One of Those Malibu Nights (13 page)

“Think of the neighbors,” she reminded him. “They’ll say it’s domestic abuse and call the cops.”

“Tell them to call Wildlife Control instead,” he said, still hurting.

Sunny thought how odd life was. Here was a man who could dodge bullets and killers with impunity, but put him up against a cute little Chihuahua and he was no match. She sighed. So much for her romantic evening.

“Tell you what,” she said brightly. “How about a grappa?”

“Sure.” Mac was already flinging on his clothes. “At my place. It’s safer there.”

And so they left poor Tesoro to lick her paws and consider repentance.

Malibu worked its old charm though, and soon they were in Mac’s bed. Sunny was carefully avoiding putting her hands on his wounds, and Pirate was a discreet bump in his basket by the window. All was sweetness and light again. And oh God, it was good, she thought, as she fell asleep wrapped in Mac’s arms.

No proposal tonight, though. What could a girl do when her love life was sabotaged by her own Chihuahua?

Sunny departed early the next morning to pick up her strained relationship with her dog, so Mac decided to wander down the road to Coogies for coffee and pancakes.
Blueberry
pancakes, he thought, whistling for Pirate. Plus enough coffee to float a battleship. His TV show was on hold, with no decision yet made and for once his time was his own.

Feeling good, he waved to the guard at the gate and was strolling out onto PCH when he noticed the car parked a little to the left in the sandy area just off the highway. An old Cadillac. Deep burgundy color. Dusty. It looked as though it had maybe been dumped there, but then he saw a man sitting in the driver’s seat. Thin-faced, olive-skinned with a beard that looked like it might be a disguise, and of course, dark glasses.

It flashed through his mind that he’d seen that face, that
man
before, strolling slowly back and forth on the beach, along the surf line.

Calling Pirate to heel Mac walked over to the car. The windows were down and he stuck his head in. “Hi,” he said. “What’s your problem, buddy?”

The man looked silently at him. The beard was real. He heaved a deep sigh. “I might have known you’d catch on to me,” he said. “Of course I know who
you
are.” He took a card from the dash and handed it to Mac. “Sandy Lipski,” he said. “Private investigator.”

Some private eye, Mac thought. He couldn’t even conduct a surveillance. He stuck out like a sore thumb.

“We need to talk,” Lipski said.

“What about?” Mac said.

“Ronald Perrin.”

Mac was surprised but he didn’t show it. Of course he could have just gotten in Lipski’s car and said okay so talk but he preferred to see people in their own habitats. He found it gave him a clue as to who they
really
were.

“Okay, so we’ll go to your office,” he said. “I’ll get my car and follow you.”

Who Lipski was became obvious when Mac saw his office. Small, on a Santa Monica side street. Tired file cabinets; a battered desk with an old leather high-back chair for Lipski and a dingy airport-style chair for his client. Grimy windows; a Sparkletts watercooler with a stack of Dixie
cups; a scratched wooden floor and torn screens. No AC but that was usual at the beach where everybody swore you didn’t need it because of the sea breezes. It wasn’t strictly true, especially today in Lipski’s office, but Mac steeled himself against the nicotine-tainted air and got down to business.

“Before we get to Perrin, first tell me who you are,” he said, taking the airport chair and making himself approximately comfortable.

Lipski’s story was all too familiar: an ex-cop drummed out of the force for drugs, he’d drifted into a seedy underworld life. A few years down the road he’d found a 12-step program, gotten a life back and taken up the investigating business.

“Nothing fancy,” he said, lighting up a Marlboro. “Just spying on fiancés for women who want to know if their future husbands have a past. Or else ‘a present’ they don’t know about—like for instance another wife. Following erring husbands to motels. That kinda thing.”

He took a long drag on the cigarette. The ash dropped down his shirtfront. Mac waited. His fly-on-the-wall technique never let him down.

“I met Ruby Pearl in rehab,” Lipski said. “We kept each other going, encouraged each other, y’know. She was cute, blond, full of life. She always had me laughing. I really fell for her. Then she met another guy. She told me he was really rich. She’d met him on a chat room on the Internet. She
started seeing him and soon dropped me. He gave her presents—a diamond watch, and like that. Stuff I could never have afforded even if I’d worked twenty-four/seven.” He shrugged miserably. “How could I compete?”

This was the second time Mac had heard about a diamond watch.

