All or Nothing (12 page)

Marla sat back in the green leather sofa, stunned. As far as anyone knew, Laurie Martin had no sister. Nor had she ever had a husband. Nor, as far as she knew, was she involved in any children’s charity.

She patted MacIver’s hand gently. It felt like bird bones, the thin flesh transparent, purple veins pulsing beneath. “I’m sorry I upset you, Mr. MacIver,” she said sincerely. “And I want to thank you for confiding in me. I’m sure it’s going to help in our search for Laurie. Meanwhile, another thing that would be of enormous help is her photograph. I understand that it’s precious to you, but may I borrow it just for one day? I’ll have several copies made and I’ll give you some too. It will be of such help in our search.”

MacIver looked at her, suddenly panicked. “You told me you weren’t the police,” he said. “If I’d known it was the police, I wouldn’t have said anything, Laurie wouldn’t have liked that.”

“Oh?” Marla’s ears pricked up. “And why wouldn’t Laurie have liked you talking to the police, Mr. MacIver? You can tell me.” She smiled, gently patting his hand. “I’m definitely
not
the police.”

He sighed with relief. “I didn’t think you were. Go ahead, take it. No, Laurie didn’t like the police, didn’t trust them. Said they harassed her once or twice, over some minor car things. She said if they weren’t on your side, forget it.”

Marla nodded. “I understand. And thank you again, Mr. MacIver. I’ll have the photograph back to you tomorrow without fail.”

She got to her feet and so did the dog, growling softly at the back of its throat, showing the whites of its eyes and its fangs.

“Forgive me for not accompanying you,” MacIver said, “but I’m quite exhausted. I’ll buzz you out of the gate. Gestapo, sit.” The dog slumped to the floor and Marla’s spine crawled as she stepped gingerly past it, waiting for those fangs to sink into her ankle. But the dog did not move.

Well, well, well, she thought, hurrying down the drive to the safety of the Mercedes, still parked in the road. Just look what I’ve come up with. The mother lode. She grinned, wondering how successful Giraud had been with Laurie’s coworkers. Not as good as her, she’d bet. Wow, did she have a lot to tell him.

Al hitched himself onto a stool at the horseshoe–shaped counter at the Apple Pan on Pico, one block east of Westwood. The place had barely changed since it opened in the forties, and was his favorite eatery. He had been waiting ten minutes already and the line still curved around both sides of the screen door. Behind the counter four guys worked the grills, shoveling fries onto paper plates and burgers into buns, piling toasted rye a mile high with tuna salad or egg salad. And slicing great slabs of possibly the best apple pie in L.A. At least in Al’s opinion. And, judging by the line, a great many others.

“How’re y’doin’, Al? The usual?”

He had been coming here for fifteen years and the guy behind the counter had been here even longer. “Ya have to ask?”

“Never know when you might change your mind––go for the burger instead.” He slid a can of Coke across the counter, along with a little paper cone in a plastic holder in case A1 wanted to be ladylike, and in less than a minute had a tuna with the works and a paper plate of fries and another paper plate with two slurps of ketchup in front of A1.

He had just taken the first bite when he felt a draft behind him. Like a whirlwind, he thought, turning to look. Marla was elbowing her way to the counter. She was dressed, if you could call it that, in workout gear. White Lycra shorts, a brief white sports bra, sneakers and a Lakers cap.

“Excuse me, pardon me, excuse me. . . .” Marla was already at the front of the line, sliding onto the just–vacated stool next to him. “I’m with him,” she explained over her shoulder to the irate customers still waiting behind her.

“Marla, how could you do that?” Al hissed. “That poor guy has been waiting for ten minutes. There is a line, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

“I knew I’d find you here. And yes, I had noticed, but this is important.” She grinned at him.

“You’ll get us thrown out of here.”

“I’ve been thrown out of better places––as they say.”

“Waddya want, lady?” The server was getting impatient, she was holding up his smooth–running schedule . . . around fifteen minutes from sitting down to out the door was what he generally worked on. But not with women like this one.

“Mmm, now, let me see. . . .” Marla studied the menu card on the counter. Hamburger, cheeseburger, tuna salad, egg salad, fries, pie. She cocked her head to one side, smiling. “What I really wanted was lox and cream cheese on a toasted sesame bagel.”

