If Dying Was All (3 page)

“Yes, I like to spend time here. I visit most every day.” McCleary leaned down over a low spool-legged table and picked up a thick, black photo album. “I can give you a few pictures of Jackie. You’ll no doubt need them in your work.”

Easy was crossing over the two hook rugs and looking at a patch of wall that was free of bookshelves. It held a dozen framed photos. Easy tapped one with a forefinger. The photo showed several young people standing side by side, wearing bathing suits, smiling in front of a clear ocean sky. “Is this the San Amaro gang?”

McCleary had been painstakingly easing snapshots out of their black hinges. “What?”

Easy’s blunt finger tapped the glass again. “The San Amaro gang?”

The old man rested the photos on his palm and looked over. “Yes, that’s them, Jackie’s own wild bunch.”

Unhooking the picture from the wall, Easy said, I’ll borrow this. And I want the names of these people and the addresses of the ones you’re still in contact with.”

McCleary hesitated, then said, “Yes, very well.”

“I’m going to have to have,” said Easy, “copies of the two letters you were sent. Plus a letter or two she wrote before she disappeared five years ago.”

“These are the only words I’ve had from Jackie in all that time,” said the old man, touching again the pocket that held the letters.

“Make me a photocopy.”

“I’m not planning to go out.”

“Let me have some made then.”

“I assure you, Easy, that this is my daughter’s handwriting.”

Easy said, “I want to be sure, too.”

The old man nodded finally. “Yes, you’re right. Very well.”

There was a crash from behind a half-closed door, a glass bottle smashing. Then out of the cottage’s bathroom came the big shaggy cat, chasing a fluffy powder puff.

“How’d he get in?” asked Easy.

“I don’t know,” said McCleary. “I always keep all the windows and doors shut tight and locked.”

T
HE MAN IN THE
white cape said, “It’s not the fires we have to worry about, my friends.” He was a scruffy, bearded man, standing on the corner of Hollywood and Cherokee. “No, it’s the earthquakes.”

Easy passed him and crossed the hot, late afternoon street in the wake of two silver-haired prostitutes in lavender bellbottoms and spike heel shoes.

“Wow! We just had another earth tremor right this very minute,” shouted the bearded man in the cape. “The Lord doesn’t plan to give you Angelinos much more time.”

A sick character actor and three sailors went by Easy. A dwarf was standing on the opposite corner and threatening to expose himself to a cluster of broad, sweating motorcycle riders, who were sitting and standing around the curb. The dwarf ran through Easy’s legs and planted a kick on the front tire of a death’s-head-decorated Harley. “Screw your motorcycle,” the dwarf said.

Easy walked on. The sky over this part of Hollywood had cinders and soot dancing in it. A female impersonator came out of a drugstore, stopped to dab just bought talcum under his red wig. “Ninety-two in the shade,” he smiled at Easy.

“Yes, ma’am,” replied Easy, walking on down Cherokee. When he came to the only remaining palm tree on this block, he turned toward an alley. At the head of the alley was a narrow store called The Hollywood Memory Shop. A paper banner in the dusty window asked: Whatever Happened To Everybody? At the alley’s end was a large brownstone warehouse. It had a brand new oak door with a small brass nameplate near the brass doorknob.
Hagopian
was the name on the plate. Easy knocked on the door, taking a paper parcel from under his arm and swinging it by the string.

The door opened inward. “John Easy,” grinned the middle-sized, dark man in the doorway. He had a hawk nose, tightly curling black hair and wide, ring-rimmed eyes. He was thirty-nine years old. “Enter. Working on a case?”

“Hi, Hagopian,” said Easy. “Yeah, I want some background information and you’re easier to get along with than the
LA Times.
”

The warehouse was air-conditioned and filled with long, high rows of green metal filing cabinets. There was a room size clearing in among the cabinets, furnished like a Victorian parlor. Hagopian led Easy down a cool lane and gestured at a rocker. “Sit down. How’s Marina?”

“Over at UCLA registering.”

“Isn’t she working at the Greek restaurant anymore, the Hungry Junta?”

“You’re two dumps behind.” Easy sat on the edge of the rocker and rested the parcel on his big knees. “She’s decided to go back to school.”

Hagopian moved to a low refrigerator. “Beer?”

“Okay.”

“I wish Pam would do something like that.” Hagopian took two green bottles of German beer out. “She’s much too restless.”

“Who’s Pam?”

