“No, just disappointed.”
“You go anyway. Promise to be careful?”
“I promise.”
“Good,” she said. “That’s important.”
We had dinner at an Indian place near Beverly Hills’ eastern border with L.A washing the meal down with clove tea and driving home feeling good. Robin went to run a bath and I phoned Milo at home and told him about Jean’s call.
“She has something to tell me but wouldn’t elaborate over the phone–sounded nervous. My guess is she found something about Hewitt that scares her. I’m meeting her at one, and I’ll ask her about Gritz.
When were you planning to see Ralph Paprock?”
“Right around then.”
“Care to make it earlier?”
“Dealership won’t be open. I suppose we could catch him just as he comes in.”
“I’ll pick you up.”
Sunday morning I drove to West Hollywood. Milo’s and Rick’s place was a small, perfectly kept Spanish house at the end of one of those short, obscure streets that hide in the grotesque shadow of the Design Center’s blue-green mass.
Cedars-Sinai was within walking distance. Sometimes Rick jogged to work.
Today, he hadn’t: the white Porsche was gone.
Milo was waiting outside. The small front lawn had been replaced by ground cover and the flowers were blooming bright orange.
He saw me looking at it and said, “Drought resistant,” as he got into the car.
“That environmental designer’ I told you about. Guy would upholster the world in cactus if he could.”
I took Laurel Canyon up into the Valley, passing stilt-box houses and postmodern cabins, the decaying Palladian estate where Houdini had done tricks for Jean Harlow. A governor had once lived right around there.
None of the magic had rubbed off.
At Ventura, I turned left and traveled two miles to Valley Vista Cadillac. The showroom was fronted by twenty-foot slabs of plate glass and bordered by a huge outdoor lot. Banners were strung on high-tension wire. The lights were off, but morning sun managed to get in and bounce off the sparkling bodies of brandnew coupes and sedans.
The cars out on the lot were blinding.
A trim black man in a well-cut navy suit stood next to a smoke-gray Seville.
When he saw us get out of my seventy-nine, he went over to the front door and unlocked it, even though business hours hadn’t begun. When Milo and I stepped in, his hand was out and his smile was blooming brighter than Milo’s lawn.
He had a perfectly trimmed pencil mustache and a pin-collar shirt as white as an avalanche. Off to the side of the showroom, beyond the cars, was a warren of cubicles, and I could hear someone talking on the phone. The cars were spotless and perfectly detailed. The whole place smelled of leather and rubber and conspicuous consumption. My car had smelled that way once, even though I’d bought it used. Someone had told me the fragrance came in aerosol cans.
“That’s a classic you’ve got,” said the man, looking through the window.
“Been good to me,” I said.
“Keep it and garage it, that’s what I’d do. One of these days you’ll see it appreciate, like money in the bank. Meanwhile, you can be driving something new for every day. Good lines this year, don’t you think?”
“Very nice.”
“Got those foreign deals beat hands down. Get folks in to actually test drive, they see that. You a lawyer?”
“Psychologist.”
He gave an uncertain smile and I found a business card in my hand.
I John Allbright Sales Executive “Got a real good suspension this year, too,” he said. “With all due respect to your classic, I think you’ll find it a whole other world, drive-wise. Great sound system, too, if you go for the Bose option and–” “We’re looking for Ralph Paprock,” said Milo.
Allbright looked at him. Squinted. Put his hand to his mouth and compressed his smile manually.
“Ralph,” he said. “Sure. Ralph’s over there.”
Pointing to the cubicles, he walked away fast, ending up in a glass corner, where he lit up a cigarette and stared out at the lot.
The first two compartments were empty. Ralph Paprock sat behind a desk in the third. He was in his late forties, narrow and tan, with sparse gray-blond hair on top and a bit more of it on the sides, combed over his ears. His double-breasted suit was the same cut as Allbright’s, olive green, just a bit too bright. His shirt was cream with a long-point collar, his tie crowded with parrots and palm trees.