“We appreciate that, ma’am,” said Milo.
“Well, good,” said Paxton. “Because I do feel uncomfortable, divulging family issues.” She sipped latte like a cautious cat, licked foam from her upper lip.
“What kinds of problems did Gavin have?” I said.
“Like father, like son.”
“He was sexually predatory?”
“That sounds too harsh,” she said. “Gavin hadn’t developed into a predator. Yet. But he was . . . okay, there’s no reason not to tell you: Last year, Gavin ran into some legal problems over a woman.”
“Beth Gallegos,” said Milo.
Paxton’s face slackened with disappointment. “So you know.”
“It came up recently, ma’am. In fact, we were just talking about it to your sister.”
“You’re serious? Sheila must have gone bonkers. She blamed the victim, right?”
“Exactly, ma’am.”
“That’s always been her way of dealing with stress,” said Paxton. “My poor sister lives on another planet—well, yes, that was part of what I was going to tell you. But that was only Gavin’s most serious problem, there have been others.”
“Other women he stalked?”
“I know of at least one girl he harassed, and my guess would be more. Because that kind of behavior’s a pattern, right?”
“Sure,” said Milo. “Who’s the other victim?”
“Gavin had a girlfriend—some rich kid from the Flats, I only met her once, skinny little blond thing with a nose like a hawk. I found her kind of snotty. Her father’s a prominent jingle writer. Gavin got sexually aggressive with her, and she dumped him.”
“How do you know about this, ma’am?”
“Because Gavin told me.”
“Gavin talked to you about his personal issues?”
“From time to time.” Paxton smiled and caressed her own neck. “The young, hip aunt. He liked the fact that I’m in the industry, more in touch with pop culture than his parents. We’d chat from time to time. The time he told me about Little Miss Beverly Hills—I think her name was Katya, something like that—we were all out to dinner—right up the block at Il Principe, the food’s divine.”
“I’ll have to try it,” said Milo. “So this was a family dinner?”
“Gavin, Sheila, and I. Jerry was out of town. As usual.”
“How long ago?”
“Um, I’d say half a year, maybe more. Anyway, there we were enjoying the fabulous food—they cook sea bass in a wood oven, make their own pasta from scratch—and all of a sudden, Sheila wasn’t feeling well—another typical Sheila thing, she can’t enjoy anything, not even a good meal, without suffering—and she ran to the little girls’ room and stayed there for a while. Gavin started talking to me, he’d been looking kind of tense all night. Finally, I pried it out of him. He’d lost his girlfriend because she wasn’t interested in sex. He called her a ‘compulsive virgin.’ ”
She propped the chewed-down biscotti between her index fingers. Rolled it. Placed it on her plate. “I asked him what had happened, and he told me. While he was telling it, he really worked himself up. It was clear he was angry and frustrated.”
“About losing the relationship.”
“No, that was the thing. He said he couldn’t care less about having a girlfriend, it was not getting sex that griped him. It really made him angry.”
“This was after the accident.”
“Shortly after—maybe it was eight months ago. But Gavin was always easily frustrated. As a little boy he threw all kinds of tantrums.”
“Excitable,” I said. “And now he was all worked up about not getting sex.”
“He talked about sex as if it was his right. Said he and the girl, Katya, had been going together on and off since high school, it was about time she put out. Like there was a schedule you adhered to. Then he said everyone else was ‘fucking themselves blind,’ the whole world was one big fuckfest swimming in jizz and he deserved to swim, too, and she could just go to hell, he’d find someone else.”
“Lots of anger,” I said.
“He always had a bad temper. It got worse after the accident. It was like his emotional barometer was off—he just did or said what was on his mind. I mean, I’m his aunt and he’s talking about jizz in a booth at Il Principe. I was mortified. Important people dine at that place.”
“Gavin was talking loud?”
