“I can’t use that,” he said. “Ill of the dead, and all.”
“Sorry.”
“Hard news, then. I gather you actually saw the body.”
“I don’t want to talk about that.”
“Terrible, huh?”
“Worse than terrible. The work of a subhuman.”
There was another pause. “Writing,” he said, after a moment. “Subhuman, you said?”
“Ed,” I said, “why don’t you buy a tape recorder?”
“Do you know what they pay me? I’m lucky to have a phone. Hey, listen, I’m hearing the killer may have left something at the scene.”
A little breeze sprang into life behind me and blew directly onto the back of my neck. “You’re hearing that, are you?”
“This could be a real scoop,” he said. “You know what a scoop is?”
“I’ve heard the term,” I said, getting to my feet.
“So did he?” he asked, and I knew where I’d heard his voice before.
I looked around the room, a deeply familiar room with Eleanor imprinted on it, and wondered whether I should go down the hill, get into the car, and drive somewhere very far away. “What’s this phone number?” I asked.
A beat. “My apartment. Where else would I be at this hour?”
“Right,” I said. Then I drew a long breath and let it out silently. “This is off the record, Ed,” I said. “The answer is yes.”
“Off the record,” Ed Pfester said.
“You’ve heard the term,” I said.
“Well, sure,” he said. “I may be green, but-aw, you’re kidding me.”
“I’m kidding you,” I confirmed.
“So, off the record. Who has it? Whatever he left, I mean. So I can talk to him, I mean.”
I was walking now, dragging the long cord behind me. “I can’t tell you that.”
A brief silence. Then: “Can’t tell me? Or don’t know?”
“The former.”
“You’re not helping me much.” He didn’t sound so happy.
I looked at the moon through the door to the deck. Two hundred forty thousand miles sounded about right. “It’s not actually my purpose in life to help you, Ed.”
“You’re not going to tell me who-”
“I think I’ve made that clear.”
He cleared his throat. “Do you suck dick?” he asked.
“With your mouth,” I said.
“Faggot,” Ed Pfester spat. “Stay out of dark rooms.” He hung up.
“Who the fuck is this?” Hammond asked groggily on the other end of the line.
“Simeon. I need some help, Al.”
“You know, pal, people sometimes sleep on their honeymoons.”
“This is serious. I need access to the reverse directory.”
“It’ll leave tracks,” he said. “They log all the requests these days.”
“I can’t help that.” I told him what had happened.
“Call the Sheriffs,” he said. He sounded wide awake. “Give it to them.”
“I wouldn’t give Ike Spurrier a catheter, big end first.”
“Orlando told me about that. They’re not all like Spurrier.”
“Yeah, but Spurrier is.”
He blew heavily into the phone. “Give me the number,” he said. “I’ll call you back.”
I gave him Ed Pfester’s number and got up and poured the rest of my beer into the sink. Then I went back to the Official Airlines Guide and checked out flights to Stapleton from Decatur, Provo, Kearney, Colorado Springs, Boise, and Albuquerque. Flights that might conceivably have connected to flight 237 landing at Burbank left daily from Kearney, Boise, and Decatur.
Down to three.
The prefix of the phone number Ed Pfester had given me was in West Hollywood, like everything else. He was at least forty-five minutes away, unless he’d used call forwarding, in which case he could be right down the hill.
I found the extra shells for the nine-millimeter at the bottom of my shirt drawer, wrapped in an ancient Disneyland T-shirt. I was throwing them into a nylon bag, along with some wrinkled clothes, when the phone rang.
“Thirteen twenty-eight Hayworth,” Hammond said. “West Hollywood. It’s an apartment house. Number seven.”
“Thanks, Al.”
“Don’t do anything stupid,” he said.
“Al,” I said, “I already have.”
16 ~ Apartment Seven
“I want to borrow Henry,” I said, feeling exposed, unsafe, too big to miss. This was my week for pay phones. Late traffic hummed and whistled, burped and hissed along Sunset behind me.
“Have I missed a stage in our relationship?” Hanks demanded. “Did I sleep through something? I don’t think we’re on the kind of terms that would allow you to ring me up at three-thirty in the morning and request the loan of my literary adviser.”
“Ferris,” I said, “who else could I call at this hour?”
“That’s a sad little question,” he said. “There are lots of people I could call.”
I closed my eyes and rested my forehead against the cold chromium of the phone. “I’ll need him for an hour.”
“Henry will have something to say about this. He has free will, you know.”
“Tell him he might get to shoot someone.”
“He’ll like that,” Hanks said. “Who?”
“The guy who killed Max.”
Hanks sucked in his breath. “Is this going to put a crimp in our fete?”
“Quite possibly.”
“Well,” he said, sounding disappointed, “I suppose it’s in a good cause.”
“Ten minutes,” I said. “I’ll honk.”
“Not in this neighborhood. He’ll be out at the gate.”
“Tell him this is probably going to be dangerous,” I said.
“Of course it is. You must tell me all about it when it’s over.” He put his hand over the phone and said something. “Assuming you kill him, or catch him or something, we could still have the party, couldn’t we? Make it a celebration.”
“Sober up, Ferris,” I said. “You sound almost enthusiastic.”
“I’ve warmed to the idea,” he said. “I was thinking in terms of a fountain of holy water. From Lourdes.”
“If you’ve got any on hand,” I said, “give some to Henry for me.”
Henry had dressed for the occasion in black leather, looking like a cross between a killer cyborg and someone who dances behind Madonna. He got into the car without speaking and pulled out a small blue vial with a cork in it. “Di-reck from the Virgin,” he said, pouring a thimbleful of water on me.
“I was joking,” I said, pulling at the front of my wet shirt.
“Never joke about holy water with Ferris. He take this shit serious. How you think he stay so younglike?”
