twenty-one

“Our course of action should be clear,” I said.

“Good. What address?” asked Ms. Washburn.

We sat in the blue Kia Soul outside the offices of Mendoza Communications, where we had examined the employment documents of “George Kaplan,” and found remarkably little of interest considering the infamy the name had acquired in subsequent years. This Kaplan had been something of a model employee, had not made any complaint to a government agency regarding his treatment at the company and had, obviously, not brought the business to bankruptcy as a “whistle-blower,” a term I understand now but which always brings amusing images and disturbing sounds to my mind when I hear it used.

After looking through the files we had thanked Mr. Alvarez for his time and left the Mendoza Communications offices. We had again retreated to the Kia Soul and Ms. Washburn had, thankfully, engaged the engine and the air conditioner. I looked at her now.

“I believe another visit to the Neighborhood Council is probably pointless,” I answered. “It was something I’d suggested because I could not think of an alternative. The information we discovered here changes that.”

“Why?” Mike asked from the back seat. “You already knew your father had come here from Seattle and that his paychecks were being made out to George Kaplan. It can’t come as much of a surprise to you that he was the Kaplan who seemed to start the ball rolling in this business.”

“Indeed not,” I agreed. “It is not a surprise that Reuben Hoenig was using the name Kaplan when he arrived here. What is interesting is that it became something of a franchise, passed from man to man, and what we need to discover is how that came to be, considering the records do not indicate scores of George Kaplans before Reuben arrived here in that guise.”

“We’ve checked the records pretty carefully,” Ms. Washburn said. “I don’t know how much more there is we can get in Internet research.”

With months to work with and much more powerful computers I believed we could uncover a great deal more information, but under our current time limit I was inclined to agree with Ms. Washburn, and said so. I considered unanswered questions I’d had throughout this affair and remembered one I’d left unexplored before.

“Ms. Washburn,” I said, “did you hear a humming noise at the house in Reseda where we received the package containing the forty thousand dollars?”

Ms. Washburn had not yet engaged the transmission of the Kia Soul because we had not yet set a destination. She was checking her cellular phone, possibly for the time (which was also displayed on the dashboard of the Kia Soul) when I asked the question. She looked up and her face took on a thoughtful expression.

“A humming sound?” she asked. “Inside or outside?”

“Inside.”

Again, she took four seconds to think. “I can’t say,” she said. “I really don’t have a memory of that part of the visit at all. Why?”

“Because I believe I did hear that sound, almost a mechanical hum, and if I’m correct it might provide very valuable information regarding the question we are attempting to answer. Ms. Washburn, would you mind driving back to the house on Jamieson Avenue?”

The address of Kaplan Enterprises had already been programmed into the Global Positioning System device, so I retrieved it from the proper menu and the device began to direct Ms. Washburn in her navigation. The estimated time of the trip on the display was fourteen minutes and twenty seconds. I assumed it would be closer to twenty-eight minutes.

“I’m starting to get hungry,” Mike said from the seat behind me. “We should be thinking about finding a place for lunch.”

“You want to eat or go to Jamieson Avenue?” Ms. Washburn asked. “I have to get to Burbank by one thirty.”

“I thought the tour was at two,” I said.

“They want you there a half-hour early.”

I looked at my iPhone; the time was now 11:52. “That doesn’t leave us much time,” I said. “Perhaps we should go to a restaurant first.”

Ms. Washburn, although driving, raised her eyebrows. “Really? I’m surprised you don’t want to get to the house first, Samuel.”

“If we do that, there is no guarantee that you will have time to get to your tour at the scheduled time,” I said. “If you can drop Mike and me at the Jamieson Avenue address, we can take a taxicab back to the hotel.”

“Busman’s holiday,” Mike mumbled.

“Really?” Ms. Washburn sounded genuinely surprised. “You’d do that for me to have the tour? I was under the impression you thought it was stupid.”

