“I told you not to do that. Didn’t I specifically tell you not to do that? Do you people fucking listen? I’m going out to Palm Springs in an hour. You call the dogs off Morty Greene until you get further notice. Do you understand that?”
His blood pressure was ripping at his eyeballs. He needed Lila’s sane, calming influence to take the ride out there with him. Plus she’d love getting her hair done by Paul Vane. He heard the water lapping in the backyard pool of her Beverly Hills home when she picked up her cell phone. He pictured her basking on the chair float listening to her Italian lesson on earphones.
“Do you feel like going to Palm Springs?” he asked.
He heard her sit up and adjust the halter-top of her bikini. “But Stein, you hate Palm Springs.”
“That’s why I need you to go with me. Something good to compensate for something I hate.”
“My God, that was almost sweet. When were you thinking of going?”
“Fairly soon.”
“You mean sometime in the next month?”
“More in the nowish area.”
“You mean this week?”
“A little more nowishly.”
“You don’t mean today?”
“In an hour?”
“Stein! Is the last minute the only minute you ever function in?
He could hear her clambering out of the raft and patting herself dry with her fluffy white bath towel that sat on the redwood lounge chair. “I just have that charity cocktail thing at the Beverly Wilshire tonight but I can blow it off.”
“Isn’t that where you get to meet the governor’s wife?”
“Since when do you care about those things?”
“I don’t. But you live for them.”
“We’ll take my car. You must be the last man in America not to have air conditioning. I have a hair and nail appointment. Give me an hour-and-a-half.”
“Lila, it’s just a ride to Palm Springs. Don’t get all-” But she had already clicked off.
Ninety minutes would give him time to ride out and warn Morty Greene. He didn’t know why he was so sure Morty had nothing to do with the missing bottles. No doubt some wishful longing that important parental qualities found their way into their children’s DNA. Morty’s red pickup truck was not in the driveway. In its place was a zippy new Mini Cooper convertible.
Stein rang the doorbell to Morty’s apartment and practically burst through the door when Morty opened it.
“Man, you must have a death wish,” Morty said. “You bust in here like John Wayne? You’re not even Wayne Newton.”
“There may be an arrest warrant out for you.”
Edna Greene quietly entered from the room beyond. Her hair was up in a bun and she was wearing a red Jamaican robe. She looked at Stein with grave severity. “No suggestion of crime, you said?”
“I’m sorry. This isn’t my doing.”
“You’re going to be sorry in motion.” Morty moved threateningly to Stein.
“Duluth!”
“Why did you quit your job?” Stein demanded.
“How is that your business?”
“You practicing for what you’re going to tell the SWAT team?”
“Do you remember the seven horse?” He rubbed his fingers together. “Would you go back to a loading dock?”
“That’s a fair point. So once again I present you with this document.” Stein offered the bill of lading in Morty’s proximity. He glared down at it and breathed fire.
“Duluth, this man did not get you in trouble. Tell him what he wants to know about that piece of paper.”
Stein was suddenly apprehensive that once again all his instincts had been wrong. “Is there something I should know about this piece of paper?”
Morty surrendered. “Hell, I guess you already know. I suppose you talked to Delores Brown.”
“Why would you think I did that?” Stein asked.
“I’m being straight with you, man. Don’t treat me like a boy.”
“Let’s talk about you and Delores, then.”
Edna Greene retreated to the back room and Morty nodded for Stein to take a seat. “You ever work on a loading dock? I’m guessing probably not.”
“Is this going to be one of those long stories with poignant sociological implications?”
“The job sucks, all right?”
“That I can relate to.”
“So they make me a supervisor. For an extra buck-thirty an hour I keep records on everything that comes in and goes out and bring all the records down to Accounting.”
“I’m on a bit of a time crunch.”
“In accounting there is a particular fox they just hired who wears pants so tight you can see her smile.”
“Downtown Delores Brown?”
“So we have this little rap going and one afternoon she sashays up to the dock. She says she locked her keys inside her car, and did anyone know how to, you know, open a door with-”
“I get the idea.”
“As it turns out, I possess a little experience in that area, so I volunteered to help.”
“Anyone could tell at first glance you were an altruist.”
“Only trouble was, a shipment of bottles was due in the next twenty minutes and it’s my responsibility to sign them in.”
“I’m beginning to get a bad feeling about this, Morty.”
“It gets good before it gets bad.”
“You went with Delores and helped her gain entry.”
“In a manner of speaking.”
“You found her ignition key?”
“All right, Mister Stein,” Edna called in from the next room. “The point is made.”
The sexual innuendos made Stein gloomy, not eroticized. “Just so I can feel as horrible as possible, Morty, are you telling me you weren’t there when the shipment arrived? That you had somebody else sign the manifest with your name?”
“No, man. I signed the paper. But…”
“But what?”
“But before the truck ever got there.”
“So you never actually saw the merchandise?”
“Oh, I saw the merchandise.” Morty grinned.
“I’m talking about the bottles.”
“You wouldn’t be if you saw Delores.”
“Duluth!”
His mother’s scolding voice straightened him up. “I never saw the bottles,” Morty admitted. “But I’m sure they were there. Why wouldn’t they be?”
“And how many bottles were in this shipment?”
“A hundred cases. Times 24 in each case.”
Stein perked up. “Did you say a hundred cases?”
“That’s right.”
“Not a thousand?”
“A thousand? Hell, no!”
“Swear on your life that it was only a hundred.”
“It was a hundred cases, man.”
Stein was inwardly relieved. This brought it back down again to the trivial.
“That time,” Morty added.
“Excuse me?”
“There were a hundred cases that time.”
“There were other times?”
“Delores would come down there every now and again.”
“Let me take a wild stab. When there were shipments of Espe shampoo bottles?”
“I didn’t think about it at the time.”
“Morty, damn it. Have you and your little partner from the track been scamming up Espe shampoo bottles? Trucking them out to Palm Springs?”
“Naw.”
“I noticed a sharp little Mini Cooper down in the driveway. What happened to your Ford?”
“I traded up.”
“You could wear that thing on your foot.”
“It’s surprisingly roomy.”
Edna Greene came in from the back bedroom. “That’s Roland’s car. He borrowed Duluth’s truck. How much trouble is my son in?
“Him? Nothing. He’ll do twenty years in state prison and then get on with his life. Me, I have to tell Mattingly he was right.”
She pulled her son’s collar down so he was at her eye level. “Du-luth Greene, did you have anything to do with moving those bottles?”