THERE WERE THREE MARBLE statues and a girl in the vast sloping garden. The girl touched at the frames of her dark glasses, smiled cautiously at Easy and came walking along a yellow gravel path to him.
“I’m John Easy,” he said.
“Yes, thank you for coming up to the house. I waited in your office but then I thought … sit down, won’t you.” She was tall, very tan, with long black hair.
Easy lowered himself into the wide wrought-iron bench she’d indicated. “Heard from him yet?”
“No, no. Still nothing.” She sat beside him, smoothing down her short pale yellow skirt.
From here you could see the enormous mansion Gay Holland lived in. It reminded Easy of movies he was too young to have seen. An angling sprawling house, with many arches, red tile roofs, much twisted wrought-iron. “When did you see your brother last?”
“Two days ago,” she answered, smoothing at her skirt again. “We were supposed to meet for lunch yesterday at a little place near the ocean in Malibu. He didn’t show up or send word, which isn’t at all like him. Gary and I have always been very close, stuck together through everything.”
“What does everything consist of?”
The girl stood, began walking away from him. “Oh … I went through a fairly rough divorce two years ago,” she said. “And then Gary’s marriage went down the drain last year.”
Easy caught up with her, walked beside her. “You told my secretary you’d gone to his house looking for him.”
“That was this morning, fairly early. Gary has a cottage sort of place down in Westwood, just up from UCLA,” said Gay. “It was … all turned upside down.”
“This was before the quake?”
“Yes, and it’s not the kind of damage an earthquake would do. An earthquake doesn’t slit sofa cushions or take pictures out of their frames.”
“He own the house?”
“No, he’s renting.”
“Did you ask the landlord if he knew anything?”
Gay stopped opposite a marble Venus. “The landlord lives out in Pasadena someplace. Besides I don’t want him seeing the inside of the cottage until I get a chance to clean up.”
“You don’t think there was a fight there, some kind of struggle?”
She ran her hand along the Venus’ marble arm. “I don’t think so, Mr. Easy. There was no blood or anything. If that’s what you mean.” She poked a finger into the Venus’ marble navel. “Isn’t this a dumb statue?”
“You could have it carted away, or sliced up into table tops.”
“Gary wouldn’t like that. He’s very sentimental about all these things.”
“This is your family home?”
“Not exactly,” the dark girl answered. “That statue over there is even dumber. Cupid with a fish. I even thought it was godawful when I was a little girl.”
“This isn’t your family home, but you grew up here?”
“Oh.” She turned her back to him, resumed walking. “It was our family home and then it wasn’t. My husband, my ex-husband, bought it back for me as a wedding present. I don’t actually know why I ever agreed to live here again. It should have Arabs peeking out the windows or Zorro hopping around on the roof. Taste in LA has never been … but none of this has anything to do with Gary and what’s happened to him.”
Easy followed her onto an arched wooden bridge which spanned a large oval fishpond. “Who have you asked about your brother?”
“I talked to Sandy Feller, his partner,” she said as she halted at the bridge rail. “A few of his other friends. No one knows anything, or so they claim. I even phoned our Aunt Theresa, who lives down near Palm Springs with her companion. Gary visits there now and then because she … never mind.”
“Because she what?”
Resting her elbows on the rail, the dark girl looked down at the green water. “Oh, another one’s dead,” she said, pointing at a shining goldfish which was floating on its back. “I have terrible luck with fish. I suppose it’s because you can’t really express affection to a fish or any kind of …”
“Why would your brother go see your aunt?”
“She took in most of our father’s effects after he died. Gary is more sentimental than I am. It’s not really important.”
“Who was your father?”
She turned to face him. “His name was Vincent Marquetti,” she said, watching Easy’s weatherbeaten face. “He’s been dead since 1967 and really has nothing to do with the issue at hand. Anyway, no one has seen or heard from Gary since Monday afternoon.”
“You told my secretary you think your brother’s been seeing someone. Have you talked to her?”
“He wouldn’t be there,” replied Gay. “I believe she has a husband who keeps too close an eye on her for anything to go on for two whole days.” She walked on, over the bridge and onto a path of white gravel.
“Who is she?”
“I’m not sure who she is now,” she said. “I only know who she used to be.”