handles, saying they wanted to talk to me, trying to force their way in. I barely got it locked in time.'
'What did they look like?'
'Scuzzy. Outlaw bikers. I know the type because there are lots of them around Barstow, and during the few times in his life that Pat worked, he pumped gas at a station where they used to hang out.'
'Recognise these two?'
'No.'
'What did they look like?'
'The one on the passenger side was fat and bearded. The one close to me was a hairy animal. Unshaven, big moustache. Big hands - at least they looked big pressed against the glass. Weird, dead eyes.'
'Eye colour? Tattoos? Distinguishing marks?'
'No idea. It was dark, and all I could think about was getting out of there. They were pounding the glass, rocking the car, snarling. I tried to back out, but they'd parked their chopper up against my rear bumper. It was a big bike and I was afraid I'd get jammed up and be trapped. So I screamed and leaned on the horn, and Mrs. Cromarty -the landlady - came out. The hairy one had a hammer; he was about to smash the window in. But Mrs. Cromarty kept shouting, 'What's going on?' and coming closer. That scared them off. The minute they were gone I got out of there. Drove around for hours before I was sure I hadn't been followed, finally picked up Sean, and came here to Guy's.'
'Who was absolutely shocked by the whole thing.'
'As a matter of fact, yes. When he told you he'd been fooled, he was being truthful. It was only after I told him about the money that he started to suspect something. We're not saints, Sergeant, but we're not the people you're after.'
'And who might those be?'
'The family, of course. They're the ones who hired that Surtees cow to give him the poison.'
'How do you know she did it?'
'She had daily access to him.'
'So did others. Including you and Guy.'
'We didn't do it. We had no reason to.'
'Poverty's a hell of a motivator.'
'If we'd been paid off, why would we stick around?'
Milo didn't answer.
'Sergeant,' said Andrea Vann, 'there was no logical reason for Marthe Surtees to be there. She was weird, poorly-trained. Guy accepted the family's story about wanting one-on-one care, because people in that situation are highly stressed and he was being compassionate but-'
The detective wheeled on Mainwaring:
'How much did they pay you to let her in?'
'Two thousand.'
'Cash?'
'Yes.'
'The uncle give it you directly?'
'Through the lawyer, Souza.'
'These people are filthy rich,' said Vann. 'Their type runs the world by manipulating people. Can't you see that they manipulated us?'
Milo scowled.
'So now you're victims, right?'
She tried to lock eyes with him but gave up and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. Milo let her light up and began pacing the room. From outside came the sweet, liquid tones of a steel-drum symphony - raindrops dancing coyly on hollow stucco walls. When he talked again, it was to Mainwaring.
'Way I see it, Guy, you're in the crapper, ready to be flushed. If you've lied about not participating, I guarantee I'll find out and bust you for attempted murder and accessory to murder. But even if you're telling me the truth, you're up to your neck in malpractice and whatever else they charge doctors with who allow their patients to be poisoned. Hope you know how to whittle or work a cash register or something, 'cause practising medicine sure as hell isn't in your future. Not to mention fatherhood.'
'Bastard!' hissed Vann.
'Same goes for you. said Milo. 'No more RN; bye-bye. Mustang. And if old Pat ever had designs on getting custody of little Sean, he'll have his chance real soon.'
She choked back a cry of rage.
'Damn you, keep her out of this!' shouted Mainwaring.
Milo smiled.
'Now how the hell can I do that, Guy, when she put herself right in it?'
Mainwaring looked at Vann, and what little composure he had gave way. His mouth began to tremble, and the tears that had pooled in his eyes overflowed and trickled down his unshaved cheeks. She ran to him and held him, and he began to sob. It was a pathetic scene that made me want to disappear. I looked at my friend to see if it had affected him and thought I noticed something - a flicker of empathy arcing across the ravaged terrain of his face. But it didn't last - if it had ever existed.
He observed them with clinical detachment, sternly watched them share their misery, before saying:
'On the other hand, maybe there is something I can do.'
They broke apart and gazed at him in supplication.
'I'm not talking salvation, you understand. Just a little damage control. Cooperation traded for sealed records. And I'm not guaranteeing I can pull it off, gotta clear it with the brass. Plus, even if we do strike a deal, I doubt you could stay in California. Understand?'
Dumb nods.
'But if you help me get what I want, I'll do my damnedest to keep things quiet enough for you to start up somewhere else. You want to talk it over, that's okay.'
'We don't,' said Andrea Vann. 'Just tell us what you want.'
Milo smiled paternally.
'Now that,' he said, 'is what I call a positive attitude.'
IT WAS a small, sad room filled with bored, sweating men, and by nightfall the air had soured.
Whitehead dozed in a grubby blue armchair, shoeless, mouth agape, a disc of chewed gum wadded on the wall behind his head. Cash sat on a plastic-topped end table, next to a lamp, its shade half shredded, its base a headless golden female torso, extravagantly bosomed and freckled with white where the paint had chipped off the plaster. He smoked a cigarette down to the butt and added it to the pile in the gold scallop ashtray.
Milo hunched on the edge of the bed, at the foot end, drinking a Diet Coke and reading his notes. I sat cross- legged at the head, my back to the gold-flocked wall, trying, without much success, to get into the latest issue of Consulting and Clinical Psych.
At first glance the bed seemed the natural place to settle: a California king-sized water mattress covered with a luridly turquoise velveteen spread, so expansive that it virtually filled the room But the other detectives had taken care to keep their distance throughout the hours of waiting
The video equipment was set up on a sticky wood-grain vanity table. Before it sat a technical sergeant named Ginzburg, bald, moustached, with a bull neck and shoulders to match. Having checked and double-checked every switch and knob, he contented himself with cold coffee and a book of mathematical puzzles. The trash can overflowed with empty styrofoam cups, taco sauce containers, crumpled napkins, and wax paper greased to translucence. A half-eaten burrito stiffened next to the video monitor.
Displayed on the screen was the room next door: the Scheherezade Suite of the Studio Love Palace. The suite was no more than a room, set up identically to the one we were in, with the exception that the bed was covered in scarlet satin - upon which lay a grey man. But that kind of hyperbole seemed appropriate in a palace that was no more than a peeling motor court, a sordid little retreat just off Ventura, in the east end of Studio City, a forgotten finger of the Valley that reaches into the cookie jar called Hollywood. The sign on the roof advertised ADULT MOVIES and EROTIC MASSAGE, the former exemplified by a peep-show channel on the TV, the latter by a vibrator gizmo attached to the bed. Both were coin-operated; both had been tried by Cash and found lacking ('Call
