Christietown (20 page)

They, and who else?

C
HAPTER
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nfortunately for Wren, she got arrested on a Friday.
According to Gambino and his cop friends, the weekend judges have a reputation for being hard-nosed. And who could blame them? In any case, there were no visits allowed before the preliminary hearing, which wasn’t scheduled until late Sunday. Wren was on her own until then.

In the meantime, I had to find Ian.

The problem was, I didn’t have his home address and the only number I had for him was his cell phone, and unfortu
nately, the mailbox was full. Guess I wasn’t the only one trying to locate him. I tried information, but he wasn’t listed. I even called Lois and Marlene, thinking maybe he’d given them a different number, but all that got me was yet another recita
tion of the story of Marlene’s near-affair with Omar Sharif. I thought somebody at Christietown might be able to help, but a machine answered and I hung up before the beep. I was tired of leaving messages.

Things were looking bleak.

Until I remembered the “While You Were Out” slips I’d stolen from Ian’s trash can.

Sometimes, crime does pay.

My first stop was Showtime Cleaners on Doheny and Santa Monica. I parked in the Petco lot, which was for customers only. It said so in big red letters. I was definitely a customer. I’d spent enough money on chew toys and fancy kibble to last three lifetimes.

“Sorry. Mr. Ian picked up his shirts two days ago,” said the woman behind the counter. She pressed an unseen button and a conveyor belt sprang to life, shuttling plastic-swathed gar
ments across the room.

“Yes, I realize that,” I said, shouting over the din. “But I think there may be one left. The Tommy Bahama one? It’s very cheerful.”

She pushed the button again and the conveyor belt shud
dered to a stop.

“He likes to wear it on the weekends,” I continued. “Maybe you could double-check?” I gave her a hopeful smile.

“No, miss,” she said, shaking her head. “I gave that shirt to Mr. Ian myself. It had many stubborn stains. The whole team worked hard to remove them. I am sorry if it is personal, but maybe you can remind him about Mitchum? We recommend it to all our customers. It’s an excellent product. We even sell it here. We also sell lint brushes,” she said, looking at my sweater. She removed a hot pink dress from the conveyor belt and hung it on the rack near the register. “Customer coming in later,” she explained. “Big party tonight.”

I acknowledged the ruffles, then invented a missing com
forter. “Mr. Ian dropped it off quite some time ago,” I said. “I think it must be lost in the system. Can you check back there? It’s been getting kind of nippy in the evenings.”

“Oh. You are the wife?” she asked.

“Um.” I was smiling less certainly now.

“Hold on a minute,” she said, heading into the back.

Unfortunately, the moment the woman was out of sight, a tall man in a dark suit came in carrying a pile of pastel-colored button-downs. He looked like a law-and-order type. Foiled again. With a goody-goody like him standing there, I could hardly leap behind the counter, punch Ian’s name into the computer, and find his home address.

The woman drifted back on an odoriferous cloud of chemi
cal solvents.

“Any luck?” I asked, already halfway out the door.

Suddenly, she was handing me something big and unwieldy and covered with little blue flowers. “You were right. Smart lady, Mrs. Ian. This comforter has been sitting here for weeks. I didn’t know whose it was. No tag. Sometimes we make small errors like that. Sorry, Mrs. Ian.”

She presented me with a bill for $45.00.

I had no choice.

While I was at it, I bought a lint brush.

My luck at the gym was no better. They guarded their com
puter like it was Fort Knox. Maybe they worried about stalk
ers. The front-desk guy said he hadn’t seen Ian in days. He was willing to extend the renewal offer for another week, but that was as far as he could push it. A flame-haired beauty engrossed in a fitness magazine lifted her head up long enough to inform me that her power step class was being moved from Tuesdays and Thursdays at eight
A.M
. to Mondays and Wednesdays at
seven fifteen. She was Gina? Ian was one of her biggest fans? I said he talked about her constantly, and promised to pass on the information.

My last chance was the manuscripts-and-collectibles store on Sunset Boulevard. I knew that if Ian had legs to walk on, he’d stop by to get that Agatha Christie memorabilia. However much it cost him, it would be worth it. A huckster like him could practice copying the Great One’s signature and forge some collectibles of his own—for the walls of the Blue Boar Pub, of course.

The tiny storefront was located on the south side of the street. I drove past in slow motion, then turned the corner and cruised down the alley at the rear. The cigar store and coffee shop spaces on either side were full. There was one space behind the manuscripts store, and it was taken by an old black Lincoln with a bumper sticker reading
S
URFERS
D
O
I
T
B
ETTER
. Ian would have to park in front. I circled back around to Sunset, looking for a metered spot. No luck there. It was ten to two now. Time to stop pussyfooting around. I had to get into posi
tion. I pulled into the Tower Records lot across the street. It had a perfect view of the front door. Now all I had to do was wait for the rosy-cheeked man in the guayabera.

Slowest twenty minutes of my life.

I found an emery board in the glove compartment and did some repair work.

