'Be my pleasure,' I said.
'That's what they tell me,' Bebe said.
'Did you know that Mary Lou knew both Dean Walker and Mark Ratliff in Los Angeles?'
'I knew about Mark,' Bebe said. 'I don't think I knew that about Dean Walker.'
'You told me that Mary Lou Buckman was sleeping with both of them.'
'And probably some others,' Bebe said. 'I knew you'd have trouble believing it. Men are so stupid.'
'How do you know?'
'About Mary Lou?'
'And Walker and Ratliff,' I said.
'Dean Walker is merely surmise,' Bebe said, 'and intuition.'
'And Ratliff?' Bebe smiled.
'Pillow talk,' she said.
I nodded and we smiled knowingly. Two insiders. Intimates.
'You mean I'm not the only one?' I said.
'Almost.'
'He say anything else about her?' I said.
'Mark? About Mary Lou? Oh yes. Actually it was little annoying. He'd be in bed with me. You know, afterwards. And he'd be blabbing on about how he loved Mary Lou and had followed her to Potshot and would wait forever if he had to… crap like that.'
'You didn't believe him?' I said.
'Mark's a Hollywood person,' she said. 'It's hard believe a word he speaks.'
'And he wasn't waiting for her celibately,' I said.
Bebe was good at lecherous gleaming, too.
'Not likely,' she said. 'But as soon as he was through boffing me, he'd talk about her.'
'So, she was always on his mind,' I said.
Bebe grinned.
'She was always on his mind.'
Chapter 49
I CALLED CAWLEY Dark and talked with him for fifteen minutes. Then I hung up and went out onto the front porch where Tedy Sapp was taking orders and mixing drinks. The sun had set, quite flamboyantly, and the blue twilight was settling around us the way it does. Bernard J. Fortunato had fixed up a tray of cheese and crackers and was passing it around.
'Bernard went in today and rented the hotel room,' Hawk said. 'Street side.'
'I told him straight when I reserved it what I wanted,' Bernard said.
'You see the room?' I said.
'Bet your ass.'
'So Vinnie's in the window with a rifle,' Hawk said.
'Room looks right down on the broad's office,' Bernard said.
'Mary Lou's?'
'Yeah. Buckman Outfitters.'
'So we'll be sure to brace them there,' I said. 'In front of her storefront.'
'You want us to be surreptitious?' Hawk said.
'Surreptitious?' Sapp said.
Hawk shrugged.
'I educated in head start,' Hawk said.
'Really worked,' Sapp said.
'No reason to be covert,' I said.
'You too?' Sapp said.
'Nope,' I said. 'I'm a straight Anglo white guy of European ancestry. We're naturally smart.'
'You missed Bernard,' Sapp said.
'Tall straight Anglo white guy,' I said.
'Hey,' Bernard said.
