“Bev—”
“I must be going nuts,” she mumbled, “running out like
that.”
I tried to put my arm around her for comfort but she
jerked away.
“No, I’m okay. Let me spit it out, once and for all.”
She sucked in her breath, bracing herself for an
ordeal.
“Augie and I were—involved. It started pretty soon
after he came to Western Peds. He seemed so different from the men I’d been
meeting. Sensitive, adventurous. I thought it was serious. I allowed myself the
luxury of romance and it turned to shit. When you talked about his sleeping
around it brought back all that shit.
“I was a fool, Alex, because he never promised me
anything, never lied to me or told me he was anything other than what he was.
It was me. I chose to see him as some noble knight. Maybe he came along at a
time when I was ready to believe anything, I don’t know. We slept together for
six months. Meanwhile he was making it with every woman he could find—nurses,
lady docs, mothers.
“I know what you’re thinking. He’s an unethical creep.
I doubt I can convince you of this, but he’s not a bad man, just a weak one. He
was always loving and gentle. And open. When I confronted him with the stories
I was hearing he said sure, he was giving pleasure and receiving it in return.
What could be wrong with that, especially with all the pain and suffering and
death we had to deal with. He was so convincing I didn’t stop seeing him even
then. It took me a long time to get my head straight.
“I thought I’d gotten over it until a week ago when I
saw him with Nona. I was out on a date—a fix-up, a real disaster—at an intimate
little Mexican place not far from the hospital. The two of them were across the
room, tucked away in a dark little booth. I could barely see them. They were
all over each other. Drinking margaritas and laughing.
Tongue-dueling
,
for God’s sake. Like a couple of reptiles.”
She stopped, caught her breath.
“It hurt bad, Alex. She was so confident, so
beautiful. The jealousy went through me like a knife. I’d never felt that kind
of jealousy before—I was
bleeding.
Their eyes were horribly orange from
the candlelight. Two vampires. There I was, stuck with some dull creep, dying
for the evening to be over, and they were just about fucking on the table. It
was obscene.”
Her shoulders shook. She shivered and hugged herself.
“So you can see why I was so torn about telling anyone
about it. I’d be seen as the woman scorned, doing it out of spite. That’s a
degrading role and I’ve been degraded enough for a lifetime.”
Her eyes implored me to understand.
“Everyone takes a bite out of me and I’m fucking
disappearing, Alex. I want to forget him, her, everyone. But I can’t. Because
of that little boy.”
This time she accepted my comfort and put her head on
my shoulder, her hand in mine.
“You’ve got to get some distance from it,” I said, “so
you can start to see straight again. He may have been gentle and ‘honest’ in
some perverse way but he’s no hero. The guy’s got problems and you’re best off
without him. He’s a druggie, isn’t he?”
“Yes. How’d you know that?”
I decided not to cite Raoul’s suspicions. Mention of
his name would set her off. Besides, I had suspicions of my own.
“I talked to him last night. He was sniffing the whole
time. At first it looked like a cold but later I started wondering about coke.”
“He’s into coke pretty heavily. Grass and downers, on
the side. Sometimes speed when he’s on call. He talked about dropping acid in
med school but I don’t think he does that anymore. He does booze, too. I
started drinking heavily when I was with him and kept it up ever since. I know
I have to stop.”
I gave her a squeeze.
“You deserve a lot better, hon.”
“It’s nice to hear that,” she said in a small voice.
“I’m saying it because it’s true. You’re intelligent,
you’re attractive, and you have a good heart. That’s why you’re hurting so
badly. Get the hell away from all the death and misery. It’ll destroy you. I
know.”
“Oh, Alex,” she sobbed into my shoulder, “I’m so cold.”
I gave her my jacket. When the tears stopped I walked
her back to her car.
NEITHER THE Swopes’ disappearance nor Richard Moody’s
rat fell under Milo’s jurisdiction. Out of friendship he’d helped me with both
and I was reluctant to bother him so soon with the information on Valcroix.
But what Beverly had told me the night before was
disturbing. As Raoul had claimed, the Canadian was unethical and a drunk, and
his familiarity with the Touch visitors fleshed out the suspicion of a
conspiracy to remove Woody Swope from treatment. I felt some obligation to let
him know what was going on, but I didn’t look forward to it because he was sure
to flip out. Before the pyrotechnics began I wanted to consult a professional.
Milo, bless his soul, sounded genuinely glad to hear
from me.
“No sweat. I was gonna call you anyway. Fordebrand
went out to the Bedabye to breathe on Moody but when he got there the asshole
was gone. Left behind a room full of b.o.—it would have been a battle of the
stinkers—and candy wrappers. Foothill will keep an eye out for him and I’ll
have the boys here do the same, but be careful. Also, I got a call back from
that Carmichael character—the one who messengered with the Swope girl. Normally
I might have just talked to him on the phone but this guy sounded
very
uptight. Like he’s sitting on something. He’s also got a record—busted for
prostitution a couple of years ago. So I’m gonna head out and do a face to
face. Now what’s on your mind?”
“I’ll go with you to Carmichael’s and tell you in the
car.”
He absorbed the information on Valcroix while speeding
along the Santa Monica Freeway.
“What is he, some kind of stud?”
“Far from it. An old, ersatz hippie. Saggy face,
flabby body, kind of a slob really.”
“No accounting for taste. Maybe he’s hung like a
horse.”
“I doubt the appeal’s strictly physical. He’s a
scavenger, Milo. Moves in on women when they’re under stress, plays Mr.
Sensitive, gives them what passes for love and understanding.”
He put a finger to his nose and sniffed.
“And a little blow, too?”
“Could be.”