I perused the plastic surgery ads in a stray piece of the
L.A. Weekly
that had been shoved between the seats.

I organized my wallet.

Then I saw Ian pull his car—a green Jag—into the yellow loading zone in front of the store.

At last. I grabbed my purse and whipped open the door,
then stopped short. What was I going to say when I finally confronted him? I had no idea. Was he laying low because he was afraid? Or because he had something to hide? I tended to think it was the latter, but couldn’t be sure. Why had Teenie described him as a maniac? Was Lou right in saying Ian and Liz had met at Christietown? I pulled the door closed. Perhaps the most prudent course of action would be to stall until I’d made up my mind. I’d wait until he came back out, then I’d follow him for a while, see where he went. Maybe that would tell me something I needed to know.

Five minutes later, Ian and the bearded proprietor appeared in the doorway and exchanged good-byes. Then Ian emerged into the sunlight, a manila envelope under his arm and a smile on his face, the latter of which didn’t vanish even as he plucked a parking ticket from his windshield. Ian got into his car and pulled out into traffic, heading east. Without thinking twice, I swung an illegal left out of the Tower Records parking lot and fell into place behind him.

It was kind of exciting not knowing where we were going.

Mid-Wilshire? Lots of interesting architecture.

Koreatown? I’m a fan of Korean barbecue.

Union Station? The Brits loved their trains.

We turned right at Fairfax and drove past Canter’s, where fluffy matzo balls reign; past Farmer’s Market, which I tried never to visit after eleven
A.M
. because you can’t get parking; past Johnnie’s, the defunct space-age diner; past the beauti
ful old May Company building with its faded gold ziggurat; through Little Ethiopia, where you get to eat dinner with your hands; past the graffiti-scrawled exterior of Mo’ Better Meaty Meat Burger. Block after block of cinder-block apartments fol
lowed. Just after the power plant, we merged onto the 10 head
ing west. The image of Ian in a Speedo flashed suddenly before my eyes. Given the chill in the air, however, ocean frolicking seemed unlikely, thank god.

Being on the freeway was a good thing. Saved me the trou
ble of worrying about losing him at a light. He was a timid driver, which also helped. No zig-zagging. He’d picked that middle lane and was loyal to it. After National, we approached the on-ramp to the 405, which leads you straight to LAX, but Ian sped on by. He was a man on a mission. At Cloverfield, he moved into the far-right lane. At Lincoln, he exited. I was still only one car length behind him.

WELCOME TO SANTA MONICA
read the colorful sign.

I opened the window to breathe in the good sea air, then put it up because it was actually cold. I followed close behind as Ian turned right at the penguin perched on the roof of the offices of Dr. Beauchamp Credit Dentist, and right again at the ten-gallon hat parked in front of Arby’s roast beef.

We were on Santa Monica Boulevard now. Up ahead, I could see the palm trees silhouetted against the grayish sky. Below was the blue haze of the Pacific Ocean. We blew past Fifth Street, then Fourth. Were we going to the Third Street Promenade? Maybe there was a Tommy Bahama store there.

At Second Street, just a couple blocks north of the beach, he took a right into an overpriced parking lot and got out of the car, a grubby backpack slung over one shoulder. I pulled in just behind him, but parked on the opposite end of the lot. He couldn’t see me, but I could see him. He jaywalked across Santa Monica Boulevard and came to a halt directly in front of Ye Olde King’s Head Tavern.

Were we going to get rat-arsed? Watch the telly? Have a natter?

Unfortunately, we’d have to wait until Sunday evening for the big darts tournament.

No, wait, he was walking past the pub, past the Union Jack flying in the breeze. He wasn’t headed for the Pawnshop of the Stars. It was boarded up. He disappeared for a moment behind the scaffolding in front of the Mayfair Theatre, which was undergoing renovations. Shoot. He was crossing the street now, over to my side. I ducked behind a bronze fountain so he wouldn’t see me if he turned around. Was he going to another pub? There were several in this area, along with half a dozen tearooms where you could munch on buttered crumpets and buy Queen Elizabeth II commemorative mugs.

No.

No crumpets.

I emerged from behind the fountain.

He was heading into 225 Santa Monica Boulevard.

The historic Clock Tower Building, the city of Santa Monica’s first skyscraper.

Ian was going up to the penthouse to visit the offices of his friend and mine, Dov Pick.

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here were four art deco timepieces at the top of the build
ing’s stepped tower, each one frozen at the hour of twelve. They’d run continuously since the building was erected in 1929, but had been damaged in the Northridge quake several years back and had yet to be repaired. Maybe Dov couldn’t find the right person. More likely he got a kick out of making time stand still.

I hovered outside the lobby, still unsure about what I wanted to say to Ian and not at all eager to take on his boss unprepared. But maybe I could catch Ian in the lobby before he went upstairs. I squared my shoulders. No more maybes. I
could
catch Ian. I was sure I could. Pretty sure. Hell, it was worth a try. Switching gears, I tore into the building just in time to see the elevator doors slam shut, and the needle above swing all the way around to the right.