'So how'd you end up here?' I said.
Walker shrugged.
'It was time to stop being a big city cop,' he said. 'Hell it was time to stop being a cop altogether, but I didn't know how to do anything else.'
'Well at least you've reduced the scale,' I said. 'The Buckmans have anything to do with you coming here?'
'They had a little business out here summers. They mentioned there was an opening.'
'Perfect,' I said. 'Did they mention the Dell?'
'When I took this job the Dell was just a bunch of stumblebums squatting in the old mining shacks. They didn't turn into a problem until The Preacher showed up.'
'You happen to remember Lou Buckman's maiden name?' I said.
'Allard,' he said. 'Mary Lou Allard.'
'Nice woman,' I said.
He nodded.
'Nice woman.'
'You know Mark Ratliff in L.A., too?'
'Yep.'
'You know how he ended up here in the same town as two of his neighbors in Santa Monica?'
'Must have heard about it from Lou and Steve,' Walker said. 'Like me.'
'And he wanted to get out of the Hollywood rat race?' I said.
Walker smiled.
'He was trailing the other rats by considerable,' Walker said.
'What kind of guy is he?'
Walker shrugged again.
'Hollywood guy,' Walker said.
'I heard he had a fling with Lou.'
Walker's face hardened. I could see the lines deepen on either side of his mouth.
'That's a fucking lie,' he said.
I nodded.
'The best kind,' I said.
'He was shagging around after her at a couple of parties we went to. But she brushed him off. Stevie was going to punch his lights out.'
'We?'
'We what?'
'You said `we' went to a couple of parties. You married?'
'Divorced.'
'Grounds?' I said.
'She knows, and I know,' Walker said. 'You don't need to.'
'What is your ex-wife's name?' I said.
'Same answer.'
I nodded.
'When you've got one that works, may as well stay with it.'
'I'm sick of talking to you, pal,' Walker said. 'Beat it.'
Arguing with him about that didn't lead anywhere. The patrol cop was still concentrating on his report sheet so hard that I wondered, as I left, whether it might begin to smolder.
Chapter 40
WENT BACK to the house. On the front porch Hawk and Tedy Sapp were doing push-ups. It looked like an interesting contest, since both of them appeared able to do push-ups forever.
Bernard J. Fortunato had drinks set up on the table on the porch. There was Scotch and vodka and soda and tonic, a cooking pot full of ice, and some lemons sliced in wedges and a large soup bowl of peanuts. There were no napkins, but he had put out a number of neatly folded paper towels. Vinnie was drinking Scotch on the rocks. Chollo and Bobby Horse each had vodka and tonic.
'This is taking too long,' Hawk said.
He and Sapp looked at each other and grinned and stood up at the same time.
