Cool Cache (12 page)

“Charley doesn’t know where he is, either.”

Nerine frowned. “I don’t understand. I thought Mr. Tate was the one who sent him out of town.”

My stomach was churning. “What are you talking about? Neither of us sent Eugene anywhere.”

“I’m sure you’re mistaken.” Her voice had become brittle. “My son told me he was working on an important assignment. He asked me not to tell anybody. It sounded ridiculously clandestine, but I agreed.”

“Did he say what kind of an assignment?”

“I didn’t ask. He worked at the office all day Saturday. When he came home that night, he was rather quiet. I thought he was just tired. The next morning, he got up and packed a bag. He said he was going to work for a while and then he had to go away on business. He called that afternoon at about four thirty. Said he was just leaving and wanted to say good-bye.”

I stood and walked into the kitchen, ignoring the paper towels.

“Excuse me,” Nerine said. “The carpet—”

I checked the notepad near the telephone in case Eugene had left a message. The top sheet was blank. I held it up to the light to see if I could make out indentations from a previous message, but found none.

Eugene had an appointment book somewhere. If he hadn’t taken it with him, it might still be in the apartment. I returned to the living room and opened each drawer of the bookcase. The address book wasn’t there.

“Did Eugene say when he’d be back?” I said.

“Today.” “Today”.

I whipped around to face her. “Perhaps you haven’t noticed, Mrs. Barstok, but it’s today and he’s not back. Aren’t you worried about him? Even a little?”

She pursed her lips and glared at me. “Don’t take that tone with me, young lady.”

I walked down the hall toward the bedroom. The plastic bags on Nerine’s feet made swishing sounds as she marched over the carpet behind me.

“Has he called since he left?” I said.

“I haven’t been answering the phone. I thought it might be the colonel. We’re having some difficulties right now, and I didn’t want to talk to him.”

Nerine’s cosmetics were lined up on Eugene’s dresser like soldiers in formation. His clothes had been shoved to one end of the closet to make room for hers. In the dark interior I saw two sets of eyes peering at me. The cats. There was no point in trying to lure them out now.

“What are you looking for?” she said.

“I don’t know.”

The bedroom held no clues to Eugene’s whereabouts. Discouraged, I retraced my steps down the hallway, stopping at the bathroom. The medicine cabinet was stocked with over-the-counter items like aspirin and antibiotic cream but no appointment book.

A wastebasket sat in one corner. Several pieces of balled-up papers lay in the bottom, including a receipt for gas from earlier in the week, and a piece of paper with a cryptic notation:
Six p.m. Sunday SB/MI
. It was Eugene’s handwriting, but I had no idea what it meant.

I took the discarded paper and went back to the living room. On top of the bookcase was a framed photo of Eugene. He was holding Liza and smiling into the camera. I grabbed it and slipped it into my purse.

Nerine grabbed my arm. “Put that back. You have no right to take my son’s things.”

I shook her off. “Look, Eugene is missing. That’s all the right I need. Call me the minute you hear from him. And if you leave the apartment, turn on the message machine.”

Nerine clicked her tongue against her palate. “My God, what’s that boy done now?”

My head was throbbing as I headed back to Culver City. It was one thing for Eugene not to tell his mother where he was going. It was quite another not to tell Charley or me. That set off all sorts of alarms. Not only were we his employers, we were also his friends.

Eugene was supposed to search the Internet for information on the quetzal. Nothing more. I’d made it clear to him. I was worried he’d taken the assignment a step further and gone off to investigate on his own. I had to find out where he was before he got himself into trouble.

I dialed Charley’s number and waited for all hell to break loose.

Chapter 14

When I reached Charley, he was in his car on the way to the Century City shopping mall to return a six-pack of MY POPS IS TOPS onesies that Lorna no longer needed because the home pregnancy test she’d just taken had turned out negative. We agreed to meet outside Bloomingdales to discuss Eugene.

The mall was crowded with people in business suits who had come from nearby high-rises for an hour of eating and shopping. I bought a latte at a coffee kiosk, but Charley demurred on caffeine. I was glad. He seemed hyped up enough already.

