64

Kathy hadn’t been able to get David out of her mind. When they’d parted that morning, in the parking lot of the Mercedes dealership, he’d said he was going to call, but he hadn’t yet, and it had been a month. Something was going on with him, she just knew it. But what could she do? Even if there was something she could do, why should she bother doing it—for old times’ sake? This was L.A.; you could be stupid out here, but not sentimental, and Kathy didn’t think of herself as either, not at this stage in her life.

She was beginning her day by looking at a new listing in Brentwood. In the office, the word on the owner of the property was that he was “eccentric.” Since his retirement Mr. Hankinson supposedly had been passing his time starting conversations with coeds in cafeterias in and around the UCLA campus. He was trying to keep active, evidently, as a dirty old man. He wanted to sell his house so he could move to Boulder, Colorado, and strike up some conversations there. Given Mr. Hankinson’s enthusiasms, Kathy was just as glad that he was going to be out all day. She had the keys and could wander about the house undisturbed.

Arriving at the address on her clipboard, Kathy slid out of her Mercedes and walked up to the front door. The house was a Colonial in the movie colony sense of the word: a Dutch door in the front and a lanai in the back. So. What did this place have in the way of selling points? Walking through the rooms, Kathy made checkmarks and notes on the standard form she had attached to her clipboard—kitchen, twenty by fifteen; dishwasher, yes; self-cleaning oven, yes; microwave, yes; frost-free refrigerator, yes. To that summary of the kitchen she added, “Custom-designed storage, Portuguese tiles on counters, Mexican tile floor, truly a serious cook’s workspace!

Noting the mirrored wet bar in the living room and the working fireplace with the Victorian marble mantel, Kathy moved on to the study. Bookshelves galore, she wrote. There weren’t any books in them, though, she noticed. What were these, old National Geographics? Nope. They were girly magazines, that’s what they were. Tsk-tsking to herself, Kathy glanced at a couple of them. Playboy. Penthouse. Hustler. Going back to 1971, some of them. How could women allow themselves to be so…what the? Kathy stared at the centerfold. Oh, my God, she thought. But it was true. It was her. This was the face in the photos that David had pulled out of his wallet. Becky. Same face, same name, same person. The other pictures of her only confirmed it. And the text that accompanied them, talking about how she liked to take long walks in the evening.

Looking around—not that there was anyone at home to catch her (Kathy felt guilty about tearing recipes out of McCall’s in the dentist’s office)—she slipped the magazine into her pocketbook. She’d try to think what to do about this later. Meanwhile, she moved along quickly to the bedroom wing. Each bedroom had a full bath, good. And the master was supposed to have his-and-hers dressing rooms.

As she entered the master bedroom, Kathy noted the French doors that opened to the swimming pool. Although she was half distracted by what she’d just discovered, the copy still came to her automatically, and she jotted it down, “Fabulously sunstruck master bedroom with elegant French doors to terrace and pool.”

Then Kathy happened to notice, on the satin-covered, king-size, canopied bed, a pair of men’s blue boxer shorts, approximately size forty. And on the carpet were two Argyle socks, one a little distance from the other. There was a trail of clothing in fact, leading from the bed to what was obviously the bathroom door.

Uh-oh, Kathy thought.

She hardly dared to look, but she did. In the mirrored doors of the closets she saw all she needed to see. The bathroom door was slightly ajar, and just inside it was a hand holding a penis.

Oh, shit, thought Kathy.