“His voice kept rising, and I had to keep telling him to lower it. I tried to reason with him, told him women weren’t machines, they needed to be cared for, sex could be fun, but it had to be mutual. He listened, actually seemed to be taking it in. Then he slid over in the booth, and said, ‘Eileen, thanks. You’re awesome.’ Then he grabbed my breast in one hand, the back of my head with the other, and tried to shove his tongue down my throat—Gio? A refill, please.”
*
Milo pressed her for more on Gavin’s sex life and the family, but once she’d gotten past the basic hatred, there was nothing. He steered the conversation to Gavin’s tabloid fantasies.
“That,” she said, “is another thing he was impressed with—my work in the industry. He kept asking me to hook him up with some celebrity parties, so he could observe.” She laughed. “As if I’d help him dig dirt on my friends.”
“What was his angle?”
“Unearthing filth and selling it to the tabs. He saw it as his journalistic debut, he was going to make his mark as a journalist. I told him the tabs were trash and full of lies, but he wouldn’t hear it. He claimed they were more honest than the establishment press because they were open about their goals.”
“Filth.”
She nodded. “After the accident, Gavin saw the world as one big ball of filth.”
I said, “Did he make any progress toward being a journalist?”
“Like take a course or get an internship?” said Paxton. “Not to my knowledge. I’d doubt it. He really wasn’t in any shape to go back to school or hold down a job. Too flighty—he was drifting. Dropping out, sleeping in till noon, turning his room into a pigsty. I can’t blame him, I’m sure his brain was messed up. But Sheila didn’t even try to set limits. And Jerry, of course, was always gone.”
“Gavin did go into therapy.”
“Because the courts forced him to.”
“Did he tell you who his therapist was?”
“Jerry did. Dr. Koppel. Like it was some big deal.” She frowned.
“You know her?”
“I’ve heard her on the radio, and I have to say I’m not impressed. All she does is preach morality to idiots who phone in. Why not just go to church?”
Using the present tense. Milo and I looked at each other.
She said, “What?”
“Dr. Koppel was murdered.”
Paxton’s face went white. “What? When?”
“Couple of days ago.”
“My God—why don’t I know that—was it on the news?”
“There was an article in yesterday’s paper.”
“I never read the paper,” she said. “Except Calendar. Murdered, omigod. Are you saying it had something to do with Gavin?”
“No, ma’am.”
“But she—could it be coincidence?”
“Your sister didn’t seem impressed by that.”
“My sister’s crazy. Do you have any idea who killed her?”
Milo shook his head.
“Horrible, horrible,” she said. “You think there’s a chance it couldn’t be related to Gavin?”
“We don’t know, ma’am.”
“Oh, boy.” Paxton stayed serious for a while. Ate her biscotti and grinned. Back to coquettish. “Now you’re playing hard to get, Lieutenant.”
“Not really, ma’am.”
“Well . . . I hope this has been helpful. I’ve got to go.”
“One more question, ma’am. Do you remember that picture I showed you of the girl who died with Gavin?”
“Yes, of course. And I told you I’d never seen her before,
and that was true.”
“Gavin talked to you about wanting to find a new girl. He told other people he’d succeeded.”
“What other people?”
“Let’s leave it at other people.”
“Mr. Inscrutable Detective,” said Paxton. She brushed her knee against Milo’s. “A new girl, huh? In Gavin’s mind that could’ve meant anything. Someone he decided to pursue, whether or not she wanted it. Someone he’d seen on TV.”
“The girl I showed you was real,” said Milo. “And she was in Gavin’s car, up on Mulholland, late at night.”
“Okay,” she said, annoyed. “So he found someone. Everyone finds someone eventually. Look what happened to her.”
*
She made sure Milo picked up the tab and flounced away on backless shoes.
“What a piece of work,” said Milo. “What a family. So what was her reason for talking to us? Dissing the Quicks?”
“She despises them,” I said, “but that doesn’t discount her information.”
“Gavin’s inappropriate sexual behavior? Yeah, he’s sounding nuttier by the day.”
