"Sure," I said. "The charm of my company?"
"Just the opposite. You pissed him off once—maybe that can be harnessed."
13
SIMON DE MAARTENS lived on Third Street, north of Rose. The beach was a short walk west. Crossing Rose brought you into gang territory.
The block was filled with tiny houses, some divided. Intermittent bright spots—fresh paint, brand-new skylights, flower beds, staked saplings—said gentrification had arrived. De Maartens's abode was a brown-stucco, side-by-side duplex with a gray lawn, curling tar-paper roof, and flaking woodwork. The blue VW van in its driveway was patched and primered. Its rear bumper sagged, and so did the independent wealth hypothesis.
"Doesn't look as if he's been seduced by externals," said Milo. "Life of the mind and all that?"
"Could be." I realized the same could be said of Benjamin Dugger: Newport and Brentwood offices but a frayed lapel.
Not exactly the high rollers I'd conjured when imagining Lauren spirited away to some casbah.
He switched off the engine. "How about I do the talking, and work you in as needed?"
"Sounds good to me."
We were halfway to de Maartens's front door when loud barking came from the brown house and a big, yellow face parted the curtains of thefront window. Some kind of retriever. Steady barking but no enmity— announcing our presence without passing judgment. The door began opening before we got there, and a young, red-haired woman smiled out at us.
She was tall and solidly built, wore a black T-shirt and green drawstring pants, held a paintbrush in one hand. Wet, blue bristles. Her hair was the color of fresh rust, cut in a pageboy that hung to midneck, the bangs perfectly straight above inquisitive hazel eyes. The pants were baggy but the shirt was tight, accentuating a soft, friendly bosom and generous shoulders. Nice coating of flesh everywhere except for her hands, which were slim and white, with tendril fingers. The smell of turpentine blew through the doorway, along with classical music—something with woodwinds. No sign of the yellow dog. The woman had stopped smiling.
"Police, ma'am," said Milo, flashing the badge. "Are you Mrs. de Maartens?"
"Anika." Pronouncing her name as if it were required for border crossing. "I thought you were UPS." "Thought" came out "taut." Her accent was thicker than her husband's, harder around the edges. Or maybe that was anxiety. Who likes the police on a sunny afternoon?
"Expecting a delivery?"
"I—I'm supposed to get art supplies. From back home. Was there a crime somewhere on the block?"
"No, everything's fine. Where's back home?"
"Holland . . . Why are you here?"
"Nothing to worry about, ma'am, we just wanted to talk to Professor de Maartens. Is he in?"
"You want to talk to Simon? About what?"
"A student of his."
"A student?"
"It's better if we talk to the professor directly^ Mrs. de Maartens. Is he in?"
"Yes, yes, I go get him, hold on."
She left the door open and headed toward the music. A big butter-colored form materialized. Heavy jowls, small bright eyes, short coat, droopy ears. Retriever mix, a splash of mastiff somewhere in the bloodline. The dog regarded us for a second, then followed Anika de Maartens. Returned moments later with a man in tow. Man and beast walking in synchrony, the master's hand resting lightly on the animal's neck.
"I'm Simon. What is it?"
De Maartens was six feet tall and heavyset, with a whiskey-colored crew cut and a ruddy, bulb-nosed, thick-lipped face, as close to spherical as I'd seen on a human. Despite his clothing—gray sweatshirt, blue cutoffs, rubber beach sandals—he looked like a Rembrandt burgher, and I half-expected him to whip out a clay pipe.
"Detective Sturgis," said Milo, extending a hand.
De Maartens looked past it, kept coming toward us. "Yes?" The sound of his voice made the dog's ears perk.
Milo began repeating his name.
"I heard you," said de Maartens. "I'm not deaf." Smiling, as he and the dog stopped at the threshold. His head turned from side to side, and he stared blankly, settling on the space between Milo and me. That's when I saw his eyes: black crescents set in bluish sockets so deep they appeared to have been scooped out of his flesh. Immobile crescents, the merest sliver of black showing through dull black, no gleam of pupil.
A blind man.
The psychophysics of vision in primates. The Braille Institute Award.
He said, "This is about the girl—Lauren."
"Yes, sir."
