trying to get even with Marty Anaheim for popping you in the kisser?'
'Yes,' I said.
'Yes?'
'All of the above,' I said.
'I don't like somebody getting killed when they are sort of my client. I don't want Marty to find Bibi and hurt her. I don't like losing Anthony. I don't like stuff going on and I can't figure it out. I'm trying to make sense out of this hairball.'
'If there is a hostile takeover coming, we can sit tight and watch and after a while we'll find out,' Hawk said.
'And maybe there'll be some fallout and we'll learn some other stuff.'
'Maybe,' Hawk said.
'And maybe Madonna will come into the office and moon us,' I said.
'That ain't perky.'
'Fuck perky.'
CHAPTER 41
Julius lived in a three-story stucco house with a five-car garage and grates on the windows. He and I sat on high, hard, hand carved mahogany chairs in his big ornate formal living room and looked out through the grated windows at the guest cottage, in the backyard, the big house in miniature. There was no grass in the backyard. It was covered with beige pea stone, ornamented with statuary.
'How's your wife?' I said.
'No good.'
'Takes a while,' I said.
Julius shook his head.
'She ain't going to get better,' he said.
'I know a shrink.'
'Shrinks are a bunch of fucking perverts,' Julius said.
'Oh yeah,' I said.
'I forgot that.'
'You know anything about where that fucking Anthony is?'
'No,' I said.
'But I'm still looking.'
'You look all you want, long as you don't think I'm paying you.'
'My own interest,' I said.
'There's a hundred thousand out on him,' Julius said.
'You find him, you kill him, you get the hundred grand. Just like anybody else.'
'Very fair,' I said.
'Did you know he and Marty Anaheim were running some kind of scam?'
'What kind of scam?'
'I don't know. Did you know your daughter and Marty were friends?'
Julius stared at me.
'Shirley?'
'Yeah.'
He shook his head.
'Not with Marty Anaheim.'
'You any idea what that might be about?'
'You know this?'
'I got it on good authority.'
'Who?'
I shook my head.
'Any thoughts?' I said.
Julius slumped back in his chair and stared at me.
'You want some fruit?' he said.
