“She blinked hard when you showed it to her,” I said, “but it is a death shot.”
“The blonde,” he said. “Jimmy Choo and Armani perfume. Maybe ol’ Jerry provided well for Junior.”
He checked his phone for messages, grunted, hung up.
“Drs. Larsen and Gull returned my call. They’d prefer to meet me away from the office, suggested Roxbury Park, tomorrow, 1 P.M. The picnic area on the west side, they go there for lunch from time to time. You up for some grass and trees and chewing the fat with a couple of colleagues? Should I bring a picnic basket?”
“Grass and trees sounds okay but forget the niceties.”
CHAPTER
21
“Alex, I’m glad I caught you.”
It’d been months since I’d heard Robin’s voice, and it threw me. No rapid heartbeat; I was pleased about that.
I said. “Hi, how’ve you been?”
“Well. You?”
“Great.”
So civil.
“Alex, I’m calling for a favor, but if you can’t do it, please just say so.”
“What is it?”
“Tim was just asked to fly to Aspen to work with Udo Pisano—the tenor. There’s a concert tomorrow, and the guy’s voice is freezing up. They want Tim there yesterday, are flying him on a chartered jet. I’ve never been to Aspen and would like to go along. We’re talking one, maybe two nights. Would you be able to babysit Spike? You know how he is with kenneling.”
“Sure,” I said, “if Spike can handle being here.”
A few years back, on a sweltering summer day, a little French bulldog had made his way across the murderous traffic of Sunset Boulevard and up into the Glen. He wandered onto my property, gasping, stumbling, dangerously dehydrated. I watered and fed him, searched for his owner. She turned out to be an old woman dying in a Holmby Hills manor. Her sole heir, a daughter, was allergic to dogs.
He’d been saddled with an unwieldy pedigree moniker; I renamed him Spike and learned about kibble. He reacted to his new surroundings with élan, promptly fell in love with Robin, and began viewing me as competition.
When Robin and I broke up, custody wasn’t an issue. She got him, his leash, his food bowls, the short hairs he shed all over the furniture, his snoring, snuffling, arrogant table manners. I was awarded an echoing house.
I considered finding a dog of my own, had never gotten around to it. I didn’t see Spike much because I didn’t see Robin much. He’d taken ownership of the small house in Venice that she shared with Tim Plachette, and his regard for Tim seemed no higher than for me.
Robin said, “Thanks so much, I’m sure he’ll be fine. Down deep he loves you.”
“Must be extremely deep. When do you want to bring him over?”
“The plane leaves from Santa Monica as soon as we’re ready, so I was thinking soon.”
“Come on over.”
*
This is not your typical dog.
His flat face implies as much frog DNA as canine heritage, his ears are oversized, upright, batlike, and they flex and pivot and fold in response to a wide range of emotions. He doesn’t take up much more space than a Pomeranian but manages to pack twenty-six pounds into that cubic area, most of it lead-bone and rippling muscle, clothed in a black brindle coat. His neck is twenty-one and three-quarter inches around, and his knobby head is three handbreadths wide. His huge brown eyes shine with confidence and he allows himself the barest, patronizing interest in the lives of others. His worldview is simple: Life is a cabaret, and it’s all about him.
When I used to take him out alone, women flocked. “Oh, that’s the most beautiful ugly dog I’ve ever seen!” was the operative phrase.
This afternoon, he had as much interest in leaving Robin’s side as in snarfing a bowl of lint.
I held out a chew stick. He shot Robin a mournful gaze. She sighed and stooped. “It’ll be fine, handsome.”
The Saran-wrapped nugget of hamburger I’d concealed in my shirt pocket perked his radar and brought him over, but once he gobbled it, he raced back and hid behind Robin’s legs. Great legs.