"The name means nothing to me," she said.
"He appears to be a bad man," I said. "Record of arrests for assault, rape, and dealing narcotics."
"That is the kind of man that would have attracted her," Dr. St. Claire said. "She often expressed the wish to see her father again. Her father was a drinker and a brawler, in trouble often with the police. When he left her mother he kidnapped her and kept her for several months on the run. He didn't want her. He just wanted her mother not to have her."
"Father knows best," I said.
"It is her pathology," Dr. St. Claire said. "Angela experienced love as cruelty and exploitation. Seeking love she returns to cruelty and exploitation. The boy she ran away with is an example."
"Do you know his name?"
"I can perhaps recall it. It was an odd name. Oddly juxtaposed."
"Elwood Pontevecchio?" I said.
"Yes, that's the name. Isn't it an odd one?"
"He became her pimp," I said.
"Yes, I know. We were able to get her to separate herself from him. Though it was a struggle."
"What can you tell me about him?"
"He was abusive, and he was concerned with her only as he could use her. He seemed to hold her in great contempt."
"Ever meet him?"
"No. I know him only through Angela's description."
"You know where he is now?"
"No."
"She married a dead honest, straight-ahead, older guy," I said. "Who's a cop. You have anything to say about that?"
"An encouraging sign, I should think. Someone who might protect her from her worst impulses, or from their consequences."
"You know her father's name?"
"Richard, I assume," Dr. St. Claire said. "You think she would go looking for him?"
"I don't know. Perhaps the men she found were a sufficient substitute. Perhaps they weren't."
The waiter brought the food. Dr. St. Claire had some Cobb salad. I took a bite of my chicken sandwich and washed it down with a swallow of decaffeinated coffee.
"Know anyone involved in her life named Vaughn?"
"No, I don't."
"Maybe she didn't want the cop's protection any more," I said.
"Or perhaps she needs it more than ever."
"Her husband can't provide it right now."
"Then perhaps you'll have to," Dr. St. Claire said. "You look very competent."
I sipped from my cup again.
"My strength," I said, "is as the strength of ten because my coffee is drug free."
Dr. St. Claire smiled at me. "How very noble," she said.
He pointed up. The tenements had flat roofs, like most three-deckers. She could see a man with a rifle leaning against one of the chimneys. There were other people up there as well, moving about.
"We have gardens up there, dirt dug from the courtyard, carried up by the bucketful until there is enough to grow our food. We have tomatoes up there, and beans. We have peppers, squashes. We grow cilantro. I will show you someday, chiquita, but not now. It is too soon. People might be watching. They might see you."
The thought that someone might be watching sent a jagged shock of excitement through her. She felt it in her buttocks, in the palms of her hands, at the hinges of her jaw.
"Have you seen someone?" she said, trying to keep her voice flat.
"No, but we are careful. I do not want you snatched away from me again."
She stared up at the rooftop, the man with the rifle, the people growing beans, she looked at the children playing in the excavated mud of the enclosure, and at the rickety porches that hung from the backs of the sagging gray buildings. She listened to the faint whir of the video camera as the young man with the braids moved about them, taping everything, preserving the moments. It had begun to rain lightly again. It never seemed to reach the level of a downpour, but it was frequent and often steady and everything had a wetness about it. The whole building complex seemed damp. It smelled of mildew. I'm not some debutante, she thought. I've seen worse than this. I've done worse than this. I've been worse off than I am now. And I've gotten out of it. I'm tougher than the son of a bitch, and smarter, and I'm not crazy, and he is. I'm going to get out of this.
She believed what she said to herself, but she also knew she had to control her fear, and what she didn't know yet was if she could.
Chapter 21
I sat in my blue hotel room while Susan ran up and down the stairs at the UCLA Track Stadium, and looked up Pontevecchio in the phone book. I found Woody Pontevecchio under Pontevecchio Entertainment, no street address, and a phone number in Hollywood. Spenser, master detective. I dialed the number and got his answering machine.
"Hi it's Woody. I'm probably out putting something together. But I'll be back soon, so leave a message, baby, and we'll talk."
I said, "My name is Spenser. I have something that will interest you about Angela Richard. Call me at the Westwood Marquis Hotel."
Then I hung up. It had to be him. How many Pontevecchios could there be who were likely to call themselves Woody? I went and looked out the window.
It was a clear bright day in Los Angeles. Clear enough to see the snowcaps on the San Gabriel Mountains. Mostly the caps were smogged in, but today they looked as clean and crisp as new linen. In the distance between the mountains and me was a complicated, often angry seethe of people simmering beneath the Southern California casual they wore like makeup. It was that juxtaposition of how it used to be with how it had turned out that made LA so interesting and so sad a place, I thought.
Behind me the key scratched in the door latch. It would be Susan and it would take her a while. Susan had some sort of key and lock handicap. The key scratched again, and the knob twisted. I waited. I used to make the mistake of opening the door for her to save her the struggle, but it made her mad. She wanted to conquer the handicap. In the time I'd known her she'd made no progress. The key turned the wrong way, and I heard the deadbolt snick into place. The knob turned futilely again. Then silence. I heard the key slide out of the lock. I smiled. I knew she was starting over. I looked back out the window. Below my window a formation of feral green parrots swept past above the olive trees, heading for the botanical gardens that ran up Hilgard Avenue alongside UCLA Medical Center. There was some more lock activity behind me and then the door opened and Susan came in.
"I knew you could do it," I said.
"It's not nice to make fun of a lock-challenged person," Susan said.
"Forgive me," I said. "I'm trying to be supportive."
"Why do you suppose I have so much trouble with locks?"
"Probably relates to your lack of a penis," I said.
She had on black spandex tights and a lavender leotard top, which was soaked dark with sweat. Her bare arms were strong and slender with a hint of muscle definition. She had on a white headband to keep her hair out of her eyes, and her face glistened with sweat. I thought she looked beautiful.
She said, "Oink," and walked across the room. She bent toward me from the waist, so as not to drip on me, and gave me a small kiss on the mouth.
"I'm a sweatball," she said. "I've got to shower."
While she was showering, Woody Pontevecchio called me back.
"Who's this Angela Richard you mentioned?"
"You remember her," I said, "back around 1985."
There was a silence on the phone. I looked at the mountain peaks. In the bathroom, I could hear the shower running.
"I don't know what you mean," Woody said finally.
"Of course not," I said. "I'd like to meet you somewhere and explain myself."
Again there was a pause. Out the window I could see a helicopter rise slowly from the UCLA helipad, cant in the odd way that helicopters have over the pad, and then move off above the rooftops of Westwood Village. Through the closed window, in the air-conditioned room, the sound of it was distant and small.