“I’ll tell you what, after we’re finished with
Carmichael we’ll head out to the hospital and interview him. I’ve got a little
slack because the gang thing resolved nicely—confessions all around. The
shooters were fourteen years old. They’ll end up at the Youth Authority. The
liquor store cutting’s due to close any day—Del Hardy’s interviewing a snitch
who looks promising. The main thing pending is the stomach-shitter. We’re
praying to the computer on that.”
He exited at Fourth Avenue, headed south to Pico, took
Pico to Pacific, and continued southward into Venice. We passed Robin’s studio,
an unmarked storefront with the windows painted opaque white, but neither of us
mentioned it. The neighborhood changed from sleazy to slick as we approached
the Marina.
Doug Carmichael’s house was on a walk-street west of
Pacific, half a block from the beach. It resembled a landlocked cabin cruiser,
all peaks and portholes, narrow and high, and wedged into a lot no wider than
thirty feet. The exterior was teal blue wood siding and white trim. Fish-scale
shingles graced the gablelike peak above the door. A planter brimming with
nail-polish pink geraniums hung from the sill of the front window. A white
picket fence ringed the dwarf lawn. The door was inlaid with a stained-glass
window. Everything looked clean and well tended.
This close to the beach the place had to cost a pretty
piece of change.
“Fulfilling fantasies must be paying well,” I said.
“Hasn’t it always?”
Milo rang the doorbell. It opened quickly and a tall
muscular man in a red-and-black plaid shirt, faded jeans, and topsiders flashed
us a smile saturated with fear, introduced himself (“Hi, I’m Doug”), and asked
us in.
He was about my age. I’d been expecting someone
younger and was surprised. He had thick blond hair, layered and blow-dried to
look dashingly mussed, a full but neatly trimmed reddish-blond beard, sky blue
eyes, artist’s model features, and poreless golden skin. An aging beachboy who’d
preserved well.
The interior walls of the house had been torn down to
create a thousand square feet of skylit living space. The furniture was
bleached wood, the walls oyster white. The scent of lemon oil was in the air.
There were maritime lithographs, a salt-water aquarium, a small but
well-stocked kitchen, a partially folded futon bed. Everything in its place,
neat as a pin.
In the center of the room was a sunken area
half-filled by a bottle green velvet modular couch. We stepped down and sat. He
offered us coffee from a pot that had already been set out on the table.
He poured three cups and sat across from us, still smiling,
still scared.
“Detective Sturgis—” he looked from me to Milo who
identified himself with a nod—“over the phone you said this had to do with Nona
Swope.”
“That’s correct, Mr. Carmichael.”
“I have to tell you at the outset, I’m afraid I won’t
be of much help. I barely know her—”
“You messengered with her several times.” Milo pulled
out his pencil and pad.
Carmichael laughed nervously. “Three, maybe four
times. She didn’t stick around very long.”
“Uh huh.”
Carmichael drank coffee, put the cup down, and cracked
his knuckles. He had iron-pumper’s arms, each muscle defined in bas relief and
roped with veins.
“I don’t know where she is,” he said.
“No one said she was missing, Mr. Carmichael.”
“Jan Rambo called and told me what it was all about.
She said you took my file.”
“Does that bother you, Mr. Carmichael?”
“Yes, it does. It’s private and I don’t see what it
has to do with anything.” He was trying to assert himself but despite the
muscles there was something preternaturally meek and childish about him.
“Mr. Carmichael, you were pretty keyed up over the
phone and you’re just as nervous in person. Want to tell us why?” Milo sat back
and crossed his legs.
It’s always pathetic when someone physically
impressive starts to fall apart, like watching a monument crumble. I saw the
look on the blond man’s face and wanted to be somewhere else.
“Tell us about it,” said Milo.
“It’s my own damned fault. Now I’m going to pay.” He
got up, went into the kitchen, and came back with a bottle of pills.
“B-twelve. I need it when I’m stressed out.” He
unscrewed the lid, shook out three capsules, swallowed, and washed them down
with coffee. “I shouldn’t be taking in so much caffeine but it calms me down.
Paradoxical reaction.”
“What’s on your mind, Doug?”
“My working at Adam and Eve has been a—a secret. Until
now. I knew all along it was risky, that I might run into someone who knew me.
I don’t know, maybe that was part of the thrill.”
“We’re not interested in your private life. Just in
what you know about Nona Swope.”
“But if it leads somewhere and ends up in court I’m
gonna be subpoenaed, right?”
“Could happen,” admitted Milo, “but we’re a long way
from that. Right now we just want to find Nona and her parents so we can save a
little boy’s life.”
The detective went on in great detail about Woody’s
lymphoma. He’d retained everything I told him and was throwing it back in
Carmichael’s handsome face. The blond man tried hard not to listen but failed.
He took all of it in, obviously pained. He seemed a sensitive one and I found
myself liking him.
“Jesus. She told me she had a sick brother but she
never said how sick.”
“What else did she tell you?”
“Not much. Really. She didn’t say much about anything.
Talked about wanting to be an actress—the usual delusional stuff you hear from
most of the girls. But she didn’t seem depressed like you’d expect with a
brother that sick.”
Milo changed the subject.
“What kind of gigs did you two do?”
Returning to the topic of his work made Carmichael
anxious again. He tangled his fingers together and twisted. Knots rose on the
heavy arms.
“Maybe I should get an attorney before we go any
further.”
“Suit yourself,” said Milo, pointing to the phone.
Carmichael sighed and shook his head. “No. That would
only complicate things even more. Listen, I can give you some insights into
Nona’s personality if that’s what you’re after.”
“It would help.”
“But that’s all I’ve got. Insights, no facts. How
about you forget where you got them from?”
“Doug,” said Milo, “we know who your father is and we
know all about the bust, so stop dancing around, okay?”
Carmichael looked like a stallion in a burning stable,
ready to bolt despite the consequences.