by Mel Gilden
Only the customers didn’t fit. From the looks of the earnest crowd, they had only a nodding acquaintance with roughing it, and the lack of experience had taken on a sort of romantic glow. They were casually well-dressed but not very rugged.
‘I should have worn my cowboy hat,’ I said.
‘It’s true,’ said Sylvia, ‘they’re a little heavy on decor, but otherwise, it’s a good bookstore. They have an enormous selection of books on genetics and tanning.’
‘Together or individually?’
‘Both. You’d be amazed at how many people are interested in both subjects.’
‘Probably. This is one of Heavenly’s hangs?’
Sylvia nodded. ‘Her favourite bookstore.’
We wandered for a while, watching faces and catching patches of conversation. None of it meant much to me. After we’d cased the whole store, Sylvia and I walked down an aisle lined with big books with colourful covers showing balls with spikes and short twisty trains. Just about every book had the word ‘virus’ in the title. At the moment, nobody was in the aisle. Sylvia picked up a book just to have something in her hands and said, ‘I didn’t see anybody I know,’ She sounded disappointed.
‘You said there are a lot of people interested in this stuff. Not all of them would know Heavenly. And you wouldn’t know all of them that she knew.’
‘Yeah. I’m a hell of a social secretary.’ ‘We’re not dead yet. Let’s talk to the guy behind the counter.’
Sylvia followed me back to the front of the store. I had to stand back from the counter to see over it. On top of the counter was a cardboard display rack filled with copies of a book called Tanning is in Your Blood by Genetics MacDonald.
First Time in Paperback! a headline screamed in red. The cover featured a good-looking woman wearing a bathing suit only a little more revealing than the one Heavenly had been wearing in her photograph. She was as brown as a Christmas turkey and reclining on a rock whose rough texture made a nice contrast with her smooth skin. The whole thing was pretty artistic. A human male might buy the book just to get the cover.
A thin blond man with the ghost of a moustache stopped reading a book, closed it on his finger, and looked down at me. Long straight hair hung like a curtain over one eye, and a well-broken-in low-grade smile glowed on his face like a friendly fire. He wore a brown sweater with silhouettes of reindeer on it, and a big watch with a golden worm holding it on his wrist.
‘Was there something?’ he said. Then Sylvia walked up, and he lost all interest in me. The lowgrade smile became a barn-burner, and he almost jumped over the counter at her. He began to babble, ‘Heavenly, darling, I haven’t seen you in here in ages! Where have you been keeping yourself? Did you know that Puffy Tootsweet is having a party at her beach house tonight? She told me to pass the word, but I never thought...’ Evidently the thought that he might be passing the word to Heavenly was just too much for him. He reached for his chest to grab his breath, giving Sylvia a chance to say, ‘I’m not Heavenly.’
‘Not?’
‘Heavenly. I’m Sylvia Woods, her social secretary.’
‘Well, where has she been keeping herself?’
I dropped my dime by saying, ‘We were hoping that you had some ideas about that.’
‘Me?’ The smile was turned down a notch, set on good fellowship rather than on stun.
Sylvia introduced us, and the clerk reached over the counter to shake my hand. ‘Private detective, eh? Trouble is your business? The Maltese Falcon? All that sort of thing?’ He was delighted at some private joke.
‘Maltese falcon?’ I said.
The clerk, Sylvia, and another customer reacted to my question with the astonishment usually reserved for my nose. The clerk ran from his perch behind the counter and returned in seconds with a slim black volume bearing a photo of a stylized statue of a bird on its cover — The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett. I promised that I would read it as soon as I had the time, thus preventing the clerk, Sylvia, and the customer from jumping down my throat.
While the clerk was ringing up The Maltese Falcon, he said, ‘Why would you think that I knew where Heavenly was?’ A horrifying idea struck him. He froze and with eyebrows raised looked at me. ‘She’s not missing, is she?’
‘She hasn’t been in here for a while, has she?’
‘Well, no.’
