Out of the sixteen toll calls Rhonda had made, two were to a number in Yuma, Arizona, seven were to a number in Los Angeles, and four to a Hollywood number. I started dialing. The Hollywood number, as I suspected, was the Paradise; all the calls had been made since she had returned from the Caribbean. The Los Angeles number belonged to the law firm of Sadler, Bacon, and Pitts, Rhonda’s attorneys. A woman named Zelda Banks answered the Yuma number when I called and it took a four-second scam to find out she was Rhonda’s mother.
Manning called back after lunch. “There’s nothing there,” he said. “She told my guy that she trashed the stuff after the accident. Too painful for her to keep, she said.”
I couldn’t help grinning.
“Another little item of note,” he went on. “She’s got a new attorney. A young, Beverly Hills fire-breather named Cohen. We’ve come up against him before in a couple of questionable fire claims. He’s already talking a five-figure lawsuit for damages unless we can show good cause why her claim shouldn’t be paid.”
“When did this happen?”
“We were notified of the change of counsel this morning, right after I talked to you.”
“How long would a lawsuit take to settle?”
“Months, years, who knows?”
“Tell them they’re going to have to sue. Tell them there’s new evidence to dispute the validity of the claim.”
“But there isn’t, really—”
“They don’t know that. Besides, there might be, if we can drag this thing out.”
“I don’t know if the company will go for it—”
“Do what you can do.”
He promised to try. I sat there, thinking about it, then went down to my car and drove downtown. Arnie Phalen’s arson case was listed in the index of the Superior Court. I took down the number and gave it to the clerk, who came back with a file. There wasn’t much in the file. The case had been dropped in preliminary for lack of evidence. Harold Cohen must have done a good job representing his client.
Phalen must have thought Rhonda’s attorney was a little weak and put his own man in to push a little harder. I couldn’t blame him, really; he was merely protecting his investment. Just as he had been protecting it when he’d sent his goons to break my hand.
There wasn’t much to do now but wait, so I went home, took a pain pill, made myself a drink, and started.
The waiting ran into a week. Harold Cohen screamed and threatened, but Transcontinental stood firm. Phalen stayed away from Rhonda, but he visited Cohen’s office twice during the week.
I was taking the Monday morning shift at Rhonda Anixter’s apartment when the Porsche pulled out of the driveway and headed down the street. I put the glazed doughnut I was eating down on the front seat and followed her to I-10, where she headed east. She drove fast and it was hard to keep up in my old Dodge, but I managed to keep her in sight all the way to the Harbor freeway. She lost me there, but I had a pretty good idea where she was going. I confirmed it when I pulled up across from the Paradise and saw the Porsche parked in the lot.
Twenty minutes later, she came through the front door and headed to her car. She was wearing big sunglasses and had her hair up, but even without makeup she made me drool. It made me sad that this was as close as I would ever get to her, playing Peeping Tom, but then I guess we all have our roles to play in life. Maybe I should brown-nose the Director more...
She turned right out of the driveway and headed toward Vermont, but two blocks up she suddenly pulled over to the curb, so I had to drive past her and park in the next block. I watched through my rear window as she got out of the Porsche and went to the curbside mailbox. Her body looked spectacular in a red tube top and tightfitting jeans, but my eyes were on the businesssized envelope she pulled out of her purse and dropped into the box.
She got back into her car and I waited until she had turned on Vermont before I got the fifteen colored blotters from the trunk of my car and walked back to the mailbox.
The pickup time marked on the box was 4:15, two hours away. I opened the mailbox, dropped in the blotters and went back to my car. 1 stopped at a nearby greasy spoon and killed some time downing a tuna fish sandwich and four cups of coffee, and was back at the mailbox by quarter to four.
The mail truck pulled up at 4:21, by my watch, but then my watch may have been a little fast. The mailman was opening the box when I trotted up, wearing my most worried expression. “Excuse me—”
He looked up, startled. “Huh?”
He was young, with shoulder-length dark hair and a beard. I hoped his attitude matched his appearance. What I needed was a little hang-loose flexibility, someone who would be willing to bend the rules a little to help out a fellow human being in distress.
I pointed up the street, and tried to put urgency in my voice. “I just live up the street here at 1015. I mailed a letter this afternoon and I’m sure I sent it to the wrong address. It’s a check, and Jesus Christ, if it gets into the wrong hands and gets cashed, I’d be up shit’s creek.”
He shrugged. “I don’t know what I can do about it—”
“If I could just take a look at the letter and see, I’d know whether to cancel the check or not—”
He frowned, his mouth following the lines of his mustache. “I can’t go looking through all this mail—”
“You won’t have to,” I assured him. “After I mailed it and realized what I’d done, I took some blotters and dropped them in the box. The letter should be right below them.”
He looked doubtful. “I don’t know...”
“Look, I don’t have to touch anything. I know that’s probably against the postal regulations. You can read me the address. I don’t want the letter back or anything. I just want to know whether I should call the bank and cancel the check. I mean, if the check gets into the wrong hands, man, I’ll really be screwed.”
He bit his lip and made a sloughing motion with his shoulders. “I guess it’d be okay.”
“I really appreciate this,” I said truthfully.
The blotters were near the top of the pile of mail. He took the letter directly below them and picked it up, holding it away from me so I couldn’t see it. “Charles Albertson?”
That was probably it. For some reason, they always seemed to use their own first names or the same initials. The lack of imagination of the typical criminal mind never ceased to depress me. “That’s the one.”
“Two thirty-four Montvue Road,” he read. “Old Towne, Montserrat.”
“That takes a load off my mind, thanks,” I said. “That’s the right address.” He handed me back my blotters and I thanked him again and jotted down the address in my notebook on the way to the car. I called my travel agent from a pay phone down the street and booked the first flight out of Miami, with connections to Antigua and Montserrat. Then I called Barbara Phalen and filled her in about her husband’s affair with Rhonda Anixter. I figured I might as well have something nice to think about on the plane.
Montserrat was a green and rugged island paradise of forested mountains, manicured fields, and black sand beaches. Old Towne was a collection of affluent hillside houses overlooking a golf course and the sea. Two thirty-four Montvue was a pink house with a white shingle roof, surrounded by a white wrought iron fence festooned with flowers. I told my cab driver to wait for me and went up the walk to the front door.