The Rosenkrantz house looked undisturbed. I parked in the same spot I had the night before and killed the engine. The police would have to make a stop here later to get Rosenkrantz’s testimony, but they weren’t here yet. I got out of my car and walked up the middle of the road to the house. At the end of the drive, the garage doors were open and both the tan Buick and the maroon LaSalle were in their spots. I could check the house for signs of forced entry, but I didn’t see the need. It was just a sleeping house in a sleeping neighborhood. There was nothing to see and no one had missed me. I went back to my car and leaned against the hood as I lit a cigarette. It took three tries to get the match going.
The Mexican arrived on foot just before seven wearing the same ill-fitting hand-me-down jacket of the day before. He saw me and came over.
“How was your night?” he said.
“Hot.”
“Mine too.”
We both let the silence take a turn. “My name’s Miguel, by the way.” He nodded toward the house. “I’ve got the dayshift now. You don’t have to wait around.”
“I’m just finishing my cigarette,” I said, and took a drag.
He turned and crossed the street, on his way to his little castle where he got to protect the princess and there was trouble around every corner. I watched him go around to the back of the house. I waited another ten minutes to make sure he didn’t come back out again with news of some tragedy, or at least a tragedy I didn’t already know about. He didn’t. The cops still hadn’t shown up either. I finished my cigarette, got in my car, and pulled away.
In Hollywood, I stopped outside of the Olmstead without putting my car away in the garage. My apartment was just one big room with a private bathroom and a small kitchenette in a closet. I had done what I could to give each corner of the room its own purpose. There was a Formica table with two chrome chairs just outside the open kitchenette closet. There was a twin bed with a standing lamp and a night table just outside of the bathroom. There was my one good reading chair with another standing lamp and a stack of books on the floor over in the third corner. The only window was in the bathroom and it was made of pebbled glass.
I took three fingers of bourbon before my shower and another three after. I looked at the time and thought I ought to be hungry, so I went out again and stopped at a counter diner I liked and ordered a couple of scrambled eggs, hash browns, bacon, some well-burnt toast, and coffee, but the whole time I was working on it, I was thinking of a girl with her neck open and her thighs gouged out. I got down about half of my breakfast and left a good tip. I picked up the morning papers outside, but there was nothing in either of them about the Ehrhardt killing. It must have gotten called in too late.
The lobby of the Blackstone Building was empty. I took the automatic elevator up to the third floor. The hallway there was empty, too, and I was willing to bet that my office’s unlocked waiting room would be empty as well. I was wrong. It had two too many people in it.
Benny Sturgeon stood as I came in, his hat held in both hands in front of his stomach like a shield. He was tall, but no taller than me. Up close there were flecks of white in his hair that made him look distinguished instead of aged. He wore a pair of glasses with circular frames that I had not seen on the set the day before. He was in shirtsleeves and a vest, and there were deep lines across his forehead and at the corners of his mouth.
Al Knox was already on his feet, pacing, a lit cigarette in one hand. His eyelids were heavy and his shoulders tilted forward as though his back couldn’t support the weight of his stomach. He looked exactly like a man who had been woken early in the morning with bad news. I looked over at the standing ashtray covered in a fine layer of dust and saw that there was only one new butt. He hadn’t been there too long.
“Now, Mr. Foster—” Sturgeon began.
“Dennis,” Knox said.
“Mr. Foster, I must insist on seeing you first,” Sturgeon started in again. He spoke with the conviction of a man used to giving orders that are obeyed. Only the way he held his hat ruined the effect. “I’ve come with a job of the utmost importance. It’s imperative that we act right away.”
I quieted him with a look I only took out on special occasions. “Al first, then you.”
I stepped across to the inner door, unlocked it, and let Al into my office. I went around to my side of the desk and he sat down on one of the two straight-backed chairs on the other side. His lip curled.
“You’re a bastard, you know that?”
I raised both my hands. “Al, I was following a legitimate lead...”
“They want Rose for it.”
“What?” I felt as though someone had cut the cables on the elevator I was riding in.
“They want Chloë Rose for Mandy Ehrhardt’s murder.”
“Who do?”
“The cops. Who do you think?”
I leaned forward in my chair. “Al, I was at the scene. That was no woman’s killing. Certainly not a woman of Chloë Rose’s size. Can’t the studio quash it?”
Al shook his head and ran a hand along his cheek, letting it slide off his chin. “She had the motive. Ehrhardt was sleeping with her husband. And thanks to you she doesn’t have an alibi, but her husband does. The mayor doesn’t like that the press says the SAPD turns a blind eye to the movie people. They don’t like it in Harbor City much either. They’re going to make an example of this one. There’s no way they would convict a woman with Rose’s looks, or one as famous as her—she’s not even a citizen, for Christ’s sake. So the press will feel they can ride it as hard as they want without anybody getting seriously hurt.”
“Except for Mandy Ehrhardt, whose real killer walks away.”
“And Chloë Rose’s career, and the studio’s bank account.”
I sat back in my chair and lit a cigarette. “What do you mean she’s not a citizen? She’s married to Rosenkrantz, isn’t she?”
“Resident alien. They met when he and his first wife were living in France. You ever hear how old she was?”
“How old?”
“The official story is eighteen. Unofficially, I’ve heard everything from seventeen to fifteen.”
“So what? She’s over eighteen now.”
“So everything. It’s all going to come out, how old she was or wasn’t, and that story about what happened to her with some prison guard...”
“What prison guard?”
Knox waved a hand angrily. “I don’t know, it’s all rumors, but they’re pretty nasty rumors. Mix that in with a murder trial here and see what you get. I’m telling you, there’s plenty to feed the headlines for weeks. Months, maybe.”
I shook my head, trying to reconcile the small, vulnerable, beautiful woman I’d seen the day before with the brutal mutilation and killing I had come across that morning. “It’s all circumstantial.”
“That’s all they need. She’s not supposed to hang for it. They make a big splash of her arrest, and if it never gets to a conviction, who cares? Only, we do care. We care plenty.”
I just shook my head again.
“You really screwed up,” Knox said.
“You came over just to tell me that in person?”
“That, and this: You’re fired.” He reached into the inside pocket of his jacket, and pulled out an envelope. He tossed it on the desk. I left it there untouched.
He shook his head sadly. “I’m sorry, Dennis, I know we go way back, but—”
“You can skip the old friends bit. I heard it yesterday. I didn’t like it then, and I like it even less now.”
“Fine. Then just take the money and be glad you’re not in deeper than you are.” He mashed out his cigarette in my ashtray and stood up. He pointed at the door. “And if Sturgeon tries to get you to—”
“Oh, don’t worry. I’m off the case.”
At the door, Knox turned back with his hand on the knob. “We’re not public servants anymore, Foster. We’re not supposed to deal with this stuff anymore.”
“We all serve someone,” I said.
“I wish like hell I knew who you thought you were serving last night,” he said. And he left the office, leaving the door open to the reception room, and slamming the outside door to the hall.