“I can’t discuss the terms-”
“Of course not. We know them anyway. We know that, um, Christopher Nordine is the primary legatee and that Miss Grover stands to inherit only certain memorabilia of a sentimental nature, plus twelve acres of undeveloped land outside of Boulder.”
“And the question, Mr. Atwill?”
“My client was just wondering whether the will had been altered in any way in the last year. There’s no need to discuss specifics.”
“I should hope not,” he said primly.
“Please understand, Mr. Jenks. My client is an elderly woman of uncertain means who is devastated by her brother’s death. She’s seizing on this issue because she doesn’t want to confront her loss. She’s not, if you understand me, being reasonable.”
“I see.” He made mouth noises into the phone, mulling it over. Finally, he said, “Negative.”
“Negative what?”
“Negative to the question you asked me. Nothing of the kind.”
“All provisions remain intact?”
“I just told you that the answer to the question you asked was negative.” No one was going to trick Mr. Jenks into speaking English.
“Are you positive?” I asked. I couldn’t help it.
“Good-bye, Mr. Atwill.” He hung up.
“People do hang up on one,” I said to Wyl, who was counting a wad of gaily colored Japanese traveler’s checks.
“The world’s rife with it, Mr. Atwill,” Wyl said blithely. “Full of people who don’t give their right names, too.”
“It’s a scourge,” I said, getting up.
“Be careful with that back,” Wyl called after me. “A man your age can’t take his spine for granted.”
Max Grover’s dry cleaner was a large, fierce-looking Korean man in a little shop dead center in a minimall on Sunset Boulevard, just east of Sunset Plaza, a mall he shared with an Arab yogurt parlor, a Vietnamese nail salon, and a Thai restaurant. He regarded me darkly, as though he were wondering whether it would be simpler to comply with my request, or just fold me into equal threes and throw me through the window. “Mr. Grover not come himself?” he asked suspiciously.
So he didn’t read the English-language newspapers. Or maybe, like so many Koreans, he started work before they were delivered.
“Mr. Grover died,” I said. He was going to learn about it sooner or later, and I didn’t want him to call the cops when he did.
“Hah?” he said, blinking at me.
“He’s dead,” I said. “Somebody killed him.”
He was taken aback. Literally. A full step. “Mr. Grover? He dead?”
“I’m afraid so. Mr. Nordine sent me to pick up his things.”
“Oh, no,” he said. “Oh, nononono.” His voice was shaking.
“I can pay the bill,” I said stupidly.
“Bill? I don’t care bill.” He balled up a fist and brought it down on top of the Formica counter. The entire shop shook. “You think I care bill? Bill, hell to it. Mr. Grover good man.”
“He was,” I said. “He was a very good-”
“He give me money my sister,” the Korean said. His face was scarlet. “Money bring her from Korea.” He wiped a callused palm roughly across his eyes. “She problem,” he said, “he pay bring her from Korea.”
“Well,” I said, seeing Max in an ocean of blood, seeing Max’s chopped right wrist.
“I pay back.” The man was crying openly now. “One year, pay everything back. Try pay interest, Mr. Grover say no, no interest. Want my sister make him one dinner, bulgogi. Mr. Grover love bulgogi. Mr. Grover love everybody.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Ayyyyyy,” he said, a prolonged Asian syllable of unadulterated grief. “You wait.” He shuffled toward the back of the shop. “We make bulgogi,” he said without looking back. “We make bulgogi enough for one year.” He went into a room at the back of the shop and slammed the door. A moment later I heard him blow his nose with a sound like a tuba tuning up, and he reemerged. He’d washed his face, and his hair was spiky and wet.
“Mr. Grover cleaning,” he said, gathering plastic-wrapped clothes from the track that snaked around the ceiling of the shop. He bundled them against his chest like he was afraid someone might snatch them from him. “And for Mr. Nordine, too.” He lowered them to the counter and wiped his nose.
My antenna went up. “When did Mr. Nordine bring these in?”
He looked at the tag, blinking rapidly to clear his eyes. “Two days. Mr. Grover bring.”
I looked down at the pile, mostly long, loose-fitting shirts on hangers, shirts like the one I’d seen Max wearing. “Nothing else?”
“ Eigo,” he said. “Yes. Always. Mr. Grover never empty pockets.”
“Most people don’t.” I hoped I sounded calm.
“Not same Mr. Grover.” He fished around below the counter and came up with a package wrapped in blue paper. “Key, money, papers, rings, everything.”
I picked up the blue package and began to grapple with the things on hangers. He put out a hand to stop me.
“I carry clothes,” he demanded fiercely.
“That’s not necessary.” I didn’t want him to get a look at my car.
“I do, I do.”
“I’m parked a block away,” I said, which was true. “You can’t leave the shop that long.”
“I close anyway,” he insisted. “Today I go drink for Mr. Grover. Make remember for Mr. Grover.”
“Never mind,” I said, scooping up the clothes. “Have a drink for me.”
“Remember for you, too.”
“That’s great,” I said. “How much do I owe you?”
“Go now,” he said, blinking again. “Say hello Mr. Nordine. Tell him sorry, very sorry. Tell him I make farewell service for Mr. Grover.”
“I will.”
“Good-bye.” He turned his back on me and started banging things around: a clothes press, a big trashcan full of hangers. I left.
In the car, I opened the blue package. It contained thirty-two well-laundered dollars-two tens, two fives, and two ones-a heavy turquoise ring with white tape wrapped around it to make it smaller, a credit card receipt for a restaurant called The Fig Tree, dated three days ago, and a piece of newsprint, tightly folded. When I had it open, I was looking at perhaps a quarter of a page from a tabloid, carefully scissored around a block of four ads.
It was evidently a specialty paper. The advertisements were for a gay dating service called First-Class Male, an “adult” telephone line that identified itself as the Long John Connection, a bookstore named A Different Slant, and a bar called The Zipper. The other side was taken up with part of a classified section, maybe forty short notices, mostly along the lines of hard jock seeks same. Max had paid no attention to the borders of the classifieds; the ones at the borders were cut into fragments. Written in the bottom margin on the classified side, in pencil, was a string of digits: 237/10/21/6:2.
I wrote down the numbers on a pad I keep on Alice’s dashboard and turned the page over again. There was no way I could check forty classifieds. It was only eleven-thirty, and The Fig Tree probably hadn’t opened yet. I drew and then let out a long breath and headed for The Zipper.
7 ~ Cereal Killer
The Zipper-I’m sorry-was open.
I’d never been in a darker room. Heavy, wide strips of black plastic, like the ones used to keep warmth out of a supermarket meat locker, hung in the front door to hold October at bay. When they flapped shut behind me, I found myself completely blind. Since my eyes weren’t doing me any good anyway, I closed them.
When I reopened them, a world appeared. A bar, lighted by seven or eight flickering Christmas bulbs, was to my immediate right. The man standing behind it wore a motorcycle jacket and an LAPD cap, complete with badge. He regarded me as though he was afraid I’d come in to sell him a vacuum cleaner. “You’re new.”
“I was a few minutes ago,” I said, sliding my shoes over the floor in case there was a step up.
I sat down on a squeaky stool, and the man behind the bar studied my face while I glanced around at nothing in particular and tried not to look like someone whose face was being studied. “About thirty,” he finally announced, with the muted pride of someone pulling a playing card out of his ear. “I’m Stan.”