“I’ll give you twenty bucks.”
“Wait right there.”
He disappeared for what felt like an interminable length of time. I pulled the twenty from my wallet, folded it lengthwise, bent it, and balanced it on the lip of the slot, thinking he might be morally dainty, shying away from a direct hand-to-hand bribe. While I waited, I kept my back to the wall, my attention fixed on the entrance. I entertained a brief fantasy of Richard Hevener crashing his sports car through the plate glass window, squashing me up against the wall like a dead person. In movies, people were always diving out of the path of runaway trains as they plowed into stations, flinging themselves sideways as jumbo jets smashed into airline terminals, or buses went berserk and jumped the curb. How, in real life, did one prepare for such a leap? “Lady?”
I looked back. The guy had reappeared and the twenty I’d left in the slot was gone. He had the rental form with him, but he held it behind his back, apparently uneasy about letting go of it. I waited until his face was on a plane with mine and tried asking him some easy questions, just to get him in the mood. This is called private-eye foreplay. “How’s this done? Someone comes in and pays the fee for the coming year?”
“Something like that. It can also be done by mail. We put a notice in the box when the annual fee comes up.”
“They pay in cash?”
“Or personal check. Either way.”
“So you might never actually see the person renting the box?”
“Most of them we don’t see. We don’t care who they are as long as they pay the money when it’s due. I notice some renters have fancy stationery done up, acting like this is their corporate office with individual suites. It’s a laugh, but it’s really all the same to us.”
“I’ll bet. Can you push the form through the slot so I can see it better? This is a legitimate investigation. I’m really serious about that.”
“Nope. I don’t want you touching it. You can look for thirty seconds, but that’s the best I can do.”
“Great.” What kind of world is this-you bribe a guy with twenty bucks and he still has scruples?
He held the card up on his side, angled so I could see it. He was checking his watch, counting off the seconds. Big deal. Little did this fellow know that as a kid my prime talent was the game played at birthday parties wherein the mother of the birthday girl put a number of articles on a tray, which she then covered with a towel. All the little partygoers clustered around. Mrs. Mom would lift the towel for thirty seconds, during which we were allowed to look, committing all the items to memory. I always won this game, primarily because it was always the same old stuff. A bobby pin, a spoon, a Q-tip, a cotton ball. I would use my thirty seconds to make note of any new or unexpected object. The only sad part of this contest was the prize itself, usually a plastic jar full of bubble syrup with the blower inside.
The rental form was a no-brainer and I assimilated the information in the first two seconds. The signature on the bottom line appeared to be Dow’s, but he hadn’t written in the data on the lines above. The printing was Leila’s, complete with the angled t’s and puffy i’s. Well, well, well.
I said, “One more tiny thing. Would you spit on your finger and run it across the signature?”
“Why?”
This guy was worse than a four-year-old. “Because I’m wondering if it was done with a pen or a copier.”
Frowning, he licked his index finger and rubbed the signature. No ink smear. He said, “Hnh.”
“What’s your name?”
“Ed.”
“Well, Ed. I appreciate your help. Thanks so much.”
I returned to my car and sat for a minute, considering the implications. Working backward, I had to conclude that Leila’d intercepted the rental renewal notice when it arrived with its request for the annual fee. Crystal had told me the Mid-City Bank statements were routed to the P.O. box. Very likely Leila had notified the bank, perhaps typing the request on a sheet of Pacific Meadows letterhead, forging Purcell’s signature or affixing a photocopy, and asking that the statements for that account be mailed to 505. I let my gaze stray across the store front, thinking how easily she could have stopped by the Mail More when she was up from school.
I started my car, backed out of the parking place, and headed for the exit. When I reached the street, I realized the Laguna Plaza branch of the Mid-City Bank was located on the opposite corner. Even from this distance, I could see the ATM she’d used to drain the account. All she really needed was the bank card and pin number for the account, which Dow probably left in his desk at home.
True to my word, when I got back to the office, I put a call through to Jonah.
“Lieutenant Robb.”
“This is Kinsey. If you don’t scrutinize my methods, I’ll tell you what I found out. I swear I didn’t mess with anything. I left it all in place.”
“I’ll bite.”
I explained my trip to the Mail More, leaning heavily on Leila’s behavior while glossing over mine.
Jonah didn’t say much, but I could tell he was taking notes. “You better give me the location of the P.O. box.”
“The Mail More at Laguna Plaza. The number’s 505.”
“I’ll check it out,” he said. “Devious.”
I said, “Very,” on the assumption he was talking about her.
“Any idea where she is now?”
“I heard she was up at Lloyd’s, but maybe I should check it out. Leila’s got a friend named Paulie, some gal she met in Juvie . . . this was a year ago July, I think. Paulie’s been in trouble before. It crossed my mind the two of them might be planning to take off. It might be interesting to track Paulie’s history and see what she’s done.”
He told me he’d check into it, and I hung up. I was already feeling guilty. The last thing Crystal needed was to have her only daughter brought up on charges of grand theft.
I went out to my car again and made the trip up to Lloyd’s. I had questions to ask him, anyway, and this would give me an excuse. If Leila decided to take off, there wasn’t much I could do, but it wouldn’t hurt to keep an eye on her.
Approaching his A-frame, I could see that lights were on. I pulled up to the driveway, parked the car, and got out. Lloyd was working in the small unattached garage. He’d raised the hood on his convertible and his hands were dark with grease. He looked over at me without reaction, as though my arrival at his doorstep was an everyday occurrence. I had no idea what he was doing to the guts of the engine-something manly no doubt. He wore cutoffs and a well-worn sweatshirt. Flip-flops on his feet. I could see a smudge on one lens of his glasses. He no longer wore the earring with the skull and crossbones.
“You’re Millhone,” he remarked as much to himself as to me.
“And you’re Lloyd Muscoe.”
“Glad we got that straight.”
“I was in the neighborhood and thought I’d drop in. I hope you don’t mind. Is Leila here?”
He smiled slightly to himself. “Depends on what you want.”
I studied the exposed engine, which looked like it was made entirely of parts that would explode. I’d learned to pump my own gas. It was my big automotive triumph. “What’s wrong with the car?”
“Nothing that I know of except that it’s old and tired. I’m changing the oil, putting in new spark plugs, stuff like that.”
“A tune-up.”
“Of sorts. I’m taking off in a couple days.” He reached in and removed a little knotty thing and wiped it clean with a rag before he put it back. He adjusted something down among the major organs.
“Where to?”
“Vegas. I thought I’d ask Crystal if I could take Leila with me. What d’you think?” He wasn’t actually consulting me, just making conversation while he went about his business.
“I can’t believe she’d say yes.”
“Never know with her. She’s tired of Leila’s problems.”
“That doesn’t mean she’d kick her out,” I said. I waited for a beat and when he said nothing, I went on. “You think it’d be good for Leila, moving her again?”
“At least over in Vegas she behaved herself. She hates that school she’s in. Bunch of spoiled, rich debutantes. What a fuckin’ waste.”
“She seems to hate everything.”
He shook his head. “She needs handling, that’s all. Someone like me who won’t let her get away with all the shit she pulls.”