'You know how it is when you're in heat,' Vallone said.
'I'm proud to say that I do.'
***
AT TEN-THIRTY,WHICH would make it seven-thirty Pacific time, I called Sherry Lark. It was probably too early; my memory was that hippies slept late. But it was as long as I could stand to wait.
When she answered her voice told me I was right. She'd been asleep.
'Spenser,' I said, 'remember me? Square-jawed, clear-eyed, waffles at Sears?'
'Oh… yeah… sure. Why are you calling me?'
'For this case I'm working on,' I said. 'Did you tell all your daughters about Walter's DNA results, or just Penny?'
'Whaaat?'
'Come on, Sherry, I know you knew, and I know you told. I'm only asking which ones.'
'I'm not about to betray my daughters…'
'I know a homicide cop out there named O'Gar,' I said. 'If I ask him to, he'll come and haul your flower child butt down to the Hall of Justice and question you in a back room under hot lights.'
'I…'
'Who'd you tell, Sherry? It's either me, now, the easy way, or O'Gar, soon, the hard way.'
'I only told Penny. She's the only one with the spunk to stand up to her father.'
'And you told her he was planning to change his will.'
'He was going to give their inheritance to that whore's bastard.'
'And you couldn't tolerate her winning like that,' I said.
'I'm looking out for my daughters,' she said.
'Mother love,' I said.
And hung up. I didn't think Sherry Lark had killed Walter Clive. But somebody had, and Penny kept looking better.
FIFTY-FOUR
I SAT WITH Tedy Sapp and the Clive outcasts around a big table eating pizza in the corner of the Bath House Bar and Grill. Sapp was drinking coffee. Everyone else had iced tea, except me. I didn't like iced tea. Sapp was beside me to my right. Cord Wyatt was on the other side. Beyond him was Stonie, then SueSue, then Pud. All of the Clive exiles were looking better than they had. Pud's eyes were clear and his face had lost a lot of the ruddy mottle that he used to sport. Cord seemed more at ease in these surroundings. The two women had brushed their short hair as best they could and put on makeup. They were dressed normally. Life had returned to their eyes. And their bearing was no longer feral.
Since she had once called me a hunk, I figured SueSue was the one I should talk to.
'Tell me what happened to you,' I said.
Sitting beside SueSue, Pud put his open hand on her back and patted a little. SueSue looked at Stonie. She took a deep breath through her nose.
'After Daddy… died, Penny sat down with us. She said that it was terrible that Daddy had died. But that we shouldn't worry, that she could run things, in fact she had run things for a while, and Three Fillies would go on as if Daddy were alive.'
She stopped and looked at Stonie again.
'Go ahead,' Stonie said. 'Tell everything. We've been pretending much too long. Let's get everything out.'
SueSue took in more air.
'Okay. Penny also said that both Stonie and I had to make some changes. She said Pud was a drunk and was sucking money out of the business and bringing nothing back.'
'She got that right,' Pud said.
He still had his open hand resting on her back.
'She said Cord…'
SueSue looked at Cord.
'She said Cord was a queer,' Cord finished for her.
Stonie and Cord didn't touch, but they seemed comfortable beside each other. SueSue nodded.
'And she said we had to get rid of them,' SueSue said. 'They had to be purged from our family the way stuff sometimes has to be purged from a body.'
'Poisonous,' Cord said.
'Then she said we had to purge ourselves. She said the family was disgraced by us, drunks and whores, she said. She said that we were required to stop smoking and drinking and whoring. She said no more makeup, no fancy clothes, nothing. She said until we were clean we would need to sequester ourselves, like nuns or something-she had a fancy phrase, but I can't remember it exactly. We were not to leave the house.'
'Did you object?' I said, just to keep her going.
