Milo leaned forward, moving his mouth around his cigar. What he said made some of the people bolt. Others stayed to listen, and a few talked back.
He distributed more food. I joined in, feeling hands brush against mine.
Finally our boxes were empty and we stood, alone.
Milo swung the penlight around the lot, exposing cloth heaps, lean-tos, people eating.
The hooded black man, sitting with his back up against the freeway wall, plaid legs splayed. One naked arm stretched out over a skinny thigh, bound at the biceps by a coil of something elastic.
A beautiful smile on his face, a needle buried deep in his flesh.
Milo snapped his head away and lowered the beam.
“C’mon,” he said, loud enough for me to hear.
He headed west rather than back toward Beverly Hills, saying, “Well, that was a big goddamn zero.”
“None of them had anything to say?”
“The consensus, for what it’s worth, is that Lyle Gritz hasn’t been seen for a week or two and that it’s no big deal, he drifts in and out.
He did, indeed, mouth off a bit about getting rich before he split, but they’ve all heard that before.”
“The next Elvis.”
He nodded. “Music fantasies, not fish murder. I pressed for details and one of them claimed to have seen him get into someone’s car a week or so ago–across the street, over at the cement yard. But that same person seemed rather addled and had absolutely no clue as to make, model, color, or any other distinguishing details. And I’m not sure he didn’t just say it because I was pushing. I’ll see if Gritz’s name shows up on any recent arrest files. You can ask Jeffers if he was ever a patient at the center. If he was, maybe you can get her to point you in any direction he may have gone. But even if we do find him, I’m not convinced it means a damn thing. Now you up for a little rest-stop? I’m still smelling that hellhole.”
He drove to a cocktail lounge on Wilshire, in the drab part of Santa Monica.
Neon highball glass above a quilted door. I’d never been there, but the way he pulled into the parking lot told me he knew it well.
Inside, the place wasn’t much brighter than the overpass. We washed our hands in the men’s room and took stools at the bar. The decor was red vinyl and nicotine. The resident rummies seemed to be elderly and listless. A few looked dead asleep. The jukebox helped things along with low-volume Vic Damone.
Milo scooped up a handful of bar nuts and fed his face. Ordered a double Chivas and didn’t comment when I asked for a Coke “Where’s the phone?” I said.
He pointed to a corner.
I called Robin. “How’s it going?”
“Not bad,” she said. “The other man in my life and I are cuddled up watching a sitcom.”
“Funny?”
“I don’t think so, and he’s not laughing–just drooling. Any progress?”
“Not really, but we did give away lots of food.”
“Well,” she said, “good deeds don’t hurt. Coming home?”
“Milo wanted to stop for a drink. Depending on his mood, I may need to drive him home. Go ahead and eat without us.”
“Okay…. I’ll leave a light in the window and a bone in your dish.”
Though Milo seemed coherent by the time we reached Benedict Canyon, I suggested he sack out in one of the bedrooms, and he agreed without protest.
When I awoke Saturday morning at seven, he was gone and the bed he’d slept in was in perfect order.
At nine, my pond maintenance people called to confirm they’d be moving the fish at two p.m. Robin and I had breakfast, then I drove to the biomed library.
I looked up Wilbert Harrison in the psychiatric section of the Directory of Medical Specialists. His most recent listing was ten years old–an address on Signal Street in Ojai, no phone number. I copied it down and read his bio.
Medical education at Columbia University and the Menninger Clinic, a fellowship in social anthropology at UC Santa Barbara and a clinical appointment at the de Bosch Institute and Corrective School.