a face on you? Threats? I’ve got in the back room a zlob who’ll tear your heart out for a sawski.”
“This is big,” I whispered to Dolmitz, leaning over the counter.
“Touch me and you are carry-out chop suey,” he said, backing away against the wall behind the counter.
“I’m feeling crazy, Academy,” I said. “I’ll even take on a big political influence like you.”
“Try the Gaucho Arms on Delospre,” he said, “you crazy bastard you.”
I put the gun away and smiled.
“Thanks,” I said. “The best song, 1936?”
“The hell with you,” Dolmitz said, resuming his seat but still sulking. But I could see it was too much for him to resist. “You mean original song written for the movie?”
“What else is there?”
“Nothing,” he agreed. “In 1936 we’re talking “The Way You Look Tonight” from
“I don’t give a shit, Dolmitz,” I said, sweetly turning to the door. “And if you’ve given me more crap about Bass, I’ll come back and beat you to death with an Oscar.”
“Ha,” he shouted, “shows what you know. Robert Webb was best assistant director in ’37 before they ended the category. Shows what you know.”
Dolmitz hadn’t lied about Bass’s address. According to the man with the flannel shirt and suspenders who served as manager of the Gaucho Arms, Bass did have an apartment there.
“We ain’t what you’d call amigos,” said the manager, a tub-gutted type in his sixties with a pipe clenched in his teeth. “Less I see of him, the better.”
“You wouldn’t know if he has a dog in his apartment or had had one there recently?” I said, showing a five- dollar bill.
“You’re overpaying, son,” he said, taking the five and putting it in the shirt pocket next to his suspender strap. “I’d know. Walls are thin here and I keep an eye out. No dog in his place. Not much of anything. Truth to tell, I’d send him packing if I had an excuse and the nerve. ‘Fraid I’m just a dandelion.”
He chuckled, the pipe still clenched in his yellow teeth. “Got that from the cowardly lion in the Wizard of Oz,” he explained. “Bert Lahr fella is a laugh.”
“Bass have visitors?” I said.
“Okay, you paid for a lot of answers,” he said, still chuckling. We were standing on the narrow lawn in front of the Gaucho Arms and he was holding a hose in his hand. He had been about to turn it on when I had come up to him. “Not a social type,” the manager said.
“Mind if I look around his room?” I said, showing another five-dollar bill.
The manager rubbed his right palm against his faded pants, looked at the five, sucked in some air between his stained teeth, and said, “No, couldn’t do it. Cash would be nice. Got a granddaughter visiting and I’d like to take her down to Pebble Beach for the glass-bottom-boat trip. Heard lots about it, but much as I got bad feelings about Mr. Bass, I don’t violate his home.”
“Take the five anyway,” I said, holding it out. “I’m on an expense account.”
“That don’t give you the right to throw someone else’s money away or me the right to take it,” he said. “I’m not trying to offend you none, son, but that’s the way it is.”
I pocketed the added five and shook the manager’s hand.
“I’ll find another way,” I said. “Thanks for the information.”
He went back to watering the Gaucho Arms lawn and I found a place on Santa Monica Boulevard for a couple of grilled cheese sandwiches and an order of fries. It made my back feel better and I was starting to prepare myself for the showdown with Bass or whoever was going to show up at Olson’s clinic with Fala.
Carmen was just coming on at Levy’s when I called. She had the message from Sol.
“You said wrestling,” she said blandly.
“We can wrestle after the fight,” I answered. “Henry Armstrong, we can see Henry Armstrong, right there in the ring.”
“The Mad Russian of Minsk is wrestling,” she countered.
“The Mad Russian of Minsk is an ex-pug named Madigan,” I explained. “He takes off the beard and he’s Irish Joe Flannagan. He puts on a wig and he’s The Wild Kentucky Hillbilly.”
“All right,” she said, not fully convinced. “Sol says Armstrong’s fighting two guys.”
“Two guys. One at a time,” I said. “I’ll pick you up at seven,”
“Regular food this time,” she said before I could hang up.
“All food is regular,” I reasoned.
“Manny’s tacos is not date food,” she said.
“Regular food,” I agreed.
I hung up and drove back to the Farraday.
I was halfway up to the first floor when Jeremy appeared from two floors above and called to me. His voice echoed, and I looked up to see him.
“Toby,” he said evenly. “She is gone.”
“Gone? Who?” I answered, but I knew it wasn’t Alice.
“Jane,” he answered. “Alice left her to go out for groceries at the apartment and when she came back, Jane was gone.”
“Bass,” I said.
“We must find him,” Jeremy said softly, but the Farraday echo picked it up and sent his determined words echoing out of dark corners.
“Not so easy,” I called back. “I just tried, but I think I know where he’ll be tonight.”
“And where will that be?” a voice said behind me.
I almost slipped on the marble steps as I turned to face Cawelti.
“What?” I asked.
“Jane Poslik,” he spat. “You’ve had her someplace and now you’ve lost her. You think you’ve got troubles, dirty pants. Let’s tag on obstructing justice, suspicion of kidnapping.”
“John,” I said, almost putting a hand on his shoulder. “Save that for the next Laurel and Hardy short you’re in or for old ladies who heist shopping bags from Ralph’s.”
“Toby,” Jeremy called down, seeing the exchange, but not hearing it. “Do you need some help?”
Cawelti looked up at Jeremy and something like worry touched his mouth. He had survived one run-in with Jeremy a few months earlier, and didn’t want another, but I had to give him credit, he covered his fear and looked back at me.
“Let’s talk down at the station,” he said.
“I’ll meet you there,” I said, taking another step up.
“You’ll come down and get in your car and drive and I’ll be right up your ass all the way,” he said.
“Well,” I said, turning with a big fake smile, “if you put it like that, you old smoothie, how can a guy resist.”
On the eastern end of Hancock Park, which we drove past on the way to the Wilshire Station, are the La Brea tar pits, ugly black bogs where oil and tar bubble up from underground pools. When it rains, a thin layer of water covers the gunk, setting up a trap for the dolts who climb the stone wall out of curiosity. At least the dinosaurs who got oozed in were looking for something to drink, not a cheap thrill. Usually, the screaming tourist is saved by a nearby cop, but once in a while a hotshot meets the same fate as the saber-toothed tigers and ground sloths. When I was a kid I was told that the bones of flesh-eaters were sometimes found nearly touching those of the smaller victims they had leaped into the pits to eat, only to find themselves as trapped as their prey. Los Angeles hadn’t changed much in a few million years.
Cawelti gave me an impatient horn blast when I drove slowly past the station entrance. He wanted me to park on the curb, but I had picked up enough parking tickets in front of the station to know his game. If he wanted me that badly, he’d have to jump into the pit. I parked around the corner, and he pulled in behind me. I slowly locked my car, turned to look at him, stretched, and held out my right hand to indicate that he should lead the way. He decided to let me go a step ahead.
“Fireman,” I said, holding the front door open for him to step in and for an overweight cop in uniform to step