“But I still loved her,” Lipski said. “Y’know how it is? Sometimes there’s a woman you can never get out of your system? I would have taken her back in a heartbeat. But then she disappeared. Just like they say, ‘into thin air.’ I didn’t know then who the guy was she had been seeing, only that he was rich.

“Months went by. The police put her in the missing persons file. And you know what that means. Nobody was even looking for her. I couldn’t rest, I had to know what happened. A girl like that doesn’t just disappear. Somebody had to have something to do with it. And then I found out from an old friend in the LAPD it was Ron Perrin she had been seeing. He’d even given her a job as his secretary.

“I know she’s dead,” Lipski added quietly. “It’s that old gut feeling. Y’know how it is? It just doesn’t sit right.”

“I understand,” Mac said. He was thinking that Ron Perrin was in deep trouble. No wonder he’d done a disappearing act.

“It was me that night in Perrin’s house,” Lipski said, startling him.

“How’d you get in?”

Lipski shrugged. “Sometimes it’s just who you know. An employee with a grudge, a stolen key … y’know how it goes. I made it my business to find out who … why … Anyhow, I got the key and the alarm code.”

“Jesus,” Mac said. “It was that easy?”

Lipski shook his head. “No. I’m that clever.”

Mac laughed. There was more to this man than met the eye.

“I saw Perrin drive out the gate. I thought the house was empty. It was quite a shock when the woman came downstairs. And with a gun, for chrissakes. I didn’t want to hurt her—and hey, I didn’t want to get hurt either and then shoved in jail for burglarizing Perrin’s place. I just wanted to get away. So I pushed her to the floor and took off as fast as I could. I figured she’d be too shocked and frightened to come after me with the gun.” He shrugged. “I was right. I got away easy.”

“So what were you looking for at Perrin’s house anyway?”

“Evidence,” Lipski said simply. “He killed my girlfriend. There has to be something there, doesn’t there?”

Lipski’s weary eyes, deep-set like two black coals in his thin bearded face, looked directly into Mac’s. “You have to help me, Mr. Reilly,” he said. “I’m beggin’ you. Please.”

Loneliness had Allie in its grip, that kind of strangling sensation when, staring out the window, she felt that the rest of the world was out having a good time, while she was trapped in a prison of her own making. It was exactly the way Sunday afternoons had felt back in that small Texas town when she was a teenager and life was rushing past her and she knew she would never get to participate in it.

She thought about Sunny Alvarez. Now there was a woman who would never allow life to pass her by. Sunny was a driver in the fast lane on her Harley chopper, her black hair crammed under a silver helmet, like the god Hermes in full flight. Allie remembered Sunny’s eyes looking directly into hers, that evening at Mac’s place, and her saying,
“Listen, if you need someone to talk to, call me… . My number’s in the book.” Their eyes met. “I mean it,” she said gently. Sometimes another woman’s opinion can help sort things out.”

Of course Sunny had not meant it. Sunny had a life and she was enjoying it too much to take time out to listen to Allie’s selfish tirade of woes. And to any other woman Allie knew her complaints must indeed sound trivial. After all, she was a woman who supposedly had everything.

Still, remembering the concerned look in Sunny’s eyes, her hand hovered over the BlackBerry. She called Inquiries and got her number. After all, she had nothing to lose but her dignity. She punched it in.

Sunny answered immediately. “Hi, Allie,” she said, sounding surprised. “I’m glad you called.”

“Really?” Allie was also surprised.

“Of course
really
. Listen, you want a cup of coffee? We could meet at Starbucks … . Uh-uh, wait a minute, in a rash moment I forgot you can’t do that kind of thing, go to a Starbucks and not get mobbed, I mean. So why don’t you come over here instead? Then we can talk.”

“You’re sure I’m not interrupting your day?” Allie said cautiously.

“Of course you’re not,” Sunny lied. She gave her the address and said she was putting the coffee on to brew right that minute. “You like espresso?”

“Love it,” Allie said, casting aside any worries about caffeine.

Sunny immediately called the potential client with
whom she had a meeting and told him she’d been unexpectedly delayed and would get back to him later. So what if it cost her a job? Allie was a lonely woman who needed to talk and she had promised she would be available.

Half an hour later Allie walked in Sunny’s front door and stood looking round, taking in the offhand furnishings, the photos of the Harley and the horse and the general chaos.

