Now we both laughed. He was sweating again and my head hurt.
“So,” he said. “Onward? You do your job, I do mine—”
“And I’ll get to Scotland afore ye.”
“It ain’t Scotland I care about,” he said. “It’s Mulhol-land Drive—gonna be interesting hearing what Mr. Doss has to say. Maybe I’ll interview him myself. When are you seeing the daughter—what’s her name?”
“Stacy. Tomorrow.”
He wrote it down. “How many other kids in the family?”
“A brother two years older. Eric. He’s up at Stanford.”
“Tomorrow,” he said. “College stuff.”
“You got it.”
“I may be talking to her, too, Alex.”
“She didn’t carve up Mate.”
“Long as you’ve got a good rapport with her, why don’t you ask her if her daddy had it done.”
“Oh sure.”
He shifted into drive.
I said, “I wouldn’t mind getting a look at Mate’s apartment.”
“Why?”
“To see how the genius lived. Where is it?”
“Hollywood, where else? Ain’t no bidness like shooow bidness. C’mon, I’ll shooow you—fasten your seat belt.”
CHAPTER 9
MATE’S BUILDING WAS on North Vista, between Sunset and Hollywood, the upper level of a seventy-year-old duplex. The landlady lived below, a tiny ancient named Mrs. Ednalynn Krohnfeld, who walked stiffly and wore twin hearing aids. A sixty-inch Mitsubishi TV ruled her front room, and after she let us in she returned to her chair, folded a crocheted brown throw over her knees and fastened her attention upon a talk show. The skin tones on the screen were off, flesh dyed the carotene orange of a nuclear sunburn. Trash talk show, a pair of poorly kept women cursing at each other, setting off a storm of bleeps. The host, a feloniously coiffed blonde with lizard eyes behind oversize eyeglasses, pretended to represent the voice of reason.
Milo said, “We’re here to take another look at Dr. Mate’s apartment, Mrs. Krohnfeld.”
No answer. The image of a hollow-eyed man flashed in the right-hand corner of the screen. Gap-toothed fellow leering smugly. A written legend said, Duane. Denesha’s husband but Jeanine’s lover.
“Mrs. Krohnfeld?”
The old woman quarter-turned but kept watching.
“Have you thought of anything since last week that you want to tell me, Mrs. Krohnfeld?”
The landlady squinted. The room was curtained to gloom and barricaded with old but cheap mahogany pieces.
Milo repeated the question.
“Tell you about what?” she said.
“Anything about Dr. Mate?”
Head shake. “He’s dead.”
“Has anyone been by recently, Mrs. Krohnfeld?”
“What?”
Another repeat.
“By for what?”
“Asking about Dr. Mate? Snooping around the apartment?”
No reply. She continued to squint. Her hands tightened and gathered the comforter.
Duane swaggering onstage. Taking a seat between the harridans. Giving a so-what shrug and spreading his legs wide, wide, wide.
Mrs. Krohnfeld muttered something.
Milo kneeled down next to her recliner. “What’s that, ma’am?”
“Just a bum.” Fixed on the screen.
“That guy up there?” said Milo.
“No, no, no. Here. Out there. Climbing up the stairs.” She jabbed an impatient finger at the front window, slapped both hands to her cheeks and plucked. “A bum—lotsa hair—dirty, you know, street trash.”
“Climbing the stairs to Dr. Mate’s apartment? When?”
“No, no—just tried to get up there, I shooed him away.” Glued to the orange melodrama.
“When was this?”
“Few days ago—maybe Thursday.”
“What did he want?” said Milo.
“How would I know? You think I let him in?” One of
the feuding women had jumped to her feet, pointing and cursing at her rival. Duane was positioned between them, relishing every strutting-rooster moment of it.
Bleep bleep bleep. Mrs. Krohnfeld read lips and her own mouth slackened. “Such talk!”
Milo said, “The bum, what else can you tell me about him?”
No answer. He asked the same question, louder. Mrs. Krohnfeld jerked toward us. “Yeah, a bum. He went…” Jabbing over her shoulder. “Tried to go up. I saw him, yelled out the window to get the hell outa there, and he skedaddled.”
“On foot?”
Grunt. “That type don’t drive no Mercedes. What a louse.” This time, directing the epithet at Duane. “Stupid idjits, wasting their time on a louse like that.”
“Thursday.”
“Yup—or Friday . . . look at that.” The women had raced toward each other and collided, alloying into a clawing, hair-pulling cyclone. “Idjits.”