There was another knock.
“I’ll call,” I said and then I hung up.
“Who is it?” I shouted at the door.
“The Fuller Brush man,” a sensual voice replied.
I opened the door and there stood Maya Adamant wrapped in a fake white fur coat.
“Come on in,” I said.
I had made all the connections before the door was closed.
“So the Nazis brought you out of Mr. Lee’s den.”
She moved to the bed, then turned to regard me. The way she sat down could not have been learned in finishing school.
“Haffernon called Lee,” she said. “He was very upset and now Lee is too. I was out on a date when he called my answering service and they called the club. You’re supposed to be in Los Angeles looking for Miss Cargill.”
I perched on the edge of the loungelike orange chair that came with my room. I couldn’t help leering. Maya’s coat opened a bit, exposing her short skirt and long legs. My talk with Cynthia had prepared me to appreciate a sight like that.
“There was no reason for me to think that Philomena had left the Bay Area,” I said. “And even if she did she needn’t have gone down south. There’s Portland and Seattle. Hell, she could be in Mexico City.”
“We didn’t ask you about Mexico City.”
“If you know where she is why do you need me?” I asked.
I forced my eyes up to hers. She smiled, appreciating my will power with a little pout.
1 0 9
W a lt e r M o s l e y
“What is this about Nazi memorabilia?” she asked.
“I met a guy who told me that Axel collected the stuff. I just figured that Haffernon might know about it.”
“So you’ve guessed that Leonard Haffernon is our client?”
“I don’t guess, Miss Adamant. I just ask questions and go where they lead me.”
“Who have you been talking to?” Her nostrils flared.
“Hippies.”
She sighed and shifted on the bed. “Have you found Philomena?”
“Not yet,” I said. “She left her apartment in an awful hurry though. I doubt she took a change of underwear.”
“It would have been nice to meet you under other circumstances, Mr. Rawlins.”
“You’re right about that.”
She stood up and smiled at my gaze.
“Are you ready to go back to L.A.?”
“First thing in the morning.”
“Good.”
She walked out the door. I watched her move on the stairs. It was a pleasurable sight.
There was a car waiting for her on the street. She got into the passenger’s side. I wondered who her companion was as the dark sedan glided off.
i w e n t t o b e d consciously not calling Bonnie or Cynthia or Maya. I pulled up the covers to my chin and stared at the window until the dawn light illuminated the dirty glass.
1 1 0
17
That morning I headed out toward the San Francisco airport. Just at the mouth of the freeway on-ramp, with the entire sky at their backs, two young hippies stood with their thumbs out. I pulled to the side of the road and cranked down the window.
“Hey man,” a sixteen- or seventeen-year-old red-bearded youth said with a grin. “Where you headed?”
“Airport.”
“Could you take us that far?”
“Sure,” I said. “Hop in.”
The boy got in the front seat and the girl, younger than he was, a very blond slip of a thing, got in the back with their backpacks.
She was the reason I had stopped. She wasn’t that much older 1 1 1
W a lt e r M o s l e y
than Feather. Just a child and here she was on the road with her man. I couldn’t pass them by.
When I drove up the on-ramp a blue Chevy honked at me and then sped past. I didn’t think that I’d cut him off so I figured he was making a statement about drivers who picked up hitch-hikers.
