I scooped smoked almonds into a bag, waited until the shop was quiet, and approached.

Boestling rang up the sale. “You’ll like these, an Indian family in Oregon does the smoking themselves.”

“Great,” I said, paying. “Mr. Boestling?”

His eyes narrowed. “Why?”

“I’m looking for a Martin Boestling who used to produce films.”

He transferred the almonds to a paper bag, slid it across the counter, started to turn away.

I showed him my police I.D.

He said, “Police shrink? What’s this all about?”

“I consult to- ”

“And now you’re at The Nut House. How apropos.” His eyes aimed at the woman behind me in line. “Next.”

I stepped aside, waited until she checked out.

Martin Boestling said, “Anything else I can do for you, purchase-wise?”

“It’s about Sydney Weider,” I said. “And Drew Daney.”

His big hands became flesh cudgels. “What is it exactly that you want?”

“A few minutes of your time, Mr. Boestling.”

“Why?”

“Daney’s the subject of an investigation.”

Silence.

“It could be serious,” I said.

“You want dirt.”

“If you’ve got any.”

He waved the kerchiefed woman over. “Magda, take over. An old friend just dropped in.”

We walked up Fairfax, found an unoccupied bus bench, sat down. Martin Boestling had forgotten to remove his apron. Or maybe he hadn’t.

He said, “Sydney was a bitch from hell, he was a fucking bastard, end of story.”

“I know about the gonorrhea.”

“Know how big my dick is, too?”

“If it’s relevant I can probably find out.”

He grinned. “You’d think it would be relevant, size mattering and all that. I married Sydney because she was smart and rich and good-looking and loved to screw. Turned out, she was making a fool out of me from the day we tied the knot.”

“Promiscuous.”

“If she had showed restraint, you could’ve called her promiscuous. Day of the wedding, she screwed one of my so-called friends.” He began ticking his finger. “The pool boy, the tennis pro, the fish tank guy, bunch of lawyers she worked with. It was only later, after the divorce, that people started to come up and tell me, phony sympathy in their eyes. Sorry, Marty, we didn’t want to make waves. I could never prove it but I’m convinced she screwed some of her clients, too. You know the kind of clients she worked with?”

“Indigent.”

“Murderers, robbers, scumbags. Think about that: She’s keeping long office hours in order to spread her legs for lowlife while I’m hustling to support her in the style to which she’d become accustomed. I hated the industry, stayed with it because I was desperate to impress her. Know where we met?”

“Where?”

“Your investigation didn’t carry you that far back? We met at the Palisades Vista Country Club where her family belonged and I was working my way through the U. as a towel jockey. Spritzing rich people with bottled water while they turned like chickens on a spit. Should’ve known how it was going to be when Sydney left her rich boyfriend in the dining room so she could do me in a cabana. We dated off and on for a while, until I graduated and got a job in the mailroom at CAA and convinced her to marry me.”

I said, “Was it her idea for you to go into the industry?”

“I had a B.A. in English, which is about as useful as a second appendix. It sounded interesting and I was good at it. Mostly, I did it for Sydney. I was crazy about her.”

He plucked at his apron. “Her old man got me the mailroom gig but I earned the right to stay. Worked like a galley slave and took abuse from the worst people you’ll ever meet. I produced more than all the Ivy League dilettantes who were doing it for fun, climbed fast, was making serious money while Sydney finished at the U. School-wise she was always smart, graduated summa, took a break to have the kids, then we all moved to Berkeley so she could attend Boalt Law School. I stayed down in L.A., flew up on weekends to be with her and the boys. I had it down to a science, the four p.m. Friday into Oakland to avoid the fog, return late Sunday. The boys turned out good, considering. They both hate her. It didn’t take long for the marriage to go sour- we were bored with each other. But no one else’s marriage seemed any better so I didn’t think anything of it.”

“Until the lab report,” I said.

“The lab report came later. What blew everything up was I caught her doing Daney. In my house, my bed, my robe and slippers on the chair.” He laughed. “Total cliché. I had a meeting over at Fox TV on a script. The moron in charge cut it short because she heard my demographic wasn’t right. Meaning my projects were aimed at I.Q.s higher than that of a rutabaga. I was expecting a longer meeting, brought along the writer, poor schmuck. So I’m out of there in ten minutes, in a not-so-good mood, decided to go home, take a swim and a shvitz in the brand-new sauna I put in. When I get home, I hear moaning and groaning from upstairs and go into the master suite- which I just paid a fortune to remodel, let me tell you, our place in Brentwood was state of the art. The door’s wide open and Sydney and that pissant are doing the two-headed goat.”

His voice had risen loud enough for passersby to notice. Smoothing his apron, he cracked his knuckles. “I yell, Sydney opens her eyes. Then she closes them and keeps going. I rush over and I’m hitting Daney on the back and neck and he wants to get off her but she’s got a leg-lock on him. I’m pounding him on the back, his head, anywhere I can land a punch and he’s struggling to get free but Sydney still won’t let him. Finally she finishes and shoves him off and the bastard grabs his clothes and runs out of there like his nuts are on fire.”

He laughed until his eyes got wet. “I can laugh at it now. Even feel sorry for the idiot.”

I smiled.

“Mr. Subdued Reaction,” he said. “Remind me not to put you in the audience. Anyway, that’s the story.”

“Any idea how long they’d been carrying on?”

“No, because we never talked about it. Sydney locked herself in the bathroom, took a shower, when she came out I was ready to fight. She breezes past, gets in her car and leaves. She stayed out all night, luckily the boys were away at school. I sat there like a lox, waiting for her, finally got myself a room at the Hotel Bel-Air. A few days later, pus started coming out of my dick. But I got her good. Guess how?”

“Something financial.”

“The pre-nup. Which her old man put in for her sake. The deal was she got to keep all the assets she came into the marriage with. Only problem for Sydney was the old man made some real bad investments and emptied her trust fund. Her sole assets were zippo leaving only our joint assets. Which wasn’t as much as either of us thought because we were living way beyond our means. For me it was no big deal, my dad worked for a living- the nut business. I used to put it down for not being glamorous, till I learned about the industry.”

“Sydney had trouble coping,” I said.

“Sydney was a spoiled bitch who became a lawyer for status and fulfillment. After we split, she tried to get herself a private practice job but it didn’t work out. Meanwhile, the divorce lawyers are looting whatever’s left. Her mother finally died and left her enough to get herself a place in the Palisades along with a small monthly allowance. The zip code’s right but it’s a dump and she doesn’t maintain it. She was always hyper, now I hear she’s downright manic.”

He looked to me for confirmation. I said, “What happened to her private practice job?”

“Ah, that,” said Boestling, smiling. “Unfortunately, her boss received a copy of that pesky lab report. So did every other serious criminal defense firm in town. Now, who’d do something so vengeful?” He yawned.