Silent Partner (20 page)

He finished his beer, got up to get a third.

"How's your liver?" I asked.

"Peachy. Mom." He made a point of guzzling. "Okay, so where were we? Magna, Medi-Cal files on the sister. All right, I guess it might be worth a try in terms of finding her, though I don't know what the hell finding her's going to tell us. How disabled was she?"

"Very."

"Could she talk?"

"No."

"Terrific." He wiped foam from his lips. "If I want to interview vegetables, I'll go to a salad bar.

What I am going to do is drive up Jalmia and talk to the neighbors. Maybe one of them phoned in the call, knows something about her."

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"About her and Trapp?"

"That would be nice."

He went into the living room, turned on the TV, put his feet up, and watched the evening news.

Within moments he was asleep. And I was remembering a black-and-white snapshot and thinking, despite what he'd said, about Shirlee Ransom. I went into the library and called Olivia Brickerman.

"Hello, darling," she said, "I just got in and started tending to Prince Albert."

"If I'm catching you in the middle of something—"

"What? Prunes and oat bran is something? Just hold on one second and I'll be with you."

When she came back on the line, she said, "There, he's taken rare of for the evening."

"How's Al doing?"

"Still the life of the party."

Her husband, a grandmaster and former chess editor for the Times, was a white-haired, white-bearded man who looked like an Old Testament prophet and had been known to go for days at a time without talking.

"I keep him around for torrid sex," she said. "So, how arc you, handsome?"

"Just fine, Olivia. How about yourself? Still enjoying the private sector?"

"Actually, right now I'm feeling pretty abandoned by the private sector. You remember how I got into this hotshot group don't you? My sister's boy, Steve, the psychiatrist, wanted to rescue me from civil service hell and set me up as benefits coordinator? It was fine for a while, nothing too stimulating, but the pay was good, no winos vomiting all over my desk, and I could walk to the beach during lunch. Then, all of a sudden, Stevie takes a position at some drug-abuse hospital out in Utah. He got hooked on skiing; now it's a religion with him. 'Gotta go with the snow, Aunt Livvy.' That's an M.D. talking. Yale. The guy who replaced him is a real yutz, very cold, thinks social workers are a notch below secretaries. We're already having friction. So if you hear I've retired permanently, don't be surprised. Enough about me. How've you been?"

"Fine."

"How's Robin?"

"Terrific." I said. "Keeping busy."

"I'm waiting for an invitation, Alex."

"One of these days."

"One of these days, eh? Just make sure you tie the knot

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while I'm still functioning and can enjoy it. Want to hear a terrible joke? What's the good thing about Alzheimer's disease?"

"What?"

"You get to meet new people every day. Isn't that terrible? The yutz told it to me. You think there was an underlying message?"

"Probably."

"That's what I think. The S.O.B."

"Olivia, I need a favor."

"And here I thought you were after my body."

I thought of Olivia's body, which resembled Alfred Hitchcock's, and couldn't help but smile.

"That too," I said.

"Big talk! What do you need, handsome?"

"Do you still have access to the Medi-Cal files?"

"You kidding? We've got Medi-Cal, Medicare, Short-Doyle, Workman's Comp, CCS, AFDC, FDI, ATD— every file you can imagine, alphabet soup. These guys are serious billers, Alex.

They know how to squeeze all the juice out of a claim. The yutz went back to school after his residency, and got an M.B.A."

"I'm trying to locate a former patient. She was disabled, needed chronic care, and was hospitalized at a small rehab place in Glendale—on South Brand. The place is no longer there and I can't remember the name. Ring any bells?"

"Brand Boulevard? No. Lots of places don't exist anymore. Everything's going corporate—these smart boys just sold out to some conglomerate from Minneapolis. If she's totally disabled, that would be ATD. If it's partial and she worked, she could be on FDI."

"ATD," I said. "Could she be on Medi-Cal too?"

"Sure. What's the name of this person?"

"Shirlee Ransom, with two e's. Thirty-four years old, with a birthday in May. May 15, 1953."

"Diagnosis?"

"She had multiple problems. The main diagnoses were probably neurological."

"Probably? I thought she was your patient."

I hesitated. "It's complicated, Olivia."

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"I see. You're not getting yourself in trouble again, are you?"

