The morning after, Babs took a cab with all the suitcases she could carry. To avoid a dogfight with Ouida or that woeful woman who stepped in for their regular housekeeper, she arranged with Guy to make a separate trip after she already left to load up his car. Certain boxes would go straight to the office. He would deliver the rest to her hotel.
La Dolce Vita. Sounded like a provincial Italian pleasure palace, or decadent like the Garden of Allah Hotel, famous for its uninhibited parties. In actuality, more like a fading starlet, desperate to survive past its prime. Basil meant well, but he thumbed through the phonebook and never had time to see it in person.
Babs felt the immediate heartbreak as she viewed its rundown lobby. Lit by a single dim bulb, the hotel’s sole passenger elevator reminded her of a flashlight with a dying battery. The doors shut with a screech, and it lurched downward before making its sluggish ascent.
By now, she felt she should’ve been able to save enough of a nest egg to afford a cottage in the Hollywood Hills. One with a yard big enough to have a few cats and a dog, and why not? She had always worked so hard to make it on her own. Everyone warned her it was a man’s world out there, and a “good gal” like her could have an easy life as some decent fellow’s wife, but she swore she’d prove them wrong. Not that matrimony was unacceptable, but a marriage with a mean-spirited husband was for the dogs.
Babs needed a strong stomach to deal with the smell of cigar smoke and sauerkraut coming from one of the other residents. Even her office had a better view where she could see the comings and goings on Hollywood Boulevard. If she cracked her grimy windows open, all she could see here were the shabby stucco walls of the adjacent building and hear those residents. Her rusty fire escape led to a garbage-filled alleyway. Looking up, she wondered if an intruder could climb in from the roof.
Thrills, chills, and daffodils. But right now, she didn’t have the luxury of feeling sorry for herself.
Compared to the modest one-bedroom she had in West Hollywood before her recent eviction, this was more like the epitome of the minimalist movement in interior design. Either inspired by the avant-garde Bauhaus or the austere Bow-wow-house trend with a barebones kitchenette, a tiny icebox, and a two-burner hotplate with one working—a place not supposed to make anyone feel comfortable enough to consider it as a permanent residence.
Shower only, but it had its own tiny washroom and wasn’t one of those places where you had to share facilities down the hall with other tenants. Her room was half the size of her old place and a quarter of the size of the guest bedroom at Basil’s, and her bed folded into the wall. She had a Murphy bed with joints and springs, which screeched to high heaven and needed a lube job like the Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz. If Basil thought this was the best option, she dreaded to think of what the other places might’ve looked like.
Having had no time to read her resident’s handbook, she shuddered when she heard a loud buzzer, unaware of the intercom system installed next to her front door. Guy needed her permission to come upstairs.
Shiny with sweat and with strands of hair out of place, he poked his head around a tall stack of boxes, which towered over his head.
“Did that rickety elevator fail to level up with the floor like it did for me?” Babs asked.
“When I tripped, your boxes flew everywhere. Hope nothing’s breakable.” Ignoring her look of horror, he asked, “Where should I put these?”
“Good luck finding room, but where are the others?”
“Your front desk clerk was kind enough to let me unload and put the remaining stuff in the lobby. I was double-parked and needed to move the car to a lot around the corner.”
Guy excused himself to go splash cold water on his face. “Do you need help to unpack?”
“Why don’t you go downstairs and retrieve the last ones? Some tramp might wander in and help himself to early Christmas presents.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said before he disappeared out the door.
He returned with a borrowed cart piled with more boxes. “Hey, don’t you figure you should call your mom and let her know you’re no longer staying with Basil?”
Babs had already collapsed in a well-worn chair and reviewed her tenant’s manual. “If I ring Mom from here rather than the office, there’ll be an extra surcharge for long distance. She can wait ’til tomorrow. I’ll also need to alert the post office to forward mail to the office.”
“What if I open your personal stuff by accident?” Guy asked.
“What are you going to do? Sell it to the gossip columns? What’s Louella Parsons or Hedda Hopper going to do with it? Before I’ve had time to settle in, I hope to be elsewhere. Besides, how could I invite anyone to this dump?”
“Are you expecting a potential suitor?”
“Who’s had time to pursue love?”
“No chance of wooing Basil away from the shrew?”
“I’m not that kind of woman.”
“Stuck with a place like this, I’m surprised you’re not wishing for a dashing hero, like good old Errol Flynn, to gallop in on his steed for a swift, chivalrous rescue.”
Babs flashed him angry eyes.
“Calm down. Just joking. Maybe you should get a roommate like I did to help with expenses, so you can get out of this mess sooner.”
