Dating Is Murder

25

“Call him back.” Joey, in my passenger seat, was u

I glanced at the ocean, the midday surfers, then back at the highway. I thought of my cell phone in my purse, holding on to a message left that morning: “It’s Simon. Call me.” Four words, one phone number. It’s a bad sign, memorizing messages, then saving them.

“I can’t,” I told Joey. “Not with you listening. I’m self-conscious enough.”

“I’ll call him. I’m not self-conscious-” She reached over and honked my horn. “Okay, so I haven’t tried U4, Euphoria, but I’ll tell you what Ecstasy would do for you right now, besides raise your body temperature and make your teeth clench. It would override the conditioning that tells you you can’t fall in love with one man if you’re still- What the heck is with the traffic? It’s two in the afternoon.”

“Day before Thanksgiving,” I said, happy to change the subject. “People fleeing L.A. in search of autumn leaves and a little nip in the air. Wow. Look at that campus.”

Pepperdine University burst into view on a Malibu hill. Cantaloupe-colored buildings with terra-cotta roofs dotted an expanse of green lawn. A crucifix etched into a slab of cement greeted northbound traffic on Pacific Coast Highway, proclaiming the school’s religious affiliation. Joey pointed to John Tyler Drive, a back entrance tended by a small gate. “Is Ecstasy addictive?” I said, pulling up to a security kiosk.

“Debatable. I didn’t get addicted, anyway. My former shrink used to recommend it, back in its golden age. Hi there,” she said, leaning across me to talk to the guard. “We’re here to see Lyle Ayres, he lives in Lovernich. By the way,” she continued, to me, “Ecstasy’s always big with students. I bet Euphoria is too. I’m dying to know what it is.”

I’d spoken that morning to Detective Yellin, the guy working on the Rico Rodriguez disappearance. He had not sounded impressed by the Rico-A

Finding them was easy, once Joey remembered that her brother’s wife’s sister’s daughter was a law student at Pepperdine. This girl was happy to perform introductions; along with the rest of the campus, she seemed to know all about the Rodriguez case.

Lovernich Residential Complex up close was charmless concrete with a cottage-cheese texture that discouraged graffiti. Joey knocked on a painted steel door, which was opened by a stocky kid wearing a pair of red-and-purple boxer shorts. He held a phone and a crumb-filled plate. He managed a “Come on in” gesture without interrupting his phone conversation. “Cop’s like, No cell phone, no Palm Pilot, no-brainer: guy took off for Vegas. I’m like, Dude, who leaves three hundred bucks on his desk and goes to Vegas? Who leaves his laptop? Cop’s like, Guy’s rich, right? So he buys himself a new laptop wherever he is. I’m like, He’s rich, he’s not stupid, you’re stupid… Then, like an hour later they find his car!” He paced as he talked, circling the living room-kitchen-dining area, perhaps seeking a surface on which to set his dirty dish. Plates, glasses, and utensils were everywhere, and empty soda cans overflowed from brown shopping bags, evidence of recycling.

“Okay, gotta go, some people here to interview me and Kev… Yeah, and they’re talking maybe Dateline or something, next week… ’Kay. Later.” He turned to us and held out a hand. “I’m Lyle. You’re the private eyes. Cool.”

Joey had suggested that I wear something nicer than paint clothes, which made us rather formal next to Lyle and his expansive stomach. We took seats on two dormitory-issue, sheet-covered sofas with a view of a swimsuit calendar, a particularly violent poster from one of the hobbit movies, and some framed autographed sports jerseys.

The front door opened. A wiry, fresh-faced kid with an overbite introduced himself as Kevin. He stared at Joey with a trancelike gaze I knew. “Hey,” he said. “You look just like-is it you? Gun Girl?”

Joey smiled. Gun Girl, her old action series, had enjoyed modest success and a small cult following until a random act of violence committed against its star had caused its demise. The scar resulting from that act of violence was covered at the moment with makeup, and virtually invisible. I felt the scar didn’t so much diminish Joey’s beauty as add to her mystique, but this was not a view universally held in Hollywood, and Joey’s reluctance to undergo plastic surgery was considered eccentric to the point of madness.

Kevin was wide-eyed. “My dad and I are, like, your biggest fans. My dad says you’re totally hot. My mom hates you. Did you really do your own stunts?”

“Only after my stunt double was killed. Kidding.” Joey punched him in the arm, which visibly delighted him. “So, Kevin, Wollie and I are here to ask a few questions about Rico. You guys must be sick of this by now, but would you mind-?”

“Gosh, no.” Kevin didn’t seem to find it odd that a former TV crime fighter should metamorphose into a real-life one. Nor did Lyle, launching into the story of the last time he’d seen Rico.

“Saturday. I was heading out to the movies-Vin Diesel. Rico was like, Man, it sucks, don’t go. I didn’t listen. You know, you never think, ‘This is the last time I’ll ever see you, man.’ You never think that. And then they’re gone.”

“So you think Rico’s-” I hesitated. “Dead?”

“I don’t know. He’s a survivor. But major crime for sure. The cops, they’re like, Maybe, maybe not. But hey, do the math.”

There it was again, that phrase. “Do it for me, would you, Lyle?” I said.

“Okay. He had tickets for hockey next weekend. Killer seats. He’s going to blow that off? I don’t think so. And: Thursday night he studied. You don’t spend an hour on chem if you’re not going to be around for finals. Who would do that?”

“Kevin, when did you last see Rico?” Joey asked.

“Saturday. Seven, seven-thirty. Dressed for a date. I don’t know who with.”

“Did he say it was a date?” I asked.

“No, but that was the Saturday drill. Sleep in, lunch, work out, shower, shave, aftershave, real clothes, date.”

“Same girl every week?”

“Not necessarily.”

“Not usually,” Lyle said, and gri

“Did you know A

They looked at each other. “She hasn’t been around for a while,” Kevin said.

“He dumped her,” Lyle said.

Kevin said, “You don’t know that for sure.”

“Oh, like she’d dump him? I don’t think so.” He looked at us. “Kev dated her.”

“I didn’t date her,” Kevin said. “We were friends.”

Lyle laughed. “Friends. That just means you didn’t get any.”

“We weren’t like that.”

“Yeah, but you wanted to be like that. Rico snaked her from you.”

“No, he didn’t. I introduced them.”

“First mistake, dude.”

Kevin flushed. I said, “What did you think of A

“Loser,” Lyle said. “No money, average in the looks department-”

“C’mon, Lyle. She was totally pretty,” Kevin said. “You’d go out with her in a minute.”

“So? I’m not saying she’s a dog. Maybe in Hicksville, Germany, she was a ten, but she wasn’t in Rico’s league.”

“Did you know she’s missing?” I said. This got their attention. “Nobody’s seen A

Kevin looked stu

“Who?” Joey asked.

Lyle threw a sideways look at Kevin and smiled. “He wouldn’t say. But if he got a new shirt, he’d go, Does this make me look older? Is this cool? so we figured she was off-campus. Pepperdine girls, his attitude was like, They should be so lucky.”

“What do you think, Kevin?” I asked. “Any ideas about A