about.'
'Great,' I said. 'And Happy Trails to you.'
'Are you going to come along?'
'They know me.'
'So what? They don't know you're a detective, do they?'
'No, but they know my name isn't Algernon Swinburne.'
'Good thing. I was getting tired of that name anyway. I couldn't keep calling you Algy. It sounds like something that grows in a pool.'
'This is dangerous, Eleanor,' I said for perhaps the twelfth time. 'These folks kill people.'
'Why is it okay for you and not for me?' she asked with a sudden burst of energy. 'Is murder something new, some passing fad? Do you think I like it when you swashbuckle around all night, like some Boy Scout fantasy, and come home with holes in your head? This is the first time since you started this stupid job that I've gotten a chance to see what it's all about. So it's dangerous. So is driving like a maniac when it's raining. Simeon, would you please slow down?'
'Then you're in this for keeps,' I said.
'Oh, come on. Stop playing Lochinvar. I don't want to get rescued. There's a story here. It could make a big difference in my life. The New Age is getting old. Are you going to slow down or not?'
I eased my foot from the accelerator. 'One of the Speakers is dead,' I said. 'Let's try to locate the one who isn't. She couldn't be more than seventeen by now.'
'What's her name?'
I didn't know, and it made me feel dumb. 'Get it from Chantra,' I said. 'If she doesn't have it, we'll go downtown to that hotel the Church owns and pick up some literature. And where is Mr. Ellspeth? The current Speaker must have a father, but the Church only books mother-daughter acts.'
'Why is he important?'
'I don't know that he is. But maybe he's on the outside wishing he were in. If so, he could be resentful enough to talk to us.'
'Like Wilburforce,' she said.
'Like Wilburforce. Go into the morgue at the Times, if you can do it without having to explain what you're doing to too many people. Can you?'
'I don't know. I've never looked in the morgue before. I've only worked for them a little while. Morgue,' she said. 'What an awful word. What am I supposed to be looking for?'
'Anything you can find on the Church. Or on the Congregation. Look for stories on the death of a girl named Anna Klein.'
'Why and when?'
'She was the Church's first Speaker. I don't know when, but it had to be within the last seven or eight years. The Church is only twelve years old.'
'The one who died, right? Some kind of accident?'
'Maybe,' I said. The wipers made another slow pass. 'And then again, maybe not.'
'Another one?'
'Could be.'
'Holy smoke,' Eleanor said. 'She was just a little girl. Who'd want to kill a little girl? I know this sounds gruesome, Simeon, but there could be a mini-series here.'
'Sooner or later,' I said, 'there could also be a man with a gun in his hand. As your friend Peppi said, this isn't television.'
'Why do you assume it's a man?'
'Good point,' I said grudgingly. 'The Church is riddled with women.'
'That's a pleasant way to put it. But you're probably right. The bigwigs all seem to be men.'
'It was ever thus.'
A big-rig, a twelve-wheeler at least, howled past us on the left, throwing off sheets of water from its tires. The light in the cab was on, and I watched in fascination as the driver tossed back a couple of pills.
'Anything else?' she said.
'Yeah. Hold off on Merryman and Angel for the moment, if you don't mind. Let's talk to the people who don't know me first, okay? A straight line may be the shortest distance between two points, but it's also the place where you're most likely to walk into an ambush.'
'You're so masculine,' she said. It didn't sound like a compliment.
'Then why do I have to sleep on the couch?'
'Because it would complicate things. We've got days of talking to do before we sleep together again, if we ever do. Anyway, you've always got Roxy.'
'Roxanne,' I said. 'You know her name, so why pretend to get it wrong?'
'Little heavier than you usually like them, isn't she?'
'It doesn't matter,' I said offensively. 'I'm usually on top.'
'That must be novel,' she said.
There was no way to win.
At her place, she waited for a moment for the rain to subside. When it didn't, she opened the passenger door anyway. 'You're not coming in?'
'For what?'
'Okay,' she said. 'See you tomorrow.' There was a moment of silence. Then she leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. 'Don't be a lunk,' she said. 'Anyway, you've got a long drive.' The instant she got out of the car, the rain stopped. It started again as she closed the front door behind her.
To get from Santa Monica to Topanga Canyon without going up the Pacific Coast Highway you have to track east, all the way into the San Fernando Valley, and then head north until you can pick up Topanga, turn left, and go most of the way west again. It's a meandering, basically U-shaped route, all freeways and blue-white light at night, a charmless drive under the best of circumstances. In a downpour, it always reminds me of Shelly Berman's famous definition of flying: hours of boredom relieved by moments of stark terror.
Between the yawns and the occasional red accident flares, I thought about Eleanor. We'd met at UCLA, where I was pursuing one of my long string of semi-useless degrees in lieu of doing anything better. She was the most wastefully beautiful human being I'd ever seen in my life, attractive way beyond the demands of natural selection. Two weeks after she moved in she had me kicking a two-pack-a-day cigarette habit that I'd thought was as permanent as a tattoo. A week later, to my infinite surprise, I was running along next to her on San Vicente Boulevard: wheezy, labored quarter-miles at first, then miles, then l0K's, finally marathons.
In spite of the fact that she couldn't get me to stop drinking beer, the pounds began to fall away. I'd been a shamefaced, sedentary 237 pounds when we met; six months later I weighed 175, and I was stopping to look for my reflection in store windows on Westwood Boulevard. It wasn't vanity; I just couldn't find myself. Until I learned to recognize my new silhouette, I'd had an eerie feeling that I was invisible on the street.
My blood pressure, which had been higher than the federal deficit, plummeted to textbook normal and stayed there. Several cups of nicotine-based goop gradually cleared from my lungs. I no longer woke up each morning to the sound of my respiratory system squeaking.
And then a cocaine-fried subhuman made a natural mistake, considering the state of his consciousness, and threw an inoffensive young woman named Jennie Chu off the top of one of the UCLA dormitories. Jennie Chu had been one of Eleanor's closest friends, a shy math student, gymnast, and part-time classical pianist from Taiwan who had never really mastered American English and who'd had the misfortune to wear eyeglasses that resembled those worn by the woman the coke freak had really intended to kill. The doctors said she had died instantly, but, as Eleanor said at the time, 'What's instantly? It must have taken her a month to hit the ground.'
A few days later I delivered the man who killed Jennie Chu to the LAPD with both his elbows broken, and I had found a career. I had learned that I enjoyed righting wrongs. I had also learned that, under the right circumstances, I enjoyed breaking someone's elbows. I'd been keeping tabs on the latter discovery in the two years since. I'd broken a couple of hands, hands that belonged to a man who'd come up with an interesting new use for pliers, but no elbows.
Topanga Canyon Boulevard stretched uphill in front of me, empty and wet. As empty, I thought, with several