She shook her head. “I expect our business to be successful and independent of whatever happens with my personal life, and about Basil… How dare you!”
“Sorry. He’s a handsome fellow.”
“He’s not available and off-limits and still our client in secret. Although I don’t know how much more cooperative at this point.”
“Don’t want to sound clichéd, but all work and no play—”
“Foolish priorities won’t pay our bills. Basil might’ve fronted us enough to keep our agency afloat for a while, but that won’t last forever.”
Babs took an atomizer from her purse and spritzed perfume around the room. “Cheap stuff. Toilet water, I confess, but it’s better than Fritz’s sauerkraut wafting in from down the hall.”
She returned to her chair, which wobbled as she put weight on it. Guy took out his Swiss Army knife and tightened its screws. “Next time I come, I’ll bring some glue.”
Babs cracked an approving smile. Having someone around who cared was a plus.
Guy took two wrapped parcels out of a paper bag. “How about a sandwich? Got you extra tomatoes for your BLT…the way you like it. I assumed you wouldn’t have had time to pick up groceries.” When he couldn’t find a bottle opener in her kitchen drawers for their two Nehi orange sodas, he relied again on his pocketknife.
“You’ll get reoriented in no time,” he said in between mouthfuls. “You always do. I’ve never known you unable to bounce back.”
Babs asked, “By any chance, did you pick up today’s newspaper?”
“If you’re wondering about the dog show? Nothing more than we already know. A few lines about its shutdown, but nothing definitive. Why?”
“We know little about von Rache, who seems to show up whenever there’s something important with dogs. Guy, we can’t let her slip out of our hands.”
“Hey, speaking of dogs, maybe you should get a loaner from Mr. East or Mr. West.”
“Mr. West? You mean Weatherwax.”
“West…Weatherwax…what’s the difference?”
Here we go again…
“Babs, what I’m saying is it might be a good idea to foster a dog to appear more credible in our investigation.”
She revisited the resident’s handbook. “No pets allowed.”
“Not even a guide dog?”
“You want me to put on dark glasses and pretend I’m blind? The front desk clerk already knows I’m not.”
“Regardless, we need to follow up with some of those folks we met at the dog show,” Guy suggested. “Especially von Rache.”
After a sleepless night filled with clamor from the boulevard, Babs stopped by the pink post office on Wilcox, picked up a chocolate éclair at her favorite bakery, and headed to her office. She delayed the daunting task of unpacking and placed a long-distance call to the Bay Area.
“Mom, yes, it’s Babs.”
“Who?”
“Your daughter, that’s who!”
“Oh, dear Barbara.”
“I hate when you call me that.”
“Any prospects for a new husband?” her mom asked.
“No, why? You never remarried after Daddy died.”
“Cliff and I were happy and together for almost fifteen years, before the tragedy. Your ex keeps hounding me all the time. He asks when you’re coming home to visit.”
“Still? Well, if that’s not dogged persistence. I thought he’d get the hint and back off by now.”
“What’s so bad about him, Barb? You need a husband.”
“Mom, stop. Everyone else knows me as Babs, and I don’t need a man in the house.”
“I can’t understand why you get so upset.”
Why won’t she listen? “Have you forgotten? Troy Ulsterman nearly killed me on the first night of our honeymoon. He forced me to have sex when I was too tired after our wedding reception. When I wouldn’t comply, he slapped me around. Finally, he dangled me over our hotel room balcony—by my hair! I screamed until someone called the police.
“Did you forget, after I had our marriage annulled, he stalked me? That’s when I ran off to LA and used a different first name, and for my last, I went by my maiden name instead of my married one. Common enough so he’d never find me, unless someone like you spilled the beans, without thinking.”
Babs raked her fingers through her hair and explained she was no longer staying in Bel Air with her clients. Any correspondence was to be sent to the office. She often wondered if she’d ever be able to settle down and stay put for a while.
“Mom, don’t…under any circumstances, give that cad my address, phone number, or any name I’m using! Do you want me to have to disappear and hide in Puerto Vallarta? Whose side are you on, anyway?”
“Babs, I just want to see you happy…and married. You’re too young to think about a successful career.”
Arguments were pointless. Babs realized her mom grew up in a different era. “Fight him off. Hit him with a broom and a dustpan. Crack an empty milk bottle over his head. If you care about my best interests, don’t betray me. I don’t want him or any of his friends to find me—ever again.”
Babs tried to take a gulp of water but realized her glass was empty. “If Troy Ulsterman threatens you. Call the cops.”