Skin Deep (15 page)

"This is the worst coffee I ever drank," I said. "On the other hand, where'd you learn to do all this stuff?"

"Computer school. I went for a year daytimes, when I started dancing. I'm a real whiz kid. I even got Tiny to put the books at the Spice Rack on computer. Okay, here's WordPerfect back again, and here come your notes." Sure enough, they blinked back onto the screen. "Now watch." We watched. I slid my thumb up her spine to pass the time. After about a minute, the screen went blank.

"What happened?"

"That's Screensave. To get it back, just hit a key." I hit one, and there everything was again.

"It's a miracle," I said.

"This is totally excellent coffee," she said, sipping at hers. "The coffee of the gods. End of lesson number one. Do you want to ignore me, or what?" She gave the elastic on her underpants an exploratory snap. "How about or what?"

"I'd love to. But Toby's coming by, and I think we ought to get ready."

"Is he bringing Saffron?"

"I told him to. She's his alibi."

"How you going to get ready? Put on some insect repellent?"

"I thought a shower might be in order."

"Why? You'll just want another one after she leaves."

"You really don't like her, do you?"

"There's nothing wrong with her that demonic possession wouldn't improve. I mean, she's okay if you like people who lie and cheat and steal."

"Then I'd better shower now, before she steals the soap. Why don't you get dressed?"

"I'll bet you say that to all the girls. Am I doing something wrong?"

"Of course not." I gave her an appreciative pat on her round little rump. "But you see, I was injured in the war."

"No fooling," she said, concerned. "What war?"

"The War of 1812."

"Fine," she said, sounding grumpy. "Message noted."

"Nana. We hardly know each other."

"I know I like you."

"Well, I like you, too. Even if your coffee should be given serious consideration by the Pentagon. Let's see what happens." She looked at me doubtfully. "Okay?"

She chewed at her lip. "This doesn't happen to me often."

"Nothing's happened."

"That's what I mean." She sounded slighted.

"Hey. We don't have to fall into a frenzied clinch on our first morning together. Let's learn to talk to each other first."

"Fine," she said.
"Be
enlightened. Actually, I kind of like it. But it's not exactly the style I'm used to."

"That doesn't mean you have to put up with it."

"Sometimes I like that, too. Don't make me a victim, Simeon. It may be hard for you to understand, but I enjoy a lot of things about my life."

"For example."

"Freedom. I can do whatever I want, with whoever I want. I make cash every night, so I've always got money in my pocket. I don't want to work, I don't work. Little Korean girls don't get that much freedom."

I sipped at her truly awful coffee and then put it down. "So you kicked over the traces."

"I knocked down the whole damn house. It was that or be Daddy's girl."

"That doesn't mean what I think it means."

"It doesn't?" She didn't take her eyes off me.

"Well, I hope not." The screen on the computer went blank again. She leaned across me and hit a key to bring it back to life. She had a faint, sweet, yeasty smell, like fresh-baked bread. Her black hair brushed my arm. I put my hand on her warm, silky shoulder.

"Take a shower," she said. She smiled at me and shook her head. "You're a real innocent, you know? Listen, go get clean. Then you can face Toby and the lovely and talented Saffron with a pure heart. You'll need it."

I put my arms around her, and she tilted her head up and gave me a butterfly kiss on the throat. Wrapping my towel virtuously around me, I headed for the shower. When I came back out, wearing my Saturday jeans and a brightly colored, loose-fitting shirt that Eleanor had bought me from Bali a couple of years before, the living room looked as though the Angel of Good Housekeeping had paid a visit. The few things that could be polished actually looked polished. Nana had taken a dish towel and twisted it around her head like a turban and poured herself approximately into her clothes from the evening before. She was on her hands and knees, using a paper towel to roll up a particularly virulent looking dust rat underneath the table. I hadn't even known I had any paper towels.

"Honey," she said, "it's all well and good to be a bachelor, but this is ridiculous. You should send the whole house to the dry cleaner." She got up, went into the kitchen, and dumped the rolled-up towel into an overflowing waste-basket. "When do the trash men come, or do they?"

