Robert Crais - The Monkey's Raincoat

Patricia thought about it, then laid a finger alongside her nose. "I've heard there's some of this."

"Cocaine."

"Just talk. I don't know for sure. Garrett has this reputation. He came on to one of the girls here by offering her a toot, that kind of thing."

I saw him closing the drawer, closing the briefcase. "Mort, too?"

She looked surprised. "I wouldn't think so."

"Okay, that's Garrett's problem. Mort ever mention any friends, anyone he might've been close to?"

"Not that I remember. I can ask the other people here. I'll call a friend at Universal Casting and he can ask around over there."

I unfolded the 8 X 10 of Kimberly Marsh. Patricia looked at it, turned it over and read the résumé, then shook her head. "Sorry."

"If Mort Calls, will you try to get a number and let me know?"

"You going to tell me what this is about?"

"Mort's peddling government secrets to the Arabs."

She stuck her tongue at me.

"Tell me the truth," I said. "Do I look like John Cassavetes twenty years ago?"

"I didn't know you twenty years ago."

Everyone's a comedian. I stood up and went to the door.

"It's too bad about Mort," she said. "I remember when he was with ICM. He was well-placed. He had a fair clients list." She leaned back, putting her feet on her desk. She was wearing dark blue Espadrilles and tight Jag jeans. "You only start dealing with a Garrett Rice when you're scared. It's the kiss of death. A guy like Garrett Rice, he rents space over at TBS but he couldn't get a deal with Warner's or Columbia. Nobody wants him around." She frowned. "I met Mort twice maybe a year and a half ago when he was with ICM. He seemed like a nice man."

"Yeah, they're all nice men. This business is rife with nice men."

"You're a cynic, Elvis."

"No, I've just never met anyone in this business who believed in anything worthwhile and was willing to go the distance for it."

"Oh, foo," she said. That's one of the reasons I like her, she said things like "oh, foo." She slapped her desk, then got up and came around and punched my arm. "Hey, when are you going to come to the house for dinner?"

"Then I'll have to meet your boyfriend."

"That's the idea."

"What if I don't approve?"

"You'll lie and tell me he's the greatest thing in the world."

I squeezed her butt and walked out. "It works like that, doesn't it?"

Ipulled up at Ellen Lang's house at ten minutes before noon. She came to the door in cutoffs, bare feet, and a man's white-with-blue-stripes shirt tied at the waist. Her hair was done up in a knot. "Oh, God," she said. "Oh, God."

I smiled serenely. "To some, yes."

"I wasn't expecting you. I'm not dressed."

I went past her into the living room. The books and records were back on their shelves and most of the furniture was righted and in some semblance of order. There was a staple gun and packaging tape by the big couch, which was still upside down. Too heavy for her. I whistled. "You do all this by yourself?"

"Of course."

"Without Janet?"

She flushed and touched her hair where it was wispy out from the knot. "I must look horrible."

"You look better than yesterday. You look like someone who's been working hard and had her mind off her troubles. You look okay."

She flushed some more and turned back toward the dining room. Half a sandwich was laid out on a paper towel on the table. It looked like a single slice of processed chicken loaf on whole wheat, cut diagonally. There was half a Fred Flintstone glass of skim milk beside it.

She said, "I want to apologize to you for last night. And to thank you for what you did."

"Forget it."

She looked away, picking at the knot that held the shirttails together. "Well, you came all the way out here and I was so silly."

"No, you weren't. You were upset. You had a right to be. It would have been smart to keep the cops but you didn't and now it's past, so forget it."

She nodded, again without looking at me. Habit. As if she had never been quite strong enough to carry on a conversation in person. "Why did you let the police leave?"

"You wanted them to."

"But you and Janet didn't."

"I don't work for Janet." Ellen Lang went very red. "When you hire me I work for you. That means I'm on your side. I act in your behalf. I respect your confidences. My job doesn't mean cribbing off what the cops dig up. So if you don't want the cops then I'll try to live by that."

She looked at me, then remembered herself and glanced away. "You're the first private investigator I've ever met."

"The others aren't as good looking."

A little bit of a smile came to one side of her face, then left. Progress. She turned and handed me a small stack of white and green envelopes from the table. "I found these by Mort's desk." There were phone bills, some charge receipts from Bullocks and the Broadway and Visa, and some gas receipts from Mobil. All neatly sorted.

"There's only two phone bills here," I said.

"That's all I found."

"I want everything for the last six months, and the checkbook and the passbooks and anything from your broker if you have one, including IRA accounts and things like that."

"Well, like I said-" The awkward look was back.

"Mort handled all the money."

"I'm so bad with figures. I'm sorry."

"Unh-huh." I pointed at the sandwich. "Why don't you fix me one of those, only put some food on mine, and when I come back we can talk."

I went back through the living room and down the hall to the master. The mattress had been pulled back onto the box spring. The clothes and personal items had been picked up and folded into neat piles on the bed, his and hers, outer garments and underwear, all waiting to go back into the drawers. The drawers were back in the chest and dresser, and the room, like the rest of the house, looked in order. She must have started at 3 A.M.

Two shoe boxes and the Bekins box were on Mort's desk, filled with envelopes and file folders and actors' resumes and more of those glossy 8 X 10's. On the back of each 8 X 10 someone had stamped The Morton Lang Agency in red ink. I went through his rolodex, pulled cards for the clients I recognized, and put them in my pocket. In the second shoe box I found registration papers for a Walther.32-caliber automatic pistol purchased in 1980. Well, well. I stood up and looked at the room but didn't see the gun sticking out of any place conspicuous. Halfway down the Bekins box, under a three-year-old copy of Playboy , I found an unframed diploma from Kansas State University in Morton Keith Lang's name. It was water-stained. The bills and receipts and bank stuff were near the bottom of the box. Grand total search time: eight minutes. Maybe the box had hidden from Ellen when she came into the room. I have socks that do that.

When I got back to the dining room, a full-grown sandwich sat on a black china plate atop a blue and gray pastel place mat. The sandwich was cut into two triangles, each sporting a toothpick with an electric blue tassel. Four orange slices and four raspberries and a sprig of parsley offset the tassels. A water goblet sat to the right of the plate. To the left was a matching saucer with sweet pickles and pitted olives and Tuscan peppers, and a little gold fork to spear them with. A blue and gray linen napkin was rolled and peaked and sitting above the plate.

Ellen Lang sat at her place, staring out through the glass doors into her backyard. When she heard me she turned. "I put out water because I didn't know what else you might want. We have Diet Coke or milk or Pabst beer. I could make coffee if you'd like."

The table was perfect. "No, this is fine," I said. "Thank you."

She shifted in the chair. I sat and ate a Tuscan pepper. I prefer chili peppers or serranos, but Tuscans are fun, too.