Gone

“Can I help you guys?”

“Your neighbor a few doors down, Mr. Bradley Dowd,” said Milo, flashing the badge. “How well do you know him?”

“The real estate guy? Did he do something?”

“His name came up in an investigation.”

“White-collar crime?”

“He make you uneasy?”

“No, I don’t know him, he’s hardly ever at his office. He just seems like a white-collar guy. If he did something.”

Dark eyes sharpened with curiosity.

Milo said, “Does he come to his office by himself?”

“Usually with another guy, I think it’s his brother ’cause he seems to be looking after him. Even though the other guy looks older. Sometimes he leaves him there by himself. He’s kind of…you know, not quite right. The other guy.”

“Billy.”

“Don’t know his name.” She frowned.

“Has he bothered you?”

“Not really. Once I was here and the air-conditioning wasn’t working so I had the door open. He came in, said ‘Hi,’ and just stood there. I said ‘Hi’ back and asked if he was thinking of taking a trip. He blushed, said he wished, and left. Only times I saw him after that was downstairs at the Italian place, getting food for his brother. When he saw me he got real embarrassed, like he’d been caught doing something naughty. I tried to make a little conversation but it was hard for him. That’s when I realized he wasn’t normal.”

“How so?”

“Kind of retarded? You can’t tell by looking, he looks like a regular guy.”

“Has Brad ever come in here?”

“Also just once, a couple of weeks ago. He introduced himself, real friendly, maybe too much, you know?”

“Slick?”

“Exactly. He told me he was thinking of taking a vacation in Latin America and wanted information. I offered to sit down with him and discuss choices but he said he’d start with those.” Pointing to the rack. “He grabbed a handful but I never heard back. Did he leave the country or something?”

“Why would you ask that?” said Milo.

“The places we book,” she said. “In the movies they always have bad guys ru

“I’ll bet. Anything else you want to tell us about him?”

“Can’t think of any.”

“Okay, thanks.” He leaned over her desk. “We’d appreciate it if you didn’t mention we were here asking about him.”

“Of course not,” said Lourdes Texeiros. “Should I be scared of him?”

Milo looked at her. Took in the black curls. “Not at all.”

“Another misdirection,” I said as we descended the stairs. “Wanting us to think Nora traveled with Meserve. Either because he’s protecting her or he made her and Meserve disappear. I’m betting on door number two.”

“All these years he takes care of a coupla mopes who just happen to be members of the Lucky Sperm Club. Why change all that now?”

“Nora had always deferred to him. Maybe that changed.”

“Meserve shows up,” he said.

“And captures her affections,” I said. “Another self-styled player, good-looking, ambitious, manipulative. Younger than Brad, but not unlike him. Could be that’s what attracted Nora to him in the first place. Whatever the reason, she wasn’t giving him up the way she had the others.”

“Meserve worms his way into her affections and her pocketbook.”

“Deep-pocketbook. Brad’s got nominal power but he serves at the discretion of the estate. Nora’s a ditz but it would be hard to claim she’s not of sound mind, legally. If she demanded control over her own assets, it would pose a major complication for Brad. If she convinced Billy to do the same, it would be a disaster.”

“Bye-bye, façade.”

“Banished when he’s of no further use,” I said. “Just like when he was a kid.”

We walked in silence to the cars.

He said, “Michaela and Tori and the Gaidelases and Lord knows how many others get done for blood-lust and Nora and Meserve get done for money?”

“Or a mixture of blood-lust and money.”

He considered that. “Nothing new about that, I guess. Rick’s relatives didn’t just lose their lives in the Holocaust. Their homes and their businesses and all their other possessions got confiscated.”

“Take it all,” I said. “The ultimate trophy.”

CHAPTER 41

We took the Seville to Santa Monica Canyon.

No Porsche or any other car in Brad Dowd’s driveway. Lights out in the redwood house, no reply to Milo ’s knock.

I joined the traffic crawl on Cha

An assessors’ map of Billy Dowd’s property rested in Milo ’s lap. Ten acres, no building permits ever issued.

The Seville ’s no mountain car and I slowed as the pitch steepened and the turns pinched. Nothing on the road until I neared the spot where Michaela had run across screaming.

An old tan Ford pickup was parked there on the turnoff. An old tan man stood looking into the brush.

Plaid shirt, dusty jeans, beer gut hanging over his buckle. Filmy white hair fluffed in the breeze. A long, hooked nose sliced sky.

Smoke seeped from under the truck’s hood.

Milo said, “Pull over.”

The old man turned and watched us. His belt buckle was stippled brass, an oversized oval featuring a bas-relief horse head.

“You okay, Mr. Bondurant?”

“Why shouldn’t I be, Mr. Detective?”

“Looks like an over-heat.”

“It always does that. Pinhole leak in the radiator, long as I feed it faster than it gets hungry, I’m okay.”

Bondurant shuffled over to the truck, reached in the passenger window, and took out a yellow plastic jug of antifreeze.

“Liquid diet,” said Milo. “You’re sure the block won’t crack?”

“You worried about me, Mr. Detective?”

“Protect and serve.”

“Find out anything about the girl?”

“Still working on it, sir.”

Bondurant’s eyes vanished in a mesh of fold and crinkle. “Meaning nothing, huh?”

“Looks like you’ve been thinking about her.”

The old man’s chest swelled. “Who says?”

“This is the spot where you saw her.”

“It’s also a turnoff,” said Bondurant. He hefted the antifreeze. Stared at the brush. “Naked girl, it’s like one of those stories you tell in the service and everyone thinks you’re lyin’.” He licked his lips. “Few years back that woulda been something.”

Sucking in his belly, he hitched his jeans. The roll of fat shimmered down, covered the horse’s eyes.

Milo said, “Know your neighbors?”

“Don’t got any real ones.”

“No neighborhood spirit around here?”

“Let me tell you how it’s like,” said Charley Bondurant. “This used to be horse land. My grandfather raised Arabians and some Te

“Rich folk like Brad Dowd?”

“Who?”

“White-haired fellow, mid-forties, drives all kinds of fancy cars.”

“Oh, yeah, him,” said Bondurant. “Guns those things too damn fast coming down the mountain. Exactly what I mean. Wearing those Hawaiian shirts.”