"They come," I said. "I just haven't figured out the schedule." A car door slammed down the hill. "And speaking of trash, here's Toby."

"Jesus. I look like Mother Hubbard." She yanked the dish towel off her head and gave her head a shake.

"I thought you didn't like Toby."

"I don't. I don't like Saffron, either. That's why I have to look good." She ran her fingers through her hair. "You know even less about women than you do about computers. It's kind of attractive."

"I'm full of negative virtues." I heard the scrunch of two people coming up the driveway, accompanied by an occasional ladylike gasp of displeasure from Saffron. I could imagine her teetering on her platform heels and clinging limply to Toby's arm as they negotiated the ruts. Nana vanished into the bedroom, tugging at obscure fastenings on her clothes. She was back before they knocked on the door, running her fingers through her hair. She looked beautiful.

Saffron came in first, out of breath and looking bad-tempered. "Well," she said, looking from Nana to me and back again. "Don't we work fast."

"Who's we, white girl?" Nana said. "And here's Toby."

Toby looked as if he really hadn't slept. His face was puffy and his eyes were red, and the patented hair was hanging limp. The mood of the moment was one of weary sincerity. "Nana," he said, "I'm sorry about Amber."

Nana's eyes flickered. If I'd been Toby, I would have stepped back. "Aren't we all?" she said shortly.

"You didn't really think I had anything to do with it."

"It's just a good thing you were with Cinderella here. Otherwise I'd have gone out there and cut your balls off."

"And a good morning to you, too," Saffron said.

"We can bicker in the living room," I said. "We've got some things to work out."

"Like what?" Saffron said icily. She hadn't moved a step. She was going to be the great lady.

"Like what you two are going to say to the cops when they finally get around to you. Now come the rest of the way in here and sit down. Nana's fixed some wonderful coffee."

Saffron and Nana maintained the greatest possible distance as we went into the living room. Saffron eyed the decor the way Margaret Dumont looked at Groucho's cigar. Toby cleared his throat but said nothing until he and Saffron were seated on the couch and Saffron had gathered her skirt around her as if she were afraid something might run up it. Then he said, "Jesus, champ, what're you, Davy Crockett? I didn't know anybody still had a wood-burning stove."

"Toby," I said, "just shut up for a couple of minutes. At this point I'm trying to figure out whether I want anything to do with you, and every time you open your mouth you just make it that much easier for me to decide."

"Right," he said. "I'll shut up." He patted Saffron's hand. "And you shut up, too, darling."

"Nana, get our guests some coffee."

"Yes, master," Nana said. "Six lumps or eight, dear?" she asked Saffron.

"I don't eat sugar," Saffron said haughtily.

Nana made a tiny gagging sound and went into the kitchen, banging things around a little more than was strictly required before reemerging with the worst mugs I owned. "Don't touch the red one," she said to Saffron as she set them down on the table. "It's mine. I wouldn't want to put any impurities into your system. They wouldn't last a moment, poor little things."

Saffron curled her fingers possessively around Toby's arm, ignoring his look of irritation, extended an elegant, red-tipped pinkie on the other hand, and picked up her mug. She swallowed, and her eyes widened. She put the cup down hastily. "Oh, my God," she said. "That's horrible."

None too gently, Toby disengaged his arm. "So why are the cops going to want to talk to us? We left her at home. She was okay then."

"Sooner or later they're going to find out I've got a private investigator's license, and they're going to ask what I was doing there."

"And you're going to tell them?"

"Maybe. It depends on you."

"On me? Why? What do you want me to do?"

"I want to know all there is to know about Amber, from you and from Saffron."

"What's your interest?"

"I've got two. First, if I'm going to keep working for you and Stillman, I want to be satisfied that you really didn't have anything to do with it." He made a gesture of protest, but I clapped my hands together to cut him off. "Second, I made a promise that I'd try to find out who
did
do it."

"A promise to who?"

"To me," Nana said fiercely. "He promised me."

"Damsels," Toby said. It didn't sound chivalrous.

