Sanger breezed through the main entrance, seemingly unaware as the doorman held the door open for him.
Accustomed to being served.
The luggage followed moments later.
Daniel retreated down the drive, walked to Sunset and, when the light turned green, crossed the boulevard by foot. On the south side, Beverly and Crescent and Canon met in a confusing intersection. The hub was a park where Daniel had once taken his children to see the Florentine fountain spouting into a pond full of Japanese carp- fish like Delaware's. Now, however, the fountain was dry and most of the flowers he remembered were gone. He waited at the south edge until Petra arrived.
Petra entered the hotel.
Her flight-attendant's uniform minus wings and insignia was just another tailored suit, and with her short dark hair, fine-featured face, and discreet makeup, she looked like just another Beverly Hills working woman.
The black crocodile valise said a very well-employed working woman. She strode confidently to the front desk. The lobby was crowded- lots of check-ins, mostly Japanese tourists. Several harried-looking clerks, male and female pretty-faces, were on duty, typing, dispensing keys. Petra waited in one of the lines, allowed an old Japanese man to go past her, so she could get a male clerk.
Nice-looking guy, blond, struggling actor, yawn, yawn. The poor dear was clicking away, miserable through his smile.
She looked at her watch. “I'm from DeYoung and Rubin with the delivery for Mr. Galton. Has he checked in yet?”
Blondie gave her a half-second lookover, then a real smile, as he tapped computer keys.
“Frank Galton,” she added, a little more impatient. “He phoned from the plane, said he'd be in by now.”
“Yes, he is- just arrived. Shall I call him for you?”
Chest tightening, Petra checked her watch again. “No need, he's expecting this, said to have you bring it right up.”
Blondie looked past her at the undiminished line.
Petra tapped her nails on the granite counter. “Okay, I'll do it- what room?”
“Three fourteen,” said the clerk, refusing eye contact. “Thanks.”
Daniel lit up the off-duty sign and moved his taxi to Hartford Way on the west side of the hotel, where he exchanged it for the gray Toyota and changed into an olive-green uniform with the name Ahmed embroidered over the pocket.
Petra had a Coke in the hotel bar, avoiding the stares of men, making several trips to the third floor.
The third time, Daniel was up there, too, holding a broom, and she returned to the lobby and read a newspaper, looking all-business.
At 9:00 P.M., Daniel saw a room-service waiter bring Farley Sanger a club sandwich, a Heineken, and coffee.
No food at the party? Going late to the party?
He phoned Petra and told her he was returning to the Toyota, to let him know if Sanger came downstairs.
Circling the hotel property, slowly.
At 10:00, just as he pulled up to the mouth of the drive for the fifth time, Petra called. “Still no sign of him. Maybe he's not going to the party, after all.”
Maybe, indeed, thought Daniel. Was this whole evening, like so much police work, a wrong guess based on fine logic?
By 10:15, Daniel was ready to believe the lawyer had turned in- for Sanger, still on East Coast time, it was 1:00 in the morning.
Give it another hour to be safe.
Five minutes later, Petra said, “Here we go. He's wearing a light gray sportcoat, black shirt, black slacks.”
Daniel thanked her and started his taxi, told her to have a nice night.
“Sure you don't need me?” she said.
“I'm fine. Thanks. Stay on call.”
She didn't argue, understood that one strange car near the house on Rondo Vista was enough.
At 10:20, the lawyer pulled out onto Sunset, going east, and Daniel was ready for him.
Sanger stayed on the boulevard, leaving Beverly Hills, and cruising the Strip, the Sunset Plaza boutique district, continuing into Hollywood, where marble and granite and sultans' fortunes were the last things on anyone's mind.
Daniel could see him well enough to know the lawyer was smoking steadily, progressing from one cigarette to another, flicking still-lit butts out the window, where they sparked on the asphalt.
The scenery was ancillary film businesses- photo-processing places, color labs, sound studios- plus convenience and liquor stores, cheap motels with the requisite prostitutes out front.
Cruising for something the wife back in Manhattan would never know about? A little fun before the party?
Wouldn't that be interesting?
But, no. Sanger kept looking but never stopped.
Smoking his third cigarette since leaving the hotel.
And that briefcase said business…
They stopped at a red light at the Fountain intersection and Daniel prepared himself for a right turn toward Apollo, but when the light changed, Sanger stayed on Sunset.
Speeding up.
Continuing east, toward a sparkle of lights in the distance.
Downtown.
Daniel stayed with him under the Pasadena Freeway overpass to Figueroa. Figueroa south to Seventh Street, Seventh to the corner of Flower, where Sanger parked in a pay-lot, got out, looked around for several seconds, and began walking down the street.
Financial buildings, now dark and deserted.
Sanger looked a bit nervous, checking over his shoulder, glancing from side to side.
Holding the green briefcase close to his body.
That much cash in a tough neighborhood?
Daniel parked across the street, in another lot, watched Sanger stop at a six-story limestone building. The lobby was lit, faintly, but enough for Daniel to see charcoal granite with discreet gold trim.
The shock of recognition.
This time, a uniformed security guard sat behind the small desk.
Sanger stood at the locked double doors, tapped a foot, until the security guard saw him, opened the doors, and escorted him in.
Surprise, surprise.
Daniel sat in his car, trying to make sense of it.
50
Friday night. Party time.
I left the house at seven, spending some time at the Genesee apartment, wanting to get used to the place in case Zena had the impulse to come here. To Semite-town.
Robin had asked me what Zena was like and I'd said only, “Weird, just what you'd expect.”
Robin and I had made love at six. Because she wanted to and I wanted to. And I had another reason: Anything that weakened the reflexive response to Zena was welcome.
It made me feel dishonest.
Four murders- maybe five- helped me live with it.
I sat on Andrew's dusty couch, listening to Andrew's music, thumbing through Andrew's books. Then Twisted Science, the first few pages of the late Professor Eustace's essay on the Loomis Foundation.
Eustace's tone went well beyond academic criticism, as he accused the group of racist underpinnings, exploiting slave labor in Asia. Funding diploma mills in order to churn out “eugenic foot soldiers.” Apex University, Keystone Graduate Center, New Dominion University- I'd set my watch for 9:30 P.M. and it chimed. Placing the book under the mattress, I went out to the garage and pulled out the Karmann Ghia. Children's voices filled the block and the smells of supper drifted from nearby buildings. Edging into the alley, I drove up Fairfax to Sunset and traveled east, very slowly. Twenty-five minutes later I was at Apollo and Lyric.
Well past the cocktail hour. Late enough, I hoped, for me to be lost in the activity and able to observe.
Enough activity to occupy the hostess.
The souped-up Karmann Ghia chewed its way up the nearly black road. Treacherous if someone came barreling down from the summit. The parked cars began well before the corner of Rondo Vista and I had to pull over and continue on foot.