Hollywood and Levine (14 page)

Two hundred yards down the road and the ocean disappeared from view. I was sorry to see it go. The road was dark and untrafficked, bordered by dense, wild foliage. After a quarter-mile, I came to a small garage and filling station. The boy on duty was spread out beneath a Pontiac that dated from the Ming Dynasty. A light rain began to fall. I coughed to announce myself and he came squirming out from under, a husky kid in his late teens.

He gazed at me from the ground, still on his back, his blond hair caked with oil and dust.

“Sir?” he asked.

“I need a phone. You got one?”

“We got one, but it's on the fritz. Car break down?”

“Yeah, ways up the road.”

“Want me to bring it in for you?”

I hemmed, I hawed, and finally assembled some clever excuse like I was short of cash and wanted to call the wife. She had the money, you see, and the garage we usually use … Luckily, the boy wasn't listening.

“Up to you, Mister,” he said indifferently, disappearing beneath the Pontiac. “You want a phone, there's one at Vince's restaurant.”

“Where's that?”

Only his blond, dusty hair was visible.

“Mile and a half,” he said.

The mile and a half took about forty minutes. I can walk a good deal faster than that, but the drugs had left me with the legs of a hippo. I lumbered down the road, panting and sweating, sitting down at regular intervals on boulders or chopped-down sections of weed, confused, afraid, and—another echo of my chemical experience—paranoid. In that forty minutes, I must have looked behind me two dozen times, and heard the approach of phantom autos a dozen more. When really anxious, I tried running, but run turned to lope turned to walk in a matter of seconds. I was in no kind of shape at all.

So I was very happy to see Vince's loom in the distance, a glow of red neon backed by a strangely shapeless mountain, one that seemed to shift like a cloud, its boulders mere smoke. I picked up my step, but seemed to make no headway; if anything, the restaurant appeared to recede, its sheltering mountain loosed from its moorings, gliding up and back. A madman's sweating panic ensued and I attempted once again to run. My chest grew tight and a pounding commenced at the back of my head. I stumbled and fell. A long roundhouse curve of wind blew past, clearing out a field of fog. The lights of the restaurant grew bright, the mountain became solid and familiar. I continued to sit in the road, an idiot's grin pasted to my face, gawking like Dorothy from Kansas at the sight of Oz.

I arose with dignity and dusted my pants. Perspective returned: I was hungry and wanted to eat, and I was anxious to call Helen Adrian, for a rush of reasons I lacked the keen wit to sort out and identify. I told myself that I wanted to reassure the lady, but you don't need a psychiatrist's shingle to figure out that it was LeVine himself who needed the reassurance.

Vince's restaurant was no mirage. It was a serene and squat concrete blockhouse, flat-roofed and adorned by a classy red neon sign that spelled Vince's name in fiery script. Inside it was just a joint. It had a short black counter lined by a half-dozen stools, and a half-dozen tables, one of them occupied by a family. It had all that, plus a pervasive and not unpleasant odor of garlic. There was a phone mounted on the wall next to a jukebox; I went to it immediately, scrounging through my pockets for a nickel.

An operator intercepted the call and informed me I'd have to come up with another nickel. I asked her why and she explained that a call from the Santa Monica district to Los Angeles required two nickels, not one. Relieved to know where I was, I obligingly coughed up another five cents.

Helen answered. As calmly as I could—to avoid panic on her end—I explained myself. The lady didn't panic, of course, she never did; she told me that she'd leave at once and come retrieve me. I relayed, as best I could, the precise location of Vince's.

“I know the place. Walter and I stopped there once or twice. It has something of a local reputation. Get the canneloni.”

“How are you doing?” I asked.

“I'm a little numb, but not too bad, all things considered. It's been a long day. I had just now begun to worry about you.”

“Can you drive?”

“Sure,” she said. “No problem.”

“You positive?”

“Absolutely. Say listen, how did the famous detective wind up at Vince's without his car?”

“There's an amusing story in that. Come get me before they do, know what I mean?”

“Know what you mean,” she repeated, and hung up. She might have smacked a kiss into the receiver, but I wouldn't swear to it.

I wandered over to the counter and lowered my prize rump onto a stool. A handsome, black-haired man with a bold Roman nose and unhappy eyes greeted me. His sports shirt and brown poplin slacks were immaculate, despite the bubbling pots of tomato sauce.