We both waited while his inquisitive glance struck me and slid off. I became aware of a fast-picking down-home number dropping through the suddenly still air from speakers in the ceiling. If I had confused him, that was just as well. Daise family business was none of his. I could see him wondering if it was worth his trouble and maybe the goodwill of a customer to ask too many questions. The good sense of a shopkeeper won out, and he gaily bid us goodbye as we left the store. ‘See you at Puffy’s,’ he called after us.
We strolled through the arcade, just a couple of crazy kids without enough to do. Sylvia said, ‘Heavenly loved Puffy’s parties. She might show up for it.’
‘If she knew Puffy was throwing a party.’
‘That clerk in there is not the only person Puffy told to spread the word.’
‘No. He wouldn’t be. All right. Where does this Puffy live?’ I was aware of a dull gamey smell in the air. While Sylvia answered my question, I discovered where the smell was coming from, Three gorillas in suits. They had seen us too. They were moving quickly down the other side of the arcade towards the walkway, where they could cross over to us.
Still answering my question, Sylvia said, ‘Puffy lives down at the beach in Malibu.’
‘Let’s go.’
She laughed that Mozart laugh of hers, ‘I can’t go like this. If you don’t dress up for one of Puffy’s parties, you’re not dressed at all.’
‘Come on,’ I said and grabbed her arm. I pulled her towards Cuthbertson’s, the big department store at the nearest end of the arcade.
‘What’s going on?’
‘Evidenty our friends were not as lost as I was.’
Sylvia looked where I was looking, and her face went slack. We moved along together, not quite running. She didn’t need to be dragged.
We walked in through the perfume department and kept going. I said, ‘Keep moving. Take the long way back to the car and wait for me.’ She nodded, touched the bridge other glasses, and went.
I turned around and walked back the way we had come. The gorillas had just entered the store and were standing in the wide doorway trying to guess which direction we’d gone. They looked as confused as cats in a tree. Tiger, the half-bright one, picked up a Taj Mahal bottle and wrinkled his nose at the contents. Spike slapped his hand, and he put it down.
I came around the corner on the far side of the gleaming counter and stood behind them for a moment before I said, ‘Looking for something that smells like a banana?’
They whirled on me with their hands halfway into their coats but relaxed when they saw I had my hands in my pockets. The only thing I packed was a water pistol, but the gorillas didn’t know that. Spike said, ‘We don’t need the heat.’
‘Says you. Let’s go for a little walk.’
‘Jake with us,’ Spike said. He and I walked together. The other two gorillas were not far behind.
The tinkly music and plastic charm of the arcade retreated to another world. The gorillas and I could have been walking along a deserted road in the middle of nowhere. But we weren’t. We were walking through an arcade towards the Nurture/Nature Bookstore. I kept my hands in my pockets and waited for Spike to make the first move. It would be interesting to see what it would be.
At last Spike said, ‘Where’s Heavenly Daise?’
I tried to keep the surprise out of my voice. ‘That seems to be a popular question.’
‘Yeah?’ The word hung in the air, quickly growing brown and brittle. ‘And what’s the popular answer?’
‘Tell me why I should know.’
‘You’re looking for her, ain’t you?’
‘Says who?’
>
Behind us, Duke grunted. Tiger wasn’t paying any attention. He was looking into the big pretty windows.
‘Says us,’ said Spike. He opened his coat a little to show me the pistol hanging inside. ‘Let’s see yours.’
We walked a few more steps, and I ducked into the Nurture/Nature Bookstore. The three gorillas were right behind me, of course. They were just in time to hear me shout, ‘You’re in luck, folks! Here’s Genetics MacDonald, himself!’
The clerk looked in my direction, his eyes wide, while customers flowed in from the rest of the store. I ran down a side aisle against the tide — sometimes being small can have its advantages — and through a stockroom at the back of the store. I could hear shouting coming from up front. It could have meant anything.
I hurried quickly among the crowded bookshelves and cardboard boxes. ‘Wait a minute,’ a fat, honey-haired girl with glasses cried. But by that time I was out the back door and moving fast along a narrow cement service corridor.
