stuffed with spinach, tomatoes, ground beef, chilies, onions and marinated eggplant. He dug into it with relish while I contented myself with a steak sandwich and a Coors. In between bites he talked about the Handler murder.
'It's a puzzler, Alex. You've got all the signs of a psychotic thrill killer - both of them trussed up in the bedroom, like animals ready for the slaughter. And stuck about five dozen times. The girl looked like she ran into Jack the Ripper with her - '
'Spare me.' I pointed to my food.
'Sorry. I forget when I'm talking to a civilian. You get used to it after wading in it for a few years. You can't stop living, so you learn to eat and drink and fart through all of it.' He wiped his face with his napkin and took a long, deep swallow of his beer. 'Anyway, despite the craziness, there's no sign of forced entry. The front door was open. Normally that would be very puzzling. Except in this case with the victim being a psychiatrist, it might make sense, his knowing the bad guy and letting him in.' 'You think it was one of his patients?'
'It's a good possibility. Psychiatrists have been known to deal with crazies.'
'I'd be surprised if it turned out that way, Milo. Ten to one Handler had a typical West Side practice - depressed middle - aged women, disillusioned executives, and a few adolescent identity crises thrown in for good measure.'
'Do I detect a note of cynicism?'
I shrugged.
'That's just the way it is in most cases. High priced friendship - not that it's not valuable, mind you. But there's very little real mental illness in what most of us - psychiatrists, psychologists - see in practice. The real crazies, the really disturbed ones, are hospitalized.'
'Handler worked at a hospital before he went out on his own. Encino Oaks.'
'Maybe you'll dig up something there,' I said doubtfully. I was tired of being the wet blanket so I didn't tell him that Encino Oaks Hospital was a repository for the suicidal progeny of the rich. Very little sexual psychopathy, there.
He pushed his empty plate away and motioned for the waitress.
'Bettijean, a nice slab of that green apple pie, please.'
'A la mode, Milo?'
He patted his gut and pondered.
'What the hell, why not. Vanilla.'
'And you, sir?'
'Just coffee, please.'
When she had gone he continued, thinking out loud more than talking to me.
'Anyway, it appears as if Dr. Handler let someone in to his place sometime between midnight and one and got ripped up for his efforts.'
'And the Gutierrez woman?'
'Your quintessential innocent bystander. Being in the wrong place at the wrong time.'
'She was Handler's girlfriend?'
He nodded.
'For about six months. From the little we've learned she started out as a patient and ended up going from couch to bed.'
A not uncommon story.
'The irony of it was that she was hacked up worse than he was. Handler got his throat slit and probably died relatively quickly. There were a few other holes in him but nothing lethal. It looks as if the killer took his time with her. Makes sense if it's a sexual crazy.'
I could feel my digestive process come to a halt. I changed the subject.
'Who's your new love?'
The pie came. Milo smiled at the waitress and attacked the pastry. I noticed that the filling was indeed green, a bright, almost luminescent green. Someone in the kitchen was fooling around with food dyes. I shuddered to think what they could do with something really challenging, like a pizza. It would probably end up looking like a mad artist's palette.
'A doctor. A nice Jewish doctor.' He looked heavenward. 'Every mother's dream.'
'What happened to Larry?'
'He's gone off to find his fortunes in San Francisco.'
Larry was a black stage manager with whom Milo had conducted an on - again, off - again relationship for two years. Their last half - year had been grimly platonic. 'He's hooked up with some show sponsored by an anonymous corporation. Something racy for educational television, along the lines of 'Our Agricultural Heritage: Your Friend the Plough.' Hot stuff.'
'Bitchy, bitchy.'
'No, really, I do wish the boy well. Behind that neurotic exterior was genuine talent.'
'How did you meet your doctor?'
'He works the Emergency Room at Cedars. A surgeon, no less. I was following up an assault that turned into manslaughter, he was commandeering the catheters, and our eyes locked. The rest is history.'
I laughed so hard the coffee almost went up my nose.
'He's been out of the closet for about two years. Marriage in medical school, messy divorce, excommunication by family. The whole bit. Fantastic guy, you'll have to meet him.'
'I'd like to.'
'Give me a few days to slog through Morton Handler's life history and we'll double.'
'It's a deal.'
It was five to four. I let the Los Angeles Police Department pay for my lunch. In the best tradition of policemen the world over, Milo left an enormous tip. He patted Bettijean's fanny on the way out and her laughter followed us out on to the street.
Santa Monica Boulevard was beginning to choke up with traffic and the air had started to foul. I closed the Seville's windows and turned on the air conditioning. I slipped a tape of Joe Pass and Stephane Grappelli into the deck. The sound of 'Only a Paper Moon,' delivered hot forties style, filled the car. The music made me feel good. Milo took a cat nap, snoring deeply. I eased the Seville into the traffic and headed back to Brentwood.
4
Towle's office was on a side street off San Vicente, not far from the Brentwood Country Mart - one of the few neighborhoods where movie stars could shop without being harassed. It was in a building designed during the early fifties, when tan brick, low - slung roofs and wall inserts of glass cubes were in vogue. Plantings of asparagus fern and climbing bougainvillaea did something to relieve the starkness, but it still looked pretty severe.
Towle was the building's sole occupant and his name was stenciled in gold leaf on the glass front door. The parking lot was a haven for wood - sided station wagons. We pulled in next to a blue Lincoln with a speak up for children bumper sticker that I figured belonged to the good doctor himself.
Inside, the decor was something else. It was as if some interior decorator had tried to make up for the harshness of the building by cramming the waiting room full of mush. The furniture was colonial maple with nubby seat cushions. The walls were covered with needlepoint homilies and cutesy - poo prints of little boys fishing and little girls preening themselves in front of mirrors, wearing mommy's hat and shoes. The room was full of children and harried - looking mothers. Magazines, books and toys cluttered the floor. There was an odor of dirty diapers in the air. If this was Towle's lull I didn't want to be there during his busy period.
When we walked in, two childless males, we drew stares from the women. We had agreed beforehand that Towle would relate better doctor to doctor, so Milo found a seat sandwiched in between two five year - olds and I walked to the reception window. The girl on the other side was a sweet young thing with Farrah Fawcett hair and a face almost as pretty as that of her role model. She was dressed in white and her name tag proclaimed her to be Sandi.
'Hi. I'm Dr. Delaware. I've got an appointment with Dr. Towle.'