"The girl was destroyed," I said. "Somebody broke her systematically, one little bone at a time. Somebody who took his time about it. Somebody who enjoyed it."

"Okay, okay," Toby said. "You don't have to be so goddamned vivid. I'll admit that I get a little out of hand from time to time, but I couldn't do anything like that." He put his hands out, palms up, his blue eyes wide and earnest. "Ask anyone."

Nana snorted.

"Damn it, Nana, you know it's true," Toby said.

"Somebody
did it, Toby," she said.

"We all know it wasn't me," he said. He looked around the room. Nana looked out the window. Saffron was staring down into her coffee cup as if she expected to find a sugar cube floating on its surface.

"Don't we?" he demanded. "Does anybody here really think it was me?"

"You, you, you," Nana said, still facing the mountains. "That's all you ever talk about. If you'd delivered the Gettysburg address, it would have been about you."

"I know you didn't do it," Saffron said grandly. "You were with me."

"The whole time," I said.

"We've been over this," Toby said.

"The whole time," Saffron said.

"Maybe you did it together," Nana said.

The great lady went out the window fast. "You little gook
cunt,"
Saffron said, getting up. I reached over and put my hand on her forehead and pushed. She sat back down, looking surprised. "Toby," she said imploringly.

"That's enough. If you ladies want to punch each other out, do it outdoors, and wait until we're finished. Now tell me about Amber. Everything you can think of. Where she lived, who she knew, who didn't like her, who she didn't like, where she got her dope, everything you can think of. Nana, you, too. Saffron, we'll start with you. Everybody else keep quiet unless you hear her tell a lie. If you do, speak up."

"I barely knew her," Saffron said sullenly.

"That's lie one," Nana said.

"Explain."

"Amber was always nice to her. She always shared coke with her. She even talked to her. She was the only one who could stand her." Nana sat back, daring Saffron to contradict her.

"Amber was nice to everybody," Toby said in a low voice. I looked at him, surprised.

"That's true," Nana said. Nobody spoke for a minute.

"She really was," Saffron said finally. "She was okay, Amber was." Her chin trembled, and she blinked twice. Nana made a sniffling sound. Even Toby was quiet. He stared down at the rug.

"Oh, hell," Nana said.

"Nana," Saffron said, "I'm sorry I said that. Amber was fine to me. She was the nicest junkie I ever met." A tear slid down her cheek, and she didn't brush it away.

"Poor little jerk," Nana said.

"Remember the garage sale?" Saffron was crying openly now.

"I told Simeon about it last night," Nana said. "That kid just couldn't pick a friend."

"I hated that bugger," Saffron said. "Oh, Jesus, remember Homer?"

"Who?" Nana asked.

"Who was Homer?" I asked Saffron.

"This dork Amber was supporting for a while. Before Claude."

"No," I said to Saffron. "We're going to have to be more specific than that. You're going to tell me everything you know about Amber, and we're going to start with Homer. Then we'll work backward. Then we'll work forward. Until we finish."

Nana looked at Saffron, and Saffron looked at Nana. Then the two of them looked at Toby.

"We're going to start now," I said.

Three hours later, I knew a lot more about Amber. I wasn't sure that any of it would help, but at least I had her address, a place to start looking, and someone who might have seen them drop her there. Toby had volunteered to give Nana a ride into town, and when they left she and Saffron were arm in arm. When women cry over someone they love, they forget who they hate.

I was on the way to the phone to call Eleanor when I heard a whirring sound. After a moment I identified it as the fan in the computer. The screen was dark. I touched a key, and words leapt onto the screen.

SIMEON IS OKAY WITH NANA, it said.

I looked at it for a long time and then went to call Eleanor.

9 - Norman's Conquest

I'd had lazier weekends. After finishing with Toby, Nana, and Saffron, I'd made an arrangement to keep Toby under wraps for the duration of Saturday and, probably, Sunday as well. Then I'd fooled around with the computer, writing down practically everything the three of them had told me about Amber. Sooner or later, though, I was supposed to do something about it.

