Stuart Woods - Palindrome

"Old people are like that, James," she said. "They don't want things to change. They want them to be the way they've always been. Young people like you welcome change, but as you get older, it doesn't seem so welcome. I think I've come to understand how your grandfather and your… Mr. Angus feel about the island, how they want to protect it. But there's not really much they can do about it. They're both very old men, and their time will come soon. You and Germaine and the twins will have to protect the island, then."

"I guess that's the natural way," James said.

Then he looked up at her, worried. "But I don't think natural changes is what Granddaddy's talking about. He thinks something's going to happen here soon, and he don't like it. I'm scared."

Liz was nonplussed. "Well, James, if something happens, we'll just have to do the best we can, and I think that might be pretty good, don't you?"

The boy smiled again, a little. "Yes, ma'am, I think it might."

Liz said good-bye, climbed into the Jeep, and started back toward Stafford Beach Cottage. She cut across the island toward to drive across the earthen track that separated the lake from a smaller pond, she looked ahead of her and stopped. A man's hand protruded from the high grass on the lake's shore. She wouldn't have seen it, except for the sunlight reflecting from a gold Rolex watch on the wrist. She watched the hand to see if it moved. It did not. She got out of the Jeep, and, to keep her courage up, walked quickly toward where the man lay. She could see none of him because of the grass. She stopped, and, taking a deep breath, dug in her heels, took hold of the wrist, and pulled hard, to get him into the road. To first her surprise, and then her horror, she sat down hard in the roadway. In her lap was a man's arm, brutally severed, well above the elbow.

Lee Williams got off the airplane at LAX in a state of some excitement.

He had not traveled a great deal-New York once, Florida a few times-and here he was in what he, like many first-time visitors, thought of as Hollywood. He quickly discovered that there was nothing very glamorous about Los Angeles International Airport. It was like airports anywhere, albeit with palm trees, and it seemed not as big as Atlanta's Hartsfield International. While he waited for his bag he checked in with Avis for the car he had reserved. "Wait outside on the curb for the bus," the woman explained; then he asked for and got directions to West Hollywood.

Getting a rental car in Hollywood turned out to be a pain in the ass. He waited a considerable time for the bus, then rode some distance to a huge parking lot. Eventually, the bus stopped behind his Chevette. He tossed his bag in the backseat, showed his rental contract to a guard at the gate, and began to find out how big Los Angeles is. Checking the line drawn on his map, he made his way, gawking, to West Hollywood. He was surprised at how few tall buildings there were and how flat it was until he began to climb into the hills. The suite hotel, Le Parc, was tucked away on a side street, and in a few minutes he was checked into a living room with a kitchenette in one corner, a bedroom, and a bath.

This is pretty nice, he thought; roomy and nicely decorated. He called downstairs and found that the night concierge came on at eight. With the three-hour time change, it was only midafternoon locally, and he became a tourist. On foot, following directions from the deskman at the hotel, he found the Chinese Theatre, which represented to him everything he had loved about the movies all his life. He fitted his feet into the prints of Gary Cooper and James Stewart; he wandered past those of Judy Garland and Clark Gable and Marlene Dietrich; he wallowed in what could never be again. Then, content, he wandered back to the hotel and took a nap. His wake-up call came at seven-thirty; he showered, shaved, and changed into a blazer and open shirt-he had been told that things are pretty informal in Hollywood-then he went downstairs in search of the night concierge.

The man was tall and vaguely handsome, and Williams wondered if he had once been an actor. He identified himself. "Remember when the Atlanta Bobcats were here to play the Rams a few weeks ago?"

"Sure, a lot of the teams stay here."

"Remember Bake Ramsey?"

"Sure, Bake got hurt that game."

"Bake tells me that he had dinner in his room the night before the game with a girl named Brenda. Remember anything about that?"

"I remember him coming in with her early that evening," the man said, "but I don't remember her leaving." He grinned. "Probably she didn't leave until the next morning, when I had gone off duty."

"And they had dinner in the room?"

"You'll have to check with the room-service captain on that."

"One more thing: when I checked in they parked my car downstairs in the garage and gave me a plastic card to get in and out with. Does every guest with a car have that same arrangement?"

"Yes, everybody."

"So, in order to get his car out of the garage, Ramsey could have just gone downstairs and driven away, then come back later without having to see a parking attendant or anybody else?"

"That's right."

"Tell me, did you arrange for Bake to meet Brenda?" The man shook his head.

"Look, I'm from out of town; I'm not looking to make trouble for you; I just have to know how it was."

"I didn't set him up. My best guess is a bar on Melrose called the Goal Post. It's a sports bar, and a lot of girls hang out there."

"Thanks," Williams said, slipping the man ten bucks. He found the room-service captain and the waiter who had served Ramsey and the girl. On Ramsey's instructions, the waiter had not been back for the tray until the following morning; he checked the fire stairs and found that Ramsey could have walked down to the garage without being seen by anybody, and that his room key would have let him back into the fire stairs. Ramsey could have left Le Parc, gone to the Beverly Hills Hotel, and returned, unnoticed. So far, so good. At nine o'clock the Goal Post was not crowded. Williams took a seat at the end of the bar, near the waiters' station, and ordered a beer. A soccer match was on the TV above the bar. "That's a lousy game," he said to the bartender.

The bartender shrugged. "It's all that's on. The owner wants sports on the TV and that's all the sports there is tonight."

"Not very crowded, huh?"

"It'll pick up. Nobody much comes in before ten. I don't know where the hell they go this time of night." He moved away to serve another customer. A moment later he was back. "You from out of town?" he asked.

"Atlanta. My first trip here."

"Business?"

"What else?"

"Well, we run a pretty good joint here. Drop in whenever you're in town."

"Thanks, I'll do that."

"You want something to eat?"

"Can I eat at the bar?"

"Sure, anything you want." He handed Williams a menu. "The beef is good."

"I'll have the New York strip, medium, loaded baked potato, any salad dressing you got." The place was starting to fill up, now, and most of the customers seemed to know the place well. "You get mostly regulars, do you?"

"Yeah, we're a little off the tourist track. How'd you find us?"

"The concierge at Le Parc."

"Harry? Yeah, I know him. Used to be an actor, once. So did I for that matter."

"Tough line, huh?"

"I make more here in a night than I ever made in a week as an actor. Williams's steak came, and he ate hungrily. He kept an eye on the bar, and soon there were three single girls bellied up. "Pretty good talent," he said to the bartender.

"Yeah, we get a lot of jocks; they get a lot of girls."

"Say, were you working the night before the Rams' game I with the Bobcats a few weeks back?"

"Sure, I always work on Saturdays."