Flesh And Blood

I drove home. Robin’s truck was gone, and I was ashamed for being happy about that. Hurrying into my office, I called Milo.

“The gun that killed Jane was registered, all right,” he said. No greeting, no preliminaries. “And guess who?”

I said, “Charles Manson.”

“Lauren. She bought it two years ago at a Big Five on San Vicente – not far from her apartment. She probably figured in her line of work, she could use protection. Or maybe she was just another single woman wanting the security of firepower. Looks like she lent it to her mother, and stepdad got hold of it.”

“Another unfortunate accident.”

“So far, that’s how it’s going down, Alex.”

“What will Mel Abbot be charged with?” I asked.

“The D.A.’s office is brainstorming because it’s a tricky situation – old helpless guy like that. No one dares question Abbot until he has a lawyer, but he’s in no shape to hire one of his own volition. He’s also too rich to qualify for a public defender, but they may assign him a temporary PD anyway. In addition to an advocate from competency court. Ruiz and Gallardo are searching for relatives, someone willing to assume responsibility. Meanwhile, Abbot’s got a comfy bed in the jail ward at County, and the shrinks say it’ll be a few days before they can even try to get an accurate picture of his mental status.”

“Once he gets an attorney, then what?”

“No one’s eager to make a showcase out of it. My guess is he’ll be quietly committed.”

“Nice and neat,” I said.

“If you call a dead woman and a pathetic old guy ending his days on the fu

“Everything’s relative,” I said. “Unfortunately, I just made a mess.”

“What are you talking about?”

I described my afternoon.

He didn’t answer, but I had a pretty good idea about the look on his face.

Finally: “You followed him again?”

“I know,” I said. “But this time, I was really careful. He definitely didn’t see me. The main thing is what I saw.”

“You think Dugger’s personally escorting a hit man.”

“You had to see the guy. He sure doesn’t look like a brain surgeon-”

“Whatever he is, Alex, if he flew in today from New York, he didn’t kill Jane last night in Sherman Oaks.”

“Granted. But he could’ve killed Lauren. And Michelle and Lance. Maybe there’s a team.”

“Musical mafiosi,” he said.

“That’s how I’d do it if I had the money. Use pros the locals don’t know, cover my tracks by transporting them back and forth.”

“All that flying means paperwork, Alex. If the guy is a professional – a really heavy hitter – he’d have to worry about that. And like I said, if you’re the contractor – a supposedly law-abiding fellow like Dugger – why would you also pick the guy up at the airport yourself? Take him out to lunch in plain view, then truck him straight to Daddy’s place in broad daylight and give someone the opportunity to snap pictures?”

“So you have no interest in looking at the passenger list?”

“That,” he said, “would require a warrant. And grounds-”

“Okay, fine,” I said. “He likes black ’cause he’s a priest, lost his collar. Tony Duke flew him out for spiritual guidance.”

“Listen, Alex, I appreciate all you’ve-”

“Want me to toss the photos?”

Pause. “You have clear shots of this joker’s face.”

“Clear enough. In duplicate.”

He made a sound – not a sigh, too weary for a sigh. “I’ll come by tonight.”

He didn’t.

CHAPTER 26

BY TEN THE following morning my phone was still silent.

Either my Brooklyn Pizza lens work had paled in comparison to some new lead Milo was chasing or, given the benefit of a good night’s sleep, he’d decided the snapshots were a waste of time. Still, it was unlike him not to call.

Robin was smiling again, and we’d made love this morning – though I’d felt some distance. Probably my imagination.

When in doubt, torment your body. I put on ru

When I returned the house was echoing hollowly, silent but for the whine of the circular saw from Robin’s studio. I changed into a sweatshirt, old jeans, and grubby shoes, stuck a Dodgers cap on my head, and left.

The air had chilled even further, and the sun hid behind a big, iron saucer of the same sooty hue as yesterday’s cloud bank. A tongue of wind whipped past me, rattling trees, twanging shrubs. The earth smelled of loam and iron. Not winter in any real sense, but in L.A. you learn to live with pretense.

On days like this, the ocean was still beautiful.

I took Sunset to the coast highway, encountered no obstruction, and was speeding past Tony Duke’s copper octopus by twelve-thirty. No cars were parked on the shoulder, and all the gated estates looked forbidding. Continuing to the Paradise Cove intersection, I turned onto the speed-bumped asphalt that dips down past Ramirez Canyon and ends at the beachfront clearing where the Sand Dollar sits. As I passed the restaurant’s plastic sign, I noticed a rectangle of whitewashed plywood staked a few feet in, painted crudely in red.

The Dollar’s Renovation Continues.

Sorry, Folks. Please Remember Us

When We Re-open This Summer

I bumped my way past the oleander-planted berms that nearly concealed the trailer park on the north side of the cove. No chain had been slung across the blacktop, and the splintered placard warning that beach parking was twenty bucks a day if you weren’t eating at the restaurant appeared in its usual spot, bottomed by the halfhearted a

West of Spring Street, renovation usually means extinction. The Dollar was going the way of all L.A. landmarks, and I didn’t know how I felt about that.

It had been nearly three years since I’d tackled a fisherman’s breakfast from the red-vinyl cradle of a Sand Dollar window booth. Back in the days when Robin and I had rented a drafty beach house ten miles up the coast, as we waited out the reconstruction of our burned-out home. Then a patient’s childhood nightmares drew me into a long-unsolved abduction and murder, and the victim turned out to be a waitress at the Dollar. The questions I’d asked had overridden six months of generous tips. Some time later I’d dropped in for breakfast again, hoping all had been forgotten. It hadn’t, and I never returned.

I drove fifty more yards, and the shack that serves as the Paradise Cove guardhouse came into view. The lowered gate was more symbolic than functional – I could’ve lifted it by hand, squeezed the Seville through. I wondered if it would come to that. Then I saw movement through the shack’s window, and the attendant was ready for me when I drove up, shaking his head and pointing at yet another sign that reiterated the twenty-dollar tariff. Older man – seventy-five or so – with blue eyes and a beef-jerky face shielded by a battered canvas hat. Big band music played from a tape deck in the shack.

“Closed,” he said.

Down below, through the twisting branches of giant sycamores, I could see ocean and what remained of the restaurant: The redwood façade and half of the shingle roof were in place, but empty holes gaped ulcerously where the windows had been, and through the wounds was a clear view of walls stripped to the studs and snarls of severed electrical conduit. What had once been the parking lot was now a table of raked brown dirt filled with backhoes, tractors, and trucks, sheets of plywood, stacks of two-by-fours. No workers in sight, no construction noise.