People shouting or maybe they’re laughing . . . and lights like fireflies.
Another glance at his watch. “Well,” he said, “good to meet you. If there’s anything I can do—”
He turned to leave.
“How long will you be in L.A.?”
“I was supposed to fly back tonight. Do you think—is there a chance Lucy would want to meet me?”
“Hard to say, right now. She’s pretty out of it.”
“Yeah, I understand,” he said sadly. “I wonder where Puck is, why he didn’t show. Here.”
Pulling out a crocodile billfold, he removed a business card and gave it to me.
“I’ve got meetings all day, but I probably can stick around till tomorrow morning. If she does want to meet me, or if you hear from Puck, I’m staying at the Westwood Marquis.”
“Do you have Puck’s number handy?”
“Right here.” An identical card came out of the wallet. On the back was a Valley exchange, written in blue ballpoint.
“Let me get some paper and copy it down,” I said.
“Take it,” he said. “I know it by heart.”
CHAPTER
10
He left and I returned to Lucy’s room. She was still sleeping, and I gave my name to the ward clerk along with a message for Dr. Embrey. Then I phoned West L.A. Detectives and got Milo at his desk.
“What’s up, Alex?”
“Lucy tried to kill herself last night. She’s out of danger, physically, but still pretty knocked out. I’m at Woodbridge Hospital, out in the Valley. They’ll be keeping her here.”
“Fuck. What’d she do, cut her wrists?”
“Stuck her head in the oven.”
“You find her?”
“No, her half brother did. Lucky for her he stopped by looking for the other brother and saw her through the window, on her knees in the kitchen. Talk about Providence.”
“Her drapes were open and she’s got her head in the oven? What was it, a cry for help?”
“Who knows? She never dropped any hints to me. Still, I’m trying hard not to feel like an idiot.”
“Jesus, Alex, what the hell happened?”
“It’s complicated. More than you could ever imagine.”
“And you can’t tell me.”
“No, in fact, I need to. But not over the phone. When can we get together?”
“Coming back into the city?”
“Yup.”
“Gino’s in forty-five.”
Gino’s Trattoria is on Pico, not far from the West L.A. station: checkered tablecloths, hanging Chianti bottles, rough wines.
Even during the day, the place is murky, lit by table candles in amber globes that are never washed. The one at Milo’s rear corner table illuminated him from the bottom, accentuating every crater and lump, giving him the look of a gargoyle with chronic back pain.
He was wearing a dark suit, white shirt, and dark tie. Even at that distance I could tell his hair was freshly cut—military clip at the sides, long and shaggy on top, to-the-lobe sideburns that were hip, now, and against department regulations.
Two beers sat in front of him. He pushed one over to me. In the dirty glare his green eyes were gray-brown.
“How come all of a sudden you can talk to me?”
“Because Lucy asked me to. She said someone was trying to kill her, and she wants you to protect her. I’m sure it’s some sort of gas-induced delusion—or massive denial because she just can’t face the fact that she tried to kill herself. But I’m taking it as a formal instruction.”
“How does she figure someone tried to kill her with gas? Dragged her to the stove and jammed her head in?”
“She’s nowhere near coherent enough to discuss details.”
“Remember those four calls she put in? Seems she’s been getting some hang-ups.”
“She told me. Said you didn’t think it was serious.”
“I didn’t because she didn’t. She told me it might be some technical problem with her phone; the line goes out all the time. Kind of casual about the whole thing, made me wonder if she just wanted to talk.”
“I’m sure she did. That’s part of what I have to tell you. She’s got a major crush on you. Admitted it to me during yesterday’s session.”
He was silent and still.