At four p.m., Aaron took a break for coffee and a sandwich at Mel's Diner on Sunset, finding an empty booth flanked by retarded rock-star wannabes whose dialogue consisted of belches and grunts.
All keyed up for no reason, he left most of his food on the table, was returning to the Opel when his cell beeped. Moe.
“Hey.”
“Anything on your end?”
Aaron said, “Don't have much of an end, Moses.”
“You're not improvising?”
“Make a suggestion, Moses.”
Silence.
Moe said, “You learn something, tell me right away,” and hung up.
Does he expect me to learn something? If so, first compliment his brother had ever tossed his way.
He headed back into the hills, ready for yet another circuit, maybe this time he'd actually hazard a pass by the house with the fancy gates.
Before he arrived, Manuel called in. “Got something maybe interesting. Jaguar XJ, long wheelbase, gunmetal gray, lady at the wheel. She went up Swallowsong and something about her intrigued me so I followed and guess where she went? I'm a natural, you need to start thinking about forty an hour-”
“You left your post?”
“You want to bitch, go ahead, but it worked out. I carried a rake and an airgun up the street just in time to see her drive through those crazy gates. No one called La Migra, okay? She definitely went in and she definitely came out. Total time in there twenty-eight minutes. Nice-looking lady.”
“Blonde? Brunette?”
“Gray,” said Manuel. “But nice-like she kept it that way on purpose. When she came out she looked grim. Like whatever had gone on during those twenty-eight minutes hadn't been fun.”
“Did you get the plates?”
“I'll give you a two-dollar discount, settle for thirty-eight if I get dibs on the dirty details for a screenplay. Stuff I've been working on doesn't work. Too much Pynchon and DeLillo, not enough Story of O.”
“The plates,” said Aaron.
“So it's a deal? Excellent. Got a pen?”
Aaron used a pay-as-you-go cell to contact his DMV source. Ka-ching, Mr. Dmitri. The tags matched a one-year-old Jaguar registered to Arlene Frieda Solomon, forty-one years old, brown and green, five two, one twenty. Home address on McCarty Drive in Beverly Hills.
Nice neighborhood, just south of Wilshire, pretty, well kept, two-story houses running three million plus.
Arlene Solomon had let her hair go gray since her license renewal two years ago. Her DMV photo showed a thin-faced, big-eyed brunette.
Real serious-almost mournful. DMV hassles could do that to you, but still, this one seemed downright morose.
Aaron BlackBerried onto the net. Arlene Frieda Solomon evoked over a hundred hits.
Psychiatrist Arlene Solomon cited the rise in eating disorders among younger and younger children as evidence of pressure by…
Arlene Solomon, M.D., a Beverly Hills psychiatrist specializing in anorexia-bulimia, says…
A panel of experts at the Oak Center in Beverly Hills, chaired by Dr. Arlene Solomon, an expert in…
He logged off, phoned Alex Delaware.
The psychologist said, “I've heard of her, but don't know her personally.”
“What've you heard?”
“Smart, well trained, knowledgeable. She used to run the eating disorders clinic at the U., may still be doing that.”
“Dedicated, too,” said Aaron. “Nice office on Bedford Drive, but she makes house calls.”
“Her type of patients sometimes need that, Aaron.”
“And patients like Mason Book get all kinds of special privileges.”
“Hard to say, unless we know how she deals with everyone else.”
Doctors. Always protecting each other.
Aaron said, “Your guess was spot-on, Doc.”
Now maybe, you'll give me another.
Delaware said, “Sometimes you get lucky.”
“Anything else you can tell me?”
Several beats. “Nothing comes to mind.”
Aaron said, “Well, at least we know why Book was hospitalized.”
“Probably.”
“What do you mean?” said Aaron.
“An eating disorder doesn't eliminate all sorts of other issues. Book's nutritional status might be okay, but he still could've come in for depression, anxiety, even suicide.”
“Rumor based on truth… I guess starving yourself could be thought of as slow suicide, right?”
Delaware said, “It could. And you guys might end up where you started.”
“Meaning?”
“Guilt.”
Aaron called Dr. Arlene Solomon's office, got a frosty, male answering service operator.
An unfriendly gatekeeper hadn't hurt business. The psychiatrist was booked solid, not taking new patients.
Calling himself Clarence Howard, one of his fake I.D.'s, Aaron put a couple of strategic catches in his voice and spun a tragic tale of a teenage daughter out of control and veering toward premature demise.
The operator said, “It's not up to me, sir.”
“My daughter is really sick and everyone says Dr. Solomon's the best.”
“I'll relay your message to the doctor.”
Click.
Aaron sat back in the Opel's driver's seat, watched the sky darken over canyons and peaks, the fanciful roofs of distant mansions nailed up in a city with no rules. Manuel had just driven off in the company truck. No one but Dr. Solomon had entered or left the house on Swal-lowsong.
He was parked atop one of the highest streets in the neighborhood, in front of another construction project. Half the lots up here were in various stages of demolition and rebuilding. High-priced dustbowl. Did anyone in L.A. ever simply enjoy?
Wanting to soak in some quiet, he'd put his cell on vibrate. He'd just popped a can of Red Bull when it began bouncing on the passenger seat.
Merry Ginzburg. Finally.
“Long time, Ms. G.”
“If you keep calling me, darling, I'm going to start feeling popular again.”
“Busy day?”
“Meetings,” she said. “Then meetings about meetings. An unnamed local station might want me to highlight Industry dirt for their late-news broadcast. Not exactly Carbon Beach and Bentleys, but beggars can't be yadda yadda yadda. Anyway, I may have found out why you-know-who went to you-know-where.”
“It's a secure line,” said Aaron.
“Okay, then: My source's source talked to another source who had a source, so this could end up as one of those games of telephone, but like I said, beggars. What it comes down to is that Mr. Book no longer eats.”
“Really,” said Aaron.
“Anorexia's no longer a girl thing, Denzel. 'Specially in the Industry-all that pressure to be hollow-cheeked. But given someone of Book's status going cachectic, we're talking Big-Time Dirt.”
“Ca-what?”
“Morbidly malnourished, darling. It's a medical term. After I heard about poor Mason, I spent some time exploring the topic. Couldn't find any cyberlink between him and no-cal dieting, but I did enlarge my vocabulary. Cachectic. Nice, no? All sharp-edged, one of those onomato-whatever. Anyway, poor Mason was probably admitted to Cedars for intravenous sushi and Kobe beef. That would explain no meds, right? Maybe cachectic people can't handle chemicals. I've started making calls, still trying to find out who his doc is, once I do, I'll find a way to worm my way-”
“Don't,” said Aaron. “Please.”
“Don't what?”
“Don't take it any further, Mer.”
Long silence.
“Mr. Fox, Mr. Foxy-Fox. Why am I feeling you already know all of this and for some God-knows reason have allowed me to prattle like a meth-addled starlet trying to gain access to Spielberg's boot-tips?”
“I haven't,” said Aaron, lying smoothly. “It's serious info that I appreciate more than you can imagine. Which is exactly why I need you to keep a lid on.”