“Sorry about the mess,” Sunny said. “Somehow it’s always like this, I don’t know why.”

Allie saw that Sunny was wearing jeans with the shirt that said
LOVE IS
ALL YOU NEED
, in sparkles. “Do you believe that?” she asked, perching on the edge of the sofa.

Sunny came and shifted a pile of papers from behind her. “Make yourself comfortable,” she said. “And no, I don’t believe it’s all you need, but it’s a nice thought.”

Allie got up and followed her into the kitchen that she saw was surprisingly neat. “What else do you believe in then?” she asked, taking a seat on a bar stool at the center island, while Sunny poured espresso into two small dark green French café cups.

Sunny thought about it. “Honesty. Loyalty… .” Then she grinned. “A good chopper, fun …”

“And love.”

“That goes along with the rest.” She passed Allie the bowl of sugar and another of sweeteners. “So where are you at, Allie Ray?” she said, leaning her elbows on the black
granite island, opposite her, and taking a sip of the deep rich coffee.

“It’s not so much where I’m at, I suppose.” Allie shrugged. “It’s more about the loneliness. It’s one of the worst feelings in the world. I was remembering, just before I called you, that this was exactly the way I used to feel when I was a teenager, doomed to be locked into that stifling gray life forever. And now, after all my success, I seem somehow to be right back where I came from.”

“But you escaped then,” Sunny said.

Allie raised her coffee cup in salute. “I did,” she agreed. “I picked myself up and got out of there. I left no trace. I never wanted anybody to find me and drag me back again.”

“Kicking and screaming,” Sunny said.

“Something like that. Anyhow, I went to Vegas. Where else would a girl who looked like me end up? I worked two jobs, cocktail waitress and like that, skipping from casino to casino. Then I got a job as hostess at a steak house. That’s where I met my first husband.”

Her eyes met Sunny’s. “He was a nice man, y’know. He treated me like a lady—and believe me, by then I was far from feeling like a lady. But I won’t go into that now.”

“I understand,” Sunny said, wondering if she did.

“Those awful tight revealing costumes we had to wear.” Allie’s eyes were half-closed, remembering. “After that, the steak house felt like a slice of heaven. Safe, you know?”

Sunny nodded, and she went on. “He wasn’t really rich,
the man I met,” she said, “but to me he was. I’d never known anyone who could take you out to dinner at a good restaurant and say, Have whatever y’want, babe. And he bought me presents, flowers, and a bracelet. He was older and I leaned on him. I needed him I guess. So when he asked me to marry him, I did. And I ended up trapped again.

“Oh, I was a good wife. He asked me to give up my job. I stayed home, fixed dinner, watched TV with him. He was in his fifties and I was eighteen, trying to seem older and lying that I was twenty-one. Nobody cared except me. I guess I just wanted to belong.”

“And did you?” Sunny poured more coffee. She pushed the sugar bowl toward Allie and went to sit on the bar stool next to her.

“Not enough.” Allie sighed. “I left him, went to another city … New York. We divorced a year later. I’ve never heard from him since.”

“Married at eighteen, divorced by twenty,” Sunny said, astonished.

“I wasn’t lucky enough to get an education like you.” Allie was looking at her with that wistful expression in her eyes again. “There was no money for college and anyhow my father wouldn’t have allowed it. I was his ‘whipping boy’ … me and my mom both.” She shuddered, remembering the ugliness of that life.

“I was twenty-two and working as a hostess again, in a
fancy brasserie in Manhattan, and living in a cockroach-infested walk-up in Greenwich Village.” She shrugged. “It was like history repeating itself, only I was older and a little bit wiser, and I knew I was beautiful now. I wasn’t about to throw that asset away again, and when I met the man who became my second husband I made sure he was rich.”

She turned her head to look at Sunny. “It didn’t make any difference. It ended up the same way. Only this time he was nice about it and settled a little money on me, enough to fly to L.A. and get a small apartment and try to become an actress. Like a thousand other girls just like me.”

She shrugged. “I was like all the rest of the pretty girls in town, creating a confident image when I’d never really acted in my life. I went to acting classes, learned my craft, went on auditions, played a little theater here and there, small roles, nothing important. After a while, a couple of years, I was doing okay, getting jobs, minor roles in movies, and TV … but never really breaking through. And still fending off the Hollywood Romeos that came courting. And then, a couple of years later, I met Ron.”