“The least I could do.”
At 6:07 P.M., Citron resumed his role as building superintendent and changed a light bulb in a ceiling fixture in Unit C for Miss Rebecca Clay, a very pert and very short twenty-nine-year-old senior copywriter who worked for J. Walter Thompson in Century City. Miss Clay invited Citron to have a glass of white wine, which he accepted. While they drank their wine, Miss Clay told him about some of her adventures in the advertising business and about the screenplay she was writing, which was based on these same adventures. Citron listened politely, thanked her for the wine, and went back to his own apartment. It was 6:37.
At 6:57, Citron was shaved, showered, and dressed in his newly purchased suit. He picked up the bouquet of carnations he had bought from the young blond woman who sold them out of the back of a pickup at the intersection of Sunset Boulevard and the Pacific Coast Highway. They had cost $1.50. He had asked Draper Haere to pull over and stop so he could buy the flowers. Haere asked if he had a date, or if he just liked flowers. Citron replied that he had a date with Velveeta Keats for dinner.
“Velveeta — like the cheese?”
“Like the cheese.”
“Who’s she?”
“A remittance woman, she says.”
“Malibu,” Haere had said.
At 6:59 P.M., Citron — who was seldom late and often early — knocked at the door of Unit E, his bouquet of carnations in hand. When there was no answer he knocked again. Because he could hear loud music coming from either a radio or a stereo unit, Citron tried the door. It was not locked. He went in.
There were two of them. Both wore black wet suits and diving masks that obscured their faces. They were holding Velveeta Keats. One of them had a hammerlock on her right arm. The other had a hand, his left, clamped over her mouth. Without thinking, Citron threw the bouquet of carnations at them. They ducked. Velveeta Keats bit down on the hand over her mouth. The hand went away from her mouth and she started to scream. She screamed once and then stopped when the .38 caliber revolver was jammed up under her chin.
“Not a sound,” said the man with the revolver. “Understand?”
Velveeta Keats nodded.
“You either,” the man with the revolver said to Citron.
“Right,” Citron said.
The two men backed carefully toward the large sliding glass doors that opened onto the balcony. The man without the gun slid the door open. Both backed through it onto the balcony. The man without the gun jumped over the railing of the balcony and down to the sand. The man with the gun followed him.
Citron moved cautiously to the balcony and watched the two men enter the surf. He saw that they wouldn’t have a long swim. Anchored a hundred yards out was a small cabin cruiser. The two men were already swimming toward it.
“Thank you for the flowers,” Velveeta Keats said.
Citron turned. Velveeta Keats had gathered up the carnations from the floor. “Want me to call the cops?” he said.
She shook her head. “I wish you wouldn’t.”
“What was all that about?”
“Something to do with Papa, I reckon.”
“Want me to call him for you?”
“No.”
“Are you hurt?”
“No, they didn’t hurt me.”
“Any idea about who they were?”
“No. None. I guess they’re just mad at Papa about something.”
“Maybe I should call him for you.”
She gestured toward the small round table that was placed in front of the sliding doors. It was set for two. The plates, Citron saw, were gold-rimmed. The wine goblets were lead crystal. The silver place settings were laid out exactly. The white napkins had been carefully folded and twisted into the shape of giraffes. They stuck up out of the wine goblets. Two red candles were still to be lit. Velveeta Keats had gone to no little trouble, so Citron turned to her and said, “It looks very nice, but I still think you’d better call someone.”
“We’re having veal,” she said. “Do you like veal?”
“Very much.”
“I thought we’d eat first, and then maybe fool around a little, and after that, well, maybe I’ll call somebody. How does that sound?”
“That sounds fine,” Citron said.
“Hold me, will you?”
Citron put his arms around her. She was trembling.
“Hold me real tight,” she said.
Chapter 12
It was a little past 7:00 P.M. when Drew Meade got off the Los Angeles RTD bus near the Beverly Wilshire Hotel and walked two and a half blocks south until he came to the small mission-style, tile-roofed bungalow with a metal sign that claimed it was guarded night and day by an “armed response” private security service. The small round sign glowed in the dark.
Meade stood across the street under a sycamore and studied the bungalow. Lights were on in what seemed to be the living room. A dark-blue or black Mercedes 450 SEL sedan was parked in the drive. Meade wondered if there was a second car in the detached garage at the rear of the house.
He watched for another three minutes, then ran a hand through his thick gray hair, felt the stubble on his face with the same hand, shined his shoes one after the other on the backs of his trouser legs, hitched up his belt, and crossed the street. He went through an iron gate and up a cement walk that curved back and forth for no reason that he could see. On the small porch he found a button and pressed it. He could hear two-tone chimes ring inside. He waited, but the door didn’t open. He would have been disappointed if it had. Only dopes opened their doors at night. Meade had not come calling on any dope.
Meade rang the doorbell again. A woman’s voice from behind the still-closed door said, “Who is it?”
“Me. Drew.”
“Good Lord,” the woman’s voice said.
He could hear the chain being removed and the deadbolt being turned back. The door opened a crack. An eye peered out. The door then opened wide.
“Good Lord,” the woman said again. “Come in.”
“How the hell are you, Gladys, anyway?” Meade asked as he went through the door and into the living room.
Gladys Citron was wearing an ivory raw silk robe with a high Chinese collar. She backed up as Meade came into the room. “They say you’re dead.”
Meade nodded and looked carefully around the room. “Yeah, well, I’m not.” He smiled appreciatively at what he saw in the room. “You’re doing all right. You renting this place, or what?”
“I bought it — five years ago.”
“Well, shit, Gladys, aren’t you gonna ask me to sit down, take a load off, have a drink? You’re looking good, by the way. Real good.”
“Well, shit, Drew, sit down. Take a load off. Have a drink. Bourbon?”
“Bourbon.”
Drew Meade picked one of the two wing-back chairs that were drawn up before the unlit fireplace and sat down. Gladys Citron turned to a tray that held bottles and glasses, and poured two drinks: bourbon for Meade, white wine for herself. She moved over to Meade, handed him his drink, and sat down in the opposite wing-back chair.
“So,” she said. “I heard you got rich.”
“Yeah, I did. For a while there.” He drank two large swallows and lit one of his Camels.
“What happened?”
“A couple of things fell apart.”
“And they kicked you out.”
“Who says they kicked me out?”
“Don’t try that, Drew,” she said. “Not on me.”
“Okay, so they kicked me out.”
“Heroin, I heard.”
“Some heroin, but a lot of hash. Mostly hash. I got set up by the slope generals.”
“Of course you did.”
“I took the fall.”
“Pity.”
“It was a long way down. The fall. You know what I’ve been doing for ten years now?”