Al and the server both glared at her. “Lady, you’ll find Junior’s Deli right around the corner. We got burgers and fries. Now, whaddya want.”

“Egg salad, no fries, please,” she said meekly.

“You might have the grace to blush,” Al said, dunking a french fry in his ketchup.

“Women don’t blush these days. We’ve given it up.”

“So what d’you do instead?”

“Apologize,” she said with a mischievous grin. She turned to the guy still waiting behind her. “I’m so sorry.” She smiled engagingly at him and he smiled back. “I’m sorry,” she said to the server, who was just slamming a paper plate with the egg salad sandwich onto the counter. “Oh, my, this is big enough for four. I may need a doggy bag.” Al rolled his eyes and she added quickly, “I’m sorry.”

“Okay, so now you’ve apologized to everybody, just eat the darn sandwich and let’s get out of here.”

“But I’ve got so much to tell you. . . .”

She had been here five minutes and hadn’t even taken a bite yet. The Apple Pan’s schedule was shot to hell. “You’ve gotta understand, this is not the Ritz, Marla,” Al hissed at her. “These guys work on numbers, turnover is their mantra.”

She picked up the paper plate and the can of Coke and slid off the red stool. “Okay, so I’m not holding anyone up any longer. I’ll eat it in the car . . . damn it, I didn’t want it anyway.”

Al had already finished his burger and paid for both of them. He left the fries, grabbed the Coke and her arm, elbowing his way out of there.

“I’ve been coming to this place for fifteen years and now I’m not sure I can ever show my face again.”

“Why ever not?”

She was genuinely astonished and he heaved a gigantic sigh. “Never mind, Marla. And what’s so important, anyway?”

They were in her Mercedes now, at an expired meter on Pico. Al got out again and put a quarter in the meter. He climbed back in, slammed the door shut and took a long and necessary slug of the ice–cold Coke.

Marla licked the top of the egg salad. “Mmmm, yummy,” she said appreciatively.

“Best in town,” Al said, as proud as if he owned the joint himself.

“I guess from your lousy demeanor you didn’t have much success with Laurie’s coworkers?”

Al finished his own Coke and sequestered hers. “Marla, you know what? You can be a real pain in the neck.”

“Who? Me?”

She batted her long eyelashes innocently at him and he shook his head. “Honey, don’t do that to me. This is business, remember? And I’m the boss.”

“Yes, sir.” She sat up smartly and the paper plate slid off her knee and landed, egg salad–side down on Al’s boots.

She stared doubtfully at it. “Look at it this way, the mayo will give your boots a nice shine, and it’s better than on my black carpet.”

He took a deep breath. “In case you haven’t noticed, Marla, I am now speaking through gritted teeth.” He scraped the egg salad off his boots with the paper plate and attempted to rub off the rest with the tiny little diner napkin.

“Here.” Marla thrust a box of Kleenex at him. “I’m learning,” she said mournfully. “I’ve already apologized three times in the last fifteen minutes. Okay, so here I go again. I’m sorry, Al.” And she leaned over and grabbed his face between her two rather eggy hands and planted a great kiss on his lips.

Their lips lingered and Al felt his heart do a couple of little leaps and bounds. Like a teenager on a first date, he thought happily, kissing her some more.

“So, what was so important, anyway?” he said when she released him finally. Her gray–green eyes had darkened and her lips looked bruised. God, but she was beautiful––and sexy. He had to keep himself under control.

“I found Laurie’s boyfriend.”

“And?” He leaned against the comfortable black leather, pretending indifference, staring deliberately casual out the window.

She slammed a fist into his arm.

“
Ouch.
Watch what you’re doing, you could hurt a guy.” He was laughing at her and she knew it.

“Okay,
boss,
this is the scoop. Laurie Martin met a Mr. John MacIver at the local Baptist church. She was wearing one of her housedresses and he was wearing silver hair and Mr. Magoo glasses and a walking cane. He’s eighty–four and well–off and she’s in her thirties and playing some kind of game. Remember the serpent ring? Well, that’s her engagement ring. He paid for it, she chose it.”

Al’s low whistle expressed his astonishment. “Then why wasn’t she wearing it on the proper finger?”

“She didn’t want anybody else to know, not yet. It was to be their secret. She wanted him to be sure he knew what he was doing. Besides, she didn’t want people to talk about her. She’s just a poor simple woman, alone and vulnerable in a big wide world.”

