“Great,” said Daniel, pleased that Gene could think in positive terms without Luanne. Or at least fake it. “So the new house will be ready soon?”
“Five more days, they claim.” Gene slumped. “Guess I better get used to feeling useless.”
“You've been very useful, Gene.”
“Not really. A file, shoes, big deal… to be truthful, it's more than that, Danny. It's the case itself. Ugly. Even for guys like us, it's ugly. And pardon me for saying so, but it doesn't sound as if you're getting much movement.”
42
On Wednesday morning, Milo called to tell me he'd caught up with Loren Bukovsky, the local Mensa chapter chairman.
“Not a bad fellow, understandably curious about why I was looking into Meta. I told him it was a financial thing, large-scale covert investigation, hinted around that it had something to do with stolen computers, and asked him to keep it to himself. He promised to and my sense is he might keep his word, because he doesn't like Meta, thinks they're “insufferables' who look down on Mensa.”
“Because Mensa folk aren't smart enough for them?”
“Bukovsky denies that. Emphatically.”
“What if Bukovsky doesn't keep it to himself and it gets back to someone in Meta?”
“Then we deal with it. It could even work out to our advantage: One or more of their members turn out to be bad guys and show their hands and give us moving targets. Which is better than none.”
“That,” I said, “sounds like rationalization.”
“No, Alex, it's the truth, you didn't screw things up. As it stands, we're nowhere with this group. Even Bukovsky, for all his hostility, didn't know much about them, just that they'd started back east, cropped up in L.A. two or three years ago, then took a low profile.”
“Two years ago,” I said. “Right around the time of Sanger's article. And publication of The Brain Drain.”
“Next item: got hold of Zena Lambert's tax returns for the last three years. Her sole income was the salary from PlasmoDerm. Before that she made no money at all. So how she started the store is still an open question.”
“Maybe a trust fund,” I said. “Like Andrew Desmond.”
He looked at me. “Andrew's got rich parents?”
“Comfortable.” I gave him the profile.
“Sounds like a charming fellow,” he said. “The only other thing to report is Melvin Myers's body was clean of drugs and Bob Pierce says none of the local crackheads knew him, so it wasn't dope that got him in that alley… You're really up for this secret-agent stuff, aren't you?”
“Got my shoe-phone in gear.”
At 4:00 p.m., Daniel phoned.
“I'd like to show you the cover apartment on Genesee. You may never actually have to use it, but this way you'll be accustomed to it.”
“I'll meet you there. What's the address?”
“I'm near your house,” he said. “If you don't mind, I'll come by and take you.”
He was there ten minutes later and he gave me a brown paper Ralph's Market bag. Inside was a change of clothes: lightweight black cotton pants, black cotton mock turtleneck washed nearly gray, baggy gray herringbone sportcoat with the label of Dillard's department store in St. Louis on the inside breast pocket, rubber-soled black shoes from Bullock's, L.A.
“Costume rehearsal?” I said.
“Something like that.”
“No underwear?”
“Underwear is underwear.”
“True. I don't see Andrew going for flaming red silk.”
I inspected the jacket. The wool emitted a weak scent of insipid cologne.
“The St. Louis touch is nice,” I said, “but Andrew's lived in L.A. for several years.”
“I don't see him as someone who likes to shop,” he said. “His mother sent it to him.”
“Good old Mom.” I put the clothes on. The sportcoat was a little baggy but not a bad fit.
The mirror showed me a nicely shabby getup that would play well in lots of L.A. settings. The beard helped, too. It had grown into the itch stage, thick and coarse and straight with more gray hairs than I'd expected. From my cheekbones to my Adam's apple I was covered, the lower half of my face effectively obscured.
We drove down the glen in the gray Toyota. Just past the Beverly Hills line, he said, “Try these,” and gave me a pair of eyeglasses. Tiny, round lenses, gray-tinted, in bronze frames.
I slipped them on. No prescription.
“I like the effect,” he said, “but I'd remove them from time to time. Your eyes are good for the part- nice and red. Have you been sleeping well?”
“Yes,” I lied.
“Well,” he said, “you look world-weary, anyway.”
“Method acting.”
“Andrew's an insomniac?”
“Andrew's not a happy man.”
The Genesee building was a two-story stucco quadriplex nearly the exact gray of the Toyota, between Beverly and Rosewood. Flat roof, barred windows, all the charm of a storage depot. The front door was locked.
“The small round key,” he said.
I turned the latch and we entered a central corridor carpeted in cheap maroon felt. Boiled-onion smell. Stairs at the back, four-slot brass mailbox just inside the door.
The paper DESMOND label was on Unit 2. Brown paper, water-stained. My neighbors were Weinstein and Paglia and Levine.
Two was the ground floor, right-hand unit. A pair of nail-holes pierced the doorpost like the fang-holes of a big-jawed snake. Between them was a three-inch column one shade paler than the surrounding woodwork.
“Andrew removed the mezuzah?” I said.
“He's not Jewish.”
“Still, to go to the trouble-”
“Apparently, he's not a man of much faith, Alex. The square key opens both locks.”
Two good dead bolts, each shiny, with the crisp feel of new fixtures.
The apartment was dim and stuffy, more of that same weak cologne overlaid with must and mothballs.
Bare wood floors in need of varnish, some of the boards bowing. Off-white walls, off-white polyester drapes over the small protected windows, each with borders of little turquoise yarn-balls. Thrift-shop furniture in hues of ash and earth and not much of it.
A living room with one wall of plywood shelving crowded with books and a Taiwanese stereo system. The kitchen looked greasy but felt clean. Down a skinny dark hall were a cracked-tile bathroom, mattress-on-the-floor bedroom, and a rear door out to the tiny yard with a sagging clothesline and three-car garage.
It reminded me of something. Nolan Dahl's place.
Lonely bachelor living. The places it could lead…
“What do you think?” said Daniel.
I looked around. Everything was worn and stained and nicked in all the right places. No one would suspect it was a set.
Who lived here the rest of the year?
“Perfect,” I said, and he led me back to the back door and out into the yard. Half dry grass, half bird-specked cement.
“An alley runs behind the property,” he said. “The garage can be entered from both sides.” From his pocket he removed a remote control and pushed the button. The central garage door opened. Inside was a Karmann Ghia painted legal-paper yellow.
Back in the house, he gave me the remote and we returned to the living room, where he stood back, inviting me to inspect. I checked out the stereo and the books. The music was a mixture of LPs, tapes, and CDs. Small collection, maybe fifty selections in alclass="underline" Beethoven, Wagner, Bruckner, Mahler, Bach, Cat Stevens, the Lovin' Spoonful, Hendrix, the Doors, the Beatles' Abbey Road, nothing recent. Some of the covers bore resale labels from Aaron's on Melrose. The store had moved to Highland years ago.