'Most teachers do. I think he was a personal trainer.'
'At a gym?'
'No. Takeout. He'd come to your home.'
'Besides coaching,' I said, 'did he teach something?'
Atkins smiled.
'Typing,' he said.
'Could he type?'
'I don't think so. But we had to do something with him. We don't pay enough to hire a coach just to coach.'
'Know anything about the outfitting business he ran in the desert?'
'I think that was mostly the wife,' Atkins said.
'How about the wife?'
'Lou,' he said. 'He met her in college, I think. She was pleasant, perky at social events. I don't really know her.'
'She work as well?' I asked.
'I think she worked with the DWP.'
'Department of Water and Power?'
'Yep.'
'Know what she did?'
'Nope.'
'Know any of her friends?'
'No.'
'They get along?'
'Don't know.'
'Anyone who would know?'
'Woman in our English department,' Atkins said. 'She was pretty friendly with Buckman.'
'What's her name?'
'Sara Hunter,' he said. 'White girl out of Berkeley. Wants to do good. We're just a tryout for her eventual aim, which is to teach in my old neighborhood.'
'South Central?'
'Yep. Work off her upper-middle-class guilt.'
'She working it off this summer?'
'Not here,' Atkins said. 'She lives in Westwood, I think. I'll give you her home address.'
He found her card in his Rolodex, and copied her address down on a piece of pink telephone message paper. I tucked it into my shirt pocket.
'You don't know much about them,' I said. 'Is that typical?'
'There are people on the faculty I spend time with,' Atkins said. 'And people I don't. I didn't like Buckman. I didn't spend time with him.'
Atkins paused and sort of smiled.
'You really are feeling your way along,' he said.
'You bet. I just try to keep you talking and see if something comes up.'
'Like what?'
'Got no idea,' I said. 'I just hope I'll know it when I see it. You have any record of where they lived? While they were here?'
'Maybe,' Atkins said.
He consulted the Rolodex again.
'You think the Buckmans weren't kosher?'
'I don't know enough to think anything,' I said. 'I'm trying to find out.'
Atkins found the address in the Rolodex, copied it down on another piece of message paper and gave it to me. I put it in my shirt pocket with Sara Hunter. Atkins stood, and put out his hand.
'Good luck,' he said.
'Luck is the residue of design,' I said.
Atkins looked at me blankly for a minute.
