The bottom drawer was filled with notebooks featuring the same academic printing. Also, a letter from his boss, a Dr. Hauer, praising Steve's presentation at “the World Affairs Council meeting.”
Nothing false, nothing kinky, nothing remotely evil.
She headed back to the bedroom.
Steve met her in the doorway, wearing a blue bathrobe, looking groggy. Big guy.
“You okay?”
“A little restless,” she said.
“I'd give you a tour, but there's nothing to see.”
“I was enjoying the view.”
“Let's enjoy it some more.”
“I'd better get going.”
His face sagged. “You're sure?”
She nodded.
“Okay… I was hoping you'd… I understand, it's up to you. But don't take that as apathy, Laura. I… this was… I'm so glad we met up again.”
Cupping her chin, he pushed hair away from her face, kissed her eyelids. She was naked above the waist but his hands didn't explore.
She rested her head on his chest. This time the pelt didn't bother her. His heart was racing.
“I'm glad, too, Steve. But I really need to be getting home.”
“Where's home?”
Liana hesitated. He laughed. “Talk about premature interrogation. I don't even know your last name.”
Now what…
Her silence must've stretched longer than it felt, because Steve sighed. His shrug was heavy with defeat. “I'm sure you've got a good reason to guard your privacy… is there any way we could do this again? Not come here, I mean. Just go out-hang out, like you said?”
Liana's mind raced.
His face fell. Backing away into the bedroom, he searched the floor for his clothes. Remembered he'd left them in the living room and passed Liana and retrieved them. “Whatever you're feeling, Laura, for me it was… sorry. I'll walk you down to your car.”
Liana stood there.
He dressed quickly and awkwardly. Turning his back, as if struck with sudden modesty. “Laura, if I said something that bothered you… my ex said I was always saying things that upset her, claimed I was pushing her buttons. But God help me, I had no idea, and I guess I'm still clueless.”
Liana looked away from him, into the bedroom. Jumbled sheets. The smell of sex lingered. The washcloth he'd fetched to protect her from “my steel wool” had fallen to the carpet. His idea. Not wanting to bruise her.
Laura…
Hearing the fake name made her feel cheap.
She said, “Let's sit down.”
CHAPTER 31
Delaware's recommendation made sense to Aaron: Keep a close eye on Raymond Wohr, use the pimp to leverage up.
But that put everything in Moe's lap and left him with nothing to do and when Mr. Dmitri called to ask how things were going, he had to fake.
The Russian wasn't fooled, telling him, “If something ever happens, tell me. Maitland is not looking happy.”
Click.
Aaron drove to the German, retrieved the Opel, called Merry Ginzburg for the third time, wanting her to press for more on Mason Book's hospitalization. Still no answer.
Next stop: someone who'd definitely cooperate.
Manuel Lujon's father and grandfather were skilled gardeners who'd kept up some of the grandest estates in San Marino. Manuel's three older brothers had continued the family tradition, moving Lujon Landscaping to the Westside where they tended ego-scorecard properties in Holmby Hills and Beverly Park.
Manuel, twenty-five, bright, with no affection for mulch, had gotten a B.A. in screenwriting from the U. that hadn't landed him anywhere near the Industry. His day job was working in a used-book store on Pico near Overland. Aaron called on him when he needed a certain type of camouflage.
Asking Manuel to just be, not do-the kid was too honest to be an actor. Unlike Liana, who could deceive like a pro.
She also hadn't returned his call, had probably learned nothing during her second trip to Riptide.
His day for being shut out by women. He could always call Mom.
That made him laugh out loud, but the sound felt contrived.
Like I'm an actor.
The next line, delivered in Moe's voice: You're not?
When Aaron arrived at Once Again Books, Manuel was selling a stack of bruised Elmore Leonards to a stout, bearded guy in an aloha shirt, who'd brought his own plastic covers and took a long time to slip them on. After that, Manuel attended to a kid who paid with crumpled bills and rolls of coins for a Robert Crumb.
No other customers; Aaron drifted forward from the tumbledown plywood stacks. Manuel placed a bookmark in his own reading material. Gravity's Rainbow by Pynchon.
Manuel said, “Amigo! Whad chaykin! Ronn por de border!”
“How much to borrow one of your brothers’ trucks?”
“You jest.”
“I jest not.”
“How would I know? And frankly, I'm injured. Usually, you want my thespian skills, not hardware.”
If you only knew.
Aaron said, “I need both.”
“Me in the truck?”
“Exactly.”
“Ah,” said Manuel. “Where de azalea go, Meester Patron? Onder de weelow or behind de-”
“Could you call now and ask them?” said Aaron. “I'll pay seriously.” He looked around the empty store. “How soon can you abandon this hub of commerce?”
“To go where?”
“Hollywood Hills.”
“To do what?”
“Sit around looking Mexican.”
Manuel laughed. “Dude, you don't even try to be politically correct.”
“Neither does the world,” said Aaron. “That's why I need you.” Touching his own face.
“There are black folk in the hills, Aaron.”
“I loiter too long, there'll be one less.”
“Same for me,” said Manuel.
“The truck'll buy you time. Make sure there's lots of gear in the bed.”
“Churning up sod,” said Manuel. “Another invisible man. Should we toss in a few bags of manure for authenticity? On the other hand, who needs that shit?”
When they both stopped laughing, Manuel said, “What's the pay scale?”
“The usual.”
“Thirty-five an hour.”
“The usual's twenty-five.”
“Maybe the usual should change, amigo”
“Thirty,” said Aaron, touching the Pynchon. “But don't bring that.”
“You don't like literature?”
“Today you don't.”
“Jus’ a iggorant cholo churning chayote for chump change.”
One of the trucks was working on Hillcrest Drive in Beverly Hills and just finishing up. For an additional hundred bucks, eldest brother Albert Lujon ordered his men to transfer the keys to Manuel and return home on the bus.
Clear family hierarchy, thought Aaron. Must be nice…
He checked his phone. The only thing he'd received were prerecorded scam texts for cheap phone service and Internet hookup. When the case was over, he'd have to switch his cell number yet again.
When.
If ever.
By three p.m., Manuel, wearing grubby work clothes, nails dirtied by scraping soil, was stationed in the perfect watch-spot Aaron had found after cruising the neighborhood: a construction zone half a block north of Swallowsong, no one working today.
The project was a sharp-edged contempo house, months away from landscaping. Lawn and parkway had turned to weed-strewn meadow. When Manuel began mowing, a woman walking by muttered, “Finally.”
Talking to the air, not to the man pushing the machine.
When she was gone, Manuel phoned Aaron. “I really should be getting thirty-five.”
“Why?”
“I could develop an allergy.”
“To grass?”
“To being a nonentity.”
Aaron drove around the Hollywood Hills, passing Manuel's truck time after time, liking the ruse he'd set up but knowing it had to end by sunset. Manuel was raking lawn trimmings into neat little piles. Maybe that deserved thirty-five.