“You Vince?”

He nodded silently, whipping a small white pad and a pen from his shirt pocket.

“I'd like some canneloni,” I told him, “and a small salad.” He nodded and scribbled. “Plenty of bread, coffee,” he continued to nod, “and a little information.” Vince stopped nodding. He tore my order off the pad, pressed his arms against the counter, and leaned forward.

“What kind of information?” he asked in a mellow baritone suggestive of acting lessons.

“Nothing fancy,” I told him, “and I could use that coffee right now.”

Vince picked a glass percolator off a double burner and filled up a cup, never taking his eyes off me. I wondered if a scarlet letter or a bluish bulge was radiating from my forehead. My fingers found no facial swelling but did feel out a nice lump, protruding from the base of my skull like the beginnings of another head.

“Take a fall?” asked Vince.

I shook my head and invented a chuckle.

“My nephew. He thinks he's Hugh Casey. Bounced a fastball off me last weekend. Hurt like hell.”

Vince nodded sympathetically.

“Those things really smart. Let me put your canneloni in.”

He vanished into a small kitchen, while I sipped his excellent coffee. I closed my eyes and wished I were in bed.

Vince returned, wiping his hands on a towel.

“So what did you want to know?” he asked.

“Well, I was out by Pacific Way before. I'm from the East, as you might've guessed.”

“It was easy.” Vince grinned and revealed a set of capped choppers every bit as perfect as Dick Powell's.

“Sure, I'm a dead giveaway,” I said amiably. “Anyhow, that Pacific Way caught my fancy and I've been thinking of moving out here. You know if anything's for sale?”

“On Pacific?”

“Right.”

“Not that I know of.” He picked a toothpick out of a small cut-glass bowl and inserted the pick next to an incisor. He waggled it contemplatively, pleased to be discussing real estate.

“Tell you the one I'm thinking of, Vince,” I said, warming to the task, the coffee beginning to awake my comatose brain cells. “There's a burned-out lot, and next to it is a sweet old saltbox, three stories. Rundown, but nothing a few bucks couldn't set right. Looked deserted to me.”

Vince nodded. “I know the one you're thinking of, but it's not up for grabs. Lady named Brownell owned it. Widow, no kids. She died and a nephew of hers got it. He's not around much, but I haven't heard that he's selling.”

“You know him if you saw him?”

“Who?”

“The nephew.”

He shrugged. A few questions like that and anybody working a Tenth Avenue hash house would have asked to see the shingle. But this was the Golden West, and Vince was no more suspicious of me than he was of his pasta.

“Nope,” he concluded, taking his arms from the counter, “I could ask around for you, but I'm pretty sure he's not selling. I'll get your dinner.”

The canneloni was delicious. The salad was fresh, the dressing homemade and spiced with onion. Served with a loaf of hot Italian bread and a tub of butter, the meal preserved my sanity until Helen Adrian arrived.

She was wearing a raincoat over a rumpled blue sweater and black slacks. Vince blinked a few times when she walked in the door; it was around eight-thirty and we were the only people in the joint.

“I know you,” said Vince. “You've eaten here.”

“That's right,” Mrs. Adrian told him, smiling politely. She sat down on the stool next to mine and shook out her hair. “Starting to rain. Coffee, Vince.”

Vince pushed a cup in front of her and filled it up. She swiveled around on her stool and faced me. She smiled.

“And here we are,” she said, peering at my skull. Her hand touched my lump, as lightly as a sudden breeze. “What's that?”

“A bump.”

“Oh really?” She sounded amused and leaned toward me, smelling of wet wool. “In the line of duty?”

“That's right.”

A strand of damp red hair fell across her left eye as she lowered her head to sip some coffee. She smoothed it away with her ring finger. The angle of her head, the lips pursed on the rim of the cup, her smooth cheek, the cozy, dense smell of wool; all of that, plus my fragile state of mind, sent me right off the tracks for her.

She caught me staring at her. “You're smiling,” she said.

“I'm happy.”

Vince backed away from the counter, fearful of eavesdropping, and strolled into the kitchen. Mrs. Adrian and I sat hunched over our coffee cups, knees almost touching; a peculiar, pleasing moment.

“We better blow,” I told her.