“Oh, that’s right. I haven’t seen you in a month.” Hagopian’s eyes widened and new wrinkles formed around them. “I cured myself of Kim.”

“Probably for the best.” Easy took the opened bottle the dark Hagopian handed him.

“Then I met Pam,” said Hagopian, stopping to try his beer. “She turns out to be even more restless than Kim was.”

“How restless?”

Hagopian sighed. “She’s sleeping around with firemen.”

“A bunch of them at once?”

“No, she’s not quirky,” said Hagopian. “One at a time, on different nights.” He drank his beer, swished foam around in his mouth, while new circles grew under his dark eyes. “I think now I shouldn’t have loaned Pam my Jaguar.”

“You let her borrow the XKE?”

“You know what a lousy bus system we have in LA. Pam is a nude model and she needed a way to get from one photographer to another.” He sighed once more. “Such a pretty girl, John. Five feet ten with eyes like a fawn and hair the color of roasting chestnuts and the consistency of spun flax. And breasts. Breasts like … what do you call those melons that aren’t cantaloupes?”

“Honeydews?”

“Those are green, aren’t they?”

“Muskmelons? Casabas?”

“Let’s just say she’s got nice tits,” said Hagopian. “It really unsettles me about those firemen.”

“Pam comes back and tells you about them, huh?”

“Sure, same as Kim,” said Hagopian. “It’s something I bring out in women. Even when I interview these nitwit broads for
TV Look
they break down and tell me things like that. Last week some sweet virginal spade chick who plays a lady surgeon in a children’s hospital on television was compelled to confess to me she’s been balling a Swedish muffler shop man on the sly.” He finished his beer and got himself a second. “Now Pam is even loaning my Jaguar to firemen.”

“Oh, so?”

“What’s worse, some of them have taken to driving it to their fires,” said Hagopian. “I don’t know, John, this is a goofy town. Be thankful you’ve got a girl friend who’s only mildly crazy. How can I help you?”

Easy said, “I want to check out a few things in your morgue.”

“Okay, tell me what you need,” said Hagopian. “At first I figured with Pam things would go a little different. Because she’s the first girl who was really interested in my private clipping files. Most broads don’t care. They want to borrow my car so they can drive out and ball some washing machine salesman in Downey. They don’t care to know that their very own Hagopian has the largest private collection of facts and research material in Los Angeles. They don’t appreciate the way of life I’m plugged into. Pam, though, actually liked to riffle through the cabinets. That was lovely to watch, that tall bimbo stretching up and pulling out these drawers and her breasts would dance like … what were those melons again?”

“Casabas.”

“Like casabas they’d dance,” said Hagopian. “Have you ever seen a casaba dance?”

“No, but I don’t watch much television.”

Hagopian grinned. “Okay, I’m going on too long about Pam. She’ll come back today probably. All the firemen are busy.”

Easy unwrapped the packet of pictures he’d gotten from his client, Frederic McCleary, telling something about the case. He concluded, “First, I want to see the clippings about Jackie McCleary’s suicide.”

“You think maybe she’s still alive?”

“No,” replied Easy. “When I was out talking to McCleary this afternoon he showed me the cottage where his daughter used to live. Somebody had pried open a window in the john.”

“Anything swiped?”

“McCleary says no, though he hasn’t gone thoroughly over the whole place.”

Hagopian left the parlor area and headed down an aisle of filing cabinets. “Somebody decoying the old guy out of there, John, isn’t that kind of elaborate?”

“Depends on what they were looking for.” Easy followed Hagopian. “McCleary has hardly left his estate since the girl died. If you wanted to get him away from there for any length of time you’d have to have a pretty good lure.”

“It’s a cruel thing to do.”

“Not as cruel as breaking in while he’s there and maybe having to kill him.”

“A point, yes.” Hagopian halted at a filing cabinet. “July, 1965, wasn’t it? Yes.” He slid out a waist-high metal drawer. “They pulled McCleary out of the way and off the premises for two whole days. Why so long?”

Easy said, “Could be several reasons. If they were after something hidden in the cottage or main house it may be they didn’t exactly know where it was and so they gave themselves plenty of time to search.”

“Did somebody break into the main house, too?”

“I couldn’t find any evidence of it.”

“What does the old guy say? Is there anything worth stealing, something his daughter left with him?”

“McCleary claims there’s nothing, outside of the usual stuff a burglar might want,” said Easy. “Nothing obvious like that is missing.”

