Poodle Springs

"Well, if you can restrain your passion for self-sacrifice," I said, "and keep your mouth shut and hide out with your Poodle Springs wife until I figure this out…"

I let it hang. I didn't have a finish for the sentence myself. Neither did he. We were silent until I dropped him in front of Muriel's place. He took off his hairpiece, put it in my glove compartment and walked wearily up the walk. As he reached the door I saw his shoulders straighten. I put the Olds in gear and drove on toward the house I shared with Linda.

19

"Clayton Blackstone is a very dignified man," Linda said. "I do not believe all that stuff that Muffy's husband told you."

We were having breakfast by the pool in the already solid heat of the desert morning. There was a scent of bougainvillaea on the air and the sound of birds, foraging in the morning before the heat got too bad.

"It's a question of law whether he's her husband," I said. "I think the first marriage precludes those that follow." I sipped my coffee, some sort of Kona roast that Tino had shipped to him. "On the other hand, I'm not up on my bigamy law."

"Clayton Blackstone is a friend of Daddy's," Linda said. She was wearing a pale blue silk thing that concealed enough of her to be legal, but only that.

"I don't know where Daddy got his money," I said, "but if you have enough of it some of it has to be dirty."

"You think my father has been dishonest?"

"It's not that simple," I said.

"Well, what do you think?"

"I think he probably at least allowed a little dishonesty."

"Oh pooh," Linda said.

Tino came and took away the empty juice glasses.

"Obviously Les, or Larry, or whatever he calls himself, is a compulsive gambler. Obviously he's a fortune hunter. Obviously he's dishonest. Why are you protecting him? Why not simply turn him in to the police?" Linda said. "Report to Mr. Lipshultz where he is, and get to spend some afternoons with me, drinking gimlets, and holding hands, and, um… whatever."

"He doesn't understand it, either," I said.

"Les? I should think he wouldn't, the worm, what kind of a man would get himself into this kind of a mess." Linda's eyes were bright with distaste.

"He's addicted," I said.

"To drugs?"

"To risk. He's probably a compulsive gambler, and he has to turn everything into a gamble."

"Why on earth would a man want to do that? Why does someone feel that way about gambling?"

"It's not gambling," I said. "It's risk, the danger of losing, that gets the juices going."

"He likes to lose?" Linda said. The angry glint was gone from her eyes and she was frowning slightly so that the lovely little line appeared horizontally between her perfect eyebrows. She leaned toward me on the chaise, holding her little blue wisp of a garment together at the throat so that she could maintain the semblance of decency and, in the process, keep me from getting out of hand.

"No, but he likes the chance of losing," I said. "It excites him."

"So he gambles and commits bigamy and takes pornographic pictures and maybe murders someone?"

"Things get out of hand," I said. "Now there's too much danger. He's not getting a thrill out of it. Now he's scared. And I don't think he killed the woman in his office."

Linda leaned back against the chaise and chewed on the edge of her lower lip a little, looking at me sideways out of the corners of her eyes.

"You're thinking," I said.

"Umm."

"You're beautiful when you think," I said.

"You understand this man very well," Linda said.

"I'm a detective, lady. I meet a lot of people in trouble."

"Maybe you're a little like this one. Maybe you do the work you do because it's dangerous."

"Like Larry Victor? I get a thrill out of danger?"

"There must be some reason," Linda said, "why you don't stay home and help me spend ten million dollars."

"Maybe I could get a little gold ring grafted onto my neck," I said, "and you could wear me on your charm bracelet."

"You really are impossible, aren't you," Linda said. "Fortunately I find you scrumptious."

"I know that," I said.

20

There was a Santa Ana wind blowing in Hollywood and it had blown the smog out past Catalina. The sky was as blue as a cornflower and the weather was in the low seventies when I parked on Sunset and walked back toward Western to Reno's cafe. It was just after noon and most of the hookers had broken for lunch. North and east across the Valley past Pasadena I could see the snow on top of the San Gabriel Mountains.

I went into Reno's. It smelled as if they hadn't cleaned the grill in a while. I went to the bar and sat at one end. There were two guys in plaid suits hunched over a notebook at the other end, and in the booth I'd sat in the other day a white-haired guy in a black western-style shirt was feeding drinks to a hard-faced old woman with the faint memory of blonde in her hair.

She was wearing bright blue harlequin glasses studded with rhinestones. The old guy's teeth had that perfect even quality that only comes from a store.

There was no one else in the place. The bartender slid down the bar as if he had more time than anyone needed. He was a tall narrow guy with a bald head. Wisps of black hair were carefully plastered over it to make it look worse. His teeth were yellow and he had the color of a man who goes out only at night.

"What'll it be, pal," he said.

"Rye," I said. "Straight up."

He pulled a bottle from the display rack behind him and poured me a shot of Old Overholt, rang up the cost, put the check on the bar in front of me.

"Lola Faithful come in here much?" I said.

The bartender shrugged and started to move on down the bar. I took a twenty-dollar bill out of my pocket and folded it the long way and let it stand like a small green tent on the bar in front of me. The bartender moved back down the bar toward it.

"Thought you'd want to run a tab," he said.

"I do," I said.

He looked at the twenty and moistened his lips with a tongue the color of a raw oyster.

"Lola Faithful come in here much?" I said.

"Oh, Lola, sure, I didn't get you the first time. Hell, Lola comes in here all the time. Christ, that's what she does. She comes in here."

He gri

"What can you tell me about her?"

"She drinks Manhattans," he said.

"Anything else?"

"I think she used to be some kind of a hoochie-cooch dancer," he said.

"And?"

"And nothing," he said. "That's all I know."

I nodded.

"Know a guy named Larry Victor?" I said.

"Naw," the bartender said. His eyes followed the movement of the twenty. "Only a few regulars, I know. Most people ain't regulars." He stopped looking at the twenty for a moment and swept the room with a glance.

"Hell," he said, "would you be a regular here?"

"Les Valentine?" I said. He shook his head.

I let the twenty fall from my fingers and slid it over the bar toward him. He picked it up in long fingers and folded it expertly and tucked it into the watch pocket of his tan poplin pants. Then he picked up the bottle of rye and topped off my glass.

"House bonus," he said.

I nodded and he went down the bar and began to polish glasses with a towel better suited to other purposes.

I waited.

The two guys in plaid folded up their notebook and left to make their fortune. The old guy in the booth was succeeding too well with his date. She was drunk already and pawing him. A Mexican kid, maybe ten, came into the bar.

"Shine, Mister?" he said.