Compulsion

Shonsky’s car.

As we returned to the city, Milo said, “Oh, well. If I liked the simple life, I’d be a farmer.”

“There’s always south,” I said.

“A hundred and fifty miles’ worth to Mexico.”

I looked up at the foothills to the east. “Plenty of side streets to explore.”

“What a fun guy,” he growled, turning right and cruising several dark, winding roads.

An hour later: “I’ll have patrol follow up tomorrow, try to get hold of Katrina’s girlfriends. For all we know, they’ll tell us a whole different story. Like she’s with some bum Mommy wouldn’t approve of. And don’t bring up O- positive anymore. I’m not feeling popular.”

Light butterscotched the windows of Robin’s studio out back. I walked past the pond, stopped to check out the baby koi. The antique iron pagoda lights reached down to the floor, giving an easy view of the fish. Three, four inches long, now. Bobbing merrily in the current set off by the waterfall.

I’d first spotted them as larva-sized hatchlings. A dozen little scraps of fishy filament, swimming fearlessly among two-foot-long adults. Koi will eat their own eggs but once the young are born, they’ll never inflict harm. Unlike other fish, they don’t harass sick or dying cohorts. Maybe that’s why they can live over a century.

I continued to the studio, rapped the window. Robin looked up from her bench and smiled. Placed a white rectangle of Alpine spruce to her ear and tapped. Searching for the tones that told her the wood might be suitable as a soundboard. From the size of the plank, a mandolin board.

Her expression as she placed it to the side said no such luck. By the time I entered, she had another piece in hand. Blanche nestled in her lap, serene as ever.

Robin said, “Hi.” Blanche let out a wheezy bulldog welcome.

When Robin kissed me, Blanche turned her head sideways in that bulldog way and nuzzled my hand.

I said, “A blonde and a redhead.”

“Aren’t you the lucky one.”

I eyed the discarded spruce. “No music in there?”

“Even though he’d never know the difference.” She eyed a FedEx box in the corner. “Learn anything about that poor old woman?”

“The working assumption is the son had something to do with it but there’s nothing even close to proof.”

“A son doing that to his mother,” she said. “Beyond belief.”

She eyed the box in the corner again.

I said, “New tools?”

“Collection of DVDs. From Dot-com. Ten Audrey Hepburn movies and a note that said I remind him of her.”

Hepburn had been five seven and built like a human clothes hanger. Robin’s five three on a good day, curvy everywhere you look.

“You’re both gorgeous.”

She flexed her fingers, the way she does when she’s edgy.

“Has he ever been inappropriate?”

“Not really.”

“Not really?”

“When I met him at the luthiery show he was a little touchy, but nothing you could say was out of line.”

“Well, then,” I said. “Audrey Hepburn made some good flicks.”

“I’m overreacting, huh?”

“He could be working on a few fantasies. Happens all the time.”

“What do you mean?”

“Men are always looking at you. You’ve got the X factor – pheromones, whatever.”

“Oh, sure.”

“It’s true. You never notice because you’re not a flirt.”

“Because I’m a space cadet?”

“Sometimes that, too.”

“Alex,” she said, “I’ve never come close to dropping a hint that this was anything other than business.”

“It needn’t have anything to do with you.”

“Great.”

“Hey,” I said, “what’s the worst that can happen? He makes a move and you gently deter him. Meanwhile you can e-mail him a friendly but formal thank-you note for the movies and tell him you and I are going to enjoy watching them.”

She stroked Blanche. “You’re right, I’m being silly. As they used to say in seventh grade, conceited.” She touched a hoop earring. Tossed her hair. Much better from her than from Tony Mancusi.

I played with the top button of her shirt.

She said, “Factor X, huh? Does that make you Mr. Y?”

We picked out two movies and watched from bed. Roman Holiday had held up beautifully over half a century. Breakfast at Tiffany’s hadn’t and when The End finally arrived, we were half asleep.

Cutting the lights, we touched fingertips. I murmured something I’m pretty sure was affectionate.

Robin said, “Audrey Hepburn was beautiful but I’m nothing like her,” and was out.

At ten the next morning, I picked Milo up at the station and drove to Barneys in Beverly Hills.

The ground floor was skinny girls hawking cosmetics. A blonde specializing in nail polish pointed out Rianna Ijanovic.

Tall, narrow brunette, one station down.

She smiled at us through a fragrant cloud. An array of sample atomizers adorned the counter. Shoppers and shopgirls chattered. Everyone chasing the next big thing in self-improvement. Milo identified himself and Rianna responded with the blank, frightened look of a toddler thrown off course.

She was thirty or so, pale and square-shouldered with hard, black eyes, optimistic breasts, and a face rescued from beauty by an off-kilter nose and a too-sharp chin.

“Police? I don’t understand.”

Milo said, “We’re here about Katrina Shonsky.”

“Oh, oh.” It came out aw, aw. Faint accent, barely audible over the magpie chorus.

“Could we talk somewhere quiet?”

Rianna Ijanovic tapped another perfume sprayer on the shoulder. “Cawver for me, okay?”

We left the department store through the front door on Wilshire, walked around the corner to Camden Drive, passed the entrance to the parking lot.

Milo said, “Ijanovic. Czech?”

“Croatian. I’m legal.”

“Even if you weren’t, it wouldn’t matter. We’re here about Katrina, that’s all.”

“I only know Katrina through another girl.”

“Beth Holloway?”

“Yes.”

“We tried Beth first, but she’s not working today and we don’t have a home number.”

“You wouldn’t find her at home,” said Rianna Ijanovic.

“Where is she?”

“Torrance. She met a man.” Sticking out her tongue.

“You don’t approve?” said Milo.