EASY DROVE HIS NEW car into the little lot behind his office and parked it next to a crimson Renault. The Tuesday morning was clear and blue. Swinging out of his car, Easy paused and frowned in the direction of the alley which led into the parking lot.
A green Japanese motor scooter came shooting out of the alley, chuffing and sputtering. Hagopian was riding it, his fists intensely gripping the handlebars. When he was a few feet from Easy the dark writer let go and leaped clear of the moving scooter.
The vehicle went weaving on across the gray asphalt, nicking at bumpers until it slammed into the hurricane fence at the lot end. It hopped, coughed off and fell over on its side.
“I’m losing my faith in the Japanese,” said Hagopian as Easy helped him off the ground. “Those things never stop.”
“Maybe you’ve got the kamikaze model,” said Easy. “Whose bike is it?”
“Bim’s.” Hagopian brushed sooty dust off his trouser knees. “I don’t think you know her. I met Bim last week while you were up north.”
“Bim,” said Easy. He trotted down to the fallen motor scooter, clicked off the ignition and uprighted the machine. “Is she the one who holds séances?”
Rings jingled under Hagopian’s eyes. “John, this is a whacky town, right? I’ve given up trying to find a girl who isn’t some degree whacky. I could do worse than a girl who thinks she has to have a séance once in a while. And you should see Bim. She’s in cheesecake.”
“Girlie magazines?”
“No, cheesecake like you eat. She hands out samples of frozen blueberry cheesecake in supermarkets. I met her in a market over in the valley,” explained Hagopian. “Actually, I nudged into her with my pushcart and took some skin off her knee. A lovely girl, with breasts like … like casabas.”
“You’ve already had a girl with casabas for breasts.” Easy started for the rear door of his office.
“When you get older,” said the thirty-nine-year-old Hagopian, “you start repeating yourself.” He stopped still. “Hey, I came by to see your new car. Where is it?”
“Right over there.”
Hagopian squinted, lines rippling across his high dark forehead. “Where? The red Renault?”
“No, the black Volkswagen.”
More rings circled Hagopian’s dark eyes. “John, that’s an old dusty VW exactly like the one you owned before.”
“No,” corrected Easy, “it’s two years newer.”
Shaking his head, Hagopian said, “All my hopes are dashed.” Easy went up and opened the door leading to his private office. “How’s your Jaguar?”
“It has a bad aura,” said Hagopian, coming in and dropping on the couch. “Or so Bim tells me. From being parked in front of the mortuary in Oxnard and then used to haul a deceased monkey to its last resting place. Apparently even fumigation doesn’t get out a bad aura.”
“So where’s the car?”
“Bim is driving it someplace.”
Easy sat behind his metal desk, reached a big hand into his IN box. He grinned.
Hagopian said, “I hear Jill Jeffers is back.”
“Returned yesterday,” said Easy. “Because of all the extenuating circumstances Marco Killespie persuaded his client to allow him more time to finish his root-beer commercial. I think he’s going to start shooting again, with Jill, tomorrow.”
“Does he still have a gorilla?”
“Norhadian the gorilla man decided not to take that other job, since they wouldn’t give him a piece of the series.”
Hagopian touched his finger to his right eye. “You can’t beat Armenians for shrewdness,” he said. “How is Jill, is she all right?”
“I guess so,” said Easy.
“Hasn’t she communicated with you?”
“Not since I got home last Friday,” said Easy. “Killespie is the one who told me she was back and going to work for him. He sent me a bonus, too.” Easy pointed at the cardboard carton sitting beneath the air conditioner.
“Oh, good, a case of root beer.” Hagopian locked his hands behind his curly head. “So where does everything else stand? The LA Times hasn’t been too lavish with details.”
“People in Carmel, especially the Nordlin attorneys, have used some influence,” said Easy. “To keep things quiet.”
“There was quite a bunch of crimes centered around Jill,” said Hagopian. “Murder, kidnaping, rape.”
Easy shook his head. “There may not be any murder.”
“I thought you said that’s what precipitated this whole business,” said Hagopian. “Jill remembering finally about the murder of her mother.”
Easy rocked back in his swivel chair. “Sure,” he said. “Senator Nordlin strangled his wife and then he and Cullen Montez faked up a Carmel suicide. A coroner and a few cops looked the other way.”
“That’s not a crime?”
“Five years ago it was,” replied Easy. “Now there’s not much left of Mrs. Nordlin, though maybe enough to establish what really happened to her. But Nordlin is dead. So even if you proved he murdered his wife, you’d have nobody to hang it on.”
“What about this Montez guy? He was sure in on it.”
Easy said, “From what I heard when I dropped Jill off in Carmel, the family attorneys are going to try to convince her to let the murder lie. She told the whole story to the Sonoma County sheriff’s office. They’ve kept it out of the papers so far.”
New zigzags formed on Hagopian’s forehead. “You believe her, don’t you, John? There really was a murder.”
“Yes,” said Easy. “There really was a murder.”
“This whole state is getting as whacky as LA,” said Hagopian. “You mean they won’t do anything to Cullen Montez at all?”
“He’s lost his job,” said Easy. “As for his shooting up the Nordlin lodge, Montez claims he was defending his late employer’s property against marauders. In fact, he says I’m lucky he doesn’t smack me with an assault charge for knocking him down and locking him in a car.”
“Christ almighty,” said Hagopian. “Okay, what about Dr. Ingraham. Don’t tell me he’s going to walk away clean, too?”
“No,” said Easy. “Nobody’s pulling strings for Ingraham any more. They’ll be hitting him with a kidnaping charge, because of his hauling Jill up to Sonoma County. And his creditors are attaching his assets. The Ingraham Sanitarium and Howl Therapy are no more.”
“I should have stayed in Fresno,” said Hagopian. “All I’d have to worry over is agricultural problems. How about the stolen money of Senator Nordlin’s?”
“Not stolen,” said Easy. “Nobody is admitting where all that cash came from. At the moment, it’s part of the Nordlin estate.”
“And this guy who ambushed you and your old Volkswagen?” asked Hagopian. “I supposed they’ve elected him Archbishop of San Francisco.”
“The police are still looking for Neil,” said Easy. “After he took off for the woods the other night nobody’s seen him.”
Hagopian steepled his fingers over his hawk nose. “A lot of loose ends, a lot of loose ends still dangling, John.”
“Everything doesn’t always come out even at the end.”
“The fellows who raped Jill, are they in jail?”
“Not yet,” said Easy. “Poncho, the head goon, is also among the missing. The SF cops promised he’d be brought in within forty-eight hours. That was ninety-six hours ago.”
Hagopian stretched out on the couch, again locking his hands behind his head. “You know, John, it’s possible the whole round world is whacky,” he said. “I may be one of the last little islands of sanity left in a sea of wackiness. It’s quite an obligation.”
Square-shouldered Nan Alonzo appeared in the doorway. “There’s a girl out here asking for you, John,” she said. “Hello, Hagopian. Did anything materialize at the séance?”
“Only an Indian,” said Hagopian, sitting up.
“Who’s the girl?” asked Easy.
“Jill Jeffers,” said Nan.
Behind his secretary, Jill, in a short-skirted dark suit, smiled. “Is this a bad time to stop in?” she asked.
“No,” Easy told her.