'Me either.'
'I'll tell you what I know,' Adams said. 'And if you were to find him, I'd appreciate a jingle.'
'Seems fair to me,' I said.
'After he skipped out of the place on Las Palmas, we figure he moved in with his girlfriend on Franklin Avenue. So we went up there but she says she's broken up with him and hasn't seen him and never wants to see him again.'
'You believe her?'
'No. So we put somebody up there for a couple days but there was no sign of him.'
'Round the clock?' I said.
'Hell no. We don't have the manpower for real surveillance.'
'So if he didn't come and go between nine and five you wouldn't know if he was there.'
'Correct.'
'You got much experience skip tracing?'
'Financial compliance,' Adams said. 'Says so on my door.'
'Sure,' I said.
'I'm retired Navy,' Adams said. 'Intelligence. I got a lower budget here.'
'You got a name and address for the girlfriend?' I said.
'Yeah.'
He took one of his business cards out of a small container on his desk and wrote on the back.
'Here you go,' he said. 'You need directions?'
'No,' I said. 'I've screwed up cases out here before.'
Chapter 29
THE GIRLFRIEND'S NAME Was Carlotta Hopewell. She had a small clapboard house with an overhanging roof on the front porch. The house was in Hollywood, where it crouched among the apartment buildings on Franklin Avenue between Gower and Vine. The yard needed work, and some of the white paint was peeling from the clapboards. As I walked up the front walk, a woman who must have been watching out the window opened the door and stepped out onto the front steps. She had a glass of white wine in her hand and she smelled strongly of it.
'May I help you?' she said.
Her lips were pouty and her face was puffy. She had loud blond hair and not much muscle tone. She was wearing shorts and a short tank top that stopped several inches above her navel. Her body was pale and soft- looking.
'Carlotta Hopewell?'
'Yes?'
'I'm looking for a man named Jerome Jefferson:'
'I'm not him.'
'Good,' I said. 'That's helpful. It narrows the search.'
'Hey you're kind of funny, huh?'
'But I have a serious side. Is Jerome staying with you?'
'Naw.'
She swirled her wine a little.
'But you know him,' I said.
'Maybe. You want some wine?'
'Yes, thank you,' I said.
She opened the screen door and we went in. Ah, memories of things past. There was a rough woven orange rug on the floor of her living room, and a huge picture of Prince covering most of the wall above a brown suede couch. There was a brown beanbag chair, and an angular black metal chair with a white canvas sling to sit in. A hall went off to my left, and through an open archway beyond the suede couch I could see the kitchen.
'Please have a seat,' she said. 'I'll get you some wine.'
She was gone for a minute and when she came back she was carrying a big jug of white wine and a glass. There was a marble-top coffee table in front of the couch, the marble marked with a large number of circular stains where glasses had been set down without coasters. She set my glass and hers on the coffee table and poured me some wine, and some for herself, holding the jug in both hands. There was no air-conditioning and the bottle was already beginning to sweat in the hot room. I had a sip of wine. It wasn't very good, but it would probably prevent plaque. Carlotta raised her glass toward me and drank some.
'Good times,' she said.
'So,' I said, 'tell me about Jerome.'
'Why?'
