Private Eyes

“Mrs. Robbins says she hasn’t seen Kathy for over a month. When’s the last time you saw her?”

“Funny,” he said.

“What is?”

“That her sister would hire someone to look for her. They didn’t get along- at least from Kathy’s POV.”

“Why’s that?”

“Culture clash, no doubt. Kathy said the sister was Pasadena Whitebread. The kind who’d say urination and defecation.”

“As opposed to Kathy.”

“Exactly.”

I asked him again when he’d last seen her.

He said, “Same time Whitebread did- about a month.”

“When’s the last time she paid her rent?”

“The rent is a hundred a month, which is stand-up comedy, right? Couldn’t get into the whole landlord thing.”

“When’s the last time Kathy paid the hundred?”

“At the beginning.”

“Beginning of what?”

“Our association. She was so happy to get something that cheap- and it includes utilities because everything’s metered together and it’s too much of a hassle to have it changed- she came up with ten months’ worth right at the beginning. So she’s paid up through December.”

“Ten months. She’s been living here since February?”

“Guess so- yeah. It was right after New Year’s. I used the garage apartments for a party- artists and writers and terrific fakers. When I was cleaning up I decided to rent one of them and use the other for storage, so I wouldn’t be tempted to throw another party next year and hear all that bad dialogue.”

“Was Kathy invited to the party?”

“Why would she have been?”

“Being a writer.”

“No, I didn’t meet her till after the party.”

“How’d you meet her?”

“Ad in the Reader. She was the first to show up and I liked her. Straight on, no bullshit, a real no-nonsense Sapphite.”

“Sapphite?”

“As in Lesbos.”

“She’s gay?”

“Sure.” Big smile. “Tsk, tsk- looks like Sister Whitebread didn’t brief you thoroughly.”

“Guess not.”

He said, “Like I said, culture clash. Don’t be shocked, Marlowe- this is West Hollywood. Everyone here is either queer or old or both. Or me. I’m into chastity until something monogamous and heterosexual and meaningful comes along.” Tugging the ponytail: “Don’t let this fool you- I’m really right-wing. Two years ago I owned twenty-six button-down shirts and four pairs of penny loafers. This”- another tug-“was to make the neighbors more comfortable. I’m already dragging down the property values, not letting them bulldoze and put up another Spa-Jacuzzi-Full-Security.”

“Does Kathy have a lover?”

“Not that I saw, and my guess would be no.”

“Why’s that?”

“Her persona projects as profoundly unloved. As if she’s just come off something hurtful and isn’t ready to juggle with razor blades again. It wasn’t anything she said- we don’t talk too much, don’t run into each other much. I like to sleep as much as I can and she’s gone most of the time.”

“Gone this long?”

He thought. “This is the longest, but she’s usually on the road- I mean, it’s not weird for her to be away for a week at a time. So you can tell her sister she’s probably okay- probably doing something Miss Pasadena doesn’t really want to hear about.”

“How do you know she’s gay?”

“Ah, the evidence. Well, for starts, the stuff she reads. Lesbo mags. She buys them regularly- I find them out in the trash. And the mail she gets.”

“What kind of mail?”

His smile was a wide, white pin-stripe on wooly stubble. “Not that I go out of my way to read it, Marlowe- that would be illegal, right? But sometimes the mail for the back unit gets put in my box because the carriers don’t realize there’s a unit back there- or maybe they’re just too lazy to go back there. A lot of it’s from gay groups. How’s that for deductive reasoning?”

“After a month you must have quite a bit of it collected,” I said.

He stood, went into the kitchen, and returned a moment later carrying a sheaf of envelopes bound with a rubber band. Rolling the band off, he examined each piece of mail, then held on to it for several moments before passing the entire collection to me.

I fanned it and counted. Eleven pieces.

“Not much for a month,” I said.

“Like I said, unloved.”

I inspected the mail. Eight pieces were computer-addressed postcards and advertisements made out to Occupant. The remaining three were envelopes addressed to Kathy Moriarty by name. One appeared to be a solicitation for funds from an AIDS support group. So did another, from a clinic in San Francisco.

The third envelope was white, business-sized, postmarked three weeks previously in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Typewritten address: Ms. Kathleen R. Moriarty. Return address preprinted in the upper left-hand corner: THE GAY AND LESBIAN ALLIANCE AGAINST DISCRIMINATION, MASSACHUSETTS AVENUE, CAMBRIDGE.

I pulled out a pen, realized I hadn’t brought paper, and copied the information onto the back of a gasoline receipt that I found in my wallet.

Skidmore was studying me, amused.

I turned the envelope over several times, more for his benefit than anything else, finally gave it back to him.

He said, “So what did you learn?”

“Not much. What else can you tell me about her?”

“Brown hair, butch-do. Green eyes, kind of a potato face. Her fashion statement tends to be oriented toward baggy and sensible.”

“Does she have a job?”

“Not that I’m aware of, but she could have.”

“She never mentioned a job?”

“Uh-uh.” He yawned and rubbed one knee, then the other.

“Other than being a writer,” I said.

“That’s not a job, Marlowe. It’s a calling.”

“Have you ever seen anything she wrote?”

“Sure. We didn’t talk at all the first couple of months she was here, but once we discovered we had the muse in common, we did do a little show-and-tell.”

“What’d she show?”

“Her scrapbook.”

“Remember what was in it?”

He crossed his legs and scratched a hairy calf. “What do you call this? Getting a profile on the subject?”

“Exactly,” I said. “What kinds of things did she have in her scrapbook?”

“All give, no take, huh?” he said, but without resentment.