“Are there really people after you?”

“They should still be out of commission, but you can't ever be sure.” I got worried as I said the words. “I'd really like to get out of here.”

Mrs. Adrian picked up on my apprehension.

“Fine with me.”

I called for Vince and he walked out of the kitchen. I paid him. He said he'd keep his eyes peeled for any houses opening up on Pacific. I thanked him, promised to stay in touch. Mrs. Adrian and I went outside; it was still raining. Her white Olds was parked right outside the door. We got in and headed out onto the dark two-lane road. Mrs. Adrian brought the car right up to sixty-five. I winced but kept a discreet silence.

“What was that all about?” she asked. “About the house.”

“I told him I was interested in real estate on Pacific Way, in order to find out about this house I found myself in a couple of hours ago.”

“What do you mean, ‘found yourself'?”

“I mean ‘found myself' in the sense of coming to after being smashed in the head on a Beverly Hills street, getting drugged to imbecility and then tied down, hand and foot, to an old bed. That's what ‘found myself refers to. And I wish you'd watch the road.”

She watched me instead.

“Somebody did that to you?”

“Some bodies. I'd guess it was the same party responsible for killing Walter and for the shots at me on the Western Street.”

“Oh Christ.” Mrs. Adrian patted my hand. “You have to be careful, Jack.”

“I'm just lucky I didn't get killed right off the bat. Must have been a foul-up.”

“Well, you can't kill someone in broad daylight in Beverly Hills,” she said analytically. “Or in Santa Monica, for that matter.” She raised a thin eyebrow. “How did you get out of that house on Pacific?”

I spent the rest of the trip to Beverly Hills describing my painful odyssey after the funeral. Mrs. Adrian bit her lip in tension, oohed and aahed, and almost cheered at the happy ending. She was a terrific audience.

“The upshot is that if he had arrived earlier, you would have been killed,” she said when I had finished.

“They overestimated the strength of the drugs or underestimated my bearish constitution.”

The lady smiled.

“You're such a tough guy.”

“I am tough,” I pretended to protest, realizing instantly that we had begun to play a lovers' game, the mock argument. The playfulness was followed by an uncertain silence in the car. Mrs. Adrian's smile stayed fixed, then faded; she held her eyes to the road and finally turned on the wipers as the rain quickened. I felt a chill.

“I missed you today,” she said after a while.

I settled back in my seat, leaning my head against a custom-made rest.

“The house was filled with people after the funeral,” she continued, “talking and eating, arguing. I went upstairs and cried for a while. That's when I missed you. You were the only person I wanted to talk to.”

“I'm a good listener,” I told her. “It goes with the profession.”

“You're a good listener and a good person, Jack. An un-neurotic and decent man.”

“I'm not so sure about the neurotic part,” I said, “but it's nice to hear.”

We pulled onto Gregory Street and stopped in back of the Chrysler, which was standing there as if nothing had happened.

“I'll follow you,” I told Mrs. Adrian.

“You still have the keys?”

I fished through my pockets, found the keys and displayed them.

“Fine,” she said. “I'll drive slowly.”

The rain had thinned out again, but the air inside the Olds smelled of the damp.

“Hurry up,” said Helen Adrian, her voice turning soft and uncertain.

I didn't hurry up. Mrs. Adrian tilted her head and I bent forward and kissed her. Nothing spectacular; the kiss was in the nature of an understanding.

She straightened up and squeezed my hand.

“C'mon, Jack,” she said more briskly. “Let's go.”

I got out of the car and walked over to the Chrysler. Mrs. Adrian brought the Olds beside me as I started up, then she pulled down Gregory Street and I dutifully followed, suddenly aware that I was terribly tired.

We reached the Adrian house in about twenty minutes. Mrs. Adrian put the Olds in the garage, then walked across the broad wet lawn. The rain was visible against the porch light as she hurriedly opened the door and went inside. I sat in the Chrysler for a moment, wondering if the lady were angry at me, or at herself. Or angry at all. Under the circumstances, I was prepared to understand and accept any mood or frame of mind; I was ready for hurled china-ware, weeping, bitter imprecations. I had, perhaps, taken advantage of her vulnerability. But I was pretty vulnerable myself, detective license or not. I began thinking that I was making a large to-do out of very little and got out of the car.