Milo smiled faintly. “Anything else?”
“No, that’s it.” Koppel picked up his fork. The eggs had hardened. He speared a big clot and shoved it into his mouth. The two guys with the screenplay got up from their table, looking vexed, and left the coffee shop in silence.
Milo said, “Last time we spoke, you mentioned your ex-wife wanting to use the bottom floor of her building for group therapy.”
“She was supposed to give me a final answer before she . . . before her death.”
“She give you any details about the nature of the therapy?”
“No,” said Koppel. “Why would she?”
“No particular reason,” said Milo. “Still gathering facts.”
“Have you made any progress at all?”
Milo shrugged.
Sonny Koppel said, “Whatever the group therapy thing was, it’s not going to happen. Albin Larsen called me yesterday, said it was okay to rent out the bottom floor. Mary was the glue that held them together. With her gone, it wouldn’t surprise me if Larsen and Gull tried to break their lease.”
“They don’t like the building?”
“I’m not sure they’ll be willing to take on the financial burden. Mary got a sweetheart rent deal from me. There’s no lease, it’s month to month.”
“You’re gonna raise it?”
“Hey,” said Koppel, “business is business.”
“You have a problem with them?”
“I had very little to do with them. Like I said, Mary held things together. Whenever there was some business to discuss—a repair, whatever—Mary was the one who’d call.” Koppel smiled. “I didn’t mind. It was a chance for us to talk. Now . . .”
He threw up his hands.
Milo said, “She was the business person, but it was Larsen who got her interested in halfway houses.”
“He struck me as an idea guy,” said Koppel. “But when it came to the nuts and bolts, it was all Mary.”
“Mary and you.”
“I had nothing to do with the day-to-day operations. I just know something about real estate.”
“Like getting government funding,” said Milo.
Koppel nodded. No blink, no tremble, not a single errant muscle.
“Did your ex-wife ever ask for help getting some sort of government funding for the group therapy she planned downstairs?”
“Why would she? What would I know about therapy?”
“You’re a savvy person.”
“In my limited sphere,” said Koppel. “I already told you, Mary never consulted me on professional matters.” He twirled his fork. “It’s getting to me. Mary’s death. Pretty stupid, huh? We hadn’t been together for years, how often did we talk, once a month, tops. But I find myself thinking about it. For someone you know to go like that.” He caressed his voluminous belly. “This is my second dinner. I do that—add meals—when things pile up.”
As if to illustrate, he ingested two bacon strips.
“Mary was a powerful person,” he said, between mouthfuls. “It’s a big loss.”
*
Milo waltzed around the prison rehab issue, but Koppel wasn’t biting. When Koppel called over to the counterman for a double order of rye toast and jelly and tea with honey, we left him opening marmalade packets and returned to the Seville.
Milo said, “So what’s his game?”
“Sounding you out. And letting you know he knew nothing about Mary Lou’s professional dealings.”
“Nudging us closer to the blonde.”
“Closer to Jerry Quick,” I said. “Deflecting attention from himself.”
“A big man who dances fast. Larsen’s call about not needing the space—think they’re pulling up the tents?”
“Probably.”
“The blonde hanging with Angie. Wonder if it really happened.”
“One way to find out,” I said.
*
Angela Paul’s last known address was a big-box, fifty-unit apartment complex just west of Laurel Canyon Boulevard and north of Victory, in an undistinguished section of North Hollywood. The freeway was a mile south, near Riverside Drive, but you could still hear it, rumbling, insistent.
The air was ten degrees warmer than back in the city. A sign in front of the complex said two months of free satellite TV was included with new leases and that this was a security building. Security meant card-key subterranean parking and a pair of low-gated entrances. All that had no effect on the litter in the gutters or the splotchy blemishes that stained the facade—painted-over graffiti.