"Some of my students I do know," said de Maartens. "The ones who ask questions, visit during office hours. Voices that recur." He touched his ear. The dog looked up at him adoringly. "Lauren Teague was not one of them. She got an A in the class—a very high A, so perhaps she did not need to ask questions. I can produce her exams when I return to my office next week. But right now, I am on vacation and I do not see why I need to be bothered. What can you hope to learn from two exams?"
"So there's nothing you can tell us about Ms. Teague?"
De Maartens's thick shoulders rose and fell. He canted his face toward me. Smiled. "Is that you, Dr. Delaware? Nice aftershave. After your second call when I grew cross, I called the department to see what records they have on her. Just her grade transcripts. All A's. I should not have grown cross, but I was in the middle of something and I did not see the point. I still do not." He scratched behind the dog's ears, aimed his eye sockets back at Milo. "Three times during the quarter, the class was divided into discussion groups of approximately twenty students each, supervised by teaching assistants. The groups were optional, nothing discussed was graded. It was an attempt by the department to be more personal." Another smile. "I checked with my department chairman, and he said it would be permissible to give you the names of the students in Lauren Teague's group. Her T.A. was Malvina Zorn. You may call the psychology department and obtain Malvina's number. She has been instructed to give you the names of the students in the group. The chairman and I have signed authorizations. That should be all you need."
"Thank you, Professor."
"You are welcome." De Maartens rocked back and forth, then stopped. "What exactly happened to Ms. Teague?"
"Someone shot her," said Milo. "You can read it in the paper—" He flushed scarlet.
De Maartens laughed uproariously and ruffled the dog. "Perhaps Vincent here can read it to me. No, I am sure my wife will give me every detail. She devours everything she can about crime and misfortune because this city frightens her."
When we were back in the car I said, "So much for that."
Milo said, "I don't see Lauren's academic life as the thing here, anyway. It's the people she didn't talk about that I'm interested in. I'll phone the psych department, though, get those students' names."
He made the call, copied down a list of nine students that I inspected as we drove away. Three males, six females.
"Everyone out for the quarter," he mumbled, as we drove away. "Fun."
"I'm your partner in futility." I told him about following Benjamin Dugger. He was kind enough not to laugh.
"Old Volvo and delivering goodies to kids at the church, huh?"
"Yeah, yeah," I said. "Throw in the pro bono thing at the shelter in Chicago and he's Mother Teresa in tweed. You're right, guys like him aren't what got Lauren into trouble. She lived in a whole other world."
"Speaking of which," he said. "I thought I'd drop in on Gretchen Stengel."
"She's out of prison?"
"Paroled half a year ago. Found herself a new line of work."
"What's that?"
"Similar to her old gig, but legal. Dressing the insecure."
The boutique was on Robertson just south of Beverly, five doors north of a restaurant-of-the-moment where valets shuffled Ferraris and alfresco diners laughed too loudly as they sucked bottled water and smog.
Deja, View Couture with a Past
Eight-foot-wide storefront, the window draped in black jersey and occupied by a single, bald, faceless, chromium mannequin in a billowing scarlet gown. A bell push was required for entry, but Milo's bulk didn't stop whoever was in charge from buzzing us in.
Inside, the shop's mirrored walls and black granite floor vibrated to David Bowie's "Young Americans," the bass tuned to migraine level. Nailed into the mirror were raw iron bolts from which garments dangled on chrome hangers. Velvet, crepe, leather, silk; wide color range, nothing above a size 8. A pair of orange Deco revival chairs designed by a sadist filled a tight oblong of center space. Copies of Vogue, Talk, and Buzz fanned across a trapezoid of glass posing as a table. No counter, no register. Seams in the rear wall were probably the dressing rooms. To the right was a door marked PRIVATE. The fermented-corn sweetness of good marijuana tinctured the air.
A dangerously thin girl in her twenties wearing a baby blue bodysuit and a rosewood-tinted Peter Pan do stood behind one of the orange chairs, hips thrust forward, eyes guarded. White stiletto-heeled sandals put her at eye level with Milo. Pink eyes and dilated pupils. No ashtray or roach, so maybe she'd swallowed. The bodysuit was sheer, and the undertones of her flesh beneath the fabric turned the blue pearly. She seemed to have too many ribs, and I found myself counting.
"Yes?" Husky voice, almost mannish.
"I need something in a size four," said Milo.
"For . . . ?"