I was navigating the Global Positioning System device to search for restaurants in the area. “I trust that you are not stupid, Ms. Washburn,” I said. “It follows that you will not want to do stupid things. If it means something to you, it is important and should be respected. Mike and I can handle the situation at the Jamieson Avenue house.”

Quietly, she said, “That’s very sweet of you, Samuel.”

I believed I had merely been stating the obvious but did not dispute that with Ms. Washburn. She asked me to read the suggestions from the screen aloud, and together we arrived at the idea of having lunch at a Chili’s franchise in Encino, California. Ms. Washburn had previously insisted we stay away from chain restaurants but suggested it once the name was mentioned. I did not ask her why she had changed her thinking on the subject, but was more relaxed than I would have been at an establishment whose menu I could not predict.

Once we had been served, Mike asked about the neighborhood surrounding the Jamieson Avenue house. “Is this going to be a security problem?”

Ms. Washburn considered and said she thought it would not, but I was not as certain. “I’m not concerned about the people outside the house, but we don’t know exactly the nature of the business going on inside, and if it is illegal or almost illegal, we might be dealing with some more unpredictable individuals,” I told Mike. “Do you have your gun with you?”

Mike’s expression suggested I might as well ask if he’d brought his left leg. That is an exaggeration.

“Of course,” he said. “I’m fully licensed and I don’t think you asked me to come out here so we could try out at the talent agencies.”

I did not know what he meant by that, but agreed that was not the reason I had requested his presence. “To minimize the possible danger in what we’re going to do, I think it best that we have an escape plan should things go wrong. Do you think a private ride service like Uber might be our best bet? We could call once Ms. Washburn drops us at the house.”

Mike shook his head. “I’ve seen Ubers, and they’re hit-or-miss,” he said. “Personally I’m inclined to go with a licensed cabbie like myself, and remember that you are somewhat particular about the kind of car you’re willing to sit in, Samuel.”

It was true; part of my fondness for Mike’s driving is grounded in the fact that I know he keeps the interior of his vehicle immaculate. I was the first passenger Mike drove in his taxicab and I had let a number of passengers in line take rides ahead of me because the cars that drove up were not at all clean. I am not a germophobe but I do not understand how people can sit comfortably and chat in cars that appear unsanitary.

I nodded. “Perhaps we should make sure we have the phone numbers of taxicab services programmed into our phones to save time,” I said.

“I have a better idea,” said Ms. Washburn. “I’ll park by the Jamieson Avenue house. I’ll stay in the car. If I have to leave to catch the tour, I’ll call a cab myself and leave the rental with you. Then if you’re in a bad situation, you can drive the car to pick me up at the studio, Samuel.”

“That is not a funny joke, Ms. Washburn,” I said.

“I’m not joking.”

“I have not driven a vehicle in years,” I reminded her. “I have no intention of resuming my driving in a vehicle that belongs to someone else in a city I don’t know.”

“We’ll play it by ear,” Ms. Washburn said. It is an expression that means something about playing a piece on the piano without written sheet music. I did not see the relevance.

“I will not drive the Kia Soul,” I told her. “I would not drive any vehicle in such unfamiliar areas and I will not take responsibility for a rental vehicle.”

“I took the insurance.”

Mike saw the dynamic between Ms. Washburn and me, possibly the first time he had seen us disagree completely. He cleared his throat after taking a bite and said, “What are we going to do when we get there, Samuel?”

I had considered the logistics and the goals of our visit. “I think we will begin with a scan of the perimeter, as you would say, Mike. And depending on what we find, perhaps we will knock on the door and talk to the young lady who works there again.”

“Remember, the woman at the Neighborhood Council said people have seen gun barrels pointed out of the walls of that house,” Ms. Washburn reminded me. “You can’t just be snooping around on the outside.”

“That’s what I’m for,” Mike assured her. “If there’s something dangerous there, I’ll see it. Besides, I’m hoping we get to knock on the door.”

It hadn’t occurred to me that Mike would have a preference in the outcome of the visit. “Why?” I asked.

“See if she gives us another forty grand.”