Jonathan Kellerman - Bad Love

"That's absurd."

"Among other things. The court asked me to evaluate and make a recommendation. In the very beginning Milo and I talked about the father possibly being behind the tape. Trying to intimidate me. He's got a criminal record and hangs with an outlaw motorcycle gang that's been known to use strongarm tactics."

"This creep's walking free?"

"No, he's locked up in prison. Maximum security at Folsom, I just got a letter from him, telling me he's a good father."

"Wonderful," she said.

"He's not behind this. It was just a working guess, until I learned about the "bad love' symposium. My problems have something to do with de Bosch."

She looked at Milo. He nodded.

"All right," she said, taking hold of my jacket lapel and kissing my chin. "I'm going to stop being Mama Bear and go about my business."

I held her around the waist. Milo looked away.

"I'll be careful," I said.

She put her head on my chest.

The dog began pawing the floor.

"Oedipus Rover," said Milo.

Robin pushed me away gently. "Go help those poor little girls."

• • •

I took Benedict into the valley and picked up the Ventura Freeway at Van Nuys Boulevard. Traffic was hideous all the way to the 210 and beyond, and I didn't make it to McVine until 3:40. When I got to the Rodriguez house, no cars were parked in front and no one answered my ring.

Evelyn showing her displeasure at my tardiness?

I tried again, knocked once, then harder, and when that brought no response, went around to the back. Managing to hoist myself up high enough to peer over the pink block wall, I scanned the yard.

Empty. Not a toy or a piece of furniture in sight. The inflatable pool had been put away, the garage was shut, and drawn drapes blocked the rear windows.

Returning to the front, I checked the mailbox and found yesterday's and today's deliveries. Bulk stuff, coupon giveaways, and something from the gas company.

I put it back and looked up and down the street. A boy of around ten zoomed by on rollerblade skates. A few seconds later, a red truck came speeding down from Foothill and for an instant I thought it was Roddy Rodriguez's. But as it passed, I saw that it was lighter in shade than his and a decade newer. A blond woman sat in the driver's seat. A big yellow dog rode in the bed, tongue out, watchful.

I returned to the Seville and waited for another twenty-five minutes, but no one showed up. I tried to recall the name of Rodriguez's masonry company and finally did- R and R.

Driving back to Foothill Boulevard, I headed east until I spotted a phone booth at an Arco station. The directory had been yanked off the chain, so I called information and asked for R and R's address and phone number. The operator ignored me and switched over to the automated message, leaving me only the number. I called it. No one answered. I tried information a second time and got a street address- right on Foothill, about ten blocks east.

The place was a gray-topped lot, forty or fifty feet behind a shabby brown building. Surrounded by barbed link, it had a green clapboard beer bar on one side, a pawnshop on the other.

The property was empty except for a few brick fragments and some paper litter. The brown building looked to have once been a double garage. Two sets of old-fashioned hinge doors took up most of the front. Above them, ornate yellow letters shouted R AND R MASONRY: CEMENT, CINDER, AND CUSTOM BRICK. Below that: RETAINING WALLS OUR SPECIALTY, followed by an overlapping R's logo meant to evoke Rolls-Royce fantasies.

I parked and got out. No signs of life. The padlock on the gate was the size of a baseball.

I went over to the pawnshop. The door was locked and a sign above a red button said, PRESS AND WAIT. I obeyed and the door buzzed but didn't open. I leaned in close to the window. A man stood behind a nipple-high counter, shielded by a Plexiglas window.

He ignored me.

I buzzed again.

He made a stabbing motion and the door gave.

I walked past cases filled with cameras, cheap guitars, cassette decks and boomboxes, pocket knives and fishing rods.

The man was managing to examine a watch and check me over at the same time.

He was sixty or so, with slicked, dyed-black hair and a pumpkin-colored bottle tan. His face was long and baggy.

I cleared my throat.

He said, "Yeah?" through the plastic and kept looking at the watch, turning it over with nicotined fingers and working his lips as if preparing to spit. The window was scratched and cloudy and outfitted with a ticket-taker remote speaker that he hadn't switched on. The store had soft, wooden floors and stank of WD-40, sulfur matches, and body odor. A sign over the gun display said NO LOONIES.

"I'm looking for Roddy Rodriguez next door," I said. "Have some work for him to do on a retaining wall."

He put the watch down and picked up another.

"Excuse me," I said.

"Got something to buy or sell?"

"No, I was just wondering if you knew when Rodriguez was-"

He turned his back on me and walked away. Through the Plexiglas I saw an old desk full of papers and other timepieces. A semiautomatic pistol served as a paperweight. He scratched his butt and held the watch up to a fluorescent bulb.

I left and walked over to the bar two doors down. The green board was rubbed to raw timber in spots and the front door was unmarked. A sun-shaped neon sign said, SUNNY'S SUN VALLEY. A single window below it was filled with a Budweiser sign.

I walked in, expecting darkness, billiard clicks, and a cowboy jukebox. Instead, I got bright lights, ZZ Top going on about a Mexican whore, and a nearly empty room not much larger than my kitchen.

No pool table- no tables of any kind. Just a long, pressed-wood bar with a black vinyl bumper and matching stools, some of them patched with duct tape. Up against the facing wall were a cigarette machine and a pocket comb dispenser. The floor was grubby concrete.

The man working the bar was thirtyish, fair, balding, stubbled. He wore tinted eyeglasses and one of his ears was double pierced, hosting a tiny gold stud and a white metal hoop. He had on a soiled white apron over a black T-shirt, and his chest was flabby. His arms were soft looking, too, white and tattooed. He wasn't doing much when I came in, and he continued along those lines. Two men sat at the bar, far from each other. More tattoos. They didn't move either. It looked like a poster for National Brain Death Week.

I took a stool between the men and ordered a beer.

"Draft or bottle?"

"Draft."

The bartender took a long time to fill a mug, and as I waited I snuck glances at my companions. Both wore billed caps, T-shirts, jeans, and work shoes. One was skinny, the other muscular. Their hands were dirty. They smoked and drank and had tired faces.

My beer came and I took a swallow. Not much head and not great, but not as bad as I'd expected.

"Any idea when Roddy'll be back?" I said.

"Who?" said the bartender.

"Rodriguez- the masonry guy next door. He's supposed to be doing a retaining wall for me and he didn't show up."

He shrugged.

"Place is closed," I said.

No answer.

"Great," I said. "Guy's got my goddamned deposit."

The bartender began soaking glasses in a gray plastic tub.

I drank some more.

ZZ gave way to a disc jockey's voice, hawking car insurance for people with bad driving records. Then a series of commercials for ambulance-chasing lawyers polluted the air some more.

"When's the last time you've seen him around?" I said.

The bartender turned around. "Who?"

"Rodriguez."

Shrug.

"Has his place been closed for a while?"

Another shrug. He returned to soaking.

"Great," I said.

He looked over his shoulder. "He never comes in here, I got nothing to do with him, okay?"