She turned onto San Vincente. “You doing some sight-seeing?”
“Maybe. There’s a car behind us. I want to see if he’s following.”
Candy checked the rearview mirror. “Old blue Pontiac?”
“Yes.”
We crossed the intersection at Third with the Pontiac still behind us. He had dropped back a little. There were two cars between us. San Vincente Boulevard slants northwest for a short way across the more conventional Los Angeles grid from Pico Boulevard to Melrose Avenue. It crosses La Cienega between Wilshire Avenue and Third Street. At Beverly we turned right and went three blocks east, then left, and we were back heading north on La Cienega. When we crossed Melrose, I checked behind us and the blue Pontiac was there.
Candy looked at me.
“Okay,” I said, “so someone is following us. It would be good to know who.”
“What do you suppose he thought we were doing with that little maneuver on San Vincente?”
“Unless he’s an idiot, he thought we had spotted him and were trying to make sure he was really following us.”
“So now he knows we know.”
“Yeah.”
“He doesn’t seem to care.”
“That’s right.”
“What’s that mean?”
“It might mean he’s going to make a move on us. It might mean he is so interested in what we’re doing that he doesn’t care about stealth. It might mean he’s a cop.”
“A cop?”
“Cops don’t give a damn about anything sometimes,” I said.
“What shall we do?”
“We need a place… go east on Melrose then down Fairfax to the Farmers Market.”
The Pontiac stayed with us now, openly, no dodging behind cars; it was right behind us. I turned in, my seat and rested my chin on my forearms and studied over the open rear deck of the MG.
“There are two of them. Apparently they’ve dumped the Firebird and the van,” I said to Candy. “The one in the passenger seat is balding. He has a black mustache and goatee. It’s hard to tell while he’s sitting in the car, but he appears to be fat and strong. Does that sound familiar?”
“Oh, my God,” Candy said. She cleared her throat.
“It’s okay,” I said. “This time we’ve got them outnumbered.”
“There’s two of them.”
I looked at her and flexed my bicep in a physical culture pose.
“Oh,” she said, “I see what you’re saying. I’m sorry, but I’m scared. This time what if they mean to kill me?”
“That’s what the Sound of the Golden West is paying me for,” I said. “When we get to the Farmers Market, pull in close to one of the doors and park, illegally if you need to. Just don’t waste any time. Then jump out and run inside, and go in the nearest ladies’ room. You know your way around in there?”
“Oh, sure.”
“Okay. The ladies’ room nearest the entrance we go in. Stay there till I yell for you. I’ll open the door and yell.”
“You may be arrested as a Peeping Tom.” She sounded strained but she was trying.
“You’ll swear my eyes were shut tight all the time,” I said.
She smiled, though not very wide, and said, “Okay. While I’m hiding in the ladies’ room, what are you going to do?”
“I’m going to consult with our groupies here. See if I can get a little information.”
The Pontiac was drawing closer.
“Move this thing faster,” I said to Candy. “I need a little space between us when we get to the Market.” The MG speeded up as we went down Fairfax. The Pontiac hung in behind us. “You can’t outrun it,” I said to Candy, “but this thing can outmaneuver it. Slip in and out of traffic a little.”
“Spenser, I bought this because it was cute, not because it was hot. I don’t know how to stunt-drive.”
“Well, do what you can. I don’t want them to make a run at us right here on Fairfax.”
She bit her lip and tromped down on the accelerator and jockied the little sports car in between a truck and a Lincoln that looked like a truck. The Pontiac edged out around the truck and then fell back in behind it. Candy passed the Lincoln on the inside and got honked at by a red-faced man wearing a pink shirt and smoking a cigar. We screeched into the parking lot on the north side of the Farmers Market, cutting across the traffic recklessly and causing several more horns to blow.
The store section of the Farmers Market was a rambling white low building surrounded by parking lots just south of CBS Studios on the corner of Fairfax Avenue and Third Street. There were cars parked all around the
