“Why would you want to?”
“Because Lonnie an’ them know somebody don’t like me,”
I said as clearly and candidly as I could. “Because I got to find him.”
“If Lonnie only the door to the problem, then you in trouble deep, Paris.”
“That’s no news to me.”
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Milo frowned. He wasn’t the kind of friend that would put his neck on the line for me. But he did care in his way. He didn’t want to think that I’d come to harm. And if the worst happened, he’d put on a good dark suit and come to my funeral. He might even send some lilies — if he could deduct them from his taxes.
“I don’t know where they are,” he told me. “When we did business together they were mostly legal. But nowadays I hear they break legs and worse for people don’t like to hear bones snappin’ and men breathin’ their last.”
That was Milo at his friendliest. He was trying to tell me to find another way in, to avoid men I couldn’t stand up to. And I appreciated his concern, such as it was.
“Can I use your phone, Milo?”
The legal intellectual let his shoulders rise, indicating that he’d done all he could do. He gestured toward Loretta with one of his huge hands, and I rose from the orphan chair like an acolyte dismissed by a great teacher who had failed his task.
“ H e l l o , ” the nondescript voice hummed.
“Whisper.”
“What’s up, Paris?”
“Can I come over?”
“Always welcome,” he said.
The words were friendly if the tone was not.
Wh i s p e r ’ s o f f i c e wa s on Avalon. The building was perfect for the elusive sleuth. It was three stories and narrow, made from dark red brick. The front door of the building 256
FEAR OF THE DARK
didn’t face the street. Instead you entered into a little recess, turned to the left, and walked up a small set of granite stairs that brought you to an old white door that was locked and far too pulpy to sustain a serious knock.
But for those in the know there was a buzzer inside of a black mailbox that the postman knew not to use. All the letters were put through a slot in the door; packages were held at the post office for pickup.
I pressed that button.
Two minutes later the detective opened the door, giving a rare, and momentary, grin.
“Paris.”
He led me up a carpeted stairway to the top floor, where he had his office. Over the years I had been to Whisper’s sanctum a few times. The visits were always about hard business, but still I stopped to appreciate his sense of style and decorum.
The main office was paneled with real oak, giving it that rich woody-brown feel. The carpet was maroon, edged in royal blue, and there were tall bookshelves on either side of his heavy oak desk. The shelves reached all the way to the ceiling, which was at least fourteen feet high. It was an intelligent room that invited you to sit and contemplate until the problem was solved.
I liked the chamber very much, but it was his one window that always grabbed me.
He must have had it put in specially. It was only a foot and a half in width but ran from a foot above the floor to six inches below the ceiling. It presented a view of the northern mountains and L.A.’s blue-and-amber skies. Something about the slender slice of the outdoors made your mind want to expand.
Whisper gestured to the blue cushioned chair that looked 257
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upon the window. I sat down, feeling almost as tranquil as I had in Mum’s arms.
“What’s up, Paris?”
You could have spoken to the man for half a dozen years and he would have used only a couple of hundred words, excluding proper names and numbers.
“I need your help on something,” I said.
His hands, raised palms upward toward his shoulders, asked me what.
“I need to speak to Bobo and Gregory Handsome,” I said.
“Them or Lonnie Mannheim. I don’t know where they are and I need that information.”
From his appearance, Whisper could have been a bus driver or a teacher’s aide at a public school; he could have been a deacon at a small church or a single father raising nine kids.
He looked like anything but a man who’d run into an open door to root out armed gunmen shooting wildly and intent on taking life.
“Thanks for last night,” he said.
