Джонатан Келлерман - Serpentine

I said, “Tasteless shirt?”

“Shiny silk,” she said, as if that settled it. “Shiny fake-diamond buttons, puffy sleeves—sissy sleeves. Paisley in crazy colors. Probably got it along with the boots on Rodeo Drive. I heard he went there for entertainment, too.”

“What kind of entertainment?”

“Some tacky nightclub. My husband told me. Jack was a lawyer with Skinner Thorndike downtown, avoided the Westside like a plague but had to take a deposition in Beverly Hills. Some movie producer who’d cheated someone, big surprise. The crook kept Jack waiting, he got stuck there until evening. He was walking to his car and guess who he spotted going into some club on Rodeo.”

“The new Dr. Des Barres.”

“New and not improved,” said Winifred Gaines. “When Jack came home he was laughing. ‘Honey, you’ll never guess who turned all hippie-dippie.’ ”

Milo said, “Did Jack tell you the name of the club?”

“I didn’t ask, he didn’t tell. Like I said, he steered clear of anything west of Spring Street.”

“Was Dr. Des Barres with anyone?”

“Jack didn’t say, so he probably wasn’t. I’m sure all the company he needed was inside.” She snorted. “Beverly Hills. Place hasn’t been classy for a long time. Last year my granddaughter insisted we go there, there’s a store she likes on Beverly Drive, it was her birthday. You should’ve seen it. Hordes of Orientals, they’re dying their hair blue and yellow and whatnot, you’d think you were in Tokyo.”

Milo said, “So Dr. Des Barres made a lifestyle change. Anything else you can tell us about him or his family?”

“We didn’t socialize, they were just clients—Arlette was.”

I said, “What kind of person was she?”

“Sweet, soft-spoken, nice British accent. When we chitchatted it was about the horses. She knew her stuff. That’s why I can’t see her taking a tumble from a sweet thing like Bramble. So you suspect Tony of being a really bad guy. Even so, why bother? He’s dead, it’s all ancient history.”

Milo said, “Doing my job, ma’am. Trying to do it well.”

Her lips pursed and her brows arced.

“Well,” she said, “guess you can’t ask more than that from anyone.” New voice. Soft, unguarded. “Don’t mean to give you grief, you’re just catching me at a bad time. Yesterday was the anniversary of Jack’s death.”

“Sorry about that, ma’am.”

“Yeah, it’s been a laugh a minute.”

He said, “How long has he been gone?”

I figured that might elicit a sharp retort. Winifred Gaines sighed.

“Four years. Year after that, Alex moved away, six months later, Melinda. Can’t blame them, they’ve got great jobs, I’m grateful they’re not wastrels. When the area turned into a construction zone, the riding business dried up. I finally sold everything at auction. Except the horses, those I personally made sure were adopted by good people.”

She shook her head. “Now it’s just me and the house, which is too darn big. But I can’t bring myself to sell it. Bridget?”

The waitress came over. “What can I get you, Mrs. Gaines?”

“A beer. I know I said I was watching the calories but to heck with that.”

“Sure, Mrs. Gaines. Sam Adams like always?”

“Anything as long as it’s not some poor-excuse light. I want to feel full. ” She looked at our plates. “Obviously you don’t. Bridget, set them up with to-go bags.”

Milo said, “That’s okay.”

“Waste,” said Winifred Gaines, “is not okay. You don’t want it, I’ll take it.”

—

Milo and I drank good robusto coffee as she nursed a tall glass of lager. When she’d emptied it, she called for the check.

He said, “On us, ma’am.”

“No chance. I pay my own way.”

But when Bridget came over and he was ready with enough cash to evoke a grinning “ Thank you, sir!” Winifred Gaines made no attempt to stop the transaction.

The three of us got up from the table and she picked up the to-go bag containing our uneaten food. Her walk aimed for confidence but there was slight unsteadiness in her step.

I held the door open for her. “Thanks, Slim.”

She made her way to the brown Mercedes. She’d left the car unlocked, opened the rear door and placed the bag on the seat.

Milo said, “Anything else you want to tell us, ma’am?”

“Just thanks for dinner. I noticed you paid with legal tender. Maybe there’s hope.”

We stood by as Winifred Gaines backed heedlessly into traffic, setting off tire squeals but no honks or road rage. She sped off, gray smoke belching from the Mercedes’s rear exhaust.

Milo said, “No one flipped her off. Place is a bastion of etiquette.”

I said, “Unlike that nest of barbarians, Beverly Hills. ”

He laughed, studied the sky, turned serious. “The club she was talking about is probably The Azalea, only place I know of on Rodeo. Foil paper walls, disco ball, drinks with parasols, bad Chinese food. And perfect for a guy like Tony Des Barres two point oh.”

“Older guys and younger girls?”

“Members-only if you were male. The girls were a perk.”

“Where’d they come from?”

“Who knows?”

We got in the unmarked.

I said, “Sounds like you were inside. When was it active?”

“Before my time but not before Dr. Silverman’s.”

Rick was four years older than us. I did the math. It didn’t add up.

Splotches of pink had formed beneath his ears. I decided to let it ride.

He inserted the key but didn’t turn it. “Strictly speaking, also before Rick’s time. He wasn’t legal to drink—barely seventeen, junior at Harvard-Westlake, but even then he had the mustache. He got taken there by a school benefactor—some finance honcho who’d seen Rick play varsity b-ball and wanted to ‘counsel’ him about a scholarship to an Ivy. Rick was figuring a steak dinner, instead they end up walking through an unmarked door and into all that merriment.”

I said, “Older guys and younger girls? How’d taking Rick there figure in?”

“There was also a room upstairs where the perks weren’t girls.” Deep breath. “ Lavender foil, fake-fur seating, Aubrey Beardsley prints. Subtle, huh? When the letch went to the john, Rick got the hell out of there and took a cab home. No further communication from the guy and no more scholarship talk. His parents couldn’t afford the Ivies so he went to the U., undergrad and med school. You know the rest—chief resident, the job at Cedars. When he gets home tonight, I’ll ask him what else he remembers about the place. If no one died in the E.R. and his mood’s okay.”

He waited for a lull in the traffic and backed out more smoothly than usual. As if compensating for Winifred Gaines’s heedless shotgun entry.

At the first opportunity, he swung a U on Huntington. “Any thoughts about what we just heard?”

I said, “Someone riding into the forest a few minutes after Arlette doesn’t mean much by itself. But with one staged accident we know about and two others that could also be setups, it is interesting.”

“Hate that word,” he said. “Let’s hope it doesn’t get fascinating. ”

—

Two options for getting back to the Westside: Arroyo Seco Parkway to the Pasadena Freeway and through the downtown interchange, or reversing our trip on the 210. Both featured sections of red on Waze, creating online peppermint sticks. The 210 would deposit us closer to Beverly Glen.

At this hour, the on-ramp was metered and we idled in a queue of commuters, mostly people driving alone.

Milo said, “For argument’s sake, let’s say ol’ Winnie was right about a woman following Arlette and that it actually means something. That take you anywhere?”