“I don't know,” he said.
“What kind of an agent?”
“A kids' agent, what do you think?”
“How’d she find the agent?”
“Got the name from some kid, I guess. Jesus, I don't know.”
“The name, Wayne.”
“I told you. I don't remember.” He brightened. “Some kind of vegetable.”
“A vegetable?” I said, slicing through the air with the knife.
“A vegetable,” Warner said. “Even if you cut me, I don't remember nothing more.”
“That's good enough,” Simeon,” Jessica said.
“It's good enough when I say it's good enough. This little bedbug has a way to go yet.” I got up from the chair. “This is going to hurt me more than it does you,” I said, “although that's probably not true.”
He squirmed back and finally fell full-length on the bed, his hands still trapped obediently behind him.
“Holy Jesus,” he gasped. “I told you, I told you, I don't remember. God, don't you think I'd tell you? I
“Everything,” I said.
“She was going to have her picture taken,” he said with a burst of inspiration. “She told me she was going to have her picture taken.”
“Did she tell you the photographer's name?”
“Yes. I mean, no. I mean, yes, but I'm no fucking good with names. Holy Jesus, I told you this much, why wouldn't I tell you the name?”
It was a good point. “I sure hope you keep this knife sharp, Wayne,” I said. “Where was the photographer?”
“Somewhere on Melrose. She said Melrose. Near here, probably.”
“And the agent?”
“I don't remember. Please, can I go home now?” He was wringing wet.
“The agent's name, Wayne.”
“I told you. Holy Jesus, I told you. Some kind of vegetable.”
I looked at Jessica, who was watching openmouthed, and closed the knife.
“Some kind of vegetable,” I said.
12
An hour later Jessica had talked to Annie and Wyatt, and I'd been hung up on by my parents and Roxanne. My mother had sworn at me with Irish creativity, and Roxanne had made me listen to a page being torn out of her phone book.
“You know my number by heart,” I'd said unwisely.
“I didn't before,” she said, “and now I won't again.” That was when she'd hung up.
Jessica was sitting on the bed, regarding me as though I were someone new. The business with the knife had impressed her, and not in a way I'd hoped to impress her.
“Mad, huh?” she said.
“Madder than Qaddafi.”
“Who?”
“Jessica, don't you know anything?”
She sat back, stung. “He's that greaser in the Gulf,” she said. “I just needed to think for a second.”
“Well, think for a minute more. When I get back, we'll have a quiz on the politics of the Mediterranean.” I got up and went out the door.
“Hey,” she said plaintively as the door closed, “don't leave me alone.” It was a little late in the day for plaintive.
The old dame in the Lucite fortress stared up at me disbelievingly. It had only taken eight rings on the bell to get her to turn away from a late-night rerun of
“Another room?” she repeated as though I were crazy.
“Another,” I said very slowly. “Room.”
“You mean, two?” she said.
I sighed and held up two fingers. Verbal communication was getting me nowhere.
“Full up,” she said, as pleased as her place in life made it possible for her to be. “Where's my twenty?” She grinned, showing me a raddled picket fence of decaying calcium with much potential for expensive dental work.
“Waiting for a room key.”
“You already got a room key.”
“Yes, I do,” I said wearily, “and I need another.”
“Can't have one,” she snapped. “No vacancy.”
“In this rathole?”
“My twenty,” she said, looking over her shoulder at the TV. “I could rent your room too,” she added. “Rent it five times by sunup. Rats or no rats.” She gave me the ruined teeth again, like a preview of a mine collapse in West Virginia.
“But you'd have to stop watching Vanna,” I said, tearing my gaze from the dental disaster area and up to her fierce little eyes.
“She's over in a few minutes. The twenty. I don't get it, I call the cops. They'd love the Little Woman.” She infected both words with a kind of swampy, virulent meaning.
“What about a roll-away?” I said.
“The twenty.”
I gave it to her. There was nothing else to do.
“Don't got no roll-aways,” she said maliciously. “The kids we get here, they sleep with the adults.” She went back to
“It's To be or not to be,’ ” I said, to spoil the game. The only things missing were the vowels.
“Awww,” she said, exhaling decay. “I was just about to get it.”
I went back to the room. The prospect of a one-hour drive to Topanga loomed unpromisingly before me. I needed an early start in the morning, and I wanted Jessica with me for at least the first half of the day.
The Little Woman was flat on her stomach on the bed, writing a postcard with the pen I'd used to terrorize Wayne Warner.
“Who's that to?” I said.
“Blister,” she replied, none too clearly. Her tongue was wedged in the corner of her mouth.
“Well, forget it,” I said. “Or finish it in the car. Anyway, I doubt that he can read.”
She sat up. “The car? Where are we going?”
“Home.”
“Oh, Simeon,” she said, giving it an extra half-octave. “You promised we could sleep in town.”
“That was a lie,” I said. “We detectives lie a lot.”
“But why?” She was working up to a daughterly wail. “Why can't we?”
“Because we can't get another room.”
She wriggled fitfully around on the bed, grabbing fistfuls of fabric. Then she pulled herself up to a full sitting position and threw the bedspread at me. “No problem,” she said. “Look, there's even another pillow.” She threw that at me too. A corner of the pillow slip caught me in the eye.
“Peachy,” I said, wiping away a tear.