“She didn’t even tell me she’d gone off the pill,” he said. “I told her she better start taking them again or I’d be sleeping in the spare bedroom from now on.”

“That must have gone over big.”

“I can’t take much more of this, Sinclair.”

“Okay, but I think it’s dangerous to press the snooze button on Lorna’s biological clock. Taking away her onesies is a little radical.”

“Look, I don’t want that baby crap in my house. It’s like Lorna is deciding something and forcing me to like it.”

The talk about babies seemed to spike his blood pressure, so we shifted the discussion to Nerine Barstok and what she’d told me about Eugene.

“Where do you think he is?” I said.

“From the way you describe his mother, I’d say he’s hiding until she leaves town.”

“If Eugene was hiding from his mother, he’d tell us. Look, there was a lot going on in his life. He was upset about Helen’s problems. He thought Roberto Ortiz was innocent. And he felt pressure to impress his mother. I’m afraid he went off looking for antisugar terrorists just to prove something to Nerine.”

“He wouldn’t do that.”

“He would, Charley. You know he would. He’s been fighting all of his life to show his parents he’s more than just a mistake. He’s more confident now, but Nerine could destroy all his progress with one little
oops
. I’ve seen her in action. The constant criticism could push anybody over the edge.”

Charley pinched the bridge of his nose as if he was trying to cut off a monster headache. “I need to retire.”

“If you retire, you’ll be home with Lorna twenty-four/ seven. Sounds like a life sentence to me.”

He raised one eyebrow. “After all the time we’ve known each other, you still can’t tell when I’m joking.”

“What are we going to do about Eugene? Can we file a missing person’s report?”

“We can try, but he’s only been out of touch twenty-four hours. He’s an adult. The cops might tell you to wait a few days.”

“I can’t wait. I have to find him.”

Charley brushed his hand over his crew cut, a sure sign he was thinking. “You can canvass our building. Find out if anybody else was working on Sunday. See if you can pinpoint when Eugene left work, what direction he was heading, and if he was with anybody. Then call all of his friends, and don’t forget that old folks’ home where he volunteers. See if anybody’s heard from him.”

After that, Charley went to Bloomingdales to return the onesies and I headed back to the office. On the way, I called Venus. She and Eugene had a contentious sort of friendship, but there was a chance he may have contacted her. He hadn’t.

“You know how he gets,” she said. “He’s probably locked up in a room at the Holiday Inn with a ball of yarn and a year’s supply of lorazepam.”

“Yeah, maybe.” But I knew Venus was wrong. That may have described Eugene in the old days, but not anymore.

“I hear you called Dr. Rich.” Her tone sounded teasing and just a bit coy. “You two are going to dinner and the theater.”

“Yes, on Tuesday. It’s some kind of fund-raiser for Air Health. The invitation seemed odd, almost like he was asking me out on a date. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

“The only thing I know,” Venus said, “is that this is the first time in months you’ve been alone with a man.”

I felt my jaw clench. “You didn’t tell him that, did you?”

“I might have let something slip.”

“I hope you didn’t talk him into some kind of pity date.”

“Don’t be so sensitive. All Jordan’s offering you is dinner and some adult conversation.”

It was futile to argue with her. The damage had already been done. I’d just have to set Dr. Rich straight when we met on Tuesday. I ended the call with Venus and dialed the number for the assisted-living facility where Eugene volunteered every week. The administrator told me he’d called to cancel his regular visit on Saturday. She said there was an elderly resident with whom he spent a good deal of time. She didn’t know if Mr. Winn would be able to provide any further information, but I was welcome to speak with him. The facility wasn’t too far out of my way, so I told her I would stop by in a few minutes.

“I’ll tell him to expect you,” she said.

When I arrived at the home, an elderly man was leaning on a cane by the front door, smoking a cigar. His eyes were watery blue but intelligent. Age had expanded his ears and compacted his body into a tidy mass that measured less than five feet tall. He had on a white guayabera over gray slacks and a tasseled beret that was one of many Eugene had knitted for residents of the home. Only a flare-up of carpel tunnel syndrome had stopped him from making more.