Not many doors away I found a freight elevator, which I took down to the loading dock. From there, I walked quickly around to the customer side of the arcade and found Sylvia’s car. She was in it, under the wheel, huddling with herself, though the evening was not cold. I knocked on the window, and she jumped. When she saw it was me, she unlocked the passenger door, and I slid in beside her. While I caught my breath, she said, ‘What did they want?’ ‘What do we all want? Heavenly Daise.’ Sylvia nodded a tiny nod. ‘That mean something to you?’
‘No,’ Sylvia said as if it could mean yes. ‘I’d just hate to think of those gorillas finding her before we do.’ ‘They don’t act like gorillas. How might they be connected with Heavenly?’
‘I don’t know. They’re not her type.’
‘No. Not the type of anybody who’s nice. Yet they knew Heavenly was missing and that I was looking for her. That means they’ve either been talking to her father or someone close to her father.’
‘Who?’
‘If I knew that, I’d be a lot less confused than I am right now. Start the car. We’re going to Puffy’s party.’
Chapter 14
No White Tie, No Tails
WHILE Sylvia drove us back to the Daise place, she explained again why she couldn’t go to one of Puffy’s parties dressed the way she was. The fact that being in Santa Monica she was three-quarters of the way to Malibu didn’t seem to make any difference. Nothing would satisfy her but that she must go home and change. It made as much sense to me as a Gino and Darlene movie. I gave her Whipper Will’s address. When she stopped by later in her splendid party clothes, I would drive her to Puffy’s house in the old Chevy.
‘That’s OK, I guess. Classic cars are in.’
‘In what?’
Sylvia laughed, but didn’t explain. I was witty, all right. Yes, I was.
Traffic was still heavy, and it took us almost an hour to get back to the Daise mansion. Sylvia left me in front and parked her car in the garage. It opened mechanically when she was half a block away and then closed behind her.
I sat in my car for a while, watching the ripening sun carefully climb down through the branches of trees towards the foothills. Meanwhile, people were getting home, putting their cars away, emptying the streets. Or maybe that was wishful thinking. I was doing a lot of that lately. For instance, I was wishfully thinking that I might make sense out of this case.
Somebody, maybe Gotterdammerung, had destroyed the surfers’ surf-bots so that Gotterdammerung could win the yoyogurt recipe. That would have been a dirty enough business, but there was more. Surfing Samurai Robots, the biggest name in robots, had bought up everything that had anything to do with surf-bots, seemingly so that the broken robots could not be fixed or replaced. Unless SSR was working for Gotterdammerung — which was as likely as Sylvia going to Puffy’s party in her jeans — I could not see any motive for SSR to care who won the Surf-O-Rama. Maybe they had suddenly taken a big interest in yoyogurt. I shook my head. I might as well try to build the Parthenon from a pile of rocks.
Meanwhile, I had been hired to find the supposedly runaway daughter of the owner of SSR. Not only was her father looking for her, but so were three gorillas who seemed awfully well connected.
Was the fact that SSR stood out from this mess like a rubber duck in a punch bowl just an odd coincidence, no more meaningful than a cloud looking like a slaberingeo, or did SSR have its fingers in more pies than any multinational corporation had any right to? I don’t believe in coincidences. It isn’t healthy.
The sun was an orange hump above the black foothills now, and the mellow air had a bracing cold edge to it. In the sky, a good-looking sunset was playing. A charmer. But it didn’t tell me why this odd coincidence involving SSR.
I started the car and drove home. The traffic was heavy at first, but by the time I got to Malibu, it had thinned to the point that I could turn left into the garage without having to wait half an hour.
The gang was in the kitchen climbing over each other to reach slices from a steaming wheel of pizza. The commotion stopped when I came in, then started again almost immediately. Everybody wanted to know if I’d found out who-dun-it to their surf-bots. Whipper Will didn’t say anything. He just sat in the corner with his arm dangling across Bingo’s shoulder, watching the show through an unreadable expression.
‘No,’ I said, ‘but it’s early yet. I’m going to a party this evening.’
Captain Hook said, ‘Pretty aggro, dude, considering what we’re paying you.’
‘Considering what you’re paying me, I’ve been on the case all day, and I’ll probably be on it at that party.’ My tone was not pretty. I was tired and hungry for something other than grease, and I needed a bath. I almost snarled.
