“I’ll think about it,” I said, matching her indifference.

“Hurry up with prasad” I heard the boy’s thwarted voice say as the door swung shut behind me. “Baba is waiting for it.”

“I bet he is,” I said to myself. “The fat bastard.”

Looking into the library as I passed, I saw twenty or so people sitting on the couch and floor, gazing raptly at Baba, who was enthroned like a tribal god in a big chair by the fireplace, where flames now crackled. He was staring balefully at a young woman with round glasses who was perched on an arm of the couch with an expectant look on her face.

“That is so basic,” he said angrily. “How many times do I have to answer the same question for you people? Atman and Brahman are one and the same. That is the essence of Advaita Vedanta. If you can’t grasp that simple principle, I am wasting my time with you.”

The girl looked like she might start crying, but Baba didn’t seem to notice. He shook his head in disgust and called on the next questioner.

Reggie was sitting on the front steps.

“It’s about time,” he said. “Where were you?”

“Prospecting.”

“Find any gold?”

“A nugget as big as your thumb.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

I had two short days to plan the robbery. Everything would have to be in place by Monday night if we were going to pounce on Tuesday morning. In the next forty-eight hours, I had to find out where Evermore’s financial institution was and pick a spot to intercept the lawyer before he took the necklace into the high-security environment inside the bank. To do that, I would have to find out his name and locate his office. It would help to know what he looked like, the kind of car he drove, and the route he would be following to the bank.

If I could track him to his office, that might actually be a better place to do the robbery than a bank. If he was driving out to the desert on Monday afternoon and returning late that evening, he would have to keep the necklace someplace overnight. Evermore said he would keep it at his office, but it was possible he wouldn’t want the jewels out of his sight and might take them to his house. Both scenarios offered possibilities. I liked the idea of robbing him in a leafy suburb or burglarizing an empty office building on Monday night much better than pulling an armed robbery in a bank parking lot on a busy weekday morning.

“Well?” Reggie said, irritated. “Whud you find out?” It was the second time he had asked the question. We were halfway back to Pacific Avenue. The temperature had dropped a few degrees and the offshore breeze had picked up, tossing the tops of the tall palm trees and blowing trash along the street. It was an uneasy combination. The Santa Anas usually brought warmer temperatures.

“Sorry,” I said. “I was trying to sort some things out. I found out where the diamonds are.”

Reggie made saucer eyes. “Where?”

“They’re still in Indian Wells, but Evermore’s attorney is bringing them back here Monday night. Depending on how things shape up, we’ll hit Monday or midmorning on Tuesday.”

“Stickup?” He made a gun out of his hand to illustrate his question.

“Could go either way. We might be able to burgle them or it might be strong-arm. The lawyer will be traveling with a security guard.”

“Rent-a-cops ain’t shit,” Reggie said. “I’ll take care of ‘em.”

“I’m not worried about the junior G-man. If it’s a stickup we’ll come down on him like a brick chimney.”

Somewhere to the south, I heard a siren drifting toward us. As we came to the juncture of Westminster and Pacific, a medium-size engine honked its way through the busy intersection. Looking north, in the direction it was going, I saw a storefront with flames boiling out the front. Another fire engine was coming down Pacific from Santa Monica. As we walked the four blocks south to Sharpnick’s, I looked back several times. The fire seemed to be spreading.

When we were half a block from the flophouse, the front door flew open and a jolly-looking girl who could not accurately have been described as petite scampered out onto the porch, shrieking. She was wearing a pair of plaid boxer shorts and nothing else. Her melon-size breasts flopped as she ran. Budge came out right behind her. He was wearing the same flowered board shorts he’d had on earlier and was topless like the girl. His breasts and belly jiggled, too. The pair of them ran around the side of the house into the backyard, laughing like lunatics.

“Looks like the party’s started,” Reggie said, putting some giddyap in his short-legged stride. A series of motorcycle accidents had left one of his legs two inches shorter than the other. His boot was built up to compensate for the differential, but he still limped. If you were trying to get him to go someplace on foot that he thought was too far to walk, he would exaggerate the limp, hobbling like Chester on Gunsmoke and bitching until you agreed to go back and get your car or hire a cab. But he could stump along at high speed if he wanted to, and the topless girl had piqued his interest. He enjoyed the company of drunk chicks.

We entered the house, leaning forward against a blast of soul music pouring out into the windy night. Two black guys I’d seen around and a Mexican who worked at the café where I ate breakfast were shooting dice against one wall. Candyman was curled up on the couch, necking with a white girl who could have been the twin of Budge’s quarry. Two black women who looked like part-time hookers were sitting by the stereo, laughing and drinking wine from paper cups, bobbing their heads and swaying their shoulders in time to the music.

“Look! It’s Reggie and the other guy,” one of the black girls said. “Come ‘ere an gimme some sugar, Reggie.” She stretched out her arms toward him and wiggled her fingers.

“I got something sweet for you, all right,” Reggie growled, heading her way.

Swaggering across the living room, he narrowly missed a collision with the topless girl, who charged in from the kitchen, followed by Budge, who was still laughing in the explosive, staccato style that possessed him when he was drunk.

“Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!” he laughed loudly, spotting the girl. It sounded like the laugh of a maniac but was so good-humored that it was hilarious instead of threatening. He could keep it up for minutes at a time, pausing for a quick breath every dozen or so “ha”s.

The girl had stopped in the middle of the room. Looking back over her shoulder at her pursuer, she wiggled her plaid behind, then scampered with small steps and upraised arms into the bedroom hallway. Budge was winding up, Jackie Gleason style, to race after her when he saw me standing by the door.

“Hey, brother!” he shouted over the music, “come on in and join the party!”

Roused from his clinch by Budge’s shout, Candyman looked up and gave me a lazy wave, a blissful smile, and a slurred, “Rob, mah man!” before being tugged back down by his inamorata.

“Hey, Budge, who you say this is singing?” the black woman not necking with Reggie yelled. She was barefoot, wearing purple capris and a yellow tank top. Her hair was teased up into an impressive Angela Davis-type ‘fro.

“My girl, Teena Marie,” Budge shouted ecstatically. “The queen of blue-eyed soul!”

Before hooking up with Rick James and becoming the only white female soul singer to have a number-one record, Teena Marie had been a student at Venice High School in the same class as Budge. His second claim to fame was that he had taken her to the prom their junior year. It was 1973 and the Gondoliers had had a good season the previous fall. He was a popular athlete and she was a wild beauty already flaunting her irresistible voice in area talent shows, looking for a way out of her parents’ world. The way he told it, they made out on the beach afterward and she let him get his fingers wet rubbing her through her panties. For some reason, in a house full of tall tales, everyone believed him. Maybe it was because he had every record she had ever made, knew the title of every song, and still talked about her on a daily basis even though five presidents had been elected and twenty-three Southern California springs had come and gone since the two of them walked barefoot in the sand listening to the surf crash in the darkness.