“We have an elaborate alarm system,” she went on, “with a well-hidden turnoff in the house. It couldn’t have been burglars.” She stared bleakly past me. “She knows how much I love that rug. I feel that it was simply a vindictive act on her part. It has been a—troubled relationship.”
“How old is she?” I asked.
“Seventeen.”
“Does she know who her real parents are?”
“No. And neither do we. Why?”
“I thought she might have gone back to them. How about her friends?”
“We’ve talked with all of her friends that we know. There are a number of them we have never met.” A pause. “And I am sure would not want to.”
“Your daughter’s—acceptable friends might know of others,” I suggested.
“Possibly,” she admitted. “I’ll give you a list of those we know well.”
She told me her daughter’s name was Janice and made out a list of her friends while I filled in the contract. She gave me a check, her unlisted phone number, and a picture of her daughter.
When she left, I went to the window and saw her climb into a sleek black Jaguar below. My hunch had been sound; this was the town that attracted the carriage trade.
I went downstairs to thank Vartan and tell him our next lunch would be on me at a restaurant of his choice.
“I look forward to it,” he said. “She’s quite a woman, isn’t she?”
“That she is. Was she ever more than a customer to you?”
“We had a brief but meaningful relationship,” he said coolly, “at a time when she was between husbands. But then she started talking marriage.” He sighed.
“Uncle Vartan,” I asked, “haven’t you ever regretted the fact that you have no children to carry on your name?”
“Never,” he said, and smiled. “You are all I need.”
Two elderly female customers came in then and I went out with my list of names. It was a little after three o’clock; some of the kids should be home from school.
There were five names on the list, two girls and three boys, all students at Beverly Hills High. Only one of the girls was home. She had seen Janice at school on Friday, she told me, but not since. But that didn’t mean she hadn’t been at school Monday and Tuesday.
“She’s not in any of my classes,” she explained.
I showed her the list. “Could you tell me if any of these students are in any of her classes?”
“Not for sure. But Howard might be in her art appreciation class. They’re both kind of—you know—”
“Artistic?” I asked.
“I suppose. You know—that weird stuff—”
“Avant-garde, abstract, cubist?”
She shrugged. “I guess, whatever that means. Janice and I were never really close.”
From the one-story stone house of Miss Youknow, I drove to the two-story Colonial home of Howard Retzenbaum.
He was a tall thin youth with horn-rimmed glasses. He was wearing faded jeans and a light gray T-shirt with a darker gray reproduction of Pablo Picasso’s Woman’s Head emblazoned on his narrow chest.
Janice, he told me, had been in class on Friday, but not Monday or yesterday. “Has something happened to her?”
“I hope not. Do you know of any friends she has who don’t go to your school?”
Only one, he told me, a boy named Leslie she had introduced him to several weeks ago. He had forgotten his last name. He tapped his forehead. “I remember she told me he works at some Italian restaurant in town. He’s a busboy there.”
“La Famiglia?”
“No, no. That one on Santa Monica Boulevard.”
“La Dolce Vita?”
He nodded. “That’s the place. Would you tell her to phone me if you find her?”
I promised him I would and thanked him. The other two boys were not at home; they had baseball practice after school. I drove to La Dolce Vita.
They serve no luncheon trade. The manager was not in. The assistant manager looked at me suspiciously when I asked if a boy named Leslie worked there.
“Does he have a last name?”
“I’m sure he has. Most people do. But I don’t happen to know it.”
“Are you a police officer?”
I shook my head. “I am a licensed and bonded private investigator. My Uncle Vartan told me that Leslie is an employee here.”
“Would that be Vartan Apoyan?”
“It would be and it is.” I handed him my card.
He read it and smiled. “That’s different. Leslie’s last name is Denton. He’s a student at UCLA and works from seven o’clock until closing.” He gave me Leslie’s phone number and address, and asked, “Is Pierre an Armenian name?”
“Quite often,” I informed him coldly, and left without thanking him.
The address was in Westwood and it was now almost five o’clock. I had no desire to buck the going-home traffic in this city of wheels. I drove to the office to call Leslie.
He answered the phone. I told him I was a friend of Howard Retzenbaum’s and we were worried about Janice. I explained that she hadn’t been in school on Monday or Tuesday and her parents didn’t know where she was.
“Are you also a friend of her parents?” he asked.
“No way!”
She had come to his place Friday afternoon, he told me, when her parents had left for Rancho Santa Fe. She had stayed over the weekend. But when he had come home from school on Tuesday she was gone.
“She didn’t leave a note or anything?”
“No.”
“She didn’t, by chance, bring a three-foot-by-five-foot Kerman rug with her, did she?”
“Hell no! Why?”
“According to a police officer I know in Beverly Hills, her parents think she stole it from the house. Did she come in a car?”
“No. A taxi. What in hell is going on? Are those creepy parents of hers trying to frame her?”
“Not if I can help it. Did she leave your place anytime during the weekend?”
“She did not. If you find her, will you let me know?”
I promised him I would.
I phoned Mrs. Whitney Bishop and asked her if Janice had been in the house Friday when they left for Rancho Santa Fe.
“No. She left several hours before that. My husband didn’t get home from the office until five o’clock.”
“Were there any servants in the house when you left?”
“We have no live-in servants, Mr. Apoyan.”
“In that case,” I said, “I think it’s time for you to call the police and file a missing persons report. Janice was in Westwood from Friday afternoon until some time on Tuesday.”
“Westwood? Was she with that Leslie Denton person?”
“She was. Do you know him?”
“Janice brought him to the house several times. Let me assure you, Mr. Apoyan, that he is a doubtful source of information. You know, of course, that he’s gay.”
That sounded like a non sequitur to me. I didn’t point it out. I thought of telling her to go to hell. But a more reasonable (and mercenary) thought overruled it; rich bigots should pay for their bigotry.
“You want me to continue, then?” I asked.
“I certainly do. Have you considered the possibility that one of Leslie Denton’s friends might have used her key and Janice told him where the turnoff switch is located?”
I hadn’t thought of that.
“I thought of that,” I explained, “but if that happened, I doubt if we could prove it. I don’t want to waste your money, Mrs. Bishop.”
“Don’t you worry about that,” she said. “You find my rug!”
Not her daughter; her rug. First things first. “I’ll get right on it,” I assured her.
I was warming some lahmajoons Sarkis’s wife had given me last Sunday when I heard my office door open. I went out.