"No," she said, "you're not. But how do I know you're not a liar?"
"That's an insulting question," I said. "Aren't journalists supposed to have manners?"
Her eyebrows rose until they almost disappeared into her hairline. "Dixie," she said, "am I supposed to have manners?"
Dixie managed a strangled consonant or two before I cut him off.
"We're all supposed to have manners," I said. "That's what they tell us differentiates us from the apes. Or maybe just from newspaper writers."
Joanna Link looked at me while Dixie made a suffocating sound. Then she tilted her head back a degree or two and laughed. It wasn't really a laugh, more a hog-tied chuckle. "Honey," she said, "just hope you're never a star. I'll barbecue you."
There was a moment of silence. Then Joanna Link leaned over and shut off her tape recorder. "You know I've got nothing," she said to Dixie. "It's a shame, really. I've got a great picture of Toby to go with my lead item, but I haven't got a lead item."
"Maybe next time," Dixie said.
"Next time," Joanna Link said, "if there is a next time, your boy could be in the jug. Nothing personal, Toby." She patted Toby's hand. His grin was as permanent as the smirk on the Apollo Belvedere. "And then I probably won't have an exclusive. Will I?"
Toby leaned in to her. "Joanna," he said, "if I commit murder, I promise I'll call you first." He kissed the air in her general direction.
After a beat or two, she blew a kiss back.
13
At seven p.m. it was still hot; July had finally dug in its heels. Waning sunlight angled through a few scraggly eucalyptus trees and threw the trash in the parking lot into a sharp, melancholic relief. A crow coughed overhead. Out on Santa Monica Boulevard the rush-hour traffic was finally beginning to peter out.
The chain across the driveway to the Spice Rack dangled a bright yellow sign that said closed, private party. Below that someone-Tiny, I guessed-had taped a piece of cardboard that said until 8:30. At eight-thirty, life, or what passed for life inside the Spice Rack, was scheduled to resume.
Toby and I had come in separate cars. He had driven his Maserati, with Dolly presumably clinging for dear life to the dashboard, and I had brought Alice. This way, at least, he couldn't leave us without wheels.
The parking lot, which we'd had to enter from the side street, was almost full. That was a surprise: Amber had some mourners. Nana's car wasn't there, and that caused me an involuntary twinge of worry. I did see Tiny's filthy white Continental, squatting in a double-size space that said reserved in big pink letters.
After I parked Alice I locked the doors against the unlikely eventuality of someone actually wanting her. I was straightening up and wondering what the hell I was doing there when Toby hailed me.
"Banzai" he yelled, raising a clenched fist in the air. Dolly shambled along behind him, dressed for the occasion in an ancient rock and roll T-shirt that said SWEATHOGS on it and a pair of bulging aviator's pants. She'd twisted an industrial-strength rubber band around her short hair, creating a pony tail that stood straight up from the top of her head like a little eruption. Despite her tone on the phone, she wasn't completely indifferent to Toby's charm; she was wearing lipstick, the first I'd seen on her since the day her last divorce became final. Dolly got married the way some women went shopping.
"See this fist?" Toby called, brandishing his right in the air. "This fist is a power salute to the man who made Joanna Link eat her eyeliner."
Dolly tittered, a bad sign. Maybe a man would have been a better idea, even though I knew how Dolly hated woman beaters. Finding them was one of her specialties.
"Toby," I said, "I have several acres of rear end exposed on your account at the moment, not only with the police, but with the press as well. Play straight, or it'll be your rear end instead."
"Champ," Toby said, punching me lightly on the upper arm, "are those the proper sentiments for the occasion? Let's go in and pay our last respects."
This time we went in through the front door. Toby sent Dolly ahead to make sure there weren't any photographers lurking about. When she came back to report in the negative, the three of us hurried up the driveway from the parking lot and across the sidewalk. Toby went first, anxious to minimize his exposure. The entrance was masked by a heavy red velvet curtain, which Toby dropped in Dolly's face.
"He's nervous," Dolly explained apologetically.
"We're all nervous," I said, and, in fact, I was. Where the hell was Nana? "Dolly," I said, grabbing her arm, "don't let him bamboozle you."
She looked me straight in the eyes-she was as tall as I was-then dropped her gaze. A second later, she nodded. "Damn," she said, looking back at me, "but he sure is decorative."
Nana wasn't inside, either. The Spice Rack was more crowded than it had been the last time I was there. All the stageside chairs were full, and people who hadn't gotten seats were leaning against the walls. I saw Pepper, Clove, Saffron, a beautiful Hispanic called (naturally) Chili, and a couple of other girls I'd seen dancing but didn't know. Saffron glanced anxiously at Toby as we came in. Toby didn't even nod to her. He was supremely indifferent to the whole scene: in his mind, he was the star. Everyone else was an extra.
I went to work on the other men in attendance. Six or eight were customers, and Ahmed, the Middle Easterner with the disappearing dollar bills, was among them. The remaining regulars were resolutely invisible, slumped in their ugly chairs with their eyes downcast and their arms folded, presenting the smallest possible identifiable surface area to the world. The other men in the room, five that I could count for sure, were with the girls.
There was some quality that cut across all of them despite their superficial differences. Two were white, two were black, and one was Asian, possibly Chinese. They were the only males who looked unapologetic. Their eyes took in the club as if it were a golf course and they were tournament pros.
Toby saw me looking at them. "Scuzz," he said. "One step up from pimps. Is there anything worse?"
"You tell me. Where's Nana?"
"Who gives a shit? Champ, she's just the same as the rest of them."
"Shut the fuck up, Toby." It came out more vehemently than I had intended it to.
Toby squeezed my arm, and I pulled it away. "And cut," he said. "We're getting a little bit jumpy here. Anyway, time for the main attraction."
The speakers suddenly spouted music that the snob in me recognized and condemned as the love theme from Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet, and the garish stage lights slowly came on. Tiny had made his way into the club from his office- the door, I saw, was still broken-and now he moved toward the main stage. There, laid out in what I hoped was an unconscious parody of the dead Amber, were her dancing costumes: feather boas, wrinkled blouses, slit T-shirts, shorts, G-strings, boots. Only the girl inside was missing.
Tiny climbed ponderously onto the stage, dressed in his standard white. He held a tattered paperbound book to his chest. The girl called Pepper climbed up behind him. Tiny looked biblically grave.
He raised a fat hand, and the music faded away. He started to speak, failed, and cleared his throat. Pepper put a hand on his shoulder. He reached over and patted it once, looked at the faces of the people in the room, and began again.
"This is the worst day of my life," he said. "I'd be in bed now, but Amber asked me not to be. Amber asked-" He cleared his throat again and blinked quickly several times. "Amber asked me to be here."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Toby whispered. He sounded apprehensive.
"All of you, most of you, I mean, are here because she wanted you to be. You all had a place in her heart. Amber's heart was the biggest thing about her. There was room for a lot of people in it."