“How’d you get them to give this to you?”
“I didn’t,” Malloy replied as he pulled out of the lot. “I got lucky. While I was waiting in the office for the manager to show up and talk to me, I scrolled through the memory on the fax machine. Looks like they haven’t erased it in ages. They probably don’t even know how. Anyway, the fax from your office was still in there so I just reprinted it.”
“What did you tell the manager when you saw him?” I asked. “When the cops find out that Zandora is dead, won’t you be in trouble for asking about her?”
Malloy shook his head.
“Nah,” he said, turning onto the freeway. “I just asked if Zandora was there. I said I wanted to talk to your models about you, that I was investigating your disappearance. The manager said Zandora wasn’t in till the night shift and told me to come back later. I thanked him and left. Anybody see you?”
“I don’t think so,” I said.
“Hope you’re right,” Malloy replied. “I got a bad feeling this is gonna get pretty ugly.”
“Do you trust Didi?” Malloy asked me, pulling off the freeway and into the quiet streets of Burbank.
I had been asleep for most of the ride back from Vegas. Well, maybe asleep wasn’t the right word. Dazed, out of it, shell-shocked and incapable of processing everything that had happened in the last twenty-four hours. I hadn’t noticed the sun going down and felt disoriented to wake and find it fully dark outside. Malloy had gotten another cheap suit jacket out of the gym bag back in Vegas and at some point during the ride he must have taken it off and used it to cover me. It was warm and smelled like him, cigarettes and supermarket aftershave. I pulled it tighter around myself, bunching it up under my chin.
“Of course I trust Didi,” I said. “I’d trust her with my life.”
He nodded and took the turn into the car rental place across from the Burbank Airport. I huddled inside his big jacket as I waited outside the office. When he pulled around front in his own SUV, he got out, walked around to the passenger side and opened the door for me.
“Thanks,” I said.
He punched some buttons on his cell phone, slipping on a hands-free rig as he pulled out of the rental place.
“Didi?” he said into the mike. “Malloy.” He paused. “Yeah I know.” He looked at me and then back at the road. “It’s terrible. Listen, Didi, I’d like to talk to you about the case. Tonight. Get a pen.”
He gave Didi his address just as we turned the corner onto his block.
“Twenty minutes,” he said and ended the call.
Malloy’s place was one of those little rundown fifties-era bungalow complexes in a so-so neighborhood, just off Hollywood Way. He drove past twice to make sure there was no surveillance before he pulled into the alley behind the complex and let me out, leaving the engine running.
“Go on,” Malloy said, unlocking the door to his apartment and ushering me inside with one hand on the small of my back. “I’m gonna go park the car.”
Inside his place it was immaculate and generic, like an IKEA showroom or a midrange hotel. No personal photos. No funny magnets on the fridge. No clutter of mail or books or DVDs. There was a sturdy gray couch and a black leather chair. A modest television in the corner and a blond wood coffee table with nothing on it. The kitchen was to the left through a doorless arch. It was narrow and yellow and very clean. At the far end, beneath the window, was a small aluminum table with a clean glass ashtray and a single chair. There were two closed doors, probably leading to the bedroom and bathroom.
It felt strange standing there alone in someone else’s apartment. It made me miss my own little house.
Malloy returned a few minutes later.
“Make yourself at home,” he said, setting his gun and shoulder rig on the coffee table. “But stay away from the windows.”
“Okay,” I said, but I didn’t sit down. I just pulled Malloy’s jacket tighter around myself.
There was a moment of awkward silence. I wondered suddenly who the last woman he’d brought to this apartment might have been.
“You want something?” Malloy asked, walking into the narrow kitchen and pulling open the fridge. “Water or a Diet Coke or something? I don’t have any hard stuff.”
“A Coke would be fine,” I told him, thinking the caffeine might do me some good. Sharpen up the dull edges. “I don’t drink the hard stuff anyway.”
He looked back at me with a can of Diet Coke in one hand and a bottle of water in the other.
“You quit?” he asked.
“Never really started,” I replied.
Malloy came back into the main room, handing me the can and twisting open the bottle of water for himself. He downed nearly half in one slug and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, then touched the split in his lower lip with his thumb.
“I quit,” he said.
Before I could think of anything to say about that, there was a rapid knock on the door. It was Didi. Malloy peered out through the blinds and gestured for me to step back through the archway and into the kitchen before he opened the door.
“Lalo,” Didi said, throwing her arms around his neck and squeezing him tight. “God, can you believe this?” She let him go and then wrapped her arms around herself. “It’s a fucking nightmare.”
“Come on in,” Malloy told her, pulling her into the apartment and closing the door, engaging multiple locks.
Didi was wearing a shiny black mini-dress that was about ten years out of style and clung tight to her chubby curves. She had on sparkly silver high-heeled sandals and was clutching a little matching purse that she had packed to bursting. Her mouth was slicked a bright, candy apple red and her mascara was smudged beneath her eyes. She had obviously been on a date when Malloy had called. She and I were very much alike in that respect. When we were upset, we went out and got laid.
“Did you notice that you were followed?” Malloy asked, looking out through the blinds again. “A dark gray Caprice. Not very subtle.”
“Those fucking cops,” Didi said. “They’re following me now?”
“Looks that way,” Malloy said. “They’re probably hoping Angel will try and contact you.”
“Listen,” Didi said. “About Angel—”
I couldn’t stand to stay in the kitchen any longer.
“Didi,” I said, stepping into the main room. “It’s okay. I’m okay.”
“Angel?” she said, rushing over to me. She looked me up and down, and her painted eyes went wide. “You call this okay? Holy shit, Angel, who did this to you?”
I couldn’t speak, I just pulled the ugly hat off my head and twisted it in my hands. Didi threw her arms around me, stroking my hair. Every time her fingers would find some lump or scab she would curse under her breath, swearing she was going to kill whoever did this. Her perfume made me feel like sneezing and I felt uncomfortable being hugged, as if the fact that I had just watched two people die was all over my skin like the stink of that trash bag dress. And of course it hurt, too. But I didn’t want her to let go.
“Lalo,” Didi said. “You want to tell me what the hell is going on?”
Malloy gave Didi the Cliffs Notes version while Didi hung on to me like someone was going to try and take me away. When he was done, she sat down on the sofa and pulled me down next to her.
“Give me a cigarette,” Didi said to Malloy.
Malloy took the pack out of his pocket and shook out the last two cigarettes. He parked one in his own mouth and handed the other to Didi.
“I thought you quit,” I said as she accepted a light from Malloy.
“Fuck that,” she said, sucking smoke like it was oxygen. She ran her fingers through her hair and exhaled slowly. “What are we going to do?”