“The old guy’s part of Beverly Hills is still moderately sedate,” said Hagopian. “Unlike around here, burglars or trespassers would stand out. Anybody see anything?”

“McCleary’s place is surrounded by a handsome jungle of weeds and LA foliage. Which not only provides good cover for any burglars but annoys his immediate neighbors. I asked the more affable ones or their servants some questions after I left him. All I found out between door slams is that no one recalls seeing or hearing anything odd.”

Hagopian yanked out a manila folder. “Suicides, July, 1965. A lot of them,” he said. “What about the two letters the old guy got?”

“I dropped copies off at a handwriting man’s, along with an authentic letter from Jackie McCleary.”

“Any chance they’re really from her?”

“To me all the writing looks pretty much the same.” Easy shook his head. “I just don’t think Jackie McCleary is still alive.”

“‘Model Takes Life In Sea Riddle,’” read Hagopian off the top newspaper clipping in the wad of them he was handing to Easy.

“That’s it.” Easy took the clippings back to the parlor and sat next to a tiffany lamp. From his coat he took a small steno pad and began making notes. After a few minutes Easy stopped and unstapled the clippings, kneeling down on the flowered rug to spread them out.

Hagopian had been sitting in the rocker, holding his bottle of beer in his lap. “Something?”

Easy reached into the parcel and took hold of the framed photo of the San Amaro gang. He fished out a couple of snapshots, then flipped back a few pages in the notebook. He frowned. “The same question comes up again. Who’s this guy?” He poked at the framed beach shot.

Hagopian came over and looked. “Jackie McCleary was pretty,” he said. “Nice willowy brunette, with that mean look in the eyes. The kind of girl I always get involved with. I even married two like that. Which guy?”

“This boyish one who’s actually thirty or so,” said Easy. “He’s got his arm around Jackie.”

“Didn’t her father give you the names of all her crowd?”

“Except this guy. He didn’t know who he was.”

“Group pictures are like that,” observed Hagopian. “Some guy walks by on the beach, runs over and cops a feel and is gone again. Wait, though.”

Easy narrowed one eye. “What?”

“I know who that is.”

“Who?”

Hagopian stood silent for a moment. “I’ll have to think about it. I’ve seen him recently I think. Is he important?”

Easy shrugged. “This group picture was taken a week or so before Jackie died. The rest of these people I have names on and, with the exception of the two who weren’t involved in the actual boat trip, they’re all mentioned in these newspaper stories. With pictures. Except for him.” He tapped the face of the boyish man again, just above the wide grin. “Maybe it’s nothing.” He grunted once, sat again next to the lamp. He wrote a list of names on a blank sheet, tore it out and flipped it toward Hagopian. “Show business people and peripheral show business people, at least back in 1965. Dig out what you can on each and get me current addresses. McCleary thinks most of them still live in the LA area. I haven’t had time to check phone books and directories yet.”

Hagopian said, “I can do that, too. Whole job might take an hour or so. Want to wait around and then have dinner? I doubt Pam will get back until late, and probably she won’t be in any mood for a quiet tête-à-tête meal. I found a new Mexican place off LaCienega, called La Causa.”

“Nope,” said Easy. “I want to drive out to Manzana and see if I can find out something about the phantom lady who booked the room at the Golden Apple Inn.” He gathered up his collection of photos. “I’ll check back with you tomorrow.” He stood. “Listen, Hagopian, bill me this time.”

“Didn’t I on that last case?” His eyes ringed. “Oh, because Pam was going to help me straighten the books out. Instead she threw the ledgers at me. A feisty girl.”

“See you tomorrow.”

Hagopian walked him through the high rows of filing cabinets. “
TV Look
has got me set up to interview some new gay cowboy in the morning. I’ll call your office when I’m finished and we can meet someplace for lunch,” he said. “Don’t let the parade trample you.”

“What parade?”

“I read they’re having some kind of patriotic parade out in Manzana today.”

“I won’t get there till after dark. Parade should be over by then.” He gave a loose salute and left Hagopian’s warehouse.

T
WO
U
NCLE
S
AMS AND
an Abraham Lincoln were standing by the decorative fountain, passing around a bagged fifth of red wine. Easy drove slowly by them and parked in the gravel-covered guest lot of the Golden Apple Inn. The last of the daylight was falling away from behind the inn’s sprawl of adobe and tile buildings. Easy turned off the engine of his dusty, black Volkswagen, patted his shoulder holster and swung out of the car.