“He’s at the Stone Canyon Drive house, Mr. Harmer.”
“Let me see. I believe we have that number. Our records are in horrible shape. We’re changing systems here.”
“Number forty, Mr. Harmer.”
“Thank you so much for helping us.”
“No trouble at all.”
Her girlish caution had evaporated when the figure I gave her checked with hers. We had become companions then. We shared the same arithmetic. And we were both eager to be of maximum service to Mr. Calvin Tomberlin. He used that handy tool of the very rich, special services from the trust department of a bank. All his bills would go there and they would pay them all, neatly and promptly. At the end of the year they would make up a detailed statement, take a percentage of the total as a service charge, send the statement to the tax attorney handling Tomberlin’s affairs.
I had to buy a city map to locate Stone Canyon Drive. It angled west off Beverly Glen Boulevard, a winding road like a shelf pasted against the wall of a dry canyon. The houses were very far apart, and so were the numbers. Ten, twenty, thirty, forty. Everybody had a nice round number. I came to 40 after the canyon had gradually turned north. But the house was invisible. A smooth curve of asphalt flowed down around the rocks. Where it entered the main road, a small sign on one side said “40” and the sign on the other side said “Private”. There was a rubber cable across the asphalt. I could assume that the weight of a car set off a signal somewhere.
I had to keep going. There was no place to pull off. After I passed a house-or rather a drivewaywith the number 100 on it, I came to a turnaround, and there was no place to go but back. It was three and a half miles back to the boulevard. Ten houses in three and a half miles is reasonable privacy. I went back to Sunset and over to Sepulveda, and wiggled my way around through some semipretentious little areas, trying to work back toward Stone Canyon Drive.
At last I found what I thought was a pretty good view of the ridge that formed the west wall of the canyon. The houses were set along the reverse slope of the ridge. They weren’t going to burn in tandem. There was too much bare rock up there. But each house was in a private oasis of green, or I should say near one, or perched over ome. Various architects had hung them up there like strange little toys. Other ridge areas, lower and brushier, were clotted thick with houses.
According to demand, I could imagine that each of those far houses was taking up at least a million dollars worth of barren real estate. In a sane world it would be 501$ an acre, but there it is, status-symbol Iiond, rocks and brush, ridges and gulleys, fires and mud, all the way to Pacific Palisades. The highest houses get to see the pizza signs, and the night sea beyond.
Perhaps the only greater idiocy is visible in Beverly Hills where, on the older roads sit, jowl to jowl, on small plots, huge examples of the worst architectural styles of the past two hundred years, from Uncle Georgian to Casablanca Moorish. When San Andreas gives a good belch, they can start again at 500 an acre.
All I had learned was that if I was going to get any closer to C. Tomberlin, I was going to have to walk in. Or get him out of there.
At three o’clock, guessing I could catch Raoul Tenero at home in Miami, I loaded up with quarters and made a station to station call from a booth. Nita answered. I asked for Raoul. She carefully worked out the tense and construction and said, “I am calling him now soon to be here with the phone, thank you.”
Raoul came on, chuckling. “Yes?”
“No names. This is the hero of Rancho Luna, boy.”
“You have something to tell me? Maybe I heard it.”
“Maybe you did. The man we talked about is alive, but if he had the choice maybe he wouldn’t want to be.”
“There have been some discussions about that. We wondered if it was the sort of story he could arrange to circulate, to take the pressure off.”
“I saw him.”
“Then I’ll tell the others. We’ll have a drink to that tonight. We’ll drink to a long life for him.”
“Now for a name. Mineros.”
“Yes?”
“Can you fill me in a little? Background?”
“Of all the men in the world, perhaps he had the best reason to want to find the first man we were talking about. He disappeared, aboard a chartered boat.”
“I know. Who was with him? I could check old newspapers, but this is quicker.”
“Rafael Mineros. Enrique Mineros, his eldest son. Maria Talavera, who was at one time engaged to Rafael’s nephew, who died in a Cuban prison. Manuel Talavera, her brother.”
“They are dead.”
“Presumed dead?”
The operator came on and told me to buy another three minutes. I fed the quarters in, and then said, “Definitely dead. The man you are going to drink to-he gave the orders.”
“God in heaven, what a disaster that man has been to the Mineros family!”
“You can tell from the money how far away I am.”
“I have a pretty good guess.”
“Raoul, I need one contact here. Somebody I can trust. Trust as much as I trust you. Is there any kind of organized group here?”
“My friend, when two Cubans meet, the first thing they do is organize a committee. Out there, it is not like here. Comparatively few, but mostly a heIl of a lot richer. There are several kinds of cats out there. Some of them cashed up and left six, seven, eight, ten years ago. Some at the right time, some scared out by Mr. B, or his buddies, who wanted what they had to leave behind. Then there am the ones who cashed up and got out when the brothers C looked as if they were going to make it down out of the mountains. Then there are the disenchanted, who stayed and saw red. There are other exiles too, South America, Central America, from old friends of little Eva to reasonably genuine patriots. But I don’t have to think a long time to think of a man out there. Paul Dominguez. I have it here in the book. Just a moment. 2832 Winter Haven Drive. Long Beach.”
“Thanks. How do I let him know I have your blessing?”
“Hmmm. Tell him he still owes me a pair of boots. If that isn’t enough, he can phone me.”
“He is sensible?”
“More so than you or I, amigo. And as much man as the two of us.”
I found Dominguez in the book. A woman with a young and pleasant voice said he would be home about six. There wasn’t enough time left to go down to Oceanside and find out who had chartered the Columbine to Rafael Mineros. I looked the name up in the book and found a Rafael Mineros in Beverly Hills and an Esteban Mineros in the Bel Air section.
I got back to Buena Villas at four thirty. About ten cars had come home. I parked in front of 28. As I got out of the Falcon, a woman came striding toward me. She looked like the young George Washington, except that her hair was the color of mahogany varnish.
“Who are you and what the hell is going on?” she demanded at ten paces. She wore a Chinese smock and pale blue denim pants.
I let her march up to me and stop and wait for the answer. “Are you Honey?”
‘Yes. What the hell is Junebug trying to pull around here?“
“Maybe you can solve my problem, Honey.”
“I’m the one with the problem. I’m responsible. Turn over the house key and her car key and clear the hell out of here.”
I extricated one fifty dollar bill and said, “My problem is do I give this to Junebug? Do I leave it on the desk in there for Francine? Or do I turn it over to you?”
Her eyes wavered and her belligerence diminished. “What do you think you’re buying?”
“A quiet place. No fuss, no muss, nothing to upset Mrs. Broadmaster.”
“You know her?”
“I’ve seen quite a bit of her. Should I give this to Junebug?”