Self-Defense (45 page)

“When did you go up?”

“Saturday morning.”

“Was she there?”

Nod.

“How early in the morning?”

“Seven-thirty, eight. We drove up early to
start getting the food ready. She was already up and running.”

“What kind of mood was she in?”

“A good one. She’d set up the tables and
chairs and was goofing around.”

“How?”

“Playing with some kids.”

“Whose kids?”

“Lowell’s. At first, I thought they were
his grandchildren, ’cause they were so little, but Karen said no, they were
his. She was jazzed about that.”

“About what?”

“That she was playing with a famous guy’s
kids. That’s the way she was, really star struck. She started telling me how
famous the guy was, won the Nobel Prize or something. Everything was a big deal
to her.”

“Pretty impressed with Lowell, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“What else did she say about him?”

“That’s it.”

“Did you get the feeling they’d spent the
night together?”

“I have no idea.”

“Did she mention any other people she’d
met?”

Headshake.

“How many of Lowell’s kids was she playing
with?”

“Two.”

“How old were they?”

“Little, three or four, something like
that.”

“Boys or girls?”

“I don’t remember. Why?”

“Boys or girls?” I repeated.

She shrugged. “Probably girls. They both
had these long mops of blond hair. Cute kids.”

“And Karen was baby-sitting them.”

“No, just playing around with
them—laughing, chasing them. She
wanted
to baby-sit instead of serving.
Said Lowell’s regular baby-sitter got sick, some kind of emergency operation.
But she was too ditzy, so I said no.”

“So who baby-sat the kids?”

“Another girl.”

“Name?”

Hesitation. “Another waitress.”

Short dark hair. Grumpy.

“Doris Reingold?”

She opened her mouth. Closed it.

“Why Doris?” I said.

“She was older, had two of her own. I
figured she’d know what to do.”

“Were there any other kids around?”

“Not that I saw.”

But I knew of two. Locked in their cabin.

“So what did Karen do then?”

“Worked with the food, like the rest of
us. We slaved like dogs. It was a huge party, four hundred people, tons of
stuff. The ice ran out and Tom had to make a bunch of trips down to Malibu to
get more. The caterer was some little gay guy with a bad temper, brought in
some illegals to help out, no one spoke any English. Then all these bands
started showing up. Setting up their equipment, doing sound checks, trying to
see who could play loudest. Portable fans and lights, a generator, electrical
cables all over the place. By the time the people started coming, it was
already getting dark. Berserk. Unless you’ve worked food service, you wouldn’t
understand.”

“Was there a lot of dope and booze?”

“What do you think? But none of the staff
messed with it—I had a rule about that. You’re behind a buffet table, spooning
out coleslaw, you can’t be freaking out.”

“Was Karen behind the buffet?”

“At first. Then the caterer started
screaming for someone to pass around the hors d’oeuvres trays, so I had her do
that. That’s the last time I saw her: going into the crowd with a tray. Not
that I looked for her. I was like a chicken with my head cut off, it was so
crazy. I worked till five in the morning. The cleanup was outrageous; the
caterer split with all his Mexicans and left it to Tom and me.”

“Were you back on shift at the Dollar on
Sunday?”

“Sunday evening.”

“Was Karen supposed to be on, too?”

“Yes, but like I said, she always took
time off, so her not showing up was no big deal.”

“When did you first realize she’d
disappeared?”

“A couple of days later, I guess. I didn’t
think much about it. I wasn’t her mother.”

“When did Lowell call you?”

“Who said he called me?”

“We know he did, Gwen. To arrange the
payoff. Our information is that it was three days after the party. Is that
true?”

She turned one of her earrings, then
reversed the circuit. “More like four or five, I don’t know.”

“Tell me about his call.”

She turned to Travis. “You okay, baby?”

The boy played with the box and giggled.

I said, “He’s fine, Gwen.”

Another turn of the earring. She cleared
her throat, coughed. Picked something out of one nail.

I crossed my legs and smiled at her.

“You’re making a mountain out of a
molehill. He didn’t say anything about any payoff,” she said. “He asked for Tom
and me to meet him, said he had a bonus for us. For doing such a good job at
the party.”

“Where’d you meet him, at Sanctum?”

“No, out in the Valley. On Topanga Canyon
Boulevard, just before Ventura.”

Upper-middle-class residential area.
“Where on the boulevard?”

“It was—I guess you’d call it a turnoff. A
piece of empty land.”

“Right on Topanga?”

“Just
off
new Topanga, actually.
Around the corner from Topanga—some side street. I don’t remember the name but
I could probably show it to you.”

“Probably?”

“It’s been a long time. It was dark, almost
midnight.”

“You didn’t find his wanting to meet that
late strange?”

“I found lots of things strange.
He
was strange, always yakking; most of the time he made no sense. The
party
was strange. He wanted to give us money, I didn’t argue.”

“Did he come alone?”

Nod. “He was waiting when we got there,
sitting in his car.”

“What kind of car?”

“A Mercedes, I think. I told you I’m not
into cars.”

“Just a casual midnight meeting to pick up
some money.”

“It would have had to be late because Tom
and I were working at the restaurant. Some people have to earn a
living.
”

“What happened after you got there?”

