Lullaby Town

The fat guy was leaning past his truck like Carl Lewis set to come out of the starter's blocks, glaring at me. I showed him another quarter and fed it into the phone. His face went white, he slapped the fender of the truck, and then stormed the long way around the truck and into the 7-Eleven. His friend sipped a little more Miller and shook his head. 'He's asking for a thrombo.'

I said, 'Get him into yoga. That'll help him relax.'

The friend shook his head, looking sort of sleepy and tired, and made a little shrug like they'd been through it a thousand times. 'You can't talk to him.'

I dialed the North Hollywood P.D. and got a gruff male voice that said, 'Detectives.'

'Elvis Cole for Lou Poitras.'

'Wait one.'

The phone got put down on something hard. There were voices in the background and the heavy laughter of men, and then the voice came back. 'I'm putting you on hold. He's gonna take it in his office.'

I got put on hold, then Lou Poitras came on. The laughter and the male sounds were still there, but now they were muted and farther away. Poitras said, 'I got my ass chewed good for trying to fix your last ticket. Don't ask me again.'

'Lou. One might think that our entire relationship is me asking favors of you.'

'So what do you want?'

'A small favor.'

'Shit.'

The fat guy in the hurry came out of the 7-Eleven with a Miller High Life of his own. He leaned against the truck next to his fat friend and looked tired. They drank. If you can't beat'm, join'm.

I said, 'I need to know if you have anything on a woman named Karen Shipley or Karen Nelsen. And I need you to go back ten years on the search.'

Lou Poitras said, 'Anything else?'

I said that should do it.

'You at the office?'

I told him where I was.

You could see him shake his head. 'Some big-time private op, working in a parking lot.'

'Beats sucking off the taxpayers.'

He said he'd get back to me tomorrow and hung up.

Everybody was going to get back to me tomorrow. Maybe there was something going on today that I didn't know about. Maybe that's why the fat guy was in such a hurry. Maybe he knew who to call to find out where the action was, and upon making the call, he and his buddy were going to whatever it was that I didn't know about. Maybe I could go with them.

I hung up the phone, looked at the fat guy in the hurry, and said, 'It's all yours.'

He sipped more Miller and didn't move, giving me who cares? His friend looked at him, then me, and shrugged. Go figure. Some guys are never happy.

CHAPTER FIVE

The Oscar Curtiss Talent Agency was two blocks below Sunset Boulevard in a small sky- blue clapboard house with a tiny lawn and a porch and a narrow sidewalk leading up to the porch. What looked like a Friedrich air conditioner stuck out of a window on the north side of the house and hummed loudly, water falling in a steady dribble from its underside. A couple of wine bottles were lying on the lawn. Midnight Rambler. The bottles were capless and empty.

I parked and went up the walk and through one of those frosty pebbled-glass office doors that no one has used since 1956. There was a large gold star on the door with Oscar Curtiss Talent Agency written in an arc above it and what were supposed to be little spotlights lighting up the sky.

Inside, there were three young women sitting on a hard L-shaped couch and a black woman in her sixties sitting at a scarred pecan desk that faced the room. Another frosted-glass door was behind her. This one said Mr. Curtiss. The three young women were spread around on the couches in a way that said they didn't know each other. Two of them were reading Variety. The other one was chewing gum. There were a couple hundred framed black-and-white head shots on the walls, but I didn't recognize any of them. The carpet was beige and worn and the hard couch was a kind of green and the walls were a sort of mustard and nothing went together, as if the office had been built over the years without regard to style or esthetic. The Friedrich made it very cold.

The black woman looked up and smiled nicely. 'May I help you?'

'My name is Elvis Cole. I'd like to see Mr. Curtiss.' I gave her the card that said Elvis Cole, Confidential Investigations. The old cards had a picture of a guy listening at a keyhole. The new cards don't. Without the picture is probably better.

She took the card and nodded pleasantly, still smiling. 'Uh-huh. And do you have an appointment?'

'No, ma'am. I was hoping Mr. Curtiss could squeeze me in.' I leaned forward and lowered my voice. Confidential. 'It involves a former client of his.'

More smiling and nodding. 'Uh-huh. Well, why don't you just wait right there while I go see.' She got up, rapped once on the glass door, then let herself through.

I looked around at the three young women and gave them a smile. The two who had been reading were still reading, the one who had been chewing gum was still chewing gum. One of the readers wore a nice pastel pant suit and had a matching briefcase at her feet. She sat so that one foot was touching the case. The other was in blue jeans and knee boots and a purple sweater. The jeans and the sweater were too small, but she had the body for it. I made them early twenties, twenty-five tops. The gum-chewer had her legs crossed and her arms along the back of the couch and was looking at me with pale, steady eyes. She was wearing baggy culottes and pink Reebok tennis shoes and a blousy top that was tied off beneath her breasts so that her belly was bare. It was too cool outside for the top, but that's show biz. Her hair was pale and washed-out, and so was the spray of freckles across her nose. Younger than the other two. Seventeen, maybe. She blew a large pink bubble the size of a goiter, popped it, then used a lot of tongue to lick it off her lips. Maybe sixteen. Run away and come to the big town to be a star. I said, 'Pretty hot outside, huh?'

She blew another bubble, uncrossed her legs, then spread them.

I said, 'Pretty hot inside, too.'

She spread the legs a little wider, then popped the bubble and licked it off. Maybe I was a producer.

The glass door opened and the black woman came out with a short, thin guy pushing sixty. Oscar Curtiss. He had dark circles around his eyes and too many teeth and he was wearing a coarse-weave light sports coat and huaraches and baggy pants like they do in Italian fashion magazines. It looked silly. He gave me the teeth, stuck out his hand, and said, 'Hey, Cole, goodtaseeya.' Then he looked past me at the two readers and the gum- popper, mostly the gum-popper. 'You ladies excuse us for a few minutes, okay? Sydney, I'll see you next.'

The gum-popper nodded and blew another bubble. Sydney. Her knees were bouncing open-closed, open- closed.

Oscar gave her some of the teeth, too, then motioned me into his office. He didn't bother to look at me while he was doing the motioning.

The office was larger than the waiting room, with a lot of plants and one of those heavy, dark wood secretary desks they made back in the forties. It needed to be oiled. There was a leather couch against the wall and another Friedrich in the window behind his desk and more photographs on the walls, but I didn't recognize any of the people in these, either. Maybe Sydney would be there soon and I could recognize her.

He shut the door and followed me in, holding my card. 'Elvis Cole, huh? I like it. It's got catch. It's got pump and pizzazz. You got a nice look, too. You know who you look like?'

'Buddy Ebsen.'

'Nah. Michael Keaton. A little taller, maybe. A little better built. But sensitive and sharp. A guy you don't mess