Well, the first thing to do was check the alibi.

Amber had apparently been shifting from place to place, and when they told her they were going to take her home— according to Saffron—she hadn't known where she wanted to go. That had the ring of truth to it; I didn't think she could have found her leg in the dark. After some futzing around, they'd taken her to Pepper's place and let her off. The last they'd seen of her she was stumbling toward the door.

The apartment house was on Fountain, on a block where paint was allowed to peel and most of the shrubbery had gotten a jump on the summer heat by dying months before. The building was two stories high, built in the shape of a V open to the street. Someone was frying bacon when I climbed out of Alice, several pounds of bacon by the smell of it. It was almost two. People get up late in Hollywood.

There was no answer when I thumped on the door of Pepper's apartment, which was to be expected. I'd been told she spent most of her nights abroad.

That left the Peeper, as Saffron had called him, an old man who lived on the second floor in the unit nearest the street. "I think he's got his finger caught in the window," she'd said. "I've seen him every time I swung by, and Pepper says he's always there. One of those, you know, voyers. One hand stuck in the window and the other one down his pants."

I knocked again, looked down at my watch, and glanced up at the Peeper's window. A white curtain dropped into place. There were stairs at the juncture of the V, and I climbed them two at a time, tiptoed to his window, and ran my nails down the screen.

The curtain flapped back, and I found myself inches away from a pair of very bright eyes set into an absolutely hairless head. "Well, hey," I said. "How you doing?"

"Who's askin'?" The voice sounded a lot like my fingers on the screen: scratchy and dry, as though it hadn't been used in years.

"It's about the girls downstairs," I said.

"There's a lot of girls downstairs." He sounded guilty, but he didn't drop the edge of the curtain.

"Those girls," I said, thumbing back toward Pepper's door.

"The hootchy-koo girls," he said. Then he laughed briefly, a sound like someone stepping on a glass in a paper sack. "What about 'em?"

"Oh, come on. Weren't the cops here today?"

"You with the cops?"

"How else would I know they were here?"

"You didn't get around to me the first time," he said. "Sloppy work. Well, you might as well come in. Lot of nosy folks here, don't want 'em to see me talking to you through the window." The curtain fell back into place. "Door's open," he rasped from behind it.

When I opened it, hundreds of girls smiled at me. Centerfolds gleamed down at me from the walls, all skin and teeth and amateurishly come-hither eyes. "Quite a collection," I said.

"They can't move very fast, either," he said, giving me the laugh again. He was sitting in a lawn chair, dressed in a white T-shirt and white boxer shorts. An aluminum walker straddled the carpet in front of him. His calves were thinner than his forearms.

"Stop looking," he said. "You'll be old, too, you know. Sooner than you think. What happened to the hootchy-koos?"

"One of them got into trouble last night."

"The one who came home or the other one?"

"Did one of them come home?"

"Cops," he said. "No manners atall." He pronounced it as one word. "Yeah, Mr. Question Man, one of 'em came home."

"Which one?"

"Slow down. You think I just sit here and stare out the window?"

"Yes."

"He, he, he," he wheezed. "Well, I do. The one who dopes all the time. She can't walk no better than me."

"What time?"

He pursed his lips, making them disappear into a vortex of wrinkles. "Eleven," he said, "maybe eleven-ten."

"She went into the apartment?"

"Sure. Where else is she gonna go? Up here?"

"You know for sure it was the dopey one?"

"I was watching, wasn't I? Dropped her keys twice, kicked the door. Seen her do it before."

"Who was she with?"

"Nobody. Went in alone, for a change."

"Did someone drop her off?"

"That's a different question, ain't it? One of them little red cars."

"Who was in it?"

"Two people. One driving and one sitting, like usual. They drove off when she got to the door."

I took a deep breath. "Did she leave again?"

"Yup. Those girls don't stay home."

"When?"

"Pardon?" His eyes glittered maliciously.

"When did she leave?"

"Fifteen minutes. Walked out and turned left. That enough for you?"

"Was anybody waiting for her?"

"Nope. Staggering around on her own."