‘No offence, dude,’ said Thumper as he expertly folded the angle of the pizza slice back with his tongue and shoved half of the rolled-over part into his mouth. Around his chewing, he said, ‘Whose party?’
‘Puffy Tootsweet.’
‘Bitchen!’ they all intoned. Captain Hook said, ‘I’m about stoked for a Puffy Tootsweet party.’
‘You been stoked for years,’ Bingo said. Everybody laughed. Even Captain Hook didn’t lose his smile.
‘Sorry. This is business.’
They stopped laughing and looked at me as if I’d just swallowed the Pacific Ocean whole. Captain Hook said, ‘Oh, sure. Well, who’s your client, hot dog? Get us into the party or we’ll fire you.’
I shook my head. ‘You can fire me if you want to. I only wish you’d done it sooner. If you just wanted invitations to parties, it would have saved me a lot of grief. But I thought you wanted a little detecting done.’
Whipper Will came through the kitchen door carrying a big blue ceramic bowl in both hands. I hadn’t even seen him leave the room. He said, ‘Who’s for yoyogurt?’
‘We’re discussing a little something here,’ Captain Hook said.
‘It’s a new flavour,’ Whipper Will said.
‘So?’ said Captain Hook. ‘We’re talking about a Puffy Tootsweet bash here.’
Before he finished his sentence. Thumper said, ‘What flavour?’
‘Offhandedly, as if he said it every day, Whipper Will said. ‘Alfalfa sprout.’
‘Cowabunga!’ Mustard cried. There was a scattering of ‘Ahh-rooh!’s from around the room. Mustard took the bowl and put it next to the pizza. Mopsie (or was it Flopsie?) threw a handful of teaspoons on the table with a clatter. The surfers dug in. Occasionally, one of them managed to squeeze out a ‘bitchen’ between the lip-smacking.
Meanwhile, Captain Hook glared at Whipper Will with the jewelled eyes of an angry god. He said, ‘Mighty cool, ain’t you, dude?’
Captain Hook’s glare was so much smoke to Whipper Will. He lounged against the doorway, relaxed as a python after dinner. ‘Zoot is doing his work. Let him.’
‘The big kahuna,’ Captain Hook said as if the words were poison. ‘Big flippin’ kahuna.’
‘Look,’ I said, ‘you can crash
the party if you want. Hell, you can come with me. But it won’t help me find out who diddled with your surf-bots if everybody knows who I’m working for.’
Captain Hook’s eyes lost their lustre. He turned suddenly and went out, slamming the back door behind him. Thumper looked up, saw nothing that interested him, and went back to exclaiming over the bowl of alfalfa sprout yoyogurt.
I said, ‘I’m going to take a shower. After that, I’ll need some clothes.’ Whipper Will nodded.
The hot water felt good. I wrapped a towel around my middle and went to Whipper Will’s room. He sat on the floor with a big pile of clothes on one side and a much smaller pile on the other. Invisible clouds of human musk weighed down the air in the room like a tent. Whipper Will took garment after garment from the small pile, held it up to the appropriate part of my body, and threw it aside.
Then, we started getting lucky. In twenty minutes I was wearing a lime green coat, a beet purple shirt, and shocking blue trousers that on Whipper Will were walking shorts. They matched the blue gloves. A wide-brimmed hat rested lightly on my nose. I looked like what’s left after Dollar Day is over, but Whipper Will assured me that nobody would notice. They also wouldn’t notice that nothing quite fit. The baggy look was in style. I still felt more comfortable in my brown suit.
By that time, the surfers were in the living room zoned out on yoyogurt. On the television, a gigantic creature stomped through a city breathing flame. I didn’t want to know if the broadcast was news or entertainment.
All the yoyogurt was gone, but a lot of pizza was left. As I ate, I watched Captain Hook through the window. Just outside the fringe of light thrown from the kitchen, he stood stiffly with his hands in his pockets, looking out at the ocean. I didn’t know for sure that his thoughts were as dark as the water, but it was the way to bet.
I sat around over an hour, watching Godzilla turn Tokyo into kindling over and over again. The movie was on videotape, the suffers could see the destruction as often as they liked. Me, it was putting to sleep.
