“Does Toyland’s finished bear look anything like those first sketches she made?”
“I don’t remember what those sketches looked like.”
“Do you recall exactly how Brett proposed the idea to her?”
“He told her essentially what he’d told me.”
“Do you know exactly what her response was?”
“I told you. She was very enthusiastic.”
“Yes, but her exact words.”
“I don’t remember.”
There seemed to be a lot of things Bobby Diaz didn’t remember. I wondered if he was related to Rosa Lopez, who claimed she’d seen O.J.’s Bronco parked on the street earlier than it could have been if he was out doing murder. Murders.
“How did the meeting end?”
“He told Lainie to get to work on it. Said he wanted drawings by the end of the month.”
“The end of last September?”
“Yes.”
“Working drawings?”
“I don’t remember if he said working drawings or not.”
“Did you see the drawings Lainie supposedly delivered by the end of the month?”
“No, I did not.”
“Did you see any drawings Lainie delivered?”
“Well, I saw drawings. I don’t know if they were Lainie’s or not.”
“When did you first see these drawings?”
“Before we made up the prototype.”
“When was that exactly?”
“When I saw the drawings? Or when we made the bear?”
“The drawings.”
“I don’t remember.”
“When did you have a finished bear?”
“The prototype?”
“Yes.”
“In May sometime.”
“This past May.”
“Yes. We had a working model by the fifteenth.”
I remembered that Lainie claimed to have designed her bear in April.
“Lainie Commins left Toyland in January, isn’t that so?”
“Yes, I believe that’s when it was.”
“Did she discuss this with you?”
“What? Leaving Toyland?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t remember.”
“Well, you’re Toyland’s design chief, aren’t you?”
“I am.”
“And she was working in the design department...”
“Yes.”
“So didn’t she tell you she was leaving?”
“Well, yes, I’m sure she did. I thought you meant did we discuss why she was leaving, or what she planned to do next, or...”
“Well, did you?”
“I told you. I don’t remember.”
“Did you ever see her again? After she left Toyland?”
Diaz hesitated.
“Did you?” I asked.
“I don’t remember,” he said.
Which in Spanish was No me acuerdo.
Which, according to O.J.’s Dream Team, meant “No” in many Spanish dialects like Rosa Lopez’s.
Oh?
Sí.
The way Guthrie looked at it, women’s lib was the biggest con mankind had ever foisted on the female gender. First we — meaning Guthrie and every other conniving male in America — convinced women that they deserved the same sexual freedom men had enjoyed for centuries. This sounded good to the feminists. Why should men be the only ones to decide when sex was appropriate or indicated? Why shouldn’t women be the aggressors whenever they felt like it? Why shouldn’t women demand sex when they wanted it, initiate it when they wanted it, be the equals of men in every respect as concerned sex.
Men like Guthrie were very sympathetic to these attitudes and ideals.
Men like Guthrie agreed it was definitely unfair that for all these eons women had been used and/or abused sexually but had never been granted the opportunity of calling the shots themselves. Men like Guthrie agreed that this was a despicable situation. In repentance, they were willing to do everything within their power to see to it that women enjoyed equal sexual rights. This meant that women could introduce the sex act, and encourage the sex act, and follow through on the sex act, all without stigma, humiliation or disapprobation. Women thought this was terrific. Freedom at last. Men thought it was terrific, too, because it meant they were getting laid a lot more often with a lot less hassle.
And since there was now nothing wrong with going to bed with a man whenever the spirit moved one, so to speak, then why not take the liberation a step further and move in with a man who pleased a person spiritually and sexually besides? Why not indeed? Men encouraged this new notion. Whereas back in the Dark Ages, a man couldn’t get into a woman’s pants, so to speak, without pledging his troth to her and perhaps not even then, now it became possible for a man and a woman to live together on a sort of trial basis, which — if it worked out — might lead to marriage. But now that women had liberated themselves, there was no need for them even to be thinking about old-fashioned, restraining concepts like marriage. It was perfectly okay to share an apartment and incidentally to share the rent and the bills and everything else that went along with living together, vive la liberté! Et I’égalité, aussi.
Guthrie was all for women’s lib.
He also thought it was wonderful that women now felt so confident and secure that they could walk in the street practically naked or else wearing only clothes they used to wear under their clothes. Pick up a fashion magazine like Vogue or Elle or Harper’s Bazaar and you saw pictures of women wearing practically nothing at all, which only a few years ago would have got the publisher of Penthouse arrested, but which nowadays was an expression of female freedom, more power to them, and God bless them all.
The manager of the Silver Creek Yacht Club was a redhead named Holly Hunnicutt, which name Guthrie found provocative, and she was wearing a suit that looked like the sort frails used to wear when Guthrie was plying his trade back in the Big Bad Apple, a pale pastel-blue number with huge lapels and big breast pockets, you should pardon the expression. She was wearing the jacket over a short tight skirt, no stockings, just suntanned legs. Whenever she uncrossed those legs you could see Miami on a clear day. Under the jacket, she was wearing nothing but herself so that whenever she leaned over her desk, you could see Mount St. Helens in Washington even on a rainy day. Guthrie Lamb felt as if he were back in the pulp magazines again, the days of the pulp magazines, that is.
Holly Hunnicutt was too young to know what pulp magazines were. Guthrie guessed she was twenty-two, twenty-three years old, managing this swank yacht club here in one of Calusa’s more desirable areas, close to Manakawa County and Fatback Key. Guthrie himself lived in a rooming house not too far from Newtown, one of the city’s worst areas. He was wondering if Holly Hunnicutt — God, that name! — might be interested in one day visiting his cozy little room at the Palm Court, as it was aptly called since there were four spindly palm trees out front. Show her his newspaper clippings or something. His private-eye license. Which some people found quite impressive. Meanwhile, he was asking her whether anyone on Tuesday of last week had reported an outage of the light on top of the right-hand pillar at the entrance to the club.
“No, I don’t believe so.”
“Then the light was on that night?”
“I believe so, yes.”
“Is there any way you could check?”
“Well, I guess I could call the electrician...”
“Yes, please do,” Guthrie said, and flashed his dazzling smile which had cost him twelve thousand dollars for implants, not to mention the time and the pain. Holly found the dental work impressive, he guessed. At least she smiled back at him and bent over her desk to punch a few buttons on the phone, causing her jacket to fall somewhat open again, which Guthrie, gentleman that he was, pretended not to notice.