"Nothing like that, Olivia. It's just that there are some confidentiality issues here. I'm sorry I can't get into it and if it's too much of a hassle—"

"Stop being such a Goody Two-shoes. It's not like you're asking me to commit a crime." Pause.

"Right?"

"Right."

"Okay, in terms of getting hold of the data, our on-line access is limited to patients treated in California. If your Ms. Ransom is still being treated somewhere in the state, I should be able to get you the information immediately. If she moved out of state I'd have to tap into the master file in Minnesota, and that would take time, maybe even a week. Either way, if she's getting government money, I'll get you an address."

"That simple?"

"Sure, everything's on computer. We're all on someone's list. Some yutz with a giant mainframe has a record of what you and I ate for breakfast this morning, darling."

"Privacy, the last luxury," I said.

"You'd better believe it," she said. "Package it; market it; make a billion."

Friday MORNINC I booked a Saturday flight to San Luis on Sky West. At 9:00 A.M. Larry Daschoff called and told me he'd located a copy of the porn loop.

"I was wrong, Kruse made it—must have been some kind of personal kick. If you still want to see it, I've got an hour and a half between patients," he said. "Noon to one-thirty. Meet me at this place and we'll watch a matinee."

He recited a Beverly Hills address. Turning-over-the-rock time. I felt queasy, unclean.

"D.?"

"I'll meet you there."

The address was on North Crescent Drive, in the Beverly Hills Flats—the pricey prairie stretching from Santa Monica Boulevard to Sunset, and from Doheny west to the Beverly Hilton Hotel. Houses in the Flats range from two-bedroom "tear-downs" that wouldn't stand out in a working-class tract to mansions big enough to corral a politician's ego. The tear-downs go for a million and a half.

Once a quiet, cushy neighborhood of doctors, dentists, and show-business types, the Flats has become a repository for very new, very flashy foreign money of questionable origin. All that easy cash has brought with it a mania for monument-building, unfettered by tradition or taste, and as I drove down Crescent half the structures seemed to be in various phases of construction.

The final products would have done Disney proud: Turreted Gray-stone Castle sans moat but cum tennis court, Mock-Moorish Mini-Mosque, Italianate-Dutch Truffle, Haute Gingerbread Haunted House, Post-Moderne Free-form Fantasy.

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Larry's station wagon was parked in front of a pea-green pseudo-French pseudo-Regency pseudo-townhouse with Ramada Inn overtones: glitter-flecked stucco walls, multiple mansards, green-and-gray striped awnings, louver windows, olive trim. The lawn was two squares of ivy, split by a concrete path. From the ivy sprouted whitewashed plaster statuary—naked cherubs, Blind Justice in agony, a copy of the Pieta, a carp taking flight. In the driveway was a fleet of cars: hot-pink '57 T-bird; two Rolls-Royce Silver Shadows, one silver, one gold; and a maroon Lincoln Town Car with red vinyl top and a famous designer's logo on its smoked windows.

I parked. Larry waved and got out of the Chevy. He saw me looking at the house and said,

"Pretty recherche, huh, D.?"

"Who are these people?"

"Their name is Fontaine—Gordon and Chantal. They made their money in patio furniture somewhere out in the Midwest—the plastic strap and tubular aluminum stuff. Sold out for a fortune several years ago, moved to B.H., and retired. They give lots to charity, distribute Thanksgiving turkeys on Skid Row, come across like benevolent grandparents—which they are.

But they love porn. Damn near worship it. They're the private donors I told you about, the ones who funded Kruse's research."

"Good simple folk, huh?"

"They really are, D. Not into S and M or kiddie stuff. Just good old-fashioned straight sex on celluloid—they

claim it rejuvenated their marriage, can get downright evangelical about it. When Kruse was setting up his research, he heard about them and tapped them for funding. They were so happy someone was going to finally educate the world about the therapeutic benefits of erotica that they coughed up without a fuss—must have handed over a couple of hundred grand. You can imagine how they felt when he changed his tune and started playing to the pro-censorship crowd.

And they're still steamed. When I called, Gordon remembered me as Kruse's R.A. and let me know that as far as they're concerned, Kruse is the scum of the earth. I mean he really catharted.

When he stopped to take a breath, I made it clear I was no great Kruse fan myself, and told him what we were after. He calmed down and said sure, come on over. I think the idea of helping us really jazzed him. Like all fanatics, they love to show off."