“He stayed in the car, told us we’d done a
great job at the party and he was giving us a bonus.”

Twisting her fingers.

“What else?”

“He said there was something else we
needed to talk about. He wasn’t sure, but he thought one of the girls who’d
worked for us had gotten into some kind of fight with a guest and had walked
off.”

“Did he name Karen?”

“He called her the pretty one.”

“Did he say which guest?”

“No.”

“You’re sure.”

“Yes!”

“Did he mean a physical fight?”

“I assumed he meant just an argument—he
might have even said “argument,’ I can’t remember.”

Moisture in her eyes. She stared at me,
flaunting the tears.

“What else?”

“Nothing, he just said the girl hadn’t behaved
properly, had really stepped out of line, but he wouldn’t hold it against us or
complain because, other than that, we’d done a really good job. Then he said we
also had to promise not to say anything about the fight. Because the press was
out to get him, and any scandal would cause a giant hassle for him. Even if the
girl disappeared and people came asking for her. Because when she’d cursed out
the guest, she’d said something about being disgusted and splitting town.”

“Did that sound like Karen? Cursing?”

She shrugged and dried her eyes. “I didn’t
know her all that well.”

“At the Dollar did she ever have problems
losing her temper with customers?”

“No, just getting orders wrong. But the
party was different—lots of pressure.”

“So supposedly she pulled a fit, left the
party, and said she was splitting town.”

“That’s what he said.”

“Did you believe him?”

“We didn’t think about it one way or the
other.”

“Then he gave you the money.”

“Our bonus.”

“How big of a bonus?”

She looked at Travis, then down at the desk.
“Five,” she said, very softly.

“Five what?”

“Thousand.”

“A five-thousand-dollar bonus?”

“The catering bill must have been fifty,
sixty thousand. It was like a tip.”

“Cash?”

Nod.

“In a suitcase?”

“A paper bag—big one, like from a
supermarket.”

“Five-thousand-dollar tip in a bag.”

“It wasn’t all for us. He told us to
distribute it to the others.”

“What others?”

“The other servers.”

“The people from the Sand Dollar?”

“That’s right.”

“Names.”

“A guy named Lenny—”

“Lenny Korcik?”

Nod. “And Doris and two other women, Mary
and Sue.”

“Mary Andreas and Sue Billings.”

“If you know, why are you asking?”

“Korcik’s dead and Doris lives in
Ventura,” I said. “Where are Mary and Sue?”

“I don’t know. Both were temps—hippies. I
think they hitchhiked into town together. They stuck around maybe another month
or two, then split, no notice.”

“Together?”

“I think Sue ran off with a truck driver
who came into the restaurant, and a couple days later Mary joined up with some
surfers driving up the coast. Or maybe it was down the coast, I don’t remember.
We weren’t close or anything. They were hippies.”

“But you split the money with them.”

“Sure, they worked.”

“Even split?”

Long inhalation. “No, why should we? I
contracted the whole thing. And Tom and I ended up doing all the cleanup.”

“How much did you give them?”

She mumbled something.

“What’s that?”

“Two-fifty.”

“Two-fifty for each of them?”

Nod.

“Leaving four thousand for you and Tom.”

“They didn’t complain. They were happy to
get anything.”

“Doris, too?”

“Why not?”

“She doesn’t seem like a very happy
person.”

“You’d have to ask her about that.”

“We will, once we find her. Where did Tom
take her, two nights ago?”

She wrung her hands and let loose a stream
of filthy words. Cursing Sherrell Best for spying on her.

“Where?” I said.

“She needed a ride to the airport, so he
took her.”

“Vacation for her, too?”

She didn’t answer.

“Gwen,” I said wearily, “if you want to
talk, fine. If not, you’re on your own.”

“Give me a chance,” she said. “This is
hard, remembering all this stuff.... Okay, she decided to split town. She got
nervous after you came asking around. She thought you were Best’s son—we all
did. Raking things up again. She didn’t want the hassle.”

“Nervous about her role in the cover-up.”

“It wasn’t like that. Like I said, there was
no big plot. We just...”

“You just what?”

“Kept our mouths shut. Can’t catch any
flies that way.”

Bitter smile.

“Did Doris see something the rest of you
didn’t?”

“Maybe—okay, okay, but it’s not any big
deal. She wasn’t even sure herself. It was probably nothing.”

Another tug at the bodice.

“What did she see, Gwen?”

“It was—she put the kids to sleep, left to
get a drink. When she got back, one of the kids was gone and the door to the
outside was open. She went out looking, finally found the kid wandering around
in back; there were a lot of trees, paths. And all these other cabins. Like a
big summer camp—it used to be a nudist colony. The kid was spaced out. When
Doris picked her up, she started babbling. About bad men, monsters, hurting a
girl, something like that. Doris figured she was having a bad dream and took
her back. But when she put her in bed, the kid started screaming, woke up the
other kid, and got that one crying too. Doris said it was a real hassle, they
were really making noise. But with all the music from the party, you couldn’t
hear it. Finally got them both quiet.”

“What made her suspect the kid might have
really seen something?”