“Virginia,” said Milo. “Been there a couple of times for fed training seminars. Pretty state, but anything down there always spells government to me.”
“The institute’s listed in a roster of private agencies. I figured it for some kind of corporate front.”
“What kind of grant was it?”
“Pesticides in the soil, Ashmore analyzing his old data. Way too much money for that kind of thing, Milo. I thought I’d call the institute tomorrow morning, see what else I can learn. I’m also going to try to contact Mrs. Ashmore again. Find out if Huenengarth the Mystery Man’s dropped by.”
“Like I said, Alex, keep your distance.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t get any closer than the phone. Afternoon I’ll be doing what I went to school for over at Chip and Cindy’s. Who may not be in a state of domestic bliss.”
I reviewed my suspicions, including the caveats Robin had raised. “What do you think?”
“I think, who the hell knows? Maybe she did have a leaky faucet, or maybe she’s the Hester Prynne of the San Fernando Valley. Tell you one thing, if she is stepping out on the Chipper, she’s being pretty sloppy about it, wouldn’t you say? Letting you hear Lover Boy’s voice.”
“Maybe she didn’t mean to — I caught her off guard. She sounded antsy — covered the phone almost immediately. All I actually made out were a few low tones. And if she’s a Munchausen type, flirting with another kind of danger would be right up her alley.”
“Low tones, huh? Sure it wasn’t the TV?”
“No, this was a real-life conversation. Cindy talked and the guy answered. I assumed it was Chip. If he hadn’t called me later, I’d never have known it wasn’t.”
“Hmm,” he said. “So what does it mean? In terms of Cassie?”
I repeated my motive theory.
He said, “Don’t forget Chip’s dough — that’s one hell of an incentive.”
“One hell of a family embarrassment, too, if it blows wide open and there’s a nasty divorce. Maybe that’s what Chuck’s trying to keep me away from. He talked about Chip and Cindy creating something solid — called Cindy a lovely girl. Even though she doesn’t seem like the girl a guy in his position would have wanted for his only daughter-in-law. On the other hand, from the look of his teeth, he came up the hard way himself. So maybe he’s not a snob.”
“His teeth?”
“They’re crooked and discolored. No one ever shelled out on orthodontia on his account. Fact is, his entire manner’s pretty rough.”
“Self-made man,” he said. “Maybe he respects Cindy for doing the same thing.”
“Who knows? Anything on why she left the army?”
“Not yet. Gotta press Charlie on that... Okay, I’ll check with you tomorrow.”
“If you find out anything from the bartender, call me first thing.”
There was a strain in my voice. My shoulders had bunched again.
Robin touched them and said, “What is it?”
I covered the phone and turned to her. “He’s found a lead to something that may or may not be related to the case.”
“And he called to invite you along.”
“Yes, but—”
“And you want to go.”
“No, I—”
“Is it anything dangerous?”
“No, just interviewing a witness.”
She gave me a gentle shove. “Go.”
“It’s not necessary, Robin.”
She laughed. “Go anyway.”
“I don’t need to. This is nice.”
“Domestic bliss?”
“Mega-bliss.” I put my arm around her.
She kissed it, then removed it.
“Go, Alex. I don’t want to lie here listening to you toss.”
“I won’t.”
“You know you will.”
“Being alone is preferable?”
“I won’t be. Not in my head. Not with what we’ve got going for us now.”
23
I tucked her in bed and went out to the living room to wait. Milo knocked softly just before midnight. He was carrying a hard-shell case the size of an attaché and had on a polo shirt, twill pants, and windbreaker. All in black. Regular-guy parody of the L.A. hipster ensemble.
I said, “Trying to fade into the night, Zorro?”
“We’re taking your car. I’m not bringing the Porsche down there.”
I pulled out the Seville; he put the case in the trunk, got in the passenger seat. “Let’s roll.”
I followed his directions, taking Sunset west to the 405 south, merging with hurtling trucks and the red-eye crowd heading out to the airport. At the junction with the Santa Monica Freeway, I hooked over toward L.A. and traveled east in the fast lane. The highway was emptier than I’d ever seen it, softened to something impressionistic by a warm, moist haze.
Milo lowered the window, lit up a panatela, and blew smoke out at the city. He seemed tired, as if he’d talked himself out over the phone. I felt weary, too, and neither of us said a word. Near La Brea a loud, low sports car rode our tail, belched and flashed its brights before passing us at close to a hundred. Milo sat up suddenly — cop’s reflex — and watched it disappear before settling back down and staring out the windshield.
I followed his gaze upward to an ivory moon, cloud-streaked and fat, though not quite full. It dangled before us like a giant yo-yo, ivory mottled with green-cheese verdigris.
“Three-quarter moon,” I said.
“More like seven-eighths. That means almost all the nuts’re out. Stay on the Ten past the interchange and get off at Santa Fe.”
He kept grumbling directions in a low voice, taking us into a broad, silent district of storehouses, foundries, and wholesale jobbers. No streetlights, no movement; the only vehicles I spotted were penned behind prison-grade security fences. As we’d traveled away from the ocean, the haze had lifted and the downtown skyline had turned chiseled and crisp. But here I could barely make out the shapes, miragelike against the matte-black stasis of the city’s outer limits. The silence seemed glum — a failure of spirit. As if L.A.’s geographical boundaries had exceeded its energy.
He directed me through a series of quick, sharp turns down asphalt strips that could have been streets or alleys — a maze that I’d never be able to reverse from memory. He’d allowed his cigar to go cold but the smell of tobacco stuck to the car. Though the breeze streaming in was warm and pleasant, he began raising the window. I realized why before he finished: A new smell overpowered the burnt-cloth stink of cheap leaf. Sweet and bitter at the same time, metallic, yet rotten. It leaked through the glass. So did noise — cold and resonant, like giant steel hands clapping — scraping the night-lull from somewhere far away.
“Packing houses,” he said. “East L.A. all the way down to Vernon, but the sound carries. When I first came on the force I drove a cruiser down here, on the night watch. Sometimes they slaughtered the hogs at night. You could hear them howling, smashing into things, and rattling their chains. Nowadays I think they tranquilize them — Here, turn right, then immediately left. Go a block and park anywhere you can.”
The maze ended on a skinny block-long straightaway bounded on both sides by cyclone fencing. No sidewalks. Weeds erupted through the tar like hairs on a wen. Cars lined both sides of the street, pushed up close to the fence.
I pulled into the first space I saw, behind an old BMW with a K-ROQ window sticker and a rear deck piled high with trash. We got out of the Seville. The air had cooled but the slaughterhouse smell remained — dribs and drabs of stench, rather than a constant assault. Changing wind, probably, though I couldn’t sense it. The machine scrape was gone, replaced by music — electric organ elf-squeaks and a murky bass, middle-range tones that might have come from guitars. If there was a beat, I couldn’t sense that either.