The small front yard was split by a concrete walk that left enough room on the right for some grass and five ruthlessly pruned rosebushes. The other half of the yard, the left half, was dominated by an ancient bougainvillea that had swarmed up and over the small front porch and onto the roof as if intent on devouring the chimney.
The bougainvillea concealed much of the roof but the part still visible revealed old composition shingles of a faded green. The rest of the house had been painted not long ago in two shades of yellow—a very pale shade for the clapboard siding and a much darker shade for the trim. Durant thought the house looked both cozy and bilious.
He got out of the Lincoln Town Car on the passenger side and Wu got out from behind the wheel. After they reached the porch, they heard a telephone begin to ring inside the house. Durant knocked.
When no one came to the door and the phone rang for the ninth time, Durant gave the brass doorknob a halfhearted twist and was surprised to find it unlocked.
The door opened directly into a living room. The ringing phone was on a small gray metal desk in the room’s far left corner. Between the front door and the phone was a Latino in his late twenties or early thirties who lay on a braided oval rug with his throat cut. Durant stepped over the man, took out a handkerchief and used it to pick up the still-ringing phone.
“Luxury Limos,” Durant said.
There was a silence until a woman asked, “Carlos?”
“He can’t come to the phone right now,” Durant said in what he discovered was rusty Spanish. “Any message?”
The woman hung up.
Artie Wu was now on the other side of the desk, turning the pages of a black-bound ledger with the tip of a ballpoint pen. “His logbook,” he said without looking up. “All of February’s missing.”
“Let’s go,” Durant said.
Wu nodded and closed the ledger with the pen.
Durant again stepped over the dead man, but Wu knelt beside him.
The man wore dark blue pants, well-polished black loafers, a white shirt and a black clip-on bow tie. Both tie and shirt were soaked with blood. A small leather-bound notebook or diary peeked out of the shirt’s pocket. Wu fished it out, wrapped it in a handkerchief and shoved it down into his hip pocket. He then rose and hurried out the front door, followed by Durant, who paused only long enough to smear the inside and outside doorknobs with his handkerchief.
Just as they reached the Lincoln they saw a dark-haired woman hurry out of a house that was across the street and four or five doors up. The house was a brown twin of the yellow one that served as headquarters for Luxury Limos. The woman wore jeans, a white Tshirt and white sneakers. From a distance she could have been either 20 or 30 but she moved as if she were 20.
As Wu and Durant hurried into the Lincoln, the woman started racing toward the yellow house. Just as the Lincoln pulled away she reached the giant bougainvillea and stopped, staring at the accelerating Lincoln. In its rearview mirror, Artie Wu saw her lips move and assumed she was memorizing the car’s license number.
“Who rented this thing?” he asked Durant.
“Booth.”
“Call him and ask him to report it stolen.”
“Where should we lose it—a shopping mall?”
“Why not?”
They found a parking space on the fourth level of the Santa Monica Place mall at Third and Broadway, which was only a short walk to the edge of the continent. They rode escalators up and down until they found a floor that featured a string of ethnic-food stands where Wu bought two cups of espresso and carried them over to a table Durant had claimed.
After Wu sat down, he took out the handkerchief-wrapped notebook that had “1991” stamped in gold on its black leather cover. The handkerchief had soaked up virtually all the blood and Wu used a paper napkin to wipe away what little was left. He then wadded his handkerchief up into the paper napkin, enclosed both in yet another napkin, rose and dropped everything into a nearby trash bin.
Wu sat back down, opened the notebook and began turning pages.
Durant sipped his espresso and decided it was too weak. Wu reached for his cup, sipped it, went back to the notebook and murmured,
“Good coffee.”
Durant rose. “I’ll go call Booth.”
Wu nodded, completely absorbed by the notebook.
Durant finally found a bank of pay telephones only to discover he no longer remembered what it cost to make a call. Was it a quarter or thirty-five cents? He dropped in three quarters and tapped out the Malibu number with its 456 exchange. When Stallings answered on the third ring, Durant identified himself and said, “We have to lose the Lincoln.”
“What d’you want me to do?”
“Call the rental agency—which one is it?”
“Budget.”
“Tell them it was stolen last night and you just discovered it missing.”