“I bet you’re here to see me,” Winn said.

“How did you know?”

Even with the stogy in his mouth, there was room for a smile. “Eugene said you were a beanpole. He also said you had dark hair and a few freckles and a cowlick just like his. He didn’t say you were pretty, but you are. I know why you’re here, too. They called my room and told me.”

He tottered over to a planter that rimmed the front facade and sat down. He tapped his cane on the brick, indicating he wanted me to sit beside him. I did. Traffic was heavy on Olympic Boulevard. The air was thick with dust and the sounds of car horns and screeching brakes—L.A. Symphony No. 3 in D Minor with horns.

“Nobody has heard from Eugene since Sunday,” I said.

Mr. Winn glanced at me. “I haven’t seen him since last week. I look forward to his visits.”

“What did you two talk about?”

He winked at me. “You want me to start with my gall bladder operation or the cataract surgery?”

“Why don’t you start with anything he may have told you about his life and what he was doing.”

“We talked about his friends. You and the goddess of love.”

I smiled. “Did you talk about anybody other than Venus and me?”

“Let’s see.” He puffed on the cigar and sent a cloud of smoke swirling around my head. “He mentioned the private eye and that wife of his. We don’t like her.” He paused to flip ashes from the cigar into the planter.

“Anything else?”

“We played a game sometimes. I think Eugene made it up to test my memory, but I don’t care about that. It’s fun.”

“What kind of game?”

“Name the capitals.”

“You mean the state capitals?”

“What else? He always starts with the easy ones like the capital of California. Then he tries to stump me with places like Rhode Island and Delaware. We got into an argument about Arizona one Saturday. He claimed the capital was Phoenix and he wouldn’t back down.”

“Mr. Winn, the capital of Arizona
is
Phoenix.”

He studied the tip of the cigar to make sure it was still lit. “I know that, but what’s the fun if everybody agrees all the time?”

“I’m worried about him,” I said. “Is there anything else you can remember?”

His expression changed. It was as if a dark cloud had moved across the sun. “No, but when he comes back, I’ll let him have Phoenix, no questions asked.”

I gave him my business card and told him to call me if he thought of anything else. When I got back to Culver City, I stopped at the ground-floor office of our landlord, Manny Reygozo, Esq.

Manny advertised his specialty as products liability and medical malpractice, but his real talent was settling with insurance companies. He was a glad-handing, wiry guy who always looked dapper in his impeccably cut pin-striped suits. He had more than a few bad habits, like grinning with his mouth open. I’d seen his oral cavity so many times I knew how many gold crowns he had. Three. Charley swore he was humping Carmen, his bodacious para-legal, every Sunday while his wife was at mass with their three kids. I had no reason to doubt him. Charley was a private investigator and a former cop. I assumed he knew about such things.

I walked through Reygozo’s front door and saw sheets of legal-length paper shooting out of the printer under Carmen’s watchful eye.

“Hey, Tucker. You paying your rent early for a change?”

I had to be careful how I broached the subject of Sundays at the office. I didn’t want her to think I was questioning her right to have a nooner with her boss.

“Carmen, I know you work a lot of overtime. Were you by chance at the office yesterday?”

“I went hiking in the mountains with my boyfriend on Sunday.”

Her smile seemed frozen, her alibi canned. Carmen might have reached new heights on Sunday, but I doubted it was on any mountain trail. More likely it was on the leather couch in Manny’s office.

“The reason I’m asking,” I said, “is Eugene forgot to write down his hours. I want to pay him, but I need his time. He’s out of town, so I’m trying to find out if anybody noticed when he left.”

She flipped her long black hair over her back. “I didn’t see anything.”

There were only two other tenants on the second floor besides Charley and me. An accountant and a business called Aardvark Entertainment. Tax season was over, so the accountant hadn’t worked on Sunday and nobody answered the door at Aardvark. In fact, none of us had ever seen a live body come or go from that suite. Charley joked that Dracula had rented the space to be closer to his bloodsucking lawyer.