"My thumb." He stepped closer. The girl recoiled and crossed her arms over her chest. The music kept pounding, and I looked for the speakers, finally spotted them: small white discs tucked into the corners.
Out came Milo's badge. Rather than rattle the girl, it seemed to calm her. "And the punch line is . . . ?" she said.
"Is Gretchen Stengel here?"
The girl gave a languid wave. "Don't see her."
Milo reached out toward the iron rack and fondled a black pantsuit. "Couture with a past, huh?"
The girl didn't move or speak.
He examined the label. "Lagerfeld . . . What kind of past does this one have?"
"It went to the Oscars two years ago."
"Really. Did it win and make a speech thanking the little people?"
The girl snorted.
"So where's Gretchen?"
"If you leave your name I'll tell her you were here."
"Gee, thanks. And you are ..."
"Stanwyck."
"Stanwyck what?"
"Just Stanwyck."
"Ah," said Milo. He dropped the sleeve, faced her, did one of those moves that makes him taller than you think possible. "Don't they require two names for booking?"
The girl's lips tightened into a little pink bud. "Is there anything else I can help you with?"
"Where's Gretchen?"
"At lunch."
"Late lunch."
"Guess so."
"Where?"
Stanwyck hesitated.
"C'mon, Stan," said Milo. "Or I'll tell Ollie."
Her eyes filmed with confusion. "I don't run her appointment schedule."
"But you do know where she is."
"I get paid to be here, that's all."
"Stan, Stan." Milo sniffed the air conspicuously. "Why make this complicated?"
"Gretchen doesn't like attention."
"Well, I can sure understand that. But fame is like a dog with an unstable temperament. You feed it, think you've got it under control, but sometimes it bites you anyway. Now, where the hell is she?"
"Up the block." She named the trendoid eatery.
He turned to leave.
Stanwyck said, "Don't tell her I told you."
"Promise," said Milo.
"Yeah, right," said the girl. "And you've got a Porsche and a house on the beach and won't come in my mouth."
We made our way past the valets, up brick stairs, and through a low picket gate to the front patio, turning the heads of the see-and-be-seen crowd. Lots of free-floating anxiety and ponytails on heads that didn't deserve them, big white plates decorated with small green food. Some high fashion, though quite a few people were dressed worse than Milo. But at much higher cost, and everyone knew the difference. The maitre d's were two white-jacketed, black-T-shirted sticks, both too busy to stop us. But one of them did notice us enter the inner dining room at the rear.
The room was low and dark and cheap-chic, noisy as a power plant. As we made our way among the tables, I heard a man in a five-hundred-dollar Hawaiian shirt urging a waiter, "Speak to me of the crab cakes."
Gretchen Stengel sat at a corner table opposite a sleek young woman with blue-black skin. A blue liter of esoteric water stood between them. The black woman picked at a salad, and Gretchen twirled a crayfish on a toothpick.
No problem recognizing the Westside Madam; three years ago she'd been evening news fodder for months, and, but for a few age lines, she hadn't changed much.
Sunken cheeks, lemon-sucking mouth, stringy brown hair, skinny upper body but broad-beamed below the waist. An ungainly waddle as her lawyers hustled her to and from court. Brown eyes that claimed injury when they weren't shielded by dark lenses. Today the glasses were in place—oversized black ovals that blocked expression. It would have been easy to ascribe her pallor to the twenty-five months she'd spent behind bars for income tax evasion, but she'd been pale before then. Floppy hats, kabuki-white makeup, and the omnipresent black glasses fed rumors that she hated the sun. Interesting choice, if it was one, for a girl growing up at the beach. Then again, most daughters of Pacific Palisades corporate lawyers don't grow up to be pimps.
Gretchen Stengel had been raised on two acres overlooking the ocean, attended the Peabody School and summer camps designed to pamper, vacationed at private villas in Venice and chateaus in southern France, flown the Concorde a dozen times before entering puberty.
Rocky puberty. Her arrest led to journalistic archaeology of the Stengel family and discovery of childhood learning problems, drug and DUI busts, and half a dozen abortions beginning when Gretchen was fourteen. At twenty she dropped out of Arizona State, having never declared a major. Unsubstantiated stories had her starring in a series of bottom-feeder porn loops featuring a variety of partners, not all of them two-legged.