"And did she come back?"

"Dead, isn't she?" he asked.

"Why do you ask?"

"Well, she didn't. Come back. And then you cops turn up."

"We do indeed," I said.

"Finished?"

"Yes," I said, pulling the door open again, "I'm finished."

"Not exactly Academy Award time," Norman Stillman was saying in what was supposed to be an incisive tone. "Not exactly Bette Davis in
Dark Victory."
Neither Dixie Cohen nor I pointed out that Davis had lost that year.

It was the next day. After I'd waved good-bye to the Peeper, who was watching me from his aerie, I'd called my answering machine from a pay phone at Fountain and Vista. Dixie had called and, in the tone of voice Dan Rather might use to announce that Europe had disappeared from the map, told me that Stillman wanted to see me Sunday at nine a.m. At his house.

We were in the den, an inevitably nautical room about the size of Colorado. If it had been any more shipshape, the floor would have rolled beneath our feet. I'd been kept waiting as a further hint that I was not the flavor of the month. After a precise fifteen minutes Stillman had swept in with Cohen in tow. He'd favored me with a well-practiced piercing glare and started right in by getting his Oscars wrong.

"You've only got one job," Stillman continued. "That's to stay with Toby. You've got ten thousand dollars of my money to stay with Toby. So what happens? On the first night out, you let him get away from you, and a girl gets killed."

Dixie clucked reprovingly and shook his head. The two of them were dressed right out of Western Costume: Stillman had come ashore in white slacks and a navy blue blazer with, honest to God, an anchor embroidered on the pocket in metallic thread, and Cohen was wearing yet another corduroy suit.
Cord du roy,
cloth of the king, come down a peg or two to hang on Dixie Cohen's despair-ridden, unregal figure.

"So?" Stillman said.

"I beg your pardon?" I'd stopped listening a minute ago, thinking about the "girl" who got killed. Stillman raised his eyes heavenward, a not-so-ancient mariner on the lookout for the albatross.

"So why shouldn't I can you right now?" he said.

"Can me. It's Toby's money anyway. He'll be interested to know that you're being so frugal with his residuals."

Stillman was too much of a pro to look surprised that I knew he'd paid me with Toby's money. "His
future
residuals," he said. "If he's not in prison where he can't collect them. And, by the way, are you threatening me?"

"Norman," Dixie Cohen said warningly.

"I'd like some coffee," I said. "It's early. And yes, I'm threatening you."

There was a moment of silence. Stillman discovered that his cuffs needed adjusting and adjusted them. Dixie thrust his hands deep into his trouser pockets and balled them into fists.

"You'll wreck your pleats," I told him. "It's hard to keep pleats in corduroy."

"Don't I know it," Cohen said wearily. He took his hands out of his pockets.

"Do we
have
coffee on this boat?" I asked. "Maybe I could have some hard tack or a ship's biscuit to go with it."

Stillman made a small impatient gesture, and Dixie scurried out the door. To avoid looking at me, Stillman went over to a map of the Pacific just like the one in his office and regarded it dramatically. A red pin informed me that the
Cabuchon
was still in Honolulu. I was wishing I were, too, when he yanked the pin and moved it an inch to the right. California bound.

"You should have a pin for Toby," I said.

He didn't turn to face me. "I thought you were my pin in Toby," he said acidly. "Apparently I was mistaken." I let it ride. Beverly Hills birds sang outside the window. They didn't sound any better than Topanga birds.

"I'm a successful man, Mr. Grist." Stillman finally passed on the Pacific and let his eyes wander around the den, taking in the results of all that success. "I'm not inclined to overlook failure."

"Stop talking like a KGB operative. Toby scammed me. He's good at it. You should know. Anyway, I kept the cops away from him, for now. Of course, that's an omission I can always correct."

"My God, you really
are
threatening me," Stillman said. He sounded relieved to be on familiar ground. "I'm not without influence, you know. I can have your license."

"What would you do with it?"

Dixie scuttled back in. In Stillman's presence, he seemed to walk sideways, like a crab eyeing a tourist. "Coffee's on the way," he said.

