counter to keep from thinking about Perry Lang and Ellen Lang and Domingo Duran and a guy named O’Bannon. She caught me staring and stared back. She couldn’t have been more than sixteen, pretty despite yellow and black eyeshadow, yellow lip gloss, and yellow and black paint in her hair. The hair was spiked and stood out straight from her head like thick fuzz. The bumblebee look. She had a nice even tan and large breasts and probably two parents who wouldn’t think kindly of a thirty-five-year-old man wondering what their baby looked like without clothes.
I said, “I’m John Cassavetes.”
“Who?”
I said, “Tell me the truth, do I look more like John Cassavetes or Tony Dow?”
She cocked her head. “I think you look like Andy Summers, only bigger and more athletic-looking.”
“Nah, I don’t look like Andy Summers.”
“I bet you don’t even know who Andy Summers is.”
“Useta play lead for The Police.”
She grinned. Her teeth were even and white. “Yeah,” she said, “You look like him. Thoughtful and smart and sensitive.”
Maybe if everyone wore yellow and black makeup the world would be a better place. I sat up straighter and was considering marriage when the phone rang. Pat said. “Sorry. I had someone in the office.”
“It’s okay. I fell in love during the wait.”
She made her voice cool. “Perhaps I should call back later. Give you time to consummate the relationship.”
“It’s as consummated as it’s going to get. What’s the word?”
“I didn’t hear anything new about Mort, but I did confirm those rumors about Garrett Rice. He’s a glad-hander with the weasel dust. He gets invited to parties because he always brings along a little something and he’s willing to share it.”
“Gosh, you mean what I hear about those Hollywood parties is true?”
“No. I mean what you hear about some of those Hollywood parties is true.”
“How’d you confirm it?”
“Friend of a friend at another studio. Someone who is very much involved in that world and who knew firsthand.”
I said, “Patricia, if I had two kilograms of pure cocaine that I wanted to sell and I was around the studios like Garrett Rice, who would I call?”
She laughed. “You’re talking to the wrong person, Elvis. I’m into health and the perfect body.”
“Would your friend of a friend know?”
“I can’t tell you her name.”
“Would you ask for me?”
She sighed. “I don’t know. She might be scared.”
“It’s important, kid.”
She said okay, then hung up. I went back to my seat at the table and looked at the counter girl some more. She said, “What’s going on?”
I said, “Can you keep a secret?”
“Sure.”
“A mobster from Mexico is holding a little kid ransom for two keys of cocaine. I’m trying to get the cocaine back so I can trade it for the kid and maybe nail the mobster at the same time.”
She laughed. “What bullshit,” she said.
“No bullshit. I’m a private detective.”
“Yeah.”
“Wanna see my gun?”
She put her hands behind her and gave me a look. “I know what you want to show me.”
Such cynicism. Two women who were probably Persian walked in and the counter girl went over to them. The phone rang and I picked it up. Pat said, “My reputation may be ruined. I was just invited to a freebasing party.”
“You get a name?”
“Barry Fein. He’s probably the guy Garrett dealt with.”
I thanked her, hung up, and called the North Hollywood PD. The same tired voice said, “Detectives.”
“Lou Poitras, please.”
“He ain’t here.”
“How about Griggs?”
There was a pause, then Griggs came on. “Griggs.”
“It’s Cole. You guys got anything on a guy named Barry Fein?”
“You got some nut, you know that. We don’t run a goddamned library service here.”
“Considering what I saw this morning, it ain’t much of a cop house, either.”
He hung up. I took a deep breath, let it out, called back. A different bored voice answered this time, “North Hollywood Detectives.”
“Let me have Griggs, please.”
“Hold on.”
A minute, then Griggs picked up. “Griggs.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I shouldn’t have said that. It was dumb, and I apologize. I know you guys don’t like it any more than I did, and I know it’s tougher for you than it is for me.”
“You’re fuckin’-A right it is, bubba. Lou’s downtown raising hell right now, goddamnit. Even Baishe is down there, that sonofabitch. So we don’t need any bullshit from you.”
“Can you give me an address on Fein?”
“Hold on.”
While I waited, the counter girl gave one cup of something light-colored to one of the women and a cup of something so brown it was almost black to the other. They took their gelato to a little table at the front of the shop and spoke to each other in Farsi. Two men entered, one wearing a conservative gray Brooks Brothers, the other something resembling a pale orange pressure suit. The spaceman looked intense, and snapped his fingers at the girl. I didn’t like that.
Griggs came back on the line. “Fein’s a goddamned dope dealer.”
“Yeah.”
“You’re supposed to stay the hell away from this Duran thing.”
“I know.”
I could hear him breathing into the phone. In the background, I could hear other cops talking and phones ringing and typewriters tapping and a deep, coarse laugh. Cop sounds. The sort of sounds Griggs would miss if he had to stop hearing them. Griggs said, “Try 11001 Wilshire, Suite 601. That’s in Westwood.”
“Thanks.”
“Cole, the wrong people find out I gave you this, it’s my badge.”
“Gave me what?”
Griggs said, “Yeah” and hung up.
The counter girl was holding a cup in one hand and a scoop in the other, waiting for the guy in the pressure suit to make up his mind. He kept asking to taste the different flavors, then making a big deal about a place in Santa Monica that made this place look like shit. The two Persian women glanced at him.
The counter girl put down her scoop, looked my way, and chewed her fingernail. I hung up, walked over, smiled at the counter girl, and said, “The double chocolate banana was excellent, thank you.” Then I turned to Captain New Wave. I was very close to him. “Do you dance?” Smiling.
He had a healthy tan and coarse black hair and a gold Patek Philippe watch. There’d be the health club and handball and somewhere along the way he would’ve taken judo and been pretty good at it. His eyes flicked to the guy he’d come in with, wondering, what the hell is this?
“Not with boys,” he said. Tough, but uncertain. In over his head and just beginning to realize it. He had walked through a door and now he was in something and it could go in any direction, and in any direction he’d lose.