"What reason did you give him for wanting to see the film?"

"That the star was dead, we were old friends, and we wanted to remember her for everything she'd done. They'd read about it, thought it would be a dandy memorial."

The grimy, Peeping Tom feeling returned.

Larry read my face, said, "Cold feet?"

"It seems... ghoulish."

"Sure it's ghoulish. So are eulogies. If you want to call it off, I'll go in there and tell them."

"No," I said. "Let's do it."

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"Try not to look so tortured," he said. "One of the ways I gained entree was telling them you were sympatico to their hobby."

I crossed my eyes, leered, and did some heavy breathing. "How's that?"

"Oscar caliber."

We reached the front door, a solid slab painted glossy olive.

"Behind the green door," said Larry. "Very subtle."

"You're sure they have the loop?"

"Gordon said definitely. He also said they had some-

thing else we might be interested in."

He rang the bell and it chimed out the first few notes of "Bolero," then swung open. A Filipino maid in a white uniform stood in the doorway, petite, thirtyish, bespectacled, her hair in a bun.

"Yes?"

"Dr. Daschoff and Dr. Delaware to see Mr. and Mrs. Fontaine."

"Yes," said the maid. "Come in."

We stepped into a two-story rotunda with a pastoral mural: blue skies, green grass, fluffy sheep, hay bales, a shepherd playing the pipes in the shade of a spreading sycamore.

In front of all that agrarian bliss sat a naked woman in a deck chair—fat, middle-aged, gray-haired, lumpy legs. She held a pencil in one hand, a crossword puzzle book in the other, didn't acknowledge our entry.

The maid saw us staring, rapped her knuckles on the gray head.

Hollow.

Sculpture.

"An original Lombardo," she said. "Very expensive. Like that." She pointed upward. Dangling from the ceiling was what appeared to be a Calder mobile. Christmas bulbs had been laced around it—a do-it-yourself chandelier.

"Lots of money," said the maid.

Directly in front of us was an emerald-carpeted staircase that spiraled to the left. The space under the stairs terminated at a high Chinese screen. The other rooms were also blocked by screens.

"Come," said the maid. She turned. Her uniform was backless and cut low, past the gluteal cleft.

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Lots of naked brown skin. Larry and I looked at each other. He shrugged.

She unfolded part of the Chinese screen, led us through twenty feet and yet another partition.

Her walk took on a sashay and we followed her midway down the hall to a green metal door. On the wall was a keyhole and a key

pad. She cupped one hand with the other, punched in a five-digit code, inserted a key, turned it, and the door slid open. We entered a small elevator with padded, quilted walls of gold brocade hung with ivory miniatures—scenes from the Kama Sutra. A button-press and we descended.

The three of us stood shoulder to shoulder. The maid smelled of baby powder. She looked bored.

We stepped out into a small, dark anteroom and trailed her through japanned double doors.

On the other side was a huge, high-walled, windowless room—at least three thousand square feet paneled in black lacquered wood, silent and cool and barely lit.

As my eyes accommodated to the darkness, I was able to make out details: brass-grilled bookcases, reading tables, card catalogues, display cases, and library ladders, all in the same ebonized finish. Above us, a flat ceiling of black cork. Below, dark, carpeted floors. The only light came from green-shaded banker's lamps on the tables. I heard the hum of air conditioning.

Saw ceiling sprinklers, smoke alarms. A large barometer on one wall.

A room designed to house treasures.

"Thank you, Rosa," said a nasal male voice from across the room. I squinted and saw human outlines: a man and woman sitting side by side at one of the far tables.

The maid bowed, turned, and wiggled away. When she was gone, the same voice said, "Little Rosie Ramos—she was a real talent in the sixties. PX Mamas. Ginza Girls. Choose One From Column X."

"Good help's so hard to find," Larry whispered. Out loud he said, "Hello, people."

The couple stood and walked toward us. At ten feet away, their faces took on clarity, like cinema characters emerging from a dissolve.

The man was older than I'd expected—seventy or close to it, short and portly, with thick, straight white hair combed back and a jowly Xavier Cugat lace. He wore black-framed eyeglasses, a white guayabera shirt over brown slacks, and tan loafers.