Al whistled again.

“Did I do good?” she asked, beaming.

“Honey, you did great.”

“Not only that, according to MacIver, Laurie’s just about ready for sainthood, a good woman in the old–fashioned sense of the word was what he said. Reminded him of his dead wife, Imogen––and from Imogen’s portrait I thought she looked like a real tough cookie. Hard as nails would be the way I would describe her.”

“What about him?”

“MacIver?” She thought for a minute. “He’s not a gentle sort of man, I don’t know that I liked him much. But he was definitely the vulnerable one, old, alone, kind of doddery. He can hardly see and his hearing’s bad. But both he and Gestapo loved her.”

“Gestapo?”

“A German shepherd that was ready to rip me apart if I made one false move, but that apparently adored Laurie. Of course when she visited she was smart enough to bring him a juicy beef bone to munch on, instead of on her leg. She also tapped MacIver for a few bucks––several thousand, I imagine––for a so–called sister whose kid was in need of an operation, and for a children’s charity she was supposedly active in at Christmastime.”

“Surprise, surprise.” Al leaned back with his eyes closed.

Marla stared at him, ready for the
coup de grâce.
“She also told MacIver that he was the first man she had loved since her husband died, ten years ago.”

Al’s eyes popped open and she grinned with satisfaction. “Gotcha at last, Giraud.”

“A husband, huh? And a sister with a kid? Life is getting more interesting, honey.”

“And
this
is Laurie Martin herself.” Triumphantly, she flourished the photograph of Laurie in the housedress.

“Laurie’s Life Number Two,” Al said, examining it interestedly. “And now I think I’ve also got an angle on Life Number Three.” He handed her a brown manila envelope.

Marla opened it and looked at the photo of the little black mutt, Clyde, sitting on the hood of a car.

“I had it enlarged,” Al said. “Notice anything interesting.”

She shook her head. “Nice dog, though. Cute in the red bandanna.”

“Cute Clyde is sitting on the hood of a Buick Regal vintage 1980. As an observant P.I., you might have noticed that it also has a Florida plate and the license number is now quite clear.”

“Florida!” Marla remembered Laurie’s condo with its pastel pink and turquoise Florida decor.

“So, guess where we begin our investigation, honey?”

“I always wanted to see South Beach,” she said.

Al stared at the passing panorama outside his office window. Sleek California girls on Rollerblades, long blond hair flying, long suntanned legs gliding rhythmically, earphones clamped over their heads, the latest in music destroying their eardrums “even as we speak.” He remembered Ben Lister’s use of that phrase and Marla’s pickup on it. The woman was a subversive, no doubt about it, but she made him laugh.

A bearded guy on a red Ducati 916––the fastest bike on the planet––throbbed at the stoplight, waiting while an older woman in a flowing white dress adorned with baby–pink ribbons and a huge hat covered in matching pink roses tottered slowly on white stilettos across the road. A couple of expensive blond women––were all Beverly Hills women blond? he wondered––smart in designer suits and lavish designer breasts, toting designer–labeled packages stepped into a waiting, chauffered black limo. And at the café across the street a motley crew of young folk sipped iced mochaccinos and double lattes, idly taking the world apart and putting it back together again more to their liking. Either that or they were gossiping about “friends” who were not there. Gossip made the world go round, especially here in Hollywood. There would be a lot of people out of work if it were not for gossip.

And the traffic on Sunset just rolled on and on. A hooker twitching along in thigh–high red boots; hip–hop kids with shaven heads and baggy pants six sizes too large and so long they concertinaed over their sneakers the way Charlie Chaplin’s used to; workers carrying lunchtime takeout back to the office; teenagers heading for “life” at Tower Records and a never–ending snaking parade of ordinary folk heading––who knows where?

Al turned from the window and looked again at the information he had just received on the car with the Florida license plate. It had had several owners in Florida whose names meant nothing to him, and one in Texas whose name was also unfamiliar.

The Texas owner was definitely out. The car Al was interested in had a Florida plate. He smiled as he imagined Marla accompanying him there. Panama City was not exactly Miami and South Beach.

The phone rang and he grabbed it.

“Ben Lister, here. I just had a call from your friend Detective Bulworth.”

“We’re only friends when we’re not working on the same case. Right now, he doesn’t share any information with me.”