"That's not the point, and you know it," Stillman said to me. He still hadn't raised his voice. I didn't imagine he ever raised his voice. "The point is—"

"The point is that you're blowing smoke. It's only a matter of time before the cops get around to Toby. The boy's got bad habits, and the habits are on record, and the cops aren't stupid. What we should be talking about is where we go from here."

"You mean you don't know?" Dixie said. He sounded disappointed. Stillman went back to the Pacific.

"Sure, I know," I said. "We figure out who killed the young woman."

"A drug addict," Stillman said fastidiously, eyeing an area just north of Guam. I was liking him less by the minute. I hadn't liked him that much to begin with.

"Drug addicts can get killed just like the rest of us," I said. "They probably even object to it."

"That's not my problem," Stillman said.

"Yes, it is," Cohen and I said simultaneously. "Norman," Dixie added respectfully.

"Good for you, Dixie," I said. "You're beginning to figure it out."

"It doesn't make any difference whether he did it or not," Dixie explained to Stillman's back. "Once it gets out that the cops are talking to Toby, it's over. Six years of putting up with him down the toilet."

"Well, I know that," Stillman said nastily. "That's why you geniuses are here, to keep it from getting to Toby. Isn't that what we're talking about?"

"Of course, Norman," Dixie said.

"Well, excuse me," I said. "I thought we were talking about firing me."

"Oh, that," Stillman said, sounding impatient. "That was Dixie's idea." Now it was Dixie's turn to roll his eyes heavenward, but he did it behind Stillman's back.

A stout Hispanic maid came in carrying a silver coffee service, and Stillman tore himself away from the briny deep. Dixie stopped rolling his eyes. "Thank you, Vicenta," Stillman said. There was one cup on the tray. I took it without asking and poured.

Dixie cleared his throat. "I've already had a call, Norman," he said, "from Joanna Link."

Stillman paled beneath his sunlamp tan. "Oh, no," he said. "Anybody but Joanna Link."

"Sorry," Dixie said. "She wants to come to the set tomorrow."

"What have I done?" Stillman said. "I take care of my mother. I contribute to African famine. I give to the Urban League."

"Joanna who?" I said.

They looked at me as though I'd lapsed into Morse code. "Three hundred and fifty papers," Cohen said. "Joanna three hundred and fifty papers Link. Joanna Here's the Fucking News from Hollywood Link."

"Oh," I said. "Joanna
Link."
I'd never heard of her.

"Keep her away," Stillman said. "How does she know anything, anyway?"

"Keep Joanna Link away?" Cohen said. "I could keep the Huns from the gates of Rome if I had the time, I could keep Héloïse from Abelard, but keep Joanna Link away from a story? I'd have to kill her. Not that I haven't thought about it."

"How
does
she know anything?" I asked.

"The young lady's picture was in the paper this morning," Dixie said. "It's the kind of story they love, nude dancer battered." He sounded like Toby. "As luck would have it, one of Link's spies, some two-bit paparazzi, has a picture of Toby and this dame. Going into Nicky Blair's, can you imagine that?"

"Nicky Blair's?" Stillman parroted. "Toby took this junkie to Nicky
Blair's?"
He put both hands over his face. "He's got a death wish."

"Trouble is," I said, "she's the one who's dead. And she's not a junkie anymore."

"Spare me the self-righteous posturing. I've got enough on my mind. So you stay on the payroll, is that settled?"

"Not quite. I need an assistant."

"What time is Link supposed to be there?" Stillman asked Cohen nervously. "An assistant for what?" he asked me.

"Three o'clock," Cohen said. "We're on Stage Six tomorrow."

Stillman looked at his nautical watch, as if counting the hours between Sunday morning and Monday afternoon. Maybe the watch had Monday on it. It was big enough. "Does Toby know?"

"Not yet."

"Has he got much to do?"

"About twelve pages."

"Dialogue or action?"

"Dialogue. Including the scene with the little kid."

"Twelve pages, the little kid, and Link? He'll plotz."

"To watch Toby," I said.