterfly McQueen."
"Oooh," Wyl said, "Gone With the Wind. She was terrific." "Tara's Theme" rang out behind me as I left.