“If she’s right about Jerome Quick, Gavin had a role model. Gavin may have started off with a certain view of women, and the accident weakened his inhibitions further. What intrigues me is the blonde. Gavin had problems approaching women, came on way too strong. Yet an attractive young woman was willing to get intimate with him. A young woman in five-hundred-dollar shoes whom no one’s reported missing.”
“A pro,” he said. “Got to be.”
“Severe frustration could lead a boy to buy sex. A Beverly Hills boy might have a decent budget. Especially with a father who sanctioned it. I know she hasn’t shown up in any Vice files, but a relative rookie lucky enough not to get busted wouldn’t. If she worked on her own, there’d be no one to miss her. If she worked for someone else, they might not want to go on record.”
“A father who sanctioned it,” he said. “Dad slips Gavin serious dough to get seriously laid?”
“And maybe,” I said, “Dad knew where to send him.”
*
Jerome Quick’s metals-trading firm was a few miles east of Beverly Hills, on Wilshire near La Brea, on the third floor of a shopworn four-story building wedged between taller structures.
A sign in the empty lobby listed several units for lease. Most of the tenants were businesses with names that told you little about what they did. Quick’s office was on the second floor, midway down a poorly lit linoleum-floored hall. A savory but discomforting odor—beef stew just past its prime—permeated the walls.
Quick didn’t keep much of an office: A small, mostly empty reception area fronted an office marked PRIVATE. The carpeting was brown, stomped glossy, the walls cheap woodite paneling. The receptionist sat behind a cheap woodite desk. She was young and thin, pretty but hard-looking, with randomly chopped hair tinted electric blue at the tips. Her makeup was thick and grayish, her lipstick, anoxic gray-blue. Curving bright azure nails were an inch long. She wore a tight white sweater over leather-look black vinyl pants and chewed gum. In front of her was a copy of Buzz Magazine. The lack of other periodicals or chairs and her surprise at our presence said visitors were infrequent.
The sight of Milo’s badge raised a penciled eyebrow, but the pulse in her neck was slow and steady.
She said, “Mr. Quick’s out of town,” in a surprisingly sultry voice.
“Where?” said Milo.
She wiggled her shoulders. “San Diego.”
“He travel a lot?”
“All the time.”
“Nice and quiet for you.”
“Uh-huh.” The blue nails tapped the magazine. No computer or typewriter in sight.
Milo said, “You’re not surprised the police want to talk to him.”
She shrugged. “Sure I am.”
“Is it the first time the police have wanted to talk to him?”
“I’ve only been working here for a couple of months.”
“Cops been here before?” said Milo.
“Nope.”
Milo showed her the photo of the blonde. She blinked hard, turned away.
“You know her?”
“Is she dead?”
“Very.”
“Don’t know her.”
“She’s the girl who died with Gavin Quick.”
“Oh.”
“You do know about Gavin.”
“Yeah. Of course.”
“Sad,” said Milo.
“I didn’t really know him,” she said. “Very sad.” She turned the corners of her mouth down. Trying to mean it. Her brown eyes were flat. “Who did it?”
“That’s what we’re trying to find out, Ms. . . .”
“Angie.”
“Gavin come in here?”
“Once in a while.”
“How often, Angie?”
“Not often.”
Milo unbuttoned his jacket and edged closer to her desk. “How long have you been working here?”
“Three and a half months.”
“In three and half months, how many times did you see Gavin Quick?”
“Hmm . . . maybe three times. Could be four, but probably three.”
“What did Gavin do when he was here?”
“Went in to see Jerry—Mr. Quick. Sometimes they’d go out.”
“For lunch?”
“I guess.”
“Was it lunchtime?”
“I think it was.”
“What’d you think of Gavin, Angie?”
“He seemed like an okay guy.”
“No problems?”
She licked her lips. “No.”
“No problems at all? He was always a gentleman.”
“What do you mean?” she said.
“We’ve heard,” said Milo, “that Gavin could get pretty enthusiastic. Overly enthusiastic.”
