Three years later: Los Angeles

CHAPTER 1

It was plant day in the City of Angels. On plant day I gather the plants that I keep in my office and take them out onto the little balcony I have overlooking West Los Angeles, where I clean and water and feed them, and then spend the remainder of the afternoon wondering why my plants are more yellow than green. A friend who knows plants once told me that I was giving them too much water, so I cut their rations in half. When the plants turned soft as well as yellow, another friend said that I was still drowning them, so I cut their water in half again. The plants died. I bought new plants and stopped asking other people's advice. Yellow plants are my curse.

I was sneering at all the yellow when Lucy Chenier said, 'I don't think I'll be able to get away until much later, Elvis. I'm afraid we've lost the afternoon.'

'Oh?' I was using a new cordless phone to talk to Lucille Chenier from the balcony as I worked on the plants. It was in the low eighties, the air quality was good, and a cool breeze rolled up Santa Monica Boulevard to swirl through the open French doors into my office. Cindy, the woman in the office next to mine, saw me on the balcony and made a little finger wave. Cindy was wearing a bright white dress shirt tied at the belly and a full-length sarong skirt. I was wearing Gap jeans, a silk Tommy Bahama shirt, and a Bianchi shoulder holster replete with Dan Wesson.38-caliber revolver. The shoulder holster was new, so I was wearing it around the office to break in the leather.

Lucy said, ' Tracy wants me to meet the vice president of business affairs, but he's tied up with the sales department until five.' Tracy was Tracy Mannos, the station manager of KROK television. Lucy Chenier was an attorney in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, but she had been offered a job by KROK here in Los Angeles. She had come out for three days to discuss job possibilities and contract particulars, and tonight was her last night. We had planned to spend the afternoon at the Mexican marketplace on Olvera Street in downtown LA. Los Angeles was founded there, and the marketplace is ideal for strolling and holding hands.

'Don't worry about it, Luce. Take all the time you need.' She hadn't yet decided if she would take the job, but I very much wanted it to happen.

'Are you sure?'

'Sure, I'm sure. How about I pick you up at six? We can go for an early dinner at Border Grill, then back to the house to pack.' Border Grill was Lucy's favorite.

'You're a dream, kiddo. Thanks.'

'Or, I could drive over and pull the veep out of his meeting at gunpoint. That might work.'

'True, but he might hold it against me in the negotiation.'

'You lawyers. All you think about is money.'

I was telling Lucy how rotten my plants looked when the outer door opened and three children stepped into my office. I cupped the receiver and called, 'Out here.'

The oldest was a girl with long dark hair and pale skin and little oval glasses. I made her for fifteen, but she might have been older. A younger boy trailed in behind her, pulling a much smaller girl. The boy was wearing oversized baggy shorts and Air Nike sneakers. He looked sullen. The younger girl was wearing an X-Files T-shirt. I said, 'I'm being invaded.'

Lucy said, ' Tracy just looked in. I have to go.'

The older girl came to the French doors. 'Are you Mr. Cole?'

I held up a finger, and the girl nodded. 'Luce, don't worry about how long it takes. If you run late, it's okay.'

'You're such a doll.'

'I know.'

'Meetcha outside the building at six.'

Lucy made kissy sounds and I made kissy sounds back. The girl pretended not to hear, but the boy muttered something to the younger girl. She giggled. I have never thought of myself as the kissy-sound type of person, but since I've known Lucy I've been doing and saying all manner of silly things. That's love for you.

When I turned off the phone, the older girl was frowning at my plants. 'When they're yellow it means they get too much sun.'

Everyone's an expert.

'Maybe you should consider cactus. They're hard to kill.'

'Thanks for the advice.'

The girl followed me back into my office. The younger girl was sitting on the couch, but the boy was inspecting the photographs and the little figurines of Jiminy Cricket that I keep on my desk. He squinted at everything with disdain, and he carried himself with a kind of round-shouldered skulk. I wanted to tell him to stand up straight. I said, 'What's up, guys? How can I help you?' Maybe they were selling magazine subscriptions.

The older girl said, 'Are you Elvis Cole, the private investigator?'

'Yes, I am.' The boy snuck a glance at the Dan Wesson, then eyed the Pinocchio clock that hangs on the wall above the file cabinet. The clock has eyes that move from side to side as it tocks and is a helluva thing to watch.

She said, 'Your ad in the Yellow Pages said you find missing people.'

'That's right. I'm having a special this week. I'll find two missing people for the price of one.' Maybe she was writing a class report: A Day in the Life of the World's Greatest Detective.

She stared at me. Blank.

'I'm kidding. That's what we in the trade call private-eye humor.'

'Oh.'

The boy coughed once, but he wasn't really coughing. He was saying 'Asshole' and masking it with the cough. The younger girl giggled again.

I looked at him hard. 'How's that?'

The boy went sullen and floated back to my desk. He looked like he wanted to steal something. I said, 'Come away from there.'

'I didn't do anything.'

'I want you on this side of the desk.'

The older girl said, 'Charles.' Warning him. I guess he was like this a lot.

'Jeez.' He skulked back to the file cabinet, and snuck another glance at the Dan Wesson. 'What kind of gun is that?'

'It's a Dan Wesson thirty-eight-caliber revolver.'

'How many guys you kill?'

'I'm thinking about adding another notch right now.'

The older girl said, 'Charles, please.' She looked back at me. 'Mr. Cole, my name is Teresa Haines. This is my brother, Charles, and our sister, Winona. Our father has been missing for eleven days, and we'd like you to find him.'

I stared at her. I thought it might be a joke, but she didn't look as if she was joking. I looked at the boy, and then at the younger girl, but they didn't appear to be joking either. The boy was watching me from the corner of his eye, and there was a kind of expectancy under the attitude. Winona was all big saucer eyes and unabashed hope. No, they weren't kidding. I went behind my desk, then thought better of it and came around to sit in one of the leather director's chairs opposite the couch. Mr. Informal. Mr. Unthreatening. 'How old are you, Ms. Haines?'

'I'm fifteen, but I'll be sixteen in two months. Charles is twelve, and Winona is nine. Our father travels often, so we're used to being on our own, but he's never been gone this long before, and we're concerned.'

Charles made the coughing sound again, and this time he said, 'Trick.' Only this time he wasn't talking about me.

I nodded. 'What does your father do?'

'He's in the printing business.'

'Uh-huh. And where's your mother?'

'She died five and a half years ago in an automobile accident.'

Charles said, 'A friggin' drunk driver.' He was scowling at the picture of Lucy Chenier on my file cabinet, and he didn't bother to look over at me when he said it. He drifted from Lucy back to the desk, and now he was sniffing around the Mickey Mouse phone.

I said, 'So your father's been gone for eleven days, he hasn't called, and you don't know when he's coming back.'

'That's right.'

'Do you know where he went?'