I nodded.
Janet stood very still, then said, “I’d better pack for the girls. They can sleep at my place until she’s back.” She went out of the living room and down the hall without looking at us. Griggs stayed at the house while I rode over with Poitras.
Ellen Lang’s light green Subaru wagon KLX774 was under a streetlamp at Ralph’s supermarket on Ventura in Encino, the third place on Janet Simon’s list. Ralph’s had closed at eight-thirty, so the lot was empty except for the Subaru, a radio car, and a sun-faded Galaxy 500 belonging to the night watchman, an old geez who stood out on the tarmac talking cop-shop with the uniforms. We pulled up to them and got out, Poitras flashing his shield, making sure the watchman saw it.
Poitras said, “You got any idea how long it’s been here?”
The old man jerked his head once, to the side. His white hair looked purple in the streetlight. So did my jacket and so did Poitras’ white Hathaway shirt. Twenty feet above us the lamp buzzed like an angry firefly. “It’s been here since before I come on,” he said.
“Okay. You got the manager’s number?”
The old guy jerked his head toward the store. “It’s inside.”
“Get it. Call him and have him come out here. I wanna talk to his bag boys and stock clerks and anyone else who might’ve been out here.”
The old guy looked scared he was getting cut out of the action. “What’s up, Sarge?”
“Go call.”
The old man frowned but nodded his head and gimped away. Walter Brennan. Out on Ventura, traffic had slowed to a crawl, drivers looking our way to see what was going on. I walked over to the car. Four bags of groceries were lined up on the back deck behind the rear seat. She’d done her shopping, then come back, and was probably approached while she loaded the bags. “Okay to try the door?”
Poitras said yeah. One of the uniforms drifted over and stood behind me. Young guy, muscled arms, Tom Selleck moustache. I pulled on the rear door handle and it lifted. The tailgate swung out and me and the uniform stepped back.
“Bad milk,” Poitras said. He walked over, dug through the bags. Wilted lettuce. Wrinkled strawberries. A burst tomato. It gets hot in a sealed car on a sunny afternoon in Los Angeles. Hot enough to kill someone. Poitras finally came out with an opened pint of skim milk, like she’d had a little, just a sip while she was shopping, then sealed it up again to bring it home. I said, “Probably been here since early afternoon. Could’ve been here since I was with you.”
Poitras grunted. He opened the drivers side door and stuck his head in. When he leaned against the little car, it settled on its springs. Then he dropped down into a push-up position on the ground. He got up, went to the tail end of the car, and dropped down again. This time he reached under the car and came out with a pair of white and lavender glasses. The left temple was broken.
“Ellen Lang’s,” I said.
Poitras nodded and watched the cars go by on Ventura. He set the glasses on the Subarus hood, leaned against the fender, and stared at me, eyes empty. The streetlamp was suddenly much louder. “Old Mort,” Poitras said slowly, “he was into something all right.”
13
Later, Poitras had one of the uniforms drive me back to Ellen Lang’s for my car. Janet Simon was sitting on the ottoman when I walked in, the little blue ashtray beside her full and the living room cloudy with smoke. I didn’t make any cracks. She said, “Well?”
“Looks like someone grabbed her.”
She nodded as if it were unimportant and stood up. There were two small suitcases by the entry, one light blue, the other tan. She said, “I’d better get the girls.”
“Are you sorry it happened between us?”
She went ashen around her lips as if she were very angry. Maybe she was. As if in opening herself she had violated a promise she held very dear. Maybe she had. “No,” she said. “Of course not.”
I nodded. “Want some help with the girls?”
“No.”
“Maybe some company, when you tell them?”
“No. I’m sorry, but no. Do you see?” She was a pale, creamy coffee color beneath her tan, her lips and nostrils and temples touched with blue. She wasn’t making eye contact. She was at a place like Ellen Lang, where putting your eyes to someone else’s cost too much, only Janet Simon wasn’t used to it.
“Sure,” I said. “You’ve got my number.”
She nodded, once, looking down at her cigarette.
I left.
I stopped at a Westward Ho market to pick up two six-packs of Falstaff, the best cheap beer around, and went home and put George Thorogood on loud and drank beer with the cat and thought about things. Ellen Lang and Janet Simon. They weren’t so very different. Maybe Janet Simon had been Ellen Lang. Maybe Ellen Lang would one day be Janet Simon. If she were still alive. I drank more beer, and cranked the speakers up to distortion when George got to Bad to the Bone. I listen to that song, I always feel tough. I drank more beer. At some point very late that night I became a flying monkey, one of thousands chasing Morton Lang toward the Emerald City.
The next morning I hurt, but it was manageable. The cat was on the floor beside me, belly up. “Have something ready when I get back, okay?” He ignored me. I stripped down to my shorts, went out onto the deck, and went from the twelve sun salutes to the tae kwan do. I took air in deep, using my stomach muscles, saturating my blood with oxygen until my ears rang. I pushed hard, spinning through low space to mid space to high space, using the big muscles in my back and chest and legs the way I’d been taught, working to burn out the Bad Things and finding a proof of it in the pain singing in my muscles.
After I shaved and showered and dressed I made soft-boiled eggs and raisin muffins and sliced bananas. While I ate them I made four sandwiches, brewed a pot of coffee, and poured it into the big thermos. I took out a six-pack of RC 100, two Budweisers, and a jar of jalapeno-stuffed olives. I put all that in a double-strength paper bag on top of a couple books by Elmore Leonard, Hombre and Valdez Is Coming. I took my clip-on holster out of the closet, put the Dan Wesson in it, and selected a jacket to go with my khaki Meronas. By eight-twenty I was staking out Kimberly Marsh’s apartment. I was cranky. If the fat guy brought his dog out today, maybe I’d shoot it. They’d probably arrest John Cassavetes, and wouldn’t Gena Rowlands be surprised.
There were still letters in Kimberly Marsh’s mail drop and still bulk-rate flyers in the big open bin. I walked back past the banana trees to number 4 and let myself in. The rest of the petals had fallen from the dead daisies. A guy named Sid had left a message on the machine saying they’d met at Marion’s and how much he’d like to get together with her because his planets were rising in the lower quadrant and if she was a happening babe she’d give him a buzz. I let myself out, closed the door, and locked it. The walkway continued past number 4, turning right to pass a laundry room, then down one flight of stairs to the underground parking. I went down and found one other stair at the opposite side of the garage that opened out into the complex. That was it. Anybody wanted to get to number 4 they’d have to go past me through the entry, or down the parking drive, also past me. All I had to do was stay awake and I had the place covered.
I walked back to the Corvette, pulled the top up, and climbed into the passenger side. I was armed, supplied, and ready for siege. I could hang in as long as it took. Even until lunch.
Seven minutes later the dark blue Nova with the bad rust spot on its left rear fender rolled past and pulled to the curb about six cars ahead of me. Same two Chicano guys. Curiouser and curiouser. The driver got out and trotted across the street to disappear behind the banana trees. He was back there a long time. Maybe Pygmies got him. Just when I got my hopes up he came back, still scowling, still trying to look like Charles Bronson, still not making it. It’s tough to look like Charles Bronson when you got no chin. He walked into the street in front of an elderly lady driving a big bronze Mercury. She had to stop. He scowled at her. Tough, all right. I heard his car door slam, then a minute later faint Mexican music. These guys were good.