No reply.
“Overly enthusiastic with women, Angie.”
She placed a hand on the copy of Buzz. As if preparing to take an oath. I swear on all that is hip . . .
“I never saw that. He was polite.”
“Polite,” said Milo. “And by the way, what is your last name?”
“Paul.”
“Angie Paul.”
“Yup.”
“So Mr. Quick travels a lot.”
“All the time.”
“Must get boring, just sitting around.”
“It’s okay.” She flexed her shoulders again.
Milo sidled closer to the desk. The top bit into his thigh. “Angie, did Gavin ever hit on you?”
“Why would he do that?”
“You’re an attractive woman.”
“Thanks,” she said, without inflection. “He was always polite.”
“Where’s the boss off to?”
“Somewhere in San Diego. He didn’t say.”
“He doesn’t tell you where to find him?”
“He calls in.”
“Leaving you all by yourself,” said Milo.
“I like it,” she said. “Nice and quiet.”
*
Before we left, Milo took down her North Hollywood address and phone number and driver’s license registration. Driving back to the station, he ran her through the data banks. Three years ago, Angela May Paul had been arrested for marijuana possession.
“Paxton said Quick hired sluts for secretaries,” he said. “I don’t know if ol’ Angie would qualify for that, but he’s sure not tapping the executive roster. That office of his, pretty downscale, huh?”
“Keeping the overhead low,” I said. “Eileen said he’s no tycoon.”
“She said he was hustling . . . think Angie was telling the truth about not knowing the blonde? I thought she reacted a bit to the photo, though with that stone face it was hard to tell.”
“She blinked hard when you showed it to her,” I said, “but it is a death shot.”
“The blonde,” he said. “Jimmy Choo and Armani perfume. Maybe ol’ Jerry
provided well for Junior.”
He checked his phone for messages, grunted, hung up.
“Drs. Larsen and Gull returned my call. They’d prefer to meet me away from the office, suggested Roxbury Park, tomorrow, 1 P.M. The picnic area on the west side, they go there for lunch from time to time. You up for some grass and trees and chewing the fat with a couple of colleagues? Should I bring a picnic basket?”
“Grass and trees sounds okay but forget the niceties.”
CHAPTER
21
“Alex, I’m glad I caught you.”
It’d been months since I’d heard Robin’s voice, and it threw me. No rapid heartbeat; I was pleased about that.
I said. “Hi, how’ve you been?”
“Well. You?”
“Great.”
So civil.
“Alex, I’m calling for a favor, but if you can’t do it, please just say so.”
“What is it?”
“Tim was just asked to fly to Aspen to work with Udo Pisano—the tenor. There’s a concert tomorrow, and the guy’s voice is freezing up. They want Tim there yesterday, are flying him on a chartered jet. I’ve never been to Aspen and would like to go along. We’re talking one, maybe two nights. Would you be able to babysit Spike? You know how he is with kenneling.”
“Sure,” I said, “if Spike can handle being here.”
A few years back, on a sweltering summer day, a little French bulldog had made his way across the murderous traffic of Sunset Boulevard and up into the Glen. He wandered onto my property, gasping, stumbling, dangerously dehydrated. I watered and fed him, searched for his owner. She turned out to be an old woman dying in a Holmby Hills manor. Her sole heir, a daughter, was allergic to dogs.
He’d been saddled with an unwieldy pedigree moniker; I renamed him Spike and learned about kibble. He reacted to his new surroundings with élan, promptly fell in love with Robin, and began viewing me as competition.
When Robin and I broke up, custody wasn’t an issue. She got him, his leash, his food bowls, the short hairs he shed all over the furniture, his snoring, snuffling, arrogant table manners. I was awarded an echoing house.
I considered finding a dog of my own, had never gotten around to it. I didn’t see Spike much because I didn’t see Robin much. He’d taken ownership of the small house in Venice that she shared with Tim Plachette, and his regard